Today I Learned It Was You

by Edward Riche

  “But police work, inspector,” Kev said, “is kind of about ‘normal.’”

  “I suppose that’s true, Kev.”

  Kev grasped the steering wheel, pulling himself forward, bringing his face closer to the windshield.

  “Luh,” he said.

  Gary looked in the same direction as Kev. A gap in the trees on the other side of a mowed field indicated a path, but Gary saw no activity.

  “See ’e?” asked Kev. It took Gary a moment to understand.

  “No. I don’t see anybody.”

  “See the trail?”

  “Yes.”

  “Two o’clock.”

  Gary still could see nothing beyond branches and leaves and light and shade.

  “You sure?”

  “I sees ’e,” said Kev, opening his door and stepping from the car without making a sound. Gary again tried to trace the line from Kev’s unwavering gaze to movement or a flash of colour at the tree line, but he was blind to whatever was there.

  “Don’t imagine he can hear us all the way over there, Constable Maher.”

  “Shhhh . . . sir.” Kev gestured that he was going to proceed west and then come up north to the spot and that Gary should loop around the other way. Gary must have looked unconvinced, for Kev gave him a reassuring smile and one of those Newfie flicks of the head before capering off, bent and low to the ground. After a moment Gary got out and did as he was told by his subordinate. There was no way he was going to mess up the suit by crashing around in the woods, he thought.

  Twenty-Four

  Reduced to begging for gigs and no one had even shown Lloyd the courtesy of returning a call. Looking at his inbox Lloyd saw his email entreaties were similarly unanswered. His latest futile petition was to a hack he knew back in Los Angeles named Elliot Jonson, improbably now head-in-chief at the CBC in Toronto. Was Lloyd such a pariah he couldn’t even get a meeting at the lowly CBC? Yes, he was toxic. There was no loyalty in showbiz. You couldn’t count on anyone in the racket.

  Gin was reliable. Gin you could count on. Even Tanqueray stood up when there wasn’t Plymouth to be had.

  He sipped an eponymous Donnelly, the tumbler slippery and wanting to slide from his hand. Three measures of gin, one of Lillet, one of soda, and lime over ice. Proper ice, nice fat cubes. Last Lloyd heard, the cocktail’s inventor, Dapper Donnelly, was in the constant company of tax lawyers. Poor bastard. Donnelly was the best sort of man with whom to booze but a disastrous financial adviser. Lloyd’s networks were becoming patchwork.

  He willed a reverie; a couple, three Donnellys and a few rails of the best blow, under the pergola in the garden of his place in the Hills. Those were the days when Lloyd could afford to be the one not returning calls. Knowing he was only now getting what he deserved didn’t make it any better. It made it worse.

  Lloyd had come to dread opening the laptop on his brother’s dining table. No return emails from anyone in show business but ever increasing traffic on Harry Davenant’s Facebook page.

  Jaysus H. Christ some local artiste was trying to document Harry’s “journey” in photographs, because Mr. Davenant’s was “an important story that needs to be told,” but he couldn’t get close enough for a clear snap and was wondering if Harry responded to any “calls.” Yes, thought Lloyd, but only from his agent. Gin.

  There was a message Natalie had forwarded from some prof at the university who was writing a paper in which she was “asking again the unanswered ‘Question of the Animal.’” Lloyd scanned the long note — “animal theory,” “Felix Guattari,” “being naked,” “the doggishness of Diogenes.” She was asking permission for what? And from whom, exactly? There was no better place for a lunatic to hide in plain sight than the Academy. Gin.

  Why had Lloyd done it? Why had he planted the mischievous fib, put in their ears the lie that Harry was a deer? Storytelling for its own sake, a blue-balled hack’s wank? To prove how easily led was the crowd?

  Bitterness broke only its bearer. Whose fault was it that the LSPU Theatre closed down ten days before Lloyd’s play was going to open? Not Harry’s. Lloyd never expected the deer story would have such legs and it was still vaulting fences. Gin. Gin.

