Joshua Then and Now

by Mordecai Richler

  “Kevin, you’re incorrigible.”

  “I’m throwing a dinner party for some of the old gang here tonight,” he said, including Joshua in his appealing smile. “Tim Hickey, Dickie Abbott, and some of the others are driving in from town. Even Jane’s husband is coming out.”

  “Now you’ve gone and done it. You really have. Would you please not tell any of them about your big deal?”

  Ignoring her, he asked Joshua, “Don’t I even get to meet the kids?”

  The children were brought forward and introduced.

  “I’d be absolutely miserable,” Kevin said, “if the two of you didn’t join us for dinner.”

  Pauline looked to Joshua for a response.

  “The kids must be starving,” he said evenly.

  But before they could get away, Kevin said, “Champers at seven. And if you don’t mind, Joshua, I’ve brought one of your books along for you to sign for me. You have no greater fan in Bermuda.”

  Pauline and Joshua didn’t talk on the bumpy ride home, but the children wouldn’t let go.

  “I think he’s yucky,” Susy said, clinging to Joshua.

  But Teddy was impressed. “He sure can play tennis.”

  “Possibly,” Pauline said, “because he hardly does anything else.”

  Joshua fixed drinks for both of them. Pauline boiled sweet corn for the children. “Gee, golly,” he said, once they dispersed, “my biggest fan in Bermuda. What does he take me for?”

  “He’s leaving in the morning. We might as well go.”

  “He’s your brother, you go. I’m going to stay here and watch the ball game with the kids.”

  “I can’t go without you.”

  “What is he, a year younger than you are?”

  “Fourteen months.”

  “Jesus, a man of his age dressing like Tom Sawyer. No, Peter Pan. He’s fucking pathetic.”

  “But he wasn’t, once.”

  That stung.

  “Did you buy him his boat?”

  “I lent him enough money for a down payment.”

  “And he’s in such dire need he turns up here in a seaplane?”

  “Returning here after all these years scared him. He had to make a splash. So he rented a plane.”

  “We are a stiff-necked people,” Joshua said, pouring himself another drink. “That’s what we come from. Yessiree. A stiff-necked people. You should have seen yourself out there on that tennis court. Watching was indecent.”

  Her cheeks burned.

  “I thought,” he said, rounding on her, “that I could do nothing to embarrass you. You yelled at me out there.”

  She stared at him, startled. Clearly, she didn’t even remember.

  “With the kids out there, O.K., never mind, but right in front of the Westmount Pre-menopausal Hot Pants and Bigots Bend-an-Elbow Club.”

  “I’m sorry. I apologize.”

  “Champers with Peter Pan,” he muttered. “And what’s all that crap about meeting with the Argos people and offshore funds?”

  “Another pipe dream, that’s what. Some of them probably got drunk on his boat, and when he turns up at Georgian Bay they won’t even remember that they invited him there.”

  “Does he really live off fishing trips?”

  “He lives off women, if you must know.”

  “Why, that’s reprehensible.”

  “Oh, you can be such a prick sometimes, darling.”

  “We are a stiff-necked people.”

  “They have reason to resent him, Josh, and if I don’t turn up tonight they are going to skewer him, and they will certainly gloat for the rest of the summer if you fail to show.”

  “I’m not going to that little fart of a club, with its commodore in commodities, to have them watching and waiting for me to do something.”

  “You don’t have to do anything. Whatever are you talking about? He’s no threat to you. He’s no threat to anybody any more. But don’t make it impossible for me. I don’t want to go there alone.”

  “Go, Tinkerbell. Enjoy. I really don’t mind.”

  “Take me, Josh.”

  “No.”

  When Pauline finally emerged from her dressing room, showered and scented, touched with just a hint of eye make-up, her honey-colored hair freed of its restraining bauble, his Pauline, looking achingly beautiful in a white linen shift calculated to enhance her tan, he was consumed with regret. “I don’t mind driving you,” he said ruefully.

  “I’ve already ordered a taxi,” she replied, her voice also subdued.

  He trailed after her onto the front lawn. “Stay. I’m beginning to feel horny.”

  “Stop it. Please, Josh,” and she ran into the oncoming taxi lights, gesturing for old Orville Moon to stop.

