However, some ten minutes later, she was feeling decidedly better. Marion and Ed Zylstra were coming for Christmas, staying at least three days. Friday, day after tomorrow, Brett was bringing the first copies of the Bugle in his car, a homely way of distributing a newspaper, Edith supposed, leaving copies at the grocery store, the hardware, the drugstore – four hundred copies. The first issue was a give-away, though the four-pager was supposed to cost fifteen cents. She had tried hard to strike the right note in the editorial, and had gone over it with Gert Johnson. It was mainly about a bill in Harrisburg about upping school taxes, a big concern in the area at the moment. After some asterisks, the last paragraph ran:
Two refugees from New York, Brett and Edith Howland, send Christmas greetings to new friends and neighbors and all readers of the Bugle, and wish everyone a most Happy Season!
Edith put some Brahms waltzes (Opus 39) on the record player, and closed the living room door which went into the hall, so the music would not awaken George. She had lit a cigarette, and was relaxing in an armchair. The piano music delighted her, transported her to a world of beauty and brilliance – with a beginning and an end. It was odd to feel for a few seconds at a time – the sensation came and went – completely like the music, quite at home with it, familiar with every note, yet to realize that the music was not her home, was not the main part of her life. Sometimes she thought music that she especially liked was a drug for her, magical and unreal, and yet necessary.
Unreal, and yet for many seconds the inspired waltzes made her love her house more, made her remember that the house and the semi-rural life she had now was after all what she had wanted for years. The interior of the house, walls and doors, were of a creamy color, like the exterior which had been originally more white but was now weathering. The front porch pillars could be called doric, but were certainly not pretentious. And Brett was happy enough with his job. George wasn’t such an old bore, after all. He’d given Brett money to buy blue jeans and a sweater for Cliffie for his birthday in November.
When the first side of the record was finished, the silence began to attack Edith like a live thing, eating away at her brief contentment. This was life, she thought, back to the ironing which she now did in the kitchen, back to thinking of where next she might send the article on recognizing Red China. A vague depression crept through her, crepuscular, paralysing. She knew the feeling well. Sometimes it was incontrollable, so much stronger than herself that she had wondered, even in the first weeks she had been in the house, if it weren’t due to a vitamin deficiency or something physical. But the report of Dr Carstairs, a local doctor recommended by Gert, just last month, had been good. She was not anaemic, her weight was normal if not a trifle under normal, which the doctor thought preferable, and there was nothing wrong with her heart.
It was a mental attitude, Edith thought, nothing else. She often consoled herself by thinking that probably everyone in the world, who was at all sensitive, suffered the same low moments and for the same reasons. Edith had constantly to bolster herself by remembering that she didn’t believe life had any purpose, anyway. To be happy, one had to work at whatever one had to work at, and without asking why, and without looking back for results. This plainly demanded good health for a start, and she had that. So why was she discontented, periodically (for a few hours at a time) unhappy? Edith couldn’t answer that.
4
On Christmas Eve day, just after 4 p.m., Ed and Marion Zylstra arrived on the bus, bearing gifts, bottles, and a lightweight suitcase. Edith had met them with the car.
‘Hello, darling! Isn’t it perfect weather!’ Marion said, embracing Edith.
Snow had fallen during the night, some eight inches of it, and now the sun shone brightly. Everything looked clear and white, and the Delaware River was a noble gray-blue between its rocky, snow-covered banks.
‘And how are you, Ed?’ Edith asked. They were storing things in the back of the car.
‘Pretty well, thanks. Looking forward to three days without duty. Not that we have to camp on you that long!’
‘But we hope you will. We really do.’ Edith remembered that Ed always called his work duty, like a soldier. He was about forty, blond and blue-eyed, with a muscular, not very tall figure which Edith had always thought rather sexy. It was only the second time the Zylstras had come to Brunswick Corner.
‘I suppose you’ve been working wonders in the house since we saw you?’ Marion said.
‘Well, you’ll see. Here we are.’ The bus stop was hardly a quarter of a mile from the house.
Marion and Ed exclaimed at the changes in the living room. The curtains were all hung now, the windowsills graced with a potted plant here and there, the bookcase loaded – just as in New York. A six-foot Christmas tree stood by the back window, far enough from the fireplace that its needles had a chance of lasting ten days.
Edith made old-fashioneds in the kitchen.
‘And where’s Brett?’ Marion asked. ‘Working today?’
‘Just this morning. He’ll be home any minute – from Trenton. He’s bringing the first issue of the Bugle so we can christen it.’
‘I’m longing to see it!’
