Diana Sweets

Today I walked as far as the Jubilee Bridge, then along to the doughnut shop, where I ate almost a third of an orange cruller. A great wodge of flour and fat, spreading out through my arteries like silt.

Then I went off to the washroom. Someone was in the middle cubicle, so I waited, avoiding the mirror. Age thins your skin; you can see the veins, the tendons. Also it thickens you. It's hard to get back to what you were before, when you were skinless.

At last the door opened and a girl came out-a darkish girl, in sullen clothing, her eyes ringed with soot. She gave a little shriek, then a laugh. "Sorry," she said, "I didn't see you there, you creeped me out." Her accent was foreign, but she belonged here: she was of the nationality of the young. It's I who am the stranger now.

The newest message was in gold marker: You can't get to Heaven without Jesus. Already the annotators had been at work: Jesus had been crossed out, and Death written above it, in black.

And below that, in green: Heaven is in a grain of sand. Blake.

And below that, in orange: Heaven is on the Planet Xenor. Laura Chase.

Another misquote.

The war ended officially in the first week of May-the war in Europe, that is. Which was the only part of it that would have concerned Laura.

A week later she telephoned. She placed the call in the morning, an hour after breakfast, when she must have known Richard would not be at home. I didn't recognise her voice, I'd given up expecting her. I thought at first that she was the woman from my dressmaker's.

"It's me," she said.

"Where are you?" I said carefully. You must recall that she was by this time an unknown quantity to me -perhaps of questionable stability.

"I'm here," she said. "In the city." She wouldn't tell me where she was staying, but she named a street corner where I could pick her up, later that afternoon. In that case we could have tea, I said. Diana Sweets was where I intended to take her. It was safe, it was secluded, it catered mostly to women; they knew me there. I said I would bring my car.

"Oh, do you have a car now?"

"More or less." I described it.

"It sounds like quite a chariot," she said lightly.

Laura was standing on the corner of King and Spadina, right where she said she'd be. It wasn't the most savoury district, but she didn't seem perturbed by that. I honked, and she waved and then came over and climbed in. I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. Immediately I felt treacherous.

"I can't believe you're really here," I said to her.

"But here I am."

I was close to tears all of a sudden; she seemed unconcerned. Her cheek had been very cool, though. Cool and thin.

"I hope you didn't mention anything to Richard, though," she said. "About me being here. Or Winifred," she added, "because it's the same thing."

"I wouldn't do that," I said. She said nothing.

Because I was driving, I could not look at her directly. For that I had to wait until I'd parked the car, then until we'd walked to Diana Sweets, and then until we were seated across from each other. At last I could see all of her, full on.

She was and was not the Laura I remembered. Older, of course-we both were-but more than that. She was neatly, even austerely dressed, in a dull-blue shirtwaist dress with a pleated bodice and small buttons down the front; her hair was pulled back into a severe chignon. She appeared shrunken, fallen in on herself, leached of colour, but at the same time translucent-as if little spikes of light were being nailed out through her skin from the inside, as if thorns of light were shooting out from her in a prickly haze, like a thistle held up to the sun. It's a hard effect to describe. (Nor should you set much store by it: my eyes were already warping, I already needed glasses, though I didn't yet know it. The fuzzy light around Laura may have been simply an optical flaw.)

We ordered. She wanted coffee rather than tea. It would be bad coffee, I warned her-you couldn't get good coffee in a place like this, because of the war. But she said, "I'm used to bad coffee."

There was a silence. I hardly knew where to begin. I wasn't yet ready to ask her what she was doing back in Toronto. Where had she been all this time? I asked. What had she been doing?

"I was in Avilion, at first," she said.

"But it was all closed up!" It had been, all through the war. We hadn't been back for years. "How did you get in?"

"Oh, you know," she said. "We could always get in when we wanted to."

I remembered the coal chute, the dubious lock on one of the cellar doors. But that had been repaired, long ago. "Did you break a window?"

"I didn't have to. Reenie kept a key," she said. "But don't tell."

"The furnace can't have been on. There couldn't have been any heat," I said.

"There wasn't," she said. "But there were a lot of mice."

Our coffee arrived. It tasted of burned toast crumbs and roasted chicory, not surprising since that's what they put into it. "Do you want some cake or something?" I said. "It's not bad cake here." She was so thin, I felt she could use some cake.

"No, thanks."

