‘Last of the tea!’ Edith screamed. ‘Hope it’s strong enough!’
‘Wha —? Oh, sure!’
Edith realized she hated him more than usually that morning. She hated also that she had to take Cliffie to the Gerbers’. More shame was due her this morning, very likely, more bad behavior from her son. At any rate, Edith did not want to give herself the consolation of a cheerful hope. Best to expect the worst. And best to pretend that all was going to be well, too. How could one do both? Deliberately, even before she left George’s room, she straightened her shoulders and put on a faint smile. At least she looked all right, she thought. If only Aunt Melanie — Edith’s thoughts faltered. She had missed her great-aunt’s visit this summer, because Melanie had been ‘too tired’ to come. And Edith hadn’t been able to get away, because of the Thatchery job.
The post had come. Two bills. A bank statement. Three items addressed either to her or to ‘Bugle Editor’. Nothing for George. There usually wasn’t anything for George, to be sure, because since years the couple of friends who had used to write him had stopped. She would have liked to take George a letter this morning, just to cheer him up a little. Poor old vegetable! She could of course write him a letter. She smiled at the idea. Edith poured herself a cup of coffee, lit a cigarette, and went to the telephone to ring the Gerbers. She consulted the directory again for the number. Cliffie was not yet up.
This little task was over in about one minute, and Edith stood up, half-smoked cigarette still in hand, amazed that it had gone so quickly.
Mrs Gerber had sounded quite pleasant, and had said that of course her son could come by around 11 this morning, if he wished to. Richard Gerber was doing quite well. Hadn’t she said that? Edith sometimes had the feeling that real things were not real – and vice versa.
She and Cliffie, both breakfasted, Cliffie decently attired in polo-neck sweater and blue blazer (it was a cool September day), set out at 10:30 for Hopewell Township. Cliffie was silent in the car, staring through the windshield, not frowning, absent.
‘I think you might take him some flowers,’ Edith said.
‘Flowers? Flowers’re something you take girls!’
‘Not necessarily. I’ll stop for some.’
‘You could’ve said it – back at the house where we’ve got some!’ Cliffie said, twitching with anger now.
Edith at that moment swung toward the curb, and said, ‘Spend a dollar and a half and get some – chrysanthemums or something.’ She had parked by a florist’s shop.
Cliffie got out and banged the car door. He returned a moment later with chrysanthemums wrapped in thin green paper. The shop had boxes of them on the sidewalk. These were cut.
Silence.
They arrived at the Gerbers’ modest residential area. Edith found the street after one inquiry, and Cliffie got out with his flowers, grimly.
‘I’ll wait, Cliffie. Don’t worry about how long it takes.’
Cliffie wanted to say that she didn’t expect him to stay for lunch, did she? But he only nodded, and trudged toward the house, whose number he knew from the paper his mother had given him last evening was 136. A small front porch, a two-story house, yellow and white. Cliffie rang the doorbell.
The woman was about his mother’s age, and Cliffie was surprised that she smiled.
‘Clifford Ho —’
‘Yes. Come in, would you? Your mother —’
‘Oh, she’s – She’ll pick me up in a few minutes. Has to do some shopping.’ They knew, of course, that he was not allowed to drive now.
Cliffie climbed some stairs behind the woman who wore a pleated mauve skirt, white blouse.
Richard Gerber was in bed reading newspapers, a man with a broad head, strong brown hair growing gray, brawny forearms. He looked up at Cliffie like a perfectly healthy businessman disturbed by a visitor.
‘Morning, Mr Gerber,’ Cliffie said. ‘I came to say I hope you’re feeling better.’
‘Morning.’ Gerber nodded slightly.
A canary sang in a window’s sunlight, oblivious of all this.
‘The boy brought some flowers, Dick. I’ll get a vase for them.’ The woman went out.
Cliffie didn’t know what to say. Walking around a little? Going back to work soon? No, maybe that was a bad idea. Did this guy want to go back to work? Why should he, if he was being paid his usual salary – maybe more, if one counted the insurance. ‘I hope you’re feeling – better,’ Cliffie said.
Richard Gerber looked at him with a hard amusement, with a kind of glint. He had not completely lowered his Trenton Standard onto his sheet-covered lap.
Cliffie had felt the coolness of sweat on his forehead after his first words about Gerber feeling better. What the hell did Gerber expect, that he’d get down on his knees to him, beg him to use his influence to get his driving licence back? Was he supposed to promise that he wouldn’t ever drive a car again, for instance? Didn’t a lot of people hit people, by accident, in the dark? What the hell were you doing, walking along the edge of the road like that? Cliffie could have asked Gerber. Were you pissed too, maybe? I have to pay for it the rest of my life, I suppose?
‘Hm-mph,’ Gerber said, or something like that.
Gerber’s eyes had not left Cliffie’s. Gerber looked like an old German ham, beef, animal of some kind. There were creases across his forehead, gray hairs in his eyebrows. A strong guy, stupid too, but damned sure of himself, the way a lot of stupid people were sure of themselves. Cliffie’s courage drained, but he stood up straighter, tossed his paper-wrapped chrysanthemums on the foot of the bed and put his hands on his hips.
