Next Life Might Be Kinder

by Howard Norman

  Did We Do Most Things Right?

  THOUGH AT THE beach tonight Elizabeth didn’t stick around very long, she did talk a blue streak. Mainly she asked questions. Naturally, I wrote down as much of what she said as I could manage. “What do you think Cyrano’s was really like—I mean the original Cyrano? Was he a real person? I should know that. Did you give away my sweaters, other than the one I’m wearing? Should you give them to charity? I think you might’ve kept them all. Do you ever wonder about the titles of the books I set on the beach? Of course, curious man, curious Sam my husband, of course you do. Did we do most things right? I think we were regular people, don’t you? Do you think we didn’t see friends very often because we didn’t much like rock-and-roll and they did? We chose to huddle around the shortwave, didn’t we? Of course we could’ve tuned in to a rock-and-roll station on the shortwave, but we chose not to. We chose, we chose, we chose, we chose. Where were you when the creep bellman caught me in the lift? I’m hoping and praying you didn’t hear anything. I have to go now, Sam. I’m sorry but I just don’t feel like having some big serious conversation tonight, darling. I know it’s not the first time you’ve heard that.”

  When Elizabeth left the beach, I turned to go back to the cottage. When I did, I saw Lily Svetgartot standing inside Philip and Cynthia’s house, looking out the window.

  I Already Booked a Room, I Think

  With Dr. Nissensen, March 8, 1973:

  “I was easily able to accommodate you, Sam, but tell me,” Dr. Nissensen said, “why the urgent need for a session out of schedule?”

  The previous day, Wednesday, I’d called him from the Haliburton House Inn, and he agreed to an appointment for the next morning.

  “Elizabeth referred to her murder.”

  “Directly or indirectly?”

  “She asked a bunch of questions, and one of them was”—I referred to my own notebook—“‘Where were you when the creep bellman caught me in the lift?’”

  “Where were you, in fact?” Nissensen asked.

  “Sitting in a café near the CBC office. I’d just handed in my assignment. I was sitting in a café when my wife was murdered.”

  “You couldn’t know.”

  “To walk home to the hotel and see the police cars. To see the look on the bell captain’s face . . .”

  “You could not have known, Sam. How could you have known?”

  “Know what’s so goddamn stupid? That saying, Time heals. The truth is, what time doesn’t heal gets worse. If Padgett gets out of prison. For ‘good behavior.’ If he gets out, I’m going to kill him.”

  “I doubt that very much.”

  “Doubt all you want. I’m capable of it.”

  “If you feel helpless, an act of absolute effective action might come to mind.”

  Silence for a few moments. “What comes to mind just now, what really comes to mind, is that you might think my seeing Elizabeth on the beach is absolute effective action born out of my sense of helplessness.”

  “I simply feel as I have from the start, Sam, that your mind puts Elizabeth on the beach and you see her there and you speak with her there. Whether that is helping or is an act of helplessness—we keep returning to this, don’t we? Very early in our work together, I asked you if you were afraid of Elizabeth telling you the details of her death. And here last night Elizabeth wanted details of that very afternoon from you. ‘Where were you when the creep bellman caught me in the lift?’ You both have curiosities about what happened that day.”

  “Eventually Elizabeth and I are going to have to talk this through. In a marriage, things have to be talked through, right?”

  Silence for a few minutes.

  “Are you back at work on the novel?” Dr. Nissensen asked.

  “Can’t talk about it, really. Self-pity is unattractive in a person. Someone acts like, ‘Woe is me,’ it makes me sick.”

  “Can’t talk about it is different than refuse to talk about it.”

  “Look,” I said, “we’re off the track here. All I was trying to say before was, Elizabeth asked me a lot of questions all in a rush, no time to answer them, and then she was gone. She said she wasn’t up for some big, serious conversation. Then she left the beach.”

  “Sounds like she introduced some ‘big, serious’ subjects, though.”

  “Yeah, I guess she did, didn’t she.”

  “And you went back to your cottage alone and, my guess is, couldn’t sleep for thinking about them.”

  “I’m feeling just like Elizabeth right this minute. I’m not up to talking about any big, serious subjects.”

  “What would you care to talk about, then?”

