Death in Cold Type

by C. C. Benison

  But Stevie had cut her off with a sharp look. Merritt had taken yet another toilet break, then they had proceeded to the parking garage across from the hospital in silence. The sun, a silver disk in a silver sky most of the morning, had now pierced the clouds and bathed the hospital grounds in golden haze. After the institutional stink of the hospital, the September air was delicious—sweet and loamy. She had wished they had put the top down on the Miata before continuing. She contemplated the canvas roof now.

  “Will you be okay?” she asked after some time had passed. “I can take you home first and then get my mother’s car or something.”

  “No, it’s all right,” Merritt responded, flipping the sun visor down, and examining herself in the mirror. “I’ll go to Leo’s with you. I’d be bored at home.”

  “Shall we put the top down?” Stevie stuffed her bag back behind the seat with more force than she’d intended. Bored?

  “Let’s not. My hair. And it might rain.” Merritt pulled a lipstick out her bag and began reapplying. She glanced over at Stevie, who was staring out at the blue sky. “Something the matter?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “You can go then.” She gestured at the steering wheel and replaced the lipstick in her bag.

  Stevie groped for first gear and pulled away. “I gather,” she began, as she tried, and failed, to make a U-turn in the street. “I gather,” she repeated, as she reversed the car and set off a cacophony of grinding.

  “You gather what? I’m not going to have any gears left, if you keep—”

  “Then you drive. It’s your car.”

  “I can’t. I’m grieving.”

  “And I’m not?” Stevie, furious, ground the gear into first and the car bolted toward the stop sign.

  “Sorry, Stevie. Oooph.” The car braked suddenly. “I didn’t mean… Anyway, what was it you were gathering?”

  “Gathering?”

  “You were about to say something about…something.”

  Stevie turned back onto Maryland. Merritt’s sulky demeanor had jolted the topic from her mind. “Oh, right.” Their conversation between St. Giles and the hospital had been largely a desultory one about the funeral arrangements Merritt had made with Father Day for Friday. But now she picked up the thread. “I gather Michael had been a frequent visitor to Father Saunders, who used to be at St. Giles. He retired or something.”

  “Oh?”

  “‘Oh,’ you didn’t know Father Saunders had retired? Or ‘oh’ you didn’t know about Michael?”

  “I didn’t know about Michael. But I’m not surprised. The Church sort of had him by the short and curlies, didn’t it? I mean, deep down.”

  “I don’t remember him going to Mass or anything when we were at university.”

  “Well, he had discovered sex by then, I suppose,” Merritt snorted. “But still…once an altar boy always an altar boy. And of course with my mother being so pious, and Michael being so protective of her…” Her voice trailed off.

  Stevie flicked her a speculative glance as she sped across Portage Avenue. “I remember the two of you getting into that big car on Sunday mornings when we were kids. I think I was sort of envious. I wanted to go with you. We never even went to church at Christmas.”

  “You would have been welcome to take my place. I hated it. My mother had to bribe me with new dresses. Which worked, until I passed out of the pretty-dresses phase. She wouldn’t let me wear jeans to church, and I wouldn’t wear anything but in those days. Well, it was an excuse. Anyway my father supported me—he never went to church, he was too busy worshipping the bottle—and that was that. I’ve hardly been in one since.”

  “Didn’t you marry in church? I’ve forgotten the story.”

  “Woodsworth Building. Justice of the peace. Quick and dirty.”

  “Where is Mr. Parrish these days?”

  “In Vancouver with his boyfriend. We still talk.”

  “Didn’t you know he was gay when you married him?”

  “Oh, sure. I guess. Hell, I was nineteen. I thought it would be sort of a laugh. Besides, I liked the idea of having a new name. ‘Merritt Parrish’ sounded right. I was sick of being ‘Merritt Rossiter.’” She repeated the last name like it had a bad taste.

  “Rossiter is a fine name,” Stevie retorted, having many times dreamily inscribed it with her own. Stephanie Rossiter. Stevie Rossiter. Mrs. Stevie Rossiter.

  “I just wanted to get out from under all that Rossiter-ness,” Merritt continued.

