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Friday, May 12, 1961On the other hand, Jon could have returned and not seen him, if he'd
only looked down the main street, since he himself had been off
reading Bede on the far side of a rather large tree. Jon might well
have gone on into the village, thinking he was late instead.
Therefore, after one last look at the causeway, Alex started into
town, in his old tan tweeds with his rucksack on his back, his long
legs whipping ahead as though they had a life of their own, while the
entire visible population of Beal watched him with some curiosity.
He was thinking intently, not noticing, really, much of what he
passed, trying to put himself in Jon's place.
Jon might well have gone somewhere for a bite to eat. So Alex stuck
his head in the tea shop and surveyed the handful of tables, before
crossing the street and winding his way through the side rooms and
niches of the Wolf and Hare--the only restaurant and the only pub in
town.
No. No Jonathan MacLean in either.
And no messages left behind by him.
It was two-fifteen. Jon was an hour and a quarter late. And Alex
decided to call Jon's wife on the north coast of Scotland near
Inverness.
He ducked his head and held his hat in his hand as he stepped through
the door of the small, cluttered post office that sold sweets and
tobacco and biscuits, while providing a public phone.
He laid an assortment of large coins on the wooden shelf, while he
dialed Jon and Ellie's number. He was prepared for difficulties and
delays, like anyone in Britain in the early sixties. And he smiled to
himself as he remembered how once, whenhe'd lived in London, he'd
answered the phone, only to find a gentleman in an Edinburgh hotel on
the other end calling the concierge.
It was ringing. Finally. That was something. Though no one appeared to
be home, unfortunately. And he was just about to disconnect when he
heard an unfamiliar throat being cleared and a very faint voice say,
"Hello."
"Ellie? Is that you?... It's Alex here. I've been waiting for Jon for
something over an hour, and I thought perhaps there'd been a change of
plans. Have you heard from him by any chance?... Ellie?... Hold on a
tick, I have to shovel more coins into this blasted machine ... Has
there been a change of plans and he wasn't able to reach me?... No!
Surely not!... Ellie, please don't disengage! Are they certain it was
Jon? Perhaps ... No, I see ... Of course not ... I'm so sorry. I don't
know what to say. It doesn't seem possible a'tall."
Alex knew he was babbling, but he was afraid that if he stopped, she'd
hang up, as she'd started to do more than once. He couldn't let her go
before he'd had time to think. For there had to be something he could
do to be of help and he had absolutely no idea what. "How did he die?
He was so fit ... Well, if they don't know, there'll have to be an
inquest ... No, let me! Please. I shall take the train up to
Berwick-upon-Tweed and identify the body myself ... I see ... You're
certain it has to be family?... Well, Hugh, then. Surely he could do
it for you ... Aye,
I should've known. The season has started with a vengeance. It's an
American couple he's driving, is it? So he couldn't very well leave
them on their own ... Really? Why would you wish to?... Ah. Yes, I
suppose one would want to see him again. I would, if it were Janie."
Ellie MacLean had stopped in the middle of a sentence and it sounded
to Alex as though she'd had to, as though her voice had started
turning into someone else's, an injured animal's or an abandoned
child's.
And yet he still had to persuade her to stay on the line. "Ellie,
please listen, my dear, just a moment longer. Let me call Jane and get
her to meet your train in Edinburgh, and then the two of you can come
on to Berwick together. I'll arrange rooms in a hotel, and then meet
you at the station, shall I?... Good. I think that's very wise ...
When will you arrive in Edinburgh?"
They sorted out the timetables and the practical details and Alex told
Ellie again how sorry he was and felt like an incompetent fool.
He phoned his own wife next, at Balnagard, and explained the
situation, and the schedule, and remembered at the last moment to ask
her to bring him a suit.
Shortly after midnight, Dr. Allen Curzon, chief pathologist of the
Berwick Infirmary, held the heavy metal door that said AUTOPSY for
Ellie MacLean and then followed her into the small white room. Alex
came in after him and stood beside Ellie looking like nothing could
have kept him from being there, even if he didn't know what to do.
Ellie was holding herself in, very tall and too erect, and she kept
her hands in the pockets of her long tan trench coat as though she
couldn't trust herself with them without a place to put them. Her
heavy dark hair was pulled straight back, wrapped in a wide braided
chignon. And her face was stripped of everything but sorrow. Her chin
trembled every so often, and her breath came intermittently in audible
sighs as though the act of making an acceptable sound helped control
the anxiety, and the adrenaline, and kept her from breaking down.
She did not want to be surprised by anything that was about to happen,
and her large green eyes inspected the white walls and the olive green
concrete floor as well as the large metal autopsy table in the middle
of it. She saw the small wooden block lying at one end of it, and the
shiny metal scale hanging above it, and tried not to think about what
they might be for, as she scanned the cabinets and the workbench
across the back wall.
There was only one place Jon could be, and the thought of it made her
flinch. She swallowed methodically, trying to keep herself from being
sick, and closed her eyes for several seconds, before she turned
toward the long stainless steel refrigeration unit with the two wide
horizontal drawers.
There was a metal handle on each end of each one.
And Curzon was reaching for the two on the top drawer.
