Edith’s Diary (12 page)

‘I must say you’re bearing up pretty well.’

‘What else can one do? I certainly don’t care to make a scene. – And what good would a scene do?’

They went into the living room.

‘Well – do you think it’s going to last?’

Edith hesitated. ‘Maybe. Why not?’

Gert laughed in an embarrassed way. ‘I don’t know the answers! You know Brett better than I do.’

Edith had faced the fact that it might be permanent. It would be stupid not to face the possibility. ‘Brett doesn’t do things lightly. Not something like this. He may well want to marry her. Soon.’

Gert took a swallow of her drink. Wide-eyed, she shook her head, as if she were about to say, ‘The nerve of Brett!’ or something like that. ‘And you’re stuck with his uncle – George. That’s a fine thing.’

They did manage to talk of other things, until during the second drink (Gert always had two but never three in the afternoon) Gert said, ‘Can I ask you something, Edie, would you take Brett back if he wanted to come back?’

That was a leap into unreality, the future, that Edith couldn’t make. She shook her head with sudden impatience. ‘I can’t answer that now. It even bores me to think about it.’

Cliffie had drifted upstairs toward the bathroom, where in fact he didn’t need to go, but he made brief use of it anyway. The house felt emptier with his father’s things packed, his raincoats off the hall hooks and out on the porch, ready to be thrown into the car tomorrow. His father was coming back Sunday with the car, his mother had said, then she would drive him to the railway station in Trenton (or maybe Cliffie would do that, his mother had said), or maybe Brett would walk to the bus stop, Edith wasn’t sure what he would want to do.

It was
real
,
Cliffie supposed, his father’s leaving, yet it made Cliffie want to laugh. Cliffie had the feeling his father might be acting, the way an actor acted in a play, not meaning it. Maybe his mother was acting, too, pretending to be unhappy – and then Brett would come back. Yet Cliffie had met Carol, and she was real, all right. She was pretty. And his father was laying her. Soon, starting tomorrow night, his father was going to be in bed with her every night in New York.

Cliffie found himself walking softly, almost on tiptoe, into George’s room, whence a gentle, wheezing snore came. George was on his back, one skinny arm flung up on the pillow as if he were warding off a blow, or maybe hailing somebody. George’s mouth was open. His lower teeth were in a glass on the bedside table. Disgusting! George wore faded pink and white striped pajamas. He looked like a crazy drawing in
Mad
,
Cliffie thought, or maybe a character in a horror film. Cliffie liked horror films: they made him genuinely scared for a few seconds, then they made him laugh. He could laugh
at
them, and he liked that.

‘Well, what d’y’think about the
news
,
George?’ Cliffie asked in a soft voice, smiling. Cliffie glanced at the door, which he had left half open.

George snored on, didn’t even twitch.

‘Bores you, I bet. Just imagine – your nephew – Brett – running off with another woman at
his
age. Cradle-robbing!’ Cliffie laughed out loud. ‘Opium, George?’ Cliffie sobered suddenly, and reached in his pocket for a cigarette and matches. He looked around at the half-neat, half-sloppy room, which always looked exactly the same: three or four library books stacked on the straight chair where nobody ever sat, and on the white-painted chest of drawers at least thirty little bottles of crap-pills and drops, sedatives, pain-killers, cough syrup.

‘
Soo-oothing
syrups,’ Cliffie said aloud in falsetto.

George stirred and snorted as he resettled his head on his pillow. His face was turned sideways now, and his skin was nearly as pale as the pillow except for a few spots of bluish-pink.

‘What d’y’say, George, honestly?’ Cliffie bent closer, whispering. ‘Do you ever imagine —’ Cliffie couldn’t bring himself to utter the words. The idea, however, went through Cliffie’s mind quite clearly. He imagined old George doing it with a girl, now, and Cliffie compressed his lips, and nearly exploded with a fart-like sound. Then he did laugh, heartily, on seeing that his laughter hadn’t penetrated George’s ears in the least!