  “Meaning?”

  “There’s a stop sign there.”

  “I know. I see it.” Stevie braked, more gently this time, and turned to her. “Meaning?”

  Merritt squirmed. “I don’t know. Just the responsibility, or something. Like having to live up to something. As if the Rossiters were some sort of royal family, and we all had to behave just so. My father couldn’t stand it either, I know.”

  They drove in silence for a moment. “Michael didn’t approve.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of my marriage.”

  “Because your husband was gay?”

  “No, because we—I—treated the vow so…carelessly, I suppose.”

  “Well, you did.”

  Stevie could feel the full gaze of Merritt scrutinizing her as she turned off Wolseley onto Sherwood Street.

  “Haven’t you ever wanted to do something just to thwart someone?”

  Stevie glanced at her. “No,” she replied.

  Merritt regarded her slyly. “Oh, really? Oh, I think you have.”

  • • •

  “Now, don’t look.”

  “Jesus, Stevie, I doubt Leo has anything I’d want to steal.”

  Leaving Merritt by the back door of Leo’s house, Stevie went over to a nearby oak tree, stood on tiptoe, and reached high. She grimaced, wondering as before what else might be lurking in the hollow.

  “Gee.” Merritt examined her manicure. “No one would ever think of looking there. Of course, under the doormat might be safer.”

  Stevie’s felt the cool metal of the key against her fingers. “Got it.”

  “Do you do this often?”

  “Only a couple of times. Leo’s neighbour usually takes Alvy out for a run. He’s semi-retired, but he had a medical appointment today.” Stevie opened the screen door, then rattled the key into the lock of the second door. At that instant, the air was split by gruff barking and growling.

  “Jesus! What kind of animal does he have?”

  “It’s a retriever. He’s harmless.” Stevie pushed the door open. “Aren’t you, sweetheart?” Alvarez stood at the top of three steps leading into the kitchen, his dark lips curled into what looked like Queen Victoria’s frown. Stevie reached out and petted the dog’s golden muzzle.

  “Dogs creep me out.” Merritt drew back, while Stevie climbed the stairs. “Do you remember the Hughes’s horrible Dalmatian? I think it was deaf or something. I was seven, and it would come bounding out and leap on me… I think it scarred me for life.”

  “This one would lead you to the jewels and silverware, wouldn’t you, Alvy?” Stevie put her arms around Alvarez’s neck. The dog’s tail beat the air furiously. Then he skittered across the kitchen floor, nails clicking against the linoleum, and disappeared momentarily, returning with a beat-up teddy bear in his mouth.

  “Ooh, Alvy’s got a teddy,” Stevie cooed as Merritt sidled into the kitchen.

  “Honestly, Stevie, you’d think it was a child.”

  “But he’s so cute.” She noted Merritt gazing around with curiosity.

  “I don’t understand why people have big dogs. Is it cooped up here all day?”

  “Like I said, Leo’s neighbour helps out. Apparently Ishbel used to be able to get home during the day, if Leo couldn’t.”

  “Ah, Ishbel.”

  “Did you know her?”

  “A little. She’s the granddaughter of—” Merritt related some long Winnipeg pedigree. “I think she worked for the NDP just to annoy her
family. Her grandfather was a leading member of the Committee of One Thousand in the 1919 strike beating back all those evil Bolshies. Probably arm in arm with my grandfather.” Merritt hooted. “Anyway, she wasn’t Leo’s type.”

  “You would know this.”

  “I observe.” Merritt ran her finger through the film of sawdust on top of an uninstalled dishwasher. “Kind of a mess, isn’t it?”

  Stevie watched her blow the dust off her fingers. Yes, it was a mess. Various power tools mixed with boxes and cans of food littered the counters and the kitchen table while black snakes of electric cord twisted over the floor. Lumber was stacked against one wall, which was a cross-hatch of colours, newer paint over old paint, a reminder of where the old overhead cupboards had been. A table saw stood in the middle of the room, a tomato-sauce-encrusted dinner plate and smeared wine glass pressed against the blade. Part of the dining-room floor visible from the door was covered with an old bedsheet, cans of paint stripper stacked neatly in view.