  Silence.

  “I stayed at the Haliburton House Inn last night. But I can’t remember whether I booked a room for tonight. When we’re finished here, I’ll go and find out. This time of year? A Thursday? Shouldn’t be a problem either way.”

  “Did you happen to notice that you nodded off about fifteen minutes ago?”

  “For how long?”

  “I’d say ten minutes. Then you came right back into our conversation.”

  “No need for a nap later on, then, right?”

  “That’s funny,” Nissensen said. “But what I’m saying is, you seem exhausted. I’m relieved to hear you’re considering not driving home until tomorrow.”

  “I already booked a room, I think.”

  I See My Wife Elizabeth Most Every Night

  IT WAS A conversation I loathed having, but had to have anyway, with Philip and Cynthia Slayton.

  I didn’t expect for Lily Svetgartot to be included, but that’s what happened.

  I’d accepted an invitation to dinner, eight P.M., and I was to bring dessert, so I made an apple pie. It’s the only pie I can make. When Elizabeth and I lived in the hotel, she made rhubarb, cherry, blueberry, apple, and blackberry pie. She was a genius at pies. We both hated pumpkin pie. I once heard her say to her mother on the phone, “Mum, I made a great chicken pot pie.” There was a pause and then Elizabeth said, “All right, Mum, but that’s what it’s called here in Canada.” Another pause and Elizabeth said, “Yes, okay, it may not qualify as a dessert, but it’s still a pie.” Another pause and Elizabeth said, “No, I did not serve my husband a chicken pot pie for dessert.”

  I covered the apple pie with aluminum foil and carried it across the road. The front door was unlocked, as always, so I entered the house and called out, “It’s me, Sam. I’ve made a pie for dessert.”

  When I stepped into the kitchen, Lily Svetgartot was holding a glass of wine. “Is there vanilla ice cream with it?” she asked. “Isn’t that a requirement in this country?”

  “I’m not pleasantly surprised to see you,” I said.

  “Philip and Cynthia have invited me to stay the night. There’s a six A.M. call at the shoot. I’ll leave at three-thirty, maybe three forty-five. The guest room has an alarm clock.”

  Cynthia came in from the deck holding some dry flowers, which she put in a vase. “Hello, Sam. A drink?”

  Then it happened. “Philip, Cynthia, you have been such good friends to me. But I have to say something. You have to listen to me. This woman”—I pointed at Lily Svetgartot—“is using you. She’s using you to get at me. She’s trying to get at me because she works for that egomaniac jerk fuckhead Istvakson. He wants me to tell him very, very goddamn personal things about Elizabeth. About me and Elizabeth. She’s Istvakson’s secret sharer. How can you not see what’s going on?”

  “‘Secret sharer’?” Lily said. “I don’t get the reference.”

  “It’s a Conrad story in which someone shares a devastating secret aboard ship,” Philip said. “I can’t remember if the ship sinks or not.”

  “Sam, Lily is our guest,” Cynthia said. “We met how we met, and we’ve had some lovely chats. She’s a very intelligent young woman. Sorry to speak to you like you’re a child, but where are your manners?”

  “Manners have nothing to do with it,” I said.

&nbs
p; “Let me speak here,” Lily Svetgartot said. She refilled her wine glass and leaned against the kitchen counter. There was a big full moon out over the beach. “Cynthia, Philip, I’m leaving Canada after this movie is done. I go to Copenhagen, where I have some work. Yes, for Peter Istvakson again. An automobile commercial. Lucrative for Istvakson, naturally. So probably we will not ever see each other again. So let me say, Sam is absolutely correct—he’s right. I work for a man he hates. For his own good reasons he hates Istvakson. I don’t much like him either. He is doing some unethical things where Sam Lattimore is concerned. I have told Istvakson this directly. Mr. Istvakson, who has control of my employment. I’m his hired assistant. I like working in the movie industry, just not for Mr. Istvakson. But I have got nothing under my sleeve. I’m just here for dinner. Okay, maybe there’s an attraction to Sam. I’m a young single woman, and who wouldn’t be? Attracted to Sam.”

  And here is where I said the one thing I should not have said, because it should never have been known to anyone except Philip and Cynthia and Dr. Nissensen. No one else.

