by Joan Barfoot
She expects to experience only an early hour or two of her seventy-sixth year. That seems about right. She shows the others her calendar: a real date, a Friday this year. The date’s square on the calendar is blank and jarring.
For their part, there are basic arguments they can make, and do make, while avoiding as best they can the grim visualizing of the doing itself. No one may know exactly what the moments would be like, but the actual tools, the actual struggle—those would give anyone but a psychopath pause, and her friends, of course, are not psychopaths. It would help if they were.
“Here’s what I can promise you,” she tells them. “An extraordinary experience.” Which scarcely needs saying. And an extraordinary experience is by no means necessarily a delightful one. And did any of them suggest they’d acquiesce if only they got a decent return on investment? “Truly, there’s a kind of grace to it.”
Really? Would it not make a difference, grace-wise, that Ruth loved Bernard? Or that he was dying and she is not, except in the regular, general way of all humans? There are lots of big words like extraordinary and grace she can pull out of the hat, but their interests are in other words, such as murder and guilt.
Greta, somewhat astonishingly, has still another one: nobility. Noble in the sense, she means, of superiority of mind, character, ideals or morals. “You read to us of pain and grief,” she tells Ruth, “but there are people who sacrifice and suffer for good purposes—to make others free and safe, and people who go to prison and risk their lives or travel in terrible places to help those in danger because they believe in every life—we know there are many wicked people but I think of those good ones and I feel, perhaps, is it in some way, what is the word I want, an insult to them to give up on a life instead?”
Imagine—Greta saying such a thing to Ruth, even if the history they take exquisite care not to speak of has nothing to do with the two of them, at least not right here and right now. “But,” Ruth says instead of any of that, “I’m not a hero like them, and it’s a little late to become one. Nothing I do now is going to make any difference to the world rolling on willy-nilly, but I’ve done what I could, and even if I don’t measure up, this is just another choice about what to do with a life, not an insult to anyone else’s.”
Greta frowns; possibly snared in Ruth’s circular words? Or possibly not, because she says, “But then there are the people who have not so many choices, that you tell us about. The ones you read us only this morning, for instance.”
Ruth’s own tactic returning to bite her? This morning’s was a long account of tens of thousands of people in a single faraway city spending their lives picking plastic and metal out of a huge garbage dump, living on terrible air and whatever pittance they can trade their scavenging for, always hungry and barely able to breathe—Ruth’s point had to do with cruelty and despair. Greta appears to have heard another one. “Those people who struggle to be alive. When we are safe and comfortable here—they feel their lives are precious even when they are so very difficult, but you do not feel your life is?”
“Oh, but I do think my life’s been precious, and if I could share what I’ve had with every blessed one of those people, I would. The best I can do, though, is that maybe one or two of them will benefit from what I’ll leave in my will. Other than that, since they don’t know I exist, they won’t be offended if I choose to depart. It’ll just mean a bit of extra air and a morsel of spare space for whoever can use it—removing my footprint entirely from the earth, as some would say.”
“So now we’re back to the environment, are we?” But in some ways Sylvia is surprisingly easier to deal with than Greta. She at least starts from the principle that Ruth has a right to do as she wants with herself. Sylvia bears a useful grudge against what she calls “all the moral busybodies who think it’s up to them if somebody wants a child or an abortion or, for heaven’s sake, a tummy tuck or a facelift, as if everything that happens is not only their business, but falls under their rules. And it’s not as if what you want doesn’t go on all the time anyway, only of course quietly and discreetly, and with people who are already on their way out. And with the help of experts, which I would point out we are not.”
The trouble with Sylvia’s principle is this: “If you insist on the right to your choice, you have to grant ours, as well.”
“Of course. I know it’s a fearsome thing I’m asking you for. Big act, though, big reward. Bear that in mind.”
“So you say.” Because Ruth’s the only one of them who would know. As if she needs reminding.
Sylvia can be cruel. Fair enough.