  “He’s doing the renovations himself,” Stevie explained, though she realized he hadn’t seemed to have made much progress in the three months she’d known him. She rooted in a drawer full to bursting and pulled out a plastic Safeway bag.

  “I’d hire someone.”

  “Wouldn’t want to ruin your nails.”

  “Well, exactly.”

  Stevie passed through the dining room into the living room in search of Alvy’s lead. Merritt followed. The room was a hodgepodge. Some fine pieces of furniture, a cabinet, and a side table that had come from England with Leo’s mother, were mingled with a dilapidated couch, a couple of mismatched chairs, and a rug whose dubious pattern seemed to be fading by the minute. These latter bits, Stevie knew, had been pulled up from the basement after Ishbel had sent for the furniture she’d considered her own. There were moments Stevie itched to pour her design talents into the room, to relieve the space of its post-Ishbel neo-bachelor excrescences. Leo had asked her advice, but she had resisted giving any.

  She cast her eye over the stereo components and large television that dominated the room, over the books, magazines, newspapers, and tapes and records that lay about in precarious little piles, at the shelf of wind-up dentures, glow-in-the-dark lizards, old model train cars, mini-brix, and Pez dispensers. If she had allowed such homey disorder to invade her house in the Beaches, particularly toward the end of her marriage, Sangster would have gone into one of his rages.

  “Hmm,” Merritt cast her eyes about the room. “Sort of late college-dorm meets estate sale.” She pointed at a lava lamp and mimed Joan Rivers gagging. “Still, it’s kind of a cute house. Oh, and here’s what you’re looking for.” She handed the lead to Stevie and regarded her with amusement. “You know what I think?”

  “No, what?”

  “I think he’s building a nest.”

  “I’m sure I wouldn’t know.” Stevie bent and affixed the lead to Alvarez’s collar. The dog was very nearly quivering with joy. “Are you coming with us?”

  “Actually, I’m still feeling a bit queasy, if you don’t mind. I think I’ll just rest here. Where’s the bathroom?”

  Alvarez was delirious to be out in the soft September afternoon, snuffling noisily through the mounds of brittle leaves blown along the backyard fence, tearing around to the front of the house to poke his nose even more indiscriminately into the fetid and the fragrant, dragging Stevie along behind. He stopped finally by an elm tree on the boulevard and crouched. Stevie turned instead to look at Leo’s house, plastic bag at the ready. It was kind of cute, she thought. Red-brown brick—more like an Ontario home. Two broad gables, a bull’s eye window next to the door, a couple of coach lamps. The front window was opaque in the daylight. It shimmered with a dull reflection of lawn and trees that masked the interior of the house until Stevie readjusted her eyes and looked straight through to the dining room window on the opposite wall. There, into a square of light, a silhouette appeared, hovered for a moment, then reached down. It was Merritt lifting the telephone from the console table. Stevie had a call she wanted to make herself in privacy—Leo’s place would have been ideal, she realized—but couldn’t very well with Merritt present.

  She glanced down the street. There was a phone booth at a strip mall on Portage Avenue, she was sure. She put her hand in the Safeway bag, quickly scooped the poop, turned the bag inside out, and tied it in a knot. Then she, Alvarez, and a warm bag headed down the street. She knew the phone number; it had been hers for a time, years ago. Oddly, it was the area code that escaped her. 401? No, that was the highway to Windsor. 410? That was it. She could bill the call to her still-active Toronto number.

  • • •

  “Well, you took a while.”

  “Alvy was enjoying himself.”

  “Feeling better?”

  “Much.” Merritt dabbed at her nose with a Kleenex.

  Stevie sighed. “What are you looking at?”

  Merritt had settled on the couch. She was holding a photograph up to catch the light of the window. A large brown envelope lay open beside her.

  “Leo’s better looking than I thought.” She flicked a glance at Stevie. “Maybe lose ten pounds, work on those love handles—”

  “Where did you get those?” Stevie bent to unclip Alvy’s lead.

  “They were sitting right here.”

  “You’ve been snooping.”

  “Well, it’s better than twiddling my thumbs.”

