by K. D. Miller
It seems a client can indeed sign up for services that have yet to be legalized. But once it is within the law to let the Valé people kill them, they’ll be able to choose their day, then check into the place as they would into a luxury hotel. There, they will enjoy spa services, excellent cuisine, films of their choice—the list goes on. Of course, before they start in on all that, they will have had a painless, almost undetectable chemical patch fitted someplace on their person that will, over the next twelve hours, release sufficient endorphins that by the time the needle enters their skin they will greet it as they would an old friend.
“Drugged to the gills, in other words,” Clarissa thinks. She goes to recycle the folder. Hesitates. Puts it instead into the mail caddy beside the phone.
April 6, 1973
Curtis wants me to marry him. Actually, after last night he might never want to see me again. But he did ask. We were in bed at his place and he laid it all out. Our entire future, as Mr. and Mrs. Curtis Maye. The house. The kids. And—this is the part I could hardly believe I was hearing—how if I wanted to, once the kids were in school, I could give piano lessons!
I really think I tried to be respectful. I did not condescend. So I don’t think he was justified in losing his cool the way he did and saying the things he did. The facts are just the facts, as I tried to explain. Again. In September I will be in New York, fighting every minute to keep my place in the most prestigious music school in the world. After that, if all goes according to plan—my plan, that is—I will be travelling and performing. That is the life I want.
Besides—okay, this is maybe when I took it a step too far. But that fruity smell was coming off him, and he had that glassy-eyed look he gets when he’s had one too many.
He didn’t want to hear anything I had to say, though, especially about his drinking. He got out of bed and yanked his clothes on—just about put his foot through his jeans—all the while going on about the snot-nosed attitude people like me have toward people like him. And how I was going to be a very lonely person some day. Then he said he was going out and that he wanted me gone by the time he got back.
I’ve never been thrown out of anywhere. I felt so ashamed, the whole time I was getting dressed, even though I knew I was right. I stayed for a while, just in case he might turn around and come back in and we could maybe make up. At least not leave things like this.
I had always known it wasn’t going to last between us, and I thought he did too. No. I’m lying. I knew from the first that he wanted more of me than I did of him. And that’s why I feel—well, it must be compunction. The thing Daddy goes on about during Lent, even though I doubt he’s ever felt it in his life.
I can’t believe I just wrote that. Maybe the things Curtis said are right. Maybe I am cold and unnatural. Maybe I do use people. Maybe I will be very lonely someday.
But I’ve always been lonely. Even though I’ve always been surrounded by admirers, starting with Mummy and Daddy, I’ve always been essentially alone. The only time I feel really connected, really a part of anything else, is when I’m playing the piano.
And yet. I did say yes to sex with Curtis. I’d said no to so many other guys—some of them brilliant. Artistic. Then along came Curtis. Older than me. Rough around the edges. A guy who did a general BA then took the first campus admin job he applied for. On our first date, when I tried to describe what playing the piano did for me, he barked a laugh and said it sounded like what a couple of scotches did for him.
Still, there was something cozy about him. Comfortable. I felt as If I could show him sides of myself I’d never shown anyone else—not even Mummy and Daddy. Especially not them.
Maybe that’s what this is all about. I am just so sick of being Mummy and Daddy’s little girl. Living at home for four years when I could have been—should have been—in New York.
Am I punishing them? Hoping they somehow find out about Curtis? Sometimes I imagine the looks on their faces and feel the most appalling glee.
Oh, Mummy and Daddy. I have a suspicion they’re going to break up once I leave for New York. And I think Mummy will actually make the first move. And that just blows my mind.
But Mummy has changed. There’s something about her now—I don’t know—it’s as if after years of quietly drowning, she’s fighting to get to the surface. She’s sharp with Daddy now in a way she never was before. And she’s actually arguing with him about female ordination. Daddy, as always, is opposed. He lays out the same old ridiculous arguments against it in the same infuriatingly calm way he’s always done. But Mummy, for once, is not even pretending to support him in public.
