The Traymore Rooms: A Novel in Five Parts

by Norm Sibum

  ‘Not lately.’

  I met his death-is-just-over-the-horizon-for-me eyes. Even so, there was something like a twinkle in them.

  ‘You know, why, you must know, he’s all managerial class.’

  ‘But of course. Upholds the standard. Otherwise, he couldn’t live with himself,’ I said, addressing the twinkling eyes of a homunculus.

  ‘He’ll never credit you with any knowledge.’

  ‘To be sure he won’t. It would go against his nature. It would violate nature in general.’

  ‘But he means well.’

  ‘I suppose he does.’

  ‘That Marjerie whatshername, oh, I don’t know, but she’s quite the little number.’

  ‘Inspiring hips. Otherwise, I can’t say.’

  ‘Is that all you think of her?”

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  Eggy’s eyes began to droop and take counsel with themselves. Then he rapped against the window with his cane, this to alert Cassandra of his presence and his need. At length, she brought the old bugger his wine, he hoo hooing his gratitude. Her smile faintly ravished us, which is to say she was otherwise preoccupied—with her family, her garden, the restaurant, her complicated spouse, the human lot, the state of the world, Current President, God in His heaven, or not-God and no-heaven. I was fond of this woman; I would like to have conversed with her on many subjects, and I knew it was not to be. Better perhaps that our eyes, and our eyes alone, exchange subject matter—certainties, secrets, justifiable doubts, compass readings.

  ‘Fine woman, that one,’ observed Eggy, deeply sincere.

  Perhaps it had taken him some 82 years and change to chance upon a woman he could compliment with every iota of his being and not stint on the praise. I believed he had been mean and not at all gallant with his wives. I believed there was something angelic in him, unaccountably so, and it was, in his person, one of God’s parting shots, or it was nature confused and perhaps experimental, as nature was forever circling back on herself, alley cat or splendid jaguar, nature insisting on her mysteries.

  Muse and Sugar

  Sometimes Sally McCabe came to me as Keats’s muse, her aim to haul one up by the scruff of one’s neck to show one the spiritual heights of poesy. Then she was pleased to let go, and one fell and got to know one’s true vista: a dung-smeared floor. But perhaps to a poet’s company, she preferred her little band of high school hooligans, her crew-cut Coop and his baby blue Chrysler car. She preferred the pop tunes of the day; the moon and chilled sagebrush of a desert that had welded together once and for all, in my memory, indescribable beauty and human pettiness, let alone the brutalities of sheep fuckers. Then years and years later, and I was in a taxicab in this, my faded Jezebel of a town, and the driver turned up the volume and I heard: if I should take a notion to jump into the ocean, t’ain’t nobody’s bizness if I do. It seemed the perfect philosophical riposte to just about anything; to Big Brother; to the Unitary Executive; to all the numbing conformities; to social Darwinisms many times refined as gave us our civic condition. Was Marjerie Prentiss a variation on a muse-theme, she knocking on my door, beggar’s bowl in hand? She stood there, blinking.

  ‘I was wondering if I could borrow some sugar,’ she said, yes, with that modulated boom her voice was.

  She bit her tongue so as to keep from laughing. Ah, an evil sense of humour. I might have slammed the door in her face but I played it straight. She got her sugar. She got other goods on her foray all reconnaissance. She might have picked on Eleanor, but perhaps her welcome there had worn thin. I was, of course, curious. If Prentiss had designs for me, what might they be and how would they come about? The pedagogue in me as well as Boffo the clown informed Randall Q Calhoun that he was what the girls call a tool. A fool.

