The Ravine

by Paul Quarrington

  “Shirty?” suggests Bellamy.

  “Yeah. No reason to get all shirty.” Milligan doesn’t know the expression, but is willing to defer to Bellamy. He trusts her, perhaps more than he trusts any other human being; she does, after all, tend to his appearance.

  People tend to trust Bellamy, anyway. I guess I should describe her, being as she is the woman with whom I had an affair. You probably picked that up, I sure hope you did, I wouldn’t want you to think that I grope and leer at every woman who happens across my path. I suppose there was some leering done at Amy, the waitress at Birds of a Feather, and, to be truthful, there has been a little gropage here and there, which I discount as largely the result of overdrinking.

  Bellamy is a small woman but substantial, nowhere near fat but, well, there is some meat on her bones. In the imaginary Manitoban town there were dairies and immense cattle farms, and Bellamy was raised on a diet of healthy but fatty foods. Her skin radiates whole-someness, even though Bellamy has been citified to the extent that her clothes are often tight-fitting and revealing. Her hair is light brown and rambunctious, and she contains it with a variety of twists, sticks, pins, even the occasional bow. She has grass-green eyes and blindingly white teeth and she is young, there’s no getting around that. She is only twenty-eight years of age, and I will be fifty in two years (or—another way of putting that, given the pace at which I’m composing—sometime near the end of this book). She is cute, rather than beautiful. (Veronica is beautiful.) She is almost always smiling, and only isn’t when listening to another’s problems, when offering solace. Many people turn to Bellamy with their trials and tribulations; she possesses good sense abounding, and receiving a hug from her is a great treat. In bed she is athletic and playful, and that last adjective is important, at least in terms of understanding my infidelity.

  I should make it clear here and now that I don’t mean to excuse my behaviour. But neither do I mean to simply kick my ass around the block, which would be every bit as tiresome, wouldn’t it, as a litany of lame justifications. I guess the thing is that the past is the past, as hard and permanent as stone. So I did what I did. I must therefore have had my reasons, although at the time I could not have stated with any clarity what they were. I still can’t, although I am getting some clues. Like this playfulness thing. Every time Bellamy stripped off and leapt upon the mattress it was as though it were the first time. Not that she was virginal, more that she’d forgotten that there were standard procedures and practices. Bellamy would invent the act anew, which may be a little hard to comprehend without you having been there. I want to avoid unseemly details, but I’ll cite, as an example, the occasion in which Bellamy backed up into me with such determination that I half-heard an insistent beep-beep-beep.

  The matrimonial bed was a little stern. A bit grim, if you want to know the truth. I’m not alluding to any frigidity on Ronnie’s part; she was game enough (if only occasionally so) but rather single-minded in her quest for release, which sometimes placed me on the sidelines, like a coach, even a cheerleader. That’s fine, you know, every man for himself, but problems started popping up—actually, I’ve made a little joke without anyone, you or me, realizing it, because problems didn’t pop up. Ah-hah. The spirit was indeed willing, but the flesh was weak.

  I discussed this with my doctor, and he prescribed some drugs that worked, the only problem being that the drugs had to be ingested an hour before lovemaking. Ronnie liked spontaneity, and I was deprived forever of this luxury. I took oodles of pills on the off chance that the night held promise, but too often she drifted off to sleep and I lay beside her, lightheaded, all my blood rerouted to an aching, wailing penis. And many times Ronnie caught me unprepared. I would do what I could, but this was too often not good enough, so, like any sensible couple, we simply ceased discussing any of this. We certainly didn’t seek counsel, which maybe should be the motto of our civilization, emblazoned on the entranceways to subway stations and shopping malls: seek counsel.

  When I did go visit Bellamy at her apartment, once every three weeks or so, I was already fired up when I knocked upon the door. So inside the tiny one-bedroom (which she shared with a number of stuffed animals and a live turtle, although it was barely more animate than its roommates) I became a fully functioning lover, although I gather I fell short of noteworthy studliness. “That was swell,” was something Bellamy tended to say, or “Nice!”

