A Serious Widow Read online

  “Well, I’m afraid this may complicate matters a little for Mrs. Hill,” murmurs Cuthbert, refolding Hill’s papers. A masterpiece of understatement, we all feel. He fumbles to find space for his empty glass beside a yellow chrysanthemum. “It opens the possibility that – well, the fact is, we’ve not yet been able to find a will, though Edwin always gave me to understand … He certainly used to say very firmly that no responsible family man ought to be without … But for some reason Mrs. Hill – er, Rowena and I haven’t been able so far to locate … and we’ve searched his office downtown, of course, as well as this house quite thoroughly … it’s all very –”

  “Well, I’ve also brought along,” remarks J. E. Hill, calmly producing another elderly-looking document, “a holograph will my father made about ten years after my birth. That is, when it appeared I was to be an only child.” He shows this paper to Cuthbert, who looks at it, frowning. “As far as I know, there is no later will. And now if you’ll allow me to call a taxi, I must get back to my mother. She has a heart condition and naturally all this has been a great shock to her. As for this will, Mr. Wesley, you’ll find it quite in order. Our lawyer will be in touch with you shortly.”

  He folds and puts away his bit of paper with care. The others look at each other with varying expressions of shock, dismay and chagrin. As for me, I sit there dumb and motionless, like the survivor of an explosion, while through the house plaster dust and rags of paper still drift down.

  Once Hill’s taxi has taken him off, I hope with something close to desperation that Marion, Tom and Cuthbert will all go away, too. More than anything in the world at this point, I need to be alone. The true nature and identity of Edwin Hill are now apparent; but who, then, and what, is Mrs. Edwin Hill the Second? Only in solitude can I ever hope to find the answer – if there is an answer.

  Not one of them, however, shows the least disposition to go home. Marion disappears into the kitchen to make coffee. The men sit down with a heavy air of permanence. My new and awkward status causes them to avoid looking at me, I suppose out of delicacy. Instead they stretch out their legs and stare at the toecaps of their polished funeral shoes.

  “Turned much colder,” remarks Tom, glancing towards the window where sleet is now scrabbling against the black glass.

  “Yes, hasn’t it,” agrees Cuthbert. “Much colder.”

  They clear their throats. “Early for frost,” adds Tom.

  “Very early,” says Cuthbert.

  Marion comes in with a tray and dispenses coffee efficiently. She glances at me warily and says in a bright voice, “Barometer’s right down. What a change from this morning.”

  “Yes, indeed,” says Tom. He expertly hitches up his cassock to permit the crossing of one stout leg over the other.

  “Time of year,” murmurs Cuthbert, who never drinks coffee, furtively hiding his cup behind a plant.

  “It’s appropriate for funerals,” I say rather loudly. “Especially this one. Because it seems I’m more widowed than most.”

  They all look at me apprehensively now, as they might eye an unexploded grenade. Marion’s face puckers. For once in her life she is not sure how to deal with me. Cuthbert’s glance, a flash behind the thick glasses, exposes brief morbid curiosity. Tom’s eyes rest on me with a queer, speculative gleam of quite a different kind. I get out a handkerchief and blow my nose, to stifle a hysterical impulse to giggle.

  “Well, I suppose we really ought –” begins Cuthbert, bracing his short legs to rise.

  “Yes, you’ll want an early night, my dear. So if you’re sure there’s nothing more for the moment we can do –” says Tom.

  To encourage them, I am already on my feet. “No, no; you’ve been so kind, both of you –”

  “Of course I’ll stay here with you tonight, Mother.”

  “Oh, please, dear, there’s no need for that.”

  “The apartment won’t fly away without me for one more night, Mother.”

  “Of course she’ll stay,” puts in Tom with authority. He approaches me to place a kiss in the middle of my forehead. “Be at peace, my dear, and believe that God will provide.”

  Provide what? I want to ask him. Comfort, or some more practical form of aid? All of you are too polite to mention it, but you know as well as I do this is going to leave me destitute – I suppose you realize that? But Cuthbert is now squeezing my hand between his two small, warm ones. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Rowena,” he says. “There just has to be a more recent will around here somewhere. I know we’ll find it, sooner or later.” He pats his breast pocket where he has carefully stowed away the card of John Hill’s lawyer. “And in the unlikely event we can’t,” he goes on, “there are steps we can take, you know, to protect you from – I mean, after all, we have the Family Law Act now that provides appeal procedures for common-law – er, cases like this.” He juts up his chin, in the centre of which a dimple nests, in quite a spirited and aggressive manner, and gives my hand a final, reassuring squeeze.

