Keeper of the Flame. Jack Batten
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of the movie world. Movies were her business. She talked about them on CBC Radio, blogged reviews twice a week, wrote occasional magazine profiles of movie people, and now she had written a biography of Edward Everett Horton.
Edward Everett was never a movie name on everybody’s lips, but his acting won him semi-fame in the 1930s and ’40s when he worked as a character actor in musical comedies. He was a tall, funny flibbertigibbit of a guy who played second banana to Fred Astaire in a dozen films. Horton, now long deceased, grew up a New York kid and attended Columbia University. That was no doubt the reason why the university signed on to publish Annie’s book.
They were throwing a launch party for her at a theatre somewhere in Columbia’s complex of buildings. That was the following Tuesday. The plan was I’d fly down with Annie for a day and a half, then come back after the launch. Annie would stay longer to do publicity for the book. The prospect of the launch was what got her in a tizzy. She was relaxed and funny on radio, but when she was in front of a real live audience, like the one she’d have at Columbia, she got the heebie-jeebies.
“I heard a bit of good news today,” Annie said, sipping her martini.
“‘We pass this way but once,’” I said, quoting.
Annie looked at me, “Where’s that from?”
“Old New Yorker cartoon. Guy beaten down by life arrives home to his beaten-down wife. Guy says to wife, ‘Heard a bit of good news today. We pass this way but once.’”
“I’m going to be on the Charlie Rose show next week,” Annie said.
“Well, look at you,” I said. “Big-time Annie.”
“Charlie Rose reaches people who buy books.”
“Not to mention his show gets rerun at all hours of the day and night.”
“Maximum exposure,” Annie said.
“Are you cheering up?” I said.
Annie polished off her martini.
“I’ve still got to give the goddamn speech at the launch,” she said.
I made Annie another martini, same way as before. She carried it with her on a stroll through the back garden while I organized the collection of salads Annie had planned for dinner.
Around the house, we referred to the garden as the Eighth Wonder of the World. We had it designed and installed by a woman known by her clients as the Garden Goddess. Annie and I figured she deserved the GG status. Guests to our place exclaimed over all the greenery out there. “Greenery” was missing the point. There were greens aplenty, but they shaded deceptively into greys and maroons and deep purples. We had a birch tree, a Japanese maple, a ginkgo. We had hostas and a couple of berms. The foliage, bushes, and trees were so dense at this time of year that they blocked all trace on the horizon of the architecturally offensive buildings over on Spadina, including the one housing my office.
I arranged place mats, dinner plates, napkins, and cutlery on the dining-room table along with enough different salads in bowls to feed the whole neighbourhood. Salads of chicken, tuna, potato, and plain greens, plus coleslaw. I opened a bottle of Pinot Grigio and fetched two white wine glasses.
Outside, Annie was nowhere in sight, concealed among the foliage. I sat at the dining-room table and sipped my second martini. A minute or two later, I caught glimpses of Annie’s white blouse and tan slacks. The entire Annie soon emerged from among the garden’s thick pleasures. Annie was a petite woman, beguilingly so to me and all other admirers of feminine beauty. She had a triangular face, thick black hair, large brown eyes, and all kinds of shapeliness.
“I’ve finished with moping,” Annie said after she sat down at the table. “At least for tonight.”
“The miracle of a martini,” I said.
“Not to mention the soothing effect of the Eighth Wonder.”
Annie dressed the green salad in a concoction of her own invention. She was world-class in salad dressing. We helped ourselves to salads and started to eat.
“Want to hear about Flame and his problems?” I said.
“He’s really got oodles of do-re-mi?”
“And then some.”
Annie made a circular motion with her left hand. “On with it, pal,” she said.
I told her the whole story just as I’d told Gloria, soft-pedalling the lyrics to Flame’s songs but adding the Google scoop about the Reverend’s history of Catholic disgrace.
“You know what I’d do if I were you?” Annie said when I finished.
“You’d phone the Reverend,” I said. “Make an appointment and call on the man.”
“Take the direct approach.” Annie said, nodding in agreement with herself. “Works every time.”
“I prefer to take the direct approach indirectly.” I said.
Annie made a small harumphing sound.
She said, “What’s the word you use to describe what you do when you are, as I more accurately call it, stalling?”
“Reconnoitre.”
“Baloney by any other name,” Annie said.
We were making steady inroads on the salads. My favourite was the one Annie put together with the potatoes and just the right balance of mayonnaise, yoghurt, and green onions. The Pinot Grigio wasn’t bad either.
“By Friday noon,” I said, “I’ll have Gloria’s report on the target guy.”
“The Reverend who’s an alleged scoundrel,” Annie said.
“Also by then,” I said, “I’ll have nosed around Heaven’s Philosophers on St. Clair. Taken the measure of the sort of people who go there for their spiritual needs. Chatted up the more amenable among them about the Reverend. Observed the man himself from a bit of distance. Taken the lie of the land.” I hesitated. “Or is it the lay of the land I’m taking?”
“To lay is to place,” Annie said, “To lie is to recline.”
“I recall that from your previous wordsmith seminars.”
“How that works out in practice is a horse of a different colour.”
“How so?”
“In Canada,” Annie said, “it’s ‘lie of the land.’ In the U.S.A., it’s ‘lay.’”
“Where the Reverend Douglas is concerned,” I said, “I’m taking the lie of the land.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Annie said. “The part you’re ignoring, historically speaking, is that something always goes wrong on your misbegotten reconnoitre excursions.”
“Where’s the threat on this one? From a possibly nutty clergyman?”
Annie shook her head, looking momentarily doleful.
We ate more heaps of the salads, but didn’t come close to polishing them off. Annie took her Jane Gardam novel up to bed while I put the leftovers into containers in the refrigerator. I loaded the dishwasher and followed Annie upstairs.
She seemed to be getting a kick out of Jane Gardam. I got in beside her with my copy of Gary Burton’s autobiography. How a kid from a small Indiana town made musical history as the world’s greatest jazz vibraphone player, and discovered he was gay. We read for an hour, and just after we turned the lights off and just before we drifted off to sleep, Annie snuggled up to me.
“Promise you’ll be careful, sweetie,” she whispered in my ear.
“Mmm,” I murmured.
It was an ambivalent murmur.
Chapter Seven
The