Murder in the English Department (10 page)

Chapter Ten

NUMBLY, NAN WENT ABOUT
HER
chores
the next morning. She was stunned at the dispatch with which Marjorie had arranged their ‘appointment'. Not until she was eating her sandwich by the window of her office, staring blankly at the hills, did Nan admit that they
must
talk sooner, that there was really no time to waste. Was Marjorie playing it cool? Did she know what Nan knew? Did Nan know what Nan knew?

She phoned Marjorie and, finding no one home, went down to the department office to leave her a message. As Nan was checking her own mailbox, Millie called out,

‘Phone for you, Professor Weaver.'

Nan had tried to get Millie to call her by her first name. But the secretary said she didn't want to appear to be showing disrespect. Or favouritism.

‘Thanks,' smiled Nan.

‘Hello, Nan Weaver here.' She liked Matt's British style of answering the phone and sometimes copied it.

‘Nan?' Shirley's familiar voice sounded querulous, lost. She rarely phoned her sister at work.

‘Hello, Shirl. How are you?'

‘Just fine, honey. But Lisa isn't. I'm afraid she's in the hospital.'

‘Oh, no,' said Nan, turning away from Millie's desk. She still harboured Mom's instinct for keeping bad news in the family. ‘What is it, what happened?' she whispered.

‘Same thing,' Shirley's voice was more anxious now. ‘Who knows what it is. She's tired, feverish, sweating, vomiting. She's just awful sick, Nannie.'

‘Listen, I'll be out by four o'clock, OK? And, hold on, what hospital?'

‘Memorial. You know, the big new one out by Southland Shopping Mall.'

‘Right,' said Nan. ‘See you in a couple of hours.'

‘Family troubles?' Millie inquired kindly.

Nan remembered that Millie, who was raised in nearby Castro Valley, had the same kind of family if not the same kind of troubles.

‘Yes,' Nan told her. ‘Better cancel that note to Marjorie Adams. It looks like I'll be running in and out of town for a couple of days.'

‘Sure,' said Millie. ‘I hope whoever it is gets well quickly.'

Quickly, thought Nan, as she walked back to the office. Last week she had no idea just how quickly things could happen and how slowly time could pass.

Rain follows hard
on the
Northern California sun in early January sheets of rain, enough to blot from your memory all warmth and wellbeing. The first part of the drive to Hayward was always against Isadora's will, especially in this rheumatic weather. Nan thought of the rains in Tanzania during the two years she taught there after graduate school. East African rains came with the sun, bathing houses and streets as if from a benign placenta. Nothing else about Tanzania had felt benign, but Nan had loved the gentle predictability of the weather. Here in this California Eden, winter promises were broken in the sky from one hour to the next.

The road was packed with trucks today. She passed two giant Macks hauling tomatoes to the canneries. She could smell the aroma of Hunts from fifteen miles away.

By the time Nan and Isadora reached Hayward, the rain had subsided. Pulling into the hospital parking lot, they almost ran over a rollerskater. Not an eight-year-old kid, but a man in his twenties. He was dancing like Fred Astaire around the parallel parking lines. Bicycles she understood. And skateboards, maybe, but now rollerskates! What next? At least he had chosen a hospital zone.

Nan noticed Joe before she saw Shirley. This sickness must be terribly serious for Joe to take a day off work. From halfway down the corridor, she could see the distress on his reddened face.

Shirley was seated behind her husband, her head in her hands. She would not be crying. Nan knew this. Shirley would not make a scene in public. She would be worrying or praying, probably both.

‘Hello, Nan,' Joe said, as much to alert Shirley as to greet his sister-in-law.

Nan shook his hand and nodded. Then she put an arm around Shirley and asked, ‘What's happening now, honey?'

‘That's what we'd all like to know,' said Joe. ‘We've been in this damn hallway for four hours straight. They won't let us see our own daughter. They won't tell us what the fuck they're doing. What do they think, we're waiting for a streetcar?'

‘Joe,' Shirley said with the balance of sternness and softness she had cultivated during the twenty-five years of their marriage. ‘Joe, just sit here beside me and maybe we can talk.'

Now Joe's head was bowed. He reminded Nan of a terrier mutt they once had, who would go racing after cars and then come home, his tail between his legs, having reckoned the impossibility of the race.

