“I don’t know. . . . I don’t know. Today was going to be our . . . ,” and I started to cry all over again while Gordon tried to talk.
“I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry, Gill.” There it was, from Gordon this time—“I’m so sorry.”
“I know you are.”
“Gillian, I know it’s too soon for you to have thought about it, but why don’t you come back to New York with Peg? There’s nobody to take care of you out there.”
“No. I’m staying.” It was the most forceful thing I’d said in two days, except for my quick bout with Mr. Ferrari, and this was one hell of a lot more important to me than whether or not Chris was wearing a suit. Nobody was going to tear me away from here. Not now. Not ever. NO!
“Well, don’t put it out of your mind yet. Are you sure I can’t do anything?”
“No . . . yes . . . I’ll let you know if there is anything. There’s nothing left to do. It’s . . . ,” and I just went on crying. “I can’t talk anymore. . . . Thanks for the call. . . . Thanks for everything.”
“Gillian, we’re all with you. Please know that.” I nodded again and choked on another “thanks” and hung up while he was still on the line.
I called the minister, and when Jane and Mrs. Matthews arrived we went over and set it up with him. We’d have to do it at two-thirty. They couldn’t do it sooner because of Sunday services. And I guess he had to eat lunch or something. We had missed our own lunch by the time we’d spoken to him, and we stood in a small group just outside the church wondering what to do next.
“Let’s go back to the house.”
“Well, I’d like to go back to Hobson’s for a while, Gillian.” It was Mrs. Matthews speaking. Jane and Peg said nothing, and I offered to go back for the car. We walked slowly toward the house, Jane and Peg falling behind and talking in soft voices, Mrs. Matthews and I discussing Bible passages for the funeral. We had sorrow as our bond, and our plans to hold us together. After this? Maybe the baby. He would be her grandchild, and maybe she would love him. Maybe he would look like Chris.
At the house, Sam saw us from the window and she and Mrs. Jaeger waved. I could see Sam discussing something heatedly with Mrs. Jaeger and suspected she wanted to come out.
“Let’s get into the car, everybody, or Sam will get upset and want to come too.”
Everyone waved, and we got in as quickly as one pregnant woman and one older, less agile, woman possibly could.
On the way to Hobson’s, no one spoke, and I parked once again in the same spot in their lot. We walked inside, still silent, and headed down the now familiar path toward the room where Chris was lying. I expected to find it empty and just as I had left it the night before, but we walked in to find Tom Bardi and the whole camera crew there, standing around, looking solemn, and in the process of signing the white and gold leaflet that Hobson’s left out for guests to sign, to show that they had done their “duty.”
Introductions were made, and there was a lot of shifting from one foot to the other, with no one knowing what to say. After a little bit they filed out, looking back at me again, and I saw that one of the girls was crying, and a boy had his arm around her, leading her out. Had she known Chris well? Had she been in love with him too? Had she slept with him? Did she feel sorry for me? I was curious, and felt guilty about it.
Tom stayed back for a few minutes, to talk to me.
“It was in the paper this morning.”
“What did it say?” I wanted it to say something nice.
“It was just a small news item, page eleven, not an obit, or anything like that.”
“I heard that it was on the news last night too.”
“Yeah . . . ,” and he nodded, and then he left.
I walked over to the little guest register to see what their names were, wondering which one was the girl. Just a lot of names. There were so many I didn’t know. I was sorry I hadn’t been there earlier. And then my eyes stopped halfway down the list. . . . There it was. The tenth one down. Marilyn Lee, in a slanting, elaborate script. Marilyn Lee. She must be feeling like this too. Poor Marilyn. I hoped that she had had a few minutes alone in here. The rivalry was over now. The two widows standing side by side.
“Who are all the flowers from, Gillian?”