  If only Harry had not said to Lloyd that he was as happy, “happier even,” working with Sentry as a security guard. “Happier even”! That was what poisoned Lloyd. That was what made him do it. Not Harry’s sentiment, but that it could be true, that he could be happier as a security guard.

  Lloyd got up from the table and went to the door in the kitchen that exited into the backyard, deciding he should, with his brother Dave soon returning from France, accede to the demand that he not smoke in the house.

  He’d stopped into Caines Grocery the day before, to pick up the deck of fags, and they’d changed the whole place, renovated and modernized and modularized the works.

  Where would Lloyd go when Dave got back? What would he do? What would he do?

  Twenty-Five

  General Occurrence Report

  Case Heading:

  Date Reported to Police: 2013/07/02 Time: 15:30

  Earliest Date Occurred: 2013/06/20 Time: unknown

  Drugs/Alcohol Consumed: Yes No X

  Location of Occurrence: Bowring Park, St. John’s

  Location of Incident: Open area/public park

  Occupied by: Accused only

  Weapon Type: N/A

  Vehicle Type: N/A

  Shoplifting: N/A

  Stolen Property: N/A

  Type of Fraud: N/A

  Motor Vehicle Recovery:

  CCJS: Accused committed to mental hospital

  Complainant notified upon conclusion of file: Yes 2013/07/12

  How Notified: By phone

  Submitted by: Inspector Gary Mackenzie 2013/07/13 Awaiting disposition

  Accused, Harry Davenant of 72 Cochrane Street, was reported present in Bowring Park after closing. Multiple reports that accused was sleeping in the park. Other unsubstantiated reports that accused is suffering delusion of being an animal. Accused was hiding in wooded areas and avoiding contact. Park official reported surprising accused on trail in rarely visited part of the park and shouting at him as he ran away that accused could not be in the park at night. On 2013/07/09 Constable Markham told accused to leave park as accused successfully broke away from a foot pursuit in heavy brush.

  On 2013/07/11 at approximately 17:30 accused was spotted hiding in wooded area by Constable Kevin Maher. Constable Maher and Inspector Mackenzie pursued the accused. After lengthy foot chase Constable Maher apprehended the accused. Accused was cooperative but uncommunicative. Decision was made to take accused to psychiatric emergency where attending physician suggested accused be held for observation.

  Twenty-Six

  Alessandra once heard the term muscle memory and wondered if Jules seeming at ease, in his chair with a book in his hands, looking for all the world like he was reading, was an example. Did he remember how to be when he could no longer recall the what of things? Alessandra monitored his progress through the volume of Goldoni he was holding and determined he wasn’t following any logical course. It was a book from their case that a scholar with a focus on things Venetian should know but which Jules, to this point, thought Alessandra, had never before opened. She couldn’t be sure if he hadn’t picked a volume at random. She judged he was on the same page for days. He was going through the motions, and they were rocking him like a baby. Perhaps she shouldn’t interrupt him, leave well enough alone.

  “Jules?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened today? Did you get lost?”

  “They’ve changed it all.”

  “Yes, they have. Do you feel . . . do we need to get someone to help you when I’m not here?”

  “It’s that they changed it all around. If I’m familiar with the situation I will be
fine,” Jules said. “I got confused because they changed it all around.”

  “What did you want at the supermarket?”

  “Sooner not say.” Jules looked as if he wished to return to his book.

  “Okay,” said Alessandra. “Did you take that new medicine?”

  “I took my medication. It made me dopey. I don’t want to fall asleep and forget something. What I do, so I won’t forget I’ve put the kettle on, is I put on the timer every time I put on the stove.”

  “That is a good idea.”

  “What did you get up to today? Were you at the university?” asked Jules, sounding entirely like his former self. Such echoes were now so rare as to be jarring.

