The Book of Living and Dying

by Natale Ghent

  Sarah pulled her hands from her face and was shocked to find them smeared with black paint. Standing up to look in the vanity mirror she saw her face painted in the image of a skull. He must have done that. She bared her teeth at the mirror; they looked surprisingly white. The phone began to ring again. “Get lost,” she said as she searched her desk for cream and some tissues and proceeded to remove the paint. It resisted at first but slid off easily once the cream was worked in. After dropping the dirty tissues in wet clumps into the wastebasket, Sarah cleaned her hands as well, drying her palms on the legs of her jeans.

  The phone continued to ring. She heard her mother get up at last, heard the bedroom door creak open, footsteps scuffling across the living room to the kitchen. The phone stopped mid ring and there was silence. Sarah listened. Her mother rattled around the kitchen, tap water running, the sound of the coffee maker gurgling. She must have disconnected the phone.

  Retrieving her pyjama top from the floor, Sarah checked the pocket for the codeine tablets. She found the pills, pushed them into her mouth and swallowed. They stuck in the back of her throat. Not as easy to take as aspirin. Because she didn’t want to risk bumping into her mother in the kitchen to get a glass of water, she swallowed repeatedly, like a frog, until the pills dislodged from her throat, only to lodge a short way down her windpipe. She coughed, her eyes watering, the pressure in her head rising with the effort as she fought to catch her breath. A fleeting image of John asserted itself along with the suddenly remembered failed ritual. The ash-covered and half-eaten apple still lay on the floor, next to the wine bottle and the gold-and-green beetle. She’d forgotten to bury it. She would do that today. Bury it in the earth, the way the book had told her to do in the first place. She had another idea, too, one she’d gleaned from Michael.

  Once the codeine pills had dissolved, Sarah grabbed her binders of photos and flipped to the back, where she kept the pictures of John’s gigs. Dozens of snapshots, some black and white, some colour. John holding the Fender. John singing, the guitar hanging across his hips from its strap. John on stage in Germany. In Chicago. In Toronto. She’d studied the pictures so many times, she knew every line on his face, every expression. Peeling back the acetate, Sarah carefully pried the photos from their pages, stacking them neatly on the bed beside her. She chose several from each time frame. When she was finished, she took an envelope, placed the photos inside and folded it shut, securing it with a paper clip from her desk. Slipping the packet into the side pocket of her knapsack, she included a copy of John’s CD—his only CD—then zipped the pocket shut. Her calculus book peeked out the top of her knapsack. “Oh, no,” she groaned, remembering the test she had to study for. She considered going back to bed but vetoed the idea and decided to take a shower instead to wake herself up.

  Her mother was sitting at the kitchen table, her face as grey as ashes. “Bloody phone,” she muttered.

  Sarah walked silently past, closing the door to the bathroom before tearing the shower curtain to one side, checking, then searching the cupboard under the sink. She even snapped a towel loudly, convinced the noise would scare away any marauding spirits. When the steam from the tub filled the bathroom, she wiped the mirror quickly with her hand, just in case John got any ideas. She did it again when she got out of the shower, but found only her own face staring back at her.

  Sarah sat in bed with her calculus book on her lap, a glass of water on the milk crate beside her. She’d buried the apple core beneath the locust tree in the yard, once her mother had vacated the kitchen. The dirt still clung stubbornly beneath her fingernails even though she’d washed her hands several times. The rest of the altar she’d simply tossed into a box in her closet, using the towel to wipe the ashes from the floor. Now she was resting in bed, her hands on the pages of her math text. The codeine was taking effect, burnishing the edge off the ragged pain in her head. Rising from the page, the words and numbers began to shift and roll like beach pebbles lapped by water. A tiny red spider appeared at the edge of the book and navigated slowly through the floating letters, across the top of the page and down the spine, disappearing into the cleft. As her head lolled heavily back, the book slipped from Sarah’s hands to one side of the bed.

