This All Happened(91)

            12 Tonight after racquetball, in the sauna, I ask Max if Alex Fleming is seeing anyone.

            Isnt she seeing Craig Regular?

            That’s old, Max.

            He says Maisie Pye has officially broken up with Oliver. Max, you are way behind.

            He says, Okay. Oliver made a pass at Daphne, can you believe it.

            Now that’s news.

            Max: He did it because I used to see Maisie. I told Maisie, and she said, If they get together, what will that make us? I said, Wary.

            Max, of Oliver: It’s two things at once. It’s as if he leaves it

            all out there, and then it’s as if nothing’s there at all. Of himself. Max is cautious of what he says around Oliver. It will come

            back on him sometime later.

            You did punch him out.

            Max: That was self-defence.

            My open ear is what Max needs. He doesnt need advice. Max needs to air his beefs about Oliver.

            13 Oliver says eating mussels is the same texture as chewing on your lip.

            We’re in the Indian shop at the east end of Duckworth. In back the vat of frying. And then the woman, on her mat praying directly through the harbour. She is wearing taupe.

            We walk along the path around Signal Hill. I dont really like Oliver, but we share the word bereft.

            Oliver stops, turning on the path, interrupting to say, Look at that. The bone white shine of the path behind us, leading to the city. I look at Oliver and he is crying.

            It’s just the wind, he says.

            14 Alex Fleming grew up in Quirpoon. She says, Theyre gonna shoot the big Hollywood feature in Rocky Harbour. It should be shot in St Anthony. They should get Maisie in on it, to write it no offence, Gabe. But Maisie should write it. And Lydia should direct it. Did you read the book?

            I can tell, before I say anything, that Alex has a definite opinion, and it’s probably negative. In fact, she has an opinion on everything. At least, initial opinions. She seems willing to relent. I say that I didnt finish it, that I found the voice false. I heard the author speak at the Learneds and she claimed that she heightened, or torqued, the language in order to best capture the place and people. I found her persona arrogant. I dont agree that caricature is the essence of novels, that you have only three hundred pages and life is much longer. So you need to condense and heighten.

            Alex has been clenching her thin fist on the table. I can’t stand her, she says. She stayed in our bed and breakfast. When she came to St Anthony she was poor. She stole that book from Maisie. Maisie had it all written down and she took it. That voice belongs to Maisie. She didnt make anything up. That’s very dishonest. I know these things: ethics, that’s my area of study.

            Alex says the author even slagged her mother at that lecture at the Learneds.

            Me: I dont remember that.

            Alex: Well, it was a veiled reference to her as being stupid. You were there?

            I heard about it.

            I think I would have remembered that. And about Maisie. Yes! Maisie!

            Maisie was in her writing class.

            Well, then you know.

            She’s a good writer.

            But to myself I know other things. That she helped Maisie with her manuscript, that she encouraged Maisie to send it to her publisher.

            I say, I thought Maisie said good things about her.