  Wizened, mottled old Moon, with his lizardy eyes and yellow teeth, did not care for Joshua. Once he had stopped him in the village post office and asked, “Will you be needing a hunting license this autumn?”

  “No.”

  “I figured.”

  Joshua lingered on the lawn for a while, watching the ancient, battered taxi clatter off into the night. Fallen apples, soft, rotting, were everywhere. The trees needed spraying and pruning. The lawn smelled sweetly of cut grass, decay, and Pauline’s perfume. She would have dabbed herself behind the ears, on the backs of her knees, and between her breasts. I married a whore.

  The children, sensing his filthy mood, retreated to the safety of their beds. Except for Alex, naturally. Alex flicked on the TV set to watch the Expos. Joshua freshened his drink and started out for the porch. “Hey, Dad, I want to quit school.”

  “Everybody’s demented today. You’re only seventeen, Alex.”

  “So were you when you quit.”

  “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

  If Reuben had still been there, Joshua knew what he’d say. His father had actually lasted ten days with them this summer before he began to itch for the streets again. Once, during his visit, Joshua had wandered out after work to discover his father and Alex on the grounds, just this side of the tilting boathouse, with their boxing gloves and helmets on. Reuben Shapiro, once rated “Prospect of the Month” by the exacting Mr. Nat Fleischer, was instructing his grandson, even as he had once coached Joshua, in the fine art of jabbing, attended by Susy and Teddy, the cornermen, ready with towels and pails of water; and by a giggly Pauline, serving as referee.

  “Now you try that once more,” Reuben said. “Only remember: my chin’s not here, it’s another foot away. So when you jab at it you’re still gathering speed, get it, you’re not slowing down, anticipating bone, but still coming at me. And then, kid, it’s stick, stick, and away you go. O.K., Pauline, let’s hear it.”

  “Ding-a-ling,” Pauline called out. “Ding-a-ling.” And Joshua, filled with delight, thought, Hey, we’re some family. We really are some family.

  Drinking out on the porch, glaring at the country club lights across the lake, Joshua realized that he was eventually going to have to get out the Jeep and fetch her. Hell. And then, suddenly, there was a resounding crack of thunder, a rumbling across the water, and the lake was leaping with lightning. He was being pelted. But before retreating into the house, he did notice the clubhouse lights fail. A moment later, even as the lightning struck again, their own lights went out and he was bumping into things, cursing, hunting for a flashlight. O.K., he was going to fetch her, but should he take a knife? Like that other time on Ibiza.

  Ibiza, my God, he reflected, dashing for the Jeep, he hadn’t thought about Ibiza in months.

  Joshua decided to make a soup. That was constructive. It wasn’t avoiding work. Soup was nourishing for the kids, his responsibility these days. He poured the boiling water into a pot. He cubed six carrots and plunged them into the water. Oh shit, he forgot to peel them. The hell with it. He chopped some cabbage, discarding the moldy bits, diced some celery limp with age, adding salt, pepper, six Knorr chicken cubes, a handful of frozen peas, and last night’s corncobs retrieved from the gar
bage pail. Never mind, they add taste. He also found some mushrooms, a little slippery, somewhat fuzzy here and there, and wiped them with a dishtowel before adding them to the pot. Then he discovered some abandoned baked potatoes in the bottom tray and scooped them out, mashing vigorously, as they say, before dumping them into the pot for thickening. Waste not, want not. Slicing onions, he sneaked a glance at his wristwatch and noted that it was only 9:30. His rule was that only if he honestly didn’t get anything done before 11 a.m. could he write off the rest of the day. Even opening a tin of tomatoes and chopping parsley, even counting time to stir for taste, he would still be done before ten, when Mrs. Zwibock arrived for the day. Mrs. Zwibock, with her mindless chatter.

  The phone rang.

  “Hello, Joshua, I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

  “No. no. That’s O.K.”

  It was a call he feared. His bank manager, Gibson of the Royal. Would he like him to extend his $10,000 note, his overdraft, for another month? No sweat, mind you.

  “Now that’s not a bad idea,” Joshua said, trying to sound casual, adding that as soon as it was convenient he would bring in sterling to cover the note. “You can count on it, Hugh.”

  Joshua was now late with his school fees, and he had nothing set aside against this year’s taxes. Chargex’s computer was unhappy, and American Express was disappointed in him. No wonder he couldn’t work. What’s the point? If, he argued with himself, he could take the rest of the day off, tomorrow was bound to be good. He would make a clean start on that column. With his pretty new typewriter ribbon already in place, the keys freshly scrubbed and twinkly.

