“You’re gonna have trouble with that going through customs,” he said.
“I hope not. The conference people told me to get a carnet—you know, a set of import papers that describe what you’re bringing in, and I did that. Here it is—it should be okay.” The carnet had cost me a pretty penny, but international regulations required it. I had photographed the puppets and made a list of the materials from which they were made, as well as estimating the value of the things. The puppets were deemed “professional equipment”, and it wouldn’t cost me any extra duty or tax, as long as I had the carnet. The official I had dealt with suggested that I keep the estimate of value low, because I’d been told I had to give them a deposit equivalent to the duty and tax payable if the goods had been exported for sale. It was sort of like a bond—I didn’t really understand it, but then there are times when it’s best just to do what you’re told. I scratched out what I’d originally written (”priceless”), and wrote $200 instead, which was low-balling, big time. However, a $200 ransom, which is how I thought of it, was all I could afford.
“You’re really going through with this trip, aren’t you?” Becker said, which struck me as a monumentally dumb thing to say. I had my passport, my ticket, my knapsack (with a little Canadian flag sewn on) and my puppet case and the official carnet. It wasn’t as if I was having cold feet, for pity’s sake. I’d be gone in seven days’ time.
“Yes, Becker. I’m really going through with it.”
“Nothing I can say to make you change your mind?”
“Nope.”
“You wouldn’t be interested in hearing about the rumours of terrorist activity at Pearson International Airport?”
“That’s not fair, Becker. You’re just making that up.”
“Am I? How do you know? I’d know better than you in this case, at least, because I’ve been working with the people in security down there.”
“I know you have. And I know as well as you do that if the rumours were true, they’d shut the airport down and send us all home. So quit fretting. I’ll be fine.”
“Didn’t the airline make a fuss about letting you fly when you’re, um, like that?”
“Like what? Fat, you mean?” We were getting spatty. Well, I was. I suspect that Becker was trying to be patient in the face of it.
“I mean,” he said, after a tiny pause, “when you’re so far advanced in your pregnancy.”
“As of next Monday, I’ll be twenty-eight weeks gone. You’re allowed to fly up until week thirty-two. I made sure about that. I even have a note from Cass Wright about my expected delivery date, in case they ask.”
“Which is the first or second week of May, right?”
“Right. No worries, Mark.”
“What about cabin pressure, low humidity, stuff like that?” I was impressed. It was almost as if he really cared—like he’d done his homework and was truly worried about me and the child I was carrying, and not just freaking out because he wasn’t in control of the situation.
“They suggested an aisle seat at the bulkhead,” I said, “so I made a special request. Not that I know what a bulkhead is, you understand, but I’m trying to do this by the book, you know. I’m not really the perverse little puppy you think I am.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“And they say I’m supposed to drink lots of fluids during the flight—and walk around a lot so my ankles don’t swell up—although if I’m drinking fluids, I’ll be walking to the bathroom every two minutes during the whole flight, anyway.”
“Bathroom—that’s what the bulkhead is, Polly. You won’t have far to walk.”
“Oh, great. Put the pregnant lady next to the can—isn’t that like being stuck at the table by the kitchen door when you’re dining alone? Charming.”
“You’ll probably be thankful for it.”
“So you’ve accepted that I’m going, then.”
“Oh, yeah. Of course I have, sweetheart. Just making a last ditch effort.” He hadn’t called me sweetheart in ages—not since that night about a week after I’d told him about the baby, when he’d got roaring drunk and held me in his arms, stroking my bare tummy with a freckled hand and rocking me back and forth while he held back tears. We hadn’t made love that night—he couldn’t, truth be told, but it was the closest we’d been in all the ensuing months. Hearing it gave me a twinge below, down in the places where I used to play, as Mr. Cohen would say. I touched the back of his hand gently with one finger.
“I’ll be fine, Mark,” I said again.
“I hope so. And if you’re really going, I have a favour to ask you.”
“Uh-huh?” I was actually hoping the favour he wanted was a sexual one, because I was all of a sudden quite willing to provide it, but that was not what he had in mind.
“You know that we cremated my dad, back in October, right?”
“Yep. You told me that.” I was still a tad unhappy that he had not asked me to fly out to join him for the funeral. It would have been something at least, seeing as he’d never let me have the chance to meet the old guy while he was still alive.
“Well, my sister and I were going to scatter the ashes at his fishing cabin up at the lake, near Jasper, but we decided not to.”
“How come?”
“Ever since I can remember, Dad talked about going back to England—to Sussex, where he was born—just to visit, not to live. He always talked about it like it would be as good as winning the Stanley Cup, like he would win something there that would make him happy. When Mom was alive, he always said he’d take her back to visit his mom. He never did, though. He didn’t even go back for her funeral, in 1980.”
“Where in Sussex?” I asked. Not that I knew Sussex from Wales as far as geography was concerned, but I could see where this was leading, and I wanted to find out how far Sussex was from Canterbury. “Eastbourne,” he said. “A small, seaside town, I think. Picturesque, probably. Worth a visit. There are these white cliffs there—you know the song ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’, the one the Andrews Sisters used to sing? Like those, I guess. He used to go up there and look at the sea and play when he was a kid, a place called Beachy Head, I think.”
“You want me to go and scatter his ashes there, don’t you?”
“My sister and I talked about it on the phone last night. She’s cool with it.”
“This is something you two should be doing, not me, Mark. I didn’t even know your dad.”
“I know you never got the chance to meet him, and I’m sorry about that. You would have liked each other.” I refrained from mentioning that I’d wanted to meet him, and Becker had made it almost impossible to do so.
“So, why don’t you hang on to the ashes a bit longer, and go over there with your sister in the summer and visit your family, or whatever? It’s not that I wouldn’t be happy to do it, Mark. It just seems a kind of ceremonial thing, and it would be meaningless if I did it.”
“It won’t get done, otherwise, Polly,” Becker said with some bitterness. “I’m a lot like my dad in more ways than you can imagine. I’d just talk about it and talk about it, and Dad’s ashes would just sit there in my bedroom closet for years and never get back