The Fields of Grief. Giles Blunt

said how sorry he was.

      Delorme showed up in a dark blue dress. Cardinal couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her in a dress.

      ‘Such a sad day,’ she said, hugging him. He could feel her trembling slightly, fighting tears of sympathy, and he couldn’t speak. She knelt before the coffin for a few minutes, and then came back to give Cardinal another hug, her eyes wet.

      Police Chief R.J. Kendall came, along with Detective Sergeant Chouinard, Ken Szelagy – everyone from CID – and various patrol constables.

      Another bend in the afternoon, and now they were at Highlawn Crematorium. Cardinal had no memory of the drive out into the hills. It had been Catherine’s request that there be no church service, but in the will she and Cardinal had had drawn up, she had asked that Father Samson Mkembe say a few words.

      When Cardinal had been an altar boy, all of the priests had been of Irish descent, or French Canadian. But now the church had to recruit from farther afield, and Father Mkembe had come all the way from Sierra Leone. He stood at the front of the crematory chapel, a tall, bony man with a face of high-gloss ebony.

      The chapel was almost full. Cardinal saw Meredith Moore, head of the art department up at the college, and Sally Westlake, a close friend of Catherine’s. And he could make out among the mourners the woolly head of Dr Bell.

      Father Mkembe talked about Catherine’s strength. Indeed, he got most of her good qualities right – no doubt because he had phoned earlier asking Kelly for tips. But he spoke also about how Catherine’s faith had sustained her in adversity – a patent falsehood, as Catherine only went to church for the big occasions and had long ago stopped believing in God.

      The furnace doors opened and the flames flared for an instant. The coffin rolled in, the doors closed, and the priest said a final prayer. A doomsday bell was tolling in Cardinal’s heart: You failed her.

      The colours of the world outside were unnaturally bright. The sky was the blue of a gas flame, and the carpet of autumn leaves seemed to emit light, not just reflect it – golds and yellows and rusty reds. A shadow passed over Cardinal as the smoke that had been his wife dimmed the sun.

      ‘Mr Cardinal, I don’t know if you remember me …’

      Meredith Moore was shaking Cardinal’s hand in her dry little palm. She was a wisp of a woman, so dehydrated she looked as if she should be dropped in water to expand to her natural size.

      ‘Catherine and I were colleagues …’

      ‘Yes, Mrs Moore. We’ve met a few times over the years.’ In fact, Mrs Moore had fought a nasty battle with Catherine over control of the art department. She had not been shy about raising Catherine’s psychiatric history as an impediment, and in the end she had prevailed.

      ‘Catherine will be sorely missed,’ she said, adding, ‘The students are so fond of her,’ in a tone that implied the complete bankruptcy of student opinion.

      Cardinal left her to find Kelly, who was being hugged by Sally Westlake. Sally was an outsized woman with an outsized heart and one of the few people Cardinal had called personally about Catherine’s death.

      ‘Oh, John,’ she said, dabbing her eyes. ‘I’m going to miss her so much. She was my best friend. My inspiration. That’s not just a cliché: she was always challenging me to think more about my photographs, to shoot more, to spend more time in the darkroom. She was just the best. And she was so proud of you,’ she said to Kelly.

      ‘I don’t see why,’ Kelly said.

      ‘Because you’re just like her, talented and brave. Pursuing a career in art in New York? Takes guts, my dear.’

      ‘On the other hand, it could be a complete waste of time.’

      ‘Oh, don’t say that!’ For a moment, Cardinal thought Sally was going to pinch his daughter’s cheek or ruffle her hair.

      Dr Bell came up to give his condolences once more.

      ‘It’s kind of you to come,’ Cardinal said. ‘This is my daughter, Kelly. She’s just up from New York for a few days. Dr Bell was Catherine’s psychiatrist.’

      Kelly gave a rueful smile. ‘Not one of your success stories, I guess.’

      ‘Kelly …’

      ‘No, no, that’s all right. Perfectly legitimate. Unfortunately, specializing in depression is a bit like being an oncologist – a low success rate is to be expected. But I didn’t want to disturb you, I just wanted to pay my respects.’

      When he was gone, Kelly turned to her father. ‘You said Mom didn’t seem particularly depressed.’

      ‘I know. But she’s fooled me before.’

      

      ‘Everyone’s being so kind,’ Kelly said when they were back home. Troops of sympathy cards stood in formation across the dining-room table, and in the kitchen, the counter and table were heaped with Tupperware containers of casseroles, risottos, ratatouilles, meatloaves, tarts and tourtières, even a baked ham.

      ‘A nice tradition, this food thing,’ Cardinal said. ‘You start to feel all hollow and you know you must be hungry, but the thought of cooking is just too much. The thought of anything’s too much.’

      ‘Why don’t you go and lie down?’ Kelly said, taking off her coat.

      ‘No, I’d only feel worse. I’m going to put something in the microwave.’ He picked up a plastic container and stood contemplating it in the middle of the kitchen as if it were a device from the neighbourhood of Arcturus.

      ‘Even more cards,’ Kelly said, dropping a fistful on the kitchen table.

      ‘Why don’t you open them?’

      Cardinal put the container in the microwave and faced the rows of buttons. Another hiatus. The simplest tasks were beyond him; Catherine was gone. What was the point of food? Of sleep? Of life? You won’t survive, an inner voice told him. You’ve had it.

      ‘Oh, my God,’ Kelly said.

      ‘What?’

      She was clutching a card in one hand and covering her mouth with the other.

      ‘What is it?’ Cardinal said. ‘Let me see.’

      Kelly shook her head and pulled the card away.

      ‘Kelly, let me see that.’

      He took hold of her wrist and plucked the card from her hand.

      ‘Just throw it out, Dad. Don’t even look at it. Just throw it away.’

      The card was an expensive one, with a still life of a lily on it. Inside, the standard message of condolence had been covered by a small rectangle of paper, on which someone had typed: How does it feel, asshole? Just no telling how things will turn out, is there?

       6

      The planet Grief. An incalculable number of light years from the warmth of the sun. When the rain falls, it falls in droplets of grief, and when the light shines, it is in waves and particles of grief. From whatever direction the wind blows – south, east, north, or west – it blows cinders of grief before it. Grief stings your eyes and sucks the breath from your lungs. No oxygen on this planet, no nitrogen; the atmosphere is composed entirely of grief.

      Grief came at Cardinal not just from the myriad objects that had been Catherine’s: photographs, CDs, books, clothes, refrigerator magnets, the furniture she had chosen, the walls she had painted, the plants she had tended. Grief squeezed its way through the seams of the house, under the doors and around the windows.

      He couldn’t sleep. The note repeated itself over and over in his head. He got up from his bed and studied it