“You know – his feeling, the essence of him that has been caught up in the walls, the drapes-”
“Maintenance can give it a coat of paint. Dry-clean the drapes.”
“I’m not getting through to you, Chief, I’m afraid.”
“No, frankly Al, you’re not. Tell me – what in hell do you really want?”
“I really want an office that isn’t full of the spirit of a dead man.”
“It’s news to me that our offices have that kind of spirit. You talk as if this place was Dracula’s Castle. My God, Al, it’s hardly been built seven years. The editorial private offices are all the same. But I can see that something is troubling you, and I’ll go a reasonable distance to help you. If you don’t want Gil’s office, what office do you want?”
“I’d rather thought of McWearie’s.”
“If you’re worrying about atmosphere, McWearie’s room practically is Dracula’s Castle. I never saw so much peculiar junk in my life. That skull on his bookcase! But he does a first-class job. His series on the ordination of women – got a Newspaper Award. Why disturb him?”
“As a matter of fact, if I were to take over Entertainment, I’d like to talk to you about McWearie. He doesn’t really belong in Entertainment. I’d be glad to see him moved to another department.”
“And you’d start by hoofing him out of his office. Isn’t that a bit rough?”
“His office is at the end of the corridor. Quiet. Just the place for thoughtful work. That’s what I’d like.”
“Well – I’m damned if I’m going to tell McWearie that you have a whim for his office, and he has to get out. I can’t treat staff that way. The Guild could kill me. He’d have a very legitimate grievance, and we don’t need grievances in senior writers. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You go to McWearie and tell him very nicely – pretty please – that you’re going to succeed Gil as head of Entertainment, and you’d be grateful if he could see his way to let you have his office, for which you have a special soft spot. If he agrees – all right. If not – nothing doing. But no iron hand, Al. If Hugh says No, it’s No. And don’t use my name, because I want no part of it.”
So this was how it was! I didn’t in the least mind that the Editor-in-Chief was appointing my successor so soon after my death. A daily paper is exactly that – daily – and there is no time for sentiment in such matters. That he was appointing Randal Allard Going did not greatly surprise me, because he is the most likely candidate on the staff as it stands. Going’s inherent odiousness did not stop him from being a pretty good journalist. I suppose I have a right to dislike him personally, considering that he has seduced my wife and murdered me in consequence. These are not winning traits in a man. Now he wants to get rid of McWearie and grab his office.
The meeting between them soon lost any pretence of amiability.
“So what it comes down to, Mr. Going, is that you want my office, because you have a fancy for it, and for no better reason.”
“I’ve explained the reason. If I am to do the work of Entertainment Editor, I can’t do it from my present office which I share with four other critics.”
“But you can do it from Gil’s old office,”
“I’ve told you, I don’t like Gil’s old office.”
“It’s a senior man’s office. It has a place for a secretary. Where’s she to go if you come way down here?”
“She isn’t – wasn’t Gil’s secretary only; she’s secretary to the department. She can stay where she is.”
“I see. Well, the long and short of it is that I don’t choose to move, Mr. Going.”
“Hugh, we are going to have to work together. Inevitably I must be in the driver’s seat, and I think I’d like the driver’s seat to be right here, in this office. Can’t we settle this thing amicably?”
“Meaning settle it your way? What’s the alternative? Would you like my resignation, perhaps?”
“Now Hugh – remember the old saying: ‘Never threaten resignation unless you are prepared to carry it through.’ ”
“What makes you think I wouldn’t carry it through?”
“I don’t want you to do anything rash.”
“I won’t, never fear. Have you talked to the Chief about this?”
“That’s beside the point – ”
“No it isn’t. I’ll bet anything you did and he’s said he’ll have nothing to do with it, and you must get it if you can. Well, I’ve answered that, Mr. Going.”
“Hugh – can’t we be friends?”
“What for? I’m paid to be a colleague, not a friend. I was a friend of Gil’s, but that was another thing. Because you’re standing in a dead man’s shoes, don’t expect to take on his friends, as well.”
Oh Hugh – you shouldn’t have said that! But when your Highland blood is up you say cruel things, and you don’t understand how dangerous “dead man’s shoes” is, in these circumstances. You’ve made an enemy of the Sniffer, and I can understand why, but it is a mistake, all the same.
(4)
THE SNIFFER IS in no condition for a professional row. He seeks Esme, as he has done rather too often since the funeral. She has not been coming into the Advocate offices. Although she is entitled to whatever Bereavement Leave she wants, she has missed only one week with her column – a week during which the news pages have kept her name well in the public eye. She has let the Chief know that she will have a column ready for the week to come. This is gallant. It is also assurance that her readers will have no time to forget her. The Sniffer has called her every day, and every day she has refused to dine with him, and has told him that he is not to come to her apartment. Surely it would appear simply as the condolence of a family friend, he pleads. She thinks otherwise.
This time his pleadings are so pitiful that she consents, and when they meet at a quiet table in Le Rendezvous I am the invisible third party, and I find it a delightful evening.
“You can’t imagine what I’ve been going through, Esme.”
“Can’t I? Do you suppose I’ve been having a high old rime?”
