Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler [140]
“Let’s get some sleep. We can talk in the morning.”
But she had begun to weep. “Why did you marry me, Barney?”
“It was wrong of me.”
“I came up behind you at our wedding, and you were saying to Boogie, ‘I’m in love. For the first time in my life I am truly, seriously, irretrievably in love.’ I can’t tell you how touched I was. What I felt in my heart for you at that moment. And look at us now. We’ve been together hardly more than a year, it’s been months since you’ve made love to me, and I hate you in my bones for disgracing me.”
“I want you to know,” I said, laden with guilt, “that I haven’t been unfaithful to you.”
“Oh, I’m so ashamed. So broken. And you are such a liar. Such a street person. Such an animal. Go ahead. Finish your bottle. Good night.”
I didn’t quite finish the bottle, but almost, and wakened early to the sound of her on the phone to her mother. The Second Mrs. Panofsky’s morning report. “It was leg of lamb. No, not New Zealand. Local. From Delaney’s. Maw, I’m well aware it’s cheaper at Atwater Market, but I didn’t have the time and there’s never a place to park. I remember. Certainly I’ll check his bill. I always do. No, you were absolutely right to complain about the roast that time, it was tough. I was not embarrassed, I just preferred to wait outside. Maw, that’s not fair. Not every Irish Catholic is an anti-Semite. It just happened to be a tough standing rib. I am not criticizing your cooking. What? Oh, split-pea soup, and afterward green salad and cheese. Yes, you gave me that recipe. I know Rabbi Hornstein is crazy for it, but Barney doesn’t care for desserts. God knows he gets enough sugar out of the Scotch he drinks. I’ll tell him, honestly, but he says he isn’t interested in living to be a gibbering old idiot of eighty. I agree. That’s not old any more. Please, he knows very well you have a degree from McGill, and that you review books for the ladies’ reading group at the Temple. He does not think you’re stupid. Correction — he thinks everybody is stupid. What? He said that to you? Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t think he ever finished the seven volumes of Gibbon either. You don’t have to prove anything to him. Maw, I think that Frank Harris is disgusting too, and he shouldn’t have given it to you for Hanukah. It was a bad joke. What? Oh, he’s a writer. An old friend of Barney’s from his Paris days. Moscovitch. Bernard Moscovitch. No, not Canadian. He’s a real writer. Maw, you’re not the only one who hasn’t heard of him. I beg your pardon, but I’m suggesting no such thing, I know you’re very well read. Maw, I’m not being condescending. Let’s not get into that. It’s my natural tone of voice. I was born with it. But I couldn’t yesterday — there was so much to do here. I didn’t forget and I don’t consider phoning you an obligation. I do love you and I appreciate how much you miss Daddy, and how I’m all you have left now. And, while I’m at it, I’d like you to know that I never suggested there was anything wrong with having your hair coloured, but I think the curls he does for you are a bit too girlish for a woman of your age. Maw, I know very well I’ll be your age one day, and I only hope I will look as attractive as you do when my time comes. I am not being critical. You can’t have it both ways. If I say something I’m being critical, if I don’t, and somebody else mentions it, then I was too uncaring to warn you ahead of time. I didn’t say somebody else mentioned it. Maw, please. Yes, of course we’ll go to New York together next month. I can’t tell you how much I look forward to our trips. But, Maw, please don’t be offended, you’re a fourteen now, and you must stop wasting time trying to squeeze into twelves. Hold it. Stop. You have never embarrassed me. At your age, I would be lucky to still have such a good figure. We could be sisters, isn’t that what the saleswomen at Bloomingdale’s thought? He said we could go to the showroom and have anything we wanted wholesale? No kidding. Hey, do you think Katz has his eye on you? I am not being