Edith went into the larder off the kitchen, and had just lifted a jar of maraschino cherries from a shelf, when she noticed the turkey – the turkey’s breast. A great gouge had been taken or eaten out of each side of the raw breast, and Edith at once thought of Mildew, because it looked as if a cat’s teeth had been as it, then thought of Cliffie, because the larder door had been firmly closed. Edith glanced at the floor. The cat was not in the larder. Cliffie might have put Mildew at the turkey, Edith thought, because Mildew on her own wasn’t a thief, well fed as she was. No, these gouges were man-made. No time to stew over it, and no time to buy another turkey either, though the appearance of this one was ruined.
Brett arrived, bearing a stack of Bugles which he had to carry in both arms with interlocked fingers. Norm Johnson had just dropped him in front of the house, Brett said, but he hadn’t time to come in. The Johnsons were due to look in later, around midnight.
‘Tooty-toot-toot, the Bugle! Let’s see it!’ Marion said.
Brett lowered the stack to the floor. ‘Just distributed about three hundred with Norm’s help. Local stores. These I have to distribute tomorrow. Well, some tonight, shops nearby. Things are open late tonight.’
Edith refrained from seizing a copy, went into the kitchen and made a drink for Brett. It promised to be a beautiful Christmas time. She wasn’t even dismayed by the turkey. They’d laugh at it tomorrow.
‘Thanks, darling. Cheers!’ Brett said, lifting his glass. They all drank to the Bugle. Brett had on his padded army jacket with its belt hanging at the sides now, chino trousers under which, however, Edith knew he wore long underwear. Pennsylvania was often eight below zero in winter. ‘Where’s Cliffie?’ Brett asked.
‘Don’t know. Maybe out somewhere,’ Edith said.
She had baked a ham for that evening, and it was now almost done in a low oven. Somehow it was already after 6, and Edith went into the kitchen to get the dinner moving, while the Zylstras took off with Brett to help with the Bugle deliveries. It had grown dark, which Edith thought dramatic tonight, with the white snow everywhere outside. And it was nice to think of the earth (since yesterday) tipping toward the sun again, and to know that the days would start to become longer.
Cliffie strolled into the kitchen.
‘Well, where were you?’
‘In my room.’
Edith suddenly thought, My God, I didn’t ask George down for a drink. But George often slept from 5 until dinnertime. ‘I don’t suppose you know anything about the turkey,’ Edith said as she shook the lettuce swinger over the sink.
‘The turkey? I haven’t seen it.’
‘Of course not. You don’t go into the larder usually, do you, because your Coca-Cola’s in the fridge, but —’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Edith h
ad had enough to drink to pursue it. ‘Who opened the larder door? I didn’t. Didn’t you know the turkey was there – naked?’
‘Naked? Naked turkey!’ said Cliffie, and laughed.
Edith could have slapped him. She forced herself to be calm. ‘You didn’t possibly show Mildew the turkey?’
‘No!’ Cliffie protested, all innocence.
‘You’re a liar,’ Edith said, and went about her work.
Cliffie lingered, a wishy-washy vertical object which Edith avoided looking at directly.
‘Or did you just poke at the turkey yourself with a knife?’
‘I don’t know anything about the turkey!’ Cliffie said, his face reddening, tears starting. Then he went aggressively to the fridge and extracted a bottle of Coca-Cola.
Dinner was merrier. George had come down, dressed. Edith was feeling mellow with the wine, and it didn’t seem of earth-shaking importance if the dishes weren’t done till tomorrow morning. The Bugle had been thoroughly examined. The paper was slightly glazed, the print dark, the lay-out pleasant, Edith thought.
‘Want to see some before and after snaps?’ Edith asked, dragging an album from the coffee table shelf. ‘Very few, so you won’t get bored.’
They were of the house, of course, and this led Marion to look back in the album to earlier pictures of Edith and Brett and Cliffie when he was in diapers. Edith laughed loudly at some of them.
‘Here’s Poughkeepsie,’ Edith said, ‘versus Virginia. You have to admit Virginia is prettier.’
On opposite pages, Brett’s family’s redbrick house in a city street confronted Edith’s family’s house with its grounds and trees. A fact, Edith thought, of geography, not money, because Brett’s family wasn’t any poorer than hers was rich, which was to say they were both medium. Only great-aunt Melanie was rich in Edith’s family, and that because of her husband, now deceased, who had inherited part of a tobacco firm. There was a fine color picture of Aunt Melanie serving tea on her sunlit lawn near Wilmington.
‘You trust Brett in the kitchen?’ Marion asked. ‘Ed’s hopeless.’
‘Oh, Brett’s a gem. But don’t think he’s washing, he’s just stacking. – Brett?’ Edith called. ‘How’s the coffee?’
‘Coming!’ And just then Brett appeared in the doorway with a tray.
Edith poured.
‘Cliffie gone to bed already?’ Brett asked.
‘Haven’t seen him,’ said George, who was nearest Brett. ‘Coffee smells so good, I think I might indulge myself tonight.’
