‘Oh, I dunno.’ Brett threw off his bathrobe. ‘I didn’t like it. Sure, I tried to smile. Sure. Had his finger on the trigger!’ Brett was whispering, though Cliffie was downstairs in his back corner room. Suddenly Brett laughed. ‘Anyway, I’m safe. I think.’
Was it real, Edith wondered. Of course it was real, what Brett had said, the gesture, the lightweight gun which could kill at short range. Edith was not sure Brett had got around to discussing the facts of life. She was not going to ask him about that.
Somewhat to Edith’s surprise, Brett wanted to caress her, to make love. That was real, that night.
6
When Edith put the telephone down, she climbed the stairs slowly, walked down the hall to her workroom, and after a few seconds, realized that she was staring at her diary. It lay atop some stacked magazines at the lower left end of the bookshelf under the bay window seat. Today was a day to make an entry, she thought. When had the last entry been? Four or five months ago, perhaps, and she couldn’t even remember what had prompted it. Something happy? What?
She had just received a phone call from a Mr Coleman or Colson in Trenton, saying that Cliffie had been caught with an answer paper in the room where he had been taking his college entrance exams. The man said they wanted to talk to Cliffie after the exams were over at 4 p.m., therefore Cliffie might be a little late. The man had sounded rather annoyed, curt. Cliffie’s being late was of no importance, as he was supposed to wait for Brett to pick him up at the high school just after 5. But the cheating! The answer paper (where had he got it from?), after the private tutors they had paid for in the last year! Cliffie’s math tutor, a boy going to Princeton and no older than Cliffie, had said last week that he thought Cliffie could make it on his intermediate algebra exam. Cliffie’s English was all right, if he bothered to use half his brain. And Cliffie had said just a couple of days ago that he wanted to pass this batch of exams so he could get into college (some college, because Princeton was out), so Edith and Brett had thought, this time, surely, Cliffie would come through.
Brett was going to be livid, the atmosphere in the house awful for the next days. How many days? Would Brett be so angry, he’d tell Cliffie to get out of the house and fend for himself? Brett might want to, but he’d be afraid to, Edith thought, afraid Cliffie would get himself into worse trouble. Cliffie could strike up an acquaintance in a bar, for instance, go with someone on a robbery and – Cliffie would be the fall guy. It hadn’t happened, but it might.
Edith forced herself to stop thinking about that. Cliffie was going to stay home. There was nothing stronger than Cliffie’s will to stay home. Home was comfortable, safe, cheap – in fact he didn’t pay anything except five dollars a week now and then when he had a temporary job. Home provided meals, laundry service, television, heat in winter and air-conditioning in summer.
‘We asked your son if he didn’t want to call you himself, Mrs Howland, but he didn’t, so we’re doing it,’ Mr Colson or Coleman had said on the telephone.
That meant Cliffie was in a funk of shame. Cliffie could lash out at his father verbally, and had once even swung a fist at him, but the blow hadn’t landed. Cliffie must’ve been in a muddle not to have told them that his father was picking him up after 5. Or did they mean to keep Cliffie longer than 5?
It was nearly 4 now. She’d have to ring Brett. Edith took a deep breath, left the comfortable atmosphere of her workroom, went downstairs, and picked up the telephone. She dialed the Standard’s number.
‘Hello, Mike,’ she said, recognizing the voice. ‘Could I speak to Brett, do you think?’
‘Why, I think that’s quite permissible, Edith,’ Mike drawled, and connected her.
‘Yep?’ said Brett.
‘Hello, Brett, it’s me. Listen – Cliffie might be a bit late, I’m not sure. They telephoned me and said there’s some delay with everything.’
‘Something happen?’ Brett sounded on the scent already.
‘I don’t think so. Just that he might not be on the steps when you get to the school. You might have to ask where he is.’
Brett laughed a little. ‘You mean he fainted and they’re still trying to bring him to?’
‘Maybe. See you later, dear.’ She hung up.