  “I went to Bowring Park to look for the man who thinks he’s a deer.”

  “Venison.”

  “I hope not.” Alessandra laughed. “Though I suppose if there is someone crazy enough to imagine they are a deer there is someone else crazy enough to hunt them.”

  “Venison. Venice. The Veneti . . . that word . . . it’s, that word is from a Proto-Indo-European root, µen — to want, to desire, to love.”

  “I didn’t know,” said Alessandra.

  “Related to venus, of course, love, and Sanskrit vanas, which is lust. Venal must be. And to the Germanic wini and the Old English wine, which means friend.” Jules smiled.

  Twenty-Seven

  How had Ms. Stokes, the social worker at the mental hospital, found Natalie? Through social media, Lloyd supposed. Good place for a social worker, social media. In each case, Lloyd judged the usage of social fuzzy, but then so were the times. Lloyd thought, every day now, that he should give up the fight, accept that the language war was over and lost and simply start texting every banal thought that came into his head in SMS chat abbreviations. Time for Lloyd to lay down arms, or better, don the uniform of one of the enemy’s fallen. “LOFL. JS”

  There was a poster encouraging safe sexual practices on the wall of the interview room. Why not? Head cases fucked as often as anyone, no? More, probably.

  How old was this Ms. Stokes? Late twenties? Early thirties or late? Natalie’s vintage, the age until recently he could forget he was not.

  “No,” she was saying to Natalie. No?

  “No,” Ms. Stokes said, “we should be clear about this. Mr. Davenant is not being released to your care.”

  “Oh,” said Natalie, “I thought . . .”

  “I couldn’t locate any family. And the examining psychiatrist says he’s not suffering any delusions.”

  “I’m glad for that,” Natalie said. “That’s the argument we’ve made all along. It’s not a delusion. Can we have a copy of the report?”

  “I’m not sure why . . .”

  “It would bolster our case.”

  “His medical record is private.”

  “Of course.” Lloyd thought it a wise time to jump in. “And as so little else is these days. What’s the story with the police?”

  “They aren’t going to arrest him. But if he returns to the park they will have no choice. They’ll probably charge him with trespassing and the park administration will likely get a peace bond.”

  “Of course,” said Lloyd again.

  “I’ll go get him,” said Ms. Stokes. “He can keep the clothes.” She left the room without shutting the door.

  “I have to say I’m pleasantly surprised,” said Natalie. “The psychiatric community are never so progressive. They’re agents for Big Pharma.”

  “I have no doubt you’re right,” said Lloyd, thinking he’d drop something from Big Pharma now if he had it. He noticed for the first time how odd was Natalie’s dress. An oversized baby-blue thick wool sweater fell over and exposed one of her shoulders. The top covered yet exaggerated her bum. She was wearing tights checkered with repeated Warhol images of Elvis. On her feet were high-top, bright burgundy, heavily-heeled Doc Martens. She didn’t need the extra height. “Harry will at least appreciate the lift home.”

  “I guess one doesn’t have any sort of gathering,” Natalie said.

  “I don’t follow.”

  “When released from a mental institution.”

  “Like a party?”

  “A small one,” Natalie said.

  “No, I don’t think so, not traditionally.”

  Over Natalie’s bare shoulder Lloyd saw him. “Here he comes.”

  “Act natural,” Natalie said.

  “Ah, Harry,” he said.

  Harry went to a wall, putting his back against it. Lloyd thought Harry’s posture was never so proper.

  “Harry!!!” Natalie went to hug the friend for whom she advocated without having ever met but saw that his position, flat against the wall, prevented his being embraced. “Don’t you look wonderful.”

  She was right. Harry was deeply tanned, bronzed as a yachtsman and almost lean. He must have dropped thirty pounds. He was in clothes quite unlike any Lloyd had known him to wear, beige cargo pants, a long-sleeved light turquoise T-shirt featuring some kind of product logo — a grinning purple fruit or berry — and white canvas deck shoes. He looked past Natalie, ignored her, and, unsmiling, found Lloyd’s eye.