“No, no; but you know what I mean.”
“I can guess. But I don’t think you know what I mean.”
“Dearest one – ”
“Al! Cool it, will you. Just keep it on a friendly footing. Don’t you know that waiters have big ears?”
“Esme – dear friend – our positions are rather different – ”
“Perhaps not as different as you imagine.”
“Meaning? – Oh, no. You have no guilt in this affair.”
“There are other things than guilt.”
“You’re being mysterious.”
“And you’re being self-centred.”
“I am! Listen – it’s all over the office that you are going to write a series of articles on bereavement. Fine! You’re in a great position to do just that. But I’m a writer, don’t forget, and I know how much objectivity and calculation it will take to do a series and do it right. You aren’t just going to spill your guts. You’re going to do it with very tidy journalistic calculation.”
“Therapy for a broken heart.”
“What! That doesn’t sound like you.”
“It isn’t me. But that’s beside the point. There are considerations you don’t know about.”
“Such as?”
“I haven’t been quite myself lately.”
“Not surprising.”
“That’s what my doctor said. He was all sympathy. But he said he’d like to run two or three routine tests, and he phoned me yesterday.”
“Oh, darling! I’ve been unforgivably inconsiderate! You’re ill.”
“Not ill, exactly. I’m pregnant.”
The scene gives way to an interval of low comedy here, because the Sniffer does a very complete job of what was called, in my boyhood, the Nose Trick. He whoofed upward through a mouthful of the Cabernet Sauvignon, sprayed a good deal of it over the table, but shot quite enough through his nostrils to make him howl with pain. Two
waiters rush to his aid. As Esme mops her frock with dignified restraint, they beat the Sniffer on the back and offer him a glass of water, but without much effect. He continues to cough and blow his nose, which hurts him abominably. The Sniffer is one of those men who always blows his nose one nostril at a time – poof-poofty-poof – and he does so now, and mops his streaming eyes, and tries to apologize through involuntary little yelps of pain. It takes some time to calm him. The maître d’hôtel hastens to the table with a measure of cognac, and urges the Sniffer to sip it with the uttermost caution. Another tablecloth is brought, and deftly laid. At last the helpers and servers go away, the other diners stop staring, and the couple regain their privacy.
“You said – ?”
“I said I was pregnant.”
“But – but – ”
“Yes, I know. I suppose I’d been a little bit forgetful about The Pill. One gets tired of that nagging obligation, you know. So there it is.”
“And there we are.”
“And there I am.”
“Oh, me too. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!” The Sniffer beats his breast, ritually, like a priest at the altar.
“For God’s sake shut up! Let’s not have another scene.”
“But I’m in this, too.”
“No, Al. Not you.”
“Esme – what are you saying? Who else could it be?”
“My husband, you fool!”
“You don’t mean to sit there and tell me that while we – you and I – were lovers, you were allowing Gil to – ”
“Of course I was! Do you suppose that because of you I would put Gil on the Indian List? I was very fond of Gil.”
Oh, Esme, you can’t believe how overjoyed I am to hear you say that! My dear, dear wife, how I love you at this moment! And – and Anna, and Elizabeth and Janet and Malvina and Rhodri – yes, and I suppose the McOmishes, will all, in some measure, live on. I see the continuance of life as I never did while I was a part of it.
The Sniffer is utterly unmanned. He is eating nothing, though Esme is getting through a very respectable meal.
After a pause he says, in a low voice, “You’ll be attending to that, of course?”
“Attending to what?”
“Your condition. It’s not a problem nowadays.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Esme – this pregnancy. The sooner you have it terminated, the better.”
“Better for who?”
“For us. Then later, when and if we marry, we can start with a clean slate. Presuming we want children, of course.”
“When and if! Al, we might as well get this straight right now; I’m not going to marry you. That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. Do you want to marry me?”
“I have an overwhelming obligation to you. And I’m certainly not going to back off from it. I must take care of you, but I don’t want to take care of a child that might just possibly be Gil’s.”
“It is Gil’s. Do you think I can’t count? The doctor says he thinks it’s about ten weeks. Well – ten weeks ago you were in Europe for a month, casing the world theatre and telling the Advocate readers how lousy it was. Now look; we had better get this straight. I’m going to have this child. It’s a perfectly okay child, lawfully begotten by my now dead husband. What used to be called a posthumous child. Is that clear?”
“Esme, do you really want a child?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll find out. And this child makes all the difference to the articles I’m going to write. Rache Hornel says it’s the cherry on the cake. And you don’t come into it, except perhaps as jolly old Uncle Al, who turns up with a teddy-bear once in a while.”
“Esme, you’re being very unkind. Because of this mess we’re in – ”
“You’re in. I’m fine.”
“Have it your own way. But there was something else, you know. Something you seem to have forgotten. I was going to try to interest some television people in you.”