Now it was time for George’s tea. Today Edith almost enjoyed the chore, though most days it annoyed her, interrupting her writing, or gardening, or something else. She made Twining tea in the blue and white pot, and put two ginger cookies on a saucer. She carried the tray up.
George was asleep, wheezing a little, propped up on his back. His right hand, big and bony, lay limp on a library book which was open on his abdomen. The room smelt musty, despite the partly open window. The room had a paleness, a whiteness that depressed Edith. It was due to the expanse of bedsheets, she thought.
‘George?’ Edith called. ‘Teatime.’ She had to repeat it, more loudly. Edith disliked waking people up, even waking George who liked being awakened because it was evidently for a meal.
‘Wha – Oh! ’Course, dear. Thank you – kindly.’
She settled him, made sure the pillows could keep him upright, that the tray was reasonably balanced.
George’s bald head shone like something polished, pink alabaster, perhaps. In the last years his lower lids had sagged farther. Edith couldn’t bear to look at them. And now he was never up for meals, only got up (thank God) to use the bathroom.
‘Cliffie – isn’t he taking his exams for college today?’
Had she said something to George? If so, she was surprised George had retained it. ‘Yes, this afternoon in Trenton. He’s not back yet.’ What was she doing, standing here? Edith retreated and slipped out, leaving the door ajar, as George liked it.
The dinner was simple that evening, a corn casserole with leftover roast beef in it, garnished with green pepper. Edith had half cooked it, and would put the oven on again when Brett arrived, as they always liked a drink and a look at the Standard before dinner. Now it was twenty to 6, ten minutes later than Brett’s usual time of arrival – though that varied, Edith reminded herself.
The telephone rang. Edith had a feeling it was Brett.
‘Hi, Edith,’ said Gert Johnson. ‘Just wanted to ask how Cliffie made out. Or how he thinks he made out.’
‘Well —’ Edith began, trying to make herself sound just as cheery, because she could tell Gert the truth at some other time. ‘I dunno. They’re both a little late. Brett was going to pick Cliffie up afterward.’
‘Tell Cliffie we send him our best wishes. Those exams aren’t really stiff, you know, Edie. I’ll bet he’ll pass if he wants to.’
‘Wait and see. Cliffie’s full of surprises.’
‘Y’know, Edie, there’s a junk sale at the antique place near Flemington Saturday? Feel like going?… Well, call me if you do. I’m going and I can pick you up.’
They hung up. Edith wanted to make a drink for herself, but lit a cigarette instead. The living room looked handsome, she thought. The big sofa acquired three years ago was second-hand, but in good condition, upholstered in green leather which Edith took the trouble to polish reasonably often. Two oil paintings of her nineteenth-century great-grandparents hung on one wall, and over the mantel was a large mirror not exactly clear and in a fine frame whose gold-leaf was just worn enough, Edith thought, to look right. They had been in the house almost ten years now. Yes, George had come during the first weeks of their moving here, when Cliffie had been ten, his voice still a boy’s voice, his body still slender. She remembered Cliffie well, his likes and dislikes then. The amazing thing was that Cliffie had not changed much. He still liked comic books, though they were not now his exclusive reading. He liked James Bond and science fiction too, but Edith felt sure if she looked thoroughly in the bookshelves in his room, she would find some yellowing comic books dating back to the 1950s. He was now a little more sure of himself, or pretended to be. His tantrums had metamorphosed into touchiness, a downing of tools, a huff if his employer (a grocery store man
ager just now, as Cliffie worked at the Cracker Barrel lately) tried to bring him into line about something. He had barely scraped through high school, and now at nineteen was trying half-heartedly, for the second time, to make college entrance exams. Of course it didn’t matter at what age one entered college, but one had to want to go. Failing to make it, Edith thought, might be one more thing Cliffie had thought of to disappoint her and Brett. In fact, what could have been worse than what he had done today?
Mildew’s jumping onto her lap cut off Edith’s daydreaming. Mildew was nearly twelve. She jumped in an arthritic way, sparing her left hind foot.
