Authors: Patricia Highsmith
‘Say, how many drinks have you had?’ Gert asked with a smile.
‘None.’ Edith spun on her toes and went to the bar cart. ‘What I mean is, the security men, the gorillas, wear the masks, and
they’re
shot, either at a convention like Bobby Kennedy or at the inauguration. But they could be wearing bullet-proof vests and so forth to protect them. They could even have steel armor on their faces like – knights of old, in fact, if they’re wearing masks in the first place, which they are.’
Somehow Gert didn’t like the idea, or took it too seriously. At any rate, she made a rather dampening remark. It was enough to shift Edith’s feelings slightly but defiantly against Gert for the rest of her visit.
‘How is Brett doing?’ Gert asked, blowing cigarette smoke with a gentle puff. ‘Ever hear anything from him?’
Edith shrugged. ‘Not often. I’m sure he’s busy. Baby nearly four – and maybe another for all I know.’ She laughed, and thought suddenly – like a flash that came and went – of Cliffie’s Josephine, a bit older and far prettier.
‘Brett still sends you something toward the house, though. That’s
some
kind of contact.’
Edith had forgotten that she had disclosed that to Gert. But it didn’t much matter. ‘Yes. I admit I need it. House taxes, you know, heating —’
‘Don’t I know!’
‘I also need my job. And the house – it needs a complete paint job!’ Edith forced a laugh.
‘You’re not kidding! It’d pay you, Edie. Especially the outside.’
Then Gert departed. Edith had agreed to let her re-write the editorial, and in a sense Edith washed her hands of it. It made her a bit sad and also resentful. To alleviate this feeling, which she didn’t enjoy, she went upstairs to her workroom and opened her diary.
30/May/72. Best not to surface too often or at all. The joy of life is in the doing. Don’t judge too much what is done or expect praise or thanks.
Then she re-read the
Times
article of 1 April 1970 from a Faculty Member. It began:
In view of the appalling situation at Hunter College, this correspondent, a faculty member, feels it incumbent upon him to inform the public as to how far a college of considerable distinction in this city has sunk.
A hard core of defiant students are riding roughshod over the sensibilities of their fellow students and faculty members with the malicious glee of those who know in advance that they will not be held accountable for whatever vile and vituperative utterances they choose to speak or print.
It went on:
A young lady informed the faculty with drawling insolence that if they remained intransigent to ‘present student demands’ for fifty-fifty representation on all faculty committees, the students might just go ahead and ‘up our demands’ – after all ‘there are nineteen thousand students and one thousand faculty, and the Supreme Court has ruled one man, one vote – that is democracy.’ Wild cheers and applause.
A fine hundredth anniversary for Hunter College.
She put the letter away in a folder marked News Clips, and turned back in her big diary, now more than three-quarters filled. Yes, the diary was four-fifths filled, she saw, and foresaw that this would make her write a bit smaller in future, so the diary might last out her life – or last a few years more anyway. She read (an entry of two years ago):
The difference between dream and reality is the true hell.
And on another page, simply:
‘Dreams of hyper-acidity.’
Now what did that mean? A future title of something? It wasn’t something she suffered from, anyhow. Another page held something written only five years ago, though it was a memory from her childhood:
Writing notes to Aunt Melanie on Tennessee birch-bark found in the woods, stripped carefully to give the most surface, later to be carefully folded into an envelope. What purity! The inside slightly moist, lovely tan color, so smooth, the writing surface, and on the back the crisp and curling thin white bark with brown flecks, reminding me of Indian canoes. ‘Dear Aunt Melanie, we are spending the night in a motel near Birmingham tonight, we hope, if we make it that far. We had a picnic lunch on pine needles today in a huge forest. This is genuine birch-bark…’ And how the pen glided over the tan, with a virginal squeak!
The virginal squeak struck Edith as comical, and she laughed now, but didn’t change it. Maybe she had laughed when she had written it. She didn’t remember.
Gert was of course right about painting the exterior of the house. So Edith set about this the following Monday morning. She telephoned a painting-and-lumber company named Leffingwell in Flemington, and they said they would send a man the following day to have a look and give an estimate. Meanwhile Cliffie had even on Sunday taken a look at the house and volunteered to do some scraping.
‘It’ll cut down on the final price, if I do a little work before,’ Cliffie said. ‘These guys get paid by the hour.’
Edith could never tell what chore would arouse Cliffie’s enthusiasm, and sometimes she was pleasantly surprised.
Cliffie now had his bandage off – a little too soon – his jaw was still swollen, and he could just about eat hamburger and mashed potatoes. This however did not interfere with his beer and scotch consumption. Cliffie did sign checks sometimes on his own bank account for ten dollars, specifically for drink. Edith still bought liquor in New Jersey (not considered legal), and brought it back in her car over the bridge.
The estimate for the house painting was seven hundred dollars, which Edith had rather expected, but she put on a long face, talked of getting another estimate from a company whose name she mentioned, and the price was knocked down to six hundred. Edith agreed to this. The men arrived the Friday of that week, by which time Cliffie had done quite a bit of scraping and tying up of rose bushes for their protection.
