Snow Job Read online

Arthur ascended briskly to the second floor, his floor, with its own den, its ample bedroom and bath, its expansive ocean view: the San Juan Islands and the distant snowy Olympics. Might he bring out rods and tackle this evening? Bait some crab pots? So little time, so many things to do.

  Clad in rough farm wear, he went down to find Zack barefoot in the kitchen, washing up. Of middling height, gaunt, angular. “Papillon pissed on my boots.” He swept a swatch of untrained coal-black hair from his dark sad eyes.

  Savannah examined him critically from the doorway. “Jeez, Zack, change your pants while you’re at it. Lesson learned. Don’t stand behind the livestock.”

  Arthur picked up a gamy, sweaty smell as she bussed him with pouty lips. A modern woman, brash and tart. Taller than her boyfriend, thick blond curls, a busty, eye-catching figure. Arthur had got used to her nighttime roaming — a sleepwalking disorder had plagued her since childhood.

  She continued to scold Zack. “When are you going to get a damn haircut? You look like a palm tree in a hurricane.”

  “Yeah, right, I’ll head right down to the nearest salon.”

  “You need a weed whacker, pal.” She turned to Arthur. “So who won today’s battle between good and evil?”

  Arthur regaled them with Judge Wilkie’s show of dismay as his punitive fine was dwarfed by later, generous ransoms.

  “Sounds like the judge we drew,” Zack said. “Another guardian of the dying order. Maybe telling him to go to hell was a strategic error. Did Wilkie really think it was a caricature of himself?”

  “I’m afraid that’s rather typical of the self-absorbed.”

  “Reminds me of someone else. A pork-bellied flightless ostrich with its head up its patoot — who am I thinking of?”

  “Huck Finn,” Savannah said.

  The Conservative prime minister, she meant, Huck Finnerty. Whom the member for Cowichan and the Islands, in one of her more acidic sound bites, had accused of having his head up his exhaust pipe.

  2

  “Let me guess. They want a handout. Another delegation from another two-bit backwater coming here with their gold teeth and vodka breath and outstretched palms. We can’t be filling the beggar’s bowl of every Lower Slobovia on the planet while we’re in the economic doldrums — got to look after ourselves first.” Canada First, that was the horse Huck Finnerty rode to victory at last year’s convention. It was his pledge to the nation, and he was sticking by it.

  “We come for cultural learnings for make benefit glorious republic of Quackistan.” Charley Thiessen, the public safety minister, the official jokester of Finnerty’s fractious Privy Council, his inner cabinet. They were meeting in the Round Room, off the horseshoe-shaped lobby of the P.M.’s parliamentary offices.

  The foreign minister, Gerry Lafayette, joined politely in the laughter, though he found the humour boorish. He was mystified by Thiessen’s popularity in this august conclave. With his bonhomie and his square-chinned film-star looks, he was a vote-getter — but what a concombre! How did such a mediocre mind win a law degree? He’d earned his way into Finnerty’s cabinet as his tail-wagging poodle.

  “What’s that place called again?” Finnerty asked.

  “Bhashyistan,” Lafayette said. “And no, they didn’t approach us, we made the overture. It might help, Huck, if you and the ministers were to review the briefing notes from my Central Asian people.”

  “Better if you just lay it out for us, Gerry.” The prime minister fought to maintain his big trademark grin. He wasn’t going to betray the slightest hint he was irked by Lafayette, a control freak, an elitist, patronizing everybody with his academic brilliance. Still smarting over losing on the fourth ballot. Never got dirt under his fingernails, never swabbed the deck of a working boat.

  Finnerty knew he should have read the briefing notes last night instead of emptying a bottle of CC with a few of the boys from back home. He felt handicapped in this discussion because he had no clear idea where Bhashyistan was. Or what it was. One of those former Moscow satellites until the U.S.S.R. imploded. Bolshevik architecture. Pompous statues. Tribal feuds. Donkeys, or maybe camels. Mud wrestling.

  “Some of us may be geographically disadvantaged. Show us on the map, Gerry.”

  Lafayette ordered himself to be patient with this chuckling colon, who knew nothing about Central Asia or, for that matter, the entire world beyond the two-hundred-mile fishing zone. He rose from the circular table and directed a pointer at a map on a stand, a mustard-coloured glob — “about the size of New Brunswick, Huck” — bordering Siberia, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan.

