Famous Last Meals

by Famous Last Meals (Candidates; Famouse Last Meals; The Woman in the Vineyard) (v5. 0) (epub)

  She was wearing the charcoal-coloured skirt and jacket she often wore to work. He glanced down. Her nipples were puckering the fabric of her top, an armless chemise he had noticed before. He didn’t know silk from satin. He wanted it to be silk because he thought the sound of the word suited her, wanted her to remove the jacket so that he might see her bare arms again against the mauve singlet, her pale freckled shoulders and neck, the shape of her small breasts.

  She returned her tray to its upright position and locked it into place against the back of the seat in front of her, tucked her plastic beer cup into the webbing that held the airline’s in-flight magazine, a brochure for Oak Island and the emergency procedures pamphlet, and moved the armrest so that it was hidden flush between the backs of their two seats. Unbuckling her seatbelt she skooched closer. She slipped her arm under his the way Pookie had done with Gilles that day in Jack Pickersgill’s cottage, and rested her head on Adam’s shoulder. At first he thought that she had fallen asleep, but then she slipped her left hand across and undid the middle button of his shirt. Her hand slid in. They sat like that until the attendant leaned in to check to see that their belts were fastened. They were going to feel some turbulence on their descent into Halifax, said the captain.

  Adam opened his mouth to say something. She put her fingers to his lips. She shook her head slightly and smiled as if to say, ‘You didn’t think you were going to be in control, did you?’

  The approach was bumpy, the landing hard but steady. She dug her nails into the back of his hand. When he looked over she was gazing placidly out at the tarmac. The sky was low and dark. Fine droplets of rain played across the window. They put their watches ahead an hour. The time was now, the temperature five degrees cooler than it had been in Ottawa. Anything was possible here. Despite his faux pas in the Confederation Room, they had still asked him to work on the campaign.

  They waited for the covered walkway to swing into place and the door of the plane to open. After he said that it was his first time in Nova Scotia, she told him that she had lived in Mahone Bay for two years when she was a little girl. Her parents ran a restaurant that didn’t do well enough to sustain them, and they moved back to Guelph, Ontario. Those years were still vivid for her, the white churches with their high steeples, the brightly coloured monochromatic houses, the brackish scent of the tide.

  She said that she wanted to be a little girl again. She was afraid of dying, convinced she was going to kick off at an early age.

  “Look at this life line,” she said, showing him her palm. “Look how it’s all broken up.”

  “Yes, but it continues, don’t you see? It picks up good and strong farther on. All it means is that you’re going to change direction a couple of times.”

  She looked relieved but also flustered, even annoyed, as if he had stolen something from her moment of drama.

  The last two off the plane, they caught up with the rest of the group around the baggage conveyance. He could still feel her hand against the skin of his chest. It had been light and heavy at the same time, dry and still but seeming in motion, heavy because he had been so intent on it. He wished he was more muscular and had more hair there. He thought he might be in love with her. What else could it be? She had staked a claim. All questions of who they were, what they were doing, how legitimate their cause, fell away. He looked around at their colleagues intent on the stream of luggage. None of them could claim independence from the office, the Party machinery, now, could they, so what did it matter?

  It was like that mysterious car in the BSC parking lot. Something had happened there, something out of his control. He had taken a few steps toward it, instinctive steps, thinking that this was what one did, one made a show if not an actual effort to help. He had told someone about it, someone in a position of authority. That was the right thing, wasn’t it? When he had returned, the car was no longer there. It no longer touched him. He no longer had to think about it.

  The airport shuttle was a small rattling old bus with seats enough for about twenty-five people. They handed their luggage to the driver, who loaded it into a compartment at the rear. It cost twelve dollars a person one-way, twenty to return. Gilles complained that the PMO was becoming cheap. He thought they should be riding in a fleet of airport limousines or in taxis at the very least. Jean-Marc and Eugène said some things in French that sounded as if they were mocking him. Despite the appearance of insufferable arrogance, the boy seemed to be the genuine article. His rich tastes were not, as far as Adam could tell, evidence of affectation covering deeper insecurity. Adam appreciated the boy’s unapologetic expressions of noblesse oblige. He still didn’t like him being with Pookie, but in his mind that was a separate thing.

