It is of interest. Has Professor O’Donnell been in other dreams?
Yes, he comes to me. . I mean, he shows up in the oddest dreams sometimes. But not as someone menacing … I don’t know how to explain.
These are not like your nightmares about being attacked. Have you had any recently?
Bad one last week.
They have been more severe since this business with Professor O’Donnell, yes?
They were for a while.
But he does not appear in them?
Not in those dreams. But, you know, I’ve had them since I was a kid.
Have you ever been hypnotized?
Uh-huh. Once. Do you think there’s something back there, hiding? Is it like some terrible little alien monster is inside me, trying to come out?
I would not put it so vividly. I do not know, Kimberley. There may be, yes, pushed deep down. The usual signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, these you do not exhibit, but there may be some amnesia — this is what we call a dissociated memory. If so, there is nothing to be afraid of to try to recover it, yes?
I’m not sure about being hypnotized. When I was fifteen, I went to this show. Some charlatan, I guess he was, made me into a chicken, and I was clucking and flapping all over the stage. Apparently I tried to lay an egg. Utterly mortifying.
I work in a different way, yes? No chicken, no egg.
I have finished my tai chi (the Repulse Monkey: cross hands, roll back, transfer weight onto right foot) and am now sitting on a divan on my front porch, leafing through a pile of oldEchoes.I am bathed by a sun still hot but falling to the horizon, its light burning upon the softly rolling inner sea and painting the clouds pink beneath a cerulean sky. Only the pained cries of nails being wrenched free from boards mar this perfect evening. Behind the house, Stoney and Dog are working late disassembling the remains of my garage. It is the day after Margaret Blake and I shook hands in agreement to war no more. Tomorrow I will visit her with the cheque.
Ah, here we are, in theEcho,an edition from September three years ago: “We all console the tragic departing of Christopher Blake, aged 49, a resident of our island for thirty years leaving behind his wife, Margaret, 43, and no children. Chris had a heart attack whilehe was chasing a dog off his farm that was going after the sheep. The doctor said he was dead on the spot and it was one of those things that happens to the healthiest of us.”
I picture Not Now Nelson Forbish munching his way through a bag of Fritos as he writes this bleak obituary.
“Chris used to be one of our trustees and was a favourite at parties with his ever-present violin. He and Margaret came here in 1968 with the old Earthseed Commune and stayed on after it disbanded. Margaret says she’s going to run their 101-acre farm by herself. The funeral was at the community church, which everyone agreed was beautiful.”
Elsewhere in this journaclass="underline" a photograph of the Blakes together, obviously taken some years earlier. He is tall and rugged, she in a flowing flowered dress, smiling up at him. It is a poignant photograph. There was love here.
Lost in thought, I am hardly aware that Stoney and Dog are rattling off in a truck loaded with scrap wood. They wave at me as they head out the driveway. A stillness descends, and a veil of loneliness. I fold theEchoclosed, unable to look again at the love in Margaret’s eyes for her husband. I watch the sun hiss into the distant ocean, spraying the sky with colour, and now a songbird trills at evensong.
The setting sun, and music at the close, as the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last.… How does the line end? Remembered more …than things long past.I close my eyes and begin to recite the Bard aloud, in full-throated vanity, resonant and sonorous. Then the Romantics, remembered from childhood, Shelley, Keats: “The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. .”
I reopen my eyes in mid-stanza to see, before me, holding a carton of eggs and a tray of steaming tarts: Mrs. Margaret Blake. “Excuse me. Am I interrupting?”
I quickly stand, my face turning the colour of the western sky. “How embarrassing. I was reciting some poetry. It is a bad habit of mine.”
“It sounded lovely.”
“Otherwise, as you can see, I am engaged in that indolent but agreeable condition of doing nothing.”
“It sounds like fun. I’ll have to try it.” She smiles. She is in an excellent mood, no doubt still flushed with her victory. “I brought over some peace offerings.” She extends the eggs and tarts. “My blackcurrants are ripe.”
“I am overwhelmed. Will you join me for some tea? I have herbal, if you prefer. Mint.”
“I’d love some.”
I lead her into the house and bring out teacups, and set the water to boil. She joins me to help, selecting her tea, then opening refrigerator and cupboard doors, examining the contents somewhat as a health inspector might.
While the kettle heats, I usher her into the living room with its groaning shelves of books, its padded chairs, its smoky ambience, its total aura of bachelorhood.
“Very little sign of a woman’s presence here, I’m afraid.”
With the back of her hand she whisks some loose strands of tobacco from the arm of a chair. “Those girls don’t do a very thorough job, do they? More chop than mop.”
At my desk, I tear out a cheque and make it out to her. “An extra fifty dollars ought to cover the costs.”
She holds it proudly before her eyes. “Sorry, but I feel I have earned this.”
“I was the unwitting victim of my own stupidity, though of course you had the judge in your pocket.” I feel exceedingly shy, and I suffer an absurd urge to assure her I did not savour the fleshly pleasures of Emily Lemay. “Well. It’s a splendid evening. . beautiful colours. Shall we sit outside?”
“That would be nice. Let me help you get the tea.”
“I wouldn’t think of it. You are my guest.”
She returns to the front porch, and when I finally join her there with tea and blackcurrant tarts, I see she has the three-year-old Echo open before her, and she is looking at herself in that long flowered dress. Now I am doubly embarrassed.
“I was curious.” It’s all I can find to say.
As I join her upon the divan, she stares at me solemnly, then lowers her eyes, and stirs her tea.
“I’ve been very bitter about Chris’s death. He was forty-nine. He was healthy. He ate granola until it came out of his ears. Half his life was stolen from him.”
“You loved him deeply.”
Her look is almost fierce. “Yes.”
“Would you rather not talk about it?”
She doesn’t respond, but sips her mint tea in silence. I feel I have committed a gaffe, and know not how to make amends, and so I just stare dumbly into the fading light of the western sky where Hesperus, god of the evening star, has lit his lamp.
“No, I don’t mind talking about it,” she says finally. “I get all workaholic and try not to think about it. I guess that’s the wrong way I should talk about it. I suppose I’m still in mourning. I know I have to break free Oh, go on and light your pipe. I can tell you’ve been itching to have a smoke.”
“Ah, yes, I have been fidgeting. If I may.” When I light up, I feel more relaxed. She sits beside me, only a touch away, staring at the sea, her profile pensive in the golden twilight.
“Chris came up here from Montana during the Vietnam War. Anti-war activist, though of course he got called a draft dodger. I was seventeen when I married him — can you believe that? We had a quickie ceremony with a marriage commissioner, then our friends came over for the formal reception. Not so formal — we did acid all night. Our friends — I hardly see them now, most of them are stockbrokers, or run fast-food franchises, though one of them’s a pretty good musician. Anyway, we were all determined to go back to the land, so we started a commune here on Garibaldi. I know this all sounds silly to you. . Are you laughing at me?”