Nor is she finished. “Do you know the time among all the good and bad times I liked best in my marriage? The years Jackson and I had, just the two of us, once he retired. They felt so benign, as if we were just very close comrades. We knew each other. And we were free to do nearly anything we felt like, and go almost anywhere we wanted, just us. We did a lot more travelling, mainly Europe, and oh, I miss all that—pointing out a painting, discussing a cathedral, pretending we were perfectly accustomed to sitting at midnight at an outdoor café, having a drink, planning the next day. Not to say it couldn’t be maddening being together so much, but having at hand the oldest of friends—do you miss that too, Ruth?”
Greta has paused in her knitting to stare at Sylvia. Such easy talk of travel to such places Greta has never returned to, and with a husband, a friend of many years. If Dolph had lived—but it does not do to think of how a whole life might have been.
Also it does not do to look back too directly. If ever she let herself do so, she would feel such harsh blows to the heart, as painful as real heart attacks. She used to speak to the girls, she thought vaguely and without true intention, of someday returning to visit her first home. Pictures she had of the same mother and father and sisters and brothers, only older like her and now with their own children, but in the same place, although in better circumstances after so many years—how they would laugh and confide and admire, how fond they would be of each other, how at home she would finally feel. They would speak of lives since she and Dolph left, not from before. It would be like a painting of a picnic, happy people gathered around a basket of food under a big spreading tree.
So pretty.
The girls must have been listening in a different, real way, however, because some years ago they came to her, all together, and said that since to journey back was her dream, they would send her. They would send a friend, too.
She did not have a good friend to invite; but that was not the trouble with their large gift. The trouble was—no. An entire reluctance, a great sinking fear. Her precious pictures, but what if those pictures were no longer true? What if they never were true?
“That is so very generous, thank you,” she told Sally, Emily and Patricia, “but I think the place is too much changed, and so many of my people are gone, and others are strangers to me. Now it is best, I think, to leave that home in my memory.” How could she have better explained? They looked almost betrayed: proud to have arranged the fulfilment of her desire—to have that rejected was hard for them. “I am grateful, though. You are such good, thoughtful girls.”
They did not intend this, of course, but they caused her a grave loss. Perhaps also a cowardice to be faced. She embraced them each in turn, in order not to see their eyes, but more so they could not see hers.
Now Sylvia speaks of such journeys lightly, fondly, as only eating and drinking and pointing out beautiful things—as a delight, not a dream. How distant their worlds have been—Greta is reminded, again, how fortunate she is to have this place now, at this table.
Ruth is yet another matter. “We couldn’t afford anything as splendid as those kinds of vacations, but I know what you mean, Sylvia. The years after we retired were just as you say: companions doing almost everything together. Well, of course we always did. But then, my goodness, we could go to the beach at the drop of a hat, or off to a movie—sometimes the best fun was the planning. Or maybe the best part was waking up in the m
orning and one of us saying, ‘Let’s do this today, or that,’ and off we’d go. At first we still did a little volunteer work around town, but then Bernard said to hell with it, we should start getting the most out of what was left of our own lives. Which wasn’t”—and isn’t it suddenly hard not to weep?—“nearly long enough for Bernard.”
And whose fault is that? “Nor for Jackson,” Sylvia snaps. Ruth needn’t think she’s got the only dead husband. “It did surprise me, though, that those were the calmest, happiest years of our marriage. In a way, they put a golden light over the whole thing, start to finish.”
Bitches. Although George manages not to say that out loud.
By the time he sold the store, Alice was already slipping, though he didn’t know it and thought she just wasn’t trying, and often enough he was probably cross and maybe even kind of mean—calmest, happiest years? These women, throwing it in his face. Like Alice, in a way: not thinking.
He’s the one, not Alice and for sure not Colette, who knows how bad it was. Alice’s anguish only lasted as long as she could comprehend anguish; as far as he could tell, anyway. Now there’s things it seems he can’t make clear to anyone else, and it’s enraging, and what if Alice too is humming with words and ideas that only come out in those little gobbledy sounds that don’t make any sense? Or for all he knows, she’s gone totally silent by now. Poor woman. A fate worse than death? Maybe, but he can’t imagine not existing at all, and who can?
