‘Not that I know.’
‘A blessing, if it continues.’
Edith had told Melanie what she could about Carol, that she seemed intelligent, had good manners, and hadn’t once telephoned Brett at the house here. And maybe, Edith thought, Carol really loved Brett.
‘How long has it been now since you’ve seen him?’
‘Oh – I think around Easter he had to come back to get something. A couple of books. Clothes.’
‘By himself?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘How long did he stay? You didn’t talk?’
‘He stayed about an hour. I think I asked him if he was happy. I hope he is. Why should I bear him a grudge?’
Melanie inquired also about the financial situation. Brett was sending Edith two hundred dollars a month. Cliffie contributed between thirty and fifty dollars a month (he paid something weekly, usually, but Edith was giving statistics by the month), George more or less pulled his weight with a hundred and fifty a month, and of course his medical insurance paid for his doctor, though some of his medicines had to come out of the hundred and fifty and were rather expensive. Edith patronized the local drugstore, Stan’s, and Stan would always refill the phenobarbitol or whatever prescriptions even if Edith hadn’t the renewal stamp from Carstairs. Edith didn’t write down the cost every time, because it was a bore and it didn’t seem to matter all that much. But after the electricity, oil for the heating and hot water, gas, and the telephone bill (lots of the telephone bill had to do with the Bugle), the car upkeep (Ford only, as Cliffie took care of the Volks), and the house mortgage which would, thank God, be finished in another two years, and the crazy unexpecteds like the rusted boiler that had had to be replaced a few months ago, there was either nothing left at the end of the month, or Edith had to dip into the checking account at Brunswick First National. Edith and Brett kept about six hundred in the checking account, and they had around three thousand in the Brunswick Savings Bank. She told Melanie all this. Brett hadn’t taken any cash with him that Edith knew of.
‘I wouldn’t have minded at all if he’d taken a couple of thousand. It’s his right,’ Edith said.
Edith went on to say that she and Brett had around fourteen thousand invested in the Dreyfus Fund in New York, and Brett hadn’t said anything about this, was leaving it to her presumably.
‘In an annuity?’ Melanie asked.
‘No, it’s just invested. We let it ride. We never felt we had enough – definite money coming in to start an annuity. We were —’ She had been going to say they had intended to use the money to send Cliffie to Princeton. Edith felt suddenly bewildered, as if she’d had a few drinks, though she hadn’t had a drink all day. Edith realized that the sums she had mentioned must sound like peanuts to her great-aunt, and that Melanie must think she and Brett were fuzzy-minded about money, not to have straightened all this out between them. So be it, Edith thought, at least they’d never borrowed or run into debt, and they had the house here, certainly worth fifty thousand by now, more than the twenty-five they’d paid for it. This was more than one could say for people like the Johnsons who were always in the red, Gert admitted, and as Brett had said years ago had debts all over the place, and didn’t own their house, only rented it.
‘If I may ask, dear, what does Brett intend to do about the Dreyfus money?’
‘Oh, I think he said that’s mine. Yes, I’m sure he said that.’ Edith was not sure. It wasn’t on any paper that it was hers, and Edith felt sure Melanie was thinking this. But Brett wasn’t the type to try to hang on to fourteen thousand or even part of it, under these circumstances.
Melanie had more questions. Edith told her that Brett’s job on the Post paid nearly twice as much as the Trenton Standard had, and Melanie was quick to observe that Brett and Carol must be doing quite well in New York with Carol’s salary plus her well-to-do-family, and Edith had to admit that this must be true.
‘I don’t mind taking a job as a saleswoman somewhere in town, if I have to,’ Edith said. ‘Might even be good for me. There’re a couple of shops I know of I could try, one a gift shop and the other specializes in oriental imports – bamboo and such-like. Both the shops are always complaining about the rotten help they get from teen-aged girls. They wouldn’t mind a middle-aged woman they could count on.’ Edith paused and laughed. ‘I know, because Gert’s always telling me.’
Melanie was silent for a few moments, and Edith braced herself for Melanie to tell her to ring up Brett now, even at the office, which Edith would have been loath to do. Just then, Edith heard a car in the driveway that sounded like Cliffie’s Volks, and almost at the same time the doorbell rang.
‘Don’t know who this is,’ Edith said as she got up.
It was Dr Carstairs with his black bag at the door, and from the driveway came Cliffie, climbing the side steps in dirty sneakers, hands in hip pockets.
‘Hello, Mrs Howland,’ said the doctor. ‘I think it’s time for another look at our patient. Sorry I didn’t have time to phone you first.’ The doctor came in with the confidence of a man who knew he would be admitted. He wore a rather limp white jacket, not a doctor’s jacket but an ordinary summer jacket. ‘How is he?’
‘Hi, Mom,’ Cliffie said, going into the living room.
‘He had his tea today. I don’t know if he’s awake or not.’ Edith had the feeling she had said exactly the same phrases a hundred times before.
‘I’ll just go up, if I may.’ Dr Carstairs climbed the stairs two at a time with hardly a sound.
Had another month rolled by? Must have. ‘Dr Carstairs,’ Edith said to Melanie. ‘He comes once a month to look at George and give him some kind of injection.’