  She was in the forest, the trees breathing all around her, the cries of the woman resonating deep within the soil. She was following the girl, her form a light shape in the distance along the path. They were moving toward the oak tree, its branches slowly swaying. Sarah looked down and saw that her feet were bare. The rest of her was naked too, her breasts shining like the palest of opals, her skin smooth and glimmering, interrupted only by the dark mound between her legs. She did not feel shame but was amazed at how her feet seemed to skim the ground effortlessly, without breaking a single branch. As she ran, she moved closer and closer to the girl, the girl’s back now a sharp outline against the dusky light of the forest. Reaching out to touch her, Sarah’s fingers barely brushed the cool fabric of the girl’s dress when a hand slipped into her own. It was John’s hand. Glaring at her, he opened his mouth to speak but emitted a high-pitched shriek instead. The shrieking grew louder and louder as Sarah struggled to pull away from him, until she was forced, sputtering and gasping like a drowning swimmer, to the surface of her dream. It was the phone again. Reaching to turn on the light, she knocked the glass of water from the milk crate and sent it splashing to the floor.

  A man 1.8 metres tall approaches a lamppost at 1.6 metres per second. If the lamp is hanging 6 metres above the ground, at what speed is the length of his shadow changing when he is 3 metres from the lamp?

  Sarah stared at the question on the page. It made her head hurt just to look at it. Why was the man out walking at night in the first place? Next question.

  A stone is dropped into a lake, creating a circular ripple that travels outward at a speed of 25 centimetres per second. Find the rate at which the area within the circle is increasing after 4 seconds.

  What would happen if she just got up and left? Sarah wondered. She tapped her pencil absently against her lips, chewing her gum. She looked over at Donna’s empty seat, then at Michael. He was smiling at her, tapping his pencil against his lips in synchrony with hers.

  A stone is dropped into a lake, creating a circular ripple that engenders an entire universe to pour from the water at a speed of 25 light years per second …

  “Okay, people,” Mr. Kovski announced. “Stop writing. Pass your papers to the front, please.”

  Sarah slashed a pencil stroke across the test paper. She erased her name at the top of the page, crumpled the paper into a ball and handed it to “Beth the Brain,” the girl Donna nicknamed Rubik’s Cube. Beth blinked at the wad of paper through her thick glasses, then back at Sarah, sympathetically. Sarah shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.” Beth nodded, handed the papers forward, the ball carefully balanced on top of the other tests. Pushing away from her desk, Sarah swung her knapsack over her shoulder and made her way out of the class. Michael was waiting for her in the hall.

  “How’d you do?”

  “Donna skipped,” she said. The codeine made her voice sound disconnected and funny.

  “Yeah, I noticed.”

  They moved through the hallway to her locker, the bodies of the other students bumping slowly past as if they were moving through congealing gelatin.

  “I have a proposition for you …” Sarah spoke to Michael through the gelatin.

  “I like the sound of that. The answer’s yes.”

  She leaned heavily against her locker. “You don’t even know what I’m going to ask you.”

  “I don’t need to know.” He leaned next to her, watched as she turned and worked the dial on her combination lock.

  “It’s a project that I’m hoping you’ll help me with … a computer thing.”

  “Ahh … a computer thing …”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Yeah, yeah, of course, you know I’ll help you. Why don’t you come home with me?”

  She
couldn’t help but smile. “Can I can show you later? I have band practice right now.” She yanked the locker open, the familiar sound low and distant. Her reflection in the pink plastic mirror caught her up short. The circles had taken up permanent residence under her eyes. She gave her cheeks a good pinch, hoping Michael wouldn’t notice how pale she looked. Pulling out the guitar, she shoved her books carelessly onto the shelf. It wasn’t so neat any more.

  Michael straightened himself like he was about to tell her something and was sent crashing back into the lockers. They looked up to see Peter, walking quickly away down the hall.

  Prick. Sarah looked at Michael guiltily. She felt responsible for what had happened. She experienced a rush of remorse for her behaviour that instantly translated into hatred for Peter. “Don’t worry, he’s spineless,” she said. “He won’t push the issue on his own. Just hope you don’t bump into him and his friends some night in a dark alley.”

  Michael’s glare followed Peter down the hall, his face set and hard. “He’d better hope he doesn’t bump into me.”

