Stone Mattress: Nine Tales

by Margaret Atwood

  Not until now.

  He decides to start with Rod, who lives the farthest away. Rather than emailing, he leaves a voice message: he’ll be passing through Sarasota in connection with a film he’s considering – he’s looking for the right kind of setting – and how would Rod like to have lunch and catch up on old times? He’s ready for a brush-off, but somewhat to his surprise Rod sends an acceptance.

  They don’t meet in a restaurant, or even at Rod’s home. They meet in the discouraging cafeteria of the Buddhist palliative care centre where Rod is now a resident. White folks clad in saffron robes drift here and there, smiling benign smiles; bells ding; in the distance, chants are chanted.

  Formerly stocky Rod has dwindled: he’s yellowish grey and looks like an empty glove. “Pancreatic cancer,” he tells Jack. “It’s a death sentence.” Jack says he had no idea, which is true. He also says – how does he come up with these platitudes? – that he hopes Rod is receiving the proper spiritual care. Rod says he isn’t a Buddhist, but they do death well, and, having no family, he might as well be here as anywhere.

  Jack says he is sorry. Rod says it could be worse and he can’t complain. He’s had a good run – partly thanks to Jack, he has the grace to add, since that Dead Hand money gave him the leg-up he needed at the beginning of his career.

  They sit looking at their plates of vegetarian Buddhist-temple cuisine. There’s not a lot more to say.

  Jack is relieved he won’t have to murder Rod after all. Did he really intend to go that far? Would he have been up to it? Most likely not. He never disliked Rod as such. That’s a lie: he did dislike Rod, but not enough to kill him, then or now.

  “You weren’t really Roland,” he says. He owes at least this much of a lie to the suffering little bugger.

  “I know that,” says Rod. He smiles, a watery smile. A middle-aged woman in an orange robe brings them green tea. “We had fun, didn’t we?” he says. “In that old house. It was a more innocent age.”

  “Yes,” says Jack. “We did have fun.” From this distance it does resemble fun. Fun is not knowing how it will end.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” Rod says finally. “About that book of yours, and the contract.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” says Jack.

  “No, listen,” says Rod. “There’s a side deal.”

  “A side deal?” says Jack. “How do you mean?”

  “Between the three of us,” says Rod. “If one of us dies, their share is split between the other two. It was Irena’s idea.”

  It would have been, thinks Jack. She’s never missed a trick. “I see,” he says.

  “I know that’s not fair,” says Rod. “It should go to you. But Irena was angry because of the way you wrote about Violet, in the book. She thought it was a dig at her. After she’d been so, well, so kind to you.”

  “It wasn’t a dig,” says Jack, another semi-lie. “What happens if all of you die?”

  “Then our shares revert to you,” says Rod. “Irena wanted everything to go to her kidney charity, but I drew the line.”

  “Thanks,” says Jack. So, it’s last man standing. At least he now has an overview of the state of affairs. “And thanks for telling me.” He shakes Rod’s wan hand.

  “It’s only money, Jack,” says Rod. “Take it from me. At the end of the line, money means nothing. Let it go.”

  Jaffrey is delighted to hear from Jack, or so he claims. What fine times those were, the days of their youth! What a blast! He seems to have forgotten that some of those days were spent in defrauding Jack, but since Jaffrey now devotes his entire life to defrauding people en masse, that long-ago, minor piece of sharp practice must have got lost in his inner shuffle. Not that Jaffery hasn’t feathered his nest plumply enough with Jack’s earnings.

  They’re on a golf course, Jaffrey’s suggestion. Play a round, have a couple of beers, what could be better? Jack hates golf, but is good at losing, and has a lot of practice at it: losing to film producers greases the wheels.

  Smart Jaffrey: golf courses are the perfect cover. Private conversation is possible, but they’re never out of view of others, so Jack can’t simply brain the garrulous old fraud out of sight of witnesses. And Jaffrey is old, he’s really old: his remaining hair is white, his spine is curved, his paunch is flabby. Jack himself is no printemps chicken, but at least he’s kept in better shape than that.