Just then, the woman returned to the room, and moved smoothly to the bed and took the flowers. ‘Won’t you sit down?’ she said politely to Cliffie.
Cliffie knew he had cooked it by tossing the flowers. Old Gerber’s face had hardened by a couple of degrees.
‘Here’s our fine younger generation,’ Gerber said.
‘Oh-h, Dick!’ the woman shrieked in a soprano like something out of an opera. She had an unusually high voice, anyway.
Cliffie tossed a smile at her.
‘He’s come to see you,’ said the woman. ‘He didn’t have to do that.’
Cliffie looked for a few seconds into Gerber’s steady, unfriendly eyes, and realized that they were both furious but not furious about the same thing. Their minds were on two different things.
‘I’m sure the boy’s sorry for what happened,’ the woman said.
‘All right, I’m not sorry!’ Cliffie retorted at once, and turned on his heel toward the door. One false turn on the landing, then he found the stairs and dashed down, the woman behind him, but he was going much faster. Cliffie found himself smiling broadly as soon as he got into the open air. The hell with them! He saw the family car across the street, faced in the direction for home.
Edith smiled, seeing his smile. ‘Went all right?’
Cliffie got in and shut the door. ‘Perfectly all right. Nice guy.’ Cliffie didn’t look to see if Mrs Gerber was on the front porch as the car drove off.
One morning in October, Edith had a letter from Brett. It said:
Oct. 19,1968
Dear Edith,
Carol gave birth early this morning to a baby girl. Started to telephone you or telegraph, but after all a letter is quick enough. I thought you would like to know. Both doing well.
Hope Cliffie is steadying down a bit and that you are all right, George also. I send love, as ever.
Brett
PS Check enclosed.
A check for a hundred and fifty dollars was enclosed, though it wasn’t due till the first of November. Brett sent a check every month, but Edith had objected to a larger sum. Edith’s first reaction to the letter was one of swift anger, a rise of warmth in her face and neck. He hoped George was ‘all right’, just ‘hoped’. Edith stifled her anger at once: the anger was too familiar to be interesting, to accomplish anything.
She knew that it was the reality of the baby that
had shaken her.
20
Edith hurried along the sidewalk in below-freezing January cold, watching out that she didn’t slip on an occasional icy spot, though there wasn’t any snow. She pressed a woollen muffler against her nose and cheeks with one mittened hand. She was en route to a Town Hall meeting – rather in what should have been the Town Hall, but that was enduring roof repairs, so the meeting was being held in the Unitarian church – to discuss and protest the upping of Bucks County school taxes, a protest Edith knew was doomed to fail. And God it was cold, at 6:30 p.m., and dark already, and an awful song that Cliffie had just been booming on his transistor stuck in her head:
‘I’m so lonely with – ow-chew!’
When Edith had left the house, however, the music had been off, and Cliffie on the telephone, talking with Mel, Edith thought. She wouldn’t have known this, if she hadn’t come back into the house, after a few steps outside, in order to get a heavier muffler from the hall. She knew Cliffie wanted to get back into Mel’s fold, the only fold Cliffie had ever known.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Charles and Mary Bell, who were getting out of their car at a corner.
‘How’re you, Edith?’
‘Hello! Heading for the meeting, I suppose!’ said her husband.
Edith replied pleasantly. She hardly knew them.
The white, hip-roofed church had lights in front of it, making shadows under its black roof. Lots of cars. People greeted one another, and Edith was again saying, ‘Hello! How’re you doing?’ every few seconds as she made her way toward the door. She was thinking of Jackie Kennedy, Jackie Onassis now. The last time she’d been in a group of people – where? – everyone had been saying how shocking it was that Jackie had married a multi-millionaire tycoon after JFK. ‘Imagine her living with him now!’ and ‘It’s an insult to America!’ and all that. Jackie had a taste for power and money, in Edith’s opinion, and it all hung together and didn’t surprise her at all. But Edith knew why the others were annoyed: They had wanted to see in Jackie a similarity to JFK, had hoped for a very American kind of idealism in her, and the disappointment in their hope upset people. Edith found a seat in one of the roomy pews. Only then did she spot Gert Johnson, behind her and to her left, because Gert happened to stand up just then to turn and greet somebody.
The chairman, a man whose name Edith had forgotten, rapped for order. He began to talk, setting the argument forth, the situation, the justifiable resentment of people who thought they were paying enough taxes already, and who furthermore might not have any children of their own. Edith removed her mittens, wriggled her toes in her boots. Her toes were beginning to hurt.
A tedious voice, a man’s, came from behind Edith. Someone had stood up to speak. There was a faint ripple of laughter, very faint.
God, the church looked barren, Edith thought. In their effort to avoid painted saints, gilded columns, they had erected a well-painted barn. Emptiness. Fill it yourself with your own thoughts. Black rostrum only slightly raised, black-framed windows against stark white walls.
‘Where is it going to end?’ shrieked a woman. ‘My taxes this year – I brought the records with me and I will compare them with just one year ago…’
Now Edith’s cold ears were aching.