Sometimes I think I should stay home and try to keep those two together. And I have to admit that, for just a moment, I was almost seduced by the comfy domestic scene Curtis was painting for the two of us. It would be so easy.
The diary ends there. A week later, Morgan was dead.
Clarissa closes that final volume. Puts it back with the others. Then goes searching for a certain book on her shelves. There it is. Suffering Fools, by Phoebe Stang.
She weeds her bookshelves every five years or so. Each time, this particular book has stopped her in her tracks. Not because she thinks she ever will reread it. She could barely get through it the first time, decades ago, when her book club chose it for discussion. She suspects that if she were to restart it now, or even if it were to fall open in her hand—
It falls open in her hand. What she sees is the epigraph that begins the chapter on wives: “Pity the wife, whose life is not doubled but halved. Envy the widow, at last free of the cleaver.”
Phoebe Stang published the book in 1972, then, to Clarissa’s knowledge, never published again. Suffering Fools was one of those incendiary works that light everything up for a brief time before burning out. It attacked traditional women, calling them masochistic idiots. Psychological and sexual slaves of men. Accused them of having no self-respect. In the face of global overpopulation, Stang called upon women to seal themselves off. To reclaim their virgin autonomy. “This is not about revenge,” Stang wrote. “Revenge is petty. Small. You, Woman, are neither. It is about the achievement of self. Medea compromised her autonomy with Jason. Those children were collateral damage. When Jason left her, she caught a glimpse of the freedom she had given up. Getting rid of the children was no more or less than a case of widening the view.”
This was the very passage Clarissa had been reading, that night in 1973, while she waited for Ramsay to come home with Morgan. Whenever the girl studied late in the campus library, as she was doing that night, her father insisted on waiting for her in the parking lot and driving her home. There had been the usual fight about that, but Morgan had finally acquiesced. It was likely a small concession on her part, given that she knew by then she had been accepted by Juilliard and would be on her own in New York in just a few months. Clarissa remembers being nervous while she waited. She had decided to tell Ramsay, that night, that she was leaving him. Even if Morgan overheard, it would be better than prolonging this hypocritical farce of a marriage.
At the inquest—there was no trial, for Curtis Maye pleaded guilty—it came out that the man had been drinking heavily when he confronted Morgan outside the library. She rebuffed him, but he followed her into a laneway and, in his own words, “tried to shake some sense into her.” The shaking became choking. When he realized he had gone too far, he panicked and ran.
Clarissa never resented Ramsay’s being the one to hold their daughter as she finished dying. When Morgan failed to show, he had gotten out of his car to go and look for her. He told Clarissa that as he held her he looked into her dimming eyes, not letting himself blink, all the while murmuring, “I see you. I see you.” Clarissa did, deeply and terribly, resent the fact of that death—the wrongness and absurdity of their child leaving life before they did. But after a year or so, when her grief was less of an open wound though not yet the aching scar it would
become, she saw a degree of rightness and balance in the father witnessing the mystery of death. After all, she, the mother, had experienced in her body the mysteries of conception, gestation, and birth.
That night, as Clarissa waited for her family to come home, she heard a knock. She put her copy of Suffering Fools down and opened the door. Two police officers were on the porch. Between them was an old man, barely able to stand. He looked like Ramsay.
Once she has gone through Morgan’s scrapbooks, report cards, and diplomas, again putting each item back where it was, Clarissa feels at loose ends. That restlessness, the nagging conviction that there is something she should be doing, some project she should take on—her age notwithstanding—will not let her alone. On a whim, as a distraction, she takes herself out to dinner. She can still do that, once a month or so, as her wallet and digestion allow.
In the Rendezvous, she is led to a dark table near the washrooms. “Why are you putting me here?” she asks the young hostess. “I’d rather sit near the window.” The place is not even half full.