"Then what did you do?"

"Then I turned twenty-one, so I had a little money, from Father. So I went to Halifax."

" Halifax? Why Halifax?"

"It was where the ships came in."

I didn't pursue this. There was a reason behind it, there always was with Laura; it was a reason I shied away from hearing. "But what were youdoing?"

"This and that," she said. "I made myself useful." Which was all she would say on that score. I supposed it would have been a soup kitchen of some kind, or the equivalent. Cleaning toilets in a hospital, that sort of thing. "Didn't you get my letters? From Bella Vista? Reenie said you didn't."

"No," I said. "I never got any letters."

"I expect they stole them. And they wouldn't let you call, or come to see me?"

"They said it would be bad for you."

She laughed a little. "It would have been bad foryou," she said. "You really shouldn't stay there, in that house. You shouldn't stay withhim. He's very evil."

"I know you've always felt that, but what else can I do?" I said. "He'd never give me a divorce. And I don't have any money."

"That's no excuse."

"Maybe not for you. You've got your trust fund, from Father, but I have no such thing. And what about Aimee?"

"You could take her with you."

"Easier said than done. She might not want to come. She's pretty stuck on Richard, at the moment, if you must know."

"Why would she be?" said Laura.

"He butters her up. He gives her things."

"I wrote you from Halifax," said Laura, changing the subject.

"I never got those letters either."

"I expect Richard reads your mail," said Laura.

"I expect he does," I said. The conversation was taking a turn I hadn't expected. I'd assumed I'd be consoling Laura, commiserating with her, hearing a sad tale, but instead she was lecturing me. How easily we slid back into our old roles.

"What did he tell you about me?" she said now. "About putting me into that place?"

There it was, then, right out on the table. This was the crossroads: either Laura had been mad, or Richard had been lying. I couldn't believe both. "He told me a story," I said evasively.

"What sort of a story? Don't worry, I won't get upset. I just want to know."

"He said you were-well, mentally disturbed."

"Naturally. He would say that. What else did he say?"

"He said you thought you were pregnant, but it was just a delusion."

"Iwas pregnant," said Laura. "That was the whole point-that was why they whisked me out of sight in such a hurry. Him and Winifred-they were scared stiff. The disgrace, the scandal-you can imagine what they'd think it would do to his big fat chances."

"Yes. I can see that." I could see it, too-the hush-hush call from the doctor, the panic, the hasty conference between the two of them, the spur-of-the-moment plan. Then the other version of events, the false one, concocted just for me. I was docile enough as a rule, but they must have known there was a line somewhere. They must have been afraid of what I might do, once they'd crossed it.

"Anyway, I didn't have the baby. That's one of the things they do, at Bella Vista."

"One of the things?" I was feeling quite stupid.

"Besides the mumbo-jumbo, I mean, and the pills and machines. They do extractions," she said. "They conk you out with ether, like the dentist. Then they take out the babies. Then they tell you you've made the whole thing up. Then when you accuse them of it, they say you're a danger to yourself and others."

She was so calm, so plausible. "Laura," I said, "are you sure? About the baby, I mean. Are you sure there really was one?"

"Of course I'm sure," she said. "Why would I make such a thing up?"

There was still room for doubt, but this time I believed Laura. "How did it happen?" I whispered. "Who was the father?" Such a thing called for whispering.

"If you don't already know, I don't think I can tell you," said Laura.

I supposed it must have been Alex Thomas. Alex was the only man Laura had ever shown any interest in -besides Father, that is, and God. I hated to acknowledge such a possibility, but really there was no other choice. They must have met during those days when she'd been playing hookey, from her first school in Toronto, and then later, when she was no longer going to school at all; when she was supposed to be cheering up decrepit old paupers in the hospital, dressed in her prissy, sanctimonious little pinafore, and lying her head off the whole time. No doubt he'd got a cheap thrill out of the pinafore, it was the sort of outr © touch that would have appealed to him. Perhaps that was why she'd dropped out-to meet Alex. She'd been how old-fifteen, sixteen? How could he have done such a thing?

"Were you in love with him?" I said.

"In love?" said Laura. "Who with?"

"With-you know," I couldn't say it.

"Oh no," said Laura, "not at all. It was horrible, but I had to do it. I had to make the sacrifice. I had to take the pain and suffering onto myself. That's what I promised God. I knew if I did that, it would save Alex."

