Читать книгу The Hemingway Caper - Eric Wright - Страница 15

It was Carole’s turn to cook so we had the thawed three-month-old remains of a carton of arrabiata sauce from Pusiteri’s poured over spaghettini with some grated parmesan, a salad from the bin of pre-washed green stuff in Loblaws, the heel of a loaf of Italian bread from Spiga’s (the best bread in Toronto),and a bit of Stilton with Carr’s water biscuits, all washed down with the dregs of a bottle of Penascal, a Spanish wine we buy by the case and will continue to do so as long as the LCBO continues to stock it.

I go into such brand name detail only to show how well we live considering how much Carole dislikes cooking. It’s not that she can’t cook, it’s just that it interferes with the six or eight hours a day she sets aside for reading. I, on the other hand, like the idea of cooking; I’m just no good at it. I have no instinct for it, and too often when I am following a recipe I concentrate so hard that I can’t remember where I’m at and omit or double the quantity of some spice like cayenne with the result that the dish withers the taste buds or turns into baby food. So nowadays, when it’s my turn, like Carole, I tend to rely on whatever Pusiteri’s or Ziggy’s has cooked and I can take home to warm up. The task has lately been made more difficult by the disappearance of Marks and Spencers, at one time the purveyors of the most edible instant food in town. As back-up we buy assorted spaghetti sauces from Pusiteri’s, six cartons at a time. Though I have no talent for the stove, I have developed three company dishes that even I can’t screw up, three dishes that I now cook in rotation whenever we have guests. We entertain so rarely that these three should see me out.

Carole said, “How’s Ginger?”

Ginger and Carole like each other. They communicate on some wavelength outside my range. Nothing to do with sex, I’m sure. When I brought him home for dinner she sensed almost immediately that Ginger was sexually audacious, and successful, but when the two of them locked over the dining-table it was because of something else they found in each other. When he was gone, I asked Carole what women saw in him, and she said she hadn’t the faintest idea. She thought perhaps he had something that he switched off in our house as a courtesy to me, but said I could bring him to dinner whenever I liked because he was one of the select group of people (two or three) who were as interesting as the book she was currently reading. Then, mind-reading, she said, as she had said once or twice before over the years of our relationship, “Don’t worry. It’s you I love.”

I said, “Thanks. But back to Ginger. I think I may have a problem.”

“As a roommate?”

“Sort of. I don’t know how it didn’t come up at dinner, but we have another roommate.”

“And they might not get along? Something like that?” Carole looked at her watch and hung on to her book.

“I’m afraid they’ll get along very well. Our new roommate is female, Japanese and luscious.”

“Says you?”

“Objectively. She just is. You can’t avoid seeing it, and thinking it. I’m afraid that I’m going to have to knock on the door when I come back from class.”

“Don’t be silly.” She looked up from her book and focused on me. “Bring her home.”

“Here? I thought feeding Ginger was our quota for this term.”

“I didn’t mean for dinner, but okay, if you like.” She thought about this for a moment.“No,” she said. “Not for dinner. She might be a vegetarian, hard to feed. Make it brunch on a Sunday. And ask Ginger again. We could have bagels and lox and salad with bean sprouts, something for everybody. Oh, hell, whatever you think. No, Friday for dinner.”

I assumed in spite of what she said that Carole’s behaviour was her way of finding out if her territory—me—was likely to be invaded. As I say, except for her sister and brother-in-law, we almost never feed people. I felt quite chuffed, a word Ginger taught me. He says it means elated.

Next morning I typed up my report on the book dealer and faxed it to the agency on Carole’s machine. I waited for a few minutes, then called the agency. I wanted to confirm my orders, because now we had established what her husband was doing I wanted to know if she wanted me to carry on. I never thought I’d be involved in taking pictures of bare-assed adulterers since none of that is really necessary for a divorce. Now, as I’ve said, if you want out, you just hire a shark and get him to negotiate the best deal he can for you. A wise man or woman draws up the divorce settlement before the wedding even if it casts a cloud over the nuptials.

This woman didn’t need any more evidence than she had, as far as I knew, so I asked the boss if that was that, now that I had recorded two assignations, but he called me back and said she wanted me to carry on until further notice. The one new order I got was that she would like a picture of the woman, or rather two pictures, taken on different days, and I was to be careful to date the pictures, which I thought was a little strange. All I could think of was that Mrs. Tyler wanted to make sure that it was the same woman all the time in case Tyler was insatiable and diddling every woman who browsed the Biography shelves. But it was none of my business, and I always need the money.