Edith’s Diary (22 page)

‘Your father rang up,’ she said. ‘He’s coming around seven-thirty. We have to go to that funeral home in Doylestown, but you don’t have to come if you don’t feel like it.’

By now Cliffie was munching stale cake, dropping crumbs on the table mat. ‘I don’t think I want to go. Gosh – corpses, I suppose!
Corpses
all over the place? I wonder what it smells like! But I can imagine – I’m sure!’

He was nervous. Better today if he did have some drinks, Edith thought, a point about which she did not have to remind him. And she was not going to bother saying to him, as if she were instructing a child, that funeral homes displayed their corpses only to the nearest of kin, and then when the corpses were – She arrested her thoughts deliberately, yet with a feeling that today somehow signified great progress.

‘Loads of food, Cliffie. I went to the supermarket. I’m off now. You going to be in this evening when Brett comes?’

‘I dunno. I suppose so.’

She felt he would be.

Edith managed to tidy up her portion of the counters at the Thatchery, and to leave by 7:05. No one, today, had inquired how George was doing, though half the time one of the staff or customers did. She walked homeward, thinking that if Brett had arrived early, he probably wouldn’t have a key, and Cliffie might be out.

Brett had not arrived. Edith looked up the Crighton Funeral Home to find out what street it was on. Then she washed her face, and got herself pulled together – a skirt with a white sweater, a scarf, and by then she heard Brett’s step on the porch, a knock. Edith went down the stairs. The door was not locked, and Brett was coming in. He looked pale, thinner, then Edith remembered he had had a long day plus the drive from New York.

‘Hello, Brett!’

‘Hello. Well – what news, eh? What news!’

Edith tried to look calmer than she felt. Was Cliffie in? She hadn’t looked. ‘It had to come some time, Brett.’

Brett said yes to the offer of a drink, and sat down at the right end of the sofa, his old favorite place. He wore a brown tweed suit that Edith had not seen before. ‘Died in his sleep,’ Brett said after his first sip.

‘Yes. I didn’t know it till – Cliffie said he spoke with George around seven Sunday, and George didn’t want any dinner. We’d had a big late Sunday lunch – you know. So I didn’t know anything was wrong till around eleven.’

‘Wrong?’

‘I couldn’t wake him up! So I rang the doctor. Carstairs was at a dinner in Flemington, so it was after midnight when he got here.’

Brett frowned, and the dry skin of his face looked more wrinkled. ‘But what did Carstairs say he died
of
?’

Edith heard a creak of floorboard in the hall, then Cliffie appeared in the doorway and walked in.

‘Hello, Dad!’ Cliffie half extended a hand and withdrew it, a gesture that suggested an awkward wave.

‘Hello, Cliffie. And how are you?’

‘All right, thanks.’ Cliffie turned and went to the bar cart, hauled up the scotch and unscrewed its top.

‘I suppose it was a kind of heart failure,’ Edith said to Brett.

‘Cheers, Dad!’ Cliffie lifted his glass. He felt well, rested, dressed presentably, slightly oiled already but not too. His father looked older and smaller than Cliffie remembered. Cliffie was not afraid of him.

Brett had squirmed with impatience at Cliffie’s toast. He blinked at Edith, and rubbed his eyes as if they hurt. ‘All these years. I know what a burden he was. A pain in the neck to you. I appreciate that fact.’

Cliffie turned toward the bottles again to hide his smile from his father.

‘I’d like to hear from Carstairs,’ Brett went on, ‘just what the cause of death was.’

‘You can ask him,’ Edith said. ‘I must say Carstairs didn’t seem terribly surprised.’

Brett finished his glass, uncrossed his legs and stood up. ‘I think I will try to get Carstairs. Now. Might be important. Have you got his number handy, Edith? I’ve forgotten it, if I ever knew it.’