  Okay now, I’m bailing out. These things shall be addressed again, as well as all the aspects I’m avoiding: how the affair was discovered, Ronnie’s reaction (!), things like that. In terms of novelizing, I see I have a couple of story-points to cover (in the argot of the television industry, I have beats to hit) before moving on to the next section.

  One takes place in the makeup trailer, where I am achieving emotional equilibrium by bickering with Milligan on one hand, and basking in the subdued light of Bellamy’s affection on the other. And I challenge Milligan, I say, “Why don’t you read the Bible? I mean, you’re the one who prides himself on the research you do for your roles, did it ever occur to you to pick up a copy of the Big Book and have a little peek inside?”

  Milligan actually prides himself on being someone known as someone who prides himself on his research. I don’t believe he ever did a lick of the stuff, but he plucks up my challenge. “Okay, smartass,” he snaps. Milligan looks at himself in the mirror, adjudges himself perfect and leaps from the chair. “I’m going to do that.”

  When he leaves the trailer, Bellamy and I kiss, I fondle her breast, everything is quite pleasant for a few minutes. Then I return to my office, although you should know that, halfway to the main building, something inside me bellows and then deadens. I stumble and go down onto my knees. A grip comes out of the Craft Services truck and lifts his eyebrows. “What’s the matter?”

  I don’t have the wherewithal to create a response, the question being so dismal and massive.

  And the next beat: given the proclivities of (what my mother called) the little man, how did I fare when Our Lady of Perpetual Mercy Fucks decided I required her blandishments and blessings? Well, um, I did okay. It was largely a case of Rainie van der Glick not taking no for an answer; after all, she had come to perform a little miracle and she was determined to do so.

  I got up, slipped on my clothes in the darkness. Not knowing what to say, but wanting to say something, I offered a lame “Thanks.”

  “It’s” said Rainie van der Glick dramatically, “what you need.”

  “Hi. It’s you.”

  “What?”

  “See, it’s not me. It’s not all about me. It’s you.”

  “Ah! A highly amusing canard.”

  “Have you been sleeping with Willie Beckett?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, you know. It’s a joke. Only not funny.”

  “Phil, Phil, Phil. Don’t make me shoot for sole custody. The girls couldn’t stand it, and neither could I, but when you act like this—”

  “Like what?”

  “You’re lit to the tits.”

  “Why do you say that? Who have you been talking to?”

  “Oh man, I can tell when you’re drunk. I used to believe I could tell how much you’d had as soon as you walked through the front door. Or stumbled into the bedroom, whatever. I’d take a look and say, um, Four pints and a shot of single malt. Three vodka martinis. A bottle of wine, not a particularly good one. I can’t do that any more, Phil. You’re off the scale.”

  “No, it’s just a funny expression to use, lit to the tits.”

  “Because you don’t technically have tits?”

  “I really don’t like discussing tits with you.”

  “We’re not discussing tits.”

  “I miss yours.”

  “What about your little whatever-her-name-is, Bellamy? She’s got tits, doesn’t she?”

  “She’s not mine. I’m not with her.”

  “You have no right to miss my tits.”

  “I can’t h
elp it.”

  “Listen, it’s good you called.”

  “It is?”

  “Because I need to discuss something with you. I want to go on a little trip, you know, get out of the country and this foul weather for a week or so.”

  “Oh. Sure, you deserve a holiday.”

  “So I’m going to Mexico.”

  “Mexico? Mexico is dangerous.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m going with Kerwin.”

  “Kerwin?”

  “My friend Kerwin.”

  “Oh. Fine. Fine. Just one thing, won’t Kerwin miss too much school?”

  “No, not really. He can trade off his teaching assignments—”

  “He’ll fall too far behind with his homework.”

  “Oh. Very funny.”

  “When would this expedition take place?”

  “In three weeks. We leave on November 15.”

  “Wait, wait, wait. I thought you said you wanted to discuss this with me. What kind of discussion is We leave on November 15?”

