“Lots of sympathizers in there from faculty, too, you know. And one of the Math professors just sent in fifty coffees for us.”
“I suppose Mike Armstrong is in there with the other colonels?”
“Yup. We can put you down for a shift or two?”
“You can not.”
“Then do you mind getting out of the way here. Look, you guys — look — photographers! Christ, this is great. Please move out of the way, Miss Doyle. Hold your signs up high, guys.”
I decamp without delay, having no ambition to see my picture in the papers. The loose aggregate of onlookers has by now thickened into a small crowd, and it grows as the pressmen level their bulky cameras at the house. As I edge away from the path I suddenly find Bill beside me among the spectators. His head, all but a heavy frown, is retracted behind the wings of his turned-up coat collar.
“Hi, Willy. Better now? What do you think of this caper? They won’t let me in to my office. Damn it, they’re so hot on human rights, what about mine? Well, up to now I’ve been neutral. Now I know who I’m neutral against.”
“Come on, let’s get some coffee at the Hideaway,” I suggest. But at that moment a little whirl of excitement boils through the crowd. Five police cars have turned into the street and pulled up opposite us. A score or so of large men, thick in their winter uniforms, get out and hitch up their holsters in a businesslike way. Their brass buttons wink in the sun. They group together briefly, and then, at a signal from one of them, march heavily up the path to the front door. Necks crane to see the action. Someone pushes me. A brief and quiet colloquy takes place at the door. We can hear voices, but not what is said. Then suddenly a scuffle breaks out. A student shoves violently past me, hurling his placard like a lance into the deep snow. Several others are then escorted down the path, each in the firm grip of a policeman. They are put into a police van that has just parked behind the patrol cars.
“Fascists!” a young voice yells.
“Pigs!”
“Come on, you guys — get those doors!”
But support is wavering and scattered. The police now have control. They disappear inside the building, leaving two of the burliest posted at the entrance. Swaying, fascinated, the crowd watches in silence. The pressmen, who have been clicking away avidly, wait too. A mobile TV unit has now drawn up to add to the congestion in the road. There is a long pause. “Oh, the hell with it; my feet are cold,” says Bill. “I’m going home.” He disappears.
All the rest of us linger. It’s as close as most of us will ever get to watching history happen. And before long we are rewarded. A straggle of students with backpacks begins to file out of the front door. They are not under escort; the police at the door barely glance at them, and they seem in effect to disappear without trace among the crowd. Last of the group is a young woman in a long, hooded cape. She comes out alone and walks quickly away — surely it must be Molly, but she has kept her face hidden.
Another pause follows. Then a pair of uniformed men emerge abreast in the doorway. Slung between them like a hammock is a big, dark girl in jeans and a maxi-coat that drags on the snow. Yes, I recognize the bottom. Mike’s girl. One after another of the students is hoisted out of the building in the same way, and deposited in the waiting van. Mike’s long legs dangle, awkward as a lamb’s, and his jacket is torn, but he looks gloriously happy: his face is one huge smile. The others hang limp in the grip of authority, their faces impassive. The police who carry them pant and perspire. In the still crowd I can hear their leather accoutrements squeak and their big boots crunch the snow.
Dramatically last of all, Harry Innis is carried out, arms and legs spread-eagled in the grasp of two cops. By some triumph of character or conviction he manages to appear dignified in spite of this ludicrous posture. I stare at him curiously. In his bearded face there is the calm look of a man fulfilled. All round him the cameras whirr and click. One of the policemen carrying him stumbles and mutters “Calice!” but he and his colleague wear indulgent half-smiles. This is a day’s work to them, not destiny unfolding. A sort of dim and perhaps ironic cheer goes up from what is left of the crowd, which has already begun to scatter as people do when a parade is over.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THEFT
When my buzzer sounds, just after nine in the evening, I am startled; even mildly alarmed. I’m not expecting anyone. And since yesterday’s episode at Cartier, my appetite for combat has somehow quite disappeared, and the idea of a stranger at the door puts me into a silly flutter of indecision. Shall I answer it or not? In the end, however, I can’t bear to be left wondering who is there; so I go and squint through the peephole, feeling ridiculous. At first, owing to a poor choice of angle, I can see nothing but the opposite wall of the corridor. Then I see the top third of someone’s head in a white fur hat. Molly Pratt’s grey eyes meet mine. Hurriedly I unbolt the door.