Shirley took her sister's hand. ‘Nan, honey,' she said. ‘We don't know what's going on. Lisa got sick and then fainted this morning. They've been running tests on her since we arrived. Kidneys, heart, the whole thing. Maybe you could talk to them. I mean, you know how to deal with these medical types because Charles was a doctor and all.'

Nan became the family translator, the middle-class woman asking clear, precise questions. She recalled a scene from Morogoro when a tall, skinny boy arranged for his father's amputation because he was the only one in the family with a few English words.

Not that the doctor's language was English, exactly.

‘We think it may be systemic Lupus Erythematosis,' said tired old Dr Bonelli, regarding her carefully to see if she was following.

‘How serious?' asked Nan.

‘The type, severity, time of onset and duration may result in a highly variable pattern and prognosis. Pathologic changes are nonspecific but include widespread fibroid vascular changes and disseminated arteritis.'

‘So you're worried about the heart?' asked Nan.

‘Among other things,' the doctor said hurriedly. ‘But it really is too early to tell, much too early.'

Nan returned to Shirley and Joe with three styrofoam cups of coffee and a certain amount of news. Lisa was conscious. The diagnosis was uncertain. The family would be allowed to visit in fifteen minutes.

During that interminable quarter hour, the fight erupted.

‘Stress,' muttered Joe, sipping listlessly on the cold, black liquid. ‘My pal at work tells me that pressure and tension can
kill
people all right.'

‘Shhh,' said Shirley. ‘We don't need any talk about killing.'

Joe ignored his wife. ‘What else do you expect,' he demanded breathlessly, as if he were trying to shout and whisper at once.

‘Look at that guy who got killed in Nan's own department last week.'

Shirley laid her head in her palms again.

‘Lisa, poor babe, has been overworked and overstressed,' said Joe conclusively. Now Nan noticed he was staring at her. ‘She's in a situation she just can't handle.'

Nan nodded because she did, in fact, think he had a point. But how he was pinning it on her, she didn't understand. Well, the nurse would be here in a few minutes. Then they would all see Lisa.

‘This college business is one of those stresses,' Joe persisted. ‘Have they found out who killed that guy yet?'

‘Joe, please,' Shirley pleaded.

‘No, you listen,' Joe said. ‘Lisa is just an average …'

Shirley reached out for his hand.

He pulled it back, shaking a finger at Nan. ‘Just because some of the family's got overdeveloped heads, it don't mean we all do. She's got my blood in her, too, that kid. She's just your normal American girl.'

Nan did not know how she could keep all this madness inside her head without bursting. The murder. Marjorie's safety. Lisa's survival. Perhaps her mind could work on alternating currents, one disaster distracting her from the other.

‘Joe,' said Nan, with exaggerated calm. ‘If you're saying Lisa got sick because she was working too hard, then you're underestimating …'

‘Please,' said Shirley, now standing between her husband and her sister. ‘Please, both of you. This is no time to …'

‘She's a good, simple kid,' Joe's voice was angrier now.

‘Mr and Mrs Growsky,' called the nurse from several paces away, her voice loud enough to interrupt them, official enough not to crease the hospital routine.

‘Mr and Mrs Growsky,' she said again as she reached a conversational distance. ‘You may go in and see your daughter for about twenty minutes.' The young nurse then turned to Nan. Was she young? Nan hadn't noticed this before. She had only noticed that the nurse was someone who warranted respect because she guarded access to Lisa.

‘And you,' she spoke to Nan, ‘may accompany them if you wish.'

Nan nodded her thanks and caught up with Joe and Shirley as they opened the door to Lisa's ward.

Lisa's eyes, as she greeted her parents, betrayed the panic of a lost child and the confused guilt of someone knowing her pain has brought trouble to other people.

Nan backed out into the hallway, surveying the four-person ward. Green curtains were drawn around the three other beds, providing at least a semblance of privacy for the sleeping, or dying, patients.

Best for Lisa to see her parents alone first, thought Nan. Who was she but some bungling fairy godmother? Maybe Joe was right about Berkeley, not all of it, but about stress at this point in Lisa's life. Look at what had happened to Marjorie Adams. Nan pulled away from the door, to allow the family some privacy.