  The highway took them past dismal terrain covered by exposed rock and stunted fir. Someone had propped an inflatable sea monster on a pole in a lake near the road. They came into Dartmouth, wended through streets of low-rent apartment buildings and crossed over a bridge spanning the harbour, a brawny, bustling, breathtaking expanse rimmed by glass towers, tall smokestacks, naval dry docks, with a second bridge off to their right. Adam tried to take it all in at once and felt the weird desire to get off the bus, climb onto the long arching support cable and jump.

  Emma and Pookie were sitting together two seats ahead of him and across the aisle. He couldn’t hear what they were saying. He didn’t care. Yes, he knew he did. He wanted to know what they were saying and whether or not it was about him. Worse would be to know that they weren’t talking about him. He wanted them both, neither more than the other but not at the same time. He was bedevilled by the thought of being with one and thinking about the other. How can one both have a desire and dread it? He wondered what he was doing there, so far from the familiar, in a pursuit he cared so little about. He had an open plane ticket home, courtesy of the PMO. At the first sign of trouble—but what was trouble, anyway, in this regard? The candidate floundering didn’t qualify as trouble, since Adam held no emotional stake in the success or failure of Don Feeney’s bid. Adam did what was expected and took direction well. What, then, might this nebulous Trouble be, what form would it take?

  The bus pulled up on the street in front of the Lord Nelson Hotel, a handsome red brick building newly renovated with an inviting entrance and lobby. Isaac and Adam were given a room together, as were Pookie and Emma, Eugène and Jean-Marc, and Gilles and a newcomer named Oliver Schwartz, who came from Winnipeg. The front desk treated them with a reserved deference, leading Adam to wonder whether every guest was welcomed so, and whether they were perceived, given their affiliation and purpose, as invaders or liberators.

  The next day, a Monday morning, Adam and Eugène were assigned to stay at campaign headquarters, which was also Don’s room, a large two-room suite in the hotel, to make cold calls introducing the candidate to those who did not know who he was or, if they did, trying to persuade them of his suitability for office. Every third or fourth person who answered hung up immediately. Some cursed before doing so.

  Monica handed him a note on PMO memo paper. It said, “Mrs. E.M. Fallingbrooke. Important contact. Waiting for

  your call.”

  The woman who answered waited for Adam to complete his introduction before saying that she needed someone to take her to the shopping centre. Her grandson usually drove her there on Mondays so that she could have her hair done, but the man was away on a camping vacation with his second wife and her children by a previous marriage. Difficult teenagers; surely Adam knew just what she meant by that. She and her husband used to camp in a tent at Kejimkujik Park, but those days were long past. The closest thing to wilderness camping she did now was the occasional weekend retreat down to White Point Beach when the heat became unbearable, which hadn’t been all that often in the past few years, despite what those Cassandra meteorologists said. She was a widow. How soon could he get there?

  He asked her where she lived and she said, indignantly, “South on
the peninsula,” as if to live anywhere else in the city were inconceivable. He located the area on his map. It was not far away. He had to plug his other ear to block the sound of Eugène speaking loudly in English in the adjoining room in a voice so insistent and grammatically creative that Adam felt he could dissolve into giggles at any moment. The old dear on the phone was describing the horde of outrageously rude people she had seen on television eating grubs and throwing metal folding chairs at each other.

  The room felt stale and muggy-hot despite the noisy air conditioner chugging under the window. He was supposed to stay and work the phone, but he had to take a break sometime, didn’t he? Monica had left to supervise the canvassers. She would not have directed him to call Mrs. Fallingbrooke had she not thought it important. Perhaps the old kook was a big Party supporter. The sun was shining. An inviting expanse of green enclosed by a black-metal, spike-topped fence, a city-block’s worth of lush Victorian garden, beckoned from across the road.

