Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

It’s the second evening in visitation room B of the Hartley and Finch Funeral Home. Flowers from the Ridelles, the Bouchers, the Woodleys and others from postings past. Even Hans and Brigitte have sent a card from Germany — Madeleine’s old babysitter, Gabrielle, has five children now. Madeleine is avoiding the half-open casket resting at one end of the crowded but hushed room between two sprays of daisies; the flowers could not contrast more vividly with the morose Muzak piped at an annoyingly subliminal level — murky interfaith organ-noodling. Who authorized that? She is thinking of tracking down one of the sombre men who no longer call themselves undertakers, and telling him to play the Stones or something instead. This music, the waxy makeup on her father’s face, his hands folded as though in prayer — who do these people think he was? None of it has anything to do with him. Except his blue air force hat resting on the lower, closed half of the casket. Like a fig leaf, she thinks. Then realizes that, despite her grief, she is still wadded in shock.

She turns away and finds herself facing the photo wall — arranged around a framed picture of Jack as a pilot officer cadet in training. Impossibly young in his uniform and wedge cap, left eye bright, unscathed. She and Mimi spent a day arranging reproductions on a large sheet of bristol board, displayed now on an easel. Wedding photo, a shot of the whole family on a picnic in the Black Forest…. They had several slides made into prints. The four of them at the Eiffel Tower, she and Mike in the waves of the Riviera … that was the day you got lost, remember? As she gazes at the photos, she can hear the hum of the slide projector in the dark. So many remember-whens . There is the picture of herself and Jack standing in front of the statue of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. A shadow spills across her father’s trouser leg and the skirt of her dress — the silhouette of head and raised elbows. Uncle Simon. Mimi selected that one, and Madeleine wondered if she remembered who had taken it. Yesterday she was cleaning up between onslaughts of company and found a card in the garbage. She fished it out, figuring her mother had tossed it away by accident. On the cover was an old-fashioned pastel scene of an English country garden — quaint cottage spilling over with rosebushes. Inside, in a neat, efficient hand:

Dear Mrs McCarthy,

My one regret, in all my years of friendship with Jack, is that I never had the opportunity to meet you. Jack did, however, tell me enough about you to allow me to conclude that he was indeed a very lucky man. I cannot begin to comprehend your loss, so I will say only that I am so very sorry, and hope that you will accept this small expression of what was, and always will be, my great regard for your husband. Jack was a fine man. The finest.

I read of his passing in your national newspaper to which I subscribe via the post (retired as I am, I’m afraid I mount up more than my share of newspapers. Some would say The Times of India is rather pushing it, but I have — or rather, had — friends in so many parts of the world that the obit. sections of the international press have become my way of keeping up).

This may seem an odd invitation coming from someone you’ve never met, but I extend it with all my heart: should you ever find yourself in England, please look me up. I live in one of the few remaining unspoiled corners of what used to be the English countryside, and there is not a bird nor plant with whom (I refuse to say “with which”) I am not acquainted. It would be my very great pleasure to “show you about”. As the years advance, one finds that old friends are the best friends, and I can’t help but think of you as a friend, valuing as I did so highly the friendship of your husband.

Please give my regards to the “Deutsches Mädchen”. I catch glimpses of her brilliant career from time to time, thanks to a dreadful satellite dish that I’ve done my best to conceal at the back of my cottage.

Yours very truly,

Simon Crawford

There was a return address in Shropshire. Madeleine hesitated, then tore it up.

Out the corner of her eye she sees the parish priest threading his way toward her across the room and she makes for the nearest exit. She is longing for a drink. If only Mike were here with his flask — and then, all of a sudden, he is. The photograph stops her in her tracks. She has never seen it before. It sits on its own in a frame on one of the many occasional tables that are otherwise covered with flowers and cards: Mike in uniform. USMC. Brush cut bristling beneath his hat. Dewy lips, full face, soft eyes. Lying in front of the frame, a single red rose. She reaches for more tissues, from one of several boxes strategically located throughout the room, as if it were one big therapy office.

She blows her nose, then looks up at the sound of her name. A plump but fit-looking woman with curly hair and freckles is standing in front of her. Some people don’t change.

“Auriel?”

They hug as fiercely as ten-year-olds. Auriel’s mother called her from Vancouver. “I’m so sorry, Madeleine. Your dad was always so nice.”

“He died watching All in the Family ,” says Madeleine. “At least he died laughing.”

Auriel releases her, blows her nose and smiles. She looks the same only proportionately larger. Eyes still merry but steady now, perhaps she is a nurse, thinks Madeleine. Auriel’s is the kind of face you’d hope to see if you were hooked up to an IV. She’s wearing a pastel blazer over a print dress with a chiffon scarf. She looks like what she is: a suburban middle-class working mother. Backbone of the nation.

“You look fantastic,” says Madeleine intensely.

Auriel replies, equally intense, “You’re so cute on television I can’t stand it,” and they laugh and grip one another’s hands.

Auriel has three kids, and a husband called Dave. They have just been posted to headquarters in Ottawa — he works for Corrections Canada. “He’s a prison warden.”

“Whoa.”

“It’s mostly social work.”

Auriel has lived a life similar in its uprootings, its esprit de corps — and its marginality, according to mainstream society — to the one she and Madeleine knew as children.

“Auriel?” says Mimi, joining them. “C’est pas possible!” They hug.

“Hi Mrs. McCarthy.” Then, tempering her big instinctive smile, “I’m so sorry about Mr. McCarthy.”

“Thank you so much, chérie.” Mimi goes to move off but her eye is caught by a floral arrangement. “Elles sont très belles , who sent these?”

Yellow roses.

Madeleine leans in, reads the card and blinks. “They’re from Christine.”

“Ah.”

Madeleine says quickly, “I don’t know how she found out, I didn’t tell her.”

“I did,” says her mother, then turns on her spike heel and crosses the room to greet new arrivals. Madeleine is speechless.

“She looks great,” says Auriel.

“It’s the nicotine, it acts as a preservative.”

Auriel looks at her for a moment before asking, “How are you, Madeleine?” Maybe she is a nurse.

“I think I may be having a nervous breakdown, but only because I can afford one.”

“Really?”

“Naw, I’m just a bit burnt out.”

“Are you with”—she glances at the roses—“Christine?”

Madeleine sighs. “No, we … parted like two mature adults. It was ugly.”

“I was sorry to hear about your brother.”

“Thanks. I don’t want to be rude, but can we talk about you instead?”

Auriel was a nurse—“I knew it!” says Madeleine — at the National Defence Medical Centre in Ottawa when she met her husband. Military personnel and, at times, prison inmates from across the country were treated there. Dave was visiting a member of his prison population from Collins Bay Penitentiary, Kingston.