A Celibate Season. Carol Shields

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      Speaking of the furnace, it appears we need a new thermal valve which is going to set us back—with labour—two hundred and fifty whopping bucks. When I flicked on the heat and got a series of little cheeping noises and then a crumpling sound and, finally, silence, I called our speedy twenty-four-hour emergency serviceman, who said he was awfully sorry but this was the busiest time of the year and he wouldn’t be able to make it up here until Friday. “Well, that’s just great,” I said.”What are we supposed to do till then—freeze?” There was a pause, and then he said that maybe he could get over here on Wednesday if I could promise that the lady of the house would be in. “I am the lady of the house,” I told him, “and I will be in.” There followed another pause, longer this time, and then he said, finally, something that sounded like, “Yeah?” So it looks as if we only have to stay chilly for a couple more days. Which is another good thing about moving my table to the kitchen—I can open the oven door and bask in its fierce kilowatt-eating coil, never mind what the hydro bill’s going to look like at the end of the month. (You didn’t say, Jock, whether you are on the gov’t payroll yet or not.)

      Can’t wait to hear how you made out with your senator. Put it in writing so I can savour it. Lord, I miss you!

      Love,

      Chas

      P.S. Glad we agreed on the letter writing. I think it’ll keep us sane. Greg says he could get us on e-mail if I’d just install a modem, but do we want the kids accessing our private disclosures? I think not. Besides, it costs money.

      Château Laurier

      Sept. 4

      Dear Chas,

      Well, reni, vidi, vici—except that I didn’t conquer. In fact I think I came a bit unstuck. I was half an hour early leaving the Château Laurier, and after a leisurely stroll to the East Block I was still twenty minutes early. I was tempted to just hang around, but the guards aren’t great on hangers-around so I walked over to the Centre Block and pretended intense interest in the portraits of ex-prime ministers. One of the guards told me to notice how Mr. Diefenbaker’s eyes followed me around wherever I moved, a thought that did more to unnerve than to uplift. But finally the clock in the Peace Tower bonged eleven, so back I went. A guard phoned ahead and gave me directions to Senator Pierce’s office. He hadn’t arrived yet, but five minutes later he came bustling in and I introduced myself. He looked quite uncomprehending.

      “Jocelyn Selby,”I repeated. “The legal counsel from Vancouver. For the Commission?”

      “You’re the legal counsel?” he asked, with just the right degree of astonishment. He managed—now this is subtle—to imply that such a dish couldn’t be such a heavy, but if indeed he should be so fortunate then he would personally get down on his knees and thank le bon Dieu. (In spite of the anglo name his mother tongue is French. I’d never noticed the slight and charming—what else?—accent on TV.) I felt like a combination emancipated new-look career woman and Playboy bunny.

      “Well,” he said, and flashed me a Robert Redford smile, including dimple, “this Commission is going to be more interesting than I’d thought.” Injustice! The man must be fifty if he’s a day, yet I’ll bet he looks, if anything, better than he did at thirty. The blue eyes, the slightly silvering and perfectly styled (blow-dried) hair, the perfect suit, the trace of accent—and to top it off, he’s not just another beau visage.

      He went into a kind of crouch, and, with a sort of fascinated horror, I saw he was about to kiss my hand, when suddenly my eardrums were shattered by a raucous female voice behind me. “Still charming them, you old goat? Christ, you must be some kind of Dorian Gray. Where’s the real you? Hidden in the bowels of the Peace Tower?”

      I wheeled around to face the most unlikely looking woman—unlikely in that setting, I mean. She was—is—immensely broad in the beam and wearing brown cords that stretch tightly over her thighs and a faded blue plaid shirt, not tucked in. Long black greasy hair. Striped headband. Thick, eye-distorting glasses. Senator Pierce swept past me in my neat get-up and perfect hair, threw his arms around her, and said, “Jess, you old cuss, you still look like a leftover hippie.”

      That is Jessica Slattery. She’s actually ON THE COMMISSION! Appointed at the last minute after the women’s groups got so mad that there wasn’t a woman commissioner on a commission to look into the feminization of poverty. (I suppose my sex got me my appointment too—a nice reversal on the usual theme.)

      I’ve found out since that Jessica is the president of the Canadian Social Welfare Council (which I didn’t know existed), that she’s been riding the poverty horse for years, and that she believes in farting when she feels like it. Unfortunately she felt like it just as Senator Pierce was introducing us, and I didn’t handle it with aplomb. I had managed my most gracious how do you do? when she let go, and the Senator guffawed and I would gladly have disappeared into a fourth-dimensional time-warp. (What I did was turn red and mutter, “Excuse me.” And then I was mortified that the Senator might think I’d done it.)

       Sept. 5

      Sorry, got interrupted. I’ve been hunting for a place to stay, but so far no luck.

      I haven’t told you about the third commissioner, Dr. Grey. (Grey by name and grey by nature, my first impression.) He’ll take some getting to know. He’s a skinny grey man in a grey flannel suit with a grey voice. I was—am—astonished! Mother babbled on and on about Austin Grey—McGill University, economist, statistician, Rhodes Scholar, poet—and I don’t know exactly what I expected, but I thought he’d be, well, not-grey. He’s even greyer lined up against unbelievable Jessica and beautiful Vance. (Vance has asked me to call him Vance, but it isn’t easy. Makes me think I’m talking to a movie star.) Jessica controlled her sphincter in Dr. Grey’s presence—does natural dignity impose restraint on others, as Mother is always preaching? I’ll watch, or rather listen, and let you know.

      Love,

      Jock

      29 Sweet Cedar Drive

      North Vancouver, B.C.

      9 September

      Dear Jock,

      Your letter just arrived and it bucked me up no end, which makes two pluses this Monday morning.

      I’m feeling more or less buoyant because I’ve had a lead on a possible job opening. You remember Sanderson and Sanderson Associates? Talbot Sanderson is the cretin who wore the black cape and eye patch at the Ticknows’ New Year’s Eve bash last year, and his wife is the one who trounced me in Trivial Pursuit the same night. If you’ll remember, she couldn’t get over the fact that I didn’t know what Lassie’s master’s name was. The two of them run a fair-sized design company that puts out decent work, though nothing earth-shattering. They were big on urban development for a time, but like Robertson’s they’ve had to lay off half their architects. Now they’ve landed that big harbour-development contract that was in the papers last summer—remember?—and will probably be taking on staff.

      The unlikely person who put the bug in my ear was that old grump Gil Grogan, all sotto voce through the hedge Saturday morning when I was out hacking back the alder. There hasn’t been anything public, he said, but the word was out that they’d be taking on two or possibly three temporary staff. Naturally I tried to find out how he’d heard the rumour, but he just stood there swaying and looking smug and mumbling about keeping the old ear to the old ground. (Now there’s a man who seems to thrive СКАЧАТЬ