  Phillip Dundarave’s escapade by way of muggers, one night, in a party part of town where the touristed streets turn ugly at a certain hour—and he had been punched about, beaten unconscious and robbed of the money Eleanor loaned him for his traffic ticket—caused her to cluck her tongue. Not so long ago, she had come across the corpse of Marcel Lamont in his Traymore digs; it had been the same with Fast Eddy in his domicile abutting Mrs Petrova’s yard. And now this. It put into the watery and dead eyes of Marjerie Prentiss something like pity for a fellow being. Well, he was her lover. And what lover did not know the game of patient and nurse? For Marjerie decided to tend to the man’s wounds after the hospital was finished checking him out. Ralph had no objection to the arrangement; Eleanor had her kitchen back again. I might once more visit as used to be my wont; and I would roll her cigarettes and drink her amaretto, and we kick around Traymorean life as well as the politics of two nations. These were days of fairly constant weather: daytime heat, late afternoon showers or thunder showers, mild evenings and nights. They were nothing days, so to speak, the news all conjecture, so many trigger fingers poised but not green-lighted on so many fronts, not just those of war; and we might, we Jezebelites of a town, consider that it was but one more summer in a long succession of them; ones much too short, given the extremities of winter. Then again, though I did not pursue winter pastimes—skiing, snowshoeing and the like—I did not mind the snow, not really, and as it would drift down in the shine of city lights, I would wax poetic, the aroma of hardwood smoke intoxicating. Still, for now, summer evenings were lived on terrasses; on balconies among potted flowers, the toes of student girls clenched to balcony railings. In any case, Marjerie’s attentions were consumed by Phillip’s needs, and who is to say he did not revel in it nor she begrudge him tenderness? And though I was not privy to their conversations, I could easily enough picture a much chastened, soft-spoken carpenter lamenting his bad habits; he had gone to some barn of a KitKat place for the booze and strippers and pills. He would get, as it were, his act together and be a proper dad to a proper daughter. And I could imagine Marjerie nodding her head, looking awfully solemn, she in her new guise as an agent for redemption. Eleanor, too, went and bestowed her affections, the Traymore Rooms now a retreat for convalescing veterans of harrowing campaigns; and I heard it from the good woman that Phillip knew he had botched things; made a right hash of his existence; and he would make account. From all this, Dubois maintained some distance, his glittering blues eyes letting Eleanor know she had to do what a girl had to do, leave him out of it. And at the Blue Danube, when Eggy would inquire after Phillip, Dubois only shrugged and guessed he was alive and on the mend.

  What had it been, really? Bruised ribs? No big deal. Meanwhile, Moonface was keeping late hours with her Champagne Sheridan; and soon they would fly to Vancouver and stay with his parents; and it would seem that they might marry or otherwise pursue a serious relationship. She seemed rather smug with the possibility. For all that, she was wary of Prentiss for no good reason that she could think of, and she put it to me: ‘Why, Randall? Why shouldn’t I know why I don’t like her? If I let myself think about it too much, it drives me crazy.’

  ‘Beats me,’ I said.

  I had stepped inside the café to use the facilities. I repeated my answer for good measure. Moonface rolled her eyes up and to the side in that way she had; and I thought of how I had been, for a spell, infatuated with her and was not so infatuated now. Something had changed in her changeable eyes; she was, after all, a chameleon-like creature of no fixed psychic address, but what had changed, exactly, was yet another thing I did not know. I shrugged, Moonface flashing her nails.

  ‘Aren’t we silly?’ she suggested.

  At the table on the terrasse, Dubois stared into space. He had the look of a man who thought he might have reason to express anger, but that it would require such energy as he lacked at the moment. Eggy’s chin raised his chest. The old bugger supposed he might spend eternity with Moonface in some equanimity had he recourse to Edith Piaf albums.

  ‘Can you,’ he chortled earlier, ‘imagine a Moonface orgasm?’

  Dubois guffawed. I could not.

  ‘Why not?’ thunde
red Eggy with some heat.

  The wine, perhaps, was settling on his brain. I suspected that Moonface among her peers, and this excluded Traymoreans as they did not haunt blues bars, might easily enough have described Marjerie as a slut; just that Moonface would not let the word escape her lips while in our company. She had an image to maintain with me, Dubois and Eggy: that of a virtue-minded, hard-studying, decently-behaved young woman. Even so, we were rotters and yet, the fact that we were such now and then amused the dear girl.

  Eleanor had her own guerilla campaign to wage: her pompadours and wide, gypsy skirts. She read The Economist, which is to say there was more on her mind than fashion sense. Did I not watch Letterman on TV, justifying his show as a modern analog to Suetonius? For a while Eleanor had even subjected herself to my dog-eared copy of Tacitus, but she found him a little arch. There were once more, in the persons of Prentiss and her swains, interlopers in the building. Perhaps their boffings and jealousies and leveragings set them apart from celebratory sleaze such as one knew from the tabloids. But Eggy, as he and I encamped on the Blue Danube terrasse; as we braved the likelihood that it would rain, was still exercised with the challenge of imagining a Moonface orgasm. Heavy overcast. Tropical air. The green gloom of lush maple boughs. I saw hooded figures, each one a poet, whispering Moonface at the moon, the fate of the world dependent on her cries and moans. I did not believe Eggy would appreciate much these hooded figures of mine, and so I said nothing. Meanwhile Arizona senator, presidential contender, attempting to vilify his opponent, the Illinois senator, described him as so much glitz and glam, too much in thrall to the white bimbos such as grace the aforementioned tabloids. I made mention of it, to which Eggy replied: ‘Why, hoo hoo, I’d like to be in the orbit of a black bimbo I know. Oh, sorry, I should say she’s brown.’