‘Old Millie —’ Edith made kissing noises, and fondled the cat’s black ear. Mildew sensed when Edith was upset. Many a cold night, too, Mildew crawled into bed on Edith’s side and made her way down to rest like a fur-covered hot water bottle at Edith’s feet. Edith thought of something and grew tense: she remembered their last day in New York, when Cliffie had tried to smother Mildew under the eiderdown – and had nearly succeeded. Horrid!
Edith sprang up, lifting Mildew with her, as she heard the crackle of car tires climbing the driveway.
They came in, Brett first, and he gave Edith a brief look. ‘So – here’s our genius,’ Brett said.
Cliffie followed his father into the living room, swinging his feet a little, hands in his back pockets, and Edith saw he was going to assume a ‘So what?’ attitude.
‘Come on,’ Edith said, ‘I’ll give us all a drink and we’ll talk it over.’
‘Talk what over?’ Cliffie said, and burst out in a laugh. He was not quite as tall as Brett, and inclined to plumpness. Brett was always saying a boot camp would get Cliffie into shape, but the Army had rejected Cliffie – for no reason that Edith or Brett knew except silliness and maybe an air of ineradicable contempt. Cliffie bent and rubbed the cat quickly on the ribs with both hands, causing Mildew to shrink backward. ‘Don’t know what miseries you’ve missed today, Mildew, staying home.’
Brett went to rinse his hands, as he nearly always did, in the room off the hall which had a basin and a toilet. Edith made a pitcher of martinis in the kitchen.
‘Beer, Cliffie?’
‘Yes, mom!’
‘Well, it seems the school called you up and told you,’ Brett said when she came back. ‘I had to face the news cold. Why the hell, Cliffie, when you had a good chance of passing, did you take the damned answer papers in with you? And last year’s at that. Didn’t it occur to you they might change the exams a little?’
‘What exam was it?’ Edith asked.
‘All of ’em! Imagine sitting there looking at the answer papers! And Cliffie isn’t telling us where he got them from,’ Brett said.
‘So they’re not —’ Edith began again, ‘Are they giving him any credit at all for —’
‘He’s out,’ Brett said, lifted his glass and drank almost half of it, and winced. ‘That tastes good,’ he said to Edith.
Edith did not exactly look at Cliffie, but she was aware of him looking at both of them, waiting eagerly for their remarks, as if he had done something praiseworthy rather than shameful. And she was aware that there was nothing to say, nothing that would do any ‘good’ for the future, no scolding that would be of any value. Years ago he had talked of going to Princeton as if it were a fait accompli. These exams today had been minimum requirements to enter any college, however low its standards.
‘Oughta paint my face black,’ Cliffie said, ‘then they’d let me in anywhere!’ He guffawed, showing excellent teeth.
‘No, they wouldn’t,’ Brett said calmly, and Edith knew his drink was already having effect. ‘You have a disrespect for education, and people can smell it a mile away. Well and good, but why do you waste the time of the rest of us? Why, above all, do you trouble to cheat – and even if you hadn’t been caught, I bet you’d have managed to fail.’ Brett glanced at Edith.
If Cliffie were only doing something else, Edith thought, as she’d thought a hundred times before, like writing or painting, then a college degree wouldn’t have been important. But Cliffie wasn’t doing anything except loafing around the house.
‘Just what did they say at the school, Brett?’ Edith asked, trying to appear relaxed, leaning back in the armchair. Mildew was again in her lap.
‘A Mr Coleman,’ Brett said, ‘was brief – and to the point.’
Edith suddenly found unbearable Cliffie’s just sitting there, waiting for them to go on. ‘How’d you make out with Clark today?’ she asked. That was an office matter of Brett’s writing original material for their editorial page more often than he did, which was now hardly once a month. Edith barely listened, but Brett said he had made progress, had nailed Clark down to four items a month, though the number of lines wasn’t specified. ‘Dinner’s almost ready,’ Edith said, getting up. ‘Want to finish the dregs, Brett? I’ll call you in a couple of minutes.’