  Peter was waiting in the music room when Sarah arrived. He was sitting in one of the hard wooden school chairs, his legs splayed out, his head cocked to one side like a belligerent husband waiting for his wife to come home. Sarah looked around the room. They were alone. Placing the guitar on a table, she dropped her bag on one of the chairs. She tried to pretend that everything was normal as she reached for the clasps on the case.

  “Soooo …” Peter started, his voice dripping with incrimination. “You and Mortimer are quite the little item …”

  The clasps popped, the electricity mounting in the room. Sarah felt the buzz at the back of her neck as she waited for the lightning to find its mark.

  “What were you thinking, running off with half-breed trash like that?” he continued. “He’ll only bring you down, Sarah. You know it.”

  Sarah stood over the guitar, seething, until the rage arced, blistering her brain. When she finally did look up, it wasn’t so much to address him as to complete the circuit for full effect. “Who the hell do you think you are?” she heard herself say, the words delivered with the unnerving calm of a knife-thrower.

  He stared back at her but could not hide his surprise, his feeling of betrayal. His mouth gaped open.

  “Don’t you ever speak to me again, do you hear me?” she continued. “Don’t you ever talk to me, or look at me, don’t even think about me, because you know what, Peter?” She waited, letting the edge on her words cut him to the bone. “I never loved you.”

  He sat up as though stabbed, his face contorting from shock to anger to pride. Sarah snapped the clasps shut and dragged the guitar case off the table. Refusing to look at him, she picked up her bag and walked from the room.

  “Slut,” he said as she closed the door with a click.

  It wasn’t until she was blocks from the school that she released a scream of frustration. She knew one thing for sure: Peter wouldn’t bother her again. She would have to quit band, though. Donna would be glad of that. Or maybe not. How would Donna react to the whole thing? She could see it already, Peter spitting out his side of the story over coffee at the Queen’s. And Donna would be all ears, jumping right in, she hated Michael so much. With friends like that …

  The guitar seemed heavier than usual as she laboured along the sidewalk, the dwindling codeine no match for the familiar pain knocking furiously in her head. Sarah shifted the guitar from one hand to the other every few feet to distribute the weight. By the bridge she stopped, leaning against the stone wall for a moment so she could catch her breath before crossing to the other side. From where she was standing, she could see her secret place. She hadn’t gone there in a while. She hadn’t wanted to, preferring to spend her time with Michael. Just thinking of him gave her instant relief, the pressure of the day lifting as the weight of a bad dream lifts with the rising sun. She wanted to see Michael; she wanted to hear his voice. He made her feel happy. As she toiled along the dirt path up the hill to his house, she even entertained the notion of running away with him, and found herself smiling despite the pain.

  When she reached the window to his bedroom she placed the guitar on the ground. Balancing on the rock, she tapped lightly on the glass. Waited for a moment, tapped again. At last his face appeared. Noticing the guitar, he motioned for her to go around to the front.

  “Hey,” he said as he swung the door open.

  Sarah stood diffidently in the doorway. He stood too, gauging her mood, sensing that something had happened.

  “I need a drink,” she said.

  He put his hand over hers and took the guitar, placing it against the wall. “You’ve come to the right place.”

  The sound of John’s guitar poured from Michael’s speakers, John’s image moving on the computer screen.

  “Once we scan all the photos we can start to manipulate them,” Michael explained. “What’s this song called again?”

  “‘Utopian Planet.’ Everyone wanted him to write lyrics for it but he refused. I love this song.” Sarah sat cross-legged on a seat next to Michael, enjoying the process.

  “What’s ‘PT Blues’?” he asked, perusing the CD liner.

  “I don’t know,” Sarah spoke over the music. “He wouldn’t tell me. He wouldn’t tell anyone. I thought it was the initials of some girl that had messed with his head … but he would never let on. It was a secret that only he knew, and he took it to the grave.”

  Michael pulled the jacket from the CD case and looked through the liner notes. “Who took the pictures?”

  Sarah smiled shyly. “Me. I borrowed someone’s camera. I used to go to as many of his gigs as I could.”

  “I like them.”

  “We put it together in a hurry,” she said with a tone of apology. “A friend of his did the cover art. Another one did the recordings. The musicians … they’re friends of his. They donated their time for free.”

  “It’s good,” he said. “It’s better than good. It’s amazing. It must be hard for you to listen to it,” he added softly.

