I'll See You in My Dreams: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel (51 page)

“Listen to me. Have you done the chore?”

“What chore?”

“I think you know what I'm talking about.” Through my teeth: “Did you take out the hay?”

“Oh, that chore. Problem is I'm fresh out of wheels. My flatbed's out on loan, I can't access the Fargo, and they want an arm and a leg for the muscler. You caught me in a situation here, boss – I got customers. I'll call when I free up, that's a promise.”

Before I can utter an oath or a threat, he has clicked off.

Margaret demands I give up my phone while we're still in the foyer of the concert hall. “I just don't trust you any more, Arthur. Disaster seems to stalk you.” She ensures that both our phones
are off and sticks them in her bag. I don't expect Stoney to call back anyway.

The playbill has the Pastoral Symphony on first. Next, after intermission, will be the premiere of an orchestral suite, “Loons Calling on Lake Nippissing,” after which Prieto will straddle his cello.

I expected we might be hauling ourselves up to one of the lofty balconies of this vast gilded hall, but Margaret has many friends in the arts, and that has likely earned us these middle seats in the orchestra. My view is slightly impaired by the tall, bald gentleman in front of me; for some reason I'm distracted by the tufts of black hair bestriding his ears.

Though the Pastoral is lilting and lovely, perhaps I know it too well. I let it caress me, but by the second movement my mind has swung back twenty-four hours, to that illuminating session with Timothy Dare. Triggered somehow, I fear, by the unruly black tufts in front of me.

I must have expressed too keen an interest in fetishes, because Tim picked up something in my tone and body language. I asked, “What if it's not an inanimate object?”

“Like what?”

“Oh, like a foot. Body parts. Hair.”

“Hair?”

That seemed to pique too much interest, and I tried to recover with a stale joke. “In my heyday I was known to be quite a breast man.”

“Regrettably, that only makes you normal, Arthur, though possibly poorly nurtured. The disability is called partialism. You're obsessively preoccupied with part of a woman's body.”

I squirmed under his gaze. I toyed with confessing, telling him about the au pair from Provence. But I held back.

Now the strings are joined in dance by woodwinds and horns. And I am overcome by a memory of Josette, her pillowy breasts, the wet-smelling hairy darknesses to either side of them. She shared our house for five years, until I turned twelve. She let me touch her breasts, even kiss them. And she would raise her skirt
and give me a teasing glimpse of the lush junction of her legs – her garden, she called it. But I could not come into that garden, only her
petits jardins
, those thick, bushy pits into which she drew my guileless, palpitating young prick. Into which she took the sticky produce of my first ejaculation. One day, with no advance notice, my parents sent her away, and she was never spoken of again.

The stormy allegro awakens me, and I finally lose myself in the music.

Later, in the foyer, I follow Margaret about like a puppy as she performs the duties demanded by celebrity.

“Now we have to listen to some token Canadian content,” I grumble as we take our seats.
Loons Calling on Lake Nipissing. Composed by J. Walter Prothero
. “Sometimes it's embarrassing to be a Canadian.” Loud enough to get glances and a sympathetic snicker. Margaret shushes me.

The piece isn't as bad as I anticipated; in fact the call of the common loon is skilfully woven through the suite, even hauntingly. And when, during applause, Pinchas Zukerman calls for J. Walter Prothero to stand, I applaud vigorously, then freeze as the tuft-eared man in front of me rises. A spotlight finds him and I sink low in my seat, suffering the pain of Margaret's pinch.

My partner's small flat is more a workspace than a living space. Everywhere are clippings files, magazines, photos, maps, statistical charts – a politician's clutter. There is not much in the fridge. Alarmingly, I find evidence she has capitulated to the microwave oven, a device once reviled.

We have walked here from the concert hall, a quick, crisp stroll across the University of Ottawa campus to her low-rise, and are quickly into bed. Our after-dinner espressos are still working, and so is Margaret: marking up briefing notes for some hearing or other, giggling occasionally. I am rereading Dermot Mulligan's
After Constantinople: The Totalitarianism of Western Religion
.

Another snigger. “Can't take you anywhere.”

Composer J. Walter Prothero never once turned to look at his maligner. That he chose not to embarrass us showed immense grace under pressure, a kindness that mollified her anger and my anguish, which evolved into merriment. It has been a splendid evening otherwise.

I pause at page 318 to study a quote from Camus about suicide being humankind's sole serious philosophical problem. It's the same quote that began Mulligan's undated, unsigned, uncompleted reflections on suicide. Earlier I found his Nietzsche reference as well, in a footnote of his
Clearing Judas's Name and Other Essays
. Absent from Dermot's musings was that philosopher's better-known quotation
The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets successfully through many a bad night
. The suicide note, if that's what it is, lacks the originality for which Dermot was so well-known, in his lectures as well as his writings.

Finally I turn off my light and Margaret follows suit. I am still wakeful, though, eyes open, my mind busy, words seeking egress. Margaret shuffles close, an arm around me, and I am emboldened. Maybe she will still love me.

“Darling, did I mention? Annabelle has suddenly returned to Vancouver. Seems her marriage went kaput.”