“Flowers?” What flowers? And I looked around, realizing that there were more than wild flowers in the room, at least a dozen more arrangements, some of them pretty, some funeralish and grotesque. I was surprised. I saw a little pile of invoice slips and cards on the table, and realized that this was one of Hobson’s services. Yellow invoices describing each arrangement, and saying who it was from, with the sympathy card stapled on the back. White spider mums from some film company whose name I didn’t recognize. White and yellow roses: Hilary Price. Mixed flowers on stand: John Templeton and the Staff. Spray of lilies of the valley: G. Harte . . . Gordon . . . and more, whose names I didn’t know. Our friends, mostly my friends, and I reached out for Peg and started to cry again. Poor Mrs. Matthews, that didn’t make it any easier for her.
We sat for a couple of hours, and a few people drifted in and out, nodding to us, and one or two shook Mrs. Matthews’ hand and murmured the same “I’m sorry” to her over and over again. How often had she heard that? For her husband, her other boy, and now for Chris.
Toward the end of the day, a neatly put together man in a dark suit stepped in, and for a moment I thought he might work for Hobson’s. He looked so serious, so proper, but Mrs. Matthews rose and said, “Gillian, this is my son-in-law, Don Lindquist.” We shook hands and he put his arm around Jane after kissing Mrs. Matthews.
How do you do’s were exchanged, I introduced Peg, and then he stepped away from us and bowed his head near where Chris lay.
When he came back to our little group, he suggested he take us all home, and then out for dinner later. I declined and Peg shot me a look, but I just couldn’t face that scene.
“I drove up so I have the car.”
“Oh.” I would no longer be chauffeuring Jane and her mother around, which upset me a little. One of my jobs had been taken away from me, one of the things that was keeping me busy, helping me to keep my sanity. . . . Oh.
After they left, Peg looked at me and stood up. “Okay, kid, you’re going home.”
“No, I’m not,” and I felt defiant. I was not leaving. “You go home to Sam. It’s late and the last two days have confused the hell out of her. Tell her I’ll be home later.”
“That’s just the point, Gillian. My going home to Sam is not going to unconfuse her. You come home too. You can come back later if you want.” Good old Peg, giving it the old honest heave-ho. Wham. She was right. I got up, put on my coat, and left with her, looking back at Chris’s casket, “just one more time.”
“Where’ve you been all day? Nobody plays with me. Just fat old Mrs. Jaeger. I don’t like Mrs. Jaeger.” Sam was mad, she was feeling left out. “And where’s Uncle Crits?” She was mad at him too. We had all deserted her. And she started to cry. I took her in my arms and rocked her back and forth, taking as much comfort as I was giving.
“How about taking your bath with me?” and she cheered visibly, momentarily forgetting Chris, and she started up the stairs in a rush.
Peg said she’d cook dinner, so I headed upstairs, feeling relieved that I hadn’t had to say more about Chris, and thinking that the hot bath would do me good too. I was feeling leaden again, and had had small cramps in my back all day. The baby was beginning to feel very low, and I felt heavy as I walked up the stairs.
Sam was in high spirits at dinner, and the three of us laughed and giggled and told silly jokes to entertain Sam. And each other. I laughed too hard at everything, everything seemed so funny. It was a relief to be away from Hobson’s, to be away from that dark wooden box, away from the yellow invoices with the sympathy cards, and the stuffy floral smell, and from Mrs. Matthews and Jane and . . . it all went together. And the joke about the 400-pound canary was suddenly hysterical to me ag
ain, Sam and Peg and I each laughing till the tears ran down our faces.
We put Sam to bed and then walked out into the hall. “Peg . . .”
“No,” and we looked defiantly at each other for an instant, and I came close to hating her briefly. She was not going to keep me from going back there. “You’re not going back, Gillian, you’re not.”
“I am,” and she stood there between me and the stairs, and I wondered if one of her famous left hooks was going to come at me after all. And then we both looked so silly standing there I started to laugh again, and we both stood there, doubling over with giggles, like the time we unhooked the toilet seat in Miss MacFarlan’s john and she fell in and we could hear her screaming as we ran all the way down the hall, then stopped breathless on the back stairs, laughing, and doubling over just like this.
“What’s so funny?” Sam was back in our midst.
“Back to bed, young lady.” Peg shooed her back in while I got my coat and ran down the stairs. When Peg came out I was already at the front door, the car keys in my hand. “See you later, Peg.”
“Okay, but if you’re not back by eleven I’ll call the police.”
