Forty Words for Sorrow by Giles Blunt Read Free Book Online Page B

enough, he often thought. I should bring more joy into this woman’s life. But by the time she had begun this latest nosedive, he had been working burglaries and was in a bad mood himself most of the time. Some help.
    “You’re looking pretty good, Catherine. I don’t think you’ll be in here too long this time.”
    Her right hand never stopped moving, her index finger drawing tiny circles over and over again on the arm of the couch. “I know I’m a witch to live with. I would have killed me by now, but—” She broke off, still staring out the window. “But that doesn’t mean my ideas are insane. It’s not as if I’m … Fuck. I’ve lost my train of thought.”
    The swear word, like the obsessive circling movement of her hand, was a bad sign; Catherine didn’t swear when she was well.
    “So pathetic,” she said bitterly. “Can’t even finish a sentence.” The medication did that to her, broke her thoughts into small pieces. Perhaps that was why it worked, eventually: it short-circuited the chains of association, the obsessive ideas. Nevertheless, Cardinal could feel the hot jet of anger gushing inside his wife, blotting everything out like an artery opened in water. Both of her hands were making the obsessive circles now.
    “Kelly’s doing well,” he said brightly. “Sounds practically in love with her painting teacher. She enjoyed her visit.”
    Catherine looked at the floor, shaking her head slowly. Not accepting any positive remarks, thank you.
    “You’ll feel better soon,” Cardinal said gently. “I just wanted to see you. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I thought we could have a chat. I don’t want to upset you.”
    He could see Catherine’s thoughts growing heavier. Her head sank lower. One hand now covered her eyes like a visor.
    “Cath, honey, listen. You will feel better. I know it feels like you won’t just now. It feels like nothing will ever be right again, but we’ve got through this before and we’ll get through it again.”
    People think of depression as sadness, and in its milder manifestations perhaps it is, but there could be little comparison between a tearful parting, say, or a sense of loss and these massive, devastating attacks Catherine suffered. “It’s as if I am invaded,” she had told him. “It rolls into me like black clouds of gas. All hope is annihilated. All joy is slaughtered.” All joy is slaughtered . He would never forget her saying that.
    “Take it easy,” he said now. “Catherine? Please, hon. Take it slow, now.” He put a hand on her knee and received not the slightest flicker of response. Her thoughts, he knew, were a turmoil of self-loathing. She had told him as much: “Suddenly,” she said, “I can’t breathe. All the air is sucked out of the room, and I’m being crushed. And the worst thing is knowing what a misery I am to live with. I’m fastened to you like a stone, dragging you down and down and down. You must hate me. I hate me.”
    But she said nothing now, just remained motionless, with her neck bent forward at a painful angle.
    Three months ago Catherine had been bright and cheerful, her normal self. But gradually, as it often did in winter, her cheerfulness had ballooned into mania. She began to speak of travelling to Ottawa. It became her sole topic of conversation. Suddenly, it was vital she see the prime minister, she must talk sense into Parliament, she must tell the politicians what had to be done to save the country, save Quebec. Nothing could jog her from this obsession. It would start every morning at breakfast; it was the last thing she said at night. Cardinal thought he would go mad himself. Then Catherine’s ideas had taken on an interplanetary cast. She began to talk of NASA, of the early explorers, the colonization of space. She stayed awake for three nights running, writing obsessively in a journal. When the phone bill arrived, it listed three hundred dollars’ worth of calls to Ottawa and Houston.
    Finally, on