Besides Ruth, according to her.
Ruth: who is still considering Sylvia’s golden light. The bathing of decades in a particular glow.
It doesn’t matter, though, does it? Deceptive or true, lights have to go out.
Sometimes Ruth sees Bernard, almost young, almost fair-haired, almost plump, nearly ordinary, in her office doorway, tapping lightly, bearing goodwill and coffee.
Sometimes she feels him under her hands.
In between, their two little lives.
No. Stay on firm, practical ground, keep focused on discussing a plan.
Which is: at the appointed hour Sylvia, Greta and George would rouse and collect themselves one by one from bed or chair, from sleeplessness or by alarm clock—the former more likely, according to Greta’s “But who would be able to sleep?” Well, George is apt to doze off anytime, day or night.
On the other hand, in the very precise, useful process of devising the details, he comes in handiest when he blurts, “Duck.”
What?
“Duck.” Then, irritated, “Tape.”
“Oh, duct tape. That’s excellent, George.” And how would they get their hands on it? “You could put it on your shopping list for Diane, and if anyone asks, although why would they, tell them you’re packing up something to send to your daughter. Of course then you’d need to do it. How does that sound?”
It sounds like something important to do. He could send Colette something for Christmas. Usually he gives her a cheque and tells her to buy something she wants, but a cheque doesn’t need duct tape. Maybe a framed, forlorn photograph of himself: just a reminder.
Then there’s the plastic. According to Ruth’s research, “Dry-cleaner bags are best, for the very reason they’re supposed to be kept away from children and pets. And of course they’re easy to get and then to dispose of.”
“I’ve got a couple of winter coats, although they don’t actually need to be cleaned. How much?”
Sylvia means how much plastic, but Ruth hears something different and says, “I know coats are expensive. I’ll pay.”
“How much plastic, Ruth. Good lord, I can afford my own dry cleaning.”
“Sorry, of course you can. I just don’t want anyone to be out of pocket. Including for the duct tape, George, by the way. As to plastic, two long bags? To be on the safe side.” Ruth smiles. “Well, you know what I mean.”
Yes, they know. How amusing. “And I have these small scissors for wool,” Greta says. “They fit in a pocket.”
“Perfect.” The aftermath is not Ruth’s concern, but she would certainly not wish harm—discovery—on her friends. The legal perils are clear, although have not been much discussed—the least of their concerns, all in all, since Ruth is so usefully reassuring on that score.
Would they really do this? “Even if I promised,” Sylvia says, “well, frankly, I’ve never in my life killed anything, not even a mouse. I mean with my own hands. And not counting the occasional insect. But if I couldn’t put a bag over a mouse, what’re the odds I could possibly manage to do it to you?”
But that’s where planning and training come in. Like recruits in an army, they need to be drilled until obedience and action come automatically, although unfortunately that’s easier to achieve with young, freshly out of school, freshly signed up, unformed minds than with those that have had decades to build up resistance.
There are mobs too, though: demonstrating that acts that wouldn’t be contemplated individually may be swiftly, brutally accomplished by groups.
People get swept up, carried along in the crowd. It’s a matter of impetus and momentum.
So there they’d all be, awake and moving in the middle of the night: Sylvia arranging two dry-cleaner bags, as carefully folded as parachutes for quick, efficient unfurling, tight beneath the belt of her robe, and checking to be sure the coast is clear before making her way down the hallway to Greta; Greta putting her small scissors in the pocket of her robe before she and Sylvia steal off to George’s room—a stretch to come up with a role for him in all this, but he doesn’t like being left out of things, even, apparently, this.
They’d make sure the duct tape is tucked in his bathrobe pocket. The end of the roll would already be pulled free and folded back on itself, probably by Greta, so there’d be no fiddling and fumbling come the moment smooth action is urgent.