Cliffie recalled the celebrated gang-bang or rape (his kid chums had called it by both names) years ago when Cliffie had been thirteen or fourteen. A girl called Ruthie, living in Brunswick Corner, had an empty cellar in her house and a family who were out all day, and she had been more than willing. Eight and ten boys would line themselves up around the cellar watching, getting themselves ready, and then they’d all screw her in turn. Cliffie had been ready in the way he was ready alone in bed, the way he could always do it, but that time he had suddenly conked out, although he had gone through the motions. There had been laughter and applause, as for all the boys. He had tried to pretend to the girl that he had made it, fast. It had all happened so fast, the girl had been so silly and giggling, Cliffie didn’t give a damn what she had thought, anyway. Did the other guys know? Well, maybe. But now it didn’t much matter, because the guys had somehow got scattered, Cliffie couldn’t think even of
one
whom he knew now, and the girl had disappeared, family had moved or something. Cliffie had gone only one afternoon to the cellar, he remembered, though the cellar had continued in operation for weeks. When Cliffie saw a porn cartoon anywhere, in any magazine, he laughed, or at least smiled. As for real girls – what Cliffie saw as flesh and blood, five feet six and weighing a ton usually – he considered them a pain in the neck, demanding this, demanding that. Why did guys put up with it? Well, a lot didn’t, they laid a girl for a while, then got rid of her, like Mel.

Cliffie blinked, relaxed, brought himself back to where he was, flicked cigarette ash into George’s wastebasket, which was half full of revolting wadded Kleenexes. He listened for a moment to hear if his mother was possibly coming up the stairs, but he knew from past experience that Gert would stay till 6:15, the latest she could take off to get dinner at the usual time for her family. He went to the low chest of drawers, reached for the silver tablespoon that lay on a white napkin, rubbed its bowl vigorously with a corner of the napkin, stooped and made sure which of the bottles held the codeine syrup, then poured himself a tablespoonful. It tasted sweet and good, and had a base of alcohol. Cliffie liked to imagine that it gave his brain a take-off, like a rocket.

‘… four-three-two-one –
Go!
’
he whispered, and glanced again, unnecessarily, at George, who might have been knocked out by a sledge-hammer. ‘
Whammo!
’
Cliffie said for good measure. He thought it best to get out of the room while the coast was still clear, and went downstairs, back to the kitchen where he snared a beer from the fridge, then into his own room. He shut the door and switched on his transistor.

Edith had not made an entry in her diary for some four months. She wrote:

She looked out her window at the waving tops of the willows, then wrote:

Edith closed her diary hastily, realizing that the ink was probably not quite dry. Cliffie’s pop music just now was driving her insane, as it often did in summer when the windows and doors were all open. Funny about jazz, when you were calm, it sounded great, and when you were disturbed, it made you more disturbed.

The guestroom was ready for Melanie, the bed made with Edith’s prettiest percale sheets under a striped red and blue spread. Nelson was lying on the spread now, curled for sleep, eyes half closed. He was an intelligent cat, thoughtful even, or he often looked as if he were thinking, whereas Mildew had been merely wonderfully tranquil and daydreaming. Nelson’s outstanding trait was his trust in her. When she got him down from trees, for instance, when he was younger, he relaxed completely in her hands and could slip through them like a piece of silk. She had learned to grip him firmly in emergencies. He did not much like Cliffie. Nelson’s cool blue eyes, for all they were slightly crossed, gazed at Cliffie sometimes like the eyes of a judge too discreet to make the comment that he might.

Edith’s heart gave a dip when she thought of what Melanie might say or think about Cliffie on this visit. Cliffie now had a scruffy beard, had put on a few more pounds, slept till noon often, stayed out till 3 a.m. at Mickey’s, or at the house of a boy called Mel something in Lambertville. Cliffie occasionally worked as barman or waiter at the Chop House, where he made rather good money due to tips, though his contributions to the household were irregular and just enough to keep her quiet, Edith knew. Cliffie would put on reasonably good behavior for Melanie (Edith felt he nurtured dreams of inheriting some money from her), but nothing could correct his appearance.

After Brett’s departure, Cliffie had felt a strain that Edith had foreseen. Now he was ‘the man of the house,’ a role he couldn’t possibly fill, one he would run from by nature, so Edith had been cheerful, had not given a hint that she couldn’t manage things herself, that she was in any way anxious. Cliffie had twice gotten rather drunk in the month after Brett had gone, got into one of his infantile tantrums and thrown a Chinese vase which had been on the mantel and which Edith had had all her life, and the pieces had been so small, Edith had at once despaired of having it mended, so had swept up the mess and tried to forget it.

Was there some hope to be taken, however, from the fact Cliffie was human enough to be disturbed by Brett’s leaving? Edith liked to think so.

Edith drove alone in the brown 1964 Ford to fetch Melanie at the Trenton railway station, though Melanie in her letter had offered to take a taxi. Once more the embrace on the platform, like last summer. Edith hadn’t told Melanie about Brett’s wanting a divorce, only that he was living with a younger woman in New York, and had been for three or four months at the time Edith wrote the letter.

