by Cecelia Frey
From somewhere came the sound of water, a sudden gush, a toilet flushing. Someone was up and using the toilet. She, too, should get up and go to the bathroom. But it seemed too big a thing to do. She heard water running from a tap, then the tap turned off. Was someone getting a drink? Getting an aspirin, a sleeping pill, a shot of whiskey? Whatever it took to get them through the night.
She must have dozed off. Now she heard different sounds, the clinking of dishes, the shutting of a cupboard door, again, water from a tap. Someone was in the kitchen. She turned her head: 5:20.
Her mind was alert now. She would not be able to soothe it back into a comatose state. She sat up, threw back the covers and swung herself onto the edge of the bed. Her head spun. She closed her eyes. Something hurt, a pain came from some part of her body but she could not identify the spot. She felt bruised all over. She looked down to where white lace and forearm met, but there was nothing visible there to help her identify the source. A stab of pain sliced through her right eye, sliced through the other pains and through the indefinite floating pain that for two years had enveloped her every conscious moment. She realized two things: she would have to find a pain killer and she would have to find a toilet.
She made a firm resolve to stand up. She raised her head and saw the dresser. She reached out her arms and with both hands grasped the smooth wood of the edge. Supporting her weight on her hands, she stood. She took a step and her foot came into contact with something. A suitcase lay open on the floor, a suitcase piled high with neatly folded clothing. On the flapped-open lid was a small mound of something dark and shapeless — the outfit she had worn yesterday, a skirt and jacket, stripped off in a hurry and discarded. She remembered last evening, the airport terminal, the chrome and glass, the stark whiteness like an operating theatre, the emptiness because of the late hour, the voice on the intercom predicting snow, and then Esther rushing at her, furs, scarves and curls bouncing. She remembered Esther’s hands gripping the steering wheel as she manoeuvred the car through falling snow and slushy streets. She remembered the pah dah pah dah of the windshield wipers.
Suddenly, everything, everything, washed over Helena like a gigantic black tidal wave. The nightmare was a reality. The car had flown into the ocean. She, Helena, had been released into icy wet blackness. She had floated up just in time to see a dark shape like a small whale, its sheeny back glistening, pause a moment before descending, almost gracefully, and slowly disappearing into the black water and the storm-lashed night. Amanda had been trapped inside that dark shape while some twisted ironic force had flung her free, leaving her to surface into coldness so intense, so harsh, so bitter, no human being could survive it for long.
Amanda was dead. She had killed Amanda. She had killed her sister. But that was years ago. Two years and three months. Soon it would be two years and four months. Then two years and five months, and six months, and seven months. And no relief. No relief from the workings of her brain.
She remembered why she had come home to Esther.
She lurched to the bathroom. The vinyl on the floor sent a shock of cold through her feet and up through her body. She flipped the light switch, made it to the toilet and sat down. She put her head down on her knees. She remembered that the month was February. She hated February.
She pulled open the mirror door to a cabinet, careful not to look in the mirror. Esther must have something for a headache. Didn’t everyone have something on hand for pain? She found some extra-strength Tylenol and shook several into the palm of her hand. How many would it take for this particular headache? She looked down at the white oblongs. They seemed to grow in dimension, as if calling to her, offering their particular solution of oblivion. But she had something better in her handbag, something better for sleep. Where was her handbag? Her head snapped up, her hand dropped the pills. Her heart started to race and she couldn’t breathe. Where had she left her handbag last night? She turned and bolted, slamming her side and her head first against the bathroom doorjamb then, bouncing off that, against the bedroom doorway. Where? Where? Frantically she looked around. There. On the bureau. She rushed to it, snatched it up, felt in the special pocket. Yes. She had not lost it. No one had found it and taken it away from her. The bottle was still there. She unscrewed the cap and shook one small blue tablet into her hand just to make sure. But these were not for now. These were for later. These were for after she had found Ben. It was not quite time to sleep. First she had to find Ben. Then she would be out of this hell. Otherwise, she would go to another hell, an eternal hell. She had seen hell; she didn’t want to spend eternity there.
Back in the bathroom, with shaking hands she retrieved the white oblongs from the sink, swallowed two with tap water and returned the rest to the container. Hanging on to the door frame and walls, she made her way down the hall to the kitchen. She knew this house well. She had been here often. She had lived here one summer, when she had been young, happy, a long time ago, when she had been blissfully unaware of what life had in store.
The hall runner was thick and springy beneath her feet. She made no sound. The radio in the kitchen was playing softly … You don’t have to say you love me, just be close at hand….
George stood at the kitchen counter. He was wearing red jogging pants, a long-sleeved sweatshirt, and a blue denim vest. He was measuring beans into a coffee grinder.
“Good morning,” she whispered.
He turned quickly, his face breaking into a smile. She hadn’t seen him since Amanda’s funeral and her first impression was that he looked well, even better than then. He had good strong features and thick hair, the sort of looks that aged well.
