Edith''s Diary

  For herself Edith assembled a sliver of beef, some lettuce and shredded carrot, then realized she was not hungry. She put the plate in the fridge. She decided to polish the silver, the tea set also, Melanie’s gift of long ago. The cleaning woman Margaret was not enthusiastic about doing the silver or waxing or hadn’t the time, so often Edith did these things herself.

  Ten o’clock.

  It wasn’t 10 yet, so why was she thinking of 10? She realized it was because she thought she must look in on George by 10. And why not now? She didn’t want to. She was afraid to. Or was that it? Did she want to give whatever Cliffie had given him time to work? Or had Cliffie given George anything, for that matter? Of course he had. She had seen it, hadn’t she? Not exactly. Not really, not closely. Could have been plain water. Why should she suspect anything? No, she wasn’t going to mention that Cliffie had given George too much codeine on other occasions, maybe two occasions. No. She and Cliffie were together. Yes. No. That was an odd sensation, if there ever was one, feeling that she and Cliffie were together.

  The silver gleamed. She saw her face in the teapot, elongated, egg-shaped. She replaced the tea set on the dining room side-board.

  Cliffie came strolling in, carrying his empty glass, the other hand in his pocket. ‘You’re looking very elegant tonight.’

  ‘Felt like wearing a long skirt.’

  ‘What’s the occasion?’ Cliffie hiccuped in the middle of the question. He was en route to the fridge for a beer.

  Edith continued with the silver, but not all of it, just the big ladle and spoon, the candlesticks. She was too tired to tackle the knives and forks. Cliffie was back in the living room.

  She went upstairs. It was not quite 10. George’s room was dark, the door partly open, and she walked toward it, not pausing, not listening as she almost always did for snores. ‘George?’ she called through the door. Then she stepped in. ‘George.’ She turned the gooseneck light toward her and pressed the button that lit it.

  George lay on his back, mouth slightly open, pale flesh sagging under his cheekbones. There was no sound of snoring.

  ‘George!’ she called and touched his shoulder.

  He was breathing. She thought so. But she didn’t hear anything, didn’t see any movement of his chest. She looked around, thinking of a mirror to hold to his nose, and found her eyes fastened on the bottles on the medicine chest – what she now called the medicine chest, the low chest of drawers. There were fewer bottles there than usual, and she saw why: they were all right beside her, by the gooseneck lamp. Tincture of codeine, the aspirins, the bottles of different kinds of sleeping pills, one type yellow, one mauve. The bottles were nearly empty. One bottle was empty.

  Edith took a gasping breath, because she hadn’t breathed for nearly a minute.

  She made herself touch George’s shoulder, and she shook it. ‘George!’ At least his body felt warm. ‘George!’ she yelled closer to his ear. Then she held her finger under his narrow nostrils. Did she feel some warmth or didn’t she? She could not bring herself to feel for a heartbeat, was revolted by the thought of pressing his wrist. His arm lay outside the bedcovers. She was afraid to, she knew.

  She wanted to leave the room. She hesitated about the light, left it on, and went into the bathroom to wash her hands. Six, seven hours, she thought, since Cliffie had given him all the stuff. She ought to speak to Cliffie. She ought to phone the doctor. She was delaying. Deliberately, she felt. On the other hand, what if she was imagining all this? What if the bottles were supposed to be that empty now? Why get so excited about it?

  Alarmist.

  Strangely, she felt calm for the next minutes, the next many minutes. In her workroom, she changed from the long skirt into the old blue corduroys and a sweater, straightened her desk which held items for the Bugle that people had sent in, stuff to be turned into copy and posted to Gert, who got it to Trenton.

  What was she going to say to Cliffie? How was she going to start?

  Edith switched on her radio. It was jazz music and she didn’t care. The head of Melanie, still in dark gray plasticine, gazed somewhat downward with a haughty, yet kindly amusement. Tonight Cliffie’s clay face looked positively merry, despite the firm brows.

  What was she going to say to Cliffie?

  Put it off till tomorrow. Then she thought of going to bed in an hour or so, trying to sleep, lying there. That would not be possible.

  Five past 11. Edith went again to George’s room. He lay as before. Edith started to call his name, and couldn’t. She felt his shoulder, again shook it, now with hostility. Then at once she went out and down the stairs. George had felt stiff, she thought. Cool? She wasn’t sure about that. ‘Cliffie?’ she said, entering the living room. The television was on, but he was not there. She had the feeling Cliffie had a second before fled to his room. She went into the dining room and across the hall. He was in his room. ‘Cliffie?’

  ‘Yep?’ Pink-eyed, on his feet.

  ‘Well.’ Edith was suddenly breathless.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘You’ve done it again. Yes?’

  ‘Done what again?’

  Edith was breathing in a short, quick way. ‘I think I’d better call the doctor, don’t you?’

  ‘Doctor? Why?’ Cliffie looked at her with a stupid, animal-like defiance. ‘What’s the matter with him?’ Cliffie swayed.

  Edith turned and went to the living room. She definitely could use a drink, then at once thought she should hang on without it, then at once decided a drink was a good idea.

