The Fourth Part of Chapter 24: Bleak Month

The next morning, Seth woke with a pounding headache, but was still clearheaded enough to conclude that starting a relationship with someone clearly still obsessed with someone who was in the ground was not going to work, and he told Clarissa as much over breakfast. There had not been the time for an emotional bond to form, so Clarissa wasn’t too upset.

“All right then,” she said. “I suppose if you’re a bit freaked out by those photos of Jim, it’s understandable. But it’s not like his ghost is haunting the room or anything like that,”

Her offhand suggestion seemed at that moment to be a very real possibility; the thought of him, having shared a bed under the still eyes of a photograph all of a sudden seemed creepy. What if he were watching? Seth then tried his best to dismiss that thought: he’s dead, and he’s not coming back from the grave, in spirit or in body.

“Yes, it’s definitely the photos, and it’s not some ghost, but rather the memory; it’s almost as bad as having him in the room with us.”

“It must represent baggage for you, just like this,” she said, gesturing to her still-pregnant belly.

“Well, perhaps that too. Thanks for the night,” said Seth, and then went outside. He turned around and gave the elegant house one last look. Clarissa was visible through the living room window, and he thought he could see her cry. She really misses her husband, he thought; it’s so tragic being in love with a dead person, clinging to his memory without hope. With that, he walked down the street to board the number 14 bus on Gladstone Street, one block north of her house, which would take him in the general direction of home.


Eunice invited Clarissa to accompany her to the art gallery on Saturday, while Mario acceded to the trip with some minor grumbling; he would have been happy at work, but Eunice said that friends were more important than work, and she pointed out that Nadia was a perfectly capable assistant to the manager. One thing that was notable about that day was that it was snowing heavily; a foot of snow had fallen overnight on Friday, and there were fifteen more centimetres on the ground that morning; thus, traffic had slowed nearly to a standstill, and taking the bus was not that much faster than walking, while Mario said that the car was entirely out of the question. The three of them strode down the middle of McLeod Street, which was reduced to a few tire tracks. While it wasn’t cold, it was very quiet; there were no car engines, no dogs, no cats, most people were inside, and even the few birds that were braving the winter were silent. Mario enjoyed these walks.

“I’m very sorry to hear about the miscarriage,” he said.

“I guess it’s the luck of the draw,” said Clarissa. “I mean, I don’t think I did anything wrong,” she said as they crossed Bank Street. The office towers, normally visible a few blocks north on the street, were obscured by the tempest, and the normally bustling commercial strip was silent, as people’s footsteps were muffled by the snow; the only cars to be seen were parked on the street, and it was obvious that their owners were not using them or anywhere nearby; no tires were visible, as they were long buried, and most of them were ensconced in deep drifts. On the remainder of the walk, they saw similar scenes; cars were stuck, many snowbanks had grown to be the height of small trees, and when they got to the parking lot of the gallery, which was nearly empty, they could see it was rimmed by mounds of snow that dwarfed all cars, and buried the pine trees halfway up their trunks.

“I have always found it difficult to figure out why you’re unhappy,” said Mario when they were in the gallery. Although he knew that depression did not have to have a reason or justification behind it, the subject was nevertheless hard to broach; any question asked would be awkward.

Clarissa shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said as she looked at a heroic image of Norman Bethune, which a plaque indicated was donated by the government of China. “I guess it’s just life in general.”

“Perhaps it’s all this snow,” said Mario. “I wouldn’t mind seeing green grass and flowers again,”

“It’s more of a social thing; you guys are very kind and all, but the same could not be said of my parents. They try to do the right thing, but mom keeps missing the mark, and Pat seems to have an ulterior motive.”

It was an astute observation, noted Eunice. Patricia had confessed in Eunice her dear desire to see some grandchildren, and was dwelling on it with a growing obsession; the miscarriage must no doubt have been a huge blow for her.

They continued walking, and passed several more pictures; they saw Alexander Graham Bell’s painted image, and Lester Pearson looked very handsome in his portrait. They then saw Richler, Massey, and a number of other luminaries, before turning to a hall devoted to landscapes.

“That one seems to reflect what’s outside,” said Eunice, pointing at one that showed loggers cutting a tree down in a snow-covered forest; it reflected not the present, but rather the heritage of Canada as a logging nation, also reflected to some degree in their city’s heritage; they could see, through a large window, a paper mill across the frozen river giving off large amounts of steam. The visit to the gallery did not seem to cheer Clarissa up, as Eunice noted. Mario also saw that something was wrong with her; several of the neighbours had noticed this as well, and some of them clearly preferred the old Clarissa, the one who had a sunny disposition, who always seemed to be happy, the one with a smile always on her face.

“Has anyone else been looking out for you? I think that, now James is dead, and your mom lives in Toronto, that you have nobody looking out for you,”

“I’ve been going to bars,”

Eunice raised her eyebrows. “You’re trying to pick up?”

“That’s it.”

“Have you been doing this often?”

“Yes; I would have a club soda every time, or a Perrier, if it’s a more upscale place, and some alcohol, and you know, try to have a good time,”

“But you wouldn’t be going out with friends; you need friends to go to a bar,” that Clarissa was going to bars alone was perhaps the worst part, even if she had been abstaining from alcohol; the lone barfly, in her mind, was typically male, unattractive, balding and either single or divorced; it wasn’t the kind of dating pool she would want for herself if she were in Clarissa’s place. There were also the unsavoury characters that went to bars.

“What kind of bars?”

“The ones downtown,”

“The ones with all the rowdy students?” Asked Mario.

“What other kind is there?”

“Oh dear,” said Eunice.

“You know, you’re always welcome to come over to our place any evening you want,” offered Mario.

“Just not at the end of the month; that’s inventory time for me,”

“Oh, yeah, I also do inventory then; of course, I need to keep track of the food constantly, so it’s kind of a continuous process,” said Mario.

“Well, I guess that, now you’re no longer pregnant, there aren’t any restrictions with the bottle,”

“It’s a small comfort; but now I have all this booze––I inherited James’s liquor cabinet––and there’s nobody to share it with,” said Clarissa.

“I don’t remember James as being a drinker,”

“He wasn’t; he simply liked to collect exotic drinks; he seems to have had a taste for liqueurs; most of the bottles looked really old,”

“That’s interesting,” said Eunice, who had never seen James’s liquor cabinet, and wondered where it would be kept. She had noted a cabinet that appeared to be 70s décor in the study with sliding doors last time she visited Clarissa, and thought that it might be kept there; it might also be in the cupboard with stained glass doors in the sitting room upstairs, or in a variety of other places. She had been idly looking into space at this point, not noticing a sculpture of a lion; then she came back to the present, and noticed the sculpture for the first time. After two hours, the trio went home; the snowfall had wound down to a few flakes falling, and the only noise that could be heard was the wind; the sky was overcast, and was a shade of pale grey, which was reflected on the snow on the ground. The crystals, so beautiful, iridescent, multihued and sparkling in the sunlight, took on the grey hue of the sky in places, while they were white in other places and blue in the shadows. This was a time when Eunice and Mario both found that they could accomplish plenty of work, as the weather outside meant there would be few distractions in the form of warm sunlight or anything, which meant they could subtly get harder and more productive work out of their employees; it was also when they preferred to do their income taxes, again for the reason of few distractions.

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