  She was still talking. She had been a diplomat’s wife. Once, aboard a vessel cruising the Black Sea, she seduced a Soviet spy and convinced him to divulge state secrets while her husband slept three cabins away. Adam was sure that if this conversation were being monitored, he would have been cut off by now and urged to move on to more profitable game. If she really were a staunch Party booster, her vote would be assured, wouldn’t it?

  Her house was an all-consuming project now, with eaves troughs to be cleaned, roof tiles to be replaced, shake siding to be scraped and painted. Her son wanted her to sell the house and move into the condominium across the street from her. Her house was leaning to the north quite noticeably. He would see that when he came, she said. None of the three floors was level. Her great-grandchildren had tried lining up an intricate domino pattern in her kitchen, to their lamentable frustration. If she moved she would lose her lovely little garden. She supposed she could grow plants in containers on a balcony, but it wouldn’t be the same. Perhaps she could have a southern exposure instead of a western one as she had now. The condo tower was round, like a fairy-tale turret. Had Adam ever heard of such a thing?

  He waited for her to take a breath and asked if she would consider taking a sign.

  “Pardon?”

  “A sign. To put on your lawn.”

  “You’re not going to put pesticides down.”

  “No, of course not.”

  “But what would it say?”

  “It would say, “Don Feeney Gets It Done.””

  “Gets what done?”

  “Well, any job he’s given.”

  “I should hope so. That’s the least he should do, wouldn’t you think, young man?”

  “He wants to be your representative in Ottawa.”

  “Does he now? Isn’t that considerate of him. Tell him I know all about Ottawa. Tell him I don’t trust the lot of them. I could tell you some things about Ottawa that would make your hair fall out.”

  She told him her address, which he wrote on the same piece of paper Monica had handed him. He ran his finger over the embossed red letterhead.

  “Should I bring a sign?”

  “The street is quite well marked. You’re not coming from Clayton Park, are you? I tried to give directions to LB once and he became terribly lost.” Adam gave the name of the hotel. “Oh dear. I suppose proximity counts for something. Quite direct, then: South Park to South, South to Wellington. If you miss it you can circle round and pick it up again off Inglis. I prefer to approach from the east off Inglis so that I’m making a right-hand turn. Cecil used to make endless fun of me for driving so far out of my way. That’s the route I like and I’m too old to change now. I myself do not drive anymore, you understand.”

  He didn’t tell her that he would be walking. He decided to bring a window sign and another for the lawn. On each, against the Party colours and above the slogan, was Don’s smiling, handsome, craggy face, his full head of silver-grey hair cropped just this side of military severe. The visit would be a welcome diversion. He crept out without Eugène

  noticing.

  Just as she had described it, the house faced west but leaned north. Across the street was the round apartment tower and beside it a white building that was as tall as the condominium but without balconies. A sign beside the door identified it as a student-family housing cooperative. A play structure stood empty beside it. On the other side, between it and the round condo, was a parking lot, and beyond that a grassy berm and what looked to be an elementary school in the distance.

  “Please,” a man’s voice. Adam could not tell where it was coming from. “Please. If you please. Up here. I find myself to be in a bind.”

  He scanned the front of the white building floor by floor until he was looking up at a small brown face peering over the edge of the roof a dozen stories up.

  “I seem to be locked out. Can you make your way up here, please, and let me back in?” It was the voice of someone educated in England or in an English colonial school. “Simply go inside the front door and buzz the office. I would be most grateful to you should you make the manager aware of my predicament.”

  Adam passed through the outer door and found the button for the office.

  “Yes?” an impatient, adult-female voice.

  “I don’t live here, but there’s a man on the roof and he can’t get down.”

  “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know his name. I was walking by. He called out to me.”

  “I meant who are you.”

