The Delphi Room

ChiZine Publications

The Delphi Room
© 2013 by Melia McClure
Cover artwork © 2013 by Erik Mohr
Cover design © 2013 by Samantha Beiko
Interior design © 2013 by Danny Evarts

All rights reserved.

Published by ChiZine Publications

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

EPub Edition SEPTEMBER 2013 ISBN: 978-1-77148-186-1

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CHIZINE PUBLICATIONS
Toronto, Canada
www.chizinepub.com
[email protected]

Edited by Samantha Beiko
Proofread by Klaudia Bednarczyk

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada.

Published with the generous assistance of the Ontario Arts Council.

For my parents, Patrick and Jacqueline,
and my sisters, Kara and Chelsi,
with infinite love and gratitude

and

For Scott,
in his memory

M
y mother was on her way over the day I hung myself. Only I didn’t know it, because she never calls in advance. I never intended for her to find me, but at the time I wasn’t thinking about who would. The bathroom tiles needed re-grouting; mildew stains spread like grubby wings. I had bought some grout—it still sat under the bathroom sink behind a collection of bright pink razors and an explosion of make-up. Pieces of the ceiling had crumbled away, exposing the pipes—should’ve had that fixed, too. Doyenne of domesticity, I am not.

My mother had let herself in as usual. (How did she get a key? Is her doppelganger a locksmith?) I think she brought some chicken soup and some leftover chow mein. (A combination guaranteed to cure any cold—I had spoken to her a couple of days before and complained of a sore throat.) She talked as she came through the door, calling out to me and commenting, true to form, on the weather/traffic/state of my abode, eyes sharp to the ruin or repair. (Mostly—this time—ruin.) She left her shoes—marvellous shoes, Italian leather always,
(like buttah!)
, purchased on Commercial Drive—at the foot of the hat stand. I never actually kept any hats on it, but I have always been rather taken with the jauntiness of hat stands. (You could imagine one coming to life and having a winning personality, singing and dancing and with the voice of Liza Minnelli.) In the kitchen she set down her C&C cold cure, as she calls it, commenting all the while, I’m sure, on the stacks of dishes in the sink, Pyrex plates with satiny layers of congealed foodstuffs in various earthy colourations. I hadn’t done the dishes in two weeks. I hadn’t eaten in three days. There was nothing left to eat on, and anyway I hadn’t gone grocery shopping. If I did it again, I would make the effort and do a little Martha Stewart-ing. Prepare the tomb, like an Egyptian slave. Then nobody could say the girl was nuts
and
she didn’t have clean underwear.

My mother must have panicked right away when she didn’t hear my voice. She has always been the dramatic type, and though she is full-bodied and loud-voiced, I have always thought of her as an enamelled butterfly whose lacquer is just about to crack. I must have been dangling several minutes by then, limp as a dishrag, sallow skin overtaken by an icy blue like twilight. The fan was whirring in the bathroom; I had turned it on earlier because my CD player was broken and I couldn’t stand the sound of the silence. I didn’t want to hear music anyway, didn’t want to hear the honeyed smoke of anyone’s voice timbre-ing up and down some sweet scherzo. I wanted blankness. I wanted white noise. The bathroom fan was the closest I could get to it—the steady, unfaltering, noisy noiseless noise.

Peregrinations all night long: bare feet on the floorboards and the tick of the clock, punctuation for my pacing. Hair a rope of grease, goose bumps bubble-wrapping my arms. Night-shod, The Drive was eerily quiet: no traffic-ruckus hemp-and-muslin bustle drifted down toward my door. Streetlight melted through my curtains. I was not crying.

In the kitchen I wet a sponge so I could stamp my bills—I don’t like the taste of the glue. There were several: phone, cable, credit cards. I was usually late with my bills, but not this time. I wiped the crumbs from the kitchen table and stacked and re-stacked the envelopes, settling with cable on top.

Several bottles of pills sat on the counter. I had not taken any in three months. (Or was it four?) I’m not sure why I’d hung on to them, except that looking at the bottles kind of felt like sleeping with a security blanket. But all comfort had disappeared, and become unnecessary. So I gathered up the bottles and threw them in the garbage.