She went into the kitchen, where Cliffie at once joined her in quest of another beer from the fridge.
‘I’ll just live like George,’ Cliffie said, flinging the fridge door shut. ‘Just hang around waiting for meals. Ha-ha!’
Did he want them to throw him out, Edith wondered, or at least threaten to? She wasn’t going to reply, wasn’t going to ruin dinner – hers not Cliffie’s – by exchanging any words at all with him.
A year ago, when Cliffie hadn’t had the grades for college, she and Brett had thought he might join a group of young people, all of whom Cliffie knew, who had rented a house in Lambertville, New Jersey, just four miles away. All the young people had jobs or were going to schools, their parents lived near enough to keep an eye on them, and Edith was sure the kids frequently went home for meals or weekends. The communal hostelry was a stepping stone to independence as adults. The group hadn’t wanted Cliffie, however. Cliffie had made an effort, maybe a halfhearted effort, as was his wont, but he hadn’t been accepted. ‘They need a plumber now,’ Cliffie had told Edith when he came home. ‘They want people who can do things like carpentering – electricity.’
‘Naturally you can’t just sit around and do nothing. I suppose they could use a cook too,’ Edith had said.
‘That’s for girls,’ Cliffie had replied promptly. In some ways, Cliffie was quite conventional.
Cliffie now drifted out of the kitchen with his beer can, and a minute later, as Edith was about to serve the meal, Brett came in.
‘I’m not going to say a damned thing tonight,’ Brett said softly and grimly. ‘I’ve absolutely had it.’
Edith carried the casserole into the dining room and set it on the cork mat in the center of the table. She wondered if Brett was wondering, as she was, if she or he were the more responsible for Cliffie’s spinelessness? Wasn’t it sometimes a matter of genes? It was Edith’s opinion that environment wasn’t as important as heredity, though years ago she had thought it fifty-fifty. Wonderful people could come from awful backgrounds. And lots of the kids in gangs now, the drug-takers, the house-robbers, came from middle-class families.
Give it up for a few minutes! Edith told herself. She served four plates, the fourth for George. Brett had brought a tray with napkin, knife, fork and spoon, a glass of milk, as George drank no coffee at night. Brett took the tray up. Cliffie was ravenous as usual, had two helpings of everything, and was finished his second bowl of sliced peaches with cream before Edith and Brett had eaten their first. Cliffie stood up and asked to be excused, in that order.
‘Indeed, yes,’ said Brett.
Cliffie went into the hall to his room, and Edith knew he would switch on his transistor at once, then close his door.
Brett seemed to remain silent deliberately, so Edith did the same. She might have reminded Brett that the Zylstras were coming on the weekend, or said something about the letter she had received from Aunt Melanie that morning, saying she was going to the hospital again in regard to her hip – broken some eight years ago, and giving her pain occasionally. Edith’s thoughts drifted for a few seconds to the m
emory of the trip to Europe with Aunt Melanie the summer Edith had been seventeen. They had sailed on the Queen Mary – first class – to Southampton, and Edith had seen London, Paris, Rome, Florence and Venice. Those had been the most wonderful two months of Edith’s life, still vivid, fresh with bursts of beauty. Details of the trip were in her diary – the sight of rain on Michelangelo’s David in Florence, for instance – though Edith remembered that she had been a bit intimidated by the big diary then, since she had received it just six months or so before her trip.
Suddenly Brett got up and gently but firmly closed the door on the hall. ‘Let’s get down to brass tacks. I think he’d better find himself a regular job P.D.Q. and even his own lodgings. Trenton has jobs open now, unskilled labor, construction jobs. God knows he’s strong enough. Room and board offered with some of ’em too, right there in the Standard ads tonight.’
Edith didn’t know what to say, though she wasn’t uncomfortable. If Cliffie did get into trouble, or failed for some reason, home was only twenty miles away. ‘Well – are you going to ask him or shall I?’