  “See, that’s exactly what I mean!” I said loudly to Lily. “That’s bullshit. That’s your attempt to deny the truth. You are dumb as mud. Attraction? You talk as if I’d even care. You stand in the kitchen of my only friends and obviously don’t consider the violation, the insult. Philip and Cynthia know I’m married to the love of my life. Married. I see my wife Elizabeth most every night. Right out there on the beach. Almost every night!”

  Then, apparently, I blacked out.

  I woke up on the bed in the downstairs guest room. Philip was sitting in a chair he’d pulled up beside me. “You were only out a minute or two,” he said when I opened my eyes. “Here, have a sip of water. We called Dr. Trellis, told him what had happened. He’s just a couple minutes’ drive away. He told us to keep an eye on you and call back if you didn’t snap out of it shortly. He said he’d drive right over—do you want that? How’re you feeling now?”

  “I think I should get back to the cottage.”

  “I don’t think so. You sleep right here. Lily is already in the upstairs guest room. We sent her up there with dinner and pie. Are you hungry?”

  “No, I’m not. Tell me, Philip, how much did I go off the rails before I blacked out?”

  “Cynthia and I don’t judge our friend Sam typically. You aren’t experiencing typical things. Let’s just leave it at that, okay?”

  “I must’ve really gone off the rails.”

  The Testimony of House Detective Derek Budnick

  PEOPLE THINK YOU want to know everything, that they have all the information you need to know. I don’t understand this. Maybe they have a need to tell you.

  A few weeks after I returned from Wales, Derek Budnick knocked and said through the door, “Mr. Lattimore, it’s Derek Budnick, the house detective.”

  I opened the door. “You don’t have to keep introducing yourself.”

  “Yeah, but I’m supposed to identify myself each time. It’s hotel protocol.”

  “Come on in.”

  I had just percolated some coffee. I set a cup in front of Derek at the table, then sat down across from him.

  “Are you going to stay on at the hotel?” he asked.

  “I don’t have a place to go yet, but I’m definitely not going to stay here.”

  “Can’t blame you, Sam, can’t blame you one bit.”

  “But you aren’t here to talk about my plans.”

  “No, I’ve been thinking and thinking, and thought it was maybe time to tell you what happened at the trial. Because you were away with Elizabeth’s family, and thank goodness for that, you didn’t have to look at that bastard Padgett in the courtroom. I can hardly believe I worked almost three years around a person who was so sick. I mean, he was a nasty piece of work. What’s more, he dishonored his position. The position of bellman. And there’d been complaints all along. Mr. Isherwood is not the most effective manager. Padgett sniffed that out. He had Isherwood’s number from the get-go, is how I saw it.”

  “I take it the defense lawyer tried to say that Elizabeth—”

  “Yes, that she—sorry to use this word—frustrated Padgett. You know, led him on or something. That it drove him to an extreme state of desperation. I’m so glad you didn’t have to see Padgett’s scumbag lawyer plying his trade, Sam. I wanted to strangle him with my two bare hands. Lowlife prick. But Padgett was the lowest lowlife prick of all. On the stand, when Padgett did his sleazebag thing, saying Elizabeth had led him on, the prosecutor came right back at him. Right there—that turned the jury. Not that they needed much turning. The sleazebag lowlife prick lawyer for Padgett, he tried to blame the victim.”

  We sat drinking coffee and not talking for a while. Then I said, “I don’t know how to put this politely, Derek. Because you were good to us. To Elizabeth and me. But one of the reasons I need to get out of this hotel is not just because my wife was killed here. That’s the main thing, of course. But also, it’s because I can’t live so close to people who think they have to tell me things. Who think I want to know things. Already there’s been Mr. Isherwood, there’s been the bookkeeper Mrs. Colter, who heard the shots. And Mr. Belareuse, the old guy in thirty-two. Each of them took me aside and said what they said.”

  “They meant well.”

  “But you get my drift.”

  “I get your drift, my friend. I’m gone.” Derek reached out and shook my hand and promptly left the apartment.

  The next day, I saw the newspaper ad for the cottage.

