Autopsy of a Boring Wife Page 11

“Honestly, Diane.”

  Sunday afternoon

  Claudine showed up earlier than expected. I was reading in my papasan, soothed by the cacophony of drilling.

  “I rang the doorbell! You didn’t hear it?”

  “Well, no. It’s a little noisy back here, surely you noticed.”

  “My God! Are Sundays not sacred in the suburbs anymore?”

  “Wow, you look good!”

  Her outfit screamed sexy-chic: black, with a gorgeous blue-grey jacket and vertiginous heels. She’d done her hair, her make-up, put on perfume, and looked super-cute.

  “You didn’t get dolled up like that just for me, I hope?”

  “Just for you.”

  “You went over the top.”

  “You deserve it.”

  “The girls are with their dad?”

  “Yup, and I can’t say I’m sorry to be rid of them for a few days. I was about to murder one of them.”

  “I thought things were better.”

  “If I ignore the fact that school called about Adèle on Thursday, and Laurie gives me attitude anytime I ask her for something, then sure, everything’s great. I think Laurie and her boyfriend broke up.”

  “Already?”

  “Yes, already. Hey! Nice yard.”

  “I’m going for a country look.”

  “Less upkeep.”

  “And it’s prettier, no?”

  She dropped into one of the deck chairs that had luckily had time to dry.

  “So, how about that bubbly?”

  “It’s 3:30 in the afternoon!”

  “The perfect time for bubbles.”

  So we opened the sparkling wine and started a session of office gossip. We spent a good hour lamenting the company’s lack of organization, its incompetent staff, its secretaries dressed like porn stars, the air conditioning that never worked right, the fact that Chez Joe — our favourite snack bar — had closed; Jeanine’s illness, how Suzette was fired, and on and on. Claudine took the opportunity to let me in on a few secrets about the personnel files still being processed by HR. I’m silent as the grave, and she knows. I’d never repeat anything she tells me — and was astonished to find out that Martha’s health problems were a front for a full tummy tuck and boob job. Seriously, it didn’t show, a job well done. Claudine had noted the surgeon’s contact information, just in case.

  We were a little tipsy by the time she finally got down to business.

  “Okay, I need to see J.P.’s card.”

  “Oh come on, it’s nothing special.”

  “Yeah, right! Hand it over.”

  Claudine, a natural romantic, could read between the lines. In addition to my beautiful eyes, I also had nice legs — a compliment hidden behind the comment that my boots looked good on me — so he thought me pretty from head to toe and was probably secretly in love with me. Hence, said Claudine, the emphasis “you have really beautiful eyes.” He’d proposed a toast to my “good health,” which was an invitation, albeit indirect, to join him for a drink one of these days. All my attempts to dismiss the incident of the boots as insignificant were waved aside. We were talking destiny, a story inscribed in the Book of Love. The first page had been turned, and the ending bound to be a happy one.

  “Stop! Stop! It has nothing to do with fate, Claudine. You’re the one who made me go see him with some bogus file as an excuse because he’s the only man I might have wanted to kiss — if he wasn’t married, if the attraction was mutual, if the timing was right, and all the other ifs I can’t think of right now.”

  “Fate willed me to send you in there.”

  “Except that I was the one who said he was the only possibility in the place!”

  “Fate willed me to ask and for you to say his name.”

  “Well, your fate’s a married man.”

  “And since when has being married stopped anyone? I’m sure if we bothered to do some research, we’d learn that married men cheat on their partners more often than unmarried men do. One hundred percent of the women here today can confirm that.”

  “Speaking of which, Jacques called me Friday. It seemed important.”

  “No!”

  “I told him I couldn’t talk to him before the twenty-third.”

  “Why the twenty-third?”

  “Just to bug him.”

  “Well done.”

  “I wonder what he wanted from me.”

  “Diane . . . ”

  “What?”

  “I can smell the divorce papers from here.”

  “Oh. That hadn’t even crossed my mind.”

  “Tramps like her always want to get married.”

  We let ourselves ride the tide of our venomous cynicism until the bottle ran out. And that’s when Mr. Nadaud came out, fraught that dead leaves had begun to decompose on his goddamn lawn. He plugged in the leaf blower and got down to business.

  So I very calmly got up, marched across my field and then his yard, grabbed the cord, and pulled with all my might. The brand new Black & Decker heaved a final sigh before rolling over, lifeless. Though not quite as theatrical, I’d achieved the same result as Laurie had done at the funeral, the plug twisting in the air and sending off a rash of sparks before conceding. There. All taken care of in under ten seconds. Now we could continue drinking and listen instead to the hay swaying in the breeze.

  Claudine was clutching her stomach with both hands as she laughed uncontrollably, and Mr. Nadaud was giving me the evil eye. But that’s all he could do: the man didn’t have an ounce of malice in him.

  “So, what were we saying?”

  “You’re crazy!”

  “It’s Laurie’s fault. I’m impressionable, what can I say?”

