F I C T I O N He had returned with various bottles, including one of moderately expensive champagne. We need to celebrate, he said. After all it’s not everyday that one gets introduced to a lousy American poet… He did win the Pulitzer Prize last year, I reminded Selkirk. Selkirk snorted and raised his glass. To Tobias Buick, he said. To Tobias Buick, and the town of Cheektowaga, Selkirk continued. Cheektowaga? Where he was born, or so it says on his book covers. I see. To the town of Cheektowaga for producing such a genius! To Cheektowaga, I echoed, suddenly in the mood. We drank far too much that evening, and none of the three different alarm clocks I had set for the following morning managed to wake me. When I did finally open my eyes, I realized straight away that it was too late to get to the airport in time. Selkirk, I said to him, shaking him awake from where he had fallen into deep slumber on one of the children’s beds, wake up—I’ve missed my flight. I don’t know what to do. I need to be at the ferry terminal in Oban by five o’clock today. Don’t worry, he said, I’ll drive you there. Drive me to Oban? Yes, I will. Now? Yes, starting right now or we’ll never make it, he said rubbing his eyes and looking at the nursery clock. Well, I’m certainly all packed. Just make me some coffee, will you, and then I’ll be ready to go. I made a strong pot for both of us and packed a precautionary flask. I also took some of the cold cuts we were supposed to have eaten the evening before and threw them into a plastic bag in case we needed to eat on the hoof, so to speak. Right, let’s go, he said, downing his coffee in one rapid gulp. What is it like up there? I asked him, as we sped along the motorway in his wholly untrustworthy vehicle. Haven’t been for years, he said, his eyes fixed on the endless road. Did you fall out with Harry? Not directly, but we never got on really. After my grandmother died, I used to go up to them for my holidays. Then you know it well? There are parts of that island that no one knows as well as I do. I had a desire, you see, to make my name by the discovery of a new species of insect or plant unique to the island. I used to bring back all these specimens and they let me have a room to store them in. It was where Serena had all her painting things, and we would be at work together with the rain pouring outside, me writing down my natural history notes in the old game ledger that my uncle had bequeathed to me, and her painting away. That was when Serena was still Serena and was destined for other things than to marry that Moncrieff man.
88
WEBER
THE CONTEMPORARY WEST
FALL 2016