“I’ll be back by then,” and I blew her a kiss as I closed the door and went back out in the fog. I could hear the fog horns, and I sat in the car for a few minutes just listening.
37
At Hobson’s, the same pale girl was there, in the same dress, drinking the same coffee, reading the paper. At least she could read, and then I remembered something. “Can I see that for a second?” and she looked up with a surprised rabbit look. No one ever asked her for anything except “Which way to Mrs. Jones?” or “Where is the Greek Grotto Room?” She handed me the paper, and I turned to page eleven. Where the hell is it? Then there it was, in a small box, at the bottom of the page: “In Safford Field, in Oakland, yesterday, Christopher Caldwell Matthews, age thirty-three, of 2629 Sacramento Street fell to his death from a crane while filming a documentary movie. He was rushed to St. Mary’s Hospital in Oakland, but had died on impact, of a broken neck.” That was all. They’d gotten it all in there, hadn’t they? And people would read it and think, “Gee, too bad,” or “Crazy hippies,” or “You never know about those movie people,” or . . . oh shit. “Thanks,” and I gave her back her paper while she still looked surprised. I smiled at her, but that was too much for her. It wasn’t in her Hobson’s manual.
I walked back toward Chris’s room, feeling as though I had been doing this all my life, like visiting a very old aunt in a nursing home. I felt as though Chris had always been there and I had always been coming to Hobson’s to see him. It gave me a place to go to. But it was the dead Chris. The live Chris lived on his side of our rumpled bed, in the slippers that stood in opposite corners of the room, in the frazzled toothbrush that was still lying on the sink, in the studio I couldn’t bring myself to go up to now. . . . There was something sick about holding on to this dead Chris, but it seemed more alive to me than the live Chris just then. The live Chris would come back to me later in shooting moments, in flashes while I was doing dishes, or thought I heard him closing a door upstairs. That Chris would be with me always, but he was temporarily eclipsed by the Chris who was supposed to be lying in that box, being visited by people who signed the register.
Back in the Georgian Slumber Room, I looked at the register to see who had been there. There were two more names on the list, and I wondered if Marilyn had been back. I took off my coat and started picking up the flower petals that had fallen in the last few hours. I didn’t want the room to look messy. We wouldn’t want that. And I suddenly jumped, realizing that there was someone else in the room. I wheeled around, feeling as though a ghost were behind me. It was Tom Bardi, sitting quietly in a corner, smoking a cigarette.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” and we sank back into our comfortable silence. I wanted to be alone with Chris. But it was better to have Tom there. With him in the room, I just sat, and looked, and fought off the constant desire to walk up to the box and look at it, wondering if Chris were really inside.
We sat and we sat, and smoked endlessly. No one came, no one walked by, nothing stirred.
“It’s eleven-thirty. Don’t you want to go home, Gill?”
“No . . . I’m . . . going to stay here tonight. It probably sounds crazy to you, but it’s a tradition . . . my family . . . I want to.”
“Peg said she thought you would.”
“Peg? When? Did she call you?” And it began to be clear.
He said “no” too fast, shook his head too hard. I knew he was lying. Peg had called, that was why Tom Bardi had been sitting there when I arrived. He must have jumped in his car and driven straight down, in time to be sitting in the corner when I got there. Peg had done it again. And so had Tom. What in hell would I do without them? I would have resented their high-handedness, except I needed it. I really needed it. . . . Two o’clock . . . three o’clock . . . five o’clock. . . .
“Tom?” He was asleep, leaning over in a corner of the settee. I had wanted to tell him that I was going to do something, that he could leave if he wanted to, but I had to do it. I was going to open the box. I wanted to make sure it was really Chris, that he was wearing his work clothes, that they hadn’t snuck a suit on him after all.