“Good morning,” he said in a normal voice, advancing toward her. “It’s all right. You don’t have to worry about waking Esther. You could drop a bomb beside the bed.”
He was going to embrace her. She held up her hand. “Please,” she said. “I’m such a fright in the morning.” She evaded him further by dropping herself into a chair, then attempted to fill the awkward gap. “I remember that, Esther’s talent for sleeping.”
“She doesn’t worry about things.” George returned to the cupboard and took down a coffee filter. “That’s the secret.”
Helena noted the familiar table and chairs, heavy oak, the chairs softened by back and seat cushions quilted in cheerful floral patterns. On the table were place mats in a similar country cottage design. The fabric items were new, or maybe not so new. When had she been here last? Since she couldn’t do the calculations necessary to figure it out, she abandoned the question. She hugged her shoulders and stared at Janus, the two-faced god who adorned George’s back.
You don’t have to stay forever, just try and understand… It was a woman’s voice. George switched it off.
“Nice vest,” she said, feeling that the situation called for an attempt at social decorum, especially after her rebuff.
“A gift from my students,” he said, over his shoulder. “Christmas. They took me out for a drink.”
“They must like you.”
“I didn’t know if I should accept it, the vest, that is. But then I decided their feelings would be hurt if I didn’t.”
“Colourful design.” It was a square stitched onto the denim. The left side of the picture was dark, subdued purples and blues, the right side bright, pinks and greens. In the centre of the square was a flaming sun and in its centre a circle of two faces, one light, one dark, fitted into each other.
“Janus,” George said.
“I believe he was the Roman god of the rising and setting of the sun.”
“Yes. Also doorways, beginnings. One face looks forward, the other back.”
He stopped talking to buzz the grinder. Helena looked around the kitchen. The fridge was new; it had vertical doors with freezer space on one side. The stove, across from the fridge, was the same as when she had lived here, It must be fifteen years ago now. The counter, a U-s
hape, was spanking clean and tidy as usual. The window above the sink, at the bottom of the U, was a square of grey light. The floor was polished tile.
“Everything looks so bright and clean,” she said when the grinding stopped. “Have you had the place painted recently?”
“Not recently.” George whisked the ground coffee into the paper filter. “But maybe since you were here last. Esther does it. She likes doing that sort of thing.”
“Yes, I remember. I’ve been living in such dumps. Normal tidy households seem positively compulsive.”
“I thought your apartment was quite comfortable.”
“I gave that up when I went to England. Lately, I’ve been up the coast.”
“That’s right. Esther told me. Prince Rupert, wasn’t it?”
Prince Rupert, land of the sado-macho wierdos, she thought. “Yes,” she said. Likely he knew the whole gruesome tale of what she’d been doing the last couple of years. She suspected that Esther told George everything. Although even Esther did not know the half of it.
Through the square of window behind George, Helena could see black branches against a dark sky. What hour did it become light this time of year? “Esther said you’re into morning jogging.”
George plucked a steaming kettle up from the stove and poured slowly over the coffee grounds. “Still, I could have picked you up last night. It wouldn’t have been a problem. I hope Esther explained that to you. She said she wanted to pick you up.”
“Oh yes, she said you offered. But she told you to go to bed … she’s up half the night anyway…”
“We joke about that. She goes to bed about the time I’m getting up.”
“She always was a night owl.”
“The thing is, she doesn’t like to drive when the road conditions are bad.”
“She did fine. Everything went smoothly. My luggage even arrived on the same plane I did. But the roads were bad. You can still go jogging?”
“Addicts can jog in any kind of weather. But actually, it’s a great morning. Thermometer shows,” he stuck his head close to the window, to the left of the sink, “plus five. Sidewalks are likely clear already.”
“Yes. It was a wet snow. Almost rain.”
“I’ve found it’s good to exercise first thing in the morning. Gets the old system up and running.”
“You’re looking good.”
“I feel good. I come home, shower, then I’m set for a good day’s work.”
“Do you have early classes this semester?”
“Not terribly early. But I try to get something done on my book before all the interruptions start.”
Helena just about said, ‘you’re still working on that?’ She said, instead, “That’s the one about…”
“Extinct species.”
“Right.”
“It should have been done by now. But I’m afraid I’ve hit a block. I finished the first chapter more than two years ago. Then I discovered that someone in California is into the same mother lode, which has to do with the failure of the gene to assert itself under certain conditions, and so I’ve had to revise my material and I must admit the whole thing has gone stale on me.” George finished his pouring and set the kettle back on the stove.
“Sounds like me and my dissertation. I’ve lost interest, totally.”
“It’s not too late to finish your doctorate though, is it?”
