The room is as it was in the photos, flowered wallpaper still fresh. My mother’s taste, not mine, cabbage roses and that ghastly rug. Press photos of the death scene are black and white, the room was stripped years ago, how does he know what the colors were?
He just does.
Lavender because it’s Hal’s favorite . . . Lorna means the ex-husband’s. This rocks him. How do I know? In that flash she is in this room with Dan, cynical realist that he is, sinking into cushions molded to her bulky form. Lodged in the spot that smoldered long after her soul fled the fire, he undergoes a profound change. Holy fuck! . . . lavender ruffles at my throat. Even the BarcaLounger is restored. Gold brocade, he notes, but from a recumbent position, as though this is him kicked back in the chair, just in from dinner with Dorian, sweet boy (‘she is survived by a son, Dorian Archambault, M.D., and two grandchildren, all of Fort Jude’), a little drunk after an evening with his family, I ate too much, but . . . looking over the toes of her purple slippers at the TV. Studying the tiny feet on the raised footrest, my best feature, he notes her plush bedroom slippers, the trim, pale ankles laced with purple veins, but for a woman my age, still sexy.
‘God, where did that come from?’
Lavender nightie, Hal’s favorite color, in case he comes. If I’d worn lavender to dinner that terrible night at the Flamenco, if I’d reached under the tablecloth and touched It through his pants, would he have insisted on the divorce?
Perfume, fresh lipstick, in case he drops in for a bon voyage. The TV’s on, but she has no interest in TV. Hoping, Hal’s ex-wife waits up for him. It is, after all, my last night at home. She’s brought a nightcap to the chair with her, a little cognac on ice because this calls for a little celebration. She is tired and anxious and excited, not because of the coming trip but because maybe Hal . . . He didn’t come to the club to say goodbye because he doesn’t want Eden to know. I’m going around the world, of course he wants to see me alone . . . And when he comes, if I touch him the way he wants he’ll forget that bitch Eden Rowse and stay.
She waits.
Seething with anticipation, Lorna waits beyond all waiting. If he remembers his manners, he’ll come tell me goodbye. She hopes beyond the point of hope. She is not yet angry, even though she knows the bastard is out somewhere with that woman, he took up with her before the . . . If he loved her he’d marry her, it’s just the sex. Listening to the doleful sound of ice in her empty glass. He’s coming, he’s just a little late and then, That selfish bitch! This is her fault.
Sad, Dan thinks. No. Angry!
What do I care, this time next week I’ll be having espresso in front of St Peter’s in Rome . . . Her glossy nails knead the brocade. Where is he, why won’t he come? She knows, but she doesn’t want to know. Dammit, Harold Archambault, come here! Inheriting that fleshy white body, inhabiting the gold BarcaLounger, Dan Carteret moves through Lorna Archambault’s hopes into grief and staggering rage because in the posture of meditation, in the hyperbaric chamber of this still, hot room, he sees. In some way he can’t begin to comprehend, he and the dead woman are linked.
There are, however, things he can’t possibly know.
Sweating and stultified, hallucinating or mysteriously unleashed, Dan Carteret inhabits the old lady’s last night. Damn you, Hal Archambault, I didn’t have to wait up. I didn’t have to sit here for so God. Damned. Long, smiling like a painted fool . . . He plays out another scenario: My God, Hal what are you doing, dear God, please don’t light that match!
No. The husband was nowhere near. He had witnesses, the mistress, the night clerk at the beach. The girlfriend must be pretty long in the tooth by now, did she stay in town, can I track her down for an interview?
Wait, what if Hal got fed up with her whining and actually torched the place? Why would he, he had what he wanted, boffing his girlfriend 24/7 at the beach.