Leaving the World (17 page)

‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ she asked.

‘Making certain you have enough money to keep yourself in a reasonable style.’

‘I’ve told you before: I do just fine.’

‘Mom, I’m in the money right now.’

‘You can’t buy me, you know. It’s what your father always said: You can never buy somebody’s affections—’

I snapped my phone shut and kicked a waste basket across the room and put my palms flat against my eyes in an attempt to block out everything to do with my two parents.

Mom called back three minutes later.

‘Did we get cut off?’ she asked.

‘No, I hung up.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Did I say the wrong thing?’

‘I’ll talk to you next week, Mom.’

‘You really shouldn’t take what I say seriously, Jane.’

But I do, I do. Because you mean exactly what you say
.

I returned to the Harvard Library and buried myself again in the book. Some weeks later – at 10:47 on a Friday evening – I typed the final sentence. I sat back in my desk chair, reeling with that mixture of elation and depression that every writer I’ve ever read about usually experiences when they have finally reached the last word . . . and with the knowledge that, with a book, writing the final word was only the beginning of the real work. But then a security guard came by and informed me that the library was closing in a few minutes, and could I please pack up and vacate the building. I bundled everything into a couple of backpacks and staggered out into Harvard Yard, awkwardly trying to balance my bundles. As I reached the street and flagged down a cab, the thought struck me:
I’ll never finish another book again because I never want to write another book again
.

When I got home, I emptied a bottle of red wine while printing up the manuscript. Then, around one in the morning, when I’d downed three-quarters of a litre of rot-gut red, I started getting Boston-Irish maudlin, thinking:
You are all alone in the world
. My mother would naturally dispute this statement – but I knew it to be true. I could rely on nobody but myself. Bar a friend three thousand miles away in Oregon, who else did I have in my life? Since David’s death, I had completely closed down – removing myself entirely from any personal involvement, even one simply based on friendship. And after being duped by Dad . . .

Well, I’m certain a good Freudian would have much to say about all that and about the tears I was shedding now for my loneliness.

But then night woke up and I vowed two things:
No more cheap red wine . . . and no more self-pity
. Instead, I would confront my unhappiness in a predictably American way: I would go shopping.

I went out and bought a car. Nothing too fancy or extravagant. I could never see the point of dropping excessive amounts of money on four wheels and a motor. But given that I did have all that money in the bank, I decided that I could splurge in a modest sort of way and dropped $19,000 on a Mazda Miata. I’d always secretly wanted a sports car – but one that didn’t mark you out as an exponent of conspicuous consumption. The Miata was stylish, but relatively sensible (will you listen to me, always justifying,
justifying
). Its color was muted British Racing Green with a hood that you had to lower and hoist by hand. I loved it from the moment I got it out on I-93 with the salesman and revved it up to ninety in about eight seconds.

‘You always drive this way?’ the salesman asked, just a little shocked when I put the pedal to the metal and the car took off.

‘Hey, it’s a test drive,’ I said.

I insisted on taking the car right down to Providence, Rhode Island and back again, breaking speed limits with impunity, knowing that this would be the last time I engaged in such a bad-girl habit (but hey, it’s a test drive). When we returned to his office, I undercut the car’s sticker price by two thousand.

‘My margins are too small to accept that.’

‘That’s what every salesman says,’ I told him and stood up, thanking him for his time.

‘I could give you a grand off . . .’

‘Two grand or no sale,’ I said, adding: ‘and I’ll pay you cash on Monday morning.’

‘Fifteen hundred.’

‘Thanks again for the test drive,’ I said and walked out. He was behind me five seconds later.

‘OK, OK. Nineteen thousand and you’ve got the car.’

As we were later signing the paperwork he said: ‘You’re some tough operator. What are you, a hedge fund honcho?’

‘I’m looking for a job teaching English.’

‘I pity your students.’

That Monday afternoon I drove out the door of the Mazda dealership with my first-ever new car.

As I sat in my apartment that night, contemplating my next move, the phone rang. It was Agent Ames. He asked if he could drop by and see me tomorrow morning.

