Edith’s Diary (24 page)

‘Wow, that’s fast.’ Cliffie strolled in with a smudge of dust straight up the bridge of his nose, and a yellow dustrag hanging out of a back pocket.

‘Your room’s going to look nice!’ Edith said cheerfully.

‘Yeah.’ Cliffie dove into a sandwich. ‘Nice time down in Delaware?’

Edith smiled. ‘Lovely. You should’ve been there. I went wading in the brook at midnight.’

‘In this weather?’

‘And your cousin Sarah asked about you. She’s so nice, Cliffie. So’s her husband.’ And Edith talked on. Was Cliffie really listening or not? As usual, she felt he was taking in half of it. As soon as he had downed his sandwiches and milk, he went back to his room. Edith had no intention of interrupting his unprecedented effort, so she shouted a ‘Bye-bye’ and departed.

‘Hey, Mom!’ Cliffie was running down the hall. ‘Just that I’m – Just that a girl is coming for a drink tonight at seven thirty. Okay? Are you home?’

‘Well – do you want me to be?’

‘Oh – doesn’t matter.’

‘I’ve got work to do in my room. I won’t be in your way. Got to run, Cliffie.’ She went on. A girl! What girl, Edith wondered.
Coming
to the house. Well, no reason why Cliffie should fetch her, she supposed. Edith was smiling.

Cliffie continued his tidying all afternoon, imbibing meanwhile two beers, in a dreamy way, as from time to time he surveyed his progress. Never before had he thrown things out, just said good-bye to them. It was like swimming for the first time, or like the time he had jumped off the bridge when he was a kid. Yet he felt like throwing things out. And it was a damned good thing, he thought. He carried two cartons of rubbish out to the back and put them beside the garbage bin for Saturday morning’s collection.

The girl’s name was Luce, for Lucy. Cliffie had picked her up last night at the Cartwheel Inn, in the bar part. She had short straight blond hair, streaked with brown, with bangs – not the type that usually turned him on or turned anybody on, Cliffie supposed, but she had an interesting smile, rather shy and at the same time friendly, even sexy. She had said she was eighteen, when Cliffie had asked her how old she was. She had been alone, and Cliffie had bought her a gin and tonic and sat down at the little table with her. She was from Philadelphia.
Stranger to these parts
,
Cliffie had said, not a brilliant line, maybe, but it seemed to have done wonders last night. Luce had promised to come to his house at 7:30, and to go out to dinner with him afterward. Cliffie had made a trip to the bank and withdrawn forty dollars, which meant he had sixty-two on him now.

Around 5 he had a nap, exhausted by his efforts which had included going to the local grocery for fritos and potato chips. The house had gin and tonic. When he woke up, his heart gave a leap when he saw it was just after
6,
and at once he thought that Luce might stand him up. That was quite possible, so he braced himself. If she did stand him up (and he would know by 8 or 8:15), and his mother said anything, he would say casually that Luce had called up and told him she couldn’t make it.

His room looked rather okay, even nice, he thought. He had left one of the best pop group posters up, and there were lighter patches on the white wall where the others had been, but what the hell? No use being an old maid about a room! The funny thing was, he wasn’t sure he would invite Luce even to have a look at his room. On the other hand, he
could
have the cocktail hour
in
his room. He pondered this.

When Edith came home a little after 7, she found Cliffie in the hall, looking anxious, as if she might have been his girl friend barging in. Edith was mildly surprised to see three-quarters of his beard off again, and now merely a thick hedge along his jaw-line. His hair looked as if he had just had a bath, and he had on his blue blazer which Edith thought he was a bit too plump to button now.

‘Everything all right?’

‘Just fine, Mom.’

Edith went upstairs, and had her second bath of the day. She felt especially well, and wanted to write something in her diary. Her last entry had been about George passing away in his sleep. She wasn’t going to say anything about the
cremation
,
which in fact she hadn’t witnessed, nor had Brett, but that service – brief, perfunctory beyond belief! And Brett had not taken the trouble to alert George’s kin, if any, nor had Edith for that matter troubled to ask Gert or the Quickmans to come, which they probably would have done. Sad it had been, sad, sad. And she had sensed Brett gently smouldering throughout. For the first time in a long time, Edith had felt sympathy for poor old George, for his isolated spirit, George who had grown too deaf to enjoy radio, and had maintained to the last his contempt for television.