‘Shall we take a vote on that?’ the chairman was shouting.
Take a vote on taking a vote. And considering all the gay boys, where were the kids coming from?
‘Yes-s!’ said a hearty, smiling voice which Edith recognized as Gert’s. ‘A vote on that and a vote first – or a show of hands – as to how many people here right now have children of school age going to the schools we’re talking about, because I think that’s interesting!’
Patter of applause! Good old Gert. She was at least with it. A lot of people, not necessarily wealthy, sent their kids from thirteen to college age to a private school called Pymbroke Academy.
Edith’s interest flagged after the show of hands, which looked like three-quarters of the assembled, and she found herself day-dreaming of a baby crawling around her living room floor. Brett’s baby. Brett’s and Carol’s baby girl. What was she going to do with the baby girl in her diary, Edith wondered, and at once giggled. At present she was omitting her, of course, just as she had omitted Carol, at least lately. But the baby girl? Once more Edith had a vision of the pink-faced, diaper-clad lump crawling over the living room rug, much to Nelson’s astonishment; the cat jumped a foot into the air, and Edith was stricken with incontrollable mirth which shook her tensed ribs.
The woman next to her looked at her.
Edith realized that she would have to leave. She couldn’t stop laughing, even though her laughter was silent, so she stood up and excused herself quietly to the man on her right – taking the longer way, just because it had been the woman on her left who had glanced at her.
What was she missing anyway?
She was out, free again. She turned left on the sidewalk for the walk home. And now her giggles had gone, as mysteriously as they had arrived. Now she only smiled, anticipating the warmth of her home, thinking of dear Nelson who had in the last cold days found a nook behind the radiator handle or knob and the bench in her workroom, warmer than the bench pillow. Trust cats! And he’d never even seen the baby Edith had been thinking about and wondering what to do about in her diary. Her diary! Edith was again convulsed, bent over briefly then walked on. Why should it be so funny?
Cliffie met her at the door, and opened the door before she had time to touch it.
‘Why, thank you! That’s service!’ Edith said.
‘Th-they just called – from Aunt Melanie’s,’ Cliffie said. ‘She’s not feeling well.’
Edith sobered at once. ‘What do you mean? Is it another stroke? – Who called ?’
‘A woman. I dunno.’
‘Mrs Byrd?’ She was a neighbor of Melanie’s. ‘From home, Cliffie, or was it the hospital?’
‘I think it was from home. They didn’t say anything about a hospital,’ Cliffie replied defensively.
‘How long ago?’
‘Just five minutes.’
Edith went at once to the telephone, paused to get rid of her coat, then picked up the telephone and dialed.
Aunt Melanie’s colored maid Bertha answered. ‘Yes, Miss Edith, she’s had another stroke.’ Bertha seemed to have burst into tears at the first sound of Edith’s voice.
‘Is she at home or the hospital, Bertha?’
‘She’s here, Miss Edith. She don’t want to go to the hospital.’
‘Tell her I’ll come. Tonight. I ought to be there by ten tonight.’ Edith hung up, not wanting to waste a minute. She went into the living room, where Cliffie was standing blankly looking at the television screen, though the sound was now turned off. ‘Cliffie, I’m going to Aunt Melanie’s tonight. I – don’t suppose you want to come. I have the feeling —’
Cliffie was shaking his head. ‘No, I don’t want to go. Do I have to?’
‘Of course you don’t have to.’ Now Edith was back on the rails again, back to reality. Ring Frances Quickman first. Edith couldn’t depend on Cliffie to hold the fort, feed Nelson, water the plants. The cleaning woman (Margaret, once a week) lived too far away to be expected to feed Nelson twice a day. Frances was in. Edith explained the situation, and Frances commiserated and said:
‘I’ll be right here, Edie, and I’ve still got your key, you know.’
That was comforting. ‘There’s some food here, but I’ll leave three dollars for Nelson on the top of the fridge – under the fruit basket.’
Edith threw together an overnight bag – woolen pajamas, houseslippers, a sweater, toothbrush. She called to Nelson as she went down with the suitcase, and she gave him his evening meal in the kitchen. There were sausages and eggs for Cliffie, he was always quite happy making those for himself, and she asked him to take some up to George.
She was miles from Brunswick Corner before she realized she hadn’t said good-bye to George, hadn’t remi
nded Cliffie that he had to see that George had his meals tomorrow. Surely Cliffie would think of it. Or George would shout, if he wanted something. Old George on his rubber ring to protect him from bedsores, and the rubber sheet under the bedsheet. And now he was getting pink sore spots on the place where the rubber ring touched him!
‘Good Christ!’ Edith said softly, rather like Cliffie, and lifted her hands from the wheel, brought them down again gently.
It was soothing to drive. And she knew the road well. Melanie had come for one day at Christmas, only a month ago, looking as well as ever. She had given Nelson a handsome Kent hairbrush, had brought his present out last, saying, ‘Surprise for you, Nelson! Merry Christmas from old great-great-great-Aunt Melanie.’ And the cat had torn open the wrapping with an enthusiasm that had made all three of them laugh – because Melanie had put a piece of roast beef in with the brush.