Duet. Carol Shields

suppose I’m just too preoccupied with living it. Much less introspective. And one thing about writing biography is that you tend to focus less on your own life. But I think of Richard and Meredith sometimes, and wonder if they’re taking it all in.’

      ‘The pattern on the kitchen floor?’

      ‘Yes. All of it. And I wonder if they’re waiting for it to be over.’

      ‘Maybe it’s all a big gyp,’ Nancy said. ‘Maybe the whole thing is a big gyp the way Simone de Beauvoir says at the end of her autobiography. Life is a gyp.’

      I nodded. It was warm in the car and I felt agreeable and sleepy. My legs and back ached pleasantly, and I thought that the snow blowing across the highway looked lovely in the last of the afternoon light. The motor hummed and the windshield wipers made gay little grabs at the snow.

      ‘It can’t all be a gyp,’ I told her. ‘It’s too big. It can’t be.’

      And we left it at that.

      

      ‘Judith.’ Martin called to me one evening after dinner. ‘Come quick. See who’s being interviewed on television.’

      I dropped the saucepan I was scraping and peeled off my rubber gloves. Probably Eric Kierans, I thought. He is my favourite politician with his sluggish good sense so exquisitely smothered in rare and perfect modesty. Or it might be Malcolm Muggeridge who, nimble-tongued, year after year, poured out a black oil stream of delicious hauteur.

      But it was neither; it was Furlong Eberhardt being interviewed about his new book.

      I sank down on the sofa between Martin and Meredith and stared at Furlong. We were tuned to a local channel, and this was a relaxed and informal chat. The young woman who was interviewing him was elegantly low-key in a soft shirtdress and possessed of a chuckly throatiness such as I had always desired for myself.

      ‘Mr Eberhardt–’ she began.

      ‘My friends always call me by my first name,’ he beamed at her, but she scurried past him with her next question.

      ‘Perhaps you could tell our viewers who haven’t yet read Graven Images a little about how you came upon the idea for it.’

      Furlong leaned back, his face open with amusement, and spread his arms hopelessly. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘that’s a perfectly impossible question to ask a writer. How and where he gets his ideas.’

      Smiling even harder than before, she refused to be put down. ‘Of course, I know every writer has his own private source of imagination, but Graven Images, of all your books, tells such an extraordinary story that we thought you might want to tell us a little about how the idea for the book came to you.’

      Furlong laughed. He drew back his head and laughed aloud, though not without kindness.

      The interviewer waited patiently, leaning forward slightly, her hands in a hard knot.

      ‘All I can tell you,’ he said, composing himself and assuming his academic posture, ‘is that a writer’s sources are never simple. Always composite. The idea for Graven Images came to me in pieces. True, I may have had one generous burst of inspiration, for which I can only thank whichever deity it is who presides over creative imagination. But the rest came with less ease, torn daily out of the flesh as it were.’

      ‘I see,’ the interviewer said somewhat coldly, for plainly she felt he was toying with her. ‘But Mr Eberhardt, this new novel seems to have an increased vigour. A new immediacy.’ She had recaptured her lead and was pinning him down.

      Furlong turned directly into the camera and was caught in a flattering close-up, the model of furrowed thoughtfulness. ‘You may be right,’ he nodded in response. ‘You just may be right. But on the other hand, I wouldn’t have thought I was exactly washed up as a writer before Graven Images.’

      ‘If I may quote one of the critics, Mr Eberhardt –’

      ‘Furlong. Please,’ he pleaded.

      ‘Furlong. One of the critics,’ she rattled through her notes, cleared her throat and read, ‘Eberhardt’s new book is brisk and original, as fast moving and exciting as a movie.’

      ‘Ah,’ he said, his hands pulling together beneath his beard. ‘You may be interested to know that it is soon to become a film.’

      Her eyes widened. ‘Graven Images is to be made into a film?’

      ‘We have only just signed the contract,’ he said serenely, ‘this afternoon.’

      ‘Well, I must say, congratulations are in order, Mr Eberhardt. I suppose this film will be made in Canada?’

      ‘Ah. I regret to say it will not. The offer was made by an American company, and I am afraid I can’t release any details at this time. I’m sure your viewers will understand.’

      Her eyes glittered as she leaned meaningfully into the camera. ‘Wouldn’t you say, Mr Eberhardt, that it is enormously ironical that you, a Canadian writer who has done so much to bring Canadian literature to the average reader, must turn to an American producer to have your novel filmed?’

      He was rattled. ‘Look here, I didn’t go to them. They came. They approached me. And I can only say that of course I would have preferred a Canadian offer but–’ an expression of helplessness transformed his face – ‘what can one do?’

      ‘I’m sure we’ll all look forward eagerly to it, Mr Eberhardt. American or Canadian. And it has been a great pleasure to talk to you tonight.’

      The camera grazed his face one last time before the fadeout. ‘An even greater pleasure for me,’ he said with just a touch too much chivalry.

      Meredith sitting beside me looked flushed and excited, and Martin was muttering with unaccustomed malice, ‘He’s got it made now.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Your friend Furlong has just struck it rich.’

      I shrugged. ‘He’s never been exactly wanting.’

      ‘Ah, Judith, you miss the point. A movie. This is no mere trickle of royalties. This is big rich.’

      ‘Well, maybe,’ I said, not really seeing the point.

      ‘The old bugger,’ Martin said. ‘He’s going to be really unbearable now.’

      ‘Tell me, Martin. Have you read it yet? Graven Images?’

      ‘No,’ he said. ‘I keep putting it off.’

      ‘His party is next week. Sunday.’

      ‘I know. I know,’ he said despairingly.

      ‘It may not be too bad.’

      ‘It’ll be bad.’

      ‘Do you really despise him, Martin?’

      ‘Despise him. God, no. It’s just that he’s such a perfect asshole. Worse than that, he’s a phoney asshole.’

      ‘For example?’ I asked smiling.

      ‘Well, remember that sign he had in his office a few years ago? On his desk?’

      ‘No. I never saw a sign.’

      ‘It was a framed motto. You Shall Pass Through This Life but Once.’

      ‘Really? He had one of those? I can’t imagine it. It seems so sort of Dale Carnegie for Furlong.’

      ‘He had it. I swear.’

      ‘And that’s why he’s an asshole?’

      ‘No. Not that.’

      ‘Well, why then?’

      ‘Because, after he got the Canadian Fiction Prize, and that big write-up in Maclean’s and