An Imperfect Librarian - Elizabeth Murphy [72]
Not long after, Edith arrives with a box of Christmas decorations. “Continue on with whatever you were doing. Don’t worry about me. I’ll keep myself busy.” She turns on her portable CD player with Christmas music.
I go back to working on my laptop. When Edith’s finished decorating, I call her over by my bedside. “Do me a favour? Pick me up a gift for Mr. Mercer? A Christmas gift?” I whisper.
“I’d be happy to play your Christmas elf. What did you have in mind?”
“A book about the weather, storms, lots of pictures, colour. Don’t worry about the cost.”
“Anything else?”
“If I wasn’t stuck in the hospital, I might have bought you a book. What would you have liked?”
“Nothing at all for me.”
“Don’t you have a favourite book or author?”
“I like to read for the sake of reading.”
“What if everyone had to memorize one book to be communicated to future generations, what would yours be?”
“That’s a strange question.”
“Just curious. I was thinking about Fahrenheit 451 lately and people learning books off by heart.”
“Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Under the circumstances, we’d need to preserve the great literature of the world. Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet. Definitely. The greatest love story of all time.”
“I’d like to buy you a fine copy for Christmas. Can you look for one?”
“If you’ll autograph it: to my Juliet.”
“How about we settle on: Merry Christmas from your good friend Carl?”
Edith’s visit ends. Then comes the prodding and poking by the doctor, a visit from the nurse, an inedible hospital supper, and finally, a visit from Norah. I ask her to draw the curtains around my bed but she plays coy. She complains about the state of the road and hints that she’ll need to leave early.
“You only just got here. I want to be with you.”
She kisses me on the forehead. “Sometimes, Carl, you’re so much fun to be with. I have wonderful memories of the summer we spent together, like the time the oar fell in the water. You jumped in after it with your life jacket and Folio thought you were drowning. Other times...”
“Other times what?”
“Other times you complicate things unnecessarily.”
“I’m going to be divorced soon. I haven’t been with her, with Elsa, in ages.”
She lowers her head. “I’m not talking about that. I’m tired. Really I am. They didn’t give me tenure. They said I wasn’t doing enough research.”
I reach forward to wipe off a tear from her cheek. She turns away from me. We hold hands in the blinking lights of the uninvited Christmas tree. The conversation shifts to the weather, the animals and her planned visit to Walter’s family for Christmas dinner. She leaves when the nurse arrives.
Mercedes, Cyril, Henry and Edith show up early the next morning. Henry sits on Mr. Mercer’s bed. They finger through the weather book and exchange weather stories. Henry opens the Swiss chocolate bar. “Eighty percent cocoa. I wasn’t skimpy on your gift, Carl, was I?” he says.
Cyril and Mercedes give me a book on hockey. Cyril explains the new rules the NHL wants to bring in and why they could favour the Canadiens over the rival Leafs. Mercedes and Edith concentrate on the Scrabble game. That’s a gift from Edith. The St. Bonaventure’s College school choir is doing rounds of rooms. They sing “We wish you a Merry Christmas.”
I wish. But I don’t waste it on a Merry Christmas.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
a knight in aluminium armour
TRUE TO THE PREDICTIONS OF my doctor, I emerge from the hospital a new man. Wish I could say as much good about my car. While I was in hospital, it was buried under a mountain of snow – most of it dumped by the plough. Cyril said it took two men to shovel it out. He had a peek at the engine then replaced the battery for me. He won’t take any money for it. “In exchange, you can let me win at the next game of 120s,” he says. I’m willing to forgive its squeaks and squeals on condition it can get me to Cliffhead. It starts OK. In the end, the problem’s more with the road than the car. No one ever taught me to drive on an obstacle course with drifts that