  Yes yes.

  Which was when the phone rang again. Jane Trimble, he thought, breaking into a sweat. Tell her we’re not to blame. But it was long distance. Peabody at Playboy, outlining an assignment which appealed to him but meant going to London. “I can’t do it,” he said, and he told Peabody about Pauline. Not everything, but enough. “I can’t fly anywhere now. I can’t leave the kids.”

  Even as he said that, he sensed Peabody tuning out, scratching his name off a list on his pad. “Wait. Don’t hang up. How are you?”

  “Hanging in there. Nothing terminal yet.”

  “And Janet?”

  “She’s had her consciousness raised. We separated last month.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Bless you. I couldn’t be more pleased.” There were two kids. They had, Peabody assured him in his most astringent manner, adjusted marvelously. “I mean, I used to see them every night, but I’d come home whacked and all I’d want to do was booze or watch football on TV. Now I see them only on the weekends, but as darling Janet has explained, I spend quality time with them. Are you sure you can’t go, or is it just that you want more money?”

  “Think of something I can do from here.”

  “From Canada? Are you out of your mind? You never should have gone home, Josh.”

  “Neither of us should have come back,” Joshua said, startling himself.

  “Maybe. Just maybe. À la prochaine fois, mon vieux. Hey, wait.” There was a pause. And suddenly Peabody laughed a reckless laugh, full-hearted, and Joshua found himself suffused with warmth, responding to the old charm. “Say there, Josh,” he said, “why don’t we clean out the old deux-chevaux and drive to Arles tonight? Or maybe Amsterdam?”

  “If only we could.”

  “God damn it,” Peabody said, his voice cracking, “what happened to everybody?”

  “Come on now,” Joshua replied without conviction, “it’s not that bad.”

  “Markham passed through Chicago last week. He invited me to his suite in the Ambassador East. Took me to lunch and whenever I mentioned a writer, he jotted down his name in a thin little Gucci pad. He offered me an annual retainer, a fucking pourboire, to put things his way.”

  “Markham’s rotten to the core.”

  “Yeah. Sure. Only I’m no better. I’m screwing my secretary. She’s twenty-two years old and has read Trout Fishing in America three times. She’s never heard of Saroyan. Never mind Saroyan – she thinks Henry James is the guy who wrote the script for a Montgomery Clift film we saw on the late show. And I’m so scared of being unable to satisfy her I drown her in gifts. I’ve had my hair styled. We listen to Elton John records together. Elton John. I’m going to be forty-nine.”

  Peabody, Markham, and Joshua had met in Paris in the fifties. In those days Markham was going to be a novelist – as who wasn’t, Joshua thought, grieving.

  Oh I remember Markham. Yes sir. Joshua once found out where Samuel Beckett lived and used to wait across the street from his flat, shivering in the rain for hours in the hope of seeing him venture forth. He never spoke to Beckett, but he would watch him pass and smile. Hey, there goes big Sam Beckett, a man who used to shoot the breeze with Jimmy Joyce.

  “Why don’t you introduce yourself, ask for an interview?” Markham asked. “I’m sure you could sell it somewhere.”

  “Bill, your presence alone would have been sufficient to taint the Sermon on the Mount.”

  No more ambitious than the rest of them really, Markham made the mistake of letting it show. If there was a New York publisher in town, he found out which hotel he was staying at and lay in wait for him in the bar. But, to be fair, he was also obliging. If you were without hashish, Markham, an abstainer himself, would provide. He was there to help when you had to move. He never made a pass at anybody else’s girlfriend. But possibly because he seemed to incorporate all these virtues in one restless, yearning body, just about everybody felt ill at ease in his presence. They used Markham, but they never trusted him, and Peabody was gratuitously insulting. “Tell me, Bill, do you set yourself a number of words to write each day?”

  Joshua had first met Peabody at 1 a.m. on an enchanting spring night outside the Café Royal, now Le Drugstore, on Place St.-Germain. 1951 it was. Elegant, spare, jauntily dressed, favoring a snap-brim fedora, Peabody was already a legend in the quartier, drinking his way through an inheritance, zooming from St.-Germain to Montparnasse and back again in a battered deux-chevaux, merrily denouncing everybody he met in the cafés as resoundingly third-rate. Energy and pushy Jewish mothers were not quite enough, he delighted in warning them. Talent would also be required. Marcel Proust made them look sickly. Jane Austen knew more than they did.