Edith went to get another cup and saucer, and when she came back, Marion was asking:
‘Are you enjoying your life here, George?’
‘Oh, yes, indeed! Healthful climate. I ought to get out more. But it’s difficult for me to walk.’
The telephone rang.
‘Bet that’s the Johnsons,’ Edith said. Brett went to answer it. ‘You’ll like the Johnsons, Marion. I don’t think you met them the first time you were here, did you?’
‘What?’ Brett said in a horrified tone. ‘When? Are you s —’ The sibilant sound turned into a slow whistle.
Edith got up and walked toward the hall. ‘Brett, what’s up?’
‘Oh, he’s all right. Good. – Sure we’ll be up. We could also —’ Brett looked at the telephone, then put it down slowly, and walked toward the living room. ‘Cliffie just jumped in the river.’
‘The river?’ said Marion.
‘That was the hospital in Doylestown,’ Brett said. His face was paler in the last seconds.
‘Is he hurt?’ Edith asked.
‘They said no,’ Brett answered hoarsely, and sank into his chair. ‘Holy Christ! Right here! Three blocks from home! Jumped in the river this time of year!’
‘Or did he fall?’ asked Ed, frowning.
‘No, they said he jumped, because someone saw him jump.’
‘How’d he get out?’ George asked.
‘They had to go get a guy with a rope. And then another man jumped in,’ Brett said. ‘Had to, because there’s a current, you know.’
George leaned forward. ‘Who was it saved him?’
‘We’ll have to find out tomorrow.’ Brett wiped his forehead, and poured more coffee for himself. ‘Yes. We ought to be grateful – for good neighbors tonight. Somebody jumped in and pulled him out.’ He glanced at Edith.
Just then the fire gave a loud pop!
‘Hark! the herald angels sing…’
This came from beyond the front door, and the singing swelled as a group of kids climbed the front steps.
‘We ought to give them something, Brett,’ Edith said.
Ed was getting up, reaching in his trousers pocket. So was Brett. The two men went to the door.
Edith had a glimpse of five or six small children, a couple of them bearing candlesticks, standing on the doorstep.
‘Thank you! Merry Christmas!’ one said, and there was no pause in the music.
‘… Glory to the newborn king!’
‘So Cliffie’s not hurt at all?’ George asked as Brett came back.
‘They’re treating him for shock – or exposure or something,’ Brett said. ‘They’re bringing him any minute. What the hell happened, Edie? Something happened after dinner that I didn’t notice?’
‘It was no doubt the turkey,’ Edith said, feeling embarrassed and yet not embarrassed, as everyone listened, because she’d had just enough to drink that the whole thing seemed unreal, untrue. ‘Someone gouged the turkey breast. Turkey’s in the larder. I may as well tell you now, because we’ll have to face it for tomorrow’s dinner.’ Edith felt like giggling.
‘Oh, the turkey!’ Marion said. ‘Who cares about the turkey? We don’t have to have —’
‘The turkey’s there,’ Edith interrupted, ‘it just looks like the cat’s been at the top of it, and the larder door’s always shut firmly, unless Cliffie opened it deliberately.’
‘And of course you told him he did,’ said Brett precisely, without mercy toward Cliffie, and without resentment against Edith.
‘I did because I —’ Edith had started out boldly, but suddenly she collapsed inwardly. ‘Because I know he did open the door on purpose. And I don’t even think it was Mildew, I think he poked at it with a knife to ruin it.’ She was finished. She put her face in her hands.
Marion held her in one arm, rocked her on the sofa.
And suddenly it was over. Edith lifted her head, smiled, and said, ‘I’m sorry. It’s the shock of it.’ It struck Edith that Ed was strangely silent, sober, that he perhaps didn’t like them, that he thought the atmosphere crazy, unnatural.
Edith heard the stomp of a foot on the porch, then their bell rang with a loud peal.
‘Maybe the hospital,’ Marion said.
Brett opened the door.
‘Hello! Merry Christmas!’
Gert and Norm Johnson and Derek stomped the snow off their boots on the doorstep, removed boots, and entered in stocking feet, carrying presents in red and white striped paper.
‘Merry Christmas, everybody!’ Gert repeated, smiling broadly.
‘Merry Christmas!’ Edith replied, and got up smiling. ‘This is Marion Zylstra – and her husband Ed. Our neighbors the Johnsons.’
‘How do you do?’ said Gert.
‘Howdy do?’ from Norman.
‘Heard a lot about you,’ Marion said.
‘And Derek,’ Edith continued.
‘Evening,’ said Derek.
‘Boy’s just had three glasses of punch and he’s as oiled as we are,’ Norm said. His tasseled scarf hung nearly to the floor, and there was a hole in the toe of one of his socks. ‘Hee-yappy Christmas!’
‘Same to you!’ Brett replied, and at that moment he and the rest heard the drone of an ambulance siren.