The sun started to appear, blue-ing the big black dome of sky. I went into the bathroom, turned on the bathtub faucet and plugged the drain. Upstairs a toilet flushed and I stared at the pipes in the ceiling, imagining the goods in transit. On the edge of the tub sat a bottle of pale yellow oil. I poured the whole thing in. Beside that sat a bag of fizzy bath bursts, sherbet-hued and floral-scented, and I added those as well. Then from the cupboard beneath the sink, I pulled a large basket of round soft bath beads, bright and perfect like plastic jewels with secret, liquid hearts. I stood at the edge of the tub and dropped them into the water one by one, and watched the liquid without release the liquid within. Tea lights were scattered around the bathtub and across the counter, and I picked up my butane lighter and sparked them with slow ceremonial flourish. Once upon a time bathing was a ritual, a spiritual act—I had never liked showers. It was always much more satisfying to see the ring of grime after a bath, and feel lighter, having left something behind. After my candles were lit I turned off the faucet. The trapped water nudged at the edge of the tub, as though trying to see over. I undressed slowly: off came chartreuse-trimmed fitted black pants, beaded pink top, big white country-girl underwear (my own private protest against the assault of the G-string) and a once cream-coloured bra that I had accidentally dyed pistachio-pudding-green in the wash. I lowered myself in slowly, careful not to let any of the water slosh on my tea lights. I lay on the bottom, head underwater, and looked up. The perfumed water assaulted my eyes, but the sting was somehow distant, a pain from the past. The remains of the bath beads floated overhead: melted stars, fruit-toned lily pads. I blew bubbles to swirl them, then watched them go still and sat up, disturbing the surface of the water very slowly—first the top of my head, then my eyes, nose, and mouth. I leaned back and drew the bath bead bodies closer, capping each finger with a dissolving half-orb. Stretching my fingers out in front of me, I inspected my handiwork: grotesque nail polish. Tea light wax grew clear, gave the appearance of flame leaping from water. Candles’ hot gold hearts licked and swam, an audience—breathless, charged up, responsive. I put my hands beneath the surface, watched my lacquer melt free of my fingertips, leaned back and closed my eyes. There was a pulsing just behind the lids, a steady, resigned, ludicrous heartbeat. I lay like that for quite a while, a soak of sweat beading my face, breathing in the combustion of competing scents rising from the water.

I heaved myself out of the tub; the water had chilled and I shivered, though the hairs on my upper lip were encased in tiny sweat-sarcophagi. I watched the tub swallow its contents down the drain, studied the dark slime-gritty ring, saw the bits of gel-smeary bath bead shells dotting the bottom like sticky confetti. Head hung over the sink, I slurped cold water, splashed my face. The mirror gave myself back to me, cruel in its faithfulness. My nose breathed the heavy, flowery air. I patted my face and body on a dirty pink towel and retrieved my make-up bag from the cupboard. I wanted to wear my new red lipstick. Out came foundations (semi-matte, matte, pancake), powders (pressed, loose, iridescent), blush (gel, crème, powder), glosses (sparkly and non), tints, eyebrow brushes, eyelash combs, mascaras (brown, black, purple), shadows (creaseproof and waterproof) and liners (liquid and pencil): palette arsenal, compact theatrics. White lotion glopped into the palm of my hand, smeared over my face, sank down pores. I found the red I was after, still in its box. Eyes in the glass looked out at me: remote, slow blinkers. A blitz of powder, cornsilky grains speckled with sparkles. Audrey Hepburn channels Bambi: doe-eye black liquid liner taking flight at the corners. Petal-pink cheeks, hibiscus tint with a soft, soft finish. My special lipstick I uncapped and turned up as far as it would go—a true ’40s coming-in-on-a-wing-and-a-prayer red, glam, glam. I put it on thick, venturing a little beyond my natural borders.

Perfume next. Vanilla base, spicy top note, cut with sandalwood. I drenched myself with it, watched strands of scent lengthen down my chest, disappear under my breasts.