"What on earth do you mean?" My newfound reliance on Laura's sanity was crumbling: we were back in the realm of her loony metaphysics. "Save Alex from what?"

"From being caught. They would have shot him. Callie Fitzsimmons knew where he was, and she told. She told Richard."

"I can't believe that."

"Callie was a snitch," said Laura. "That's what Richard said-he said Callie kept himinformed. Remember when she was in jail, and Richard got her out? That's why he did it. He owed it to her."

I found this construction of events quite breathtaking. Also monstrous, though there was a slight, a very slight possibility, that it might be true. But if so, Callie must have been lying. How would she have known where Alex was? He'd moved so often.

He might have kept in touch with Callie, though. He might have done. She was one of the people he might have trusted.

"I kept my end of the bargain," said Laura, "and it worked. God doesn't cheat. But then Alex went off to the war. After he got back from Spain, I mean. That's what Callie said-she told me."

I couldn't make sense of this. I was feeling quite dizzy. "Laura," I said, "why did you come here?"

"Because the war's over," said Laura patiently, "and Alex will be back soon. If I wasn't here, he wouldn't know where to find me. He wouldn't know about Bella Vista, he wouldn't know I went to Halifax. The only address he'll have for me is yours. He'll get a message through to me somehow." She had the infuriating iron-clad confidence of the true believer.

I wanted to shake her. I closed my eyes for a moment. I saw the pool at Avilion, the stone nymph dipping her toes; I saw the too-hot sun glinting on the rubbery green leaves, that day after Mother's funeral. I felt sick to my stomach, from too much cake and sugar. Laura was sitting on the ledge beside me, humming to herself complacently, secure in the conviction that everything was all right really and the angels were on her side, because she'd made some secret, dotty pact with God.

My fingers itched with spite. I knew what had happened next. I'd pushed heroff.

Now I'm coming to the part that still haunts me. Now I should have bitten my tongue, now I should have kept my mouth shut. Out of love, I should have lied, or said anything else: anything but the truth. Never interrupt a sleepwalker, Reenie used to say. The shock can kill them.

"Laura, I hate to tell you this," I said, "but whatever it was you did, it didn't save Alex. Alex is dead. He was killed in the war, six months ago. In Holland."

The light around her faded. She went very white. It was like watching wax cool.

"How do you know?"

"I got the telegram, " I said. "They sent it to me. He listed me as next of kin." Even then I could have changed course; I could have said, There must have been a mistake, it must have been meant for you. But I didn't say that. Instead I said, "It was very indiscreet of him. He shouldn't have done that, considering Richard. But he didn't have any family, and we'd been lovers, you see-in secret, for quite a long time-and who else did he have?"

Laura said nothing. She only looked at me. She looked right through me. Lord knows what she saw. A sinking ship, a city in flames, a knife in the back. I recognised the look, however: it was the look she'd had that day she'd almost drowned in the Louveteau River, just as she was going under-terrified, cold, rapturous. Gleaming like steel.

After a moment she stood up, reached across the table, and picked up my purse, quickly and almost delicately, as if it contained something fragile. Then she turned and walked out of the restaurant. I didn't move to stop her. I was taken by surprise, and by the time I myself was out of my chair, Laura was gone.

There was some confusion about paying the bill-I had no money other than what had been in the purse, which my sister-I explained-had taken by mistake. I promised reimbursement the next day. After I'd got that settled, I almost ran to where I'd parked the car. It was gone. The car keys too had been in my purse. I hadn't been aware that Laura had learned how to drive.

I walked for several blocks, concocting stories. I couldn't tell Richard and Winifred what had really happened to my car: it would be used as one more piece of evidence against Laura. I'd say instead that I'd had a breakdown and the car had been towed to a garage, and they'd called a taxi for me, and I'd got into it and been driven all the way home before I'd realised I'd left my purse in the car by mistake. Nothing to worry about, I'd say. It would all be set straight in the morning.

Then I really did call a taxi. Mrs. Murgatroyd would be at the house to let me in, and to pay the taxi for me.

Richard wasn't home for dinner. He was at some club or other, eating a foul dinner, making a speech. He was running hard by now, he had the goal in sight. This goal-I now know-was not just wealth or power. What he wanted was respect-respect, despite his new money. He longed for it, he thirsted for it; he wished to wield respect, not only like a hammer but like a sceptre. Such desires are not in themselves despicable.

