Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler [190]
“What?”
“Cellophane covers for the lamp shades.”
Surprising myself, I rose to the defence of The Second Mrs. Panofsky. “I happen to like what she’s done here,” I lied.
Boogie sauntered over to a bookcase, plucked out my copy of Clara’s The Virago’s Verse Book and, with his expert eye, immediately found two lines that didn’t scan, and read them aloud with unseemly pleasure. “A woman from bloody Life magazine came to interview me. ‘What was Clara like in those days when she was in her creative mode?’ she asked. Crazy, I said. A compulsive shoplifter. Everybody’s screw. ‘What is your favourite or most germane Clara Charnofsky anecdote?’ Oh, go away. Fiche le camp. Va te faire cuire un oeuf. ‘When did you decide to make communications your field of endeavour?’ Well, I’ll be damned. ‘Do you resent not being world-renowned like Clara?’ Go away. ‘With all due respect, I think you suffer from low self-esteem.’ Shit. I still can’t understand why you married Clara.”
“How come you never married?”
“Didn’t I?”
“You did?”
“Take off your tie and knot it round my arm.”
It took three bloody probes before he was finally able to drive the syringe into the vein, and then he dozed on the ride out to the lake, moaning, muttering incomprehensible complaints against what I imagined to be intolerable dreams. He slid into sleep again at our dining-room table and I put him to bed. I drove to Montreal the next morning, had far too much to drink, and when I returned to the cottage earlier than expected a day later I found the Boogieman in bed with The Second Mrs. Panofsky.
“It’s your fault,” said a giggly Boogie. “You were supposed to phone before you left town.”
My hysterical wife, seated at the wheel of her Buick, hollered, “Some friend. What are you going to do about him?”
“Oh, I’m going to kill him is what I’m going to do, and then maybe I’ll come after you and your mother.”
“Fuck you,” she shrieked and, hitting the accelerator, she raced down the driveway, her rear tires spitting pebbles. Boogie and I got into the Macallan.
“I ought to knock your teeth out,” I said, but my manner was playful.
“Only after I’ve had a swim. Oh, she asked a lot of questions about Clara. You know, on reflection, I think I was no more than a convenient deus ex machina. She wanted to get even with you for that woman you’re keeping in Toronto.”
“One minute,” I said. I hurried into my bedroom and returned with my father’s old service revolver, which I set down on the table between us. “Scared?” I asked.
“Couldn’t that wait until I’ve done some snorkelling?”
“You could do me a service, Boogie.”
“Like what?”
“I want you to agree to be a co-respondent in my divorce. All you have to do is testify that I came home to my beloved wife and found you in bed with her.”
“Why, you planned this, you bastard.”
“No, I didn’t. Honestly.”
“You set me up.”
“I didn’t. But possibly it’s time you came through for me once.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I can’t remember how many times I bailed you out with cheques over the years.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.”
“Payment in advance, was it?”
“Shit.”
“What if I took money from you because that’s all you’ve got to give?”
That crackled in the air between us for a bit before I answered in a voice not my own, “I had to borrow on your behalf, Boogie.”
“This is getting to be very interesting.”
“In vino veritas.”
“Don’t tell me they taught you Latin in that high school of yours.”
“Boy, was that ever a cheap shot.”
“No. You’re the el cheapo here. You’re the old friend who has been keeping accounts, not me.”
“Have it your way. But now that we’re into it, do you mind telling me whatever happened to that novel of yours the world was waiting for?”
“Are you inquiring as a friend or an investor?”
“Both.”
“I’m still working on it.”
“Boogie, you’re a fraud.”
“I’ve let you down.”
“You were once a writer, and a damn good one, but now you’re just another druggie with pretensions.”
“I’ve failed in my duty to you. I was supposed to amaze the world so that one day you could brag, ‘If not for my