The Best Laid Plans Part 8

Monday, September 30

My Love,

In one more day, my neck will be free of this election millstone. Papua New Guinea beckons, and I will answer its call with featherlight feet and a happy heart. My equipment left last week via a U.S. Air Force Hercules cargo plane courtesy of a former student who now enjoys daunting responsibilities in the upper echelon of the American military. I had to transport my equipment in a rented cube van to the Canadian Forces Base at Trenton where my saviour aircraft was partic.i.p.ating in joint exercises. But it was well worth the boring drive to know that I'll have all I'll need awaiting me when I arrive in PNG.

Poor Daniel. He was a mere sh.e.l.l of his usual self tonight after some meeting he'd attended at Liberal headquarters in Ottawa. He'd been briefed on the current polling results for c.u.mberland-Prescott, and it wasn't pretty. Tee-hee. After he materialized beside me beneath Baddeck I, scaring the bejabbers out of me for a second time in as many weeks, he shared the blessed news with me. It turns out that after the election, I could probably throw a dinner party in our own house for every voter who supported me and still have room for the NDPers, too. Such is Eric Cameron's hypnotic hold on the good people of this riding. Praise be and spread the good news!

I did have another pleasant and lengthy phone conversation with Muriel Parkinson this afternoon whilst making final preparations to test Baddeck I's cus.h.i.+on pressure. We've spoken a few times over the last few weeks. You likely remember her name. Muriel was my predecessor carrying the Liberal banner in the last five aye, five federal elections. A glutton for punishment to say the least. She called in search of your boathouse bunkee Dr. Addison. Charming, forthright, and quite the pistol to boot, she whiles away her days in the Riverfront Seniors' Residence, reading every word you've ever published. An unabashed disciple of yours she is. And who can blame her? She actually worked on Mackenzie King's staff when he reigned in Ottawa. We spoke of many and sundry things and were of like mind on most. She was unaccountably tolerant of my sham run for office, for which I was grateful, and said so. I freely confess I was quite taken with the old mum. Quick witted, silver tongued, with a bracing impatience for lesser lights. She'd have served us well were it not for that little matter of a century and a half of Tory bedrock protecting the seat.

Though I expect you were watching, Baddeck I rose from its haunches today and hovered in all its glory, reaching an alt.i.tude of 25 inches. My decision to enlarge the skirt has given me an unantic.i.p.ated additional three inches of lift. (Cracking!) I was able to adjust the linkage I've concocted between the thrust scoops and the throttle so that I can maintain a constant hover height even while diverting some of the air flow for thrust and control. I think I noted this little problem in an earlier entry, but its significance bears repet.i.tion. I'm quite pleased with the solution and myself for uncovering it. Mr. Bell is smiling down on me. When I get back from Papua New Guinea, I'll begin the painting.

I confess that my spirits have been higher in recent weeks. Why, I cannot say. I miss you more than I ever imagined I would when you were still languis.h.i.+ng and suffering in our sunroom. But the jagged edge of mourning has dulled recently, and I'm at a loss to explain it. Perhaps I shouldn't try. Perhaps I should just embrace it in the hopes that I'm not being teased, only to plummet back into the abyss next week. It is no diminished measure of my love for you that I am feeling better. I know you understand that. I know one should not feel guilty when pa.s.sing from grief's raw and vicious first stage into the slow and unyielding throb of the second. Yet strangely, I do sometimes. Aye, I do. Now, I can almost hear you scoffing.

AM.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

"I've marked your book reports, and you can pick them up on your way out. Some of you did very well for engineering students immersed in calculus and chemistry. Others of you made solid efforts but missed the mark by varying margins. I appreciate the time you all committed. I think as we get into the coursework, the remaining two a.s.signments this term will come easier. You might even enjoy them," I concluded, setting off a chorus of groans and head shaking.

It had been a somewhat encouraging session. After the nadir of my third cla.s.s a few weeks ago, which had attracted only 37 students, I'd worked hard to make the lectures Angus had already outlined for me my own. I took the same approach I'd adopted to speechwriting for the Leader. In speechwriting, audience a.n.a.lysis was critical. You had to get into your audience's collective head to know how to engage and hold them. In drafting speeches, I often took as much time thinking through the knowledge, needs, hopes, dreams, opinions, and att.i.tudes of the audience as I did crafting the actual words to be delivered. This up-front a.n.a.lysis almost always paid dividends. In my experience, the toughest speeches to write were those destined for very diverse audiences where capturing one listener, by definition, meant alienating another.

