So I escaped Angstland and the Anguish, and returned to New York with my sister’s ashes, my cozy bird’s nest, and one remaining hope: Mimi. I felt pretty confident about it. All I had to do was explain. Mimi wouldn’t desert me now, just because she’d caught me squirming around on the floor with my ex (once!). No, my baby would rush to my side!
Mimì! Mimì! rang in my head now, even more than Bee. But I measured time by the hours (three hundred and eleven) and days (ten) since I’d last spoken to Bee, how long it was since she’d died (a week), and how long since I hugged her in the hospital (six days). It all went through my head on a continuous random loop, and I still thought Bee couldn’t be dead. I had her ashes with me and I didn’t think she was dead.
Bubbles greeted me joyfully. Deedee had kept her well fed. She was plumper than ever! And Gertrude too was “there for me.” She seemed to view my sister’s violent end as a chance for us to get back together. She’d besieged my answering machine with so many sickening messages of condolence, I had to call her just to get her to quit it.
“You can’t help me,” I told her.
“But did you see that fabulous obit in the Times?” She made an obituary sound like a rave review. “Bridget was such a wonderful artist, Harrison!”
Huh? If she’d thought that, why didn’t she give her the grant she needed when Bee asked for one, thereby saving her from going to England at all? But there was no point in berating old Gertrude. she never listened. Even if I accused her of being the cause of all world suffering (which she probably was), she’d see it as some kind of sexual overture. Bee’s death was a foothold for Gertrude. But anyone who saw my sister’s death as a foothold was an oaf, and I’d had enough of Gertrude’s oafishness and her overtures. Life is short.
Next I had to go meet Bee’s dealer at the 2nd Avenue Deli (which was now on 3rd because the owner was shot by some bastard, on his way to the bank with the deli takings some years before). Bee’s dealer was arranging a memorial for Bee in his gallery. He wanted to talk about that and also a major retrospective of Bee’s work that he was planning. He needed the keys to her studio in Queens quick, and wanted to see all the stuff she’d been doing in “Can’t-Bury,” as he pronounced it, as soon as it arrived.
“There’s quite a buzz, uh, right now,” he told me, cramming a whole pastrami on rye into his face, mit pickle.
I hadn’t met the guy before but had never liked the sound of him. He’d once passed Bee over when he had a big commission to hand out, dropped her in favor of some jerk who did big geometric constructions in welded metal. It’s no fun being forgotten by your dealer (nor having to hear Bee cry about it over the phone). But now was not the time to berate him either. It was good of him to handle the memorial thing, and he’d be better at it than I. What was Bee’s favorite drink, he wanted to know. Champagne cocktail, I told him, remembering her socking them back like there was no tomorrow, whenever she got the chance. He’d also hired a string quartet and asked me what I’d like them to play. I suggested Bach solo violin partitas, and Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden”—just to make sure the whole occasion finished me off.
Then I went home to hide from the disaster area my life had become: Gertrude and her mania for me; the imminent arrival of a million boxes of Bee’s stuff from Can’t-Bury; the imponderable problem of my joyless job (which could only be put on hold for so long, without some bozo beefing about it); and the débâcle with Mimi.
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree
Deedee could handle the boxes, I realized, Deedee of the true compassion, and I could take a few weeks off. I would go to Sagaponack and take fresh breaths whenever opportunity allowed.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow.
A different metaphysical plane, different “pace o’ life”. A different pace! What does that mean? Everybody on Long Island was always burbling about the “pace o’ life”. It drove me crazy! For me, Sagaponack was just a place to hide for a while, me and my cat. No TV News (no TV!), no Gertrusions (once I’d unplugged the phone), no responsibilities, no friends, no nothing. It’s an evolutionary achievement in animals to know when to flee. I fled.
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.