PARKING THE ZEITGEIST AND JUST WALKING
(1) Home Alone
Andrew sat, stretched out, in his new Muskoka lounger, at least he thought that’s what they were called, and reflected on the ravenous state of the saleslady who persuaded him to buy it. Not that he was in any way resistant. He’d actually come in to buy one, but she had prowled around him, pushing and prodding, and he’d let her convince him he needed three. More out of pity? Or playing with her desire? He preferred the former, with its intimations of empathy, but had to admit, if only to himself, that the latter had been more often raising its ugly little head of late, due, he supposed, to the complete absence of the money anxiety that caged the average shopper in its syrupy tentacles.
What was her name now, Olga? He’d couldn’t recall. There was something vaguely vile about not remembering people’s names, as if you were a cut above and were not required to supply the customary civilities to those strangers assisting in commercial transactions. Snobs were a type of persona non grata in his childhood, such was his father’s distaste for their antics. His mother was still prone to utter every few weeks, Your father couldn’t abide a snob, and honestly neither can I. Is that what folk meant when they said at least I came by it honestly? Attitudes bred in the psyche?
Well, she was tall and auburn and some friend of the owner’s, just helping out at season’s end, to let him vacation in, where, Bermuda? St Martin? And Andrew became quickly bemused by her rap, allowing her to unfold without any interference. She wished him a fond farewell, urged him to return for the pre-Christmas specials, and arranged for the chairs to be delivered the following day, which they were, for a tidy sum.
He stared at the lake as if listening politely to its afternoon murmur. The opening of November had brought the customary damp and cold to accompany the almost complete lack of leaves, flowers, and greenery, but today had turned sunny and the temperature had soared into the teens, apparently all the way to 13c., and the wise addition of sweater and wool jacket permitted him to confront the stiff breeze with a certain level of cockiness. Many bare branches were etched against the sky. He considered, for the umpteenth time, his negative attitude. Bred in the bone, he felt, recalling many childhood winters of colds, sneezing and chills. Bronwen, bless her cotton socks, the many hundreds of them which would lie untended in huge wicker baskets waiting for her to get around to washing them, found the bare branched season a cause for aesthetic jubilation, each shrub and tree becoming another highly individual work of art.
But he, try as he might, had never been able to follow her fine example, preferring to sit inside, reading, watching dvd’s and listening to music favourites. That’s what winter was for. Or at least this damp draughty prelude to it. The groundskeeper chaps had been by twice this past week so everything was at least tidy if dismal and drab. Thank god for evergreens. Alone they stood, all four of them, against the upcoming onslaught.
Andrew fell to musing over his recent bizarre project. For years he’d enjoyed the personals in the London Review Of Books, the careful wit behind the pleading. Just before the whole Vee and Dennis craziness he’d called in an ad. It said “Trophy wife wanted: man of means, Toronto”. It had made it into the issue that came out three days after Dennis’s return to London, so just when life was returning to whatever normal was, the emails began to trickle in. The first was from Olive, who declared herself hungry svelte and adroit. Andrew asked for a photograph. The second was from Alisha, who attached a shot of her soaking in a bubble bath, leering provocatively. The third was from Deborah, who had meditated on his offer and felt very strongly that he needed a firm guiding hand along the meandering paths of life. Her attachment pictured a beleathered motorcycle rider looking ready to race. There were at least twenty more, a couple of whom dished out some post-feminist sloganeering re. the total patriarchal crap of trophies. One suggested he go to Tehran and look for an eleven year old virgin.
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