My particular audience of first-year engineers was h.o.m.ogenous to the point of monolithic, which made my job of holding their attention at least a little easier. In what little time I had left over from the campaign, I developed my lectures around engineering-related storylines and ill.u.s.trations while still honouring the key literary themes Angus had outlined. My lectures improved, word spread, and my audience grew to respectable proportions. Even so, I was never able to convince all of the engineers enrolled in the course to attend one of my lectures probably a good thing.

I tried to tap into the engineering part of their brains while making clandestine incursions into their latent artsy side. One day, we talked about the design and construction of the Bloor Viaduct, spanning Toronto's Don River Valley, as the bridge to Michael Ondaatje's masterpiece, In the Skin of a Lion, which featured this architectural wonder.

In another lecture, we discussed marine engineering and how sailing s.h.i.+ps at the turn of the twentieth century were reinforced for Arctic exploration to withstand the blunt trauma of pack ice. This was my subterfuge to introduce Wayne Johnston's excellent novel The Navigator of New York. The way I saw it, if you found the front door locked, sometimes you entered through a side window.

I looked up into the heaving sea of students as they gathered their belongings and headed towards the table by the door where I'd laid out their marked book reports. I found him where he usually was, at the centre of attention.

"Mr. Hawkins, a word, please."

Jeremy Hawkins, my creative Internet specialist and John Irving aficionado, descended the steps towards me. He couldn't quite mask the look of disquiet on his face. I couldn't quite mask the look of disdain on mine.

"Yes, Professor?"

I handed over his unmarked book report, which was likely drafted at some U.S. university by an impoverished English graduate student out to make a few bucks through the wonders of e-commerce. I kept it short.

"I know the Internet has made our lives much easier. But it is not just a boundless fount of information. It is also an unprecedented temptation to those looking for the easy way out. At this university, doc.u.mented academic dishonesty usually means expulsion. You've got three days to hand in your own book report," I said, with an extra dollop of gravity. I took his plagiarized work back from him. "I'll hold onto this in the meantime. Have a nice weekend." I smiled as he backed away, sh.e.l.l-shocked. I confess I derived modest satisfaction from bringing him down a few pegs. He deserved it.

The two Petes were waiting for me in my office after cla.s.s, looking as disconnected from mainstream society as two people could possibly be. I won't dwell on their apparel yet again beyond saying that the most conventional clothing on either of them was Pete2's neon green tartan kilt. It matched the colour of his triple-rowed Mohawk perfectly, which I'm certain was just a coincidence. It also hurt my eyes. As for the rest of their ensemble that day, I wondered how long it took them to get dressed and whether power tools were required.

"Hi, Professor," greeted Pete1. Pete2 nodded salutations, content as usual to let his friend handle the vocal work.

"Gentlemen."

"Thanks for the good marks on our reports. You didn't have to do that, you know. It's not why we're working on the campaign," Pete1 said a little awkwardly.

"And just to be absolutely clear, it's not why I gave you both good marks, either. Don't go around thinking you can score better marks by canva.s.sing for Angus. That is just not on," I replied, feeling defensive. "Both of you did very well on your a.s.signments. Pete1, your look at Robertson Davies' characters in ... in ... which Deptford novel did you read?"

"World of Wonders," he offered.

"Right. Your a.n.a.lysis was very strong. And Pete2, for someone who so often lets others speak for you, you certainly had a lot to say in your report. Plus, you happened to choose one of my favourite authors."

Pete2 handed me what looked like a first edition of Donald Jack's hilarious Three Cheers for Me, the subject of his book report. I also had a first edition that looked very much like this one.

"Thanks for the book," said Pete2 in his characteristic low, nearly monotone drawl.

"He borrowed it when we stopped by your place last week to pick up more pamphlets," Pete1 explained as if he were Pete2's personal translator.

"You're welcome," I replied. "My library is your library."