Ellie wanted to stop him, but she didn't. She just clutched the fabric
in the pockets of her coat and watched Curzon's small broad hands as
they pulled on the polished handles.
The drawer was hinged on the bottom and opened down from the top to
form a shelf, and when Curzon reached inside and slid a body out on a
metal tray it rested on the open door.
Ellie froze for a minute with her eyes on the floor, while the speaker
in the ceiling crackled and a woman's voice paged Dr. MacClellan.
Blood pounded in her ears and her throat, in that small soft hollow
between her collarbones. But she forced herself to move. To put one
foot in front of the other. Until she stood beside Jon and looked down
at his empty face.
It was a husk he'd broken out of. A bone house that had been
abandoned. A poorly done mask he'd cast aside like a bad wax model
from a cheap museum.
But Ellie nodded at the doctor, with her eyebrows pinched together and
her lips pulled in between her teeth, while she fought against an
almost uncontrollable urge to whimper. She knew she couldn't. It
wouldn't be right to make Alex, or the other one, whatever his name
was, any more uncomfortable than they already were.
Alex was standing by Jon's feet looking battered, but like he wished
there was something he could do for her.
Curzon looked embarrassed and pretended to read the note he'd already
written on his clipboard.
And then he began pushing Jon back inside the cooler.
Ellie put her hand on his arm and said, "Wait. Please. I'd like to be
alone with him for a minute." Her voice was dry and brittle and her
American accent sounded harsh to her, and far too loud for a small
hard room.
Curzon didn't answer right away. He turned and studied Ellie, as he
pushed his horn-rimmed glasses up his long thin nose. "I'm sorry, Mrs.
MacLean, but I don't think that would be--"
"Please. Just for a few minutes."
"Are you sure?" There were tears on Alex's chin, and yet he was
watching Ellie as though what he saw on her face was beyond his
comprehension.
"I won't be long, Alex. And then I'll answer the medical questions. I
promise."
Ellie waited, tight and silent, till they'd closed the door behind
them and she was left alone with Jon. With his beautiful strong
athletic body lying cold on a metal tray.
She pulled the sheet back--the way strangers would after she was
through--and looked at Jon's whole body.
It was sagging already. And it was bruised underneath. Purple along
the whole length of him. Jon. Who'd been so fluid and so full of
energy. So quick, so physical, so hard.
The face she'd always thought was remarkably handsome, with its strong
bones and the Adam's apple she loved and the incredibly blue eyes, was
sunken and disintegrating.
And that was terrifying enough. But his mind and his soul and his wit
were gone. And she couldn't even grasp what that meant.
Jon. Who was interested in everything. Who was very perceptive and
very smart. Who could make her laugh more than anyone else.
Who understood her too, in all her private places. And wanted her to
be exactly what she was.
Yet the single most amazing thing about Jon, the thing that made
living with him so satisfying and so easy, was that he really did, in
the center of his soul, want to do what was right. He didn't always do
it. But he wanted to. And he wanted her to tell him what she thought,
every time, whatever way she saw it, even when it was critical or when
it hurt.
They'd helped each other with that. With seeing themselves as they
were. With trying to become more of what they ought to be.
And now she had to learn to live without him.
Ellie had always thought open caskets were barbaric, and she'd never
had the least desire to touch a dead body.
But she ran her fingers down Jon's left arm. And she stroked his cheek
and his forehead. She traced his lips, which had been so soft and
large and resourceful, and kissed them one more time.
Tears were sliding down her face and she was crying with that tearing,
gagging, searing kind of sob that contorts your face and constricts
your throat and makes your skin hot and your eyes ache.
And then, in a tight strangled desolate voice, she said, "Jonathan,
please don't leave me here all alone! I don't think I can stand it
without you!"
Because how could she live and not talk to him?
He was the only person she'd ever met she didn't get tired of,
eventually. The only one she'd ever talked to who understood precisely
what she meant, yet surprised her all the time with the twists and the
edges of his own mind.
How could she survive without that?
And what could ever make her want to live again?
To get up in a cold bed. In a cold world.
Day, after day, after day.
There was nothing she could do but pray.
And she prayed with her eyes closed and her hands on his arm. And then
she remembered what she'd forgotten.
Only Jon's death would have made her forget.
The door flew open unexpectedly, and a lab technician in a white coat,
who was reading something on a pad of paper, shuffled in sideways
singing Buddy Holly. He'd gotten to the "Oh Peggy...my Peggy Su-oo-oo"
part, when he saw Ellie and looked stricken. He mumbled, "My
apologies, madam," quietly, and turned around and left.
Ellie hadn't paid much attention. She was thinking about picking Jon's
hand up for a minute and holding it in hers, but she was afraid to try
in case rigor mortis had set in and she couldn't stand it.
She laid her cheek on it for a second instead, before she turned and
walked to the door. Where she stopped and looked back at Jon one more
time.
She stepped into the hall. And Alex and Jane, who'd been talking
together with their backs to her, halfway to the elevator, rushed over
as soon as the door had slapped shut.
But not before Ellie had put a handkerchief across her mouth and
rushed toward the lavatory they'd passed on the way in.
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