  Eggy gave himself over to a mock-show of looking around, yes, should there be monitors behind bushes, methodically recording his every unsavoury utterance. But here was Dubois. And he, so far as we knew, was no stoolie or creep or exotic growth in cahoots with thought police of any particular political bent, there being no centre worth the mention. Dubois, sockless and in shorts, looking somewhat muscle-bound in one of his patented worse for wear polo shirts, was up for our chatter. To Eggy he said, the hairline cracks of his cheeks prepared for laughter: ‘And you, monsieur, how are you?’

  It was the man’s princely air that had won over Eleanor.

  Eggy, unsuspecting, replied: ‘Why, I’m fine, thank you.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Effing hell, why wouldn’t I be sure?’

  ‘What day is it?’

  ‘Tuesday.’

  ‘Are you so certain?’

  ‘Damn it all, Bob, it’s Tuesday, and you very well know it, and furthermore, the lotto’s set at 24 million and I’m going to play, and when I win, and if you’re good to me, not likely, but if you’re good to me, I’ll set you and your woman up on Hispaniola, and you can play at pirates, which is all you’re good for. Effing hell.’

  ‘I give up,’ said Dubois, gesticulating at a god he did not believe existed.

  And then as Dubois took possession of a chair, as his buccaneer eyes reconnoitered the area for I know not what—American marines?—Eggy started in: ‘With dextrous ease she flexed her knees, her grip on his cock keener, and with ecstatic sighs she sucked him dry, with the ease of a vacuum cleaner.’

  Eggy was pleased with himself. Dubois knew he had been chased from the field.

  Pixies

  Eleanor was preparing poutine in her kitchen for Phillip still on the mend. I was rolling her a cigarette as I read the newspaper, when in drifted Marjerie Prentiss with her showcase hips. Here she was, latter day Poppaea, Nero’s second wife and a real piece of work.

  ‘Hullo,’ she said, blinking, annoyed, so I thought, by my presence.

  ‘It’s coming,’ Eleanor chimed, ‘it’s coming.’

  She referred, of course, to the poutine, Quebecoise concoction. Comfort food. Eleanor was happy in her element, making food. Gypsy-skirted. Pompadoured. Marjerie took a chair and slid in to the table. She was not best pleased.

  ‘And how’s the boy?’ Eleanor asked of the man for whom she was developing a besetting fondness.

  ‘Oh, he’s shamming,’ she answered, dully. ‘He can get out of bed and start going about his business, any time,’ she added.

  Eleanor gave Marjerie Prentiss a look. And I noted that the watery, dead eyes of the woman had gone velvety. Disconcerting. Perhaps, so I lamely surmised, she had been steeped in political science studies while at university, and this was what ruined her for polite society. Poppaea had been more than a match for Nero’s vaunted cruelty; it had been an equal opportunity marriage. For all that, it was alleged that Nero kicked her while she was preggers and this did her in.

  ‘You two have probably got much to talk about,’ I said, ‘so I’ll be trundling off.’

  ‘Alright then, trundle away,’ said Eleanor, cheerfully enough, raising no objections to my proposal.

  Marjerie’s eyes narrowed and accused. I was feeling somewhat queasy: the smell of the poutine, the time travel through history, the proximity of Prentiss, the demented logic of power in the grip of unbalanced persons.

  For all that Moonface was insecure about her attractions, she understood that for some men, at least, she was alluring. All this, while Miss Meow, slagging her meal in a private tongue, was somehow unaffected by the heat despite the heavy coat on her. Blind Musician back, I supposed, from one of his tours, sat erect in his chair and held his blind man’s stick perpendicular to the floor. His huge eyes blinking, his mind was intent on deciphering Miss Meow’s inscrutable language, one sprinkled with nuns and quoits, all else incomprehensible, every Blue Danubian a philistine and unworthy of Schubert or Haydn and such. In perfect Angloese, the hag was in full-fledged mezzo-soprano mode that we go to church or she would call the cops on us frickin’ sodomites. From which libretto had she gleaned such words?

  ‘Eleanor and Phillip?’ Moonface asked.

  ‘Worse,’ I said. ‘Marjerie’s a pimp, if the word can apply to one of your sex.’

  Moonface shrugged. She had witnessed the Lamonts and Osgoode, and now here was Calhoun, and what a little busybody he was turning out to be.

  ‘So?’ Moonface put it to me.

  Perhaps, because she was flying to Vancouver soon with her Champagne Sheridan, she, a chameleon, could believe she no longer had to care. I could have pointed out that Eleanor frisking with Gambetti had been one thing but this was another, this business with Phillip, as it had Marjerie Prentiss all over it, a woman of no good intent.