  The wet night then, at last, swallows them up, to my heartfelt relief.

  “Now, Mother,” says Marion, with a nurse’s severity, “it’s bed and two Aspirins for you. I’ll clear up down here.”

  “It’s only eight-thirty.” And I look with incredulity at the mantel clock. Is it possible that so much has happened in the space of so few hours, after all those stagnant years? How ironic, to say the least of it, that I should have spent the greater part of my adult life trying to prevent (so far as possible) anything happening – and now here I am in the centre of this débâcle. Wreckage litters the room in the shape of dreg-stained coffee cups, a sticky-lipped empty decanter, drained glasses and (on Tom’s plate) one small, dry survivor of the sandwiches.

  Marion whisks into and out of the room, tidying up in her deft fashion. She retrieves the last cup from behind a mantel photo of herself looking magisterial even at a fat six months.

  “Go to bed, Mother,” she tells me, not unkindly.

  “Yes, I’m going.”

  “Off with you, then. No use trying to discuss anything tonight.”

  She vanishes into the kitchen. But I stand there numbly as if looking for answers in the air, which is still thinly spiced with John Hill’s cigarette. The clock ticks ponderously on. In the mantel mirror my own face slowly comes to meet me. I stare at it curiously. Astonishing that no change at all can be seen in those familiar, mildly enquiring eyes with the anxious pucker between the brows. The confused-looking greyish-brown hair, the indecisive mouth, are just as they were sixty hours ago, when Edwin failed to come back from his life’s last jog; or when, two hours ago, his son rose from the dead. To find myself so totally unchanged after all that is so bizarre it sets my heart to hammering.

  “Take this,” orders Marion, thrusting a mug of steaming Ovaltine into my hand. “And these.” She folds my other hand around two Aspirin. I turn towards the stairs, only too pleased to obey. “That’s right, up you go. I’ll just do these dishes and then tuck in, too. It’s been quite a day. Now you go right off to sleep. I won’t disturb you tomorrow – got an early meeting. I’ll be gone before you wake. Good night.”

  It is obvious that Marion has as urgent a need to be alone with herself as I have, so I say, “Good night, dear,” and plod upstairs with my Ovaltine.

  Once in my own room, the door closed, relief sweeps over me in a wave so enervating it is all I can do to pull off my clothes before creeping into bed. There I try to calm the various frantic little pulses that for hours have been tapping at my head and neck. But the newly exposed enigma of Edwin, instead of retreating, only expands itself hugely. The questions no one – including me – dared to confront over the funeral baked meats now present themselves without compromise. How could Edwin, of all people, possibly have conducted a double life so long and so successfully?

  That riddle threatens so many of the other certainties I once thought I had that a spasm of shivering overtakes me, making my teeth chitter together. Think about something else
, I tell myself desperately. Think about Nana. Remember that time you were in bed with measles, and the bliss of being allowed to stay home from school. It was February, and she bought you a cutout book of valentines; and forever after, that bright, clear red, the white snow falling past the window, the warm bed and her protective love, all produced a joy that still lives. This train of thought briefly calms me. But as I gulp down the Aspirin with a sour mouthful of Ovaltine, I think, in all those years, then, I never really knew Edwin. None of us did, least of all me. How astonishing to think about the perfect order of his bureau drawers, his treed shoes, his unvarying daily routine – bath, shave, dress, office, evening paper, after-supper cup of tea – all his fussy, abstemious, predictable ways – yet all the while…

  I turn out my bedside lamp as I hear Marion’s step cautiously ascend the stairs. She pauses, then, satisfied I am asleep, goes into her old small room across from mine. Before closing the door she thriftily clicks off the hall light. And I find myself suddenly grinning in the dark. Well, some things at least are now clearer than they once were. No wonder he was such a penny-pincher all our married lives. The civil service pay of a purchasing officer is not lavish enough to support two households – not without considerable strain. So now I know the reason for all that coupon-cutting and bargain-hunting that made every shopping trip as complex, but much less fun, than a tour abroad. That was why repairs were mostly done badly and at home, the thermostat kept at sixty-seven degrees, the hot water hoarded. To be fair that was also why his best suit was shiny with age and why, years ago, he gave up his six-cigarettes-a-day habit. Yes, a lot of things are clearer now. Like that time he didn’t speak to me for three days because I bought oranges at eighty-nine cents a pound instead of sixty-nine cents. Not more acceptable. Just clearer.