  “What is now known as the People’s Democratic Republic of Bhashyistan can boast of having been subjugated by every tyrant who wandered by, from Alexander, Genghis Khan, and Tamerlane to Empress Alexandra and Josef Stalin. Having been beaten into submission over the eons, the Bhashyistanis apparently find freedom too difficult a concept and have been hard-wired into a state of docility.”

  Lafayette waited patiently until Finnerty raised his red-rimmed eyes from the briefing notes. The P.M. was a devotee of strong drink and junk food, his concept of haute cuisine a triple patty with a side of fries washed down with a tall rye and ginger. Silhouette of a septic tank.

  “This diplomatic breach … Remind us, what happened there?”

  “Bhashyistan’s ex-president — father of the current president — was assassinated fifteen years ago in Vancouver during a stopover on a state visit. I think it was in the newspapers.” Too snide, Lafayette was doing it again, showing his impatience with lesser minds. “Boris Mukhamed Ivanovich. Moscow trained, Muscovite wife, an apparatchik sent home to be secretary of the Bhashyistan Communist Party, and who slid into power on the demise of the Soviet Union.”

  “Right, right, he was shot by a sniper.”

  “The alleged assassin, Abzal Erzhan, a twenty-two-year-old partisan of the Bhashyistani Democratic Revolutionary Front, had entered Canada under a false Syrian passport as Abu Abdul Khazzam. The case fell apart at trial, and he was acquitted by a Vancouver jury. Bhashyistan took umbrage, recalled its ambassador. Like a maiden scorned, they have not answered our phone calls. Until now.”

  Here he was, Dr. Gerard Laurier Lafayette, former dean of international studies at the Université de Montréal, lecturing a supposed leader of the free world on basic modern history. Gerry Lafayette, the favourite coming in, every pundit’s pick — but he’d fallen fifteen delegates short and lost the ultimate prize to a fat, crackerbarrel sea dog from the Bay of Fundy.

  “Help us out a little here, Gerry. We initiated this?”

  Lafayette put a Canada First spin on it for him. National interests were at issue. Geologists from Alta International, an aggressive Calgary company, had found extensive fields of oil and natural gas under the deserts of western Bhashyistan. Alta had an inside track on developing these resources. “Alta,” he said, “is a friendly.”

  “They went balls out last go-round.” Jack Bodnarchuk, Drumheller—Bow River, Energy and Resources. “Those boys are generous to a fault.”

  How generous was not discussed. The delicate matter of skirting the $1,100-per-head limit on campaign contributions was discussed only in backrooms.

  “Okay,” said Finnerty, “so this delegation, they’re cabinet-level?”

  “All seven of them, yes, high-ranking ministers. Plus an ambassador they want to put in place. A few diplomatic staff will arrive beforehand to assist in arrangements. In due course we will appoint our own ambassador to Bhashyistan.”

  “So we should welcome these ministers royally.”

  “They want some sort of apology for the assassin’s acquittal — we’ll have to manoeuvre around that. Bear in mind we’re dealing with a closed, isolated police state.”

  Finnerty frowned over the briefing notes. “How can that be, Gerry? They’re elected parliamentarians.”

  “Last year’s official count of what is laughingly described as the popular vote gave them each about ninety-five per cent. That was after
several hundred malcontents had been arrested for unlawful assembly. The president, Igor Muckhali Ivanovich, got an even more resounding mandate. Ninety-nine per cent.”

  “Surprised he didn’t ask for a recount.” Charley Thiessen grinned, appreciating the laughter. He enjoyed loosening everyone up, a knack that had made him a cabinet favourite. He’d campaigned hard last year for Huck, but he had no enemies here, he wasn’t ambitious for anyone’s job.

  “Mad Igor, they call him,” Lafayette said. “Bastard son of the president who got shot. He has proclaimed himself National Prophet and Ultimate Leader for Life.” He let the implications sink in to shuffles of discomfort, chairs squeaking, bodies shifting, groans. The unspoken consensus: cuddling up to Alberta oil interests by extending a royal welcome to emissaries of this police state was not going to attract public applause.

  Lafayette felt no need to remind anyone that with the economy in the toilet they’d lost four straight by-elections. Add to that the three traîtres who walked the floor after the blown bribery cover-up, and the Conservatives were down to a majority of six.

