“What is it, honeybee?” Becky said. “Honey—”
Her daughter’s eyes streamed. “I can’t do this. I hate him.”
Becky knew what she meant: she hated him perfectly too. Hated his feet in his socks, his socks in his shoes, his tread on the stairs, his earwax, his snore and torso and digestive system, and what he stood for and what he’d done.
Greg was right there. He snagged his daughter by the arm. “Martha, come back out and finish—”
“I can’t.”
“Martha Leggatt.” That tone.
It was Peter, in his stupid tux and cummerbund, who rushed over and kicked his father’s shin and then again, repeatedly. Then he aimed higher with direct effect. Greg suddenly released Martha and pinned Peter under his arm.
Then Martha’s hand flew with a steely will of its own.
Greg flinched and the hot-fingered imprint burned his cheek. “What in hell—?” he said, instinctively dropping Peter to raise his hands and ward off another blow.
Which the newly-arrived Niko mistook as a threat to Martha and before the PMSS was even aware, or Becky could insert herself between them, Niko’s fist met Greg’s nose. Or maybe, lip. It bled copiously—on Becky, reaching into the bodice of her Olympic gold ballgown to fetch a tissue and press it to the PM’s mouth. Martha’s dress was streaked, too, as if she’d been grazed evading snipers in Kosovo.
“Mierda,” Pablo pulled his big sister away. “Que te jodan! Me cago en todo lo que se menea!”
Becky hurriedly covered his mouth. “Palabrotas.”
Greg’s security approached en masse to restrain his children. Niko, already familiar with the drill, lifted his arms in surrender and Greg seized the opportunity to grab the white feather and further staunch the flow of blood.
He turned away from his family and his guards to lumber back toward the stage, then suddenly stopped. Becky actually wondered if he might be concussed. Then she heard it, too.
Cheers exploded. A resounding wave of applause bounced off the ceiling. It was a wave that could lift a country to the top of the podium or selective UN councils. Becky thought the hockey team had jumped the queue and she was ready to reprimand Shelagh Rogers or whoever was running the show. In shock herself, perhaps, she peered out.
It was Lise at centre stage. She’d stepped forward to segue from Greg’s catastrophic closer to the Olympic finale. The audience was on their feet and stamping them. Cellphones celestially glowed. The applause deafened. All for Lise in the spotlight in a sane and soberly grey dress. A new normal.
René entered from the stage door and Becky saw him pause to honour his wife.
They chanted, “Chief, Chief, Chief, Chief, Chief, Chief, Chief …” Becky realized that they were either echoing Lise’s remarks at the Press Building after stepping down or petitioning her to run. “This morning I testified as your Commander-in-Chief. And now I will return to be just Maman.”
Lise took a very steep and a very long bow.
Then the trumpets blared and the hockey players glided onstage. While Becky and Lise saluted the gala stars, the players performed a chorus line cancan which brought down the house. Then, in a burst of uncharacteristic nationalistic spontaneity, the players raised Lise in her plain dress and Becky in her bloody gown to their shoulders.
The women bounced on Luongo and Iginla, Weber and Brodeur, Crosby, Toews, and Bergeron, on forwards, defence, and goalies. When they met, in the middle of the mosh, they hung on to each other and embraced. So tightly.
“Thank you,” Lise said to Becky.
“Merci beaucoup,” Becky said to Lise.
Peter and Pablo, unable to restrain themselves any longer, invaded the stage for autographs. The recently approved Can Mox broadcaster captured all their frolicking for future presentation pre–prime time.
When gentle Mr. Doughty lowered Becky back into the sudden respectful silence, a place that was new to her, she turned and made eye contact with her husband for one last time. He stood in the wings. His nose was clean, his hair recombed, and any blood that was shed did not show because he wore black.
They looked at each other. Then he looked away first. And she thought, He’s just a man.
As his security safely removed him, the house lights went up.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful for the assistance and support of the following people, publications, websites and institutions:
The Creative Writing Program, our students and alumni, and Office of the Dean of Arts, University of British Columbia; The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation; The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; Robin Straus; Anne Collins, Deirdre Molina, Scott Richardson, Adria Iwasutiak, and Random House Canada; Lesley Harrison and Elina Levina; Brian Rogers; Michael O’Shea; J. Yaniv; the Farrs; Parliamentary Democracy in Crisis, edited by Peter H. Russell and Lorne Sossin; How We Almost Gave the Tories the Boot: The Inside Story behind the Coalition, Brian Topp; Canada’s House: Rideau Hall and the Invention of a Canadian Home, Margaret MacMillan, Marjorie Harris and Anne L. Desjardins; Rideau Hall: Canada’s Living Heritage, Gerda Hnatyshyn; Heart Matters, Adrienne Clarkson; The Prime Ministers of Canada, Christopher Ondaatje; CP; JM; Carol Cunningham; A. Scott; T. Ades; TL; Shelley Gibson; G and K, and their father; Government of Canada (www.canada.gc.ca/home.html); Governor General of Canada (www.gc.ca); National Capital Commission website; Ottawa Book of Everything, Arthur Montague; Frommer’s Ottawa, 4th Edition, James Hale; and Canadian political coverage in Maclean’s, particularly Aaron Wherry’s blog, the Vancouver Sun, the National Post, the Toronto Globe and Mail, and on the national broadcasters; Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Canadian-Afghan_detainee_issue); Aristide.org (www.aristide.org/articles/Aristideinexile.htm); and Clara Sörnäs, for her sculpture Memory for the Slaves, adapted and transplanted from Stone Town, Zanzibar, Tanzania, to imaginary St. Bertrand.
LINDA SVENDSEN’S linked collection, Marine Life, was published in Canada, the U.S., and Germany and her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Saturday Night, O. Henry Prize Stories, Best Canadian Stories and The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Marine Life was nominated for the LA Times First Book Award and released as a feature film. Svendsen’s T.V. writing credits include adaptations of The Diviners and At the End of the Day: The Sue Rodriguez Story, and she co-produced and co-wrote the miniseries Human Cargo, which garned seven Gemini Awards and a George Foster Peabody Award. She received the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006. She is a professor in the Creative Writing Program at the University of British Columbia.
Sussex Drive: A Novel Page 24