  Jaffrey garbles on about that slummy brick house where they’d had such carefree times: does Jack know there’s a historical plaque on it? Commemorating Jack and The Dead Hand, of all things! How amazing that people now mistake that clumsy, cliché-ridden book of his for some kind of artistic accomplishment! Trust the French to do that, they think Jerry Lewis is a genius, but other people? Jaffrey has always found The Dead Hand side-splittingly funny, and he can only suppose Jack wrote it with that end in view. But great that it turned into such a gold mine, right? For all concerned. Chuckle, wink.

  “Irena didn’t find it funny,” Jack says. “The book. She was pissed at me. She thought I’d led her on. She wanted me to be writing War and Peace, when all along it was about. …”

  “She knew what it was about,” Jaffrey says with that I’ve-scored-a-point philosophy-student grin of his. “While you were writing it.”

  “What?” says Jack. “How do you mean? I never told …”

  “Irena’s the nosiest woman alive,” says Jaffrey. “I should know, I was married to her. She’s got a sixth sense. I only cheated on her seven or eight times, ten max, and she caught me out immediately every time. She’s hell to play golf with too. You can’t steal an inch.”

  “She couldn’t have known,” says Jack. “I kept it under wraps.”

  “You think she wasn’t peeking at the manuscript every chance she could get?” says Jaffrey. “You’d go to the can, she’d flip a few pages. She was riveted by it. She wanted to see if you were going to kill Violet. And she knew a pop-culture hit when she saw it.”

  “But then she gave me shit,” says Jack. “I don’t get it.” He’s feeling a little addled. Maybe it’s the sun: he’s not used to being out in it. “She broke up with me because of that book. Betraying my true talent and yadda yadda.”

  “That wasn’t the reason,” says Jaffrey. “She was in love with you. You didn’t notice that? She wanted you to propose to her, she wanted to get married. She’s very conventional, Irena. But you didn’t come across. She felt very rejected.”

  Jack is surprised. “But she was in law school!” he says. Jaffrey laughs.

  “That’s no excuse,” he says.

  “If that’s what she wanted,” says Jack sulkily, “why didn’t she say so?”

  “And have you turn her down?” says Jaffrey. “You know her. She’d never put herself in such a vulnerable position.”

  “But maybe I might have said yes,” says Jack. His life would have been very different if only he’d guessed, and then taken the chance. Better, or worse? He has no idea. Still, different. He might not feel so alone right now, just for instance.

  He never did marry any of those other girls; none of the fangirls, none of the actresses he’d met through the films. He’d suspected all of them of loving his book and/or his money more than they loved him. But Irena, he now reflects, came before The Dead Hand hit the stands; before his success. Whatever else, he couldn’t accuse her of ulterior motives.

  “I think she’s still carrying a torch for you,” says Jaffery.

  “She gave me holy hell for years,” says Jack. “Over the royalties. If she hated the book that much, she should’ve refused any profit from it.”

  “It was her way of keeping in touch with you,” says Jaffrey. “Ever thought of that?” His divorce settlement with her – he tells Jack– was bizarre: Irena insisted that it had to include Jaffrey’s share in The Dead Hand Loves You, the proceeds from which are paid over to her as soon as Jaffrey himself receives them. “She thinks she inspired you,” he says. “So she has a right.”

 
“Maybe she did inspire me,” says Jack. He’d been contemplating the various methods he might use to eliminate Jaffrey. Ice pick in the men’s room, radioactive dust in the beer? It would have taken some planning, as Jaffrey must have made some powerful enemies during his backroom-boy decades and is surely alert to danger. But it seems Jack won’t have to implement any of these schemes, since Jaffrey is out of the picture as far as The Dead Hand is concerned: he no longer benefits from it at all.

  Jack sends Irena a note. Not an email, a note, with a stamp and everything: he wishes to create an aura of romance, all the better to lull her into a sense of security so he can lure her into an out-of-the-way place and shove her over a cliff. Why don’t they meet for dinner? he suggests. He has some news about the future of their mutual book that he would like to share with her. She should choose the restaurant, cost no object. He’d really like to see her after all this time. She’s always been very, very special to him, and she still is.

  There’s a hiatus; then he receives a reply: Certainly, that would be appropriate. It will be so pleasant to recall the long and complex journey we have been on, both together and then on the parallel paths we have travelled along in our different but similar ways. There are invisible vibrations that have attached us to each other, as you yourself must realize. Cordially, your very old friend, Irena. P.S.: Our horoscopes have predicted this reunion.

