Calla Lily
Episode 2 | Still There
In the first instalment of Still There, Cassandra wakes to some horrific news - news she feels unable to immediately share with her husband. She goes to her disused artist studio alone, attempting to retrieve what she’s been asked for: a portrait of her friend Olivia that Cassandra painted, in what feels like another life, for a major exhibition. When she emerges from the back-garden studio, she sees her husband Paul in the window.
He held a mug of coffee in her direction, but when she was slow and shuffling in approaching him, he slid it onto the battered kitchen island.
'You've been in the studio,' he said, easing onto a bar stool.
She stared at the murky liquid as though the words she needed might float to the surface. Raising it to her lips, she breathed words too horrible to be spoken into the open air into the swirling steam of the cup.
'Olivia’s dead. Her heart.’
He’d been about to take another sip, but in her peripheral vision she could see his own mug stop in mid-air. The branches of the tree printed on it were twisted into letters: WWTP. Wood Wills, Trust and Probate. Paul’s family had always been in the business of death, death and money, but his profession couldn’t protect him from the shock of Olivia dropping dead in her own bedroom on an ordinary Saturday evening. He’d sought Olivia’s opinion on branded coffee cups -- he liked any excuse to ask her something -- and she’d shaken her head, laughing. When people wake up, the last thing they want to think about is that they're going to die. For once, he hadn’t listened to her. Now they had too many of the blasted things.
'My lord, Cassie,’ he said. ‘Whatever next?'
Whatever next.
'For heaven’s sake, Paul. It’s not some weird story on the news. Olivia’s my oldest friend. She is 39 years old. She is dead.'
She was speaking in the present tense. Did people always do that, at first? Was there some predictable moment when the present voice would surrender to the past? Perhaps, when that happened, she would notice it and think, ah, there it is. I’m making progress. For she would, wouldn't she? Make progress? Her father’s death had been different, so different.
She realised she hadn’t yet replied, and when she glanced up, she saw the vein in his neck pulsing. Swiftly she shifted her gaze to a chipped tile on the floor.
‘Cassie,’ he said evenly. ‘My god. My god. I’m just gob smacked. I mean, she got ill when everyone did, but she hardly did, she came through with flying colours. She was so strong, so…fit. How somebody that…well, how she of all people could just suddenly…Jesus. Fuck. It’s ironic. I’m allowed to be shocked.’
She felt something in the dip of soft skin at the bottom of her neck, like a scream was forming there.
'I’m sorry,’ she said.
Paul exhaled. ‘You’re all right,’ he said, trundling off his barstool. ‘You’ll be all right. I’m here.’ She stepped back, folding into herself like origami and slipping each of her hands into the opposite sleeve.
‘Come,’ Paul said, reaching out. ‘C’mere. My poor darling. Come on.’
The grip of her fingers on her forearms confirmed it was all real.
‘Cassie,’ he said, louder. ‘Cass. Come here. Let me comfort you at least.’
'Jack’s asked for Olivia's portrait for the memorial. The original,’ she said to the broken tile. ‘Could you go to the studio and get it for me? Please?'
‘Cuddle me first,’ he insisted, holding out his arms, his brow furrowed. ‘You must need a cuddle, Cassie.’
His neck was slightly damp, the firm muscles of his shoulder and chest unyielding against her limp body. She closed her eyes so tightly that white shapes exploded in the darkness behind her lids, and she kept them shut as he finally let go. She heard the jangle of keys. ‘Should I fetch it now?’ he asked. ‘Are you going today? Did he want you to come today?'
‘He wanted today,’ she said.
‘Just you?’
‘Us. I told him we’d both be there. Of course.’
‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘Oh god. We’re due at Richard’s at 1. It’s his 50th. Christ. What am I supposed to tell him?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t have to go into town.’
She waited.
‘Go on,’ he said finally, sighing. ‘I can’t not go to Richard’s. Do you think you might be able to come there afterwards, or should I make your excuses?’
Cassandra was silent.
‘Right,’ he said, after a time. ‘I’ll call an RT. You’re a rubbish driver at the best of times, and today of all days you shouldn’t be behind the wheel.’