Carstairs’ number was on the well-worn top page of a writing pad by the telephone, and Edith pointed it out to Brett. Edith went back into the living room. Cliffie was reasonably sober, but wearing the ghastly blue plaid jacket. He was in good spirits, beaming with confidence. Edith avoided looking at him, though she felt him watching her.

Brett had succeeded in getting Carstairs.

‘Oh… You’re sure of that?… Oh… No, she didn’t… I see.’ Long, long pause now. ‘Yes. I understand. But shouldn’t there be an autopsy then?… No – but you didn’t
order
an autopsy?’

Edith took a cigarette and moved closer to the garden window, where she could hear less well, and she tried not to hear. She turned and said to Cliffie, ‘You still don’t want to come with us?’

‘No.’ Surrounded by beard, Cliffie’s well-shaped, rosy lips smiled, and his eyes were full of amusement. He swirled his glass and drank.

Brett came back and gave an exasperated sigh familiar to Edith. ‘Carstairs didn’t even order an autopsy. Says he thinks George might’ve given himself an overdose. What do you think? Doesn’t sound like George – after all these years.’

‘I really don’t know.’ Edith said it flatly, and in an honest tone – she realized. She wasn’t making an effort.

‘Carstairs says there were some bottles practically empty right by his – on the bedside table there.’

‘I know. But quite frankly I wasn’t keeping track of how much was in the bottles.’

‘But who was dosing him? Was he dosing himself?’

‘No, sometimes I did. I’d ask him if he’d had his vitamins or whatever. The stuff was there on his bedside table. He took his sleeping pills himself – according to need.’ Did Brett think she was running a hospital? Edith detested talking about it. She really preferred Cliffie’s what-the-hell smirk – so close to her on her left now. ‘Sometimes I’d offer him his pills or that codeine syrup, and he’d say he’d already taken it.’

‘I think, if it’s not too late – For the sake of the insurance I – What’s the name of that funeral home?’

Edith went to the directory, looked it up and pointed out to Brett the Crighton Funeral Home entry. Brett whipped out his glasses, then dialed. Edith went back into the living room.

‘F’gosh sake,’ Cliffie murmured, still standing near the bar cart. ‘An old guy like that. Whether he took an overdose —’ Cliffie was whispering.

‘I agree!’ Edith said.

Cliffie smiled.

Brett’s voice rose from the hall. ‘Because I’m not even sure that’s
legal
under the circumstances. I would think also a
coroner
– Oh, the
doctor’s
job!’

Edith heard him spluttering, trying to wind up in a civil manner, then he banged the telephone down.

Brett came in, saying, ‘Idiots have already – He’s already embalmed. Let’s go, Edith.’

It was after 11 p.m. before Edith and Brett returned to the house. They had had dinner at the Cartwheel Inn, a roadside bar and restaurant. Cliffie was out, as Edith had expected. Brett wanted to talk with him. Brett had ordered a cremation, which he said was in accordance with George’s wishes. He had asked to see George, but the attendant – a young footballer-type with crewcut, wearing a clean white smock – had told Brett that the (what had he called it?) was not yet ready for viewing, but would be by tomorrow at 9 a.m. Brett had signed several papers, and Edith had waited on a polished wooden bench in the marble lobby, almost out of hearing of all this. Brett had sat with the young man at a desk in a far corner.

Brett was staying the night.

‘You look exhausted, you
shouldn’t
drive back,’ Edith had said, meaning it, because even after eating dinner, Brett was gray in the face.

Now here they were, and Edith wondered where he should sleep? The guestroom, of course. Its bed was made up. Edith found some pajamas in Cliffie’s room, clean but unironed because she didn’t bother any more, since Cliffie didn’t care. Brett liked to sleep in pajamas. Brett telephoned Carol. Then he came upstairs where Edith was turning down the bed in the guestroom.