  “Can’t we slow things down?” said Bodnarchuk. “Start off with an exchange of trade delegations?”

  “I’m afraid nothing will satisfy them but that we feed overfattened goats at Rideau Hall.”

  “How low can we sink?” Clara Gracey, the finance minister. “Not with a ten-foot pole, Gerry. That’s my attitude.”

  Lafayette locked eyes with her, the economist from hell. Despite having bedded her at the Montebello Trade Conference — no formidable task — she’d thrown her two hundred votes to Finnerty after bowing out of the leadership race. She was now deputy P.M. A clever woman, with a doctorate from Harvard, but with a feminist edge that rubbed him raw.

  “I should also add,” he said, “that if Alta doesn’t get invited to the ball, a host of others await their chance, including Gazprom, Dutch Shell, and a British-American consortium. But we have an edge: Ultimate Leader for Life Ivanovich distrusts the big powers, with their bad habit of invading Third World countries. He despises the Russians.”

  “I can’t see how we can let our boys down,” Bodnarchuk said.

  “Our boys?” Clara rolled her eyes. They were talking about affluent oilmen, not combat soldiers. She wondered why Lafayette was pushing this — it was bound to blow up in their faces. But he was always seeking subtle ways to degrade the P.M., enhance his own role. He’d flunked his tryout for the Pierre Trudeau role everyone was demanding of him. Single, soigné, a flair in dress, multilingually fluent … but the ingredients never jelled as charisma. It was the non-stop arrogance, the narcissism. Showed up in bed.

  “I know those guys at Alta International,” Bodnarchuk said. “If anyone can step in, anywhere in the world, and do a job, it’s them. Their CEO is a real inspiration. A.J. Quilter, I’m proud to know him, he’s a can-do kind of guy. And if anyone can tell me how to fund a campaign if the oil patch turns its back on us, let me know.”

  Bodnarchuk represented a riding full of old dinosaur bones, and in Clara’s view he was their living counterpart. He wore ten-gallon hats. Said things like “Howdy-doody.”

  “Look,” she said, “half of these tinpot dictatorships subsist on bribery. It’s one of their main engines of commerce. Down that road we do not want to go.”

  “No bribery.” Guy DuWallup, attorney general and justice minister. “Or we call off the wedding.” A crony of the P.M., a holier-than-thou Pentecostal, but well regarded, honourable.

  “A.J. Quilter doesn’t work under the table.” Bodnarchuk again.

  “Nonetheless, we should caution him,” DuWallup said.

  Finnerty didn’t like the idea of rubbing rear ends with envoys of a megalomaniacal dictator, but Canada First — otherwise, after all his pounding on that theme he’d look like a fool. “Well, folks, my view is that in this dog-eat-dog world we have to think of the home team first. We’re not in the business of telling sovereign nations how to run their affairs.”

  “Well said, Prime Minister,” Lafayette said. “A diplomatic breach must be repaired, wounds healed, trade restored. But let us hone the message. We are inviting our Bhashyistani colleagues to see a free society in action. Our goal is to inspire and nurture democracy in this young, emerging state. Bring it into the world, rescue it from isolation.”

  Applause, table thumping. “Hear, hear.”

  “Well said yourself, Gerry.” Finnerty had to admit to an admiration for Lafayette — how well he played to the cabinet’s shifting balances, seeking to seduce allies to his side, always on the move, like a circling buzzard waiting for him to falter. But Gerard Lafayette was never going to be prime minister, never, as long as Huck Finnerty had a last breath in him.

  He took a show of hands. Some abstainers, only Clara Gracey opposed. She was lying in wait too. Able and thoughtful, but a pink Tory from the Toronto beltway, out of step, hard on guns, soft on abortion.

  “Very well,” said Lafayette. “I’m sure we can work out terms that will be satisfactory to all parties.”

  “Except the sacrificial goat,” said Thiessen.

  “A point of information.” Attorney General DuWallup. “This alleged assassin — as I recall, despite his false passport and all sorts of suspicion, some clever lawyer got him off on a failure of identification. No reliable eyewitnesses. Whatever happened to him, Gerry?”

  “The government of the time decided, bless their soft hearts, that they couldn’t very well deport him to his native land. He was granted a minister’s permit, eventually got citizenship under his original name, Abzal Erzhan. He lives in the Montreal area. We intend, with the help of the RCMP, to keep a vigilant eye on him.”

