It's April now. The snowdrops have come and gone, the crocuses are up. Soon I'll be able to take up residence on the back porch, at my mousy, scarred old wooden table, at least when it's sunny. No ice on the sidewalks, and so I have begun to walk again. The winter months of inactivity have weakened me; I can feel it in my legs. Nevertheless I am determined to repossess my former territories, revisit my watering holes.
Today, with the aid of my cane and with several pauses along the way, I managed to make it as far as the cemetery. There were the two Chase angels, not obviously any the worse for wear after their winter in the snow; there were the family names, only slightly more illegible, but that might be my eyesight. I ran my fingers along these names, along the letters of them; despite their hardness, their tangibility, they appeared to soften under my touch, to fade, to waver. Time has been at them with its sharp invisible teeth.
Someone had cleared away last autumn's soggy leaves from Laura's grave. There was a small bunch of white narcissi, already wilted, the stems wrapped in aluminium foil. I scooped it up and chucked it into the nearest bin. Who do they think appreciates these offerings of theirs, these worshippers of Laura? More to the point, who do they think picks up after them? Them and their floral trash, littering the precincts with the tokens of their spurious grief.
I'll give you something to cry about, Reenie would say. If we'd been her real children she would have slapped us. As it was, she never did, so we never found out what this threateningsomething might be.
On my return journey I stopped at the doughnut shop. I must have looked as tired as I felt, because a waitress came over right away. Usually they don't serve tables, you have to stand at the counter and carry things yourself, but this girl-an oval-faced girl, dark-haired, in what looked like a black uniform -asked me what she could bring me. I ordered a coffee and, for a change, a blueberry muffin. Then I saw her talking to another girl, the one behind the counter, and I realised that she wasn't a waitress at all, but a customer, like myself: her black uniform wasn't even a uniform, only a jacket and slacks. Silver glittered on her somewhere, zippers perhaps: I couldn't make out the details. Before I could thank her properly she was gone.
So refreshing, to find politeness and consideration in girls of that age. Too often (I reflected, thinking of Sabrina) they display only, thoughtless ingratitude. But thoughtless ingratitude is the armour of the young; without it, how would they ever get through life? The old wish the young well, but they wish them ill also: they would like to eat them up, and absorb their vitality, and remain immortal themselves. Without the protection of surliness and levity, all children would be crushed by the past-the past of others, loaded onto their shoulders. Selfishness is their saving grace.
Up to a point, of course.
The waitress in her blue smock brought the coffee. Also the muffin, which I regretted almost immediately. I couldn't make much of an inroad into it. Everything in restaurants is becoming too big, too heavy-the material world manifesting itself as huge damp lumps of dough.
After I'd drunk as much of the coffee as I could manage, I set off to reclaim the washroom. In the middle cubicle, the writings I remembered from last autumn had been painted over, but luckily this season's had already begun. At the top right-hand corner, one set of initials coyly declared its love for another set, as is their habit. Underneath that, printed neatly in blue: Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.
Under that, in purple ballpoint cursive: For an experienced girl call Anita the Mighty Mouth, I'll take you to Heaven, and a phone number.
And, under that, in block lettering, and red Magic Marker: The Last Judgment is at hand. Prepare to meet thy Doom and that means you Anita.
Sometimes I think-no, sometimes I play with the idea-that these washroom scribblings are in reality the work of Laura, acting as if by long distance through the arms and hands of the girls who write them. A stupid notion, but a pleasing one, until I take the further logical step of deducing that in this case they must all be intended for me, because who else would Laura still know in this town? But if they are intended for me, what does Laura mean by them? Not what she says.
At other times I feel a strong urge to join in, to contribute; to link my own tremulous voice to the anonymous chorus of truncated serenades, scrawled love letters, lewd advertisements, hymns and curses.
The Moving Finger writes, and, having writ, Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears blot out a Word of it.
Ha, I think. That would make them sit up and bark.
Some day when I'm feeling better I'll go back there and actually write the thing down. They should all be cheered by it, for isn't it what they want? What we all want: to leave a message behind us that has an effect, if only a dire one; a message that cannot be cancelled out.
But such messages can be dangerous. Think twice before you wish, and especially before you wish to make yourself into the hand of fate.
(Think twice, said Reenie. Laura said, Why only twice?)
September came, then October. Laura was back at school, a different school. The kilts there were grey and blue rather than maroon and black; otherwise this school was much the same as the first, so far as I could see.
In November, just after she'd turned seventeen, Laura announced that Richard was wasting his money. She would continue to attend the school if he demanded it, she would place her body at a desk, but she wasn't learning anything useful. She stated this calmly and without rancour, and surprisingly enough Richard gave in. "She doesn't really need to go to school anyway," he said. "It's not as if she'll ever have to work for a living."
But Laura had to be busied with something, just as I did. She was enlisted in one of Winifred's causes, a volunteer organisation called The Abigails, which had to do with hospital visiting. The Abigails were a perky group: girls of good family, training to be future Winifreds. They dressed up in dairy-maid pinafores with tulips appliqu ©d on their bibs and traipsed around to hospital wards, where they were supposed to talk to the patients, read to them perhaps, and cheer them up-how, it was not specified.
Laura proved to be adept at this. She did not like the other Abigails, that goes without saying, but she took to the pinafore. Predictably, she gravitated to the poverty wards, which the other Abigails tended to avoid because of their stench and outrageousness. These wards were filled with derelicts: old women with dementia, impecunious veterans down on their luck, noseless men with tertiary syphilis and the like. Nurses were in short supply in these realms, and soon Laura was setting heir hand to tasks that were strictly speaking none of her business. Bedpans and vomit did riot throw her for a loop, it appeared, nor did the swearing and raving and general carryings-on. This was not the situation Winifred had intended, but pretty soon it was the one we were stuck with.
The nurses thought Laura was an angel (or some of them did; others simply thought she was in the way.) According to Winifred, who tried to keep an eye on things and had her spies, Laura was said to be especially good with the hopeless cases. It didn't seem to register on her that they were dying, said Winifred. She treated their condition as ordinary, as normal even, which-Winifred supposed-they must have found calming after a fashion, although a sane person wouldn't. To Winifred, this facility or talent of Laura's was another sign of her fundamentally bizarre nature.