‘I’ve got to leave before seven tomorrow,’ Brett said. ‘I’d like to talk with Cliffie.’ This for the second time. ‘You think he’s going to stay out all night? Or – I’ll wake him up early. What else?’ Brett looked asleep on his feet.

‘I really don’t know what he’s doing.’ Edith walked toward the door, having put the bedside lamp on for Brett.

‘Can I see George’s room?’ Brett was already going in, flicking on the main light to the left of the door. ‘So! Already – changed around.’

Edith said nothing. She could have said, ‘I felt like it,’ or ‘After all, it was depressing,’ but she felt like saying nothing.

Brett was walking about in the room, hands in his trousers pockets. ‘And all those – medicines?’

‘I think I threw them all out. Who wants codeine in the house?’

Brett nodded briefly, absently. ‘You don’t think maybe Cliffie gave him an overdose. Didn’t you say —’

‘Cliffie paid hardly
any
attention to George, I assure you, Brett. Never helped me – frankly.’

‘Didn’t you say Cliffie found out around seven that George didn’t want any dinner?’

‘Yes. True.’ Edith went into her workroom to get a cigarette. There was usually an opened pack on her table, and one was there now.

‘M-waa-ow,’ Nelson said, puzzled. He lay on the curved bench seat, near the radiator.

‘Oh! Sculpting,’ Brett said, coming in. ‘Gosh! – And there’s Cliffie looking like – a Roman emperor. Better!’ – Brett guffawed, as if her portrait were a rich joke, a caricature.

Edith felt resentment, even fury rise through her body to her face, her eyes, and deliberately she smiled, though Brett was not looking at her, but at Melanie’s head now, then at the abstracts, to which he gave merely a glance. He still smiled, stupidly, Edith thought. ‘Well. New pastime, eh? Very interesting, Edie. Not bad, really.’ He strolled out again.

Edith hated that he had set foot in her room. ‘Have a bath, if you like. You know where the towels are. What time shall I wake you tomorrow?’

‘Best six-thirty. Can’t you give me the alarm? I can grab some Nescafé when I wake up.’

She gave him the clock from the bedroom, knowing she would wake at the unaccustomed creaks in the house in the morning. And Carol was
his
new pastime. Edith was aware that the last thing she wanted in the world now was to be in bed with Brett.

That night she lay a long while without sleeping, though she tried to relax, to gain energy for tomorrow. She knew Cliffie would not come home. A couple of times he had stayed the night at the house of one of the boys who worked in the Chop House, a boy whose name Edith had forgotten, because it didn’t matter. She thought of the things she would never say to Brett, such as, ‘So what if George took the overdose himself? So what if Cliffie gave it to him? At George’s age – so what? If people have to die, and they do, isn’t going to sleep the easiest way? What about
me
all these thirteen years?’ Then anger, combined with shame of her petulance, made her grow tense and turn over in bed, muscles rigid again, and again she deliberately relaxed, breathed deeply. She was going to protect Cliffie, and Cliffie knew it. That was strange. Even the doctor, however, old Carstairs, was on their side. Edith laughed – but not loudly, and her door was shut, anyway.

The sound of a car door slamming, then the false start of an engine awakened Edith, because it had sounded close, right in the driveway. Brett, she thought. Taking off? Not hurrying, she pushed her feet into slippers, and walked to her workroom (the guestroom door was open), and saw Brett’s car pulling away from the curb. That was a fine thing! Strange she hadn’t heard him go down the stairs, but Brett could be very quiet when he wanted to be.

She went into the guestroom, where he had tossed the covers back upon the bed, to see if he had left a note. He hadn’t. In the hall, Edith noticed that George’s two suitcases still stood by the wall outside his room, plus the English racehorse print, which Edith had wrapped, though Edith last evening had suggested that Brett take them, that a suit might be needed for the burial, but now Brett was talking of cremation.