  ‘Just get me some wine,’ I said, piqued with Moonface.

  ‘I’ll get right on it,’ she answered, too brightly.

  Even so, I could see she was dismayed. The dear girl was clever enough to know I was not just imagining things; and though Eleanor had no high regard of her, Moonface had always respected the good woman, and would not wish to see her come to grief.

  I went outside to the terrasse, the strangers there all laughing men, the source of their amusement a mystery. A wind blew up, the maples manic. In confused silence Moonface setting my glass on the table, regarded me at length. When I did not respond she turned away. Civic smiles passed by, buoyed, I imagined, by the inherent comity and fair play of Canadian life. The War of 1812 was a Canadian victory … And yet, so I was hearing it now, there had been a beheading onboard a bus near Edmonton. One of the strangers reported it, having ogled the electronic device in his hand for the news.

  ‘Ooooh,’ said a table of strangers in mock-alarm.

  And then my throat caught the wine wrong; I spluttered and spewed and fouled my shirt. This got me a look from the strangers. Even so, I got out my notebook and jotted, to wit: Her head was cut off and taken to Rome for Poppaea to see. And the strangers appraised Moonface as she came out to attend to them. I cannot say that they were rude, but there was menace in their jocularity. She knew it, her
jaw tight. It was a sight from which I averted my gaze. I supposed I could not begrudge Eleanor Phillip, but she would pay a price. Poutine, indeed. I pictured Dubois stiff-shouldered now as he made his rounds between the Traymore and the Blue Danube and his office, destiny unjust. He would pretend indifference.

  There was, speaking of sport, another side to the story. This assertion was Eleanor’s; and she, defending Prentiss from my prejudice, so to speak, agreed that the woman was a handful. A right royal pain in the arse. But that Phillip, in Eleanor’s mind, was a fine fellow, confused, yes, and too much caught up in Marjerie’s hypnotic glare, but even so. Even so. And here, Eleanor’s thought trailed off as she reached for her half pint glass of beer. We were inside at the Blue Danube, ours a weak attempt to avoid any chance meeting with Marjerie and her entourage, yes, should they just happen by. Moonface treated with us as if we were visiting VIPs, fussing with our water glasses, inquiring as to how Eleanor’s salad was. Eleanor thought the feta rather salty, not knowing what else to say, and she wished she could smoke a cigarette indoors. The look on the face of our waitress, the way her eyes rolled up and to the side, suggested that yes, it was a shame she could not. Eleanor waved her away, a regal eminence letting an usurper know of what thin stuff pretenders are made. And then, wonder of wonders, Eleanor took me on a rare excursion to her past, her Townships birth and girlhood; her coming to the city; her knocking about with men. How eventually she hooked up with a financier named Dufresne; and it was on-again off-again between them for, God knows, a lot of years; and it was, in fact, how she met Dubois, whose path in the world of business had intersected with Dufresne’s. Life with Dufresne had not lacked for affection, but that he had never wished to be tied down by marriage; and she had assumed she had not wished to be, as well; and everything seemed fine, as things went; but that, in return for Dufresne’s generosity, she was expected to help him entertain clients and the like; and help with certain other aspects of his dealings. Then he died, and to her amazement (she had honestly not expected it) she found he had left her a sizeable chunk of change and she thereafter drifted into the life of one Robert Dubois. Well, she had always liked this man; she liked that he was less interested in money than in the more creative side of business; that he thought himself forward-looking, so many problems looming on the horizon as would affect all of life. Why then the Traymore when, between the two of them, they could have afforded a grander lifestyle? Eleanor did not know, really. Just that the Traymore was quiet and clean enough. Just that she still had in her her Townships girlhood and its lessons in frugality, even if, now and then, she had bouts of extravagance and excessive emotional outlays. As for Bob, he had never gotten quite clear of his small-town boyhood, money a means and not an end. Besides, vain and handsome as he was, attractive in social situations, he was not, in actual fact, a show-off, and he liked his periods of solitude. The advantage of their rather modest appointment was the freedom it offered from money cares. So then, whatever happened to Bob’s vision for a future, the problems he would solve? Gradual disillusionment. Yes but, disillusionment? With what, pray tell? And it was hard to say, so Eleanor’s thinking went. It just happened in the way time happens. One can only tolerate so much. Mercenary greed. Spiritual greed. The politics of moral ascendancy. The departure of common sense from life. And I thought Eleanor might cry just then as, despite how well things had seemed to turn out for her, perhaps she might have done better: she had had passion, yes, and steady and reliable affection, and still, something was missing. If Dubois would only marry her, she could finally, one way or another, put the nagging to rest.