I had been serious. Both of their a.s.signments were well above the cla.s.s average and may even have approached the standards of a fair-to-middling grade-twelve student. That's one of the problems with engineering. Senior-high-school students intent on engineering careers had little room on their timetables for anything other than science and math courses if they hoped to be accepted by a good university. They simply had no time for history, English, art, and other important courses. It really showed in the E for E reports I'd just marked.

"Let's go, guys. I'll drop you over in poll 19. You can change on the way," I suggested.

Both Petes had resigned themselves to toning down their appearance when door-to-dooring. To this end, I always carried Liberal T-s.h.i.+rts and ball caps in the Taurus. I pulled over and parked as the boys scrambled out with b.u.t.tons and leaflets. They looked pumped for another evening of hostile rejection, perhaps highlighted by one neutral encounter with a still-undecided-but-possibly-Liberal-leaning voter.

"Okay, guys, you know the drill. Angus is actually in a different hemisphere right now, but as far as the voters you'll see tonight are concerned, he's just in a different part of the riding. Clear?" I asked.

"Clear, boss man," replied Pete1 with the standard nod from Pete2.

"Now, I really think we're starting to get our message across, and we have you two to thank for that. We're just three days out now, and we want to keep the pressure on until the polling stations open. Politics is a very unpredictable game, and anything can happen." It wasn't exactly a Vince Lombardi, pregame barn-burner speech, but we were all pretty much tapped out by that stage.

"We know the score, professor. We can make it home from here on our own, so we'll see you tomorrow." Pete1 waved me off as they made their way up the front walk of the first house. I jumped back into the car and made a hasty retreat, unwilling to witness the reaction of what statistically speaking was almost certainly a Tory voter.

Three more days, and I would be free. Humiliated, embarra.s.sed, disgraced, but free. I knew that no one in the Leader's office or at national campaign headquarters who was taking their medication as prescribed expected anything other than another Eric Cameron landslide. But I also knew the power at the centre was looking for progress, forward movement, some indication that we'd kept the Liberal flame aflicker to be kindled into a winning inferno in some future election. As far as I could tell, we'd snuffed out the lonely little fire, and had flooded the whole riding for good measure. Smokey The Bear would be proud. The party bra.s.s would not.

It was seven-thirty on the Friday night before the Monday election. I wasn't quite home yet and was listening to "As It Happens" on CBC Radio when my cell phone rang. "h.e.l.lo."

"Addison, is that you?" It was Andre Fontaine, out of breath as usual.

"Yep, what's up, Andre? Looking for an invitation to our victory party?"

"You know where Petra Borschart lives, don't you?" he hollered. I could hear crowd noises in the background.

"I think so. She's on Welland Avenue, isn't she?"

"Yeah, 65 Welland. Get over here right now. Right now!" He hung up.

I closed my cell and drove right past the McLintock boathouse towards the quiet residential community where Petra lived on the west side of c.u.mberland. I realized my stomach muscles were clenched. Andre was an excitable guy, but he seemed utterly possessed on the phone. It made me nervous.

What happened next made me throw up. And, oh yes, what happened next also changed Canada.

We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin from "CBC Radio National News." Less than one hour ago, Finance Minister Eric Cameron escaped from a fire at the home of his chief of staff, Petra Borschart, in c.u.mberland, Ontario. Neither was injured in the blaze, but police escorted both from the scene in handcuffs.

Eyewitnesses report that the Finance Minister and Ms. Borschart escaped from the house in rather unusual attire. Videotape shot moments ago and transmitted to CBC television news via satellite shows Mr. Cameron wearing only a studded, leather c.u.mmerbund, chrome handcuffs, alligator clips attached to his chest area, and a studded, leather choker with a three foot leash attached at the other end to the wrist of his chief of staff. The satellite videotape shows Ms. Borschart wearing a revealing rubber bodysuit. Both Mr. Cameron and Ms. Borschart were transported in the back of an OPP cruiser to the regional detachment in c.u.mberland.

Video equipment and hundreds of apparently homemade, s.e.xually explicit DVDs were also found at the scene in what firefighters are describing as a s.e.xual torture chamber in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the house. There are unconfirmed reports that the Finance Minister and Ms. Borschart are both featured in at least some of the DVDs.

