‘Won’t do it!’ George threw at her.
Edith slammed the door shut.
Downstairs in the living room, Cliffie chuckled richly. He had just ducked in from the foot of the stairs, whence he’d heard every word. A running soap opera, he thought.
He could hear his mother now pounding on the typewriter, so Cliffie poured himself a generous scotch, and sipped it neat. Yummy good! Dewar’s. Just what he needed along with a bath and a nap. And a little fun with a sock, maybe. Hangovers made him feel sexy.
Edith was writing to Brett. She would have preferred to telephone him, and she had his office number but was reluctant as always to ring him at work. Brett had said he and Carol were moving to a larger apartment on the 15th of November. Edith wrote in no uncertain terms that Brett must take care of his uncle himself, because his letter today had accomplished nothing.
Brett wrote by return post that he was up to his neck in work at the office, plus their moving, so could he postpone the George business for about three weeks? Edith was a bit annoyed by that. She knew he was busy, but he still had three or four hours for a New Year party here and there, so why couldn’t he spend those hours in Brunswick Corner, moving George into Sunset Pines?
The following weeks passed so rapidly or so vaguely that Edith was later unable to recall details. Her job at the Thatchery went well from the start. She had known Elinor Hutchinson (a widow, a bit older than Edith) slightly since years. Edith was just the kind of person the shop needed, Elinor said, someone dependable who could learn the stock quickly, find what the customer wanted, and keep out of the way while people made up their minds. Edith could wear what she pleased – a skirt or slacks. Edith was punctual, and didn’t mind a little overtime at the end of the day if it was necessary. The shop sold place mats, candlesticks, leather chairs and wastebaskets and tinkling mobiles. Edith got eighty dollars a week, no commission. An eighteen-year-old girl named Norma, and another older woman, Mrs Martin (Becky), were the salespeople, and all three rang up sales on the same cash register.
The Zylstras came at Thanksgiving. Edith had decorated the living room with autumn leaves, a couple of pumpkins on the floor, and dried corn ears that hung from the lintel. This traditional decor was, after all, what visiting New Yorkers expected of rural Pennsylvania. Marion, for old times’ sake, brought a meringue pie, which always reminded her, she said, of the time the Howlands had departed Manhattan. Besides the pie, the Zylstras contributed a two-quart bottle of Four Roses.
‘Never saw you looking better,’ Ed Zylstra said to Edith.
Marion asked about Brett, and Edith told her that he was going to marry Carol.
‘Maybe this minute,’ Edith said, raising her eyebrows. ‘Brett said around Thanksgiving, I think.’
‘Maybe —’ Ed stopped.
In fact, no one said anything for a moment, not even Cliffie. Edith wondered what Ed had been about to say.
In a quieter moment, Edith told Marion about her trials with George. Edith tried to make it funny and brief, and she told Marion also about Brett’s procrastination.
‘Of course he should go to a nursing home!’ Marion said. ‘Believe me, I’ve seen scores of cases like this. I mean in nursing homes, where they belong.’ Marion’s healthy face gave Edith courage.
‘All right,’ Edith said calmly, ‘but just how does one do it?’
‘You force the situation via the doctor – to begin with. Doctors’ orders carry a lot of —’
‘Have you met Dr Carstairs? No. I’d love you to meet him.’ And Edith went at once to the telephone. To her surprise, the doctor was in. Edith asked if he could come over for a few minutes either today or tomorrow. She replied to the doctor’s question, with an honesty that she at once regretted, that it was not because of George, but she wanted him to meet a friend of hers who was a registered nurse. The doctor said he really hadn’t the time. ‘Then can my friend say a word now? Marion!’
Marion came. Marion had sized up the situation from Edith’s part of the conversation, and plunged right in. ‘It’s up to you, Dr Carstairs, to recommend and authorize George’s removal from this house…’
Marion talked well. Edith stayed in the living room, but she could hear most of it.
