My Present Age Read Online Free PDF Page A

November. The day the first snow flew we would begin preparations for our final departure. The symbolism of that appealed to Victoria. I never looked beyond June and the wedding.
    But that is all in the past, and now, riding a city transit bus that shakes along snowy streets, I must consider more pressing things such as Victoria’s phone call and, with it, her perplexing invitation to lunch. She wasn’t unfriendly, merely curt and formal, exactly what one might expect given the circumstances. But why have I been summoned to a meeting? It can only be trouble of some kind. Perhaps the question of custody of Balzac. I can’t understand why she has chosen to stand firm on that issue. Not that I mind. If he is the last feeble link between us as man and wife, so be it. Victoria, after all, is the one who wishes our marriage ended as quickly, cleanly, and finally as possible. I, on the other hand, have not been prepared to relinquish my spouse with any semblance of dignity and good order.
    This, I know, given the standards of the present age, is viewed as a grievous fault of character. I have seen a number of men of my age and acquaintance bow out nobly and back into the wings to allow the understudy to assume the role of male lead. However, Edis jealous, Ed is possessive, Ed is selfish. I understand that contemporary couples ought to dissolve
relationships
harmoniously, with all the alacrity of a single-cell amoeba dividing itself in the interests of new life. Some generous souls speak well of the perfidious wife-snatcher in public and meet him for the occasional drink after work. Not this cookie. My petty antics are legendary in the circle of Victoria’s friends. They have enjoyed the spectacle of me in hot pursuit of the woman I love, travelling after her just as fast as my hands and knees will carry me.
    The bus groans and shudders along icy, rutted streets. The city is in the second week of a severe cold snap. For twelve consecutive days the temperature has dropped below −35°C. Brisk, penetrating breezes drive needles of cold through pant legs, lodge aches in septums, gums, and teeth, burn faces with dazzling pain. Pedestrians weep and snuffle and wince from building to building.
    Scratching a patch of clear glass out of the frost on my window I stare out at the frozen world while the bus grinds over the bridge. I can see the river’s crust of ice and snow, which has heaved and buckled where the current runs strongest in midchannel. A ribbon of water twists amid this shattered ice, steaming like a flow of ashy lava. On the river bank the tawny spire of St. John’s Cathedral raises a cross against a white sky.
    I’m apprehensive about seeing Victoria again. For years I camouflaged love with acrimony, seeing our marriage as a series of bargains that had to be negotiated from a position of strength. I thought that to admit how much I needed Victoria was bad strategy. Of the two of us there was no doubt I was the weaker – and for that reason the least able to yield. At one time Victoria loved me. But she never needed me. I understood that from the beginning and hated what I understood. Now we have little but what I made us heir to: the dreary formulae of recrimination, elaborated by a genuine wish on her part to break free from me and my lover’s heart.
    The bus drops me in front of the public library. From there it is a short, numbing walk to the Café Nice, where I have been orderedto report for lunch. Once inside the Café I shed my parka and lurk behind a large fern in the vestibule, scouting the premises. Good intelligence is an important function of all successful counter-insurgency operations. Know your enemy and the disposition of her forces.
    I gingerly part the fronds and swing my eyes over the lunch-hour throng. At this time of day the diners are a rather conventional crew, younger professionals and businessmen and businesswomen, a spattering of well-dressed and well-heeled ladies savouring their second