Gert on the other hand seemed to grow even cooler, didn’t come round even during the rather awful week when Edith had to have her lower front teeth – all four of them – extracted because of progressive loosening, so she had felt hardly presentable to most people. The local dentist, Dr Payne (risible name to everyone), was insufferably slow with the permanent bridge, but Edith thought it wiser to go to him than to someone in Philadelphia, which would have taken more than two hours round trip.
The Watergate investigation dragged on, grew boring as Nixon meant it to do, but Edith followed it with an interest that did not flag. Nixon protested that the investigators were endangering national security secrets. He was like a tired jackal being harassed by – what? Dogs, maybe. But the dogs had got his scent. Edith reached a point of pitying even Nixon’s lawyer. Then in August came Nixon’s resignation, and a great sigh of relief across the nation. Not jubilation, as Nixon probably thought, just relief from tension and an insupportable sense of injustice.
Another Christmas. Edith used the interest on Melanie’s two bonds, plus a hundred or so from the checking account, to buy new curtains for the living room, the old flowered ones being nearly two decades old, sagging and fading.
Cliffie’s room had fallen back into its old disorder, which seemed familiar and somehow homey to Edith now. For months after he had tidied it for Luce, Cliffie had kept a certain order, rather as if he expected Luce to return to see it one day, then the what-the-hell had set in, like an illustration of the fact that he had abandoned hope, Edith thought, though she didn’t enjoy negative thoughts like this.
Once when his room was still looking rather attractive (Edith had put a begonia on his table, though she had to remember to water it), she said, ‘Did Luce like your room?’
Cliffie’s eyes flashed. ‘Sure. Yes, she did like it. She said so.’
Immediately Edith was sorry, sad, because she had mentioned Luce, after all this time. She hadn’t meant to hurt him, certainly. It was just that she could not think of a single other person – apart perhaps from some roustabout Cliffie brought home for a beer once in a blue moon – who had ever seen his room, or seen it when Cliffie had so expressly tidied it. Cliffie had not added any new posters. Now, again, he lived with half-pulled-out drawers in the chest, socks and shoes scattered on the floor, bed unmade, and pajamas dropped anywhere. ‘It’s a nice room,’ Edith finished rather feebly, wanting to drop the subject.
Cliffie smouldered for a couple of hours after that. He knew that Luce hadn’t seen his room, that he’d had time that evening to say, when they’d been having drinks in the house, ‘Want to see my room for a minute?’ but he had not said that. Cliffie sometimes pretended that Luce had been in his room, that they had sat on his bed with their drinks for a few minutes, that he had necked with her a little before they went out to dinner that night. But he knew it hadn’t happened. All that work that afternoon, and some of the work was still visible, and she hadn’t even glanced in from the hall! Why had his mother had to bring Luce up? Luce probably with two squawling kids by now, damn the swine of a husband!
It was a horrible winter. A mediocrity was in as President, after being vetted for lack of opinion on every vital subject, Edith thought. Foreign policy, where Edith thought America was doing the worst (if one thought of the Middle East plus Chile) was unknown ground to Ford. Kissinger was foreign policy. And west of the Appalachians, people just didn’t care, Edith felt. Salvador Allende had been brutally assassinated, after defending himself to the last against hoodlums in uniform. Triumph for the CIA who had spent the last months trying to cover its trail there, so it could now say to the American people ‘Us? What have we done?’ The group of countries called OPEC upped the price of oil, now reflected in fuel bills and car gas, and destined to go higher. Edith had to go to a Doylestown optician for stronger glasses (presbyopia, she had, so it was going to get worse not better), and to the dentist Payne for three lower molars – one that had been crowned, one hopeless, one that could be saved by root canal work, but she had agreed with Payne to have the three out. Then came a permanent bridge there, costing more than five hundred dollars. Her fifty-fourth birthday in October had come and gone unnoticed by Cliffie or even Gert, who most years remembered it at least by a card.
Life, joy flourished only in her diary. Debbie and Cliffie’s new offspring, a boy named Mark, grew apace, laughed, astounded doctors and neighbors by his friendliness and good-humor and intelligence. ‘I am not saying he is brighter or better than his sister Josie,’ Edith wrote in her diary, quoting from a letter of Cliffie’s, ‘but Josie had better watch out.’
Edith enjoyed reading these happy entries, sometimes only faintly remembered by her, which was to be expected if she had copied them out of another person’s letter, one of Cliffie’s or Debbie’s. Life had changed in Kuwait. No longer was Cliffie in an air-conditioned hotel, because his company had built houses for its employés. Cliffie’s company, now nationalized by Kuwait, was still in operation and had built a huge training school for Arabs, and Cliffie was one of the instructors. Jet flights were free for employés and their dependents, so Debbie flew every three or four months to the States to see her parents, and of course she paid a visit to Edith too. Sometimes Cliffie came too, if he could get free. He always appeared tallish to Edith, perhaps because he held himself so straight, and he was very suntanned, thanks to his work which still called for a lot of supervising in the open fields. Edith read under the date ‘18 Feb. 74’:
C. & D. loved the two knitted sweaters, both pale blue with white, for J. & M. They said nights could be cool in Kuwait, but maybe they were just trying to please old Gramma!