“How sad.”

“Popped by to have me sign the book. Asked about you. I told her you were amazing, of course.”

“Ahmm.” The sound made by a yawn. “Tell me all about it tomorrow.”

This seems to be going okay. I try extending my luck. “Here's an oddity for you. I just learned I suffer from a disorder called partialism. It involves women's armpits.”

Hearing only silence, I press on: Josette, my tainted youth, my paraphilia, Tim Dare's subtle diagnosis. I finally peter out, and there is more silence.

Finally, wearily: “Do you really want me to take this seriously?”

“I thought you might.”

“Darling, the world is undergoing catastrophic climate change. Our seas and oceans are becoming cesspools. Countless millions are homeless and starving. Wars and terrorism never cease. You don't have the right to fuss over such a piddly thing.”

She rolls away from me and is soon asleep.

A
s was arranged, an obliging young archivist named Shaheed Khan takes me in tow at ten a.m. when I sign in at the National Archives building. He asks me to render up my pens and pencils but assures me copies can be made of anything I wish. I am led to a long table piled with boxes upon boxes of bundled manuscripts, letters, books, photos, and notes.

What is the task I've set myself here? Comb through all his papers, said old Riley, to see if anything else has been overlooked. But going through all this stuff – that will take days of bleary effort. I haven't put my mind properly to this. And I'm tired after a night of mentally kicking myself for coming across to Margaret as a self-absorbed weirdo. As to Annabelle's return, all she said this morning was, “She's your problem, not mine.” A little touchy, I thought, but I was happy to let the subject drop.

“What's the history of this collection, Shaheed? How long have these papers been here?”

“They were bought from Irene Mulligan in late 1962. For fifty thousand dollars.”

A fortune back then, but she'd earned it with her research, her hours at his old Remington. I am staring at thousands upon thousands of pages. No wonder a couple of them were overlooked by the experts evaluating this mountain of paper.

“How often is this collection visited by researchers?”

“On average, I would say fifteen times a year.”

“For learned articles, theses, that sort of thing?” Out of habit, I am cross-examining.

“I believe another book is being written about him.”

“Who's the author?” I ought to advise him to hold the presses.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Beauchamp, we don't release that information.”

“Last March a significant two-page document came to light that was not listed in your fonds. Your office copied it for us and
provided proof of authenticity. Have you learned who alerted you to it?”

“Your reopening of the case has caused a flurry of interest in these papers. I daresay it was someone who didn't want to be tangled up in the matter.”

“What book was it in?”

Shaheed brings from a box a thick volume of Shakespeare's tragedies, published a century ago – an edition of value, enhanced by Mulligan's many pencilled marginalia, mostly references to literary or scholarly works. I look for act three, scene one, of
Hamlet
, the ‘to be or not' soliloquy.
Take arms, Mulligan, take arms
.

Shaheed finally loses his aplomb and seems a little confused. “My goodness, that's the very page. That's where it was found.”

“Indeed?” One of the cornerstones of my appeal has firmed up; here is the continuity that Riley said was missing. I find myself emoting, as if on stage: “To
sleep, perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub
. I will need to take your affidavit, my good man. Who was the last person to look through this material before you were alerted to these hidden pages?”

“I am really not allowed to say. Forgive me, Mr. Beauchamp, it's policy.”

A subpoena will cut through the bureaucratic guff. But young Mr. Khan has been polite and helpful, so I will not threaten him. Lawyers from Tragger, Inglis's Ottawa branch will do that.

Shaheed says he'll be available should I need him, and goes off to report this conversation to his superiors. I call our Ottawa branch and put the head of litigation in the picture. He will send someone down here to help draft an affidavit. Before settling in with Mulligan's papers, I find a plug to power up my phone; I don't want to miss out if Stoney finds the decency and courage to make his promised call.

I merely riffle through Mulligan's personal letters – I've read them, in a
UBC
Press hardcover. He made several references to Gabriel, all complimentary: a “flower in the bleak wilderness of
the Squamish Valley”; a reference to an
IQ
test in 1961 – “my acolyte ringing up a monster 165.” Mulligan doesn't appear to have written to anyone after April 13, 1962, the date Harvey Frinkell sent out his demand letter. Which was compounded by Jimmy Fingers' shake-down. Suicide, milords.

I poke idly through other boxes, pull out manuscript drafts, shake them; nothing falls out but a few bookmarks. Nor does a similar effort produce anything from the three dozen books retained for their marginal comments. The vast bulk of Mulligan's library remains in the old A-frame by the river, now a literary shrine for grant-aided short-term-residence writers. I even delve into his McGill memorabilia, his yearbooks, where I find him portrayed performing in
HMS
Pinafore:
a skinny young man in a sailor suit, belting out a song.

Presently a pair of young lawyers from our Ottawa bureau come by. Smart, eager young women, one with a copy of
A Thirst
to be signed, the other excited about doing “something cool” for a change. They have been on the phone with Justice Department lawyers, who will cooperate in shaping Shaheed's affidavit disclosing the finding of Mulligan's note but are balking at disclosing the names of those who accessed his papers. I tell the women what I want in the affidavit, and they fly off.