Читать книгу Métis Beach - Claudine Bourbonnais - Страница 6

“He really told you that? I mean he actually said it was her ‘dying wish’?”

In the Pathfinder, Ann examined my face anxiously. “Oh, Romain, it just gives me the creeps. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

I was confused, didn’t know whether I should be angry or rattled or both. The man on the phone, so distraught it was hard to understand what he was saying at first. “Who?” I asked, impatient. “Jack … Jack Holmes.… In Montreal.” “Listen, I’m in a hurry. I don’t know who you are. I’m going to hang up.”

I started the motor, pressed my foot on the accelerator, and the Pathfinder began its descent down Appian Way, a mile of winding road bordered by half-million-dollar homes — at the cheapest. It was a road that you couldn’t take at high speed. A road that required careful driving, a descent to Laurel Canyon of no more than seven minutes, but exasperating when you were late. Next to me, Ann, nervous, her hand on my thigh like a weak supplication for me to slow down.

“Don’t hang up!” the man had said on the telephone. “I’m Gail Egan’s husband.… It’s Gail.… She’s not well, not well at all.…”

A jump back in time, like stumbling off a cliff. A sudden shadow over my face had alerted Ann, “Something’s wrong?” She thought of the people we knew in L.A. Or perhaps my friend Moïse in New York. “Nothing serious, honey?” Gail Egan. Ann had heard of her, of course, and had seen those cards that Gail persisted in sending me on my birthday every year, without exception, on the dot like a reminder from a dentist’s office. And yet, any sort of relationship with her had ended long ago, too many terrible memories. Métis Beach, Gaspé, and now this — would this be another of these moments that brought everything back to the surface?

“Honey, tell me what’s going on.…”

I asked the man on the phone, “Something happened to Gail?”

“She’s in hospital.”

“What do you mean, she’s in the hospital?”

“She … she.…”

He swallowed a sob. Behind him, shards of rusty voices blared out of a speaker.

“Is Gail sick?”

“She doesn’t have much time left.…”

“What are you saying?”

“Gail ordered the doctors to keep her alive … until you got here.…”

“Until I got there?”

“It’s last minute, I know.…”

“I …”

I stopped talking, seized by an avalanche of confused thoughts. Gail dying? Followed by such anger that it surprised even me — why did she ask for me, now, after all these years? Now that things were finally going well for me. Couldn’t she keep from … from what, exactly?

“Listen, Jack.…” Then I heard myself stutter through a series of boring excuses. Yes, I understood his pain. No, I couldn’t leave Los Angeles, the shoot, a delicate situation, a controversial series.… The more I heard my justifications, the more ridiculous they sounded.

“It’s urgent!” Jack interrupted. He’d spoken loudly, with a seething anger that announced danger. “It’s a matter of hours. I know you’re far. I’m sorry.…” Then in a deep voice, irrevocable. “You’re her last wish.”

“I can’t, Jack.”

“Wait!” he shouted.

And I hung up, guilt like fresh skin.