And now Cliffie – in a dither. It pleased Edith that he had a girl friend. Surely he’d asked a girl or two to the house before. Hadn’t he? Of course she couldn’t write about that in her diary, because Cliffie was married – in her diary.

Edith put on her blue corduroys, suddenly remembered the bundle on the living room floor, and went down. Cliffie was in the living room, strolling about with a scotch, and the bundle was exactly where she had left it, in front of the sofa. ‘Pardon me, Cliff! I’ll get this out of your way.’

‘Oh. That. Yeah. Yes. Is it heavy?’

‘Oh, no.’ Edith carried the bundle up the stairs, and opened it on the double bed in the bedroom. Beautiful crisp linen, and some other linen or cotton items quite limp with age. And the silver! And a daguerreotype that Edith had admired and Sarah had put in without Edith’s knowing. Melanie’s mother, Edith remembered. The picture was framed, and Sarah had remarked that the name and dates were written on the back of the picture.

She heard Cliffie opening the front door, heard voices. Edith was glad the girl hadn’t stood him up. She put the linens in the bottom drawer of the big chest of drawers in her room, and laid the steamer rug over a chair to hang out. Then she went into her workroom and closed the door.

She pulled her diary toward her and opened her fountain pen.

It was her first remark concerning Brett in a long time, but she thought since this was about George, she had to mention Brett.

Edith hesitated, daydreamed, aware of a murmur of voices from below, but she had already decided not to try to meet the girl, lest that annoy Cliffie. She added:

The telephone was ringing. Edith only faintly heard it, and opened her door, waiting.

‘Mom?’

‘Thank you!’ Edith ran down. Cliffie had gone back into the living room.

‘How’re things, Edie?’ Gert asked. ‘I heard about George. I should’ve called you up Monday or so, but we had a crisis
here
.
Norm had his tonsils out and developed the most unbelievable fever… Oh, he’s coming along now, thanks to antibiotics.’ The rest was
Bugle
matters. Their printer in Trenton had appendicitis, and the next issue might be late, because there was only his apprentice to do the work, and even he (like the printer) had another job. But Edith should get her copy and
Letterbox
stuff in at the usual time anyway.

‘Bet you can’t wait to fix up George’s room!’ Gert said with one of her earthy laughs.

Chartreuse
,
Edith thought suddenly. With a dusty pink chest of drawers. Yes! ‘You’re right!’ said Edith.

‘Mom?’

Edith had just hung up. Cliffie was beckoning her into the living room.

‘Like you to meet Lucy – Luce Beckman,’ Cliffie said, gesturing toward the girl in the green armchair.

The girl sat forward, sandal-shod, in dark slacks and pink shirt. She looked about twenty, slender and almost wiry. ‘How do you do, Mrs Howland?’ She had a deepish voice.

The voice sounded as if the girl might be trying to seem sophisticated. ‘How do you do, Luce? – Have you folks got all you need here?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Cliffie said.

‘Definitely,’ the girl drawled.

‘Have a drink, Mom?’

‘Not just now, thanks. Have a good time, both of you.’ Edith went out and up the stairs.

An odd girl, Edith thought, for Cliffie to be in such a tizzy over. Not like his busty pin-up types by any means. She looked, Edith thought, like one of the youngsters labeled mixed-up. Maybe. No make-up. Trying for an air of worldly wisdom. Well, who knew? Maybe she wasn’t like that at all. Edith had seen her for less than a minute.

Though Cliffie could drive again now, he had agreed to Luce’s taking her own M-G, pretending to hesitate, though he was playing it safe in case he drank a bit too much. He ordered another round of drinks at the Cross-Keys restaurant (Luce seemed a damned good drinker for her age), and after dinner a Napoleon brandy. Not in the habit of ordering brandy, Cliffie had been almost
corrected
by the waitress, who had not known what he meant. The brandy
of
Napoleon had been the phrase in Cliffie’s mind, which he had seen in advertisements. The answer seemed to be Courvoisier, according to the waitress, so Cliffie settled for that.

‘You’re such a kid,’ Luce was saying by midnight.