“I have a couple of years before the limit is up. But I just can’t seem to put my mind to it. I can’t seem to take control of it, of the material, I feel so … powerless. I think to do a doctorate one needs to have a sense of self. I seem to have lost myself, any assertive power I did have.”
“Maybe you’ll get it back, your assertive power.”
“I doubt it. It doesn’t seem important any more. The world does not need yet another bad thesis.”
“What makes you think it would be bad?”
“Even if it wasn’t. Who cares what the flower children are doing now?”
“A lot of people, would be my guess. But it sounds like you’re soured on the project so nothing anyone could say will change your mind. You’re the one who has to be fired up.” George reached up to a cupboard and brought down two cups. “This is about ready.”
“Mmmm, smells good.” Helena stood and immediately slumped back down.
“Are you all right?”
“Just got up too fast.”
“You stay there.” He poured coffee into the cups and brought one to the table.
Helena watched his hands set down the cup. She noticed the wide gold band. Wide bands had been the fashion that year.
“I can’t remember,” George was saying, “do you take cream? Sugar?”
“Just cream, please. Or milk. That is, if you have it. I don’t need it.”
“I know we have cream here, some place.”
“Are you still instructing labs?”
“Not many.” His voice echoed from inside a cold clear space. “I seem to spend more time with paperwork and committees than I do in any scientific endeavour.”
“You don’t sound too pleased about that.”
He straightened and turned, shutting the fridge door behind him. “Oh well, to get along in life, we all must compromise to some extent. But I like to take on one lab component myself each semester to keep in touch. The graduate students keep me young, keep me on my toes.” He was back at the table. “I hope I didn’t wake you up with my kitchen clatter.”
“No.” She poured cream, holding the carton with both hands. She picked up the mug with two hands, carefully raising the porcelain rim to her lips. “Good,” she said, and, setting the mug back down on the table, “Good.” She put her hands in her lap. She squeezed the right one with the left. “No, my dream woke me up.” She looked up and around the kitchen. “I don’t suppose you have a cigarette?”
George, too, looked around. “I’m afraid not. It’s years since I gave up the habit. And, of course, Esther never indulged.”
“I remember you quit shortly after your wedding. Just hoped you might have a stray.”
“I thought you quit.”
“I did.” She had taken it up again after the accident, taken it up with a vengeance, not caring if it gave her lung cancer, hoping it would. But the main thing, it brought Amanda closer. When they had been very young they used to sit on the porch steps in the middle of the night, both home from late night parties, having a last smoke and sharing gossip, dreams and stories about boyfriends. “I started again.”
“I’m sorry…” George looked around again. He seemed perplexed.
“It’s okay. I have some in my bag. I’ll get one in a minute.” I can’t get one now, she thought. I can’t stand up. I can’t walk. What were we talking about?
George came to her rescue. “Your dream,” he said. “The one that woke you up.” He had returned to the counter where he stood, leaning against it, to drink his coffee. “What was it about?”
“I don’t remember,” she said. “You know how dreams are.”
“No,” he said. “I never dream.”
“Really?” She was truly astounded. To sleep and dream no more, was that from Shakespeare? At any rate, that was her goal.
“Of course I realize that everyone dreams, I simply don’t remember them.”
“Lucky you. I dream more, or remember them more often, since the accident.”
“I’m not surprised. It must have been quite a shock. The jolt. The water.” George glanced down at her then quickly away, sideways to the table top.
His eyes have grown lighter, she thought. George used to have such intense dark brown eyes. Age is bleaching us all out. Again, she took a chance with her shaking hands and the coffee. Again, she set down the cup. “How’s Esther? I mean, has she gotten over … Amanda?”
“I suppose some things
you never get over entirely.” George’s eyes shifted to a side window near the back door. “But Esther’s very good at accepting things. Of course, it’s easier for her.”
“Yes. She didn’t cause the death.”
“I meant she has her faith.”
“Can she still believe all that stuff?”
“About the hereafter and seeing loved ones again? Oh yes, and especially since Amanda’s death. She’s become a regular at the church. No harm in it, I suppose, although you might think it laughable.”
“Believe me, I’m not laughing. Whatever gets you through. I wish I could do it.”
“She doesn’t question too closely.”
“And you? How do you get by?”
“Routine. In the end, nothing saves us like routine.”
“I wonder if any of us ever gets over anything. It’s strange the way things hibernate, but they’re always there, waiting, in the subconscious.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have much patience with the subconscious.”
“Don’t you believe in it?”
“Oh yes, one must believe in it. But one doesn’t have to encourage it. One doesn’t have to keep probing it like a sore tooth. In my opinion, it’s better left alone. The primal scream, all that. That’s what mankind has been trying to overcome ever since stepping out of the mud. To my mind, progress means replacing the subconscious with the conscious, replacing it with reason. Sometimes it seems we’re travelling backwards.”
“But surely in order to understand the conscious, we have to understand the subconscious.”