The Second Part of Chapter 25: Estrangement

Patricia still dwelled on Clarissa with ferocity; she had heard from Eunice that she had been spotted in bars in early February, or so she remembered from their discussions, and while Clarissa did not have any drinks before the miscarriage, Eunice did not pass that crucial piece of information on, leaving Patricia with the impression that even the miscarriage had been planned. She did not know how, but she would find the underlying cause of this. She called Clarissa, but after four rings, the phone went to the answering machine. Undoubtedly, she would be at the pub again, mistreating her body and trying to pick up some hapless economist.

She was so single-mindedly focussed on Clarissa that Ryan started to notice things were going awry.

“Patty, I noticed that the potatoes were undercooked three days in a row.”

“Sorry about that, honey,” she said. Ryan could hear an undertone of insincerity in the apology.

“Is everything all right?”

“I assure you, everything’s fine. How was work?” She wanted to distract him from her own distracted condition; she was semi-retired and to some extent had lived vicariously through him since her last days as a librarian, and was now working in the archives room part-time.

“Work was pretty good, as always; Andy had a good joke to tell,” and he started to relate the joke as first told by Andrew Chadwick Heron, but failed to get the details right, since it was a highly involved anecdote.

“That’s nice,” said Patricia, still distracted.

They ate the bland dinner in silence; Patricia had neglected to add garlic cloves or other seasonings to her mashed potatoes, and rather than putting flour and soy sauce on the fried chicken, she had just put flour, leaving the chicken uninteresting; this was the bad kind of boredom, the kind that results from bad decisions and putting things off, the sentence of fools, rather than the kind that arises from too much contentment or a lack of change in life. The similarity between these two boredoms was notable; both necessitated some kind of comfort level with oneself; with contentment, so much was obvious; with bad decisions, there was an element of the subconscious that did not want change, that desired a weird form of security in dullness, that wanted predictability; thus comes procrastination, idleness, and neglectful mistakes. The interesting part was that Patricia liked one and loathed the other, even though, married to Ryan, who had seen a number of careers in a very exciting life, from journalist to entrepreneur, civil servant and back again, which with all of its attendant moves and lifestyle changes, banished boredom from her life since they had been married.


Patricia had noticed that Belinda was silent on the gossip, if it could be called that; all that she had heard from Belinda in the past week was that Christine had purchased a Van Gogh replica, which now hung over her fireplace, but when she went to Christine’s house, she saw it was not Van Gogh, but Monet, and only a complete neophyte could mistake a Monet for a Van Gogh, especially considering the title and creator were clearly printed at the bottom of the frame. She had not even seen much of Belinda; she would typically walk by or through Dundonald Park on her way to work, and this was not happening, due to her now well-known jobless status, as told to her by Eunice. Thus, she could no longer rely on Belinda as a source of information; there was still Eunice, fortunately, who was looking quite round, but for some reason, not happy, and this was a woman who had every reason to be happy; she was carrying new life. For some reason, possibly connected with her seeming moroseness, the quality of gossip was also lacking, and was inaccurate, which was unlike Eunice. While Belinda’s gossip had some truth and fancy in equal measure, Eunice’s tidbits were mostly factual.

Patricia had to do the sleuthing herself, although Ryan called it snooping, which he pronounced with a pointed distaste; it could be seen to an outsider but not herself that the unfounded suspicion was straining her home life as well. One fine Saturday morning in early April, when the snow was patchy on the ground and the air was fresh, perfect for just about any sort of clothing, Patricia walked over to McLeod Street to pay Clarissa a visit. One ring of the doorbell was enough for an answer.

“Hello Patricia,”

“Good morning,”

“Come in,”

“I just wanted to know how you’re doing,” Patricia looked around; the house had not exactly been maintained well, but it was still inhabitable. She noted that the carpet on the living room floor, which when James had purchased it was a rich burgundy, now had the grey of dust intermingled with it; she also noticed the grey dust gathering on the bookshelves, and there were cobwebs in corners.

“Well, I’ve had a lot happen to me, as you know,”

“You seem to be doing well enough for yourself,”

Clarissa did a double take. “Are you kidding me? I had a miscarriage, and I’m a widow at thirty-three because my husband, who’s the same age as me, had a heart attack, so no, I don’t think I’m doing well.”

Unfazed, she ploughed on, indifferent to Clarissa’s replies. “You must be feeling lucky to be owner of such a fine home, and live alone,”

“That was not my wish, and you know that perfectly well; I thought I knew you! Why are you asking me these questions, anyways? Is it about his death?”

“It’s about the miscarriage, and yes, the death,”

“Well, there’s nothing to it; it’s misfortune, and I don’t feel this conversation is going anywhere,” said Clarissa. “Please don’t bother me with these notions,”

“All right, Clarie,” said Patricia, trying to keep some sense of civility within her. She then left. She felt a growing distance between herself and her daughter-in-law, for she still considered Clarissa in that way. At first, the estrangement was in Patricia’s mind; now it was founded on some truth; this marked the point when their closeness ended, and they became mere neighbours who lived a few blocks from each other, and were not in each other’s family.

The weather, completely independent of human emotions, improved slightly; there was only one heavy snowstorm that month, which delivered half a metre of snow, and hit the city on the 11th of March, which meant there would be an unscheduled holiday from school, and for many people, from work. That was the final major snowfall of the season; after that, the weather warmed up sufficiently for people not to need toques when they went outside; Patricia’s attitude, in defiance of the seasons, darkened toward the other women in her life, and this trend continued into April.

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