Cliffie was instantly dampened. He had dredged up his best puns, and at least two good jokes. He had not tried to hold her hand, much less put an arm around her, as a lot of fellows did with a girl they were taking out to dinner. ‘I’m not in the least a kid.’

Luce only laughed. She had a broadish mouth, square teeth. She laughed gently and deeply and it was rather like her voice. Cliffie wanted to tell her how much he liked that she didn’t wear any make-up, not even a bit of pale lipstick.

‘How come you live with your mother – at your age?’

‘Because I – Why not? I’m the man of the house now that my father – pissed off.’

Luce treated him very casually, Cliffie thought. Sort of with contempt. Was that a good sign? Meaning, was she only pretending indifference?

‘Music stinks, don’t you agree?’ Cliffie grimaced. It was piped music, coming from the walls tonight, and the orchestra sounded like a lot of old men, at least Cliffie imagined fifteen old guys, all looking like George in a nightshirt, scraping violins and blowing saxophones, and Cliffie spluttered with laughter.

‘You’re hysterical tonight,’ Luce said loftily.

‘No, I’m not. I just thought of something funny. But I won’t bore you with it. – What’re you doing next Saturday night? That’s in – a couple of days.’ Luce had said she was playing truant from her family for a while, that they’d had a disagreement about her college, which Cliffie had never heard of, near Philadelphia.

Luce sighed, and said, ‘Why talk about Saturday when we’re here now. Aren’t we?’

‘Yes,’ Cliffie said, entranced. ‘Is it true —’ He suddenly wished he had brought a cigar, because it looked quite mature to smoke one. ‘— true that you’re sleeping at the Cartwheel?’

‘That creep joint!’

Now Cliffie laughed gaily. ‘You can say that again! Okay, where?’

‘Why does it matter?’ She had lit a Marlboro, was shaking the match out with infinite poise and grace. ‘I have friends in Brunswick Corner.’

‘Who? – Where?’

‘Um-um. I’m not going to tell you,’ she said softly, with a smile.

Cliffie’s heart thumped. He also smiled. This, he thought,
this
was what it felt like to fall in love. It wasn’t like looking at boobies or some naked blonde on a poster. This was magical. Magical. Magic. Cliffie grinned like a fool.

She didn’t want to go on to another place, like the Chop House or Odette’s for another brandy and a change of scene. She said something about dropping him home, which depressed Cliffie, but he didn’t want to be disagreeable by arguing.

‘We can always have a nightcap at my place,’ Cliffie said. ‘My mother doesn’t mind. Why should she? You haven’t even seen my room.’

Luce chuckled, saying nothing. Then suddenly she swung her car off the road to the right, and they were at some crazy steak-house, big neon sign – you had to climb steps to the door. Cliffie didn’t care for the place, no atmosphere, but at least they would have a little more time together.

‘Two Courvoisiers!’ Cliffie said firmly to the barman.

‘Plee-yuz,’ said the young barman, some faggot whose face Cliffie knew. Insolent bastard. Cliffie turned his eyes away from him.

And whom should he see but Mel Linnell! ‘Mel!’ Cliffie cried, pleased as could be to encounter Mel, because, he, Cliffie, had a girl with him. ‘Mel – like you to meet Luce Beckman.’ Cliffie dragged Mel by the sleeve of his suede jacket.

‘How y’do?’ said Mel.

‘Hello,’ Luce replied huskily. She was perched like a light-weight bird on the bar stool, one slender leg dangling.

Mel was with a girl too, but didn’t introduce her. They seemed to be leaving. ‘How’ve you been, Cliffie?’

‘Very fine, thank you. How’s yourself, Mel?’ He added with sudden confidence, ‘Come over to my house some time. Mom’s working afternoons and old George – just kicked the bucket.’ Cliffie spoke with a smile.

‘Oh?’ Mel was moving on. ‘Are you working?’

‘Now and then,’ Cliffie replied. ‘That was Mel Linnell,’ he said to Luce, and filled her in on Mel’s interesting apartment in Lambertville, his rather mysterious work with big-shots, Cliffie said, which could mean anything, drugs, handling hot goods, though he didn’t want to hammer the illegal aspects of Mel’s existence, just wanted to assure Luce that he was chummy with amusing people.