‘Oh god, Paul,’ she said. ‘Does it have to be? RoboTaxis make me so nervous, I hate them, I always think they’re going to crash. Can’t I…’
‘Don’t be silly, darling,’ he said. ’You’re being illogical. That’s the point - they’re almost incapable of crashing. A human driver is far more likely to crash. Morning after the last Saturday before Christmas, all the parties, there’s probably not a cabbie in London who isn’t still drunk or exhausted today. Besides, I won’t be able to be sure you’re okay if you’re in an untracked car. Just…no.’
‘Paul,’ Cassandra pleaded. ’This is such a strange day. I…’
‘No,’ he said, firmly. ‘Don’t fight me on this. An RT.’
‘Fine,’ she mumbled.
‘Sorry?’
‘I said, that’s fine. It’s fine, Paul.’
‘If I can’t be there, and I suppose I can’t on account of Richard, I have to look out for you somehow,’ he said.
‘Thank you.’
He hugged her tightly again. ‘Olivia. God. I can’t believe it. I’m so sorry, darling. So sorry.’ The keys rattled in his hand as he put on his coat. His departure wafted cold air and peace into the kitchen, but she didn’t breathe out yet. She stood like a statue in the kitchen, feeling like someone had scooped all her insides out.
The box leaned against the opposite seat, nearly touching the ceiling, preventing her from seeing the road ahead. In a vehicle like this, she couldn’t be a back-seat driver if she tried. It occurred to her that she should bring Jack something to eat, in case he had been too distraught to feed himself.
‘Um…hello…car? Could we make another stop? Before…could we make another stop first? Please?’ she said.
The RT smoothly adjusted its speed to allow for the possibility of an imminent turn. It was a comfortable ride, at least, with no jerky stops or wild turns. ‘You’d like to make an interim stop,’ it replied. ‘Do you have the postcode?’ It had a baritone voice and the kind of expensive-education accent that human drivers had never had.
'I don't, sorry. It’s The Pantry on Wynstead High Street, please.’
‘We will arrive at The Pantry in five minutes.'
Cassandra hesitated to leave the portrait alone, but the lock sounded behind her with a reassuring thunk as she closed the door. Allegedly the RT wouldn’t or couldn’t budge until she returned. Simultaneous pings sounded on her watch and her phone as she entered The Pantry. Aren’t you headed to Soho?
I didn’t eat anything before I left, she replied. I’m grabbing something.
Oh okay, Paul replied. Hope it goes as well as it can. xx
Cassandra sent three x’s back, following the formula: his number of kisses, plus one. She chose coffee-flavoured eclairs and a roasted-vegetable melange but doubted herself, wondering if indulgent pastries and a pine-nut-scattered salad box were incorrect protocol. When her father died, hearty offerings in stoneware dishes would appear on the doorstep of her mother’s cottage. Lasagnes, casseroles, and stews, each large enough to last the week.
To the left of The Pantry, amongst the red berries and poinsettias in the florist’s window, there were white lilies, their huge continuous petals unfurling from their stems and bending backwards like ballerinas. Something about them compelled her, and she bought three, one for every decade of her time with Olivia.
The door slid open for her as the car somehow detected her. If there were a camera on its exterior, she couldn’t see where it was. Some passers-by stared as she entered it, RTs being still a relatively novel sight in Wynstead. Settling the bag of food between her feet, she cradled the small bouquet in her lap. Should she keep these flowers for herself or give them to Jack? He had sounded so fragile that rummaging for a vase might undo him, and she feared overtaxing him.
‘Are you ready to continue?’ a voice said in the silence, and she jumped. ‘For maximum safety, please fasten your seatbelt,’ it continued, only gliding away from the kerb after she had obeyed its instructions.
Peeking under the paper at the flowers' open mouths, she flashed back to Wolfgang Schneider's art history class and to her and Olivia as silly sixth formers. They sketched pictures of Herr Schneider in their notebooks, called him Wolfie, and giggled behind their hands about his muscular arms, so unusual for a teacher of art. She remembered the projected image of a Georgia O'Keefe lily, large and bright on the wall in the dark, with Wolfie’s bicep silhouetted against the slide as he directed his laser pointer at the centre of the painting. The blood had rushed hotly to her cheeks.