Firefighters report that the blaze started in an upstairs bedroom when a window air conditioner shorted, igniting the curtains. The fire spread quickly but was easily extinguished when firefighters arrived. Stay tuned to "CBC Radio National News" for up-to-the-minute developments on this breaking story. I'm Daniel Lessard. We now return you to regularly scheduled programming.

In the middle of the news bulletin, I managed to bring my car safely to a stop though in hindsight, I should have chosen my parking spot with more care. Mrs. Kravchuk, the owner of the large, blooming, and as I discovered later, award-winning rose bush on which the Taurus came to a rest, was not happy. The situation didn't improve when, in the midst of her t.i.tanic tantrum, I barfed out the driver's side window onto the crushed yellow flowers that were sticking out below.

When Mrs. Kravchuk was finally placated or, more accurately, sedated, I carefully backed off her beloved bush and tore over to the scene of the fire. Bedlam greeted me along with Andre Fontaine. He was completely beside himself. A boisterous crowd filled the front lawn of the Borschart residence and seemed to feed off the bright lights and TV cameras. Thick, dark smoke still hung over the property, adding a surreal and supernatural aspect to the scene.

"Holy s.h.i.+t, holy s.h.i.+t, holy s.h.i.+t, Addison, it was simply unbef.u.c.king-lievable! I'll never forget it for the rest of my life. Mark my words this will change the face of Canadian politics. I heard the call on my police scanner and got here before anyone else. I saw the whole thing with my own eyes," he blathered, frothing at the mouth.

"Whoa, Andre. Calm down," I said. "Take it easy, man. You're halfway to a seizure."

"Well, then, I'd die happy because I was here the moment Eric Cameron's guise of perfection fell away, revealing dog collars, nipple clips, and a sordid taste for S and M. I was actually here when a woman in a crotchless, rubber bodysuit pulled a revered Canadian icon off his lofty pedestal by a short, leather leash," reported Andre, with a faraway look in his eyes.

"I hope you're going to write that down, Andre. You've got some good lines there," I noted, trying not to think about what was really happening here.

Andre babbled on about this being his Watergate, but I tuned him out and tried to take in what I saw around me. As I surveyed the scene, I wondered how so many neighbours had shown up so quickly. I saw people crowding the sidewalks and spilling out onto the streets. With 150 or so c.u.mberland citizens squished onto Petra's front yard, the place looked like a little slice of Woodstock before the rains came. I asked a teenage boy what had brought out so many people so fast. He told me it had been years since the last good house fire in c.u.mberland, what with the popularity of smoke detectors and all. Apparently, everyone in the neighbourhood tended to follow the fire trucks in hopes of seeing the kind of blaze they used to have every couple of months in the halcyon days of yore.

"So they're all here to see a fire?" I asked, incredulous.

"Well, that's how it started," the boy said, "but we all ended up seeing something even hotter that s.e.xpot dominatrix, dragging some poor sap around on a leash. That rubber suit of hers had cut-outs in all the right places." He giggled. "The fire was out ten minutes after the smoke eaters got here, but the crowd was just getting warmed up. When the news broke that Eric Cameron was walking around in his birthday suit with a few clamps and clips and some leather, all h.e.l.l broke loose."

To my utter horror, the crowd was now chanting "resign, resign, resign." By this time, I saw four satellite-television trucks with reporters doing on-the-spot, live segments. Andre Fontaine was in his glory. He was being interviewed by the national networks as the guy who'd broken the story with his brief but hard-hitting piece that had been posted on The c.u.mberland Crier's Web site within 20 minutes of his arrival at Petra's house. He'd written the piece and had transmitted it on his BlackBerry. Betacams were crawling all over the property. Despite the ubiquitous yellow police tape, several camera operators and reporters had crossed the cordon and were now in the infamous S and M cellar. The only police in the area at the time of the fire had already left with the ruined and underdressed guests of honour.

I felt someone's hand squeeze mine and turned to find Lindsay at my side with her other hand in the crook of Muriel's arm, lending her stability. I must have looked shocked.

"What? Why should we watch it on Newsworld when we're only three blocks away and can see it live?" Lindsay said through a broad smile.

Muriel just shook her head in astonishment. "I've known for the last 15 years he's had a bolt loose somewhere. But I never expected he'd Hindenburg like this," she commented. "I've always said he was a slave to public opinion, but I never guessed he was Petra Borschart's slave at the same time," she said, unable to hold in a rather inelegant guffaw.

