If Tomorrow Comes

She was exhausted from the tension of the evening, but when they reached the door of her flat, she asked, ‘Are you going to come in, Charles?’ She needed to have him hold her in his arms. She wanted him to say, ‘I love you, darling. No one in this world will ever keep us apart.’

He said, ‘Afraid not tonight. I’ve got a heavy morning.’

Tracy concealed her disappointment. ‘Of course. I understand, darling.’

‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’ He gave her a brief kiss, and she watched him disappear down the hallway.

The flat was ablaze and the insistent sound of loud fire bells crashed abruptly through the silence. Tracy jerked upright in her bed, groggy with sleep, sniffing for smoke in the darkened room The ringing continued, and she slowly became aware that it was the telephone. The bedside clock read 2:30 A.M. Her first panicky thought was that something had happened to Charles. She snatched up the phone. ‘Hello?’

A distant male voice asked, ‘Tracy Whitney?’

She hesitated. If this was an obscene phone call… ‘Who is this?’

‘This is Lieutenant Miller of the New Orleans Police Department. Is this Tracy Whitney?’

‘Yes.’ Her heart began to pound.

‘I’m afraid I have bad news for you.’

Her hand clenched around the phone.

‘It’s about your mother.’

‘Has – has Mother been in some kind of accident?’

‘She’s dead, Miss Whitney.’

‘No!’ It was a scream. This was an obscene phone call. Some crank trying to frighten her. There was nothing wrong with her mother. Her mother was alive. I love you very, very much, Tracy.

‘I hate to break it to you this way,’ the voice said.

It was real. It was a nightmare, but it was happening. She could not speak. Her mind and her tongue were frozen.

The lieutenant’s voice was saying, ‘Hello …? Miss Whitney? Hello …?’

‘I’ll be on the first plane.’

She sat in the tiny kitchen of her flat thinking about her mother. It was impossible that she was dead. She had always been so vibrant, so alive. They had had such a close and loving relationship. From the time Tracy was a small girl, she had been able to go to her mother with her problems, to discuss school and boys and, later, men. When Tracy’s father had died, many overtures had been made by people who wanted to buy the business. They had offered Doris Whitney enough money so that she could have lived well for the rest of her life, but she had stubbornly refused to sell. ‘Your father built up this business. I can’t throw away all his hard work.’ And she had kept the business flourishing.

Oh, Mother, Tracy thought. I love you so much. You’ll never meet Charles, and you’ll never see your grandchildren, and she began to weep.

She made a cup of coffee and let it grow cold while she sat in the dark. Tracy wanted desperately to call Charles and tell him what had happened, to have him at her side. She looked at the kitchen clock. It was 3:30 A.M. She did not want to awaken him; she would telephone him from New Orleans. She wondered whether this would affect their wedding plans, and instantly felt guilty at the thought. How could she even think of herself at a time like this? Lieutenant Miller had said, ‘When you get here, grab a taxi and come to police headquarters.’ Why police headquarters? Why? What had happened?

Standing in the crowded New Orleans airport waiting for her suitcase, surrounded by pushing, impatient travellers, Tracy felt suffocated. She tried to move close to the baggage carousel, but no one would let her through. She was becoming increasingly nervous, dreading what she would have to face in a little while. She kept trying to tell herself that it was all some kind of mistake, but the words kept reverberating in her head: I’m afraid I have bad news for you … She’s dead, Miss Whitney … I hate to break it to you this way …

When Tracy finally retrieved her suitcase, she got into a taxi and repeated the address the lieutenant had given her: ‘Seven fifteen South Broad Street, please.’

The driver grinned at her in the rearview mirror. ‘Fuzzville, huh?’

No conversation. Not now. Tracy’s mind was too filled with turmoil.

The taxi headed east towards the Lake Ponchartrain Causeway. The driver chattered on. ‘Come here for the big show, miss?’

She had no idea what he was talking about, but she thought, No. I came here for death. She was aware of the drone of the driver’s voice, but she did not hear the words. She sat stiffly in her seat, oblivious to the familiar surroundings that sped past. It was only as they approached the French Quarter that Tracy became conscious of the growing noise. It was the sound of a mob gone mad, rioters yelling some ancient berserk litany.