‘You must tell me about everything,’ Melanie said in the car, ‘but maybe not when you’re driving. You’re looking quite well, my dear. – And how’s old George?’

Edith said George was the same, but taking more painkillers. ‘Naturally this codeine stuff – probably makes people addicts.’

‘Does it have to be codeine?’

‘He gets used to the other things, then the doctor – it’s still Carstairs – gets tired of switching them around, so he prescribes codeine–liquid. I have to sign for it at the drug-store. Then there’re the sleeping tablets. I always thought codeine was sort of sleep-inducing. It’s all opium, you know. In the arms of Morpheus.’

‘In the arms of Murphy we used to say when I was young!’ Melanie said, chuckling, ‘and I think we meant bourbon. – Poor old fellow! What does George say about Brett’s antics?’

‘Oh – a few sympathetic words. What can he say?’

Edith made iced tea, with mint from the garden. Cliffie was not home. Edith explained that Cliffie was working in a restaurant part-time. He had said something about working lunch that day, a big birthday party with twenty people coming, but Edith didn’t know whether to believe him or not. Melanie wanted to see Nelson who was in Edith’s workroom now on the window seat.

Melanie bent and greeted him, not touching him. ‘Nelson! What a big boy! You don’t remember me, do you? – You were just – barely three month, I think.’

Nelson listened, then rather to Edith’s surprise stood up, arched his back in a stretch, sat and looked at Melanie attentively, as if he liked her voice. When they left the room, Nelson followed them. Downstairs, as they drank their tea, Edith told Melanie that Brett wanted a divorce.

‘What? Has he lost his mind?’

Melanie was genuinely surprised, Edith saw. ‘Well, no, because – he said when he left that it was a – He said he thought he wanted to marry Carol.’

‘How’s he going to support two households?’

‘Carol isn’t poor. I might take a job of some kind. Lots of shops in town, you know, where I could get a job selling.’ Edith couldn’t bring herself to say Cliffie would help, too, because she knew Melanie didn’t think him reliable.

‘Have you agreed to the divorce?’ Melanie asked.

‘What else can I do?’

‘Why, you’ve got everything on your —’

‘I think it’s awful, fighting these things,’ Edith interrupted. ‘After all, he’s known the girl more than a year now. He must know what he’s doing.’

‘Yes. And so do I. He’s indulging himself. He’s walking out on a situation – you and Cliffie, not to mention George! Leaving you with
that
,
it seems!’ she put in, in her gentle, telling style, and continued, ‘We all know about temptations like this, women have them too, but one doesn’t give in to them,’ Melanie gave a laugh. ‘I’m sure I sound old-fashioned.’

She didn’t to Edith. It was good to talk with someone besides Gert Johnson, who however had said the same thing about Brett’s leaving her with George. But where did they go from here? ‘I don’t know,’ Edith said with difficulty, ‘if you expect me to fight – somehow. I just can’t. It’s too sordid.’

‘Lots of things in life are sordid. Having a baby is sordid, but necessary.’

‘I know what you mean,’ Edith said, and she did, and knew that of all people Melanie could make the sordid part of life less sordid. ‘But isn’t making a fuss about it more sordid? You don’t expect me to make a fuss, do you? I don’t even want to soak Brett financially.’

Melanie leaned back on the sofa. ‘I honestly don’t know. I know your character, and it’s not there – to fight in a case like this. I think I would, at your age. And does Brett think he’s a spring chicken? Just because he’s a man?’ Melanie laughed again, a tolerant laugh.

Edith said nothing.

‘How is Cliffie taking it? Does he know his father wants a divorce?’

‘Oh yes. I think he resents the fact his father’s simply run off. That more than the fact there’s another woman involved. Cliffie’s aware he’s supposed to be the man of the house now. Naturally I don’t —’ Edith was finding it harder and harder to talk. ‘I don’t push the role on him.’ Edith might have said, but didn’t, that Cliffie showed signs of being worried about their finances. He did like the house and certainly wouldn’t want her to have to sell it.

Edith glanced at her aunt’s handsome face – Melanie was looking toward the fireplace now – and wondered if Melanie was thinking that if Cliffie did push off, it would be the best thing for him and for her? ‘I do think Cliffie feels Brett is being selfish,’ Edith said.

‘In that respect, Cliffie is right.’

Melanie then said she would like a rest before the evening, and she would try again to say hello to George who had been sleeping a few minutes ago. Upstairs, Edith looked into George’s room and found that he was awake.

‘Oh, George! Aunt
Melanie
is here. Wants to say
hello
to you!’ Edith thought her own voice sounded insanely cheerful, but why not?