In sudden anger, Edith remembered Brett saying last night, ‘You’re getting strange, Edie. Maybe you should get out with people more.’ Edith had replied that she saw about a hundred a day at the Thatchery, talked with them, had to get along with them, and she also went to dinner parties often enough. She was also on good terms with the
Bugle
advertisers, from whom she often had to collect personally, but she hadn’t said that.

It was hardly 7, but Edith didn’t want to go back to bed for an hour. She went downstairs, glanced into Cliffie’s room and saw that he wasn’t there, though she did peer at a mound of navy blue blanket on the unmade bed, which just might have covered a human figure. She threw out what was left of the old coffee, and started afresh. While she was doing this, she heard the front door close. Cliffie, she supposed.

Then Brett appeared in the dining room. Edith was startled.

‘Morning. I moved my car. If Cliffie sees my car, he’ll never come in. I know my son. I want to talk to him this morning.’ Brett looked stiff with purpose.

Edith said, ‘Coffee will be ready in about six minutes.’

‘Mind if I make a couple of phone calls?’

Edith tried not to listen, which was easy, as she could barely hear the tones of his voice from where she was. Edith poured orange juice and made toast.

Brett came back with a tense smile. ‘Carstairs says he can come over around ten-thirty. Sorry I’ll have to hang around, Edith, but it’s worth it – to me. I rang Carol and she’ll explain to my office.’

Oh, good, Edith thought. They sat at the table.

‘Don’t forget to take George’s suitcases,’ Edith said. ‘Not to mention a few papers of his. They’re in a couple of boxes upstairs.’

Edith had work to do too. She took a bath, put on comfortable clothes, and tackled the
Bugle
work on her table. There were five subscription reminder slips to send off (Edith kept a file, by month), and then for
Letterbox
,
besides the usual gripes about the hooligan ‘outsiders’ invading the town on Saturdays and Sundays, thanks to the more frequent buses lately, old antiabortionist Mrs Charlton Riggs, Tinicum, was piping up again. Last evening at the restaurant Edith had chuckled, telling Brett what she intended to reply in an editorial, a brief one of about fifteen lines. ‘You sound like an extremist,’ Brett had said. Edith had retorted, ‘The only people who get anything done in the world are extremists.’ That from
him
,
she thought. How he had changed! When she had stamped all the reminder envelopes, Edith put a piece of paper in the typewriter and wrote:

It needed polishing, but the idea was there. Edith laid it aside. Brett was stooped over the suitcases in the hall. Edith went out for a breath of fresh air, and to drop her letters at the post office.

She looked around for Cliffie. Sometimes he was on foot, sometimes a friend dropped him in a car. He had not taken his Volks.

‘Oh, Edie!’ This was Peggy Ditson, a neighbor a bit younger than Edith, who years ago had done quite a bit of girl-Friday work for the
Bugle
.
‘I heard about George! I’m so sorry dear. Another sadness, but —’

‘How did you hear?’

‘Gert Johnson called me last night. Frankly, Edie, it’s a blessing. Don’t you think?’ Peggy screwed her face up in an unaccustomed frown, and turned the corners of her mouth down in an effort to look concerned, serious. Peggy was the type who smiled perpetually, if she wasn’t laughing.

Edith nodded. ‘He was getting on.’ She wondered how Gert had found out?

‘I suppose Brett – He was Brett’s uncle, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes. Oh, I’m in touch with Brett.’

They parted.

Cliffie came in shortly after Edith had got back. It was already after 10 a.m. Cliffie looked surprisingly well, not as if he had been up all night. Upstairs, Brett was making no noise with his activities, whatever they were. Edith wanted another cup of coffee, so she heated the pot and poured some for herself and Cliffie.

‘Where were you?’ Edith asked casually.

‘I was at the Johnsons’.’

That surprised Edith. Gert wasn’t a chum of Cliffie’s, wasn’t anti-Cliffie either, just neutral. ‘Stayed the night there? How’d you get there?’

‘I saw Dinah – with a fellow in a car. They were going to her house.’