When Cliffie found himself alone that night, just after he had turned the light on in his room, he was aware of a gap in his memory after seeing Mel. Luce had just said good night to him at the curb in front of his house. She hadn’t wanted to come in. Cliffie saw by his corny old Mickey Mouse alarm clock (which still worked, however) that it was twenty minutes to 2.

Cliffie put his hands over his face and said, ‘Jesus!’ He swung around, hands still over his face, talking to himself, wincing, then experiencing a surge of pleasure, confidence, belief in the future with Luce. Then came more grimaces, snatches of recollection of things they had said that evening. This semiagony went on for at least ten minutes, while Cliffie secured a scotch nightcap from the living room and half undressed himself.

‘What a girl!’ he whispered.

He had given her his address. Yes. Twice, Cliffie thought. Certainly once tonight, yes, and then of course the first time he had met her, when he had borrowed a tab and pencil from a waiter in the Cartwheel. Unfortunately he hadn’t
her
address, as she had refused to give it. This thought sent Cliffie at once down the hall, in shorts and socks, for the telephone book. The directory for Philadelphia had such a number of Beckmans that Cliffie gave it up, looked in another directory which had the smaller towns, then realized that he had not asked Luce her father’s first name. How could he ever reach her now? If she didn’t phone him?

He was a bit too pissed to torture himself further about this, so he washed and brushed his teeth in the kitchen, then fell into bed too tired to play with a sock, though in a moment of glory earlier in the evening, he had thought of that.

Edith on Saturday morning had a call from Dr Carstairs.

‘Had a funny letter from your – from Brett’s lawyer,’ Carstairs said. ‘Seems Brett’s spoken to his lawyer about the embalming of George Howland. It seems I should have asked for an autopsy, according to this Mr Gorewitz.’

‘Oh?’

Carstairs’ confident, smiling voice went on. ‘Even a coroner. I frankly don’t see it Brett’s way. I’ve sent the letter on to
my
lawyer this morning. Now there’s nothing to get excited or angry about. And don’t speak to Brett about it. I’m ready to answer any and all questions.’

‘Well – is he charging you with something?’

‘I would say Brett or the lawyer is questioning. Well, fine, if they try to make out a case of neglect or malpractice, they’ll find they have a tough row to hoe. I wanted to let you know, Edith, because Brett might speak to you directly and upset you.’

Edith had looked up coroner in her dictionary to make sure: They were called in when there was reason to suppose a death was not due to natural causes. ‘I know Brett didn’t want the embalming, because George had something about cremation in his will, which
I
didn’t know about.’

‘A crematory will embalm also, if there’s a delay for some reason. You find a crematory that doesn’t do something along those lines these days. This Gorewitz mentions failure to do an autopsy when there might have been an overdose. Well, who knows anything definite about an overdose? I don’t. Anybody can argue over this till doomsday.’

‘The idea of stirring up trouble like this!’ Edith had suddenly become impatient – with Brett.

‘Don’t you worry, Edith, because it’s my concern and I’m not worried, and neither is my lawyer, because I spoke with him on the phone.’

They left it at that. Carstairs promised to telephone her in a couple of days. It ruined Edith’s day. What meddling on Brett’s part! Having used her as unpaid nurse for more than a decade, he was now trying to – maybe – dump an accusation of negligence on her. These days, Edith thought for the twentieth time, old people did take overdoses sometimes, or doctors gave it to them, and who made a fuss over it? The ‘sanctity’ of human life – surely, as long as there was someone else to change the bedpans. I’d like to see the Pope changing a bedpan, Edith thought, or even giving birth for the eighth time, maybe with a breech delivery. Eternal pregnancy for the Pope, eternal pangs! After all, that was what he wished on an awful lot of women.

Her anger, mainly against Brett, cooled down, and was at once replaced by an anxiety over Cliffie’s present mood – like a downward shift of gears in her emotions. Cliffie for the first time in his life seemed to be in love, and Edith had a feeling that Luce might not bother trying to see Cliffie again, and he didn’t know how to reach her. Yesterday he had gone to the Cartwheel Inn to inquire, Edith knew, though Cliffie had said he had gone there to see Luce. Cliffie had later said that Luce had not been there, had even checked out. ‘I really should have insisted on getting her phone number,’ Cliffie had said earlier that morning. Edith had been surprised by his frankness with her.

