Leaving the World (56 page)

‘But I didn’t hear the rest of that sentence, as I turned away and started to howl. The social worker tried to speak with me, but I heard nothing. She tried to reason with me. I didn’t want reason. I just wanted to howl.

‘Then,
bam
, another injection in my arm . . . and I was gone again.

‘It was night when I awoke – and my best friend Christy was seated at my side.

‘“What are you doing here?” I whispered to her.

‘“It seems you listed me as the person to get in touch with in the event of an emergency on your health insurance forms. So they called me and told me and I got the next plane to Boston and . . .”

‘She started to cry. Tears cascading down her face. Trying to be brave for me and failing. I’d never seen Christy cry before – she was always too deliberately tough for that. But here she was, weeping and telling the nurse to get the damn restraints off my arms, then holding me as I let go and must have bawled my eyes out for around half an hour.

‘Around an hour later – after a conversation with the social worker – they let me see Emily. She was in the morgue, but Mrs Potholm told me they’d move her to a “viewing room” where I could “spend as much time with her” as I liked.

‘I remember walking down the corridor with Christy and Mrs Potholm to the “viewing room”, and reaching the swing doors and my knees buckling and Christy holding me up and telling me: “You have to do this. There’s no getting around it. But you will do it with me.”

‘And then Mrs Potholm held open the door and we went inside and . . .’

I paused and I looked up at Vern. He hadn’t moved. Outside, snow was falling, whiting out visibility. The world had vanished.

I continued.

‘She was on a small gurney, a sheet pulled up to her shoulders. Everyone says the dead look asleep. But I stared down at my wonderful daughter and all I could think was:
She’s gone, she’s never opening her eyes again and telling me she’s afraid of the dark or wants me to read her a bedtime story or
 . . .

‘I stared down at Emily and could not escape the reality of what had happened. There was a huge blue contusion on her forehead, a deep gash on the side of her neck. And when I took her hands in mine they were ice. I thought I would fall apart again – but, at this moment, something came over me. Shock, I suppose you could call it . . . but it was deeper than shock. Trauma of the kind that simply sucks you into a vortex and . . .’

A deep, long, steadying breath.

‘That night, I was released from the hospital under Christy’s surveillance. We got back to my apartment and I walked into Emily’s room and I sat down on her bed and . . .

‘No, I didn’t fall apart again. Trauma has its own strange stupor. I just sat there for around an hour. Christy was there beside me, saying nothing . . . because there was nothing to say. She did force me to eat something – and she did insist on me taking the pills that the hospital prescribed. After tucking me in, she herself collapsed on the sofa . . . because I don’t think my wonderful friend had slept in over two days.

‘But the pills did no good for me. I just lay in my bed, staring at the ceiling, knowing that all I could do now was die. That thought preoccupied me all night – especially as it was coupled with a horrendous instant replay of everything that had happened, and this insane growing belief that if I hurried back to the spot of the accident I could stop it. Turn time back completely and have my daughter hop off that mortuary gurney and come home to me . . .

‘So, without thinking, I threw a robe on over my pajamas and grabbed my car keys and left the house. It was the middle of the night – and I drove right back to the place in Cambridge where it happened. Drove there, slammed on the brakes, got out, sat down on the pavement and . . .

‘All I can remember after that is this sense of falling. Falling into . . . an abyss? A chasm without a bottom? I don’t know. All I do know is that I sat in that spot for a long time . . . until some cops pulled up in a cruiser and tried to talk to me and when I said nothing, they called for back-up and . . .

‘I was kept overnight in a psychiatric hospital for observation. They found my home number. They called Christy. She showed up and explained everything. According to the shrink who signed me over to her, it was very common for someone who’d lost a “loved one” in an accident to return to the scene in the hopes of . . .’

I broke off again.