‘Pee-eeesurr-rr! Pow!’ Cliffie put in, miming the act of giving himself an injection in the rump, wincing mightily.
Edith tried to ignore him. He’d had a few beers at very least.
‘I’d like to speak with the doctor,’ Melanie said. ‘You don’t mind, do you, Edith?’
‘Of course not! But I’ve got to catch him for you, because he practically dashes out.’
‘Dash, dash! Fweet!’ said Cliffie, brushing his hands together, swinging a foot high in front of him like a football kick.
Edith wished he would go to his room, even turn his transistor on full blast, rather than this. ‘Want some iced tea, Cliffie?’
‘I want an iced beer!’ Cliffie said, looking at both of them, and laughing.
He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and was going to grow a beard again, Edith supposed.
Melanie put on a tactful smile. ‘Where’ve you been, Cliffie?’
‘Just hacking.’
This was a term meaning to stand around talking, Edith thought, maybe a term years old, but Cliffie hung onto things in an amusing way.
‘Why doesn’t Carstairs give old George a real whammo and then – fweet!’ Cliffie gave himself the powerful injection again. ‘Finito!’
‘Cliffie, on your old aunt’s last day, I think you might cut the horseplay,’ Edith said.
‘Oh, that’s all right, Edith!’
‘What horseplay?’ asked Cliffie.
Edith heard the doctor’s light step descending the stairs, and went into the hall. He had spent scarcely five minutes with George, as usual. ‘You know my great-aunt, Mrs Cobb, I think,’ Edith said to the doctor.
Carstairs smiled. ‘Indeed! How are you, Mrs Cobb?’
‘Pretty well, I think, thank you,’ Melanie said. ‘I don’t want to delay you, but I’m leaving tomorrow, and I wanted to ask you what you think of George’s condition – now?’
‘Well —’ Carstairs smiled again. He had declined a chair. ‘He hasn’t changed appreciably in years. It’s just a slow decline.’
‘And his back hurts him still?’ asked Melanie.
‘That’s what gives him pain – if he moves too much.’
‘And there’s no new drug, no massage, I suppose, at this point —’
‘He’s eighty-five or -six,
’ Carstairs said. He had black and white straight hair, rather like Brett’s, gray eyes, rimless, delicate-looking glasses. ‘You don’t get many changes, at his age.’
Melanie glanced at Edith, then looked back at the doctor. ‘What do you think about a nursing home? I’m sorry you haven’t time to sit down, doctor, but – It’s that my niece has enough to do, running the house on her own now, and she’s thinking of taking a part-time job. George after all could afford a nursing home.’
Dr Carstairs looked evasive, as if he were thinking of his next appointment, trying to fish up a placebo, and it came. ‘That’s always a personal matter – within the family.’ He looked at Edith, his lips slightly parted as usual, though not in a smile. ‘It’s not for me to prescribe a home.’
Standing by the bar cart, Cliffie listened, rapt.
‘Yes, it’s for us to sound him out,’ said Melanie. ‘He might be quite willing.’
Inspired by Melanie’s directness, Edith said, ‘He wet the bed a couple of times recently. I really must buy a rubber sheet. Absurd that we haven’t bought one yet. He’s quite cognisant of what he does but – I admit it’s a pain in the neck when it happens.’ And Edith laughed, having tried to say it as lightly as possible, the awful, the plain fact that she was fed up. Ten, eleven or twelve years now.
‘Maybe what you’re concerned about is whether he’d go into a decline if he went into a nursing home,’ said Dr Carstairs. ‘I’m afraid I’m not capable of answering that. It’s a personality matter. You’d have to ask George direct, see what he says.’
‘He certainly spends most of his time sleeping,’ Melanie said. ‘How much codeine are you giving him? Would you call it a heavy dose?’
‘Medium,’ the doctor replied. ‘Liquid form. Injections of morphine just once a month to give him a little more comfort, a little blissful sleep if you like.’
‘That’s right,’ Edith said to Melanie. ‘He probably won’t wake up for dinner tonight.’
‘Good!’ said Cliffie.
The doctor glanced at Cliffie with no change of expression. He knew Cliffie. ‘He’s a grand old fellow, but his days are drawing to a close. Lots of cases like this. One has to try to make the last years as comfortable as possible.’ He was drifting toward the front door. ‘See you next month, Mrs Howland. Oh! Not quite true. My assistant will come instead. I’m off on vacation. You know Dr Miller. He’ll come. Good afternoon to you!’ Dr Carstairs let himself out.
Melanie sat down on the sofa again, her back as straight as ever. ‘You know, my dear – George is just one thing too many for you right now.’
Edith looked at Cliffie, who was still standing by the bar cart listening with a blank yet attentive expression. Cliffie didn’t even return George’s books to the library, unless Edith prodded him to take away the stack on the hall table, and even then he’d failed her once or twice, leaving the books in his Volks, which Edith only learned when Mrs Randall, the librarian, had spoken to her about their being overdue. ‘Cliffie, would you mind terribly – letting Melanie and me talk alone for a while?’
‘No,’ Cliffie said, moving off at once toward the kitchen.