  The strains of John’s guitar faded into the small gap of silence before the thump of the drum kit marking the beginning of the next song. “It used to be hard,” she confessed. “It used to be so painful. I couldn’t listen to it without crying. But it’s okay now. I love to share it. I love listening to it with someone who hasn’t heard it before. I’m pretty proud of him.” She looked into Michael’s eyes. She knew he would understand. He’s a misfit too.

  “What made you decide to do this?” he asked her.

  Her mind leapt to his explanation of the near-death experience and the room filled with photos. “I thought it might help to put his spirit to rest.”

  “The photos you brought will work well,” he said. “Almost like freeze-frame. We can take the image and animate it from one photo to the next, kind of like filling in the space between frames so it looks like he’s really playing the guitar.” He stared at the screen intently, mouse clicking. “It won’t be as smooth as, say, a video recording, but the effect will be cool—kind of like a strobe.”

  “That’s good … that’s great.” Sarah moved closer, impressed with his knowledge. In a small act of possession, she rested her hand lightly on his shoulder. She could feel it happening, the tendrils of ownership growing between them, creeping through her consciousness, pushing deeper. He was becoming hers. She wondered if he felt it too.

  “What’s going on?” a voice broke in.

  They both jumped, laughing guiltily. Michael’s father leaned in the doorway. He wore faded jeans and a T-shirt, a white lab coat over top. Clean-shaven, hands scrubbed and neatly manicured, he was one of those men whose actual age was impossible to determine. Yet Sarah felt as though she’d seen him before, with his long salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in a thinning ponytail.

  “Hi, Mr. Mort,” she said, trying to sound cheerful. She gave a little wave, wondered why Michael simply turned his back and didn’t introduce her. “I’m S
arah.”

  “Doctor,” Michael’s father corrected her. “It’s Doctor. But just call me James.” He smiled patronizingly.

  “Doctor,” she repeated. She felt oddly uncomfortable under his scrutiny. What was that look in his eyes? The fleeting cast she had seen in the eyes of so many men before. An appetite. Or was it something more calculating, more clinical? Disapproval? Sarah glanced at Michael but he wasn’t offering any help. There was obviously some bad blood between the two, she could see that. She wasn’t about to throw stones, though; she barely spoke to her own parent. Hesitating for a moment longer, Sarah finally turned her attention back to the computer monitor, her heart sinking when she caught her haggard reflection in the screen. She pushed her hair nervously behind her ears, a habit she’d had since she was a little girl. He was still standing there, she could feel it, staring at their backs. Why didn’t he just go away and leave them alone?

  At last he did, calling out from the kitchen. “What are you doing for dinner?”

  “We already ate,” Michael called back.

  “The food’s terrible here,” he said. “I try to avoid it as much as possible.”

  Sarah smirked. Spoken like a true doctor. She looked out the window. It was already dark outside. Not that her mother would notice she wasn’t home. But it was a long walk back. And she couldn’t stay with Michael, now that his father was home.

  “I should go.”

  “I’ll walk you home,” he said. He rolled the mouse, clicked, moved the image on the screen. “Just let me finish this one thing …”

  The girl drifted through her dreams again, luring her deeper into the woods toward the tree. Sarah had almost managed to reach it when she awoke. But the dream hadn’t made her feel afraid this time, she was glad to say. She felt quite cheerful, actually, lounging in bed, wearing her white flannel nightgown, the one with the buttons up the collar and long sleeves, elastic at the wrists. It felt good to wear it, even though it used to make her feel claustrophobic. Michael would laugh if he saw her bundled up like this, she thought. She didn’t know why she had chosen to wear the old gown, only that she had felt somehow exposed by his father’s gaze. Her hands drifted over her flannelled body, her breasts, firm mounds beneath the fabric, her ribs a neat xylophone, the smooth hollow of her abdomen. She was definitely thinner. None of her clothes fit any more. In fact, they hung off her like bags. And with the dark circles under her eyes and her pale complexion, she had the haunted look of addiction. She blamed John for the way she looked, then quickly retracted that thought, switching her mind to Michael. She was so happy with him. But wasn’t love supposed to make you glow?