He arrived promptly the next day at eleven. As I opened the door and let him inside I could see him taking in the grad-student style of my little studio – and being surprised by its modestness.

‘I was expecting something a little more in keeping with your salary,’ he said, simultaneously letting me know that he knew what I’d earned.

‘I was just a trainee, sir – and tried to save most of what I made while at Freedom Mutual.’

‘That’s very admirable. Then again, you did have to learn thrift early on, didn’t you? Though that’s a rather flashy car you just bought yourself.’

I smiled tightly and asked: ‘How can I help you, Agent Ames?’

‘Here’s your passport,’ he said, reaching into his briefcase and handing the document over to me. ‘As far as the Bureau is concerned you are no longer under suspicion – but if your father does happen to get in touch with you—’

‘I promise, you will be the first to know.’

‘That’s good to hear,’ he said. ‘What are you up to right now?’

‘I’ve been hiding in the Harvard Library, trying to turn my doctoral thesis into a book.’

‘That’s also very admirable. Most people would have taken the Freedom Mutual pay-off and headed for Mexico.’

‘I couldn’t do that, because you had my passport.’

‘How right you are. And we’re returning it to you now, not just because you’ve been cleared of any wrongdoing vis-à-vis your father, but also because we know you didn’t engage in any of the insider-trading scams that Freedom Mutual have been suspected of running for the past four years.’

‘I wasn’t aware of such activity.’

‘As I said, I believe that. But if you were willing, we’d still like to have one of our colleagues at the SEC interview you.’

‘I honestly don’t know anything, sir.’

‘Let the SEC be the judge of that.’

‘I was just a trainee.’

‘But I’m certain you saw and heard things that could be useful to their investigation.’

‘I really need to talk to my lawyer about this.’

‘People only talk to their lawyers when they are guilty of something.’

‘I’m guilty of nothing, sir.’

‘Then you don’t need to talk to your lawyer.’

I met his challenging gaze.

‘I’m talking to my lawyer first, sir.’

‘You might soon find yourself being subpoenaed, Ms Howard.’

As soon as Ames left I was on the phone to Dwight Hale.

‘You did the right thing,’ Hale said after listening to me recount my conversation with the FBI man. ‘You know nothing – and I will make certain the Bureau understands that you are not to be bothered again.’

‘How can you ensure that?’

‘I have my methods. The thing is, it’s no longer your problem. On the contrary, it’s my problem now – and I’ll take care of it.’

‘But say he approaches me again?’

‘He won’t.’

‘He said he would.’

‘Trust me, that won’t happen.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Because I’m a lawyer. My advice to you now is this: as you have gotten your passport back why don’t you take a vacation somewhere outside the country, and preferably for a couple of weeks.’

‘Are you telling me to go on the run?’

‘I’m just telling you to take a foreign vacation.’

‘Do I have to leave today?’

‘I’d make yourself scarce as soon as possible. But do understand – all they can do is subpoena you to testify. Since you know nothing, there’s nothing to worry about. However, if you do happen to be out of the country they can’t easily serve you with the necessary papers. So the choice is yours: stay and find yourself being given the third degree and being put under a cloud of suspicion . . .’

‘Even though I am entirely innocent of—’

‘Clouds of suspicion often envelop innocent people. I’m just trying to save you some grief. Anyway, you probably have forty-eight hours before a process server shows up on your doorstep. So over to you now.’

Forty-eight hours. I went straight to work, packing a suitcase, packing up my laptop, dumping all perishables out of the refrigerator, paying some bills and collating my manuscript and research papers. Then I carted everything down to my car and managed to squeeze my bags into the small trunk, with my books and manuscript ending up on the empty passenger seat. Climbing in behind the wheel I put the key in the ignition and heard the engine fire into life.

As I pulled away from my front door and steered the car in the direction of the highway, a thought struck me:
So this is what they mean by going on the run
.

But this was quickly supplanted by another thought:
My romance with money is over
.