  “Fine, it’s not a discussion. Mark it on your calendar.”

  “And who’s paying for this trip?”

  “Kerwin.”

  “Really? How long has he been saving up his allowance?”

  “Give it a rest, Phil.”

  “He didn’t have to break open his piggy bank, did he?”

  “Hey. Kerwin is older than fucking Bellamy.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I’m not going to Mexico with Bellamy.”

  “Well, get a life, Phil. You wanted another life, you certainly didn’t like your life with me, so go get another. I did. And I like it.”

  “See, that’s just it. I never wanted another life.”

  “That’s what you say. That’s what you may think. But it obviously didn’t mean anything to you, our life together, because you were willing to risk it. And now it’s gone, Phil. It is so gone.”

  “Maybe we should see, you know, a marriage counsellor.”

  “Oh, come off it. That’d be like taking a car that was totalled to a mechanic. This is beyond fixing, Phil.”

  “But I can change, I can change. Like didn’t I say, It’s not me, it’s you?”

  “You can’t change, Phil, because you don’t know who you are. You have no concept of the things you do, or why you do them. You’re a mystery, an enigma. A fucking black hole. And you’re just not capable of change. You may be capable of learning little tricks—It’s not me, it’s you—but notice that it is still you, I tell you about my trip to Mexico and your reaction is to get your dick all twisted, you have the emotional intelligence of a thirteen-year-old. A mature human being would tell me to have a great time.”

  “That’s pushing it. I’m supposed to say, Have a great time with your boy lover. Have a great time bouncing from bed to bed in some resort, snorting pina coladas to replenish energy and fluids?”

  “The girls say you never have anything good to eat over there.”

  “Whoa. What happened to that conversation we were having?”

  “It ended.”

  “You could have at least made some half-hearted segue. Speaking of replenishment, the girls say, and what do you mean? I have all sorts of good things to eat.”

  “Pickled eggs?”

  “Yeah, I got pickled eggs.”

  “I know you have pickled eggs. That’s all you have, a jar of pickled eggs. And the girls loathe them, in fact, I don’t know a single person who likes pickled eggs. I don’t even think you like pickled eggs.”

  “No, I hate ’em. I thought the girls liked them.”

  “If you want, I’ll help you do the shopping for when I’m away.”

  “Oh, fuck.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know, the whole notion is just sickening, that’s all.”

  “The notion of me going away with Kerwin?”

  “Yeah, and the notion of you helping me shop for while you’re away, while you’re flipping from bed to bed with Kermit. I think I have to go throw up, now.”

  “You’re off the scale, Phil. You have to do something. I worry about you.”

  “Like shit, you do. Bye-bye.”

  “Okay, we ’ll talk in a few da—”

  12 | KÜNSTLERROMAN

  I PRINT OUT ALL THE TIME, EVERY FIVE PAGES OR SO, THE PRINTER spitting papers into the gloomy sittingroomette. From there I ferry them into the kitchenette, where I do my proofing at the little table. You may find it hard to credit, but I take pains. I adjust adjectives and adverbs, I tinker with syntax and there is often wholesale excising that must be done. I am, these past few days, driven to do this not so much out of artistic pride as out of bitter pettiness, because Hooper’s novel Baxter was indeed nominated for the Giller Prize. His novel was also placed on the short list for the Governor General’s Literary Award. What irks about this is not the sudden fame Hooper has gained (there is an arts magazine show on CBC television that now features him weekly), nor is it the money he’s made (the rumour is that the sale to the American publishers was for half a million bucks), but rather the fact that Hooper has, against all odds, lived his life with determination and dignity. He has spent years grinding out novels, fat and dense and often unreadable. Hooper has existed in penury and squalor. His situation has, from time to time in the past, been ameliorated by the acquisition of a rich girlfriend, but Hooper has resisted any and all civilizing attempts, and these women have vanished. And instead of dying penniless and obscure, he has become rich and famous. Is there no justice?