I tiptoed up to the dark wood box, lifted off the “spray” of roses his mother had ordered, and stepped back, holding my breath. It was a hell of a thing to do, but I had to do it. Now or never. Tomorrow would be too late. The Matthews would be back, they would be horrified, and after that he’d belong to all of them, and to the minister, and to the people in the church. Tonight he was still mine. Still Chris. Not “Christopher Caldwell Matthews, age thirty-three of 2629.” . . . And I was still Gill. Not “dearly beloved we are gathered here.” Why do they only use that for weddings and funerals? Dearly beloved . . . by whom? God? If he loved me so much why had he done this to me? I remembered Gordon’s “Vaya con Dios.” And Dios must have taken the wrong turnoff somewhere. Back about Friday.
I stood there and looked back at Tom, still asleep . . . okay, here goes. There was an ornate-looking key in a lock, halfway down the side of the casket. It turned easily and I tried to lift the lid. It was a heavy goddam thing. But I got it up, and it rested upward, with its gray velvet. I looked down, and there was Chris . . . Chris . . . looking just as he had in the hospital on Friday, except they’d taken the sand off his face. And there was something wrong, something else . . . his hair! They’d combed his hair all wrong. I went to my bag, took out my comb, and combed it the way he wore it, falling over his ears, a little scrambled in the front. I leaned over and kissed the hair above his forehead, the way I do to Sam after I do her hair. I tried to hold his hand but it was stiff. Like a wax doll. He looked so pale. I knelt at the prie-dieu and just watched, sure that I had seen him move, or breathe. I sat and watched, and then finally got up and put my arms around him. It felt so odd, it didn’t give, his body didn’t bend anymore, that supple body, with the soft skin. The light began to stream in and touch his face, and it was the same Chris who had lain in bed next to me, the sleeping boy-man I had watched so many mornings before, as the night turned pale gray. My tears fell onto his hands, and onto his shirt, and ran down my neck. Good tears. Not the broken sobs of the past two days. I was crying for Chris, not for me. I kissed him on the cheeks and on the eyes, and on his hands, folded so strangely over his chest. I put a tiny white flower next to him, and took the thin gold chain from his neck. Maybe that was against the law or something. But he always wore it, and I knew he would not mind my having it. It was the same as a wedding band . . . forever, until death do you part. I looked away as I lowered the lid. I didn’t want to see his face disappearing as I closed it.
I looked over at Tom still asleep on the settee, and sat in one of the chairs. Morning continued to come, still gray, and we sat there, the three of us, Tom and Chris and I. I was glad I’d done it, because I had faced death, I had touched it, and kissed it.
I had buried the dead Chris in that box, I had said good-bye to the dead Chris, and the live Chris began to come to life again. I would never see the body again, or touch that face, but I would see the smile, and hear the laugh, remember the shouts, and see his face when I got up in the morning and heard a familiar sound. Chris had come back to me, and would stay with me always, and I leaned my head back and fell asleep.
Something was shaking me, and I looked up into Tom Bardi’s face, surprised, forgetting where I was.
“Want some coffee?”
“Yes, what time is it?”
“Eight-thirty. You must have been sleeping a long time. I sacked out hours ago myself.” Yes, a long time. He came back with two cups of steaming coffee in those styrofoam cups. We drank them and made small talk. The room was not so formidable in the daylight with sun beginning to stream in through the windows.
We finished the coffee, and Mrs. Matthews arrived with Jane and Don, all of them looking very neat and dressed up, Mrs. Matthews in another black suit, Jane in a navy blue coat dress, and Don in the same dark suit.
Tom said he’d drive me home, but we both had our cars, so we followed each other up toward the west end of the city, through the empty streets. It was still too early for any traffic on a Sunday. Mrs. Matthews had told me to meet them in church, so there was no need for me to go back, and I was grateful to have a few hours at home. I had said good-bye to Chris and to Hobson’s and I wondered who would be in the Georgian room tomorrow. I would never forget it. I would walk by years later and look down that hall, visible from the street, and wonder who was in the Georgian Slumber Room now.
Tom waved as I stopped in front of our house and he drove on. I meant to ask him in for a cup of coffee, but it was just as well. Peg and Sam were eating breakfast, and I stopped for a cup of coffee, feeling more tired than I had since Friday, but more peaceful, much quieter. After breakfast I went upstairs and lay on our bed, not sleeping, just lying there, grateful that Peg and Sam were in the garden and away from me. Today was a day I wanted to be left alone.
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