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.
Soon Find Closure
With Dr. Nissensen, April 17, 1973:
Quite late in today’s session, I handed Dr. Nissensen an article from the Toronto Star that someone had left in the café at Vogler’s Cove. I’d cut out the article and carried it in my wallet. He read it quickly, looked up, and said, “You’ve underlined one word.”
“Okay, so, a woman—”
Dr. Nissensen looked down at the article. “Mary Yamada, age twenty-nine,” he said, then gave the clipping back to me.
“—is shot and killed by some lunatic while walking home from a movie. The next day — the murder took place at nine at night. The very next day, some idiot from the mayor’s office says”—I read from the article—“‘Mayor Crombie visited the bereaved family of Mrs. Yamada and offered his condolences. He said he would pray for their daughter, and for them to soon find closure with this tragedy.’”
Dr. Nissensen said, “Here you’re taking the opportunity to reaffirm your feelings about the hated word.”
“‘Oh, right, thank you, Mayor,’” I said, loaning a Yamada family member my most scathing tone. “‘It’s been more than twelve hours already. We should be over this. Maybe we should go grocery shopping. Maybe we should go to the movies. Oh, by the way, Mayor Shithead, where’s the Office of Closure? Can you write down the address, please? We’ll drop by soon as we can. Are there many forms to fill out? Oh, by the way, did you actually say “soon find closure”? How soon? Get out of my house, you goddamn fucking useless moron. Guess what? I am not voting for you next time.’”
Dr. Nissensen didn’t seem to know where to go from here; I didn’t know, either. We said nothing for ten or so minutes. A charitable way to view this: together we afforded him time to write in his notebook.
Favorite Living Writer
STARTING AT SEVEN A.M., I spent the day, right up to dusk, at Vogler’s Cove and almost succeeded in replacing thought with simply gazing at birds. It was as if my empty head became the cove, or vice versa, birds flying in and out, the wind, the sky. I tried hard not to think about things. It mostly worked.
Late morning, I sat at a picnic bench, looking at ducks through my binoculars. The hours drifted by. I walked the entire length of the cove. Sat in the café and had a lunch of fish soup and bread. Read the Chronicle-Herald (no articles about the movie). Then back out onto the beach, the wind bracing and the sun warm on the skin. As I was scanning the far shore, I saw Brian Moore walking by himself. He was dressed in khaki trousers, a dark green cotton shirt, a windbreaker, and brown hiking boots laced to the ankle. Brian Moore, my favorite living writer. I was tongue-tied even at that distance.
Despite Cynthia’s saying, “Brian is very approachable — true, he doesn’t suffer fools, but I’m sure he and his wife, Jean, would be interested in meeting you, Sam, not only because you’re our friend, but because you’re a published writer,” I did not approach him. Going by photographs I’d seen of her, Jean Moore, a good friend of Cynthia’s, was a stunningly beautiful woman. Jean and Brian’s house was on a somewhat isolated, wind-sculpted length of coast, no walking beach nearby. (I admit I’d gone out of my way to drive past the house a number of times.)
And now here he was, strolling down the beach, my favorite living writer. The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, The Feast of Lupercal, The Luck of Ginger Coffey, An Answer from Limbo, The Emperor of Ice-Cream. I had even sleuthed in the John W. Doull bookshop and found the “B-movie noirs, written to pay the bills” (as he once said in an interview): Wreath for a Redhead, The Executioners, French for Murder (written under the name Bernard Mara), A Bullet for My Lady (as Bernard Mara), This Gun for Gloria (as Bernard Mara), Intent to Kill (as Michael Bryan), Murder in Majorca (as Michael Bryan).