“Oh! Well, I thought—” The girl is flustered. Clarissa, leaning on her walker, does not blink. The girl stumbles on. “I thought this would be—maybe—more comfortable? For you?”
“I walked two blocks to get here. I am capable of crossing a room, should the need arise.”
She gets her window seat. Studies the menu. When the waiter arrives, he says, “And what can I get for you, young lady?”
“I beg your pardon?”
He leans down. Speaks louder and more slowly. “I said. What—”
“I heard you the first time. I was giving you a chance to redeem yourself.” Then, into the young man’s blank-faced confusion, she says, “I am neither young nor a lady. You may address me as Ma’am. And you may bring me a martini. Gin. Dry. Straight up. Twist.”
She decides on a Caesar salad and a steak, because she knows what that is, doesn’t have to think about it or ask about it and can take half of it home with her afterwards. Her drink comes. As she sips the cold, fiery gin, she thinks again about Suffering Fools. Why did she go looking for it? And why, instead of getting rid of it, did she carefully slide it back into its slot on the S shelf, between Muriel Spark and John Steinbeck?
It is a hateful, almost psychotic book. She knew that as soon as she started reading it all those decades ago for her book club. She never actually made it to that book club meeting. Never went back, either. She had become a bereaved parent, soon to be a divorcee. She no longer fit in with the mothers and wives.
Still, she hung on to Suffering Fools. Even packed it up and moved it with her to Toronto. And now, though she could easily justify getting rid of it, she still can’t let it go. There is something talismanic about it. It is a solid, sensual reminder of the moment in her life when everything changed.
What if Morgan had not died? Had instead come home that night with her father and as usual retreated downstairs to her private quarters? Would Clarissa in fact have had the talk she had planned to have with Ramsay, or would her courage have failed her? Inertia is such a strong force. Almost irresistible.
That talismanic business is a thing of the imagination, though, projected by her onto an inanimate object. Once more, she envies the animals she has studied. Their only external effects—nest, web, perhaps a sparkly stone to present to a prospective mate—are purely useful. Discarded or abandoned the second they outlive their usefulness. No sentiment involved.
What if she had been able to bring herself to get rid of Morgan’s effects? Then had started in on her own? Beginning with her books—donating them to libraries and hospitals and so on. Calling up some service like Got Stuff? and having her clothes and furniture and pictures and knick-knacks hauled away. What then? Would she have ended up sitting naked on a bare floor, waiting for death to find her? Even making it easy for death—pulling that Valé pamphlet out of the mail caddy by the phone and making a single call?
Her Caesar salad arrives. As she crunches down on romaine, Clarissa finally recognizes her state of mind for what it is. The restlessness. The distracting activity. Yes. She is on the brink of something. For the first time in years.
It would be so easy.
Morgan’s last written words. Too easy indeed. Too damned easy. Thank you, Morgan, she thinks as her steak arrives, blood-rare and sizzling.
“Fresh-ground pepper, Ma’am?”
When she gets home she strips naked and stands in front of her full-length mirror. Takes inventory. Skin hanging in folds. Texture less like crêpe now, more like tree bark. Breasts concave and hanging. Pubis almost bald. She fetches a hand mirror, stands with her back to the full-length. Spine bowed and knobbed. Buttocks gone. She turns. Neck forward-swaying like a vulture’s. Nose sharp-ridged. Shape of skull visible through thin fluff of hair.
Perfect. Perfect specimen. Another creature no one looks at because they do not want to see it. Specifically, they do not want to see anything about it that might remind them of themselves. Crone Alone. All right. She has a title.
“Mrs. Pettingill! How lovely to see you again.”
Clarissa gives Felicity Staines full marks for remembering her name. Her robe today is peacock-blue, but other than that all is the same at Valé. The same waft of eucalyptus met Clarissa as she came through the door. And she wonders what it must be like to have to listen all day to that ethereal humming.
“I just wanted to bring this back,” she says, laying the promotional folder on Felicity’s desk. “I won’t be needing it.”