Best to check what calla lilies meant. Her mother would know — she was clever like that, knew the language of flowers, could encode messages into a bouquet like a Victorian lady with a secret passion to express. But Cassandra could not be the bearer of bad news just so her mum could tell her how three lilies translated. If her mother had not rung her, it meant the news about Olivia had not yet hit the village where they’d grown up.
‘Clio. What do calla lilies symbolise?’ she asked. But her phone, buried in the bags at her feet, couldn’t hear her. The RT piped up instead.
Photo by Manuel Torres Garcia on Unsplash
'The name calla lily comes from calla, the Greek word for beautiful,' the RT said. 'Zeus brought Hercules, another woman’s son, to his wife, Hera. Hera started to nurse Hercules but then pushed him away. Drops of her milk fell to earth from Mount Olympus, and pure white lilies grew where the milk had landed.’
They’d studied the Greek myths at school too, and Olivia had gravitated towards the gruesome, anything about death and the underworld. On school trips she terrified their friends with stories. Cassandra remembered one of them to this day, the tale of a young girl dead too soon, whose parents had ordered a staircase dug next to her grave.
The girl's grieving mother descended the steps whenever a thunderstorm raged, Olivia had intoned around the campfire. Storms had always frightened the little girl. Her mother didn't want her to be alone.
Their schoolmates had gathered around the flames and gripped one another's hands, enraptured, hanging on Olivia’s every word. Her hair, reflected in the light of the fire, looked like it too was burning.
Drawing a curtain aside, the mother pressed her tear-stained face against a window facing straight into the grave.
Presumably this window would not have let the bereaved mother see into the actual casket, would not have exposed her child’s gradual, horrible decay. But young Cassandra, listening to Olivia, had pictured a pale, incorruptible body, arms crossed on its chest, white lilies wreathed round its head.
Olivia’s body must be in a refrigerator somewhere now, a label tied round her toe. Olivia Noble, 39. Such visions made no sense, did not fit, and nausea twisted in Cassandra's belly.
'Would you like to hear more?' the RT asked.
'I don't know,' said Cassandra. 'No.'
'Okay,' the RT said affably, and fell silent.
She had acted quickly, and it was not much past noon. Somewhere above the slate-coloured cloud muffling London like thick grey fleece, the sun would be high in the sky. Her RT, one of a queue of perfectly equally spaced vehicles, piloted noiselessly down the motorway in one of the dedicated lanes springing up all around the city. A fresh, sharp yellow line of paint and an invisible barrier prevented mingling with regular cars. Every time Cassandra glanced out the right-hand window, she met the gaze of curious passengers in driven cars and looked away again, embarrassed. Eventually the RT would dive down into the bustle of pre-Christmas London, but between here and there lay an anodyne stretch of road, nothing but bare trees and repeating patterns of big-box warehouses for miles. It was too quiet.
‘Can I hear a bit more of what you were saying about the lilies before?’ she asked.
'Venus, the goddess of love and desire, saw the lilies and was envious,' the RT said. A slight hush of suspense entered its tone, a touch of theatricality. Its vocabulary and delivery made it sound far more sophisticated than Clio. 'She cursed the flower, placing a prominent yellow pistil in its centre. The flower became associated not only with beauty, but with sexuality and lustfulness.'
From the paper-wrapped flowers on Cassandra’s lap, a curve of lily showed like a flash of white thigh beneath a hitched-up skirt.
'That's enough, thank you,' said Cassandra.
As Cassandra confronts Olivia’s mysterious death, she must also come to terms with the unpalatable realities of her own circumstances.
About the Author
Elaine Kasket ventures into new territory with Still There, her first novel. Known for her nonfiction work, she's now exploring the boundaries between memory, technology, and human connection through fiction. This serialised novel is being released exclusively on Substack, with new installments dropping every Tuesday and Friday. Join the journey from the beginning—subscribe to make sure you don't miss a single episode.
This is so good! Looking forward to the next.