  But these minor insights are not, after all, much real help. The central question – or one of them – remains: who was the private man inside? What about that weekly, faithful attendance at St. Michael’s? So all that was just a part of the cover? And what a convenient, respectable façade it gave him! All those vestry meetings, and passing the brass collection plate on Sundays with such po-faced dignity – and all the while he was commuting between the beds of two Mrs. Hills. Disgusting old hypocrite! For a moment physical nausea creeps through me.

  As it ebbs, I think half-reluctantly, on the other hand, you almost have to admire the cool duplicity it took. The logistics alone must have taken endless ingenuity. “The old cousin I stay with has a thing about telephones – won’t have one in the house. If you really need to reach me in Ottawa, you can leave a short message on the office machine … No, dear, you would not like to come along. It’s an amazingly dull town, unless you happen to be on the embassy circuit. You’re much better off at home. Besides, hotels cost money.” The time and inventiveness that must have gone into such manoeuvres in both cities!

  And how neatly he did it. To slide with such agility from one base to the other, never rousing the faintest suspicion – in me, at any rate. I will doubtless never know about the other Mrs. H. She may well have been more alert than me. Or less unwilling to suspect. It’s even possible she guessed the truth long ago and simply accepted it. There are women tough enough for that. But I’m not one of them, as he probably well knew.

  But why, I wonder, did he find it worthwhile to go to so much trouble? Which of us wives was he so unwilling to lose? Not me, surely? But to think of the strain of leading that double life – the daily risk of discovery and scandal – what on earth made him choose that? Like an actor who can never leave the stage, wipe off the makeup and go home. Yet such a life must have had some fascination of its own for him, even though he was a man who never gambled in all his days.

  On the other hand, if it comes to role-playing, isn’t it true that I’ve lived a secret life, too, for as long as I care to remember? Acted (not very well) the part of mother and housewife, while in the privacy of my own head, I’ve lived another existence entirely, with Mrs. Wilson and Prince Charles. A hidden, dotty, and very real life, concealed successfully from everyone, even my own child. Of course I’ve never done anything remotely as bold as Edwin’s disappearing act. Just the same, I’ve practised my own brand of subversion. That nondescript face of mine in the mirror has been a convenient mask – an image that satisfied everyone around me. A protection against everything, chiefly the use of power. Because, offered the enticing apple in Eden, I would certainly have refused it for fear that it might give me indigestion. And this means that, of the two Mrs. Hills, I am surely the one more to be pitied.

  This backhanded tribute to myself makes my eyes fill with easy tears. But from the moment of Edwin’s resurrection in the cemetery, I made a firm resolve to give up crying for good. Weeping, in circumstances like mine, is both pointless and bathetic. Laughing might in fact be a lot more appropriate. Fleetingly I think of that decanter of dry sherry, still full, downstairs on the buffet, and am tempted to creep down and have some of it. I even wonder vaguely whether this might not be a good night to get drunk. If only I were the kind of widow who could empty the bottle, kick off her shoes and dance to one of Scott Joplin’s rags. Instead I’m the kind who, after half a glass of anything alcoholic, feels dizzy and considers throwing up. I think unfriendly thoughts about the Ovaltine and push it aside. Then, with a long sigh, I turn on my side and close my eyes.

  The quiet room, the bed occupied only by myself, the city’s mutter and semi-darkness, gradually relax me. But after a minute or two, I grope for the mug and drink off the now-cold remainder of the Ovaltine. There, Nana. There, Marion. I’ve been a good girl. For what that’s worth. Soon after that I drift towards sleep. My last coherent thought is to wish tomorrow could be indefinitely postponed, because I am in no way ready to face it.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “I cannot imagine what got into you,” Edwin says, accusingly shaking a bill at me. “Have you any idea at all what funerals cost?”

