Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler [117]
Losing her balance, she tumbled briefly into my arms. “Whoops,” she said.
“Sorry,” I said, steadying her.
“Sorry isn’t frightfully flattering,” she said, ruffling my hair.
At noon we sat down to eat fish paste smeared on white bread, seated on stools at the kitchen counter. She also opened a can of tomatoes, plopping one on my plate, and taking another for herself. “Let’s not be idle while we sit here. Exams are due in a fortnight, don’t you know? Now I want you to tell me the proper name for what Americans, as well as you people in this copycat dominion, call a baby carriage.”
“A perambulator.”
“Good lad. And the King’s English for the wee bird known as a chickadee here?”
“I don’t know.”
“A tit.”
“Aw, come on,” I said, just about choking on my fish paste.
“Oh yes, we do call them tits, but I know what you’re thinking, you naughty boy. Now the origin of the word ‘alibi,’ please.”
“Latin.”
“Well done.”
That’s when she noticed the white paint smudge on her skirt. She got up, dipped a rag in turpentine, and raised her skirt, flattening it over a stool to rub the stain. Pleated brown it was, the skirt.54 I can see it now. I thought my thudding heart would burst right out of my chest and fly through the window. Then, rotating her hips, she wriggled her skirt back into place. “Oh dear. Now I’m damp in unmentionable places. I’d better change. Excuse me, dear,” she said, brushing past me, the feathery touch of her breasts surely leaving a permanent burn on my back, as she disappeared into her bedroom.
I lit a cigarette, smoked it, and she still wasn’t back. I needed to pee desperately, but would have to pass through her bedroom to reach the toilet. The kitchen sink, I thought. No. What if she came in and discovered me at it? Unable to bear it any longer, I drifted into the living room and saw that her bedroom door was ajar. The hell with it, I thought, such was my agony. I stepped into the bedroom, and there she stood in her panties and garter belt, bending forward, pensive, to fasten her bra. “I’m so sorry,” I said, flushing. “I had no idea …”
“What does it matter?”
“It’s just that I had to go to the toilet.”
“Well, do go ahead then,” she said, her voice surprisingly harsh.
When I emerged, dizzy with desire, she was already dressed. She flicked on the radio and somebody sang “Mr. Five by Five.”55
That’s when I finally summoned up the courage to reach out for her, sliding my hands under her sweater to unhook her bra. She didn’t resist. Instead, both delighting and terrifying me, she kicked off her shoes. “I don’t know what’s come over me,” she said. Then she wiggled out of her skirt and I yanked at her panties.
“You’re so impatient. Such an eager puppy. Attendez un instant. Now tell me what a gentleman is never in … ?”
Fuck fuck fuck.
“Don’t you remember?” she asked, sending her tongue darting into my ear. “A gentleman is never in …”
“A hurry,” I shot back triumphantly.
“Bang on. Now give me your hand. There! Like that! Oh yes, s’il vous plaît!”
Which is exactly when, alone in my hotel room, my dentures soaking in a glass on my bedside table, I reached down to grab myself. At my decrepit age, the only answer is usually self-service. Certainly it would ease me into sleep at last, but it wasn’t to be the case. No sir. For at that moment, in my mind’s eye, Mrs. Ogilvy slapped my hand away. “And just what do you think you’re doing? Insidious street urchin. Presumptuous jewboy. You get right back into your smelly clothes, which I’m sure you bought wholesale, and get out of here.”
“What have I done wrong this time?”
“Dirty old man. Did you mistake me for a common tart who can be picked up in a bar? What if Miriam had walked in right then and seen what had become of you in your dotage? Or one of your grandchildren? Dégoûtant is what you are. Méchant. Tonight you will memorize Shelley’s ‘Ode to the West Wind’ and recite it for me in class first thing Monday morning.”
“It was Keats.”
“Stuff and nonsense.”
Miriam came to me in my dreams, armed with one of her charge sheets. “You’d like to