Felicity’s smile remains serene. “You know, Mrs. Pettingill, putting one’s name on Valé’s waiting list is in no way binding. Again, we are attendant on evolving legislation. But even once we are free to proceed, any client of ours will be correspondingly free to opt out of the program. Even during the course of the actual chosen day.”
“Provided they still have their wits about them.”
“I’m sorry?”
Clarissa sets the brakes on her walker. Flips the seat down. Sits. “What got you into this business, Ms. Staines?”
“Thanatology? Well, my father—”
“Yes, I remember Melville Staines. Forgive me for interrupting, but time gets precious when you’re my age. I meant the assisted-suicide business. And please don’t call it culmination or any of the other euphemisms you come out with in that thing.” She stabs a finger at the promotional folder.
Felicity’s gaze cools, and for once her voice assumes an edge. “A few years ago,” she begins, “I had to retrieve the remains of a woman who committed suicide. She had gotten into a hot bath and slit her wrists. I knew this woman. Had grown up with her, more or less. She had been my father’s receptionist for decades. That’s why I did the job myself instead of delegating it to my staff. The bath water was dark red. Almost opaque. Her body was bone white. And her expression—”
Felicity pauses. Resumes. “All I could think about was how hurt and frightened and alone she must have felt, in those last minutes.”
“Not to mention alive,” Clarissa says.
“Pardon?”
“I’m assuming she wasn’t wearing one of those happy-patches you’re going to slap on people to make them think they’re just drifting off for a nice nap. So she’d have known full well what she was doing. Maybe, before she lost consciousness, she would have been filled with regret, too. Wishing with all her heart that she hadn’t gotten into that tub with that razor blade.”
“Mrs. Pettingill, I don’t understand where this is going. Surely you’re not suggesting that what happened to Miranda—that was her name—was preferable to—”
“My daughter was killed. She was young. Healthy. Brilliant. With what would have been a wonderful life ahead of her. When she died, all I could think was, I hope it happened instantly. I hope she had no idea what hit her. My husband, her father, went the other way. Dreamed up all these visions of a heav
enly afterlife and projected them onto her. To hear him tell it, her last minutes would have been the most glorious thing that ever happened to her. Neither of us could face the truth. Which was that at some point, however fleetingly, our daughter would have known that her life was ending. It would have been a terrifying and awful knowledge. But it would have been hers.”
Clarissa stands up. Flips the seat of her walker back and releases the brakes. “I won’t take up any more of your time, Ms. Staines. I’m sorry if I sounded overly critical of your enterprise.”
“Not at all, Mrs. Pettingill. And while I respect your views, please understand that if there is ever anything Valé can do for you—”
“Goodbye.”
Clarissa turns and wheels her walker as fast as she can toward the door. She needs to get out of there. Needs to stop breathing that cloying eucalyptus and hearing that damned music. She has a book to write. And she’ll write it, too. If it kills her.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The following stories were published previously: “Late Breaking” in The New Quarterly Number 136 Fall 2015; “Witness” in The Walrus May 2016; “The Last Trumpet” in Canadian Notes & Queries Number 98 Winter 2017 and Best Canadian Stories 2017; “Olly Olly Oxen Free” in The New Quarterly Number 141 Winter 2017.
I am grateful to Biblioasis, Mansfield Press, The New Quarterly, and the Canada Council for the Arts for grants that greatly aided in the completion of this book.
My thanks to Kim Aubrey, Elaine Batcher, and Andrew Macrae, my thoughtful and generous first readers.
I am indebted to Gemey Kelly and Patrick Allaby of the Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University, for allowing me access to Colville House.
For their interest and support, I owe thanks to Allan and Holly Briesmaster, Leslie Deane, Marvyne Jenoff, the Literary Lobsters, and Judith Watkins.
And as always, I am grateful to John Metcalf and Dan Wells, editor and publisher of Biblioasis, for their diligence, faith, and friendship.