  The police never came, the wine was consumed, and Mr. Nadaud holed himself up with his wife to prepare the leaf blower’s funeral. Worst-case scenario, he’d have his revenge by mowing my hayfield while I was not around. In a way, that suited me. Vermin love hiding out in wild grasses.

  The sky was magnificent to behold, the late afternoon sun casting a red glow onto everything it touched. The white wine was fabulous, the fruit and cheese delicious, the silence marvellous. Even the guys working on 5412 had started packing their things. Claudine plugged her phone into the stereo, and we sang along to familiar Madonna tunes in high-pitched screams. We were the superstars, the virgins, the material girls of a suburb that no longer existed.

  “I danced to this song once. I took ballet-jazz classes, I wanted to be a professional dancer like Irene Cara in Flashdance.”

  “I used to love this song!”

  “I knew the choreography by heart. Check this out.”

  Claudine kicked off her heels and set about dancing like Irene, pretending I was one of the judges from the video. She hopped up and down, pointing her toes and punching the air, did a few jumps as she rolled her head and even tried a split that wasn’t half bad. Without editing, it wasn’t quite as impressive as the movie was, but there was no question she owned the moves. Time had slowed her down — and she was restrained by her elegant outfit — but the magic wasn’t lost on me in the slightest.

  I wanted to warn her when she started backing up a little over-zealously, but too late: she tripped and went flying off the deck before I could even open my mouth.

  Lying on the ground in a bed of flattened hay, Claudine held one arm and let out a torrent of expletives, in which certain objects of the church were overrepresented. Two of the workers from the site down the street came over to see if everything was all right. They’d been watching us from their perch. Tattoo Guy was there, of course. But one look at Claudine’s face, wrought with pain, told me we’d be sobering up in a crowded waiting room instead of inviting the men over for a drink.

  “Let me see. It’s your forearm that hurts?”

  With his dirty, chapped, crack
ed hands, he lifted it delicately toward him, like he was handling a newborn. Kneeling beside her, the moment charged with tenderness, his savage beauty clashed in the unlikely duo they formed.

  “I can’t move it . . . aggghh . . . fucking hell . . . it hurts too much.”

  “What about your fingers?”

  “I can move them, but aahh . . . not very well . . . ”

  “Did you fall directly on your arm?”

  “Obviously, you damn fool . . . aaaghh . . . ”

  “Well, me, I wouldn’t take the chance. I’d go in for X-rays.”

  I was too drunk to drive, and so was Claudine. Our heads were useless and so were our arms.

  “I’ll call a taxi.”

  “I can take you to the hospital. I’m heading into town anyway.”

  “Diane, stay here, otherwise you’ll waste your evening. It’ll be a long, boring wait.”

  “Exactly. Long and boring — I’m coming!”

  “Then bring the wine.”

  “It’s all gone.”

  “Goddamn it!”

  And that’s how we ended up wedged together on the bench seat of a pick-up filled with tools, next to a good Samaritan who smelled of sweat and hard labour just enough to mask our alcohol-soaked breath. I saw, now, the image tattooed on his arm: what I’d thought were flames was actually a woman’s hair roiling around her naked body. From what I could make out through his body hair, she appeared quite fit.

  At the hospital, we regaled the nurse with stories from our evening. We even included the leaf blower episode to add a bit of colour. She had no idea who Irene Cara was, but she could picture the scene and wondered why it hadn’t been me doing the dancing. I wasn’t the one dressed up, after all.

  “I’ve got no rhythm. I can’t dance.”

  “Ah.”

  She let it go; no doubt she’d seen her fair share of oddballs.

  “So, you twisted something?”

  “No, I fell! A nasty fall.”

  “Okay, so you fell. From about what height?”

  “How high is the deck, do you think?”

  “I don’t know, three or four feet?”

  “What type of surface?”

  “Where I fell from, or where I landed?”

  “Where you landed.”

  “Hay.”

  “Hay?”

  “Yeah. Thank goodness!”

  “Did you fall over the railing?”

  “There isn’t one.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “Go take a seat. They’ll call you into triage shortly.”

  An hour later, the triage nurse took Claudine’s vital signs. Then she immobilized her arm with a splint. We were sent to join the battalion of sick and wounded in the waiting room, the lot of us fighting pain and boredom with muted soap operas and outdated magazines.

  A woman came in on a stretcher, screaming. She was held down with straps and her head thrashed violently from side to side like an oscillating sprinkler on full blast. (I know a lot about sprinklers thanks to Mr. Nadaud.) I couldn’t tell if the pain was external or internal. Everyone in the waiting room sighed: she was the priority. Pain makes us selfish.

  “Dementia, maybe?”

  “Could just be a bad stomach ache.”

  “An ulcer.”

  “Peritonitis.”

  “Kidney stones.”

  The woman in the seat next to us chimed in.

  “Maybe she watched her boyfriend stab her kids to death.”

  We had nothing to add. The idea struck us with an unspeakable horror that paralyzed tongue and brain. I glanced in her direction to see just what was wrong with her, but it was impossible to know. As was the case with pretty well everyone in the waiting room. Instinctively, I inched closer to Claudine.