  The true target of my anger is, of course, myself. I chose not to live in penury and squalor, my present situation notwithstanding. Instead I went to work in teevee land, I jumped into Beckett’s fabulous river of money, and you have probably gathered that all my claims of seduction and coercion are groundless.

  Any ambition I may have had to be a novelist was abandoned early on, when I decided that my talents were more suited to the theatre. I don’t feel guilty about that choice; playwrighting is an honourable profession that offers more than ample opportunity to die penniless and obscure. I even lived happily enough in destitution, banging out my plays on an old typewriter, the kind that might have been toted behind enemy lines by a hardened, alcoholic war correspondent. And I resisted civilizing every bit as categorically as Hooper; there was a sizable percentage of Toronto’s female population who thought me one of the great assholes of all time. So what went wrong?

  Well, I met Ronnie Lear, and tumbled into love. I consider it love at first sight, although I’ve described how I initially spent many minutes staring at her, wary and vaguely nauseous. But when she laughed, I was doomed; I set about winning her.

  She was with Hooper, which I didn’t really consider too great an obstacle. True, he was much better looking than I. (In fact, a recent newspaper profile granted him “movie-star good looks,” a phrase that sent me scuttling for the toilet.) Hooper was also much more charming, erudite and amusing than I, at least he usually was. But I saw with delight that in the company of Miss Lear he wasn’t being himself. His Shavian wit quit him; he quipped in a desperate, scatter-gun manner, hoping that something would hit the target. (The target being Veronica’s delectable funny bone.) His more serious, learned comments didn’t fare any better. He would quote philosophers, refer to ancient texts, summarize Victorian novels in an offhand manner. It got him nowhere. Sometimes Veronica would gaze upon him as though he were a blithering idiot, and when that happened, Hooper invariably became one.

  “But but but,” he’d stammer, “you’ve read Daniel Deronda, haven’t you?”

  “Naw-uh. What did he write?”

  “No, no. He’s a book. I mean, it’s a book. It has a man’s name, but it’s a book. That is what we call an eponymous, um, did you want another drink?”

  Myself, I had nothing to lose and, when sitting at a crowded table in the Pig’s Snout, would patiently await my chances. When they came, I would get off a good one, amusing the table and invariably delighting Ms. Lear. O
ne has one’s moments, you know. And although it shames me to admit it now (at the time, of course, I had no shame), I would often bring a young woman with me. I would lavish attention and affection upon my date, which was usually reciprocated; this helped nurture the illusion that I was desirable.

  Mind you, I knew that I couldn’t attempt a direct romantic onslaught. I was bound by the Male Code of Honour, a vague canon of conduct that some of us had hammered out in the belly of the night while pissed as newts. John Hooper was one of its most influential authors, the one who had decided that there must be consequences, punishment for transgressions. Therefore, when a young theatrical director named George Gordon treated his girlfriend with what even we could see was contemptible contempt, Gordon was forced to apologize publicly and to offer an engagement ring as a token of atonement. (The woman in question, thank god, declined; I have enough weighing on my conscience without that.) Some of the chastisements were harder to bring into effect. So, for example, if I obviously tried to bird-dog Hooper’s girlfriend, a drunken tribunal would be convened, and it would rule, oh, that I should join the Foreign Legion. Or the priesthood. Or that I should be doomed to stumble along the sidewalks forever, half-drunk and maudlin, my heart destroyed not by romance but by my own despicable betrayal. Who needs that?

  What I did instead was write a play. I would guess that it took me about a month, but that is not the way I remember the act of creation. It seems to me that I sat down behind my old typer one night, armed with cigarettes and whiskey, began banging away and did not stand up until my crippled fingers had beaten out the words “Lights down.” From there I staggered into the Pig’s Snout, and threw the thing onto the table. “You might want to give this a read, Ronnie,” I said. “There’s a good part there for someone like you.”

  Someone like you. I believe I really said that, so fundamentally crafty am I. The part could only have been played by her, that was the whole point. I might as well have written:

  Enter HESTER, a young woman of incredible beauty. We get the impression that her father is Scottish and her mother Malaysian.