  “Who did you phone earlier?”

  “None of your business.” Merritt turned to another photograph. Each was part of a series of black-and-whites Stevie had taken at Grand Beach one hot weekday in early August when Leo decided to play hooky from the Citizen. She had intended to devote a role of film to shadows and contrasts in the dunes along the east beach as the sun lowered but a few of the pictures were of Leo clowning by the shoreline in muscleman poses. She had made copies for him.

  “Now, if only we could get him out of those cords and chinos he always wears, and those awful checked shirts. Short sleeves. Ugh.” Merritt continued, returning the photo to the pile. “Maybe I should devote a future Re: column to male makeovers. We could use Leo. Do before and after. Do something with his hair. Hmm, yes. And then put him in Armani or…” Merritt quickly rattled off half a dozen names that sounded like new-style deli fare. Stevie frowned. Merritt was as speedy and crystalline as she had been the night before. She remembered, too, what she had seen on her night table.

  “I don’t think you’d get Leo to agree,” she interjected.

  “Hello, nice doggie.” Alvy plunked his head on Merritt’s stomach. She patted it gingerly. “Oh, I’m sure I could flatter him into it.” She turned on her elbow and smirked at Stevie, regarding her speculatively. “You know, we had a little talk about you last night when you went upstairs. He asked me about you and Michael.”

  Stevie glanced at her reflection in an antique mirror above the couch. “And what did you tell him?”

  “Everything.”

  “Well, I think he’s figured out that Michael meant something to me in the past.”

  “No, Stevie, I told him everything.”

  Stevie looked at her sharply.

  “I told him about the baby. Your baby. The one you had by Michael.”

  The world seemed to drop away. For Stevie, this was the second time in two days. Only this time she hovered at the chasm’s edge, air cold and hard pouring into her lungs. Shivering, she managed a whisper: “My own brothers don’t even know about that.”

  Merritt shrugged. “It seems so quaint—going away to have your baby.”

  Stevie staggered toward the nearest chair and lowered herself carefully. “How could you possibly know?”

  “Oh, Stevie, really! I lived with your parents the whole time it was going on. I could hear your mother on the phone. There were letters—”

  “You snooped.”

  “I was fifteen! And the phone bills listed Baltimore, not Providence, where you were supposed to be st
udying at the Rhode Island School of Design. And, anyway—”

  “Does my mother know you know?”

  “No!” Merritt pouted. “I assume the magic circle is just your parents, your aunt and uncle in Baltimore, you…and me.”

  “And now Leo.”

  Merritt regarded her manicure. “And now Leo,” she echoed.

  “What on earth possessed you to tell him that?” Stevie felt herself moving quickly from the cold of shock to the heat of anger.

  Merritt glanced up at her. “Why didn’t you tell Michael?”

  “Answer the question!”

  Merritt recoiled. She pushed Alvy’s head off her lap and sat up. “I don’t know. I just… I wasn’t being bitchy, you know. Really. I just thought it would help if there was no bullshit between the two of you. Leo’s a good guy. He’d be good for you.”

  “Who are you to judge who would be good for me? One two-week marriage to a homosexual, a whole string of failed, inappropriate relationships, a drug addiction. How many times have you been to Hazelden?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Did Michael know you were using again?”

  “I am not ‘using.’”

  “The odd recreational toot? How many bathroom visits have you had since we left this morning?”

  “Shut up. At least I didn’t marry a psychopath like you did.”

  “David wasn’t a psychopath.”

  “Well, not clinically, I suppose. But he was sure a serious control-freak. You never told him about your child, did you?”

  No, she hadn’t. Even before the immaculateness of purpose that had so attracted her had devolved into obsessive perfectionism, she sensed he wouldn’t have tolerated the notion. It would have been a blemish as unbearable as a stain on her dress, or a scratch on his BMW. After his career had reached some unimaginable summit, then they would have their first perfect child together. His first perfect child. Her child dwelt somewhere in the world, but for Stevie, who had laid eyes on her for a bare moment, she existed forever only as a subterranean ache. She looked without seeing across the coffee table’s clutter at Merritt reinserting the photographs back in their sleeve.