Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler [136]
In a nutshell, I am not unaware of my failings. Neither am I a stranger to irony. I realize that I — who took The Second Mrs. Panofsky’s rambling conversation to be an abomination — have consumed hundreds of pages, piling digression upon digression, to avoid getting to that seminal weekend in the Laurentians that all but destroyed my life, rendering unto me my reputation as a murderer, which is believed by some to this day. So coming up at last, the lowdown. Exit Boogie. Enter Sergeant-Detective Sean O’Hearne. And I’m willing to swear that what follows is the truth. I am innocent. Honestly. So help me God, as they say.
16
Wait. Not quite yet. I’ll get to the cottage (Boogie, O’Hearne, Second Mrs. P., et cetera et cetera) in a jiffy. I promise. But right now it’s time for “By Special Request.” Miriam’s hour. Damn. There seems to be something wrong with my radio. Weak what-do-you-call-thems maybe. You know, the thingamajigs that provide the juice. I can only hear her when I turn the volume way up. Everything’s going on the blink here. Last night it was my TV. The volume fading in and out again. When I finally got it adjusted, I was interrupted by a pounding on the door. It was the downstairs neighbour’s son. “Are you not answering your phone, Mr. Panofsky?”
“Of course I’m answering my phone. What’s your problem, Harold?”
“My mother was wondering if you’d mind turning your TV down.”
“Your mother must have very sensitive hearing, but, okay, I’ll turn it down.”
“Thank you.”
“Oh, Harold. One minute.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Trick question. If your radio was going dead, what would you suspect was the problem? It’s not a plug-in, but one of those you carry from room to room …”
“A portable.”
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”
“I guess you ought to check out your batteries.”
Harold gone, I poured myself a couple of fingers of Cardhu, and looked into what late movies were available on TV. Burt Lancaster in The Crimson Pirate. The Silver Chalice with Paul Newman and Virginia Mayo. FBI Girl with Cesar Romero, George Brent, and Audrey Totter. No, thanks, but sleep wouldn’t come. So I dredged up my trusty Mrs. Ogilvy out of the mists, recalling the Sunday she had borrowed somebody’s Austin sedan and invited me to go on a picnic in the Laurentians. To my amazement, my mother had actually prepared food for us. Unspeakable concoctions of her own invention. Combination banana and oozy boiled-egg sandwiches and other two-deckers, these filled with sardines and peanut butter. “Remember, be a nice, polite boy,” she said.
“Sure thing,” I said, dumping the sandwiches in the back lane.
Mrs. Ogilvy, an iffy driver, managed to jump the sidewalk in her attempt to park. She was wearing that two-sizes-too-small, sleeveless summer dress that buttoned down the front. Tires squealing as she hit the brakes for red lights, stalling more than once, jolting to starts, we did eventually make it safely into the countryside. “Did you bring your bathing costume?” she asked.
“I forgot.”
“My goodness, so did I.”
She reached out to fondle me, the Austin swerving into the wrong lane.
“It’s Mr. Smithers’s car, don’t you know? He lent it to me in the hope that I might acquiesce, and go for a drive with him some moonlit night, but nothing would entice me into the back seat for that one. He suffers from pyorrhoea.”
We settled on a blanket in a clearing in the woods and she opened up her picnic hamper. Gentleman’s relish. Fish paste. Oxford marmalade. Scones. Two pork pies. “Now we’re going to play a game. I want you to lean against that tree, with your derrière to me, and count to vingt-cinq en français. Then I’m going to hide some sweeties on me, bonne-bouche chockies with ambrosial centres, and then you can root for them, and lap them up. On your mark, get set, go. But no peeking.”
As I anticipated,