Noon in Paris, Eight in Chicago by Douglas Cowie

Author:Douglas Cowie
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780956792679
Publisher: Myriad Editions
Published: 2016-06-05T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

THE FLIGHT FROM Paris to Shannon, a couple of hours in Shannon, Shannon to Gander, now several hours in Gander before New York: he knew what it was like now, why she got so bored crossing the Atlantic, strapped into the seat with nothing to do but read until you were too tired, then sit and stare and daydream about the airplane diving into the ocean. He’d survived, though, and now had to get through the four hours on this island at the edge of North America before he’d shoot down the coast to New York and stay there for a couple of weeks. Some of the passengers, having formed a kind of friendship on the flights over, sat around chatting to one another and drinking coffee, but Nelson had ignored his neighbours, so he wandered around the small terminal by himself. The newsstand had a copy of Time, doubtless nothing in it, but he bought it anyway and sat down near the gate and flipped through it. Louis St Laurent graced the cover along with a maple leaf and fleur-de-lis. Appropriate, he supposed. The table of contents was uninspiring; it was almost impossible to tell what an article contained from the headlines: ‘COMMUNISTS: An Unfriendly Gesture’; ‘INVESTIGATIONS: Friendship and Nothing More’; ‘AVIATION: Rough Ride’. The book reviews were always awful, but he looked anyway, and here was one: ‘Hunters and Hunted’: an assessment of a World War II espionage and heroes novel, some dumb trash for Americans to remind themselves they’d won the war a few years ago. The reviewer decided that Of its kind it is a good book. Wow. He flipped back. The previous review was ‘Is Anybody Happy?’, Abner Dean cartoons that the reviewer didn’t have much time for. Before that – hang on: ‘The Lower Depths. The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren.’ He looked up, as though someone might catch him in the act, and immediately felt stupid. But here it was, in Time. He read it through. Oh, to hell with this guy: The Man with the Golden Arm has its specks of dross, moments when it reads like the late Damon Runyon at his slapdash, sentimental worst. Bullshit. The sentences quoted in support didn’t even live up to that. Damon Runyon could dream of writing almost that good. To hell with it. He read the review again. That was the only negative thing the guy had to say about it. He read the review again. He looked around the waiting area, and could feel his face getting sore from smiling too hard. He knew he was looking around to see if anybody else was reading Time and it made him feel a little stupid, but here he was, in Time. He read the review again. He took some writing paper from his suitcase, wrote Gander on the top right, the pen cap in his mouth, and one line lower, on the left, Dear Simone.

Castor went back to being Castor, Chicago-husbandless Castor.

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