Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler [86]
“How can I? I don’t live here any more. I left you.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Don’t you remember?”
“You’re spoiling my dream.”
Then I made a bad turn. And The Second Mrs. Panofsky intruded. Running for her Honda again, tears flying, shrieking, “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to kill him is what I’m going to do.”
O Lord, I have so much to answer for, but not yet. Please, pretty please.
Which is when the phone began to ring. Ring and ring and ring. Something bad has happened. Miriam. The kids. But it was a tearful Solange. “Serge has been beaten up by a bunch of goddamn gaybashers.”
“Oh, no.”
“He was cruising in Parc Lafontaine. He needs stitches. I think his arm is broken.”
“Where is he?”
“Here.”
“Why isn’t Peter looking after him?”
Peter, a talented set designer, was Serge Lacroix’s companion. They shared a converted loft in Old Montreal, and I joined them there for dinner on occasion. Walls painted purple. Mirrors everywhere. I don’t know how many Persian cats on the prowl.
“If Peter had been here, this never would have happened. He’s on a film location in British Columbia.”
“I’m coming right over.” I hung up and dialled Morty Herscovitch’s home number. “Morty, I’m sorry to waken you, but my ace director has been hurt in an accident. I’m going to take him to the General, but I don’t want him waiting in emergency for two hours, only to be finally looked at by some intern who hasn’t been to sleep for the last thirty-six hours.”
“Not the General. I’ll meet you at the Queen Elizabeth in half an hour.”
Rather than drive, I took a taxi to Solange’s apartment. Serge’s scalp was torn, his swollen left eye was all but closed, and he was cradling a clearly broken wrist.
“What were you doing whoring in that park at your age? You know how dangerous it is.”
“I thought you came here to be helpful,” said Solange.
Morty, who was waiting for us at the Queen Elizabeth, sewed eighteen stitches into his scalp, had him X-rayed, and attended to his wrist cast. Then he took me aside. “I want him to have a blood test while he’s here, but he says no.”
“Leave it to me.”
Later I took Solange and Serge back to my apartment. I put Serge to bed in my spare bedroom. “Now are you going to be a good boy or do I have to lock my bedroom door before I go to sleep?”
He smiled and squeezed my hand, and I retreated to the kitchen and cracked open a bottle of champagne for Solange. “I want you to stop fooling around with Chantal,” she said.
“You’re imagining things.”
“She doesn’t understand what a hooligan you are. And she is easily hurt.”
I opened the fridge. “We have a choice. There’s a tub of chopped liver. I could heat up some kasha knishes. Or I could grudgingly share this tin of caviar with you.”
2
Shades of Mrs. Ogilvy.
Story in this morning’s Gazette about a pretty music teacher in Manchester, now forty-one years old, who has been charged, twelve years after the fact, with seducing boys, aged thirteen to fifteen, in a youth orchestra. An alleged victim, whose memory was enhanced after attending a two-day child-abuse workshop, told the judge how he had been taken advantage of after a violin lesson, when he was a mere fourteen years old. “Penelope lay down on her bed and pulled me down beside her. She unbuttoned her blouse and invited me to fondle her breasts. I undid her jeans. She was wearing red satin knickers. She put her hand inside my trousers. I had oral sex with her for twenty minutes. Afterward she served me tea, with chocolate digestives, and told me, ‘You are a naughty boy.’ ”
In a separate incident, following a Christmas drinks party, another allegedly abused boy said, “Penelope took off her knickers at the edge of the bed. She lay back, undid her shirt, closed her eyes, and there was a free-for-all.”
The judge ruled that it would be unfair to proceed with a trial, because the alleged incidents had taken place so long ago, and it would be difficult to trace witnesses and evidence that would back up the teacher’s denial of the charges. He ordained that it was clear that the boys had not suffered psychological