“Come in, Molly. Sorry I was slow to answer.…”
Without smiling, Molly pulls off her boots and steps inside shoeless, in which state she looks no taller than a child. As she moves past me, taking off the fur hat, I catch a whiff not only of her musky perfume but of whiskey. With my experience I know that odour of demolition only too well.
“Come in and sit down, do. I’m so glad you’re here. What can I get you? — coffee? A drink?” She says nothing at all, but makes for the sofa while I grope for small talk. “Nice of you to drop in,” I add, wondering even as I say so whether it really is or not. Her face, usually so alight and alive, is sombre, almost grim. And I notice with a little shock that she has had all her lovely long hair cut short, cropped like a little boy’s, with a fringe falling across the forehead. It makes her look startlingly different — bolder, harder, older, though not less attractive.
“Rye, if you have it, with a bit of water,” she says economically.
Luckily I have recently acquired a small bottle of rye; Bill sometimes prefers it to gin. I bring in a tray with two glasses, the stiff ginger-ale being for me, and she at once takes a long swallow from hers.
“Tell me what’s been happening, Molly.”
“Well, I’ve had a somewhat mind-bending day.”
“Yes, I suppose.… How’s Harry?”
“In jail.”
“Really? But it said in this morning’s paper they were all released on bail.”
“He wasn’t. Do you know what those bastards set his bail at? Fifteen thousand dollars. That’s Fraser’s work, of course. They know damn well we can’t raise that kind of money. Not in a hurry, anyhow. Furthermore, Harry’s being awkward. Says he won’t accept bail money: he’d rather wait for trial in Bordeaux. I saw him this afternoon. He’s got a huge bruise on his cheekbone and one eye swollen tight shut.”
“Oh, Molly.”
“He told me how it happened. ‘I called one of the fuzz a bugger for shoving me, and immediately after that I fell downstairs.’ That’s what he said, with this big meathead cop sitting right near us picking his nose.” She pauses to take another thirsty gulp of her drink. “Well, of course none of this is doing Harry any particular good. He’s talking now about getting right out of the Western world, going to China. He says it’s the freest country in the world. And of course he’s just asked for a lot of this mess. I mean, letting that reporter quote him about Fraser being ignorant and bigoted — I begged him not to do that, but … And then his father calls up last night from Utah and cries over the phone, as if I could have prevented it all. Well, I wasn’t even able to get much sense out of Harry today, and that’s the truth.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Well, being beaten up by the arm of the law doesn’t help anybody to think straight.”
“No, I’m sure it doesn’t.”
“Of course he’s been moving further and further left for a long time now. Ever since the start of term. It’s really been getting to him that freedom or justice simply don’t exist here, whether it’s on campus, or in Quebec, or in the whole of North America. And the smug hypocri
sy of the Establishment is enough to make anybody vomit that knows how they really operate.” She puts down her empty glass with a clack. “Thanks, I’d love another. Christ, I’m wound so tight I could take off like a rocket. Where’s your john? Be back in a minute.”
Off she goes, slim as a boy in her tailored white shirt and black trousers. I have never seen her dressed like this before. The trousers are very becoming.
“Then I went downtown to see our lawyer. One of those French Canadians who speak better English than we do. Brilliant guy. He’s the one who won that big case for the waterfront union — you know — I forget their name — last year. He says Harry’s got a perfect case against Cartier. They’ll have to give him his job back or pay a big whack of compensation money. And of course he also promised to raise hell about Harry’s black eye, though I don’t know what good that’ll do.”
“Well, it’s something, I suppose.”
“Sure. But the point is, can you see Harry getting another academic appointment after this? Like hell you can. There’s the C.A.U.T. of course; but by the time we get his appeal through their committees, and his actions vindicated, and all that, he’ll be forty. I mean, who’s got forever?”
