Barney's Version Read Online Free PDF Page A

With Americans (or Canadians, for that matter) what you see is what you get. But settle into your seat on a 749 flying out of Heathrow next to an ostensibly boring old Englishman with wobbly chins, the acquired stammer, obviously something in the City, intent on his
Times
crossword puzzle, and don’t you dare patronize him. Mr. Milquetoast, actually a judo black belt, was probably parachuted into the Dordogne in 1943, blew up a train or two, and survived the Gestapo cells by concentrating on what would become the definitive translation of
Gilgamesh
from the Sin-Leqi-Inninni; and now — his garment bag stuffed with his wife’s most alluring cocktail dresses and lingerie — he is no doubt bound for the annual convention of cross-dressers in Saskatoon.
    Once again Mike told me that I could have their garden flat. Private. With my own entrance. And how wonderfully dreadful it would be for his children, who had adored
Friday the 13th
, to get to know their grandfather. But I hate being a grandfather. It’s indecent. In my mind’s eye, I’m still twenty-five. Thirty-three max. Certainly not sixty-seven, reeking of decay and dashed hopes. My breath sour. My limbs in dire need of a lube job. And now that I’ve been blessed with a plastic hip-socket replacement, I’m no longer even biodegradable. Environmentalists will protest my burial.
    On one of my recent annual visits to Mike and Caroline, I arrived laden with gifts for my grandchildren and Her Ladyship (as Saul, my second-born son, has dubbed her), my
pièce de résistance
reserved for Mike: a box of Cohibas, acquired for me in Cuba. It pained me to part with those cigars, but I hoped it would please Mike, with whom I had a difficult relationship, and it did delight him. Or so I thought. But a month later one of Mike’s associates, Tony Haines, who also happened to be a cousin of Caroline’s, was in Montreal on a business trip. He phoned to say he had a gift from Mike, a side of smoked salmon from Fortnum’s. I invited him to meet me for drinks at Dink’s. Pulling out his cigar case, Tony offered me a Cohiba. “Oh, wonderful,” I said. “Thank you.”
    â€œDon’t thank me. They were a birthday gift from Mike and Caroline.”
    â€œOh, really,” I said, lumbered with another family grievance to nurse. Or cherish, according to Miriam. “Some people collect stamps,or bookmatch covers,” she once said, “but with you, my darling, it’s grievances.”
    On that visit Mike and Caroline settled me into an upstairs bedroom, everything mod, from Conran or The General Trading Company. A bouquet of freesias and a bottle of Perrier on my bedside table, but no ashtray. Opening the bedside-table drawer, searching for something I could use, I blundered on a pair of torn pantyhose. Sniffing them, I recognized the scent at once. Miriam’s. She and Blair had shared this bed, contaminating it. Yanking back the sheets, I searched the mattress for tell-tale stains. Nothing. Har, har, har. Professor Limp Prick couldn’t cut the mustard. Herr Doktor Hopper né Hauptman probably read aloud to her in bed instead. His deconstructionist
pensées
on Mark Twain’s racism. Or Hemingway’s homophobia. All the same, I retrieved a canister of pine spray from the bathroom and fumigated the mattress, and then remade the bed after a fashion before climbing back into it. Now the sheets were riding up on me, a maddening tangle. The room stank of pine scent. I opened a window wide. Freezing cold it was. An abandoned husband, I was obviously destined to perish of pneumonia in a bed once graced by Miriam’s warmth. Her beauty.
Her treachery
. Well now, women of her age, suffering hot flushes and confusions, sometimes unaccountably begin to shoplift. If she were arrested, I would refuse to be a character witness. No, I would testify that she had always been light-fingered. Let her rot in the