  “My name is Adam Lerner.”

  “What apartment number?”

  “I said I don’t live here.”

  “There’s no soliciting.”

  “I’m not selling anything. I’m just letting you know about the guy on the roof. I think he’s from Africa.”

  “We are all from Africa originally.”

  “Can you let me in or go up and check on him yourself? I think he’s in trouble.”

  “Just a minute.”

  She appeared on the other side of the glass door.

  “Let’s see some ID.”

  Adam took out his PMO card and held it up so that she could read it through the glass of the inner door. The card had his photo and the words, “Temporary Permit” printed diagonally across it in green ink.

  “Holy shit. I mean, come in.” She unlocked the door and held it open.

  “Thanks.” He went to the elevator and pushed the “Up” button.

  “Really sorry, eh. If I’d known—I mean, I’m sorry if I—have you, like, seen him or anything?”

  “As I said, he called down to me.” Was it her purpose in life not to listen to what anyone told her?

  “No, I mean, you know. God, he’s so...”

  “Oh. Right.” He’s taller than you think. I was at an event with him not long ago. Couldn’t be bothered talking to the man. Another engagement I had to get to, don’t you know.

  “You have? What’s he like? Do you think you could get me his autograph if I gave you the address?” Without waiting for his answer she dashed into the office, which was nearby, and came out with two identical business cards that gave her name and position under the co-op’s letterhead. “Gail Sykes, Office Coordinator.” Adam signed the back of one, returned it to her, and pocketed the other.

  “What’s this?” she said with a sniff, squinting at his scrawl.

  “Didn’t you...?

  “One for him, one for her.”

  He patted his pocket. “As soon as I get back to Ottawa, I promise.”

  “God, I can’t hardly believe it.” The elevator, which had come and gone once already, opened. “Take it all the way to the top. That’ll bring you to the roof.”

  “Thanks so much, uh,” fishing again for her card.

  “Gail.”

  “Gail.”

  “There are stairs, too, once
you’re there.”

  “I’ll look for them.”

  “Are you like a spy or something?”

  “Sort of.”

  “What does he do with his—?” The door closed and the elevator began to climb.

  On the roof a wooden picnic table sat beside a large metal shed that he figured housed the elevator’s drive mechanism. He was alone. Remembering that he had not tested the door before letting it close behind him, he tried the handle. The door opened easily.

  Adam walked over to the eastern edge of the roof and put his fingers through the links of the steel fence. The harbour spread out before him in the middle distance: George’s Island, a tall, obstructive building with the green letters, “ALIANT” near the top, the container terminal near the tip of the peninsula, an oil refinery on the Dartmouth side. How odd to be up here, he thought. How right it felt. He was beginning to forget why he had come to this city, when he heard a deep reverberant laugh coming up from street level. Looking down he saw the same man who had tricked him onto the roof.

  “Enjoying the panorama, my man?”

  “As a matter of fact, I am.”

  “Don Feeney Gets It Done. Do he indeed!”

  Adam was puzzled until he saw that the man was holding a lawn sign by its wooden shaft, and he remembered that he had left both it and the window sign meant for Mrs. Fallingbrooke in the entrance to the co-op.

  “What do he get done, mon? He hairdo?” Another rumbling James Earl Jones laugh, one so strong it could have moved boulders.

  “Do you mind leaving that there, please?”

  Riding the elevator down, Adam scolded himself for his anxiety. The election signs were inconsequential and had probably cost the Party a pittance. “You don’t care, remember?” But saying this he saw that he did care.

  When he got outside, the man and Adam’s signs had vanished, and where he had been standing was now a sign proclaiming the virtue of voting for the local socialist candidate, Lexington Bramwell Bliss, the kind of name you gave a lap dog or a treasured teddy bear. Aside from the silly pretensions suggested by the name, the situation had now deteriorated into theft, and regardless of his waning emotional commitment to the Party and the PMO, Adam felt duty-bound to retrieve their property.