“Nobody,” I murmur soothingly. She is indeed very tightly wound, and the rye seems to be having anything but a tranquillizing effect. Her hand trembles so much as she lifts her glass that the ice in it rattles.
“Trouble is, I don’t really like LaSalle,” she says. “The lawyer. I don’t even, actually, trust him. How can you trust a guy who wears a bow tie?” With a malicious little smile she stretches out her legs to prop her feet on the coffee table. “No old girl of Miss Edgar’s ever trusts a man in a bow tie. Best boarding school in town. What training. Never trust any man in any tie. They’re only any good with their clothes off, men. That’s what we didn’t learn at Miss E.’s. Only this guy LaSalle has little tiny eyes and he takes your pants off with them — you know.”
“I know.”
She draws a long sigh. For a moment there is silence.
“Will you try to raise bail for Harry, then?” I ask.
“Yes, I guess so. He can’t stay in that awful place out of sheer bloody-mindedness. I guess we can raise the money somehow. His people are farmers, poor as fleas; but my father might help a bit. Only, he remarried last year and they’re living on pensions in a little apartment in the Bahamas. They haven’t got much, actually.”
“And your mother …?”
“Mum cancelled herself with a lot of sleeping pills when I was fourteen.”
“— Look, Molly, I could help. I’ve had a lump of cash just sitting around ever since last summer when I sold our old house in Rosedale. So don’t hesitate — I’d be glad —”
She looks at me. “Willy, do you really mean that?”
“Of course, or I wouldn’t say it.”
Her hand slides across the sofa and slips into mine. It is a cold, small hand, with frail little bones, and it grips as if it wanted help, though exactly what it is asking for is difficult to say.
“Can I have another drink, Willydoyle? Rich Willydoyle?”
“Sure.” But out in the kitchen I make it a very weak one. And I set the coffeepot on the stove in readiness. Some of her tension seems to have transferred itself to me, and everything I touch rattles and clatters. When I get back to the sitting room, I find she has stretched out at full length on the sofa with her hands behind her cropped head. Her eyes are closed, but she is still talking too much and too fast.
“Thank God for now, anyway,” she says. “For being a woman now, and not fifty years ago. I am completely happy, you know, Willy.”
“Are you?”
“Of course I am. No frustrations. No hangups. I’ve got my freedom, my own salary, my profession, my status as a person.…”
“And on top of all that, you’ve got Harry.”
I intend no irony, but she frowns.
“Yes. Well, actually — for a while there, I had quite a thing going for him — but lately, I don’t know, it’s been wearing off a bit. Don’t know why, really. He’s pressuring his wife for a divorce. He wanted me to have — I mean he wants kids and all that. In a few years. Only I don’t know — I think I’ll hang onto my freedom. I’ve sort of had marriage. Last night, for instance, I ran into an old friend — actually a guy I lived with for a while after John — and we went dancing. I mean, you must admit it’s great to be free.”
“Great,” I agree, trying to sound enthusiastic.
Her glass is empty again. “Just one more little smash, please, and then I’ll go home. You probably go to bed at ten and get up early to eat wheat germ.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Oh, Bill’s influence, maybe.” She giggles briefly. “He’s very hot on wheat germ, Billy Boy.”
I would like very much to ask, “How do you know?” but before I can say it she has gone on.
“What I’d like to do this summer is go to Greece and see all those gorgeous islands. There are some good, cheap tours, you know. Maybe you’d like to come with me. More fun than clammy old Cape Cod, which is Harry’s idea of bliss. Wouldn’t it be great, all that sun and old stone and the blue sea.…” She sits up to receive the new drink. This time I have made it almost non-alcoholic because dark rings have formed under her eyes and her voice has slowed down as if it weighed too much to move easily.
“We could do any damn thing we wanted to, Willy. I don’t think you realize that. You have to use your freedom. Live it. Right? We don’t even really need men any more.”