  Steadying. She poured a scotch straight, sipped half of it, while concluding ponderously that to telephone the doctor was the right and proper thing to do. She went to the telephone with the rest of her drink and dialed the number.

  A strange female voice answered. ‘Oh, I’m his daughter. Daddy’s at a dinner in Flemington. Won’t be home till midnight anyway. Is it urgent?’

  ‘Well – yes. Could I reach him in Flemington?’

  The daughter – whom Edith now recalled having met once – produced the number and Edith scribbled it down. Edith called the number. It took several minutes, while she held on. It was a restaurant. Finally Dr Carstairs came on.

  ‘Hello, this is Edith Howland. I’m sorry to bother you.’

  ‘Yes? It’s —’

  ‘George. He – he seems to be in a coma. I don’t know. Could you come? Have a look?’

  The doctor promised to come within half an hour, forty-five minutes at most.

  Edith had a brief sense of security. She left her glass in the living room and went to Cliffie’s room again, knocked quickly. Cliffie was on his back on the bed, transistor on his chest.

  ‘Cliffie, Dr Carstairs is coming. You’d better sober up or not make an appearance at all tonight.’

  ‘Why should I make an appearance tonight? I certainly don’t want to make an appearance tonight.’

  ‘Then put your light out – when he comes.’

  ‘What’s it got to do with me?’ Cliffie shouted.

  Edith remembered Cliffie’s lying from the time he could speak. She couldn’t reply. And somehow, now, she admired his falseness. It was a kind of strength. She stated the unnecessary: ‘You gave him a lot of pills and God knows what else.’

  ‘Maybe he took ’em himself,’ Cliffie replied with a shrug, barely glancing at his mother.

  22

  Cliffie was even drunker than he looked. He knew that, and gave himself credit for doing all right so far, though he warned himself that he had better be careful. When his mother left his room, Cliffie went into the kitchen and made a cup of instant coffee, put sugar and cream in it and took it into his room.

  The old bastard is dead upstairs, Cliffie thought. That was what all the fuss was about, why the doctor had to come – to make it official. Cliffie looked wide-eyed, yet directly, at his room walls, comforting himself with the familiar patches of bright red, yellow, blue – the sweaters of motorcycle racers, football players, pin-up girls with nothing o
n but a yellow strip, maybe a scarf, which they languidly held across their thighs. Boobies here and there did not hold his eyes just now. Yes, things seemed different with a corpse upstairs. Cliffie hoped to hell they’d get him out of the house tonight.

  Cliffie wanted to wash, but didn’t want to go to the bathroom upstairs next door to George’s room. He washed at the kitchen sink, rubbed his face with a kitchen towel, which he tossed back on the radiator. Then he put on pajamas and his old robe, which he thought natural to be wearing after midnight.

  His mother’s voice, high-pitched now, extra pleasant, alerted Cliffie to the fact that Dr Carstairs had arrived. Cliffie at once put his bottle back in the closet, and went slowly down the hall. He didn’t want to miss a word of this.

  His mother was talking about ‘a coma’.

  And Dr Carstairs was in evening clothes! Black tie, anyway. Cliffie at once saw that the doctor was feeling no pain, and was smiling gaily, saying something about a friend’s birthday party.

  ‘Evening, Cliffie,’ said the doctor.

  ‘Evening, doctor,’ Cliffie replied.

  ‘Now we’ll just see,’ said the doctor, going up the stairs first.

  Edith followed, then Cliffie. Cliffie waited in the hall outside, because his mother, by the bedside table, rather blocked his entry.

  ‘Oh-h. Um-m,’ said Dr Carstairs, and to Edith’s murmured question, ‘Yes, afraid so, yes.’

  Cliffie saw the doctor pick up a tincture of codeine bottle – empty – from the little table.

  ‘… nearly all gone,’ the doctor mumbled. ‘Yes, I can see that.’

  ‘I was out,’ Edith said, ‘out for drinks. – Rather, I was working in my room there this afternoon. I did notice he was asleep at four or five, I think, but there was nothing unusual about that.’

  ‘No,’ said the doctor, picking up an aspirin bottle now, in which, Cliffie recalled clearly, one aspirin rattled around.

  Edith raised her eyes slowly to Cliffie’s eyes.

  Cliffie looked at her steadily, wondering if she was thinking what he was, that the doctor by touching the bottles was taking off his own fingerprints or at least messing them up? Fine, Cliffie thought.

  The doctor mumbled on. ‘God knows he was getting on… a bit fuzzy in the head, too.’

  Then they were both talking at the same time about a funeral home, an undertaker, Brett, and his mother was saying shouldn’t she phone him, and Carstairs was replying soothingly. Then Carstairs said it was unusual to phone something-or-other so late, but he would do it, because he knew the people there very well. At the funeral home.

  Cliffie repressed his amusement: Old Carstairs naturally knew the people at the funeral home very well, because he had so many dead patients! Ha-ha!

  ‘… might’ve wanted to do it himself, after all,’ Carstairs was saying.

  Did that mean old George might have wanted to kill himself? It sounded like it.