  Later, much later — well after the last atom of white wine had dissolved into our bloodstreams — Claudine started talking. She was looking straight ahead, as if the anguish of the wait had prompted her to make some intimate confessions.

  “I always dress up when I see Philippe. And since we had to talk about Adèle today, I knew he’d have time to really look at me.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Her eyes, the eyes of a beautiful, strong woman, filled with tears.

  “Claudine, shit . . . ”

  “I knew you’d understand. Unfortunately.”

  So she was holding out hope, just as I was. Two pathetic women sobering up in a decrepit old hospital. We needed to get out of there.

  “So it’s been a while since you made out with someone, too.”

  “Pfff.”

  And she began laughing hysterically, letting the tears wash away what remained of her mascara.

  “Okay then, name a guy you’d make out with. Quick! Don’t think about it.”

  “Whatever doctor comes by next.”

  “Man or woman?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  Hours later

  “You did diving and ballet-jazz at the same time?”

  “And figure skating, gymnastics, painting classes, violin . . . ”

  “Holy shit! And you don’t do any of those things anymore?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I wasn’t good at any of it. I should have been reading Heidegger.”

  16

  In which I spill coffee

  J.P.’s secretary was all fired up, raring to get the week started.

  “Can I help you?”

  “No, I just came by to say a quick hello. I’ll come back later.”

  “He’s in Toronto until Wednesday.”

  “Oh, okay. I’ll come by Thursday then.”

  “He’s going to check in at the end of the day. I’ll tell him you stopped by. What’s it concerning?”

  None of your business, you damn busybody.

  “It’s concerning my saying hello, that’s all.”

  “Then maybe just shoot him an email?”

  I wouldn’t tell you, even if I did.

  “Okay, maybe.”

  “Let me know if you want me to pass anything along.”

  Middle finger.

  “Thanks.”

  I was dizzy with hatred for this woman when my phone started vibrating. The private investigator I’d hired a few weeks back wanted to hand me documents from Phase One of the process. When we’d first met, he’d suggested we work in eighteen-month blocks in order to anticipate the bad news and avoid jumping straight into the “shit storm.” He loved using excrement metaphors and talked constantly of “that ass-wipe.” When you spend your life sifting through everyone else’s crap, that’s probably inevitable.

  I said I’d meet him at Café, a decent greasy spoon near the office known, as you’d expect from the name, for its excellent coffee. It was easy enough for me to slip away from the office to attend to “urgent business,” and as I owed him the balance for Phase One (along with a little extra for his printing the documents, dinosaur that I am), he was quick to agree to meet.

  Henri Deraîche arrived at 10:15 on the dot. I suspect he’d kept out of sight until the appointed time to uphold his reputation as a reliable and exacting professional. He’d been just as punctual for our first meeting, smiling and relaxed and worlds away from the stereotype of a drunk detective in a crumpled beige trench coat, and much more like that of a geek who could hack into any computer system. That first day his hair was greased back in a slick wave, but he’d forgotten to wipe the sleep from his eyes. With his 10X glasses, it wasn’t a very good look.

  I was hoping he’d hand me a folder with two or three sheets confirming in large print that Jacques was innocent and absolving him of blame. But, given his affair with Charlene,
I was anticipating a few scathing revelations that, though hardly surprising, would hurt me deeply. As it happened, the P.I. handed me an envelope containing documentation so thick I almost dropped it.

  “This can’t be for me.”

  “Are you Diane Delaunais?”

  “Yes.”

  “We met on August 29 to discuss your research request, no? Your ex-husband is Jacques Valois, partner at the firm Brixton, Valois, and Associates?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Then this is yours. Here’s the bill with outstanding fees to be settled, including printing costs. You’ll find a breakdown of the time and researches conducted at the beginning of the document.”

  “But I don’t understand. Why’s it so thick?”

  “It’s mostly the emails.”

  “Emails?”

  “Yes. I’ve printed them in full.”

  “Emails about what?”

  “I’ll let you read them for yourself. Whenever you think is the appropriate time.”

  The envelope between us contained a record of Jacques’s conversations with others, most likely women. If I opened it, their voices would grate in my head like nails on a chalkboard and shred to nothing the last eighteen months of my marriage. And this was just the first batch, an initial stab to the gut, but one that meant almost certain death. The business trips, the conferences, the rounds of golf and late meetings whirled past me in a dizzying carousel of images. The cesspit of lies and paltry daily scheming would surely be stains upon pages I would never find the strength to read.

  I managed, robotically, to get out my chequebook and write an amount in numbers and letters, and then to sign my name, Diane Delaunais. I didn’t want a receipt.

  “For the second phase, we can focus on the most significant time periods . . . Mrs. Delaunais?”

  “ . . . ”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Oh . . . I . . . no. I’ll be in touch.”

  “I understand. Take some time to think about everything. You know how to reach me.”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  He started to walk away, then turned back to me.

  “I, uh . . . I don’t know if this will help at all, but I’ve seen much worse.”