She went back upstairs to the spare room (she was forcing herself not to call it or think of it as George’s room any longer), where Cliffie was on his knees in old Levis giving the low chest of drawers its first coat of dusty pink.

‘What was all that?’ Cliffie asked. ‘Carstairs?’

‘Nothing to worry about.’

‘What’s the jazz about George? – Naturally I heard some of it, Mom.’

‘Brett didn’t want the embalming. Expensive, I suppose. Something in George’s will about a cremation, you know.’

Cliffie glanced at her, their eyes met, and Cliffie resumed his work. She knew Cliffie was worried, if only a little, about the overdose. But he was probably more worried about the girl called Luce. Edith was going to the Johnsons’ this evening for dinner. She might ask if Gert had heard of a girl called Luce Beckman. Gert knew an amazing lot about the district.

Edith, on her knees too, brushing the wainscotting in preparation for painting, lifted her head and looked at the stark window where chartreuse curtains would soon hang. Yesterday she had found just the shade and material she wanted at a shop in Brunswick Corner, a stroke of luck which she considered a good omen. She was confident that she could mix a paint of somewhat lighter chartreuse or Cézanne yellow for the walls, and with a pair of rollers, she and Cliffie could paint the room in one morning – maybe Monday or Tuesday. Tomorrow, Sunday, Edith intended to do up the curtains on her machine. And she would make them in this room, her old sewing-and-ironing room, and pretend George had never existed.

Before heading for Washington Crossing, Edith went to Lambertville and bought a bottle of rye at the liquor shop. Rye was more welcome than French wine at the Johnsons’. She crossed the Delaware to Pennsylvania again, and drove east. Of all crazy things, she thought, Cliffie head over heels, for really the first time, at the age of twenty-four! Unfortunately, Edith thought, he had the experience of a boy of eighteen, if that. He wasn’t playing it cool, he was taking it like a thunderbolt. He hadn’t finished his egg or even one piece of toast this morning.

‘Evening, Norm!’ Edith cried as she started up the irregular stone steps to the Johnsons’ house. They had a careless garden in front, which always suggested to Edith a loss of earth – straight into the gutter below – because of its extreme slope.

‘Hi, Edie!’ Norm’s shirttails hung under his sweater. He seemed to be engaged in cutting back roses, though Edith wasn’t sure.

‘Hi, Edith! You’re looking great!’ A smack on the cheek from Gert in the steamy, noisy kitchen. Gert was frying chicken.

‘Rye,’ Edith said, setting the paper bag on the round cork dining table, which offered the only clear surface. ‘Hello, Dinah,’ she said to the dark-haired girl, who seemed engrossed in a schoolbook at the far side of the table.

‘H’lo,’ Dinah said. She lifted her eyes, but with an air of seeing nothing. This was the Johnsons’ youngest, aged sixteen or thereabout.

Norm came in and made drinks with the new rye. The ice cubes in the drinks were mere shells, because Gert had been defrosting, and the cubes hadn’t set as yet. Anti-Viet Nam war posters adorned the walls. ‘I went all the way with LBJ’ was not the usual pregnant Negro woman, but a photograph of an American vet in a wheelchair with his hands and feet missing.

‘What’re you studying?’ Edith asked Dinah, over the roar of frying in Gert’s two skillets.

‘Chemistry!
’ Dinah looked miserable.

‘Oh? Tough, I suppose!’ Edith tried to look friendly, but had the feeling Dinah didn’t care how she looked. Dinah seemed in a daze. Edith had forgotten if she was in last year of high school or first year of college, and didn’t dare ask. Dinah was rather the runt of the litter, had twice run away from home, even had the start of a police record, for shoplifting, as Edith recalled. At least the Johnsons’ two boys were doing well. A baby picture graced the sloppy bookcase top opposite Edith: a pudgy thing in a diaper. Derek’s, Edith thought. Derek was one year older than Cliffie. Edith started to ask about the baby, then didn’t.

‘Not the kind of meal,’ Gert yelled from the stove, ‘that y’fix when y’wanna talk to someone! Ha-ha!’

Edith laughed too. She had not sat down. ‘Help you?’ she asked. ‘Making a salad?’

‘No-o-o. Bored with salad! We got some good ice cream to finish with.
Peach!
’