“I think you have, Al. By conking poor Gil. Now – if you can catch the waiter’s eye – ”
(5)
RACHE HORNEL IS NOT one of your simple, businesslike literary agents who gives advice only when asked for it. Writers are creative, he says, but they need the creativity of the business man, the man of long vision and wide knowledge of the world, if they are to achieve what he calls their full potential. Rache learned his craft as an agent in the place he always calls L.A. and he has brought the spirit of L.A. to Toronto, where it does not quite fit. If Rache could have been at the side of Virginia Woolf she would never have confided to her diary that she thought a sale of five thousand copies very flattering; Rache would have developed her until she was writing for the movies, with a weekly salary in five figures, ten per cent of it for him, the creative entrepreneur. I am aware that he is shining the full glare of his creativity on Esme, and I am present at the luncheon – Rache liked to do big things over food – where he bursts his inspiration full on her.
“But Rache, I don’t see this as me at all.”
“It’s the new you, Esme. The Esme you’ve never explored.”
“But it’s the occult. Not a bit my thing. I’ve always been very feet-on-the-ground.”
“This is feet on another kind of ground. I’m not proposing some teacup reader or back-street medium. Mrs. Salenius is the best there is. State-of-the-art, I swear it.”
“You’ve talked with her?”
“I’ve visited her. Put our case. No names mentioned, naturally. She’ll see what she can do. She makes no promises.”
“What is she going to attempt?”
“Communication with Gil. A message from the Beyond.”
“She isn’t going to try to find out who killed him, is she?”
“Not unless you want it. A message is what she thinks of.”
“I don’t want to talk about the murder.”
“Of course not, baby. Too painful.”
“What’ll it cost?”
“Nothing. She doesn’t take fees. You can make a contribution to the Church, if you wish, and of course we’ll wish. Only right.”
“What Church?”
“Companionship of Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Seer.”
“Golly!”
“It’s a split-off from the real Swedenborgian Church. It claims to have gone farther into the thought and vision of Swedenborg.”
“Never heard of him. Where did you get hold of this woman?”
“The police.”
“The police! I don’t want anything to do with the police!”
“Honey, you’re talking to Ol’ Rache! Would I plough up your heart and make it bleed all over again? But it’s through the police I found her. You want a first-rate psychic, you ask the police. They use ’em a lot. You know – a child is lost, and when the cops can’t find anything, you read in the papers that they’ve consulted a psychic. They only call on Mrs. Salenius in first-class crime.”
“God! Does she use a crystal ball or what?”
“I don’t know. But she’s impressive, mostly because she isn’t at all impressive. Baby, do you think I’d get you into anything we couldn’t handle?”
So Esme agrees to go with Rache to visit Mrs. Salenius. Their purpose is to see if they can get in touch with my spirit, and find out what I have to say to my sorrowing wife. A few useful quotes for the book, with any luck. Comfort for the bereaved. After all, I was a journalist and ought to have a professional sense of the quotable. Rache sees it as a tremendous coup that will, in his phrase, “beef up” the book; what with this splendid bonus of the posthumous child, and me brought back from the tomb for a few classy quotes, it’s going to be a knock-out. Esme is dubious, but has faith in Ol’ Rache. I shall certainly be there. I never attended a seance in life, but I have no intention of missing this one in death. I hope to play an important role. Not perhaps for the benefit of Esme’s book but in some form of revenge that I cannot foresee.
(6)
THE MEETING
IS set up for the following Friday night. Esme now knows who Swedenborg was: not, as she had at first supposed, some American shaman big in the South and at Presidential prayer breakfasts, but an important eighteenth-century Swedish scientist, founder of crystallography, who foresaw nebular theory, magnetic theory, and such popular modern gadgets as the machine-gun and the aeroplane; also, as a physicist of unquestioned reputation, the propounder of a theory of the Universe as a fundamentally spiritual structure and a spiritual world populated exclusively by dead human beings, grouped in coherent societies. An embarrassing figure indeed, in a scientific world that wanted no truck or trade with spiritual matters. Esme, a good journalist, has made herself an instant authority on Swedenborg by an hour or two with the Advocate’s collection of encyclopaedias. Not that she is convinced. Not a bit of it. But she feels the agnostic’s unwilling pull toward the gnostic, and she is curious to see Mrs. Salenius.
As Rache had said, Mrs. Salenius is not remarkable; she is a somewhat morose, stout woman, who speaks English in a quiet, regretful voice, the voice, as it were, of Garbo, speaking through a mouthful of chocolate.
She lives in an unfashionable old quarter of Toronto, west of Spadina Avenue, in one of those high-gabled, red-faced houses that Esme recognizes as the frequent subject of the unfashionable, but evocative, painter Franck.
“Not a seance, dear. We don’t use that word. Just a special sort of stillness. An intent listening, you might call it. But I can’t lead you until I know a few more facts than Mr. Hornel has told me. Your husband’s full name, and what he did in the world, and when he died. The way he died isn’t clear to me. Take your time. We’re not going to do anything distressing.”
Mrs. Salenius does not spend much on electric light, and she turns off what little there is in her dingy living-room, leaving two candles burning on a table.
The preliminaries over – and I am somewhat surprised by Esme’s brief, factual but selective description of me and my murder by an unknown assailant – Mrs. Salenius composes herself as if to sleep, in a large armchair.
“Be perfectly at ease, friends. Don’t try hard to do anything. Just be very quiet and think about Connor Gilmartin. Think of him kindly, and with love.”