Then: ‘I’m not going to tell you much about the funeral. An old college friend of mine had become a Unitarian minister. She conducted it. There weren’t many people there – some New England State colleagues, some Harvard people, the nanny, some people from the nursery, and the wife and daughter of the cabbie who’d hit Emily. They were crying even more than the rest of us. After the burial . . . you know, I’ve never once been back to my daughter’s grave, I just couldn’t . . . they gave Christy a letter from the family, saying how sorry they were. I never read it. Couldn’t. But Christy talked to the wife. It seems the guy – his name was Mr Babula – had been so traumatized by what had happened that he quit his job and was on Valium or something, unable to leave the house, unable to deal with . . .

‘But he’d been driving too fast. The police told Christy that. And he’d already got two violations against him for speeding. And they were bringing charges. And . . .’

Another pause.

‘During all this, an all-points bulletin went off for Emily’s father. But he was nowhere to be found. We had the cops working on it. My lawyer. Even some of his so-called “business associates”. Running from creditors had made him go to ground. Not a fucking word from him. Until . . .

‘But I jump ahead. After the funeral my department chairman told me I should take as much “compassionate leave” as I wanted. I was back at work five days later. Everyone was stunned to see me – but I didn’t know what else to do with myself. I was operating on some very spectral autopilot in which it was impossible to make sense of anything. Christy had returned to Oregon. I had closed the door of Emily’s room and refused to go in there. I did my classes. I saw my students. I avoided my colleagues. I seemed to be functioning . . . even though my mind was increasingly preoccupied with the idea that I was living in this tunnel made of reinforced concrete. I could just about negotiate its narrow confines, but it was brutally limiting. There was no escaping it. There was no glimmer of light at the end of it. But – and this was the manic thing I kept telling myself – if I was just able to continue negotiating its confinement I would somehow be able to keep functioning . . .

‘So, for around two weeks, I was an automaton twenty-four/seven. If anyone at the university asked me how I was doing I’d change the subject. I was doing how I was doing. I was coping. I was, privately, unhinged. But even I couldn’t admit that yet.

‘Then two things happened. My lawyer called me to say that Theo had resurfaced. He’d been lying low with his paramour in Morocco while their lawyer did some fancy footwork with the company that had taken away the movie they were selling. I didn’t get all the details – I didn’t want all the details – but the crux of the matter was that there were threats of all kinds of lawsuits by Theo and his bitch, Adrienne. Their legal guy had found some way of blocking the release of the film. The film company had deep pockets and agreed to clear all the debts that Theo and Adrienne had run up in exchange for no legal action . . . and, hey presto, they were in the clear.

‘My lawyer said that he had actually talked with Theo who was “devastated” about what had happened to his daughter, and wanted to speak with me . . . but also didn’t want to ring me directly. “That’s courageous of him,” I remember telling my lawyer, then adding: “Inform him that I never,
ever
, want to hear from him again.”

‘Theo must have taken him at his word – because I didn’t hear from him. But ten days later, I was in a restaurant off Harvard Square having a meal. It was around eight – and this diner had become the place where I ate every meal, as I couldn’t bear to do anything in my apartment except drink myself to sleep with the aid of Zopiclone and red wine. The waiters there were so used to me by now – and the fact that I always ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and coffee – that the food always showed up around five minutes after I sat down.

‘But on the night in question, as the sandwich arrived, I looked up and saw Theo and Adrienne coming in. They didn’t notice me at first, because I was in a booth in the back. Before I even could consider what I was doing, I threw some money down on the table, and grabbed my coat and the fork next to my plate. I walked straight towards Theo and Adrienne. They were waiting to be seated. Adrienne saw me first and actually said: “Jane! Oh, my God, we’re so—”

‘Before she could finish the sentence I took the fork and plunged it right into the side of her neck. She screamed, there was blood everywhere, I kept right on walking out the door, then dashed across the street to a taxi stand and was in a cab before anyone could stop me.

‘I was home ten minutes later. I threw clothes in a bag. I grabbed the necessary documentation, including my two passports and some cash and traveler’s checks. I tossed everything into my car. I started driving.

‘Ten days later I drove into a snowbank in Montana. And . . .’

I fell silent again.

‘End of story,’ I said. ‘Except the woman I stabbed didn’t die and didn’t press charges. And when I messed up my suicide . . . well, maybe living was the punishment I would have to endure for killing my daughter . . .’