Dinah was the Johnsons’ daughter. ‘I gather you told them about George.’

‘Yes, I did,’ Cliffie said, leaning back in his chair, throwing his chest out. He was eating a second piece of toast with marmalade.

A clunk came from upstairs, a suitcase being set down.

Cliffie started, and his smile went away.

‘Brett’s here.’

‘Oh.’ Now Cliffie grew tense, dropped his toast on the plate. ‘I didn’t see his car. What’s he doing?’

Now there was a knock at the front door. Edith went and admitted Dr Carstairs.

‘Hello, Edith,’ Dr Carstairs said with his thin, dry smile. ‘Now what’s the trouble? I’ve got only about fifteen minutes. Appointments this morning.’

‘I think —’ Edith knew what the trouble was, Brett wanted a certificate regarding the cause of death. ‘Brett’s upstairs. I’ll call him. – Brett?’

‘Yes! Coming!’ He was already halfway down the stairs.

Edith let them talk. She heard Brett say:

‘Just that I’d like to get some facts from you, doctor – no mincing of words, eh? You know me long enough not to, I hope.’ Brett was trying to be pleasant. ‘I’d like my son to be with us too.’ Brett called Cliffie.

Cliffie was in his room and didn’t appear for a minute or two. Now he wore a sloppy turtle-neck sweater, spotted with what looked like flecks of white paint. Edith went with Cliffie into the living room via the dining room.

‘Well – at that age,’ Dr Carstairs was saying. ‘Hello, Cliffie. At that age you could say it’s heart failure, a failure of the general system.’

‘You spoke of empty medicine bottles. Maybe you’d like to sit down, doctor.’

Carstairs did sit on the sofa. ‘Brett, I can’t say anything specific about those bottles.’

‘I’m surprised you didn’t order an autopsy,’ Brett said.

‘I didn’t see any need for one. Edith didn’t ask for one.’

‘But the fact that you mentioned empty medicine bottles – last night, I —’

Carstairs interrupted calmly, ‘
I
don’t happen to know if any were more empty than usual, because Edith always – Well, you know, things were going fine for George all these years with a certain amount of codeine plus an occasional morphine injection from me, which hadn’t been much increased, nothing
like
a cancer case, I can assure you. I have my records. – You didn’t order any extra codeine, did you, Edith?’ he asked, looking at her.

‘No.’ Edith was leaning on the back of the armchair. ‘I couldn’t order extra. Stan keeps your prescriptions, you know, and I just went when a bottle of something was getting low. The prescriptions were timed, Brett.’

‘Yes, but if he took all the stuff at once,’ Brett said to Edith. ‘How full were the bottles?’

‘Brett – I wasn’t keeping track of every bottle. I don’t
know
,’
Edith said.

Brett turned to the doctor again. ‘I presume you wrote a certificate of death, doctor.’

‘Yes. General systematic failure, cardiovascular failure. – Frankly, Brett, if you’re thinking of an overdose, the old boy might well have given it to himself. It wouldn’t have taken much in his condition.’

Here Cliffie chuckled slightly, but it sounded like a sudden exhalation or cough. He was enjoying the conversation, and Carstairs might as well have been his chum, from the way he was talking.

Brett looked as if he could have hit Cliffie with pleasure. ‘I’m sure I have to say something to the insurance people,’ Brett said. ‘If you —’

‘Oh, no, that’s for me to say,’ said Carstairs, ‘and I’ve already sent it to the State authorities. They’ll send Edith a certified copy and she can send it on to you.’

Brett took a breath, but Carstairs spoke first.

‘If you’re thinking that possibly – old George took an overdose either by mistake or on purpose – under the circumstances, at his age, that’s not going to be either here or there. It’s not like a young person’s suicide. I really have got to be getting along.’ Carstairs glanced at his wrist-watch, and slid to the edge of the sofa. ‘Unless there’s anything else —’