‘Far as I can take you,’ the driver informed her.

And then Tracy looked up and saw it. It was an incredible sight. There were hundreds of thousands of shouting people, wearing masks, disguised as dragons and giant alligators and pagan gods, filling the streets and pavements ahead with a wild cacophony of sound. It was an insane explosion of bodies and music and floats and dancing.

‘Better get out before they turn my cab over,’ the driver said. ‘Damned Mardi Gras.’

Of course. It was February, the time when the whole city celebrated the beginning of Lent. Tracy got out of the cab and stood at the curb, suitcase in hand, and the next moment she was swept up in the screaming, dancing crowd. It was obscene, a black witches’ sabbath, a million Furies celebrating the death of her mother. Tracy’s suitcase was torn from her hand and disappeared. She was grabbed by a fat man in a devil’s mask and kissed. A deer squeezed her breasts, and a giant panda grabbed her from behind and lifted her up. She struggled free and tried to run, but it was impossible. She was hemmed in, trapped, a part of the singing, dancing celebration. She moved with the chanting mob, tears streaming down her face. There was no escape. When she was finally able to break away and flee to a quiet street, she was near hysteria. She stood still for a long time, leaning against a lamp-post, taking deep breaths, slowly regaining control of herself. She headed for the police station.

Lieutenant Miller was a middle-aged, harassed-looking man with a weather-beaten face, who seemed genuinely uncomfortable in his role. ‘Sorry I couldn’t meet you at the airport,’ he told Tracy, ‘but the whole town’s gone nuts. We went through your mother’s things, and you’re the only one we could find to call.’

‘Please, Lieutenant, tell me what – what happened to my mother.’

‘She committed suicide.’

A cold chill went through her. ‘That’s – that’s impossible! Why would she kill herself? She had everything to live for.’ Her voice was ragged.

‘She left a note addressed to you.’

The morgue was cold and indifferent and terrifying. Tracy was led down a long white corridor into a large, sterile, empty room, and suddenly she realized that the room was not empty. It was filled with the dead. Her dead.

A white-coated attendant strolled over to a wall, reached for a handle, and pulled out an oversized drawer. ‘Wanna take a look?’

No! I don’t want to see the empty, lifeless body lying in that box. She wanted to get out of this place. She wanted to go back a few hours in time when the fire bell was ringing. Let it be a real fire alarm, not the telephone, not my mother dead. Tracy moved forward slowly, each step a screaming inside her. Then she was staring down at the lifeless remains of the body that had borne her, nourished her, laughed with her, loved her. She bent over and kissed her mother on the cheek. The cheek was cold and rubbery. ‘Oh, Mother,’ Tracy whispered. ‘Why? Why did you do it?’

‘We gotta perform an autopsy,’ the attendant was saying. ‘It’s the state law with suicides.’

The note Doris Whitney left offered no answer.

My darling Tracy,

Please forgive me. I failed, and I couldn’t stand being a burden on you. This is the best way. I love you so much.

Mother

The note was as lifeless and devoid of meaning as the body that lay in the drawer.

That afternoon Tracy made the funeral arrangements, then took a taxi to the family home. In the far distance she could hear the roar of the Mardi Gras revellers, like some alien, lurid celebration.

The Whitney residence was a Victorian house located in the Garden District in the residential section known as Uptown. Like most of the homes in New Orleans, it was built of wood and had no basement, for the area was situated below sea level.

Tracy had grown up in that house, and it was filled with warm, comfortable memories. She had not been home in the past year, and as her taxi slowed to a stop in front of the house, she was shocked to see a large sign on the lawn: FOR SALE – NEW ORLEANS REALTY COMPANY. It was impossible. I’ll never sell this old house, her mother had often told her. We’ve all been so happy together here.

Filled with a strange, unreasoning fire, Tracy moved past a giant magnolia tree towards the front door. She had been given her own key to the house when she was in the seventh grade and had carried it with her since, as a talisman, a reminder of the haven that would always be there waiting for her.