Finally Vern spoke.

‘You didn’t kill your daughter.’

‘Did you not listen to a word I just said?’

‘You didn’t kill your daughter.’

‘All the advice I got, all the steps I could have taken to avoid disaster, what did I do . . . ?’

‘You didn’t kill her. That’s all there is to it.’

‘That’s easy for you to say.’

‘No, it’s not. Because I still blame myself for losing my daughter. Even though . . .’

Silence. He put his hand on top of mine. I pulled it away.

‘What are you doing here with me?’ I said. ‘I mean, do you really like damaged goods? Is that your kinky thing? Or do you actually think there’s some sort of weird romantic future between us?’

As soon as this was out of my mouth I loathed myself for it. And I turned to him and instantly said: ‘I’m sorry. I’m so stupid, so . . .’

I buried my head in his shoulder, but couldn’t cry. He put an arm around me, but I could tell he was nervous about doing it, fearful about how I might react.

‘You know,’ he said quietly, ‘even if I wanted “that”, it could never be. The prostate cancer ended that part of my life . . . not that it had existed since my wife left me.’

‘So what do you want from this?’ I asked.

He disengaged himself from me. His eyes were red, rheumy. He pulled a handkerchief out of the pocket of his coat and wiped his face. Then he gripped the steering wheel and stared straight out at all that blowing snow.

‘I want a whiskey,’ he finally said.

W
E WENT TO
a bar in a strip mall. Like all strip malls, this one was grim. The fact that several inches of fresh snow had dappled it didn’t lessen its ugliness. The bar was also ugly: a real beer-and-hockey joint which stank of urinated lager and male sweat. At least they weren’t playing heavy metal music – though there was one of those massive televisions near the bar that was broadcasting a Calgary Flames game. On screen two guys from opposing teams had thrown off their helmets and were now doing their best to rip each other’s ears off. All the patrons at the bar seemed to be enjoying the show – and were yelling encouragement to the pit-bull in the Flames uniform.

‘Hey there, Vern,’ the bartender said as we came in. The bartender was named Tommy. He looked like a biker and wore a T-shirt that exposed overripe biceps and a tattoo of the Canadian Maple Leaf intertwined with a crucifix.

‘Nice place,’ I said, following Vern into a booth and sliding in opposite him.

‘That it is not,’ Vern said. ‘But it’s local – and I can stagger home from here.’

Now this statement begged a question: ‘
Does having two drinks make you stagger . . . or do you come in here to break your two-drink rule?
’ Over the next three hours I got an answer to that question, as Vern proceeded to drink me into an advanced stupor. After telling me in the car that he wanted a whiskey he drove me here in silence, saying absolutely nothing about all that I had told him. He plugged a CD into his sound system: a piano trio by Schumann; brooding, expressive, wintery music. We negotiated our way through the snow and back towards the city. I was grateful that he said nothing after everything I had said. There is a notion propagated in modern life that ‘talking it out’ will somehow make everything better. It’s a lie. All talking does is articulate the agony. You have to get it out because you have to get it out. But it’s not like vomiting up a toxic meal. You don’t suddenly feel purged, scoured, cleansed and ready to start anew. All you feel is:
I’ve said it . . . and nothing has changed
.

So I was pleased to avoid extended soul searching with Vern. Maybe Vern himself had once been told by someone that his daughter’s schizophrenia wasn’t his fault and he too had decided otherwise. Or maybe my story had so appalled him that he just wanted to get drunk.

Whatever the reason, Vern started drinking seriously. Two shots disappeared within ten minutes of us sitting down. This seemed to steady him a bit. Then it was a double every thirty minutes. I matched him, drink for drink. It was an interesting experience, getting truly sloshed. Though I had often drunk myself to sleep in the recent past, this was different. From the hints dropped by Tommy the bartender – ‘So it’s going to be that sort of afternoon, Vern . . . How ’bout handing over your car keys for safekeeping?’ – it was clear that this was not the first time my work colleague had gone on a binge here. I even posed that question to him – around the time round five showed up.