With her usual efficiency, Gina has sorted the paper contents of Lila Mackay’s box into separate notebooks: “Vet bills,” “Notes,” “Letters,” “Miscellaneous.”
The oldest vet bill is from seven years ago, “Core vaccines, kitten series $45.00,” the most recent three months ago, “Office visit, hip dysplasia. Recommend weight loss. $50.00.” Except for the occasional bout of roundworms and ear mites, Beatrice has been a healthy cat. There’s a letter dated shortly before Mrs. Mackay’s death: “This office will be closing on December 31 due to my retirement. Unless you notify us that you wish your pet’s records sent elsewhere, we will transfer them to Dr. Harriett McCoy in Rantowles. We have enclosed her card for your convenience.”
The notes are more interesting, page after page on white stationery, written in black (I imagine the fountain pen, the jar of ink), a cursive that in the first thirty or so pages is almost too perfect, the lines evenly spaced and very straight. Later the handwriting is shaky, the letters larger; the lines drift upward. In the final pages there are frequent corrections, words and phrases scratched out or put in parentheses with notes above them: “Not right word,” “Need better metaphor,” “Silly?”
Most of the notes are in first person and seem to be a sort of diary, though one only sporadically kept:
I spent most of the day by the fireplace. Too cold for our usual walk. She didn’t go out, either; catching up on her correspondence. Billy stopped to pick up Gail’s check. (She does the work, why does he get the check?)
Another entry:
Delightful afternoon on the piazza. Not too hot. There’s something hypnotic about the Spanish moss swaying back and forth in the breeze. She’s nearby, reading. We are such different creatures, but alike in our inability to trust anyone completely.
Who, I wonder, is this other woman? Is she still alive? Why wouldn’t Mrs. Mackay have chosen her as the cat’s caregiver? But the next note explains it:
Caught a mouse this morning. Was having fun until she took it away. “Not on your diet!” she says.
Mrs. Mackay is writing as if she’s Beatrice, the cat. Maybe she was crazy after all.
I skip to the letters. There are carbon copies of letters written on an old typewriter whose lower-case b and t are off-center. One to the Highway Commission opposing a proposal to widen the highway onto the island, which will require removing some oak trees: “We who live on Edisto consider these trees our cherished friends. Some are three hundred years old. Would it not be wiser and kinder for us to slow down, rather than to cut them down?” A letter to the editor of the Columbia paper, from 1999: “The time has come for us to acknowledge that continuing to fly the Confederate flag at the State House is not done ‘to honor our history’ but to preserve a symbol which is offensive to many. At best, this is an appalling display of bad manners; at worst, it is deliberately cruel.”
Another, from 1990: “My husband loved The Citadel. He served on its Board of Governors and gave generously to support scholarship students. Since his death I have tried to match his generosity, but I can no longer give to an institution which refuses to admit women. When you see fit to change your policy in this regard, I will resume my annual gifts.” Gina has stuck a note on this one: What does this have to do with the cat?
After the carbon copies there’s another stack of letters, undated, all in the same handwriting. The earliest is dated almost thirty years ago:
Dear Lila,
I have given our recent conversation much thought. Of course it was distressing to hear that you are so unhappy. I should not have added to that unhappiness by saying what I did, but surely you know that my feelings about your current predicament are complicated by our history. Whatever you decide to do, please know that I shall always be your devoted friend. Stop by the store when you’re next in Charleston—I’ve made some improvements.
Fondly, Simon
P.S. Under the circumstances, you should probably resist your usual urge to file this away in your “archives.”
I scan the next four letters from Simon. Nothing more about her unhappiness.
Dear Lila,
I will have to decline your invitation to lunch next week, as I am temporarily confined to the apartment. The surgeon (a woman, very smart but, like you, a little dictator) has decreed that I rest, lest I ruin my ankle completely.
So pleased to hear about your new friend. I assume Beatrice likes Dante? (Don’t be so snooty about her lack of pedigree. I thought you were more egalitarian than that.) May she be as loyal a companion to you as McCavity has been to me.
By the way, I’m sure you’ll hear, if you haven’t already, that the bookstore is closing. Soon King Street will be nothing but expensive shops, the same national chains you can find in any sizable town. Shall I venture to say this is one more sign that the world is going to hell, or do I just sound like a bitter old man?
Fondly,
S.