  “Excellent work, Gerry.” Finnerty led a round of applause.

  Dear Hank and the Canora all-girls band,

  Hi guys, we had to break away from our tour for two days, but found our roots here (sort of) in the Caucasus in Georgia. I think we located the farm where Great-granddad was born, but maybe that was the local tourist office trying to be nice. No other Svetlikoffs in the neighbourhood, they say Stalin moved all the Doukhobors out. People are nice here. They drink a lot. On to Uzbekistan next.

  I hope Mom settled in okay. Hi Mom! Don’t let the girls get away with murder. Lockup is ten except weekends. Cassie, Katie, Jessie, don’t be making heavy demands on your grandma and dad. Running out of room. Love from me and Auntie Maxine and Cousin Ivy. (I’m still surrounded by girls! Help!)

  Jill XOXO

  3

  It was warm now, at noon, but Arthur had risen to the sparkle of frost on lawns, an unseasonable October cold snap. The maples on Wellington Street had been nipped too, a blood-red spatter on outer leaves. Maybe it wasn’t unseasonable — this was Ottawa, the Canadian Shield. In brief but glorious amends for the coming winter, he would have a month of beauty, the famed turning of the leaves, a spectacle denied the West Coast. Today, even the Gothic turrets of the Centre Block and the Peace Tower were shining verdigris bright under the midday sun. But the regal effect of these spires rising from manicured lawns and coddled flowerbeds was marred by the scruffy picketers marching in a loop below the steps.

  Arthur guiltily avoided them, the Poverty Action Coalition — he was in a dark suit, they might mistake him for an elected member, harangue him, get pushy: there had been acts of violence as the economy bottomed out and unemployment lines grew. A smaller group of protesters, an environmental group, held signs exhorting “Stop Trawling Now!” and declaring “Finnerty Is a Bottom-Feeder.”

  The prime minister’s family owned a fleet of ocean trawlers. He claimed to have sold his interest but remained a pet target for Greenpeacers and Sea Shepherds. P.M. for not quite a year since his predecessor resigned after being caught covering up bribes by the late, disgraced justice minister. Won the Conservative leadership as everybody’s third choice.

  Arthur passed through the portals — as an M.P.’s spouse, he had security credentials — and proceeded into the cathedral-like
rotunda with its high vaulted ceiling. Clerks, pages, recorders, and interpreters scooted about, priming themselves for the afternoon sitting. He mounted the staircase to the Commons foyer, the scrum zone, where reporters circled like wolves, waiting for prey, a junior minister who might return limping after a kneecapping in Question Period. A couple of M.P.s were being interviewed, others avoiding comment but preening for the cameras as they headed through the members’ doorways.

  Reporters waved and smiled at Arthur, who was a personage here, a hoary old sage, all the more quotable since the publishing house of McClelland & Stewart announced it had bought the rights to his life and times — a biographer was already on the job. Arthur had given up trying to persuade them his surname was properly pronounced Beechem, as anglicized centuries ago. But here, at the dividing line between French and English Canada, Beau-champ reigned, as in beautiful field.

  The press had eagerly followed Hamish McCoy’s trial, found much hilarity in it. Meanly, during post-trial interviews, Arthur hadn’t denied speculation that the sculpture was intended as a sardonic take on the prime minister.

  A correspondent for Le Devoir sidled up. “Why do we have the honour today, M. Beauchamp?”

  Arthur explained that Margaret had got on today’s list for Question Period after a Bloc Québécois member gave her his spot. Julien Chambleau, Iberville-Chambly.

  “Ah, Julien — I believe he has taken a fancy to Ms. Blake. But not to worry.”

  Worry? Why should Arthur worry? He’d gotten over all those petty jealousies, a bad habit induced by decades of playing the spineless cuckold to his first wife. It bothered him not at all that Margaret was regularly surrounded by charming men at cocktail events. Her only affair was with politics.

  “And what issue has she chosen?”

  “Bhashyistan.”

  “She must use care duelling with Lafayette.”

  Arthur continued on up to the Members’ Gallery, settled near the front, with a full view of Opposition desks. Including Margaret’s, tucked behind the Liberal backbenchers. It was rare she got a shot at Question Period. It happened maybe once a month.