“Okay?” I said. “Okay? What do you mean, okay? You never read a news page, Roy?”
“When she had to leave for Australia there. I wondered if she’s okay. It’ll be better for her, I guess. She was in a situation, with Duncan. It was a thing there.”
“That’s just TV, for Christ’s sake. They wrote her out,” I said, and felt a sudden, leaden calm. “She’s not in Australia, Roy. She’s in heaven.”
“—Sir?”
“She’s dead, God damn it.”
“Now I don’t know about none of that,” he said, with one fat palm raised. “All it is is, I just hope she’s okay, over in Australia there.”
Happy is in heaven, or I hope she is. I hope she’s not in hell. Hell is the evening sky and I surely hope she’s not up there. Ah, how to bear it? It’s a thing. No, it really is.
I admit right now that I panicked back there, in the bungalow bedroom with the chute of light, the altered woman, and my own being so quickly stretched by fragility and fear. I shouted a lot. Lie down! Call Trattman! Put on your robe! That kind of thing. “Come on, Lou. Be realistic,” she said. “Look at me.” And I looked. Yeah. Her skin had that shiny telltale succulence, all over. Her hair—which a week ago, God damn it, lay as thin and colorless as my own —was humming with body and glow. And the mouth, Christ, lips all full and wet, and an animal tongue, like a heart, not Happy’s, the tongue of another woman, bigger, greedier, younger. Younger. Classic time. Oh, classic.
She had me go over and lie down on the bed with her there, to give comfort, to give some sense of final safety. I was in a ticklish state of nerves, as you’d imagine. Time isn’t infectious (we do know that about time) but sickness in any form won’t draw a body nearer and I wanted all my distance. Stay out, it says. Then I saw—I saw it in her breasts, high but heavy, their little points tender, detailed, time-inflamed; and the smell, the smell of deep memory, tidal, submarine … I knew the kind of comfort she wanted. Yes, and time often takes them this way, I thought, in my slow and stately terror. You’ve come this far: go further, I told myself. Go closer, nearer, closer. Do it for her, for her and for old times’ sake. I stirred, ready to let her have all that head and hand could give, until I too felt the fever in my lines of heat, the swell and smell of youth and death. This is suicide, I thought, and I don’t care. … At one point, during the last hours, just before dawn, I got to my feet and crept to the window and looked up at the aching, the hurting sky; I felt myself gray and softly twanging for a moment, like a coathanger left to shimmer on the pole, with Happy there behind me, alone in her bed and her hot death. “Honey,” I said out loud, and went to join her. I like it, I thought, and gave a sudden nod. What do I like? I like the love. This is suicide and I don’t care.
I was in terrible shape, mind you, for the next couple of months, really beat to shit, out of it, just out of it. I would wake at seven and leap out of the sack. I suffered energy attacks. Right off my food, I craved thick meat and thick wine. I couldn’t watch any Therapy. After barely a half-hour of some home-carpentry show or marathon dance contest I’d be pacing the room with frenzy in my bitten fingertips. I put Danuta at risk too, on several occasions. I even threw a pass in on little Sunny Farraday, who moved in here for a time after the cremation. Danuta divorced me. She even moved out. But she’s back now. She’s a good kid, Danuta—she helped me through. The whole thing is behind me now, and I think (knock on wood) that I’m more or less my old self again.
Pretty soon I’ll rap on the window with my cane and have Danuta fetch me another blanket. Later, she’ll help me inside for my broth. Then a nap, and an hour of TV maybe. The Therapy Channel. I’m happy here for the time being, and willingly face the vivid torment, the boiling acne of the dying sky. When this sky is dead, will they give us a new one? Today my answering service left a strange message: I have to call a number in Sydney, over in Australia there. I’ll do it tomorrow. Or the next day. Yeah. I can’t make the effort right now. To reach for my stick, to lift it, to rap the glass, to say Danuta—even that takes steep ascents of time. All things happen so slowly now. I have a new feature with my back. I broke a tooth last week on a piece of toast. Jesus, how I hate bending and stairs. The sky hangs above me in shredded webs, in bloody tatters. It’s a big relief, and I’m grateful. I’m okay. I’m good, good. For the time being, at any rate, I show no signs of coming down with time.