  And as Dr Carstairs, behind his mother, faced Cliffie to come out of the room, Cliffie saw a faint smile on his face – even as the doctor looked at him – that looked really like relief. Relief. Cliffie was sure of it. Cliffie stepped back smartly by the stairs to let them go first. In fact, they went on as if they hadn’t seen him. Cliffie straightened and felt like hurling a curse at George’s room, where the light was still on. Out, damned corpse! Out! Out of the house! Cliffie took one big stride toward the room and looked in with swift boldness.

  The sheet was over the face.

  Cliffie turned and went down the stairs. Carstairs was on the telephone. Cliffie didn’t try to listen, but went on to the kitchen where his mother was making fresh coffee. Cliffie felt awkward. ‘He’s really dead?’

  ‘What did you think?’ Edith frowned at him.

  Cliffie looked away.

  ‘Why don’t you go to bed?’

  ‘Why should I?’ Cliffie replied, hands in his robe pockets. He saw his mother glance sideways at him – what did that mean? – before she prepared a tray with saucers and cups.

  Dr Carstairs came back and reported that he had reached the person he wanted, and that someone should come within twenty minutes. Something more about Brett. Such banalities, Cliffie thought. Keep the conversational ball rolling, yackety-yack! Cliffie alternately stood still, or prowled about the kitchen. Nobody paid the least attention to him.

  ‘I will,’ his mother said, ‘I will,’ as if she were taking the marriage vows.

  ‘Maybe the old boy wanted to die after all.’ The doctor, leaning against a kitchen cupboard, lifted the coffee cup to his lips.

  Then they were talking about Melanie. Corpses, corpses. Age. But his mother looked happier just talking about Melanie, even though she was dead.

  ‘And what’ve you been doing with yourself lately, Cliffie?’ the doctor asked, smiling at Cliffie.

  Cliffie had never liked his smile. Carstairs was not a genuinely smiling type. Just then the grate of a handbrake came clearly, and that saved Cliffie from answering.

  A long black car had arrived in the driveway, or at the beginning of the driveway, because the Ford and the Volks were there. Now Cliffie stayed out of the way in the half dark living room. Lots of feet and voices went up the stairs, then after about three minutes there was much shuffling down, mumbled orders. Out, damned corpse! Now it was really out! Cliffie swaggered to the bar cart and poured a straight scotch into his now empty coffee cup. This was worth a drink, if anything ever had been. He had plenty of time to drink it, while his mother bade adieu to the doctor, who was taking off in his own car. Cliffie sighed deeply.

  When his mother came back, she hesitated a moment in the hall, not glancing into the living room even, then went up the stairs. Cliffie finished his cup and climbed the stairs also.

  His mother was in George’s room, rather slowly picking up a glass, putting a spoon in it, picking up a wadded handkerchief from the floor. ‘Cliffie, could you get a tray?’ she said quickly. ‘Take this down with you.’

  Cliffie grabbed the two glasses with spoons in them and ran down willingly. He returned with two trays. Already his mother had stripped the bed and was folding sheets and blankets, and the wastebasket was full of all kinds of debris. She had opened a window. Cliffie descended with the wastebasket plus dirty sheets and pillow-cases under his arms. He threw the dirty linen on the hall floor, wanting to get it all as near the front door as possible. Empty bottles clattered into the plastic garbage bin outside the back door. He carried the empty wastebasket back upstairs. His mother had dragged out George’s suitcase, and Cliffie would have gladly flung George’s clothes and stuff into it, but suddenly his mother had stopped, started to put her hands over her face, but didn’t quite touch her face.

  ‘I’ve really got to call Brett,’ she said, and went out and down the stairs.

  Frances Quickman was just opening the front door, knocking at the same time. ‘Edith! You’re all right? I looked out the window and saw that ambulance or something – We were worried. It’s George, I suppose.’

  Edith nodded. ‘He’s dead. Died in his sleep, it seems.’

  Cliffie heard this as he came slowly down the stairs.

  ‘Oh, dear!’ said Frances. ‘What a shock for you! – But maybe it’s for the best, you know? If he went so peacefully.’

  ‘I was about to phone Brett. I ought to,’ Edith said. ‘Don’t you —’

  ‘Oh, Edith, I’ll push off – unless I can do anything.’ Frances clutched a raincoat about her and had a flashlight in one hand. She wore bedroom slippers.

  ‘I can’t think what. Thank you, anyway, Fran.’

  ‘I’m in all day tomorrow – mostly – if I can do anything, dear. Don’t hesitate. – Hello, Cliffie.’

  ‘Hello,’ Cliffie replied.

  Frances left, and Edith went to the telephone without even a glance at Cliffie. She dialed Brett’s apartment number. There was no answer. Edith tried it again, in case she had made a mistake. Odd for them to be out so late with a six-months-old baby (otherw
ise a babysitter would have answered), and Edith thought they might all be at Carol’s parents’ house near Philadelphia for the weekend, a number she could easily get from information, but she didn’t want to telephone Carol’s parents’ house. She would try Brett’s office tomorrow morning.

  ‘Dad’s not in?’ Cliffie asked.