Cliffie, in a garish new plaid jacket, sat in an armchair, twisting an old-fashioned in a tumbler on his thigh.
Marion came back with a cynically amused smile. ‘Well, I know his type. I’d say either prod Brett again or get another doctor who will do something.’
‘Feel like taking a walk?’ Edith asked.
They put on coats and scarves and went out into the sharp air. This was better! Marion was like a tonic. A good old friend, and yet she knew all about medicine too, quite as much as Carstairs, Edith thought. Brunswick Corner looked its best with its white or redbrick houses backgrounded by red, deep browns, patches of yellow among the trees across the river and up the hills to the south, as if a painter had dropped the colors in the right places. The air in Edith’s nostrils reminded her of drinking cold water on a summer’s day. Delicious! If all life could be so delicious!
‘I sometimes think,’ Edith began, wanting to talk and not knowing where to begin, ‘maybe I’m focusing all my problems on George, and that it’s not fair to him.’
‘Oh, nonsense, Edith. If anybody had your problems at the moment – I mean the Brett business too —’
Edith waited for Marion to go on. They walked along Main Street westward, the river on their right. They had passed the Thatchery – open today – but Edith hadn’t bothered pointing it out. Edith had begged out of working today, without much difficulty, on the grounds of having guests.
‘And Cliffie. I can imagine he’s not much help to you,’ Marion went on. ‘I mean as to your morale.’
‘No. But that’s no news.’
‘What does he want to do with himself?’
The usual questions. Also about girl friends.
‘He’s not queer, is he?’ Marion asked. ‘Not that I care, you know. I mean – so what?’
‘I really don’t think so.’ Edith laughed. ‘Too many pin-ups in his room. Bosomy girls and all that. He just lacks – confidence, maybe. Brett’s fed up with him, so you mustn’t think Brett would get him into line if Brett were here. Not at all.’ I sometimes think I’m going a bit nuts, Edith wanted to say.
Then suddenly – it seemed sudden to Edith – Marion and Ed were gone. The house was empty, despite the presence of Cliffie in his room with the transistor on and of George upstairs. And Edith felt ashamed – yes, ashamed of herself. Why? And for what? She couldn’t answer that. She’d been a good hostess, she thought, the food had definitely been a success, the guestroom had looked pretty. Edith sensed that Marion sensed something strange about her, and had been too polite to say so. Ed had worked on both the television set and Edith’s old radio in her workroom, and both were better, the television coming in with a clearer picture now. That was proof that the Zylstras had been here, Edith thought. Then she wondered why she had needed to think that. Edith had a clear memory of Marion’s rosy-cheeked, smiling face with her blue eyes and funny artificial eye-lashes which were rather becoming to her, and the only make-up (if one could call it that) she bothered with.
Brett informed Edith in a letter otherwise about their house insurance that his marriage was going to be postponed for a couple of weeks until Christmas or a few days before. She was supposed to check the house insurance sum, which ‘didn’t look right’ to Brett, as she had the records. Edith felt Brett would avoid the actual day of Christmas or the Eve for the wedding, and found herself imagining Cliffie’s wedding preceding Brett’s by a few days. Edith thought of Cliffie’s wedding while she washed dishes, or when she made George’s trays. It was pleasant and reassuring to imagine. But Edith did admit to herself that she was postponing acting on Marion’s advice: to find another doctor who would get George out. After the Christmas holidays, she would get down to it. She also nurtured a faint and probably fatuous hope that Br
ett would do something about it before Christmas.
