Read Online St. Urbain's Horseman by Mordecai Richler - Free Book Online

Luke’s flat, glancing up at the windows automatically, his heart leaped with sudden joy to see the bedroom light on.
    Luke came to the door in his dressing gown.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” Jake demanded.
    â€œI live here.”
    It was four a.m.
    â€œAnd what, if I may be so bold as to ask, are you doing here?”
    â€œI couldn’t sleep.”
    â€œMe neither. Would you care for a drink?”
    They talked about Luke’s play transferring, a script Jake was considering, Senator John Kennedy’s chances, and whether, futile as it seemed, they should squat in Trafalgar Square with the others next time. They talked about everything but Nancy. Finally, Jake asked, “You didn’t stay with her very long, did you?”
    â€œLeft almost immediately. She had a headache.”
    â€œToo bad.”
    â€œYeah. What did you think of her?”
    â€œNot much. You?”
    Which, over the years, evolved into a private joke between the three of them. One of the moments that bound them together.
    The next evening, Nancy remembered, Jake arrived early, early and contrite, expecting to find her in a temper.
    They flew to Paris together in the morning and only there, as she lay in his arms, did Jake reveal that if she had reprimanded him for ruining her evening with Luke, or threatened to send him away, he had planned to pretend to slip his disc.
    â€œThen I would have stayed a week – helpless in your bed – unable to resist your most perverse designs on my loins.”
    Remembering, Nancy smiled to herself in the taxi.
    1959 it was.
    Now there was Sammy. Molly. Ben. Eight years swallowed whole.
    Oh, Jake, Jake, my darling, why did you have to go and make such a fool of yourself? And me.
    As Luke swept into the Duke of Wellington, late and breathless, his head bobbing over the other drinkers, it was an instant before he espied Nancy, and in that instant she saw him through Jake’s jaundiced eyes. Luke’s once oblong head rounder and wrinkled, fleshy, thinning flaxen hair buttressed by sideboards and a Fu Manchu mustache. Luke wore a yellow turtleneck sweater, a brown suede jacket, and punishingly slender hipsters with patch pockets that could only have been tailored by Doug Hayward. Our friend, the Trendy, Jake would say.
    Well, why not, Nancy objected, resisting Jake’s opprobrium, resentful that after eight years his prejudices should impinge first of all, even in his absence. Luke, she argued with herself, was still a delight, he likes me and always remembers my name, unlike so many of the others. Besides, they’re all fighting forty now.
    Luke gathered Nancy to him. “How did it go yesterday?”
    â€œLet’s not talk about it yet. How was Canada? Were you lionized everywhere?”
    No, not everywhere. But all their old friends in Toronto, he said, had wanted to know about Jake’s trouble, oozing sympathy but hungering for dirt. “Now look,” he added hastily, “there’s something I want to make clear. I don’t think for a minute Jake is going to be sentenced to anything more than an embarrassing reprimand; but you are not to worry about money. I can tide you over without even feeling it.”
    The understatement of the year. All the same, Nancy was touched. Tears welled in her eyes. “Yes, I’m sure you would.”
    â€œAre you being sarcastic?” he asked testily.
    â€œNo. Honestly. But I couldn’t. Jake wouldn’t like it.”
    Luke didn’t insist. “It’s crazy,” he said, “the whole business. I don’t believe a word of it. Do you?”
    Nancy looked at him sharply. “I didn’t think you’d be in need of reassurances.”
    â€œHell, no, we shared a flat for three years, remember? I know there’s nothing kinky about his sexual proclivities. If anything, he’s a prude.”
    â€œYes. But he’s not in this mess alone.”
    Harry had been to