  Lloyd knew actors, knew the maddest methods, knew the cool-headed psychopaths who could happily inhabit a soul built by a scribbler because they didn’t possess one of their own. Lloyd knew lazy fakes who could trade, for the length of a career, on charm. He knew fat-funnies and he knew players so inhumanly beautiful that they had only to stand before the camera to rule it. But he also knew a few of those true artists who governed their parts, who commanded them from within, yes, but also from without, who were in character and outside it, on and up above the stage and silently behind every person in every seat in the house.

  What was that look Harry was giving him? “It was you? Yes, of course. Today I learned it was you. A deer. It had to be you, Lloyd.” Or was Harry pulling some perverse kind of actors’ revenge on writers? “You want me to play a part? I’ll play it.”

  “Are there any papers, a release, to sign?” Lloyd asked Ms. Stokes, if only to free himself from Harry’s menacing regard.

  “No. Mr. Davenant is free to go.”

  Lloyd looked back and still Harry’s eyes were on him. “Then, shall we?” Lloyd said.

  Harry got ahead of Lloyd and Natalie in the hallways of the hospital. It didn’t seem as if his gait was any quicker but he was better able to glide through the crowd, find the gaps.

  An old woman stinking of piss howled a goodbye at the door. Harry was down the stone steps and on his way to the parking lot. Had he seen where Natalie parked her vehicle from a window within the institution?

  “Harry? Harry, we’re . . .”

  She was unheard. Harry broke into a weightless lope, like a lifelong runner starting his kilometres but with a higher, almost balletic kick. In less than six strides he cleared the parking lot. He bounded across the road without checking for traffic and, as quick as that, put the green of a loose hedge behind him and was gone.

  Lloyd felt Natalie’s hand in his, squeezing it. She was dew-eyed, her lip quivering at what they had witnessed. It was as if they were seeing their child off to his first day of kindergarten.

  Twenty-Eight

  Matt sensed that Alessandra needed to talk about what happened between them as urgently as he did. But fate denied them. As the last Parks and Public Spaces Committee concluded it seemed as if they might steal a moment when Planning Durnford intruded with another of his epic complaints. Alessandra simply walked away.

  Now, in the Monday private meeting of council, Matt was, from his elevated position at the front of the chamber, trying to catch her eye and communicate that they should stay behind when it was over. His efforts were impeded by Alessandra’s preoccupation with explaining something to Wally O’Neill that Matt knew Wally could never comprehend.

  “Par
king garages work against density; we are trying to increase density,” she said.

  “Can’t put anyt’ing up. Can’t build anyt’ing.”

  “No, Councillor O’Neill, you are not listening. I want to vote to approve the development. The proponent could have invested more in a structure of at least some architectural interest, but I agree the office space is needed.” Alessandra’s speech slowed now, as if she was explaining something to a young child. “I want the proposed parking garage severed from the proposal for the office building because I want to vote against the parking garage.”

  Matt watched Alessandra sit. She touched the tips of the fingers on her right hand to her temple as if to stem budding pain.

  “See, dat’s foolish,” said Wally. “Dey has to have a place to park.”

  “NOT IF THEY DON’T HAVE CARS!” Alessandra said without rising.

  “Councillor Cappello, you see the rent this crowd will be charging? Their tenants will have cars,” said Councillor Neary.

  “Of course they will own cars, but they will go to work without them.”

  “Why would dey do dat?” said Wally.

  “Because there would be nowhere to park them.”

  “You’ve lost me now, missus.” Wally laughed and, glancing toward Councillor Jardine, pointed at Alessandra as if to say, “Look at ’er, luh!”

  Matt sensed Alessandra was about to say something she would regret, so he interjected.

  “What she is saying, Wally, is that we want fewer cars coming downtown. Surely you see that the roads are blocked with traffic.”