Alison Lurie - Last Resort

Already, unless the ocean currents had brought in jellyfish, as they had today, Wilkie went swimming every afternoon to establish a routine and prepare for his tragic accident. All that remained now was to determine its optimum time and place. Late in the day would be best, he had decided, when visibility was poor and there were few other swimmers. Perhaps just after sunset when the light was dimming, the wind strong, the glass-green surf churned and choppy. It would be important to make sure that there were no boats or windsurfers near: he didn’t want to be rescued ignominiously.

As for the location, there was a choice of four places, two of which Wilkie had now ruled out. The long state beach was always thick with tourists and too shallow—he would have to wade at least a quarter of a mile before the water was over his head. The city beach was small, usually crowded, and overlooked by buildings. He was hesitating now between the two other options. At Fort Taylor there were often real waves, and occasionally a good strong undertow. But it closed at sunset, which meant he would have to swim out to sea sooner, increasing his chance of being seen and “saved.”

The county beach at the end of Reynolds Street had the advantage of being within walking distance, and there was a pier, so he could get into deep water fast. The only problem was that this pier was a favorite location for sunset watchers. Most of them left once the show was over, but a few sentimental couples sometimes lingered; he would have to wait till they’d gone, or were focused on each other.

Only two things delayed Wilkie’s departure now. Most important, he had to finish his last (perhaps his best) book, The Copper Beech. All that remained was deciding on the final chapter. The actual Copper Beech was still in its prime, and would probably outlive his children—and grandchildren, if any. But for dramatic and didactic purposes Wilkie Walker’s monumental biography, like all great biographies, must close with the death of its subject. There were three possible endings; they had already been roughed out and lay on his desk in three numbered folders.

In the first version of Wilkie’s final chapter the great tree suffered a lingering and pathetic death: dropping its foliage early, losing its limbs, becoming weaker and more susceptible to insects and disease. As it aged it was gradually deserted by the squirrels and chipmunks and birds that had long made it their home. Then one spring it failed to put out leaves, and stood as a mute gray skeleton among its green companions.

In his second version the Copper Beech was destroyed by hostile human forces: air pollution, acid rain, and a damaged root system due to the digging of trenches for pipes across the campus, a nuisance that was constantly occurring at Convers College. Wilkie had also considered having the Copper Beech chopped down to make room for some hideous new building or parking structure; but this was not only painful to contemplate but most unlikely, considering the symbolic status of the real tree on the Convers campus.

The third possibility was for the Copper Beech to be the victim of natural disaster. Wilkie had contemplated and rejected having his vegetable hero struck by lightning: according to some authorities, beeches actually attract lightning far less often than other trees. He had also ruled out the idea of a tornado—unlikely in northern New England. Instead, the great tree would fall dramatically (perhaps melodramatically?) in a great hurricane.

Wilkie had been aware almost from the beginning that in a sense this book was his own story: the king of the forest fallen. The real Copper Beech, after all, was the most notable tree at Convers College, and was often (like Wilkie Walker) pictured in its catalogue and alumni magazine. He recoiled from the prospect of its ugly, slow, and undignified death as he did from his own. If he were to carry out the symbolic parallel, a sudden tragic accident would be most appropriate. On the other hand, this meant giving up the chance of making a final telling attack on ecological stupidity and vandalism.

The other thing that still held Wilkie back was that there was nobody in Key West for his wife to turn to afterward in her grief and confusion. Molly Hopkins and her friends were all too old and shaky to be depended on for practical help, and when Wilkie was gone there ought to be someone both competent and kind for Jenny to lean on. Often he had been on the verge of asking Molly if she knew of anyone like that in town, but he hadn’t been able to invent a plausible reason for the inquiry. And probably Molly wouldn’t know anyone anyhow. Her circle of acquaintances resembled a retirement home: everyone in it that he’d met so far was old, and many of them were visibly sick and dying. Others, no doubt, were invisibly sick and dying, like him.

Wilkie had had a horror of retirement homes; he had sworn to himself that he would never enter one. But in coming to Key West, he now realized, he had done exactly that. For younger people the island might be a holiday destination, or offer seasonal employment. For the old it was nothing more than a tropical version of Skytop, the awful upmarket “elder community” that had recently appeared on a hill near Convers. Its name alone disgusted him. No doubt it had been chosen to subliminally suggest that all its residents would go to heaven—most unlikely, in Wilkie’s opinion, when he considered some of those whom he knew.

A similar calculated cynicism appeared to underlie the financial arrangements of Skytop, disguised in mealy-mouthed good-think language. When you entered the “community” you purchased an apartment or town house for an exorbitant price, almost twice what it would cost on the open market. Then you paid a monthly maintenance fee which was double the standard rent for a similar dwelling unit anywhere else. After you became unable to “live independently,” you moved into a hospital wing that was part of the complex, and your apartment or house was resold. You and your heirs received nothing.

Essentially, therefore, the proprietors of Skytop were gambling that you would become disabled or die quite soon; the longer you lived and occupied your apartment—or a room in the hospital wing—the less profit for them. Not a safe proposition for residents, one would think. Wilkie Walker did not envisage a concealed staff policy of euthanasia, but wouldn’t there be, sometimes at least, an unconscious bias in that direction?

Several retired professors of Wilkie’s acquaintance had moved into Skytop, and when visiting them he had been appalled by their blind complacence as well as their increasing self-centeredness. It was clear to him that though Skytop resembled an upmarket motel, it had deeper parallels to an expensive internment camp. If you lived there, you couldn’t help but be aware that every so often one of the inmates would be taken away to die slowly in what was euphemistically called a “nursing facility.” You wouldn’t know when your turn was coming, but the longer you stayed, the more likely it would become that you would be chosen. And of course eventually everyone would be chosen.

If you didn’t die at once, you would be brought back to your luxurious cell terrified and exhausted and damaged, and everyone would be formally nice to you, the way people were nice to Molly’s friend Kenneth Foster after he got out of the hospital last week. But the men and women in white coats would come for you again, and again. Finally you would not return.

A little later there would be a tasteful memorial service, with flowers and music and speeches and a printed program. After that, to judge from Wilkie’s visits to Skytop, you would be forgotten quite soon. In a few months nobody would even mention you; new prisoners would have arrived to fill the luxurious cells.