Part Three

W
ITHIN AN HOUR
of leaving town I crossed the border into Maine. Forty minutes after that I came to that junction on the interstate where you could turn off to coastal 295 and then on to Route 1. A quick exit at Bath, a right turn on Route 209 and I’d be at David’s cottage in Winnegance in no time, whereupon I’d tell myself that, one of these days, the constant low-level agony would abate . . . maybe when I fell in love again . . . if that were ever to come to pass . . .

Common sense kicked in as the exit to I-295 loomed. I signaled left, pulled into the fast lane and kept zooming north-east, passing Lewiston, then Waterville, then Bangor, before veering east on a lonely stretch of road for around three hours. It traversed nothing but dense woodlands. Finally there was a clearing in the distance – an outpost called Calais (and pronounced – as I discovered in a local gas station – the same way as the hardened skin on your foot). I drove on to a narrow bridge, passing a small patch of no-man’s-land, after which was a customs post festooned with a Maple Leaf flag. There was a large woman in an olive-green uniform standing inside the booth, wearing a peaked hat that seemed more suited to the forestry service than immigration control. Courtesy of my Saskatchewan-born father I’d always had a Canadian passport (the Feds didn’t seem to know this) in addition to my American one. Not that I’d ever had an opportunity to use it before now. The immigration officer quickly scrutinized my passport, asking me where I lived in Canada. When I explained that I had never been in Canada before now and would only now be visiting for a few weeks, she said: ‘Well, if you decide you like the place, you’ll need to get yourself a social insurance number.’

‘Thanks for the tip,’ I said.

‘You bringing in any liquor?’

I shook my head.

‘Well, welcome home . . . I guess.’

I stayed that night in St Andrews. It was a curious town – imitation English, with a slightly down-at-heel air. Like the guesthouse in which I was billeted, there was a fustiness to everything – what I imagined early-sixties Britain to have once been. It was ferociously cold outside – minus ten degrees centigrade. As I drank a cup of weak coffee the next morning in the ridiculously over-the-top dining room of the B&B – red velour wallpaper and one of those Axminster carpets that look like a faded Rorschach test – I found myself thinking:
Only you, with a couple of hundred thousand in the bank, could decide to hide out in Atlantic Canada during the perma-frost season
.

An hour after leaving St Andrews I stopped in Saint John, an old port and mill town, now ossified. Run-down red-brick buildings, depressing shops, gray people in gray clothes, an air of shabby listlessness hanging over the downtown. I grabbed a bad sandwich and pushed on further east, stopping for the night in the town of Sackville, right on the Nova Scotian border. It was a college town – one of Canada’s best universities, Mount Allison, was located here – and I immediately felt at home amidst its faux-Gothic architecture, its used bookshops, its student cafés and bars, even an old-style fifties cinema where they were screening a Kubrick festival that week. Funny, isn’t it, how we always respond to that which is cozy and familiar and fits into the way we want to look at the world. Before heading here I had this image of New Brunswick as a chocolate-boxy vision of Anglophilia in the New World. Instead, with the one small exception of Sackville, it was all blimpish, down-at-heel. Even the little hotel which I found on the main drag of Sackville reminded me of something out of an Edward Hopper painting – that low-rent 1940s world of the cheap and the sad, the sort of place where I could easily have imagined a retired showgirl – all peroxide hair and running mascara and wildly rouged lips – smoking filterless Chesterfields while downing her nightly fifth of Canadian Club. When I sipped my coffee the next morning in some local café I realized that I would go mad teaching in a small college town like this one. My brief flirtation with money had truly contaminated my once clearly defined world-view.

I left Sackville that morning and headed further east, stopping for two nights in Halifax. I’d read somewhere that the city had a trendy caché. The downtown seemed chewed up by new buildings from the reinforced-concrete school of seventies brutalism. Yes, I did find a quarter-mile stretch of shops and boutiques and ‘we’re trying to be New York’ restaurants which gave the appearance of being vaguely hip – but I wasn’t buying it. Like Saint John, Halifax dispirited me – and I would have turned tail and headed north towards Quebec if I hadn’t, by chance, discovered a beach with the very un-Canadian name of Martinique.