  Still Life with List of Practicalities

  IN OUR BEDROOM, on the wall behind the bed, a poster: ROBERT FRANK: NOVA SCOTIA PHOTOGRAPHS. On the bedside table (on Elizabeth’s side, which was the left side), two books: Little Boy Lost and The Village, both by Marghanita Laski. A four-by-four-inch note pad, and written on the topmost page:

  Bank balance: $1,344 (not including Sam’s paycheck)

  Dentist 2 pm Thursday

  Type ribbons—stationers on Hollis st.

  Dish soap/dish sponge etc

  Sam—clothing sale at Pekinbrooks—sweater?

  Dissertation—work, work, work—read Notions of Victorian Dread

  Paintings of Ambrose Lively (British Mus. pub.)

  Cat food. Litter.

  A plastic green bottle of Vital Touch, a therapeutic body oil. (Elizabeth liked me to rub a little on the backs of her legs, her hips, her lower back. Often this led to other things.) Antique quilt with pattern of triangles, folded and draped over the headboard. On the bed itself, peach-colored (Elizabeth’s favorite) sheet and pillowcases (one pillow for me, two for her), and over the sheet a woolen blanket. Elizabeth’s childhood teddy bear, Lucas (the organist at Elizabeth’s church in Hay-on-Wye was Lucas Begum, who drowned when she was three years old), propped against her pillows. On my bedside table, a framed photograph of Elizabeth in the kitchen two mornings after we got married. Her hair is tousled; she’s wearing her blue denim shirt and jeans and holding a cup of coffee, wedding ring in clear view. She had written across the photograph: Hey Mum Hey Dad, I’m a married woman (copy also sent to her parents). Two novels by Dashiell Hammett. Original script of Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons, episode titled “The Case of the Fortune of Titus Drake.” Small book of the paintings of Vuillard. (For some reason, Vuillard’s paintings calmed me. Elizabeth referred to this book as my “visual lullaby.” Mornings, first thing, I often found it on the floor beside the bed, because I’d been looking at it when I’d fallen asleep, usually on nights Elizabeth was up late writing.) On the wall parallel to the foot of the bed, five framed landscape drawings of the Welsh countryside (wedding present), done by Elizabeth’s aunt Julie, who had showed her work in an Edinburgh gallery, and once in London, and once in Brussels. Our bedroom wallpaper had a pattern of warblers perched on tree branches, autumnal colors but not in the least gloomy. (Each room in the hotel had different wallpaper; it was a fact noted in the brochures.) On either side of the wide closet, small
, framed Victorian-era botanical prints. On the back of the closet door, an ornate, six-inch iron hinge, which we could move left or right or press flat against the door; from the hinge hung Elizabeth’s silk robe, a pair of cotton pajamas. To the right and facing the door—opposite side of her desk—an antique oak bureau with a rectangle of glass on top. The top drawer held Elizabeth’s panties and bras, and a wooden music box that contained various pieces of jewelry, including the pearl necklace she wore to the lindy lessons. (“Some of these are from as far back as high school.”) In the second drawer, folded blouses and trouser-pants (her word), and in the third drawer, pairs of socks for all seasons, also sweaters, though most of Lizzy’s sweaters were neatly stacked on the top shelf of the closet. In the closet, my shirts and sports coats on hangers, Elizabeth’s and my shoes on separate shoe racks. A corner oak bureau that held my underclothes and socks. The two drawers were mine, the top surface was hers, on which was a framed photograph of Elizabeth receiving her undergraduate diploma from Dalhousie University, smiling a very big smile. A wooden tray holding three bottles of perfume. Half a dozen embroidered handkerchiefs, neatly folded. Elizabeth’s christening Bible. The Grundig Majestic shortwave radio, with its wooden frame and big dials and arc of channel numbers, all of which glowed light green in the dark, and its long antenna. (“Sam, I don’t know what accounts for it, but ever since we got married, this radio keeps showing up in my dreams.”) A bureau-wide mirror, its frame stenciled in a flower pattern. Maximus Minimum, our portly Russian blue cat, loved sitting next to the radio, actually right up against it. With his green-yellow eyes catching the slightest flutter of breath from a sleeping Elizabeth. I had to face it early on: he was really Lizzy’s cat. He was nearly always in her close proximity.