(18) Dawn And Then Dennis
Andrew opened his eyes around dawn. Surprisingly he felt rested. He couldn’t imagine why. Perhaps he’d been blessed by angels specialising in anti-anxiety manoeuvres. Lara was completely under the covers and was still the hot bundle of coals he’d moved away from in the middle of the night. He lay still, looking at her shape under the sheets. The urge to apprise Bridget of the situation had not faded. But it was only 6:51. And somehow he couldn’t see them bugging her, even if they knew where to find her. How did they know where to find him? They’d been tipped off, but by whom. Maybe Dennis would find out. Perhaps.
He slipped out of bed quietly and moved to the window. Frost on the lawn, a sky mostly clear of clouds, water without waves or any manufactured impediments. He was calmed by its dull predictability. As a teenager he’d been more than a bit bored by the North Sea blockading St. Andrews and was desperate to escape that hemmed in feeling. Escape to Edinburgh, Glasgow, London. Well, he’d made his escape and now look: another vast body of water lapped at the fringes of his life, allowing him to feel alternately awed and insignificant. Mother Nature stamped her presence without fail. He didn’t need tornados or volcanoes to remind him of her power. Even in Toronto, that vast impregnable enigma of activity, the endless hive-like actions and reactions were like some mysterious force of nature that could not truly be accounted for.
Hey, he was thinking about something else! Triumph. Momentary no doubt, but it was a start. He found his housecoat and moved downstairs. The gun needed burying. He had an image of where it should go and in that flower bed, behind a clump of rhododenrons and just in front of the west wall, it was secured beneath soil. The space was small enough the landscaper guys would never dig there. Tossing it vigorously into the lake was, of course, another option, but he had a hunch it might be useful later. You could only take that barking superman thing so far. It seemed like a poetic moment, the gun in the ground, he in his robe and sheepskin coat and the frost twinkling the grass, and he wanted it commemorated in some way. Of course Robert Altman would have found the perfect angle to express the aesthetic of the scene. Maybe the hero looking out to the water and seeing a small yacht and then the next shot was of him in his coat in the garden by the house as seen from the yacht, a tiny cipher in a domestic landscape, looking out to sea. As he walked back in he wondered if maybe Antonioni or Bertolucci would do it better. Ah, the crazy world of the film buff; living the reflection of life rather than life itself. All very existential no doubt. Maybe he should call Sartre and tell him? Oh. Wait a minute, he’d already used his one way ticket, hadn’t he? Camus as well. He chuckled, making coffee, thinking of lads at the Uni way back when who had taken to it hook, line and sinker, right down to the mandatory expressos, Gauloises and berets. He sometimes tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to get them to play frisbee on the lawn. Suicide isn’t the only meaningful act, he argued. Frisbee has significance, he would shout.
The morning was beginning to take shape. He sipped on his brew and glanced around the room. Yes, it could use a little tidying. When did the maid service come again? Tuesday, Wednesday? Gardeners, maids, what a life he had, or seemed to have. Long way from a bus driver with a one bedroom apartment. Long way from just about anything. Well, it was almost 7:30, surely Bridget would be up and about. She was. He spilled the beans. Bridget accused him of colouring the details for dramatic flair. He assured her there was more swearing than The Commitments movie.
Sounds like you scared the bejesus out of them Andrew.
Tell you the truth Bridget, I scared the beans outta myself for awhile. That whole Clint Eastwood righteous avenger thing, it really burst the bubble of civilised liberal tolerance, you know. The very idea of drugging her to make her amenable, not to mention the violence, I guess it was driving me nuts trying not to think about it, and suddenly I just couldn’t hold it in any longer.
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