I noticed Muriel was holding a nondescript, unlabeled DVD in her left hand. "Muriel, please tell me that you're on your way to the video store to take back a couple of Bob Hope-Bing Crosby road movies," I said with trepidation.

"Oh, this may not be a road movie," she quipped, "but I think it's going to be a cla.s.sic nevertheless. The common room at the lodge is going to be filled to capacity tonight. Fortunately, all of us are over 18."

"No no no! Please tell me that you're not holding an Eric Cameron amateur s.e.x flick. You weren't rummaging around in their bas.e.m.e.nt brig, were you?" I asked, still incredulous. In fact, I suspected that incredulity would be my constant companion for some time to come.

"Andre Fontaine slipped it to me. He told me that after five elections, I'd earned a sneak peek at the real Eric Cameron. Very decent of him, I thought," she replied, holding the DVD close to her frail chest.

Fontaine must have pilfered the DVDs from the s.e.x cellar before the police arrived. Now, I had crossed the threshold of high anxiety into the zone of abject terror. If Andre and Muriel had s.e.x movies that starred a groveling and submissive Eric Cameron, others surely did, too. Though I studiously avoided thinking about the night's consequences, my body seemed to understand the implications. I started shaking uncontrollably.

"Are you all right, Daniel?" asked Lindsay, still propping up her grandmother, who was shaking with glee as much as with Parkinson's. "You look like you're about to pa.s.s out."

"I'm just trying to process this rather unexpected development, and it's giving me a headache," I said, all too aware of the seismic s.h.i.+ft in the political landscape that might have been triggered by a small electrical fire in a nondescript c.u.mberland home.

I had to get out of there. The growing and chanting crowd was pus.h.i.+ng my anxiety level from "very concerned" to "deeply troubled." I thought it prudent to take my leave before it reached "meltdown."

Soon, there was nothing left for the camera crews to shoot beyond the rebellious rabble and the firefighters coiling their hoses; the fire was, by then, long extinguished. I made sure Muriel and Lindsay were safe and content. I learned that content was an understatement. In fact, they were safe and deliriously happy.

I turned to go when Muriel sounded an ominous note in a voice distorted by laughter. "Daniel, time to start thinking about Plan B."

I simply waved and backed away, appearing calm, though my pulse was pounding. As I hustled to the car, my life actually flashed before my eyes. Until that moment, I'd always thought that phrase was just a cliche. In review, I thought my life looked quite impressive, at least until I reached the fire scene at Petra's house. I slid behind the wheel, fished out a sprig of Mrs. Kravchuk's rose bush that was digging into my neck from beneath the headrest, and turned the key. In the crowd-cramped road, I executed a perfect seven-point turn and headed home.

Surely Muriel was overreacting. The Honourable Eric Cameron was the most popular politician in the country, perhaps in Canadian history. He had such an enormous balance in the political-goodwill bank, I figured nothing short of necrophilia before a live studio audience would threaten his re-election. The good people of c.u.mberland had displayed, election upon election, their unreserved contempt for anything or anyone remotely related to the party of Laurier and Trudeau. Five times vanquished, Muriel should have known that better than anyone. What were the voters going to do toss their lot in with Absent Angus? I thought not. Not in this riding. Not in my lifetime. Nothing like clear thinking to calm jangled nerves.

I was feeling much calmer by the time I parked and dragged myself up the steps into the boathouse. Eric Cameron would apologize humbly and masterfully like the virtuoso spin-meister he was and sail to another victory with a substantial, if somewhat reduced, plurality. The die was cast. History and momentum were on his side, and the election was only two days away. He'd blundered badly but would survive. Angus was safe; therefore, so was I.

My breathing slowed to normal. The planets returned to their time-honoured orbits. The river just beyond my window still flowed to the east. All was right with the world and still would be come election day. Feeling restored, I settled into the easy chair and flicked on the television.

What an idiot I am.

I'm Peter Longwood. Welcome back to "CBC National News" and our special live coverage of the firestorm engulfing the Conservative government and its popular Finance Minister.

I couldn't look away, though I desperately wanted to. It was a train wreck in slow motion, and I felt like the conductor.