Edith heard the inevitable plop of the fridge door, the pop of a beer can, then Cliffie’s transistor blared out. The sounds of chaos, Edith thought. Melanie looked at her strangely. Was Melanie thinking she was strange?
‘I think you ought to sound George out about a nursing home, Edith. I’d do it with you except – perhaps he’d think it was my idea, since I’m here.’ Melanie smiled, then just as quickly her blue eyes became serious. ‘There’s a tenseness about you I don’t like to see. The easier you make things for yourself – And if I may say so, George is Brett’s responsibility.’
‘True enough.’ But Edith couldn’t face or listen to any more, and she got up with the excuse that it was exactly news time, and switched on the television. The Arabs and Israelis were fighting. The noon news, which Edith had heard while making lunch, said that the Israelis were hitting Arab air bases with a startling accuracy. Melanie listened to the brief report, but not with the same interest as Edith. Edith knew Melanie’s mind was more than half on her problems. The war news was followed by a beauty contest report from Florida, and Edith switched off.
‘I’d like you to ring up Brett now, Edith – for your old aunt’s sake. Do you mind doing me that favor?’
‘Now?’
‘Yes, and now he’s on the way home or it’s the cocktail hour, I suppose, and you’re afraid of interrupting. I’ll go straight up to my room so I won’t hear a word. I’ll close my door.’
Edith took a breath, looked at the carpet and at once looked up at her great-aunt’s tall figure. Melanie’s blue eyes regarded Edith like the eyes of a mother-father figure – or maybe God. Could Melanie even be right? ‘I haven’t any hope.’
‘Tell him that you love him, that’s all, because you told me that’s true. Is there any harm in that?’
‘No,’ Edith replied, because Melanie’s tone expected an answer. After all, Melanie had been married too, and for a long time, and Edith even remembered a story of some scandal which had happened when she, Edith, might have been five years old. Great-uncle Randolph had run off with another woman. Hadn’t that been it? And he had come back, perhaps because Melanie had known how to handle the situation. ‘All right.’
‘You’ve got the number?’
‘Not by heart. I’ve got it somewhere.’ It was on a pad by the hall telephone, written by Brett. Edith hoped that they’d both be out, that the telephone wouldn’t answer.
‘Do it, my dear.’ Melanie went into the hall and climbed the stairs.
Edith looked for the number and dialed it.
Brett answered on the fourth ring.
‘Hello, it’s Edith. How are you?’
‘All right, thanks. And you?’ His voice sounded the same as always, a little tense, and rather young.
‘All right too. Aunt Mel’nie’s here. But she just went up to her room, so I won’t call her.’
‘Well – give her my love. What did you want to say? – Anything the matter? Cliffie?’
‘No, he’s all right. I —’ Edith had to swallow to make sure she could talk, and she sat forward, a bit straight, as she had used to do in classrooms when she was frightened by an exam. ‘I wanted to say I love you.’
‘I know you do,’ said Brett in his most earnest tone. ‘I love you too. But this is different. – Don’t you see? I – I’m not torn between two things. This is different. I mean that, Edith. I still love you too, and I’m not going to let you down. Or even Cliffie down. If you need anything —’
‘Yes, I know.’ Edith tried to take comfort from the familiar firmness of his voice.
‘Still there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Cliffie all right?’
‘The same.’
‘Nelson?’
‘He’s fine. Well —’
Edith couldn’t even remember the last exchanges, once she had hung up. She felt worse, and disliked herself for having telephoned. It wasn’t a matter of pride, but what had she accomplished? Her only consolation was that she had obeyed Melanie’s wishes.
14
Four months later, in October, Melanie suffered a stroke. Edith’s mother informed her by a telegram which said that her aunt was in a Wilmington hospital. Edith thought it might be the end. She telephoned her mother, who told her that Melanie was not in a coma, and that the doctors had some hope that she would pull through and without paralysis.
‘What’s the latest about you and Brett?’ Her mother’s accent sounded very southern on the telephone. ‘You haven’t written in more’n a month, Edie, and even then you didn’t —’
‘Nothing’s changed. Didn’t I tell you he wants a divorce? I signed the papers for it last week.’
‘Oh! Edie!’ Her mother seemed astonished, shocked – as if Edith hadn’t prepared her for this for the past eight months, even a year. ‘Are you doing all right? Can you manage?’
/>
‘Of course! I’ve been managing. – Mother, would you telephone me if there’s any change in Melanie?’
Her mother promised that she would. She asked about Cliffie. Her mother had liked him, doted on him when Cliffie had been small, then her affection had cooled, Edith felt. Her mother seemed to center all her love on Edith’s father and their house there, and their garden. Edith knew her mother was reluctant to use the telephone (maybe because of slight deafness), and would prefer to send another telegram if anything happened to Melanie.
Cliffie noticed Edith’s tension and asked, ‘Something the matter, Mom?’
This was when Edith had known about Melanie’s condition for two days. Edith knew Cliffie simply wouldn’t care much, and an unconcerned remark from him would have made Edith furious, so she hadn’t mentioned Melanie. Cliffie was sensitive to moods, but never to the reality that had caused the moods.