“Postmodernism is over, Miranda. Before anyone figured out what it was. ”
“You watch Survivor.”
“For the organized spontaneity.”
“Have you ever watched Buffy?”
“Not without feeling guilty.”
“For what, Morgan? Sex and death, short skirts?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
They bantered for a while, then Morgan signed off and returned to his book, letting Miranda get back for the closing credits of the best show on television; she admired the moral complexity.
It is a lot easier to be right than good, in a world where irony is how things actually are.
Morgan was reading wine books. He was trying to find information on Philip Carter’s Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Even Hugh Johnson didn’t list it.
The label was puzzling. Like the better French wines, it stated in small print, Mis en bouteille au château, and there was a pen-and-ink sketch of a generic chateau. The agent exclusif was Baudrillard et fils, Avignon, but the chateau was not actually named. The odd spelling on the label, ChâteauNeuf, one word, capital C capital N, was peculiar, but led nowhere. The vintage was signified on a separate neck label, 1996.
It was not one of those frou-frou bottles, with the glass melted into a languorous shape, covered with fake dust as if it had been mouldering deep in the cellars for an age, like some of the more urgently marketed Châteauneuf-du-Pape found in upscale wine stores throughout Canada and the States. It was a fine wine, presented in a bottle as sleek and muscular as the wine it contained.
The grapes were unidentifiable. The wine was a blend of the pliant and the austere, sun-rich from the stony hardscrabble southern landscape, suitably named for the doughty popes of Avignon who made it their favourite drink.
Having been opened for three days, it was beginning to take on a madeirized note, but Morgan swirled a bit in his glass and found the air cleaned it up.
Suddenly, he recognized a taste, a hint on the nose, of something strange but familiar. Not Châteauneuf-du-Pape, something else. At a wine tasting once, a blind tasting, they had been given a mystery wine. No one guessed it, and it turned out to be a Cabernet Sauvignon from Lebanon, with just a touch of Merlot to soften it, and, if he remembered right, a bit of Cabernet Franc for the spice.
Morgan had attended a couple of tastings organized by the Opimian Society but found them frustrating because, while he had the nose to appreciate the flourishes in their esoteric discussions, he lacked the resources to buy their selections. He was sufficiently discriminating that he remembered the mystery wine. That pleased him.
Miranda was searching a long shot on the news of black-bearded men thronging the streets of, she wasn’t sure where, angry and relieved there wasn’t a woman in sight, when she was startled by a knock at the door. It must be Morgan; he had slipped by the security door without buzzing. She was pleased. She knew right now he needed her as much as she needed him. It’s funny, she thought, how men feel violated when someone close to them has been damaged. It was flattering but oppressive, like they should be able to control the world.
She opened the door.
A young woman stared through her, wavered, then collapsed. Her legs splayed awkwardly to the side so that it was difficult for Miranda to drag her inside. Miranda knew she wasn’t dead, not even dying. She recognized the kind of emotional exhaustion she had seen before when someone has witnessed a brutal crime against a loved one, a child or partner. Sometimes they collapse when an ally approaches to share the pain.
Miranda closed the door. The woman lay on the floor, very still. Her blond hair fanned over the hardwood, although her face rested against the scatter-rug that had bunched up under her head and shoulders. She was wearing a grey skirt and a designer T-shirt; bare legs, sandals, not a lot of make-up, well-manicured nails, clean hair, no rings, a thin gold chain around her neck, wrist wrapped around the strap of a voluminous Monica Lewinsky handbag. Her eyes were glazed, unblinking, and vacant.
Miranda stepped back. She had never seen the woman before in her life.
As she squatted down beside her, her white flannel pajamas imprinted with grazing moose struck her as weird.
“Have we met before?” she said.
No response, but the woman was conscious.
“Hey,” she said, gently shaking the woman’s shoulder, “do you know me?”
Miranda felt a strange surge of empathy.
“Come on,” she said, trying to get a grip on the woman to help her up. “Let’s get you comfortable, then we’ll introduce ourselves. No? Okay.”
Miranda lowered the woman’s head gently against the rug and walked back into the living room. She sat on the sofa so she could see into the hallway, where the woman lay very still, breathing softly. She got up and went into the kitchen and poured herself a straight Scotch, single malt. She sat down again on the sofa, contemplating her guest.
“Can I get you anything?” she called, feeling ridiculous. After a long pause, she added, “If you want to talk, you know.…”
Miranda tried to think clearly. If I wasn’t traumatized by recent events in my life, what would I be doing now? What should I be doing?
She got up and walked closer as a pool of water spread slowly from under the young woman onto the hardwood.
“Oh jeez,” Miranda exclaimed. “You can’t pee there.”
With the strength of propriety, she lifted under the young woman’s torso, hunkered down, swung a limp arm over her own shoulders, and hauled her to the bathroom, the woman’s legs dragging behind, inscribing a wet trail on the floor.
Miranda was shaken. She had been confident the woman was in shock of some sort and would snap out of it. Now she wasn’t so sure. Then she decided the urination wasn’t from poison or drugs but a natural release of the muscles, as if the woman had found safe refuge after a sustained surge of adrenalin and her body relaxed beyond appropriate limits. It could be worse, thought Miranda.
It did not occur to her to call the police; she was the police. It did not even cross her mind to call her partner. This was personal, something she had to deal with herself. That seemed logical at the moment — just the two women, both victims in a baffling and hostile world.
Miranda slid a bath towel under the woman’s body, folded another, and put it under her head. Then she sat down on the floor beside her, leaning against the cool porcelain tub, and drew her knees up against her chest. She reached over and with the back of one hand gently brushed the woman’s blond hair away from her face. Her eyes flickered and for a moment Miranda thought they were beckoning to her, trying to make contact, but they went dull again.
Miranda got up, switched on the heat-lamp and fan, and resumed her position, as if she were keeping vigil. With the overhead on as well, the light in the room was tinged with amber and the rumbling of the fan filled the air with a brittle noise, like wind over dry grass.
The young woman — Miranda could see she was not a girl, she must have been in her mid to late twenties