She really didn’t remember writing that, but here it was! And the curious thing was that the two sweaters existed, done in her spare time, and they lay in the bottom drawer of the chest of drawers in her bedroom. Now that was strange! No, it wasn’t. Edith knitted sometimes from 2 until 3:30 a.m. in her workroom, relaxing, thinking. Cliffie didn’t know anything about her knitting, Edith thought, a minor talent (hers was minor anyway) she had acquired around fifteen and not done much with since. But she shouldn’t think about the fact that the sweaters existed. Think about the future, she told herself, as she had always told herself, since the age of twenty, perhaps. One had to hope in order to live. Hope, of course, was nothing but an idea. So was the future. But everything that had ever counted in the world, in history, had been an idea and nothing else – at least to begin with. So as for the future, as for Josephine and her younger brother Mark, Edith would soon begin buying them shirts, blouses, dresses and trousers. Lightweight, naturally, if Cliffie continued working in the Middle East. But they would all visit here (they had, in Edith’s diary, twice by now), and if it was winter, they would shiver here unless they had woolens and flannels.
Edith sat with pen poised, thinking. She saw a happy dinner party here at her house, Cliffie and Debbie and the kids, maybe the Johnsons, heard laughter, Cliffie’s stories about his work on dams and irrigation projects, about models for these in the Kuwait school. Had Debbie already put the kids to bed before dinner time? Cliffie and Debbie would be staying the night, of course.
The telephone rang.
Edith went downstairs with the feeling it had rung already about eight times, and might stop before she got to it, but she was not hurrying. Maybe it was the candy shop in town, she thought, where she had gone this week, or maybe it had been last week, to ask if they needed anyone part-time, meaning Saturdays and Sundays. They had said they would think about it. She told herself she didn’t care if it was the candy shop or not. That was the way to have good luck.
‘Edith, I’d like to see you,’ the voice said. ‘I’m very near just now. Just on the edge of town. Can I come by and see you for a few minutes?’
The voice shocked her. ‘Brett?’
‘Of course it’s me, Edie. I said it’s me.’
Hesitantly, politely, she agreed to his coming by. He said in about ten minutes.
br /> It was not quite 4 in the afternoon. A Wednesday in February. A funny time to telephone, Edith thought.
This time it was a doctor with Brett, a Dr Stetler, whose name Edith was pretty sure she recollected from Brett’s letter of a year ago. Dr Stetler looked about forty, slender and dark, with a calm, preoccupied air. He seemed not to look Edith, or maybe anybody, in the face, but appeared to be daydreaming. They sat in the living room. Edith wore her usual old sweater (two sweaters because she had to economize on heat), corduroys and sneakers, and what did they expect on ten minutes’ notice?
‘And how’s Gert now?’ Brett asked.
This question, like Brett’s voice on the telephone, jolted Edith, because they had just been talking about the poinsettia in the living room. ‘I suppose all right. Yes. I spoke with her a couple of days ago.’
Brett glanced at Dr Stetler, who was now looking at Edith.
‘And the Bugle work?’ Dr Stetler asked with a slight accent, German or Jewish. ‘The name of the newspaper here, I think.’
‘Yes. That goes along as usual,’ Edith replied.
Brett shifted on the sofa, sighed, with a look of wanting to say something and of repressing it. ‘Not what Gert told me, Edie.’
‘Oh? She’s been making telephone calls again?’ Edith forced a smile.
‘Well, she said – you weren’t writing so much for the Bugle any more.’
‘No, because they don’t seem to care for my editorials. I think that’s it. Gert too, she’s becoming an old left-wing conservative, than which there is nothing worse. I think it was mainly the birth control thing and the academic standards piece. I’m still merit-system, you know. Oh, Gert’s trying to please everybody, and you know where that gets you. You’ve said it often enough yourself. Unless you’ve changed too.’
Brett smiled his uncomfortable smile, and again glanced at Dr Stetler, whose frown had tightened as he stared at some middle-distance between himself and the fireplace. ‘Come on, let’s not talk politics,’ Brett said. ‘Gert —’
‘Why not?’ Edith asked.
‘She said you were becoming even right-wing.’
‘Authoritarian, maybe. That can be extreme left too. It just means government control of things. – At any rate, I’m still doing quite a bit in the subscription and ads departments for the Bugle. And no complaints there either.’
‘Edith – back to the point. I —’ Brett seemed out of breath or out of words.
‘Mr Howland believes you are not very happy,’ Dr Stetler said with a gentle smile, in a gentle voice, ‘and he would like you to have a talk with me. If you are willing.’
Since Edith had expected this, she remained quite calm. ‘About what?’
‘Your thoughts. The things you like – and don’t like.’
Edith said nothing.