  My eyes jerk open. A long knife of sun parts the faded chintz bedroom curtains. Thanks perhaps to the Aspirin, I have slept deeply and long, and for a minute or two I lie blinking at the light, drowsy and relaxed, my memory blank. Then Edwin’s tattered old bathrobe on the back of the door brings everything back in a flood. The weight of all there is to do, and decide, and cope with now – all for what? for whom? – seems to pin me flat to the bed, as it did the day after Marion’s birth when, confronted with parent-hood, I thought simply, I can’t do this.

  The phone in the kitchen shrills. (Edwin always vetoed an upstairs extension: too expensive.) I would have liked to pull the blankets over my head and ignore the call; but as he once said of me (without smiling), I am the kind of woman who always scurries to answer phones, because the slightest delay might offend the caller. He added, “She also hates turning off the TV in case it might hurt the actors’ feelings,” at which everyone smiled but me. The phone trills once more. Marion has evidently gone to work. Barefoot, I stumble downstairs and pick up the receiver.

  “Rowena? Cuthbert here. Good morning.”

  “Yes. Hello.”

  “You had a decent night’s sleep, I hope. Good. Good. Well, now, I’ve been rummaging round doing a bit of research about your – er – position. Because, as you know, my work is mainly in real-estate transactions, that sort of thing; so this is outside my usual … Anyhow, if you want me to act for you, of course I’ll be more than willing.”

  “Oh, yes, please.”

  “Well, then, this is the procedure. Pending any discovery of a will, I find the thing to do is file an application for Dependants’ Relief. You’re eligible for this since you and Edwin lived together for more than three years, and had Marion. I’ve been looking into the Family Law Act, and I also made a call to Hill’s lawyer –”

  His voice fades in and out of my ear. The window frames a square of sky as bright as fresh blue enamel. The backyard tree, a boring sort of maple generally, today has a Japanese charm, with a chalk line of hoar frost traced on every bough
and twig. Guiltily I jerk my attention away from it.

  “Meanwhile, Rowena, it would help if you had another really thorough look around the house – people often tuck wills away in peculiar places, you know – in books, or in boxes of old papers or whatever, so if you’d just –”

  The front doorbell gives a ring so loud it makes me jump. “Sorry, Cuthbert – someone’s at the door. Can you hang on a minute?”

  “That’s all right – I’ll call you later.”

  “Thanks.”

  Clutching my old robe close, I unlock the door and inch it open, keeping as much of myself concealed as possible. A tall woman with a fur coat slung untidily round her stands there with something in her hands. I peer at her inquiringly. The sun on a glaze of melting ice makes such a dazzle it half blinds me. Leashed to her wrist is a turbulent spaniel, which at once tries to leap into the house.

  “Stop that, Arthur,” she says, hauling it back. “Pam Wright from next door,” she adds, kindly helping me out. “I just thought you might find this casserole useful. So much to do, and so many bloody people no doubt dropping in, you won’t want to bother cooking. It’s steak-and-kidney pud, with just the most tactful hint of garlic.”

  “Oh, thank you so much.” After an awkward pause I take the dish from her. It is still warm.

  “Do let us know, won’t you, if there’s anything we can do,” she goes on. “John would be so glad to run any errands or whatever in the car.”

  Her high voice is familiar to me after three years of a shared house wall. So is her personality and a surprising amount of her private life, both of which drift freely to me on summer evenings over the partition dividing our back porches. In spite of this, till now I had only a vague general impression of what she looked like. “It is always a mistake to get chummy with the neighbours,” Edwin told me in our earliest married days. “Believe me, dear, it never fails to lead to trouble.” Of course I believed he knew best about this, as about everything. Even years later, when I knew better, I made no protest. The Wrights having newly arrived from England, he dismissed them from the first as snobs, though they were obviously nothing of the kind. For the sake of peace, I refused their first friendly invitations to drinks, and since then our connection has extended only to “good morning” over the back fence, or “lovely day” when we meet on the street. Today I realize for the first time she is deaf; the button of a hearing aid is exposed when she turns to discourage Arthur from lifting his leg against the doorpost.