She was pleased and embarrassed when she heard Lisa's voice, ‘Nan, don't go away, Nan.'

So the three of them stood around her, like zookeepers staring helplessly at a rare bird, her flight broken by some malevolent current. (Maybe it
was
the air, Nan thought wildly, maybe they each would be struck down, the young and tender first, then the tough old crones like herself.)

Nan was surprised to see Lisa lying there with no hoses or tubes. Just Lisa, who looked so young and so pale enveloped in hospital white. Predictably, she tried to cheer up everyone.

‘You know I'm just trying to play hooky from the first week of school.'

After these determined words, Lisa's voice wavered. Her fatigue was most evident in her heavy eyes.

The young nurse fluttered in and discreetly reminded the family that they could view the body for only five more minutes.

Then they were left, standing stupidly in the corridor. They returned to the bench, although the wait for the next visit would be hopelessly long. Another two hours before they might see Lisa again. Another two hours of mysterious tests.

‘Look,' said Nan, breaking through the silent terror. ‘This is going to be expensive …'

‘Thanks for your wisdom, Professor,' said Joe.

‘All I mean is that I've got a little bit saved,' said Nan, ‘and I'd like to help out.'

‘We don't need charity,' said Joe, ignoring the warning on Shirley's face. ‘We've got the union insurance. Besides don't you think you've “helped” enough already.'

‘Joe,' said Shirley, with more anger than Nan had seen since they were girls and Shirley found the Driscoll boy pulling their terrier's ears, ‘Joe Growsky, I think Nan may have had just about enough of you today.'

Shirley noticed the old woman across from them staring. Blushing, she lowered her voice. ‘We're all tired and irritable, and it's obviously not doing us any good sitting here getting at each other.'

Joe regarded his wife apologetically. Sometimes Nan forgot how much Joe relied on Shirley's good sense.

‘Speaking of bills,' he said, stealing a last angry look at Nan, ‘I better get back on the job before I lose it.'

‘Right then,' said Shirley, still very much in command. ‘I'll explain to Lisa. See you late tonight.'

‘Sure, sweetheart,' said Joe with genuine tenderness. He even managed a civil nod to his sister-in-law.

The two women drove over
to Southland Mall for coffee. No use sitting around the dreary hospital for hours. Shirley suggested the Gourmet Sandwich Bar next to Gorman's Ice Cream. She thought Nan would like the special Italian coffee, and maybe she would have one of those sticky Greek desserts.

Shopping. Shopping malls. Shopping centres. Shopping expeditions for birthdays and graduations and weddings. So much of their time together was spent shopping. This was a way for Nan and Shirley to be with each other without confronting each other. A re-enactment of their childhood where every Saturday morning Mom would take them to the sales. They had spent the best years of their lives shopping. Not here, of course, because Southland wasn't built until 1964, when Lisa was four. But many of these stores were transplants from the old Hayward strip on Foothill Boulevard, their owners broader and greyer and more prosperous than in the old days, yet still the kind of people you called Hattie or George. This mall was an odd conglomeration—family jewellers and small stationers next to superchain clothing stores, everything done up in primary colour neon. Such intense Americana was enough to give Nan the shakes.

Maybe this was actually a giant time capsule of late capitalism Nan wondered. Sometimes she imagined that all these people (young mothers listlessly pushing strollers until the next mealtime; old people chatting on the plastic benches; adolescent employees polishing the philodendra), all of them were tied into some bright helium balloon which would go floating up to another planet as ‘Specimen Earth'. Nan was keeping a close watch on the exit signs.

Shirley, her eyes fixed on Penney's window, laughed and pointed, ‘Oh, just look at that outfit.'

Nan cringed at the orange velvet jump suit. It was enough to make Marjorie Adams look inconspicuous.

‘That's the outfit I was trying to describe,' said Shirley.

Nan shrugged.

‘The one that Juliet Amaro wore to Crystal's wedding,' said Shirley, going on rather hectically. ‘Zipped just to the decent level and tied at the waist with a black silk rope. That Juliet, you've got to admire her nerve. Her husband Mike really spoils her. She stays in bed until noon every day reading. And he says all he ever did in those Vietnam swamps was dream of someone to take care of.'