This particular club was for men only; otherwise I would have been there, Sitting in the background, smiling, applauding at the end. On such occasions I would give Aimee's nanny the night off and undertake bedtime myself. I supervised Aimee's bath, read to her, then tucked her in. On that particular night she was unusually slow in going to sleep: she must have known I was worried about something. I sat beside her, holding her hand and stroking her forehead and looking out the window, until she dozed off.

Where had Laura gone, where was she staying, what had she done with my car? How could I reach her, what could I say to put things right?

A June bug was blundering against the window, drawn by the light. It bumped over the glass like a blind thumb. It sounded angry, and thwarted, and also helpless.

Today my brain dealt me a sudden blank; a whiteout, as if by snow. It wasn't someone's name that disappeared-in any case that's usual-but a word, which turned itself upside down and emptied itself of meaning like a cardboard cup blown over.

This word wasescarpment. Why had it presented itself? Escarpment, escarpment, I repeated, possibly out loud, but no image appeared to me. Was it an object, an activity, a state of mind, a bodily defect?

Nothing. Vertigo. I tottered on the brink, grabbed at air. In the end I resorted to the dictionary. Escarpment, a vertical fortification, or else a steep cliff-face.

In the beginning was the word, we once believed. Did God know what a flimsy thing the word might be? How tenuous, how casually erased?

Perhaps this is what happened to Laura-pushed her quite literally over the edge. The words she had relied on, building her house of cards on them, believing them solid, had flipped over and shown her their hollow centres, and then skittered away from her like so much waste paper.

God. Trust. Sacrifice. Justice.

Faith. Hope. Love.

Not to mentionsister. Well, yes. There's always that.

The morning after my tea with Laura at Diana Sweets, I hovered near the telephone. The hours passed: no word. I had a luncheon date, with Winifred and two of her committee members, at the Arcadian Court. It was always better with Winifred to stick to agreed plans-otherwise she got curious-and so I went.

We were told about Winifred's latest venture, a cabaret in aid of wounded servicemen. There would be singing and dancing, and some of the girls were putting on a can-can routine, so we must all roll up our sleeves and pitch in, and sell tickets. Would Winifred herself be kicking up her heels in a ruffled petticoat and black stockings? I sincerely hoped not. By now she was on the wrong side of scraggy.

"You're looking a bit wan, Iris," said Winifred, her head on one side.

"Am I?" I said pleasantly. She'd been telling me lately I wasn't up to par. What she meant was that I was not doing all I could to prop up Richard, to propel him forward along his path to glory.

"Yes, a bit faded. Richard wearing you out? That man has energy to burn!" She was in high good spirits. Her plans-her plans for Richard-must have been going well, despite my laxness.

But I could not pay much attention to her; I was too anxious about Laura. What would I do if she didn't turn up soon? I could scarcely report that my car had been stolen: I didn't want her to be arrested. Richard wouldn't have wanted that either. It was in nobody's interests.

I returned home, to be told by Mrs. Murgatroyd that Laura had been there during my absence. She hadn't even rung the doorbell-Mrs. Murgatroyd had just happened to run across her in the front hall. It was a jolt, to see Miss Laura in the flesh after all these years, it was like seeing a ghost. No, she hadn't left any address. She'd said something, though. Tell Iris I'll talk to her later. Something like that. She'd left the house keys on the letter tray; said she'd taken them by mistake. A funny thing to take by mistake, said Mrs. Murgatroyd, whose pug nose smelled a fish. She no longer believed my story about the garage.

I was relieved: all might yet be well. Laura was still in town. She would talk to me later.

She has, too, though she tends to repeat herself, as the dead have a habit of doing. They say all the things they said to you in life; but they rarely say anything new.

I was changing out of my luncheon outfit when the policeman arrived, with news of the accident. Laura had gone through a Danger barrier, then right off the St. Clair Avenue bridge into the ravine far below. It was a terrible smash-up, said the policeman, shaking his head sadly. She'd been driving my car: they'd traced the licence. At first they'd thought-naturally-that I myself must be the burned woman found in the wreck.

Now that would have been news.

After the policeman had left I tried to stop shaking. I needed to keep calm, I needed to pull myself together. You'll have to face the music, Reenie used to say, but what kind of music did she have in mind? It wasn't dance music. A harsh brass band, a parade of some kind, with crowds of people on both sides, pointing and jeering. An executioner at the end of the road, with energy to burn.