Around 15th December, not having heard from Brett, she wrote the following in her diary, after a rather happy afternoon of work at the Thatchery:
The great day has arrived – at least for me. Cliffie and Debbie were married this morning at 11 a.m. at Princeton, in the university chapel. The Quickmen (as C. calls them) were present, the Johnsons of course – in merry mood! Derek with his wife Sylvia. And my parents, benign, approving, ageing. C. almost dropped the ring – a classic! – and I saw him turn pale, then try to stifle a smile – and fail. They look happy. We had a second reception at my house, the first being at Debbie’s parents’ & very gala with champagne, wines, cakes, even caviar. Her parents like C. & he is at ease with them. The Brunswick Corner contingent followed me to my house, C. having persuaded D. they must come to B.C., & there was more of the same, though Peace can’t provide the elegance of the distaff side’s estate. C. & bride departed early for Long Island, where a friend was waiting to fly them in a private plane to Nantucket for their honeymoon. C. nicely oiled, but quite sober enough to drive. Thank goodness, he’s a boy who can hold his drink, even though he doesn’t drink very often.
Thus C. and D. have beaten Brett to it by nearly a fortnight. Brett was not present, though of course invited. He wrote a most touching little note (and also phoned) saying he hoped I understood, but he thought it would not be appropriate if he and Carol came, and sent C. a check (how much I don’t know) as a wedding present. Cool and efficient, that’s Brett. And by a stretch of the imagination proper.
C. has another six months before he gets his degree, D. a year and a half, which she will very likely do. C. will continue to live in his dorm, so will D. in hers, & they meet on weekends at her house or mine, where they will have (as on occasions before) the guestroom. Neither of them likes the idea of setting up an apt. off campus, which is permitted and some couples do. ‘Better for studying to live alone,’ says C. ‘and not worry about things like shopping.’
When Edith got up from her desk, she felt happy. She felt in another world – but a real world – in which Cliffie went from strength to strength, with his nice wife, a good job to look forward to in June, when he graduated, aged twenty-three, with a masters degree. Perhaps by next autumn, Edith could even look forward to a grand-child, but that of course was up to the young people. In her mind, Edith had already given Debbie a few family things, like the silver candelabra, which were however still downstairs on the sideboard.
Edith stared wide-eyed toward her door, and slowly realized that George was calling for something. In a flash of anger, Edith thought that in her diary she would damn well send George packing. Yes! A long car, practically an ambulance, would come from Sunset Pines and two no-nonsense young men would bundle him and his possessions up and whisk him away. Edith moved to answer George’s wail.
Christmas came and went. Edith did all the right things, but she felt in a daze. She decorated a tree, entertained and was entertained, did overtime at the Thatchery and got a hundred-dollar bonus for it. The cork mats, straw place mats, Swedish candlesticks, bamboo screens disappeared, borne out the door, purchased. Elinor Hutchinson was pleased with business.
And Brett and Carol were married on the 3rd of January.
‘We’d both love you to come,’ Brett said on the telephone. ‘There’ll be people you know – like Ham Hamilton. You remember him!’ Brett laughed a little. Ham was a boozy left-wing reporter whom Edith hadn’t thought of in years, an acquaintance of the Grove Street era in New York.
Since Edith had been at that moment wordless, Brett continued:
‘I don’t want you to think Carol and I are unfriendly or – embarrassed. Why can’t we have a nice evening in New York together? Doesn’t have to be a late evening for you, so you could drive back if —’
‘I don’t – really feel like it.’ Edith’s ire had risen briefly at the word ‘embarrassed’ from Brett. Well, he certainly wasn’t embarrassed, by anything. Carol was giving a celebratory party (another party) in February, because a book by her was being published with a silly-sounding title like ‘How Not to Step on the Cracks’ or something like that, a facetious guide for avoiding faux-pas in personal and business life. That from a woman who presumably had a brain! Edith was revolted by the idea of attending a party at the apartment of her ex-husband and his new wife, and in a vague but furious way angry with Brett for inviting her. Edith declined both invitations.
‘How is George?’ Brett asked.
Why don’t you find out, Edith wanted to say. Suddenly she found her cool, and in a voice worthy of her great-aunt Melanie said, ‘I frankly don’t give a damn how George is,’ and hung up.