  How to read this? Love, hate, indifference, camouflage? Or is Irena going batshit?

  They meet at the upscale Canoe, far away from tuna-and-noodle casseroles. The venue is Irena’s suggestion. They have one of the best tables, with a view out over the brightly lit city that gives Jack vertigo.

  He turns away from the window, focuses instead on Irena. She’s a bit wrinkled and quite a lot thinner, but all in all she’s held up well. Her cheekbones stand out; she looks distinguished and expensive. Her astonishingly blue eyes are still unreadable. She’s much better dressed than when they were roommates; but then, so is he.

  The white wine comes, a cabernet sauvignon. They lift glasses. “Here we are again,” says Irena with a trembly little smile. Is she nervous? Irena was never nervous before; or not that he could tell.

  “It’s good to see you,” says Jack. Surprisingly, he means it.

  “The foie gras is especially good here,” says Irena. “I know you’ll like it. That’s why I chose this place for you: I always did know what you like.” She licks her lips.

  “You were my inspiration,” Jack finds himself saying. Jack, you shameless cornball, he admonishes himself; but it seems he wants to give her pleasure. How did that happen? He needs to cut to the chase, toss her off a balcony, heave her down some stairs.

  “I know,” says Irena, smiling wistfully. “I was Violet, wasn’t I? Only she was more beautiful, and I was never that selfish.”

  “You were more beautiful to me,” Jack says.

  Is that a tear, is she having an emotion? Now he’s frightened. He always depended on Irena to keep herself under control, he now realizes. He won’t be able to murder a sniffling Irena; to be murdered, she needs to be heartless.

  “I got those shoes, the red ones,” she says. “Just like the ones in the book.”

  “That’s. …” says Jack. “That’s wild.”

  “I’ve always kept them. In their shoebox.”

  “Oh,” says Jack. This is getting too strange. She’s as nutty as some of his little Goth girls, she’s fetishized him. Maybe he should forget about killing her. Make a run for it. Plead indigestion.

  “It opened things up for me, that book,” she says. “It gave me confidence.”

  “Being stalked by a dead hand?” says Jack. He’s losing focus. Had he really intended to steer Irena down a dark alley and hit her with a brick? That had only been a daydream, surely.

  “I guess you must have hated me all those years, because of the money,” says Irena.

  “No, not really,” says Jack untruthfully. He has indeed hated her. But he doesn’t hate her now.

  “It wasn’t the money,” she says. “I didn’t want to hurt you, I just wanted to stay connected. I didn’t want you to forget all about me, in your glamorous new life.”

  “It’s not so glamorous,” Jack says. “I wouldn’t have done that. I never could forget you.” Is this bullshit, or does he really mean it? He’s been in the bullshit world for so long it’s hard to distinguish.

  “I liked it that you didn’t kill Violet off,” she says. “I mean, the Hand didn’t. It was so touching, the way you ended it. It was beautiful. I cried.”

  Jack had been intending to let the Hand strangle Violet: it seemed right, it seemed fitting. The Hand would cover her nose, her mouth; then it would close around her neck and squeeze with its dead shrivelled fingers, and her eyes would roll up like a saint’s in ecstasy.

  But at the last minute Violet had bravely overcome her terror and revulsion, and had taken the initiative. She’d extended her own hand, and reached out in love, and stroked the Hand, because she knew it was William really, or part of William. Then the Hand had vaporized in a silvery mist. Jack had stolen that from Nosferatu: the love of a pure woman had an uncanny power over the things of darkness. Maybe 1964 was the last moment when you could get away with that: try such a thing now and people would only laugh.

  “I’ve always thought that ending was a message you were sending,” says Irena. “To me.”

  “A message?” says Jack. Is she a little wacko? Or is she right? The Jungians and the Freudians would agree with her. Though if it was a message, fucked if he knows what it meant.

  “You were afraid,” says Irena, as if in answer. “You were afraid that if I really touched you, if I reached out and touched your heart – if you let me come too close to the truly fine, spiritual person you kept hidden inside – then you’d vanish. And that’s why you couldn’t, why you didn’t … why it fell apart. But you can now.”