‘Oh! Oh, how nice! Tell her to come in.’

Edith made a vague gesture toward the glass that held his lower teeth, because George spoke and looked better with them. ‘Melanie?’ Edith said.

‘Coming, dear!’ Melanie came into the room. ‘How’re you, George?’ Melanie said heartily, bending over George. ‘You’re looking the same as ever and it’s been – oh, nearly another year, I do believe.’

‘Feeling about the same,’ George assured her. He was propped on one elbow. He had not put in his teeth.

‘What’re you reading?’ Melanie was speaking loudly, and she pointed to a closed book on George’s bed.

It was not a library book, but one from the house, a biography, Edith had forgotten of whom. Anyway George didn’t hear the question.

‘See Brett?’ George lifted his rheumy eyes to Melanie’s face.

‘No. No, I haven’t.
Love
to see him!’ Melanie shouted tactfully, and gave Edith an amused glance over her shoulder.

‘We’ll let you rest a while, George,’ Edith said. ‘Unless you’d like some tea? But it’ll be dinner time in about an hour.’

‘Tea? Tea, yes,’ George said.

Edith had been about to open a window to air the room. Only one window was open a little. George had somehow thought it worthwhile to get out of bed and close one window, or of course he might have done it on one of his trips to the bathroom. But just now Edith thought it more urgent to get his tea and have that over with.

Melanie said to Edith in the hall, ‘Poor dear!’ She squeezed Edith’s forearm and released it. ‘I do hope he’s still going to the bathroom by himself.’

‘Yes. That’s something,’ Edith replied. Edith was not going to mention that George had wet his bed two or three times, in his sleep, perhaps. Edith knew she must acquire a rubber sheet. It had been on her mind for at least three weeks now.

Edith prepared George’s tea tray and took it up.

When cocktail time arrived, a little past 7, Cliffie was still not home. Was he funking the whole evening, because he knew Melanie was here? Edith told Melanie that Cliffie sometimes had to work the dinner shift, and didn’t always ring her when he had to.

Melanie was sipping a gin and tonic. The big front window was open. It was not yet warm enough for air-conditioning in the daytime, and the evening was bringing a most welcome breeze from the north.

‘You know, it occurred to me just now as I was sitting in my delicious cool bath,’ Melanie said, ‘that if you don’t fight now, you may regret it. A little later will be too late and too late forever, you know.’ Her voice was gentle.

‘Fight how?’

‘Telephone him. Tell him you love him. – You’ve got his telephone number, haven’t you?’

Was she supposed to do that, when Carol might pick up the telephone first, be in the apartment when she spoke with Brett?

‘Well, you do love him, don’t you?’

‘Yes. Oh yes,’ Edith said.

‘It’s up to you, my dear, of course, but I say only that if you let the divorce go through – it’s going to be so much more difficult, if Brett ever wants to come back. It seems to me you’re not lifting a finger. Maybe you think it’s more noble —’

‘I don’t feel in the least noble,’ Edith said.

‘It’s not the time for nobleness. Brett isn’t behaving nobly. All I’m saying is that if you don’t act now —’ Melanie let her voice trail off, then she lit one of her infrequent filtered cigarettes. She smoked perhaps three a day.

In the seconds of silence, Edith felt for the first time an abyss beneath her, around her, black and dangerous. She had a sense of empty time, lots of time, years, months, days, evenings. She was reminded more strongly, she felt more strongly than when she had written the sentence maybe twenty years ago, that life really had no meaning, for anyone, not merely herself. But if she herself were alone, was going to be alone, then the meaninglessness was going to be that much more terrifying. That was it. She felt terrified for a few seconds, as if she had had a glimpse of destiny, fate, the essence of life and even death. It had been her destiny to meet Brett Howland, for instance, to become his wife and have a son by him, and if that were taken away – Brett was obviously already taken away, and as for a son, was Cliffie of much substance? He worried her more than he comforted her.

Edith got up for no purpose except that she had grown faint and thought it best to move, to go nearer the window. Her legs felt weak, and she realized she was stooped.

‘Edie, sit down!’ said Melanie. Now Melanie was on her feet, extending a hand to Edith.

Edith took her hand and sat down, realized the coldness of her own hand from the warmth of Melanie’s.
I
have just had a vision
,
Edith wanted to say,
a vision of a valley, an abyss, worse than a cliff you walk over
.
It represented the rest of her life, Edith felt, and it represented the present also. And the tragedy would not be solved by another person, not another husband, not even by Brett really, because Edith’s vision had to do with her existence, quite apart from other people.