That was true. Edith realized that her attitude had changed in the last couple of months. Brett was sitting on his duff, and had done damn-all about George. Now Edith actively detested George, or at least admitted to herself that she detested him, whereas all the years past she had not admitted it. She had to admit now that she had begun to be as subtly unpleasant and rude to him as possible.
She was happy only when she wrote in her diary of Cliffie’s progress (Brett and George figured less and less in it), and when she wrote pieces for the Bugle. By mid-January she was working on a thousand-word article (at least that long, and not for the Bugle, she was going to try to sell it elsewhere) for which she hadn’t a title, but her notes were headed Pro the Third World. It had to do with First and Second World countries supervising all aid that went to Third World countries, and her notes ran:
Objectives and Possible Results
1)
speeding up of self-sufficiency at whatever level
2)
elimination of much graft and corruption in aid now being given
3)
would give element of friendliness and cooperation between West and Third World
4)
with important proviso that respect for Third World’s values and way of life should be maintained; small industry to be encouraged; easing of tariffs
5)
program above all not to be westernized, advisors and supervisors not to be para-military
Counsellors, Edith thought, might be a better word than advisors, the latter having been hopelessly tainted by Viet Nam.
17
Cliffie lay on a low couch at Mel’s with an almost empty beer can in his hand. He had been up all last night and today, except for a bit of sleep around 5 a.m. and around 4 that afternoon. He knew he looked and felt a mess, but just now he enjoyed the feeling. Mel was playing records.
‘Hey! – Other side? Why not?’ Mel got up and turned his stack of records. He wore motorcycle gear, maybe hadn’t had his boots off in twenty-four hours, Cliffie was thinking.
Sergeant Pepper roared out again. Cliffie squirmed comfortably on the couch, realizing it was dark outside (Mel’s shades had been pulled down all day), and that he didn’t care what time it was. Cliffie loved Mel’s apartment. It was exactly what he would have liked for himself. You climbed a wooden stairway from street level, just like in an old-fashioned house (or a good film), and then you opened a door on Mel’s one room which was fantastic: big posters on the walls, guys in motorcycle gear pointing pistols, naked girls. An old straw armchair hung from the ceiling for no reason, swinging when people bumped into it. Paperbacks and clothes were scattered on the floor in a way Cliffie could never achieve at home, because his mother was always straightening things a little. Mel’s apartment symbolized: ‘Screw everything!’
Mel was sitting on his unmade bed, working alternately with a knife and pliers, trying to get out pieces of glass imbedded in the soles of a pair of low brown boots. The boot soles were of rubber with a tread in them like that of a tire, which was why the glass had stuck.
‘God damn!’ Mel said. ‘Musta been runnin’ hard that night! Bugger’s really in here.’
‘But you got away,’ Cliffie said, a little loudly because of the music.
‘Sure, boy.’
br /> Mel hadn’t been wearing these boots last night. The glass was from another occasion. ‘Wasn’t it great last night?’ Cliffie said, laughing lazily. ‘Hee-haw!’
‘Yeah, boy – but don’t say it again, huh?’ Mel gave him a glance. ‘They could make it tough for me in this town. You’re all right – with your mother and all that.’
Cliffie took the reprimand to heart, and at once sobered and sat up. Cliffie thought he would kill himself before he did anything to incur Mel’s displeasure. Last night there had been a sudden quarrel between Mel and a fellow with a girl outside the Cascade Bar north of Brunswick Corner. Mel had swung a fist, maybe half joking, but Cliffie had plunged in and socked the fellow. The proprietor of the Cascade had suddenly appeared, then of all things one of the Keystone Kops of Brunswick C. in plainclothes. ‘Cliffie! Pissed again! You’re not driving, I hope?’ He hadn’t been driving, because they were both on Mel’s motorcycle. The fellow with the girl had been lifting Mel’s motorcycle – in order to get it out of the way of his car, he said – and it had been Mel, really, who had lost his temper. But as Mel later said, the fellow could have stowed his motorcycle away in the back of his station wagon, and Mel said he had had a feeling the guy had meant to do this.