Stone Mattress: Nine Tales(44)

“So, you looked inside,” she says.

“Yeah, I did,” says Sam. “Who was he? What happened?” He hopes she doesn’t descend into tears: that would disappoint him. But no, she limits herself to a quivering chin, a biting of the lip.

“It was terrible,” she says. “It was a mistake. He wasn’t supposed to die.”

“But he did,” says Sam in a kindly voice. “These things happen.”

“Oh yes. They do. I don’t know how to say this, it sounds so …”

“Trust me,” says Sam. She doesn’t, but she’ll pretend.

“He liked to be … Clyde liked to be strangled. It wasn’t as if I enjoyed it. But I loved him, I was in love with him, so I wanted to do what he wanted.”

“Of course,” says Sam. He wishes she hadn’t given the mummified groom a name: Clyde is dorky. He’d have preferred him anonymous. That she’s lying is evident to him, but how much is she lying? For his own lies, he likes to stay somewhere within shooting distance of the truth, if at all possible – it means less to fabricate, less to work at remembering – so maybe some of this is true.

“And,” she says, “then he was.”

“Then he was what?” says Sam.

“Then he was dead. With the spasms, I thought he was just having, you know … the way he usually did. But it went too far. Then I didn’t know what to do. It was the day before our wedding, I’d been planning the whole thing for months! I told everyone he’d left me a note, he’d vanished, he’d run out on me, he’d jilted me. I was so upset! It was all being delivered, the dress, the cake, all of that, and I, well, this sounds weird, but I dressed him up, with the carnation in the buttonhole and everything, he looked so handsome. And then I packed the whole thing into the storage unit. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I’d been so looking forward to the wedding; keeping all the parts of it together was sort of like having it anyway.”

“You put him in there yourself? With the cake and everything?”

“Yes,” she says. “It wasn’t that hard. I used a dolly. You know, for moving heavy boxes, and furniture and things.”

“That was resourceful,” says Sam. “You’re a smart girl.”

“Thank you,” she says.

“That’s some story,” says Sam. “Not many people would believe it.”

She looks down at the table. “I know,” she says in a small voice. Then she looks up. “But you believe it, don’t you?”

“I’m not good at believing stories,” says Sam. “Though let’s say I believe this one, for now.” Maybe he’ll get the truth out of her later. Or maybe not.

“Thank you,” she says again. “You won’t tell?” The tremulous smile, the bitten lip. She’s laying it on thick. What did she really do? Whack him over the head with a champagne bottle? Shoot an overdose into him? How much money was involved, and in what form? It had to be money. Was she skimming the poor guy’s bank account, did he find out?

“Let’s go,” says Sam. “The elevator’s to the left.”



The room’s dark, except for the faint light coming in off the street. The traffic’s muffled, what there is of it. The snow has arrived in earnest; it’s spattering softly against the window like an army of tiny kamikaze mice throwing themselves at the glass, trying to force a way in.

Holding her in his arms – no, holding her down with his arms – is the most electric thing he’s ever done. She hums with danger, like a high-tension wire; she’s a raw socket; she’s the sum of his own ignorance, of everything he doesn’t understand and never will. The minute he releases one of her hands, he might be dead. The minute he turns his back. Is he running for his life, right now? Her harsh breath chasing him?

“We should be together,” she’s saying. “We should always be together.” Is that what she said to the other one? To his sad, mummified double? He grips her hair, bites down on her mouth. He’s still ahead, he’s gaining on her. Faster!

Nobody knows where he is.





I DREAM OF ZENIA WITH THE BRIGHT RED TEETH




“I had a dream about Zenia last night,” says Charis.

“Who?” says Tony.

“Oh, crap!” says Roz. Charis’s black-and-white mystery-mix dog, Ouida, has just smeared her muddy paws down the front of Roz’s new coat. The coat is orange, perhaps not the best choice. Charis claims that Ouida has special perceptive powers, and that her paw smearings are messages. What is Ouida trying to say to me? wonders Roz. You look like a pumpkin?

It’s autumn. The three of them are shuffling through the dry leaves in the ravine, taking their weekly walk. It’s a pact they’ve made: to get more exercise, to improve their cellular autophagic rates. Roz has read about this in one of the health magazines in the dentist’s waiting room: bits of your cells eat other bits that are diseased or dying. This intracellular cannibalism is said to help you live longer.

“What do you mean, ‘crap’?” says Charis. With her long white crinkly face and her long white crinkly hair, she’s more sheep-like than ever. Or more like an angora goat, thinks Tony, who prefers the specific to the general. That inward, ruminative look.