  “I guess we’ll find out,” says Jack. He grins what he hopes is a boyish grin. Does he have a fine spiritual person hidden inside? Fucked if he knows. If he does, Irene is the only one who’s ever believed in it.

  “I guess we will,” says Irena. She smiles again and puts her hand on top of his; he can feel the bones inside her fingers. He covers their two joined hands with his second hand. He squeezes.

  “I’m sending you a bouquet of roses tomorrow,” he says. “Red ones.” He smiles into her eyes. “Consider it a proposal.”

  There. He’s taken the plunge, but the plunge into what? Jack, be nimble, he tells himself. Avoid traps. She may be too much for you, not to mention crazy. Don’t make a mistake. But how much time does he have left in his life to worry about mistakes?

  STONE MATTRESS

  • • • • • • • • •

  At the outset Verna had not intended to kill anyone. What she had in mind was a vacation, pure and simple. Take a breather, do some inner accounting, shed worn skin. The Arctic suits her: there’s something inherently calming in the vast cool sweeps of ice and rock and sea and sky, undisturbed by cities and highways and trees and the other distractions that clutter up the landscape to the south.

  Among the clutter she includes other people, and by other people she means men. She’s had enough of men for a while. She’s made an inner memo to renounce flirtations and any consequences that might result from them. She doesn’t need the cash, not any more. She’s not extravagant or greedy, she tells herself: all she ever wanted was to be protected by layer upon layer of kind, soft, insulating money, so that nobody and nothing could get close enough to harm her. Surely she has at last achieved this modest goal.

  But old habits die hard, and it’s not long before she’s casting an appraising eye over her fleece-clad fellow-travellers dithering with their wheely bags in the lobby of the first-night airport hotel. Passing over the women, she ear-tags the male members of the flock. Some have females attached to them, and she eliminates these on principle: why work harder than you need to? Prying a spouse loose can
be arduous, as she discovered via her first husband: discarded wives stick like burrs.

  It’s the solitaries who interest her, the lurkers at the fringes. Some of these are too old for her purposes; she avoids eye contact with them. The ones who cherish the belief that there’s life in the old dog yet: these are her game. Not that she’ll do anything about it, she tells herself, but there’s nothing wrong with a little warm-up practice, if only to demonstrate to herself that she can still knock one off if she wishes to.

  For that evening’s meet-and-greet she chooses her cream-coloured pullover, perching the Magnetic Northward nametag just slightly too low on her left breast. Thanks to Aquacize and core strength training, she’s still in excellent shape for her age, or indeed for any age, at least when fully clothed and buttressed with carefully fitted underwiring. She wouldn’t want to chance a deck chair in a bikini – superficial puckering has set in, despite her best efforts – which is one reason for selecting the Arctic over, say, the Caribbean. Her face is what it is, and certainly the best that money can buy at this stage: with a little bronzer and pale eyeshadow and mascara and glimmer powder and low lighting, she can finesse ten years.

  “Though much is taken, much remains,” she murmurs to her image in the mirror. Her third husband had been a serial quotation freak with a special penchant for Tennyson. “Come into the garden, Maud,” he’d been in the habit of saying just before bedtime. It had driven her mad at the time.

  She adds a dab of cologne – an understated scent, floral, nostalgic – then she blots it off, leaving a mere whiff. It’s a mistake to overdo it: though elderly noses aren’t as keen as they may once have been, it’s best to allow for allergies; a sneezing man is not an attentive man.

  She makes her entrance slightly late, smiling a detached but cheerful smile – it doesn’t do for an unaccompanied woman to appear too eager – accepts a glass of the passable white wine they’re doling out, and drifts among the assembled nibblers and sippers. The men will be retired professionals: doctors, lawyers, engineers, stockbrokers, interested in Arctic exploration, polar bears, archeology, birds, Inuit crafts, perhaps even Vikings or plant life or geology. Magnetic Northward attracts serious punters, with an earnest bunch of experts laid on to herd them around and lecture to them. She’s investigated the two other outfits that tour the region, but neither appeals. One features excessive hiking and attracts the under-fifties – not her target market – and the other goes in for singsongs and dressing up in silly outfits, so she’s stuck with Magnetic Northward, which offers the comfort of familiarity. She travelled with this company once before, after the death of her third husband, five years ago, so she knows pretty much what to expect.