  Joshua espied Peabody often enough striding down the boulevard, not only the last of the family railroad money, but the world itself his inheritance. One night, soft with slanting rain and the smell of roasting chestnuts he would pluck a schoolteacher at random, the most innocent of American girls, from a table at the Mabillon, and sweep her off for a week in an auberge only he knew of on the banks of the Loire, rendering the husband she had yet to meet inadequate forevermore. Another night, after having painstakingly arranged an assignation at the Café de Flore with the visiting aunt of an old Exeter classmate, he would sit across the boulevard at the Café Royal well past the appointed hour, watching out of the corner of his eye as his quarry, alone at her table, increasingly distraught, turned back one scruffy importuning stranger after another until, all hope abandoned, she rose to depart. Only then would Peabody dash gaily across the boulevard, zigzagging through the oncoming traffic, to carry her off without apology or dinner to the seediest hotel in the quartier, a fleabag, where he would coolly strip her of what remained of her dignity, thrust her into a taxi when he was finished, and be back at the Café Royal within the hour to rage against the depravity of the times.

  Peabody was bankrolling and editing a little magazine, a typically snobbish and quixotic venture, with stories and poems in French, Spanish, and Italian as well as English, lavishing the last of his inheritance on his favored writers. He had never spoken to Joshua, he did not even acknowledge him on the street, so Joshua was delighted to catch the fastidious Peabody early one morning in the Café Royal, saddled with the embarrassing, complaining Melrose – Melrose, the banished Hollywood scriptwriter. Joshua, who had enjoyed a winning afte
rnoon at Maison Lafitte for once, was in rare high spirits. He stood at the bar, rocking drunkenly, shamelessly eavesdropping on their conversation. Then he buttonholed Melrose as they stepped outside.

  “I wonder if you know,” he said, “that on this very square, in front of that church, in the spring of 1557, the gentry of this charming quartier gathered in their thousands for a burning. Two Huguenots, who refused under torture to deny their faith, were dragged right out here and offered mercy: if they renounced their heresy, they would be strangled before they were roasted – à point, it goes without saying. If not, their tongues would be ripped out of their mouths. They didn’t take the Fifth,” Joshua said, leering. “They had the natural dignity to say no, without equivocation, and out came their tongues, the crowd roaring more, more. Afterwards they were tied to stakes, hoisted high, so that their loins might be reduced to ashes while the other half of their bodies remained intact. And so, my friend, Senator McCarthy should be looked on as comic relief. A puerile American variation on a European theme. And before he came along, your only heresy was to grovel to producers and write banal scripts for which you were most assuredly overpaid.”

  “Why, you creep,” Melrose began, “you crypto-fascist –”

  But Peabody was guffawing, delighted. “Why don’t you send me a story, Mr. Shapiro? I can’t promise to publish, but I will read it myself.”

  “Well now, I don’t write stories. I am a reporter. And what makes you think I’d want to be published in your pretentious little rich boy’s magazine in the first place?”

  One night much later, long after they had become friends and Joshua had become a regular at Peabody’s table in The Old Navy, joining him in jeering at the passing parade, he told him about his need to get to Spain. Peabody was charged with concern. He smiled his tender smile and said, “Try Ibiza.”

  “Ibiza?”

  “Ibiza,” he said.

  As Joshua recalled it, he yawned.

  Imagine.

  The lights had failed everywhere. Driving through the blackened village, the rain belting down, the streets awash, Joshua glanced at his dashboard clock. It was nearly 2 a.m. Shit, they can only be up to no good there. Those horny brokers and ad agency men with the slack, boozy faces, weekend John Waynes, utterly transmogrified once they held Canada Tire power saws in their hands. Or stood tall as Mr. Christian behind the masts of their Lasers. And their saucy, newly liberated wives running around braless, those steamy compost heaps they called vaginas sprayed with Misty or Oo La La!, taking themselves for sophisticates because they could now compare fucking notes as freely as their mothers had once compared strawberry shortcake recipes. What were they up to in the dark, those yahoos, and what did they want with Pauline?