I knit my fingers together and frown at the floor. Without wanting to, I think of my mother’s imprisonment by convention, and of my own “liberated” life, sealed inside a loneliness without date or boundaries. Molly leans forward, her dark head in her hands. What has she come here for? Does she know, herself? Do I dare to guess? The newly exposed nape of her white neck looks tender and vulnerable. I would like to touch it. To —
“God, I’m really exhausted. Also stoned out of my mind. Forgive me, Willy; I’ve got to go before I pass completely out. Could you be an angel and call me a cab?”
“I’ll do better — I’ll run you home. Come and get your coat and things.” It turns out that she cannot negotiate her feet into the boots until I sit her on the floor and put them on for her. She puts her own hat on, after a fashion, muttering to it, “St. James Street puppet.” In the car she falls asleep and I have some ado to get her up the long stairs to her apartment and open the door with her key. She leans against the wall watching my efforts with a drowsy smile.
“Now can you manage?” I ask, steering her inside.
“Yes, yes, yes. I can manage. You’re a good man, Charlie Brown.”
“Give me a ring, Molly, whenever you like, about that bail business.”
“All righty. Bye-bye.”
She is still smiling when I close the door; but I don’t feel much amused. Nor did Lucy find much to laugh at when she played a man’s role but kept her skirts on. In fact, she wisely resolved never to act the male again, on the grounds that she enjoyed it too much, and it might prove dangerous. And how right she was.
Returning from a brief sortie to the library the next afternoon, I am somewhat taken aback to find my office door ajar, with a pungent eddy of smoke drifting through the aperture. In my swivel chair sits a large masculine form, tilted back at a perilous angle.
“Oh, it’s you, Archie.”
“Do you always leave your office door open, miss? Have you never heard of theft?”
“I have nothing anybody would steal.”
He sits up, drawing a faint shriek from the chair, and eyes me searchingly over the stub of his cigar. “Depressed? So am I. It’s the weather. First thaw always does it. Sit down. Have you got your exam paper ready for the novel course?”
“Afraid not.”
“Today’s the deadline, you know. Now we have all these clever machines it takes them much longer to print the papers. Why aren’t y
ou ready?”
“Sorry. It’s been hard to work lately.”
“Well, you’re not the only one to find it so,” he says with severity. “Whole department’s by the ears. Emma’s not speaking to Molly. Harry is still incarcerated. Bill thinks he has shingles. As for the old man — ‘He wept that he was ever born / And he had reasons.’ Eh?”
“Shingles! Poor Bill.”
He directs a fierce scowl at me. “I have just had the verbal equivalent, namely a monumentally unpleasant interview with the Principal. He appears to feel that recent developments can all be directly traced to my mismanagement. My evil influence. My incompetence. He touched at length on all these points.”
“Well, that was damned unfair of him. To put it mildly.”
“Of course he’s loathed me for years. He’s a profoundly dishonest man. Whereas I, whatever else can be said of me, am at least honest. God knows I have my sins, but trickery, treachery, fraud, and deceit are not among them. Every word Harry was foolish enough to say about him for publication is true. And of course you realize that Harry’s case is sound. His judgement is quite another matter. There I can’t support him. Nor do I like the man. But I believe he’s acted within his rights — his legal rights. When I told Fraser so, he bared his teeth at me in that vulpine smile of his, and said that loyalty to a junior colleague was no doubt highly commendable in a chairman. Freely translated, that means my own appointment as chairman will probably not be renewed this spring.” With a gloomy flourish he stubs out the cigar and throws himself back in the chair again.
“But that’s outrageous!”
“Ah well. I don’t really care, you know. Never really liked administrative chores. And I’m getting near retirement. It’s time somebody younger took over.” He eyes me sidelong.
“Oh, rubbish,” I say briskly.
“Not at all, miss. But it cuts rather near the bone, just the same, Fraser’s view. As a father-figure I’ve certainly been a bit of a dud lately. I’ve had many talks with Harry, you know, particularly during this year; but I’ve completely failed to convince him some of his more radical views are unsound. If I’d managed even to moderate some of his actions, I could have averted the crisis we’re in now. No, it’s right to replace me. I’m a spent match.”
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