‘Are you serious?’
‘It’s only six weeks. It’s not that much hassle.’
And here they were, spending money talking about talking.
‘Keep the phone for emergencies. I can pick up messages just as long as there’s a signal. But keep it to emergencies, OK?’
‘That’s the thing.’ Cathy’s voice became hesitant. ‘I’ve news and it’s bad.’
* * *
A call had come from Mike, and at first she couldn’t understand what he was saying, but he wanted her to check out Channel 5 or Fox, it was on both right now, then get in contact with Rem, because Matt had done something so unbelievable he couldn’t credit it, couldn’t begin to express how profoundly disturbing it was: he just couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing.
This is the kind of stunt people used to do on LSD.
Matt had been caught in action by a news team, who just happened to be coming up Lake Shore Drive right at the moment he appeared. The newscaster advised viewer discretion, because, despite the hazy picture quality, you could see a good amount of unpleasant detail. Matt had opened his wrists with a box-cutter, walked with a woozy stride across six lanes of rush-hour traffic in what looked like wet red jeans, then tipped himself off the flyway to land on his back on the grass, one unholy mess. Unlucky in everything.
‘Can’t even kill himself.’ Mike’s voice stopped down to an incredulous whisper.
Cathy watched, stood up, sat down, hands to mouth, as Matt tipped over the balustrade, a full head-over-heels dummy-drop, slam on his back.
She wanted a drink. Needed something in her hands. Ducked toward the TV to make sure that she was seeing this right. Matt. That was Matt? Right? Their Matt? Former neighbour/friend/Rem’s employee, Matty, the man who threw the party when they came back from New Orleans? She watched him amble — what else could you call it — across the expressway, through the fierce downdraught of a police helicopter, just outright saunter across Lake Shore Drive, off his box, to topple ragdoll over the far parapet.
The grass rippled about him, the ground velvet, soft as an undulating sea.
Two helicopters now. Three. One to medevac him to Northwestern, two to monitor. The traffic backed up from Fullerton to Loyola. People were sending images from their cellphones to the network. Matt seen from a passenger seat. Matt taken from the back of a bus. Matt, definitely Matt, curving by a driver, blank-eyed, to disappear, head first, arms at his side, with a heavy inevitability, the man in the car shouting, not even using language, just a bellyful of awe and shock.
Cathy went to the bedroom, dreamy-voiced, like this could be normal, talked out loud, as if the dog was there, or Rem. ‘I’m calling Cissy.’ You watch a former friend (your husband’s one-time best friend, for what, fifteen years?), a deeply compromised person who has caused you unending trouble, someone you hope you might forgive (one day), perform a sloppy unsuccessful exit on prime time and you decide to call his wife, as if for a chat.
Matt’s wife and Cathy had history, and while Matt’s thievery unspooled in a long and ugly fall, Cathy had insisted, at least to Rem, on their friendship.
Cathy couldn’t make the call but sat at the edge of the bed, head in her hands. She couldn’t sit, couldn’t stand, found it impossible not to move, spoke briefly with Mike a second time then paced the hall with the phone saying, Jesus, oh Jesus Christ, as Mike’s voice began to break.
Then: a touch of relief as Cathy understood that there wasn’t honestly any other narrative Matt Cavanaugh would decide for himself.
* * *
Cathy sat beside the bed, simply because being low, close to the ground was a comfort. She called Cissie because she wanted to do something, and learned that Matt was at Northwestern, downtown.
Once on the El, Cathy began to seethe. Why did she have to be so reliable?
She called Maggie to tease out her anger. ‘I tried calling Rem. They’re nine hours ahead so it’s, what, three in the morning already? He never answers. It’s pointless calling.’ She stared hard at the tracks, and focused her aggression on the apartments beside Wilson. ‘I don’t know what to do. This whole thing has been chaos.’ She couldn’t answer questions about Matt and looked at the apartments, the ornate cornices and balconies, and wondered if they were supposed to look Spanish or Italian, like haciendas or palazzos. Who knows how anyone is going to react? There’s never any telling. She could barely anticipate her own reaction to any situation at any given moment. Cathy rolled her eyes, tipped back her head. ‘You know what I resent? I resent being on my own with all of this.’
She loved the curve before Sheridan, how the track veered left after the cemetery into a tight corner. The design of it pleased her as did the effect, the loveliness of your bodyweight tipping because you just can’t help it. Even now, in this circumstance, she couldn’t ignore the curve and how her shoulders pressed against the side of the carriage, how the standing passengers jostled to stay upright.
* * *
Only family. A regulation Cathy felt thankful for, a mercy not to face the man. No police, no journalists. A shiny corridor slick with light. A smell she could barely stomach. Cissie beside a noticeboard, hands squeezing out grief.
Cissie couldn’t look her in the eye as she explained that Matt was essentially stapled to a board to hold his spine in position. We’re through the worst, she said, the two halves of her face in disagreement: pure haggard shock in her eyes and a fleetingly sociable smile she could just about keep steady. ‘It’s very kind of you.’
Cathy wanted to ask why, but couldn’t find the heart.
Cissie pecked randomly at facts, and it was clear that she didn’t understand the full picture either. She asked after Rem, asked if they had spoken, and Cathy answered no, not yet. Hadn’t Rem told Matt he didn’t want to see him again? I don’t care if you’re on fire, you don’t call me. You stay away.
Cathy asked if anyone else had come and immediately regretted the question. Cissie froze, clenched, terrified at the idea. Then, steadily, the tension dropped, her hands and shoulders relaxed, because, what else could happen, really — what else could now go wrong? She didn’t know what to hope for, she said. She didn’t know what to think, and Cathy replied that no one blamed Matt. Not now. What had happened was all in the past, and they needed to think about the future.
Cissie’s expression laid open her heart. Everything rested on the word blame. She didn’t understand.
‘What he did,’ and now Cathy had to spell it out.
It seemed, at least to Cathy, that this blunder — at the very least — illuminated with a terrible clarity what must otherwise have been an intolerable situation. Cissie had no idea.
* * *
Cathy came out of the hospital in a hurried half-run, as if heading for a train or a ride. She slowed at the kerb and walked toward Michigan Avenue, relieved to be outside, the image of Cissie’s slow realization stuck with her. She stopped by a group of smokers close by the stock doors to Neiman Marcus, checked her pockets for keys as an excuse to pause. One of the smokers asked if she’d come from the hospital and Cathy nodded.
‘That bad?’
She couldn’t think how it could be any worse, couldn’t bear to see her reflection in the store windows, thought that she was inhuman.
* * *
When she did speak with Rem she managed to keep her patience while he told her what to do. His voice in any case was filtered, unreal, so she might be talking via a third party, or a stranger, some abstracted Rem-like idea. She didn’t like telling him news that she had already processed, and found he didn’t absorb the basic facts quickly enough.