Still Life

He turned the book over and looked at the back, with its ‘blurb’ and brief bio of the author, the famous McGill University doctor and geneticist, Dr Vincent Gilbert. Dr Gilbert glared back, strangely stern for a man who wrote about compassion. This particular book was about his work with Brother Albert Mailloux at ‘La Porte’, mostly with men and women with Down’s syndrome. It was really a meditation on what he’d learned watching these people. What he’d learned about them and the nature of humanity and what he’d learned about himself. It was a remarkable study of arrogance and humility and, above all, forgiveness.

The walls of the shop were lined with bookcases, all ordered and labeled and filled with books, some new, some already read, some French, most English. Myrna had managed to make it feel more like the library in a cultured and comfortable country home than a store. She’d set up a couple of rocking chairs beside an open fire, with a couch facing it. Gamache sank into one of the rockers and reminded himself of the beauty of Being.

‘Now there’s a good book,’ said Myrna, dropping into the chair opposite. She’d brought a pile of used books and some price stickers. ‘We haven’t actually met. I’m Myrna Landers. I saw you at the public meeting.’

Gamache got up and shook her hand, smiling. ‘I saw you too.’

Myrna laughed. ‘I’m hard to miss. The only black in Three Pines and not exactly a slip of a woman.’

‘You and I are well matched.’ Gamache smiled, rubbing his stomach.

She picked a book out of her pile. ‘Have you read this?’

She held a worn copy of Brother Albert’s book, Loss. Gamache shook his head and figured it probably wasn’t the cheeriest of reads. She turned it over in her huge hands and seemed to caress it.

‘His theory is that life is loss,’ said Myrna after a moment. ‘Loss of parents, loss of loves, loss of jobs. So we have to find a higher meaning in our lives than these things and people. Otherwise we’ll lose ourselves.’

‘What do you think of that?’

‘I think he’s right. I was a psychologist in Montreal before coming here a few years ago. Most of the people came through my door because of a crisis in their lives, and most of those crises boiled down to loss. Loss of a marriage or an important relationship. Loss of security. A job, a home, a parent. Something drove them to ask for help and to look deep inside themselves. And the catalyst was often change and loss.’

‘Are they the same thing?’

‘For someone not well skilled at adapting they can be.’

‘Loss of control?’

‘That’s a huge one, of course. Most of us are great with change, as long as it was our idea. But change imposed from the outside can send some people into a tailspin. I think Brother Albert hit it on the head. Life is loss. But out of that, as the book stresses, comes freedom. If we can accept that nothing is permanent, and change is inevitable, if we can adapt, then we’re going to be happier people.’

‘What brought you here? Loss?’

‘That’s hardly fair, Chief Inspector, now you’ve got me. Yes. But not in a conventional way, since of course I always have to be special and different.’ Myrna put back her head and laughed at herself. ‘I lost sympathy with many of my patients. After twenty-five years of listening to their complaints I finally snapped. I woke up one morning bent out of shape about this client who was forty-three but acting sixteen. Every week he’d come with the same complaints, “Someone hurt me. Life is unfair. It’s not my fault.” For three years I’d been making suggestions, and for three years he’d done nothing. Then, listening to him this one day, I suddenly understood. He wasn’t changing because he didn’t want to. He had no intention of changing. For the next twenty years we would go through this charade. And I realised in that same instant that most of my clients were exactly like him.’

‘Surely, though, some were trying.’

‘Oh, yes. But they were the ones who got better quite quickly. Because they worked hard at it and genuinely wanted it. The others said they wanted to get better, but I think, and this isn’t popular in psychology circles’—here she leaned forward and whispered, conspiratorially—‘I think many people love their problems. Gives them all sorts of excuses for not growing up and getting on with life.’

Myrna leaned back again in her chair and took a long breath.

‘Life is change. If you aren’t growing and evolving you’re standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead. Most of these people are very immature. They lead “still” lives, waiting.’