Eric Cameron is in police custody at this hour along with his chief of staff, Petra Borschart, following a fire at Ms. Borschart's c.u.mberland residence. The video you're seeing was shot by CBC earlier this evening at the scene. We advise discretion as some of these images may be disturbing to some viewers. As you can see, Mr. Cameron and Ms. Borschart escaped from the fire, wearing very little. Based on their distinctive attire and many hours of video footage found at the site, it appears that the two were engaged in I came to my senses and changed channels to escape my misery. I made the mistake of turning to CTV, then to Global, then to the multicultural network, and finally, to the local rural cable station nothing but leather, leashes, and a nearly naked Cameron. I'd never really thought about how the Finance Minister might look au naturel. Why would I? But in strange times, the mind works in strange ways. Would he be a little flabby? Did he have chicken legs? A noted intellectual, he was obviously well-endowed upstairs. And by the way he, in the political sense, liked to swing his big staff around, I think most Canadians a.s.sumed he was quite gifted downstairs, as well. Enquiring minds want to know. Such is the undeniable curiosity that dwells in us all. Well, truth be told, though there was a chill in the air, Cameron wasn't half the man I thought he'd be. (Forgive me, but several million Canadians glued to their TVs made the same lewd observation of Cameron's shortcomings and, within minutes, clogged the Internet with cra.s.s little jokes about it.) In an admittedly desperate attempt to escape the wall-to-wall coverage, I actually switched over to the American Fox News Network. I was never a regular viewer of what Fox called news.

... electrical fire upstairs triggered panic downstairs in what has been described by Canadian media as a s.e.xual torture chamber. Apparently, a dominatrix dragged Canadian Finance Minister Rick Cameron from her den of discipline by a leather, studded leash. The Minister escaped without a s.h.i.+rt on his back but with alligator clips on his front. The lifesaving dominatrix turned out to be Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but there is something very comforting about the fetal position. The stunning footage of Cameron and Borschart being led away in handcuffs (which they may well have enjoyed, for all I knew) didn't look quite as sinister from my curled-up position on the hardwood floor. I heard a soft moaning and spent a couple of minutes identifying the source. It was me. I mean I. Eventually, I grew uncomfortable. Even in the fetal position, three and a half hours on hardwood can take its toll.

It was midnight when I collapsed into bed. My only solace Angus was not burning the midnight oil in the workshop below. I realized that my earlier sanguine a.n.a.lysis, preserving a still comfortable victory for Cameron, may have been pure delusion sprung from wishful thinking. The curse of the sunny optimist. When I really stripped away all the trappings and distractions from the crisis, I realized we might be in a wee spot of trouble. Strike that. We were very likely in deep, deep s.h.i.+t. All would depend on how the story played out nationally, and just as importantly, how it unfolded in c.u.mberland. Cameron had a great deal of support that could be siphoned off long before his seat in the House of Commons was truly threatened. My neck was really in the hands of the voters of c.u.mberland-Prescott. If they failed me, my neck would then be pa.s.sed into the hands of one Duncan Angus McLintock, and I had a reasonably good idea what he would do with his formidable paws. My fate was left to the voters' collective capacity for patience, understanding, and forgiveness as they weighed the sins of the Honourable Eric Cameron. I would also rely on their distaste for all things Liberal.

And what really was Eric Cameron's great sin, anyway? So he liked to be ordered around while wearing leather. So he liked to grovel at the feet of a rubber-clad she-wolf. So he liked to attend to the needs of said she-wolf in front of a camera while being whipped with a riding crop. Was that so wrong? Was that so very different from the life of the average Canadian voter that it might have some influence in the privacy of the polling booth? He didn't intend for his proclivities to become public. He practiced his little, sordid secret in the privacy, or more accurately, the captivity of a private home. Were not Canadians all about tolerance and acceptance? Did we not have a proud history of progressive and enlightened views on s.e.xuality? To paraphrase Pierre Trudeau, the state had no place in the private s.e.xual torture chambers of the nation. Was this really such a big deal?

In the face of such ubiquitous media coverage, one thing was certain. Unless you happened to be in a remote corner of Papua New Guinea, you would certainly have heard all about Cameron's self-immolation.

DIARY.