Dry-cleaner bags, duct tape, little scissors—primitive tools, but as Ruth says, “Simple is best.”
Then the trio would set off down the dimly lit, silent corridor to Ruth. Who, hopefully made serene by a sedative or two, would be waiting. Whatever was said then would have to be said quietly, and when they were ready, and Ruth was ready, George would shift back to the doorway where theoretically he’d keep watch and give warning if anyone came along, blocking the way if need be, as well as he could: flailing his arms and jostling his chair. “You can roll back and forth and turn sideways and basically get in the way,” Ruth tells him. “Not that you’d need to. But just in case.”
He’d have to stay sharp. It could be a big job, jamming the doorway. But one good thing, he wouldn’t have to do anything else, not even look.
There are other potential crises and impediments to consider: what could happen in the event of a restless resident, an unexpectedly strolling staff member, an alert signifying stroke, heart attack, tumble, or an alarm throughout the whole building warning of fire, break-in, breakout—oh, a myriad of entertaining, diverting, worrywart concerns.
They could do a dry run, creeping along the corridor in the middle of the night, approaching Ruth’s bedside, but “Speaking of creeping,” Sylvia says, “that’d be altogether too creepy.” Also possibly a complete waste of time. “Not that we don’t have time to waste, but I’d just as soon be asleep.”
Or sitting at her window with a glass of wine, looking out into darkness, trying to unravel love and Nancy and lies. What might still be fixed, and what cannot ever be.
At this late date.
If they’ve made no promises yet, they do find themselves watching Ruth with surgical eyes. They try to hear the rustle of plastic, the ripping of tape. They regard her tissuey throat, and then touch their own. Ruth, for her part, sees herself straining to catch George’s silhouette outlined by the faint light from the doorway, tries to hear Sylvia issuing final commands and to see Greta’s fingers, adept at moving needles stitch by stitch, row by row, getting the thing done at the same steady pace.
How very strange it is, sitting here in the Idyll Inn lounge wondering, What if the
se are the last faces I see? Is it all right if these are the last faces I see?
It probably is. What did Bernard think as her face above him disappeared behind the soft billowy pillow descending—was he as surprised as she by that impulsive obedience to his last words?
Help me, please help, he said, and she did. Oh.
27
THE MAGICIAN AT THE FAIR…
ON RESIDENTS’ BIRTHDAYS, the Idyll Inn provides the cake for a congratulatory come-and-go tea in the lounge. The typically organized Linda Swain asks Ruth’s cake preference well in advance. “Banana,” Ruth suggests. “With white creamy icing,” to add the verisimilitude of detail. Later she asks the others, “Is that okay? It won’t matter to me, but if you’d rather have chocolate or carrot or anything else, I can change my order.”
“Ruth,” Sylvia says, relatively gently. “I very much doubt that if you weren’t here, they’d forge on with a birthday party.”
Oh. Of course, how silly to forget. There are these little slip-ups. Failures of imagination.
She’s not alone in that. Sylvia says, “You know, Ruth, I still have such trouble with the why of the thing. The business about just feeling done, I can’t seem to get it. I’m sure I’d have an easier time if you had an awful illness that was going to be fatal.”
“The reason Bernard and I had. A clear matter of mercy.”
“Well, clearer. But yes, that.”
Ruth sighs. It takes a great deal of energy, week after week, pressing her one remaining desire. “Try thinking of doneness as an awful illness then, and bound to be terminal. If you can’t even imagine feeling finished, you must think it’s a pretty terrible state to be in. So it’s about accepting what a person—me—regards as the end of the line. My definition of a fatal disease, which isn’t necessarily yours.”
“Oh, accepting”—Sylvia waves a thick-knuckled hand—“I can do that. I can accept all kinds of human perspectives, but that doesn’t remotely mean I feel a need to agree. It’s that further step—I do feel we’re rather dodging the depths of that, skittering about on its surface.”