Brett said, ‘Edith, the contrast between the outside and the inside of this house —’
All right, the inside was a mess, perhaps, needed painting, the carpet was wearing out, and for the last few months she had not waxed the furniture.
Boom! That was Cliffie coming in, and all three of them looked toward the door.
Cliffie entered, pink-eyed, wobbly, Edith saw. Of all times!
‘Well, well!’ said Cliffie. His dark eyes looked smaller. He was squinting at his father and the other man with eyes well embedded in fat.
‘My son,’ said Brett, as if he couldn’t care less.
The doctor seemed to sum him up with a brief nod, and said to Edith, ‘Perhaps I could see some of your sculpture, Mrs Howland. I hear you’ve done a couple of quite good – heads.’
Edith chose her words. ‘Thank you. Just now I don’t care to have my workroom looked at, however. I’ve some work in progress.’
‘Oh, I’d be careful,’ said the doctor, ‘if you’d permit me – give me the honor.’
‘No,’ said Edith.
‘No,’ Cliffie repeated, and walked heavily across the room into the dining room, on to the kitchen. His buttocks looked larger than usual, to Edith, under his rather soiled cavalry twill trousers.
Edith had folded her arms. She saw the doctor nod to Brett. The doctor said:
‘We both know how difficult these last years have been for you. Believe me.’
Yes, Edith thought, she had cashed one of Melanie’s bonds, and would probably have to cash the other in a couple of months. It seemed to Edith that faithful Melanie was supporting her. ‘Frankly, life is a bit easier since my husband’s uncle is no longer with us.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Dr Stetler with a smile. ‘I know all about that.’
Another fainter boom indicated that Cliffie had taken a beer from the fridge.
‘Gert thinks,’ Brett began, and now Edith saw the doctor shake his head to make Brett stop, presumably, but Brett went on, and Edith didn’t even listen, but interrupted:
‘I don’t care what Gert thinks. In fact I don’t think she’s much of a friend of mine lately.’
‘Well, I gather that too from the letter you wrote her!’ Brett said, laughing.
What letter, Edith wondered. But then, she had written at least two to Gert, at least one of which she had torn up, because she had thought it too strong. Now Edith looked at Brett intently, waiting, and wary.
‘However,’ Brett went on, ‘Gert thinks it would be good for you – good for you, Edith, and don’t interrupt me for a moment, to talk with someone, tell them – or him – your worries, show him your short stories even if they’re unfinished, your —’
‘Thank you, but I hate showing unfinished things. I think it’s a bit impertinent even to suggest that. No, what I can’t understand,’ Edith went on quickly, ‘is why you’re suddenly so concerned with me – after so many years now. With the world falling to pieces around us, you worry about a woman over fifty years old you’ve said good-bye to long ago. What about the really desperate families in Viet Nam? What do you think’s happening now that we’re pulling out?’
‘I thought you were for our pulling out,’ Brett said.
‘Mr Howland,’ said the doctor.
‘Not the way Nixon did it,’ Edith said, ‘too fast, just to make a good impression back home where he’d lost his ass, as he would put it. You know one of the reasons he didn’t want those tapes disclosed is because his language is one fuck after the other!’
‘Edie, your face is all pink!’ Brett said, laughing with embarrassment.
‘Not from sympathy – or shame for Richard Nixon,’ Edith replied. ‘It’s because I’m angry.’
Now Dr Stetler mouthed some platitude about priorities. Edith would have loved a good straight scotch, but did not want to extend her hospitality to these two odiously smug personages in her living room.
‘Edie, you don’t want to go through a breakdown, do you?’ Brett asked. ‘It’s absurd. It’s unnecessary. I want you to make an appointment to talk with Dr Stetler in Philly. Or here at home! You know quite well that’s why I’m here.’
How could she doubt it? Edith said nothing.
‘You’ve lost a little weight since I saw you. And I hear you’re – antagonizing some of the people around here…’
Isn’t that too bad, Edith thought, and continued to half-listen as Brett went on in a soothing tone. Now it was ‘make friends’ with Dr Stetler, or if she didn’t like him, Brett would find someone else for her to talk to.
‘… not your enemy,’ Brett was repeating. ‘Your friend. Trained and willing – to make life easier for you.’
Shove it, Edith thought.
Brett stood up. Was he leaving? He looked at the other man, who was standing also and shaking his head slightly.
‘I’d like to see the upstairs, Edie,’ Brett said.
Edith was on her feet. ‘Really? Why?’
Brett had walked to the stairs. ‘What’s the harm? Relax, Edie, we’re not going to touch a thing.’ Brett climbed the stairs.
Edith followed him.
‘Mr Howland,’ the doctor said behind Edit
h. Cliffie had wandered into the hall with his beer can. What the hell was going on? He could see his mother detested the ‘doctor’ who was probably a shrink. Interesting. Cliffie felt one hundred percent on his mother’s side. These two – including his father – seemed to be invading the house! Now the voices were louder from upstairs. Cliffie mounted the steps, intending to linger halfway up them, where he could hear. His father was walking slowly toward his mother’s workroom, preceding her, talking.