Part 18 (2/2)
The odd thing about the pictures that fly into Daisy Goodwill's head is that she is always alone There are voices that reach her froestions-but still she is alone And we require, it seee or shame, at least one witness, but Mrs Flett has not had this privilege This is what breaks her heart What she can't bear Even now, eighty years old
Grandma Flett knows she rambles, she knows she repeats herself, and Alice, bless her, never stops her, never says, ”You've already told us about that, Mother”
All she's trying to do is keep things straight in her head To keep the weight of her memories evenly distributed To hold the chapters of her life in order She feels a new tenderness growing for certainis wearing out At the same time she knows that what lies ahead of her ination and not by the straight-faced recital of a throttled and unlit history Words are more and more required And the question arises: what is the story of a life? A chronicle of fact or a skillfully wrought iether of what she fears? Or the adding up of what has been off-handedly revealed, those tiny allotted incree? She needs a quiet place in which to think about this immensity And she needs soh, the desire to return to currency all that's been sahtn't to carry on the way she does, bending Alice's ear, boring poor Dr Riccia to death She chastises herself; she's getting as bad as Marian McHenry, always going on and on about her own concerns Instead of thinking of others Putting others first
Little Emma is dead Or perhaps she has been put into an institution with other Down's syndrooloids they used to call thele word to Grand her, but she knows anyway: here, co into focus at her bedside, is her son, Warren, and his nehose name Grandma Flett cannot at this moment recall The roole Her own tongue is coiled upon itself She asks for a glass of water, a siht ”Mongoloid,” she says instead Alarh the erect, elastic column of his neck She would like to cohed doith its own confusion She doesn'tout her son and his young wife, regarding so infinitely complex printed on the thin skin of her eyelids, a secret, a dream A kind of movie
Alice abruptly marries Dr Riccia She alow by the ocean They have a child, a little boy with long curling eyelashes and courtly manners
No, none of this is true Old Mrs Flett is dreaain
How do these spurious versions arise?
Think, think, she tells herself Be reasonable
Dr Riccia is already married and the father of two children; Grandma Flett has been shown snapshots of the Riccia fa in front of their colonial-style house in Kensington Park
Alice returns to England The suins next week, and she's already planning a weekend party for a dozen or so friends: Moroccancurried, cold beer, herself loud and ironic in swinging earrings She's found a buyer for the condo in Bayside Towers and she's looked after a nuranted power of attorney Papers have been signed Arrangements orgeous Florida tan, though everyone, even her mother, warns her that Florida tans don't last Never mind, she'll be back at Christ itinerary of revision and acco
This is not how she iined herhas occurred to her-so she's always known, it seems, but never articulated Which is that the moht up to the wall of that final darkness, one extreainst the other Not even a breath separates theo on and on tuned in to the daily ht up to the last ets lost
She is surprisingly heartened by this thought, and can't help telling her mother how she feels
Herbody Up and down, good days, bad days She's doing as well as can be expected, that's what everyone keeps saying She could go on like this for years
CHAPTER TEN
Death
DAISY (GOODWILL) FLETT Peacefully, on -, in the month of - in the year 199- at Canary Pal illness patiently borne
”Grandma” Flett was predeceased by her husband, Barker Flett, a respected Canadian authority on hybrid grains She leaves to land, daughter Joan and spouse Ross Taylor of Portland, Oregon, son Warren and wife Peggy of New York City, and grandniece Victoria and spouse Lewis Roy of Toronto She was the adored grandmother of Benjamin, Judith, Rachel, Rain, Teller, Beth, Lissa, Jilly, and Erandreat-aunt of twins Sophie and Hugh
A memorial service will be held at Canary Palratefully declined Interratefully accepted in remembrance of DAISY GOODWILL FLETT who eardens children balloons ofshadow of solitude and silence which she came to equate with her own life Daisy Daisy Give me your answer true Day's eye, day's eye The face in the mirror is you ”It was in her bedside drawer This little velvet box”
”What is it? It looks like-”
”That's what it is Fingernail clippings Hers, I assume”
”Christ”
Flett, Daisy (nee Goodwill), who, due to historical accident, due to carelessness, due to ignorance, due to lack of opportunity and courage, never once in her e of oil painting, skiing, sailing, nude bathing, earettes, oral sex, pierced ears, Swedish clogs, water beds, science fiction, pornographic ious ecstasy, truffles, Kirsch, jalepeno peppers, Peking duck, Vienna, Moscow, Madrid, group therapy, body ed condeht a lottery ticket, never, never (on the other hand) was struck on the face or body by another being, never once perched her reading glasses (with a sigh) in the crown of her hair, never (for fear of ridicule) investigated the possibilities of plastic surgery or yoga, never gave herself over to the kind of ood to yourself, to believe in yourself and do things for yourself Nor, though she knew she had been loved in her life, did she ever hear the words ”I love you, Daisy” uttered aloud (such a si, thin, uneventful sleep that preceded her death did she have the wit (and leisure) to ponder the injustice of this
”A blessing,” exclaims the noted Chekhov scholar Alice Goodwill Spanner when informed of her mother's death
”Myat sub-zero for soist for the Lower Manhattan Public Schools
”She orn out,” announces Joan Taylor, the unehter of the Flett family ”Her life wore her out and then her death wore her out”
”She toldpaleobotanist Victoria Louise Flett-Roy ”But is anyone ever really ready?”
”She had this crazy kind of adjustable intelligence She could hoist it into viehen she wanted to”
”Egregious I heard her say that word once, egregious! It just rolled off her tongue”
”And holy smokes She used to say holy smokes”
”Really?”
”And like sometimes she wasn't quite there Knock, knock, anyone ho so no one knew if she spent too little money or too much Or if she was four years behind her fashi+on moment or twenty-four years”
”Ha”
”She was evasive”
”Yes, but evasion can be a forain?”
”You heard me”
Bluebirds, Pioneer Girls in Service, GSA, Tudorettes, History Circle, Christian Endeavor, Alpha Zeta, Quarry Club, United Church Women, Mothers' Union, The Arrowroots, Mutchmor Home and School association, Ottawa Horticultural Society, Beautiful Glebe Committee, Carleton County Heart Fund, Rideau Luncheon Series, Ontario Seed Collective, Bay Ladies Craft Group, The Flowers
”No definitely, I do not want to have any of her body parts donated”
”It was just a thought”
”Everything about her orn out anyway”
”I just thought-”
In Laving Me Memory of Daisy Goodwill Who in Sound Mind And without malice And Over the Objection of her Faed Reflection After Tories With Determination To Lie Alone in Death ”She left you what?” Joan shouted over the telephone (A bad transatlantic connection) ”Her trug,” said Alice, gri?”