Tonight Tom Clarkson had a problem. Over the past three days Tom hadn’t returned four phone calls from Lionel Gursky’s office and now Harvey, the family’s pet cobra, was coming to the house, having been impulsively invited to the party by Beatrice. Mind you, she hadn’t had much choice in the matter. On Monday she ran into him at Dionne’s, Harvey introducing himself, explaining they were neighbours now. “I’ll bet you’re an Expo fan. Any time you want to use my box, just let me know.”
Tuesday she met Honor Parkman for drinks at the Ritz and when she called for the bill she found that it had already been paid, which baffled her until Harvey leaped up from another table and waved frantically.
Out to walk the corgi on Wednesday, Beatrice found Harvey lying in wait. “You’re going to have to cope with a lot of cars on Friday night. I know. We entertain a lot too. In fact, as soon as you’re settled in you and Tom simply must come to dinner.”
“Thank you.”
“Anyway I just wanted you to know you can direct as many cars as you like into our driveway. We won’t be going out Friday night, so it doesn’t matter if they block the garage entry.”
Beatrice, of whom Tom’s old friends knew distressingly little, was considerably younger than he was. One night when the Clarksons’ Volvo had broken down on Champlain Bridge, she astonished everybody by leaping out in spite of Tom’s protests, diving under the hood, calling for a rag and a wrench and setting things right. Laura Whitson had once seen her striding down Sherbrooke Street biting into an apple. Betty Kerr, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on it, felt that she was somehow too experienced for her age. There was something about her, a suggestion that she hadn’t been bred but had scratched to reach her present position, that made the other wives uneasy if not yet censorious. It didn’t help that they were unable to place her, not having been to school with her. Or that their husbands, once having been introduced, gratuitously protested that they found her a tich vulgar, but couldn’t they have her to dinner next week, if only for good old Tom’s sake.
Her freshly styled bouffant hairdo towering over her like a lacquered black helmet, her fingers swollen with rings heavy as knuckle-dusters, Becky wiggled into a shimmering silvery sheath especially acquired for the party.
The Clarkson living room was filled with chattering strangers, the sort on whom it only rained capital gains. The men, float of stomach, exuding confidence, their wives languorous, fetching, understated in clothes and manner, easy with each other, but quick to sniff out an intruding outsider. Tom greeted Harvey with a forced smile. “I think it’s awfully good of both of you to come on such short notice.”
“We’ll talk later,” Harvey said, moving on.
Tom turned to Beatrice. “I thought he was bringing his wife, not a hostess from Ruby Foo’s.”
“Now now now. That’s a Saint Laurent she’s wearing.”
Trailing a morose photographer, the ubiquitous Lucinda, of the Star’s Lifestyle section, thrust past Harvey, obviously seeking better bets. Pert, bright-eyed, she flitted from group to group, notebook poised. Finally she settled on Nathan Gursky, who immediately froze, like a squirrel caught by headlights as it attempted to cross the highway. “I’m turning tomorrow’s column into the most delicious game, Mr. Gursky.”
“Oh.”
“If Hollywood were to film your life story, who would you want to play Nathan Gursky?”
“Er.”
Nathan confronted Harvey with his problem.
“Tell her George Segal,” Harvey said.
“What about, um, Dustin Hoffman?”
“I’m picking him.”
Tom Clarkson had only tolerated Nathan Gursky and the Star’s Lucinda in his home because the party, being held just before a federal election, was actually a fund-raiser for Westmount’s cabinet minister. A most discreet fund-raiser, nobody mentioning the size of the cheque they had brought and the cabinet minister never acknowledging an envelope. He was a lean hound of a man. His wife was a MacGregor. Tom’s Uncle Jack owned a property next to his in Bermuda. Leaning against the mantelpiece, the cabinet minister neatly parried questions about the desirability of a price and wages freeze. Then Becky thrust herself forward, leading with the elbows, as if she were seventeen again and jumping a queue for a table at Miss Montreal. “My name’s Rebecca Schwartz. I’m a published writer. My husband is making a personal donation of ten thousand dollars to your campaign tonight. Now can you tell me if the government favours further wheat deals with Russia while so many Jews, falsely accused, languish in prison there?”
Holy shit. Before the cabinet minister could answer, Harvey retreated into another room, grabbing Moffat and telling him what he needed to know.
“Damn it, Harvey, he’s the soul of discretion. How in the hell am I supposed to find that out?”
Then Harvey, recognizing Jim Benson (CEO, Manucorp), broke into his circle. Since he had last seen him, Benson must have lost thirty pounds. Rubbing his own modest paunch, Harvey winked and said, “Boy, could I ever use a copy of your diet. How did you manage it, Jimmy?”
An appalled silence settled on the circle as it broke up, leaving Harvey stranded. And all at once Becky was there. “McClure is here,” she said. “He said I looked very soignée.” Becky beamed, pancake cracking. “Oh, something else I picked up. Jim Benson’s on chemotherapy now. They say he’s got six months. Maybe.”
McClure smiled at Beatrice over the rim of his bifocals. “I must say Tom has done splendidly for himself, but I do hope the children won’t become a problem, devoted as they are to poor Charlotte. Charlotte’s a Selby. Her great-uncle Herbert was my godfather. Her father and I served in the Black Watch together. Are you a Montrealer yourself?”
“No.”
“I thought not. Would you be from Toronto then?”
“Wrong again.”
“But even a creature as enchanting as you must be from somewhere, my dear.”
“Yellowknife. I was brought up a Raven kid.”
“I don’t understand.”
“In those days, in Old Town, you belonged to one mine or another. Raven or Giant. That’s how the kids were known in Yellowknife.”
“And is that where you met Moses Berger?”
“Oh my, you are inquisitive, aren’t you?”
“I only ask because my wife left him a letter and a cherry wood table in her will. I suppose you would no longer know where Mr. Berger can be reached?”
“Try The Caboose.”
“What’s that?”
“His club,” she said, sliding away from him.
Portly Neil Moffat finally caught Betty Kerr alone. “What about Wednesday?” he asked.
“I told you not to talk to me here.”
“It would look a lot more suspicious if I didn’t.”
Becky was here, there, and everywhere. Busily picking up table lamps to peer at the imprimatur on the underside. Flicking her nails at china pieces. Running the palm of her hand over side-table surfaces. Easing the corners of paintings free from the walls, making a note of the dealer’s name.
Joan St. Clair kissed Beatrice on both cheeks. “I haven’t seen Tom look so young and fit in years. You’re the best thing that ever happened to him. I understand you’re an Ottawa girl?”
“No.”
“But you met there?”
“Yes.”
“How nice for you.”
“Don’t you mean for both of us?”
Becky sailed into a group that included the Star’s Lucinda.
“Hello. I’m Becky Schwartz and, talking one writer to another, I think your stuff is wonderfully wicked. If Hollywood were to make my life story, I’d want to be played by Candice Bergen.”