There would of course be a cross-examination from Richard. My story about the car and the garage would still hold if I added that I'd seen Laura for tea that day, but hadn't told him because I hadn't wanted to upset him unnecessarily just before a crucial speech. (All his speeches were crucial, now; he was approaching the brass ring.)

Laura had been in the car when it had broken down, I'd say; she'd accompanied me to the garage. When I'd left my purse behind, she must have picked it up, and then it would have been child's play for her to go the next morning and reclaim the car, paying for it with a forged cheque from my chequebook. I'd tear out a cheque, for verisimilitude; if pressed for the name of the garage, I'd say I'd forgotten. If pressed further, I'd cry. How could I be expected to remember a trivial detail like that, I'd say, at a time like this?

I went upstairs to change. To visit the morgue I would need a pair of gloves, and a hat with a veil. There might be reporters, photographers, already. I'd drive down, I thought, and then remembered that my car was now scrap. I would have to call a taxi.

Also I ought to warn Richard, at his office: As soon as the word got out, the corpse flies would besiege him. He was too prominent for things to be otherwise. He would wish to have a statement of grief prepared.

I made the phone call. Richard's latest young secretary answered. I told her the matter was urgent, and that no, it could not be communicated through her. I would have to speak with Richard in person.

There was a pause while Richard was located. "What is it?" he said. He never appreciated being phoned at the office.

"There's been a terrible accident," I said. "It's Laura. The car she was driving went off a bridge."

He said nothing.

"It was my car."

He said nothing.

"I'm afraid she's dead," I said.

"My God." A pause. "Where has she been all this time? When did she get back? What was she doing in your car?"

"I thought you needed to know at once, before the papers get hold of it," I said.

"Yes," he said. "That was wise."

"Now I have to go down to the morgue."

"The morgue?" he said. "The city morgue? What the hell for?"

"It's where they've put her."

"Well, get her out of there," he said. "Take her somewhere decent. Somewhere more…"

"Private," I said. "Yes, I'll do that. I should tell you there's been some implication-from the police, one of them was just here-some suggestion…"

"What? What did you tell them? What suggestion?" He sounded quite alarmed.

"Only that she did it on purpose."

"Nonsense," he said. "It must have been an accident. I hope you said that."

"Of course. But there were witnesses. They saw…"

"Was there a note? If there was, burn it."

"Two of them, a lawyer and something in a bank. She had white gloves on. They saw her turn the wheel."

"Trick of the light," he said. "Or else they were drunk. I'll call the lawyer. I'll handle it."

I set down the telephone. I went into my dressing room: I would need black, and a handkerchief. I'll have to tell Aimee, I thought. I'll say it was the bridge. I'll say the bridge broke.

I opened the drawer where I kept my stockings, and there were the notebooks-five of them, cheap school exercise books from our time with Mr. Erskine, tied together with kitchen string. Laura's name was printed on the top cover, in pencil-her childish lettering. Underneath that: Mathematics. Laura hated mathematics.

Old schoolwork, I thought. No: old homework. Why had she left me these?

I could have stopped there. I could have chosen ignorance, but I did what you would have done-what you've already done, if you've read this far. I chose knowledge instead.

Most of us will. We'll choose knowledge no matter what, we'll maim ourselves in the process, we'll stick our hands into the flames for it if necessary. Curiosity is not our only motive: love or grief or despair or hatred is what drives us on. We'll spy relentlessly on the dead: we'll open their letters, we'll read their journals, we'll go through their trash, hoping for a hint, a final word, an explanation, from those who have deserted us-who've left us holding the bag, which is often a good deal emptier than we'd supposed.

But what about those who plant such clues, for us to stumble on? Why do they bother? Egotism? Pity? Revenge? A simple claim to existence, like scribbling your initials on a washroom wall? The combination of presence and anonymity-confession without penance, truth without consequences-it has its attractions. Getting the blood off your hands, one way or another.

Those who leave such evidence can scarcely complain if strangers come along afterwards and poke their noses into every single thing that would once have been none of their business. And not only strangers: lovers, friends, relations. We're voyeurs, all of us. Why should we assume that anything in the past is ours for the taking, simply because we've found it? We're all grave robbers, once we open the doors locked by others.

But only locked. The rooms and their contents have been left intact. If those leaving them had wanted oblivion, there was always fire.