The painting went on into the following Tuesday, since the men didn’t work on Saturday. By this time Edith had finished the second draft of her piece called ‘Shoot-the-President,’ and sent it off to
Shove It
in New York. In this version the Vice-President-elect wore the mask of the President-elect, and was shot at the inauguration ceremony on the theory (Edith wrote) that nobody knew or liked vice-presidents, anyway. This left the real president alive to display himself as a future target for public amusement. It was a game with possible variations. Presidents-elect, all in masks of the president-elect, would read the inaugural address, be shot down, and at once replaced by another man in president-elect mask, who would resume the script of the address, while among the crowd the unfortunate assassins, not in on the game, were at once jumped on by the populace or shot at and really killed by secret servicemen. Therefore the game, besides being fun for the public, was a way of weeding out and destroying real murderers in the nation. Edith was pleased with her story-game, but had no intention of showing it to Gert Johnson. Gert would think it far-out. Cliffie, so far, was Edith’s only reader, and he loved it, which pleased Edith.
Tuesday evening shortly after 7, when Edith came home from work, she found the trio of painters had tied up their scaffolds and were drinking beer with Cliffie in the driveway. It was a lovely June evening, not too warm, with a refreshing breeze off the Delaware. A moon was rising, though it wasn’t near dusk, and her house looked clean and proud again, really splendid with its doric columns and white shutters, its dark gray, almost black slate roof.
‘Can’t you do better than beer, Cliffie?’ Edith said.
‘Oh, this is just great!’ one of the men said. ‘After sweatin’, y’know —’
One of his colleagues laughed loudly, and made some remark about the man’s laziness.
The telephone rang, and Edith went in to answer it. It was Brett. Edith found herself stammering. Brett was like another world, another language, which she had forgotten.
‘Where are you – did you say?’
‘Lambertville. I said I’m with a friend, Pete Starr. Driving him to Doylestown tonight, and can we come by? Now, for a few minutes?’
‘Well – all right. Yes, Brett.’
Edith hated it, realizing that she could have manufactured a previously made date, and hadn’t had the wit. She checked that there was enough drink in case they wanted any, that the living room was reasonably clear of newspapers and magazines. Potato chips? Peanuts? Yes. ‘Christ,’ she whispered. She wasn’t in a mood to see Brett.
A minute later the painters had left, and Cliffie came in with his hands full of empty beer cans.
‘Brett’s coming,’ Edith said.
‘What?
Really!
Really?’
‘Bringing a friend for a few minutes en route to Doylestown.’
‘To the mortuary, I hope.’
A car arrived. Brett came in, looking yet thinner, grayer, more anxious, or maybe she was imagining. The friend was a sturdy, boring-looking man of about sixty with gray hair, dark suit and tie, the type who might be a senator, an accountant, anything but a journalist, Edith thought.
‘Pete’s a writer,’ Brett said as soon as they were seated, the first thing he had said besides ‘Hello,’ and his friend’s name. ‘Non-fiction. Political books.’
‘Oh,’ Edith replied in an interested tone. She was on her feet by the bar, waiting for orders. ‘Scotch?’
Brett sprang up to help her. Scotch on the rocks, and with a splash, Brett and Mr Starr wanted.
Cliffie strolled in. His jaw was still a bit swollen, making him look, in general, fatter. ‘Hello, Dad.’
‘Hi, Cliffie! And how’re things? This is Pete Starr. My son – Cliffie.’
Cliffie gave one of his brief nods and a mumble, and stuffed his hands in his trousers pockets. He drifted across the room to get a drink.
‘Who’s your publisher?’ Edith asked.
‘Oh – um – Random House now,’ said Mr Starr.
Then Brett asked about Gert, about the
Bugle
.
‘You’re still – writing stuff —’
‘Same as usual,’ said Edith. ‘Don’t you get it? I thought you were sent a courtesy subscription.’ She smiled pleasantly. She knew he was sent it.
‘Can’t always recognize your stuff,’ said Brett, smiling also.
‘Oh.’ Edith glanced at Mr Starr, who was looking her up and down (she was now seated), as if appraising her for – what, at her age?
‘Why’re the rose bushes covered?’ Brett asked.
‘Oh, didn’t you notice? The whole house has just been painted! Well, it’s getting a bit dark outside. They’ve just finished.’
‘Sniff-sniff!’ said Cliffie, lifting his nose. ‘Can’t you smell the paint, Brett?’
‘Why, yes!’ said Mr Starr. ‘Now I do.’
‘Job going all right at the – What’s it called?’ Brett asked.
‘The Hatchery,’ said Cliffie. ‘Or the Scratchery.’
Edith paid Cliffie no mind. ‘The shop. Sure.’ Edith lit a cigarette. ‘Money’s very useful. Also I like working. And —’
‘What?’ asked Brett.
‘Nothing.’ She had been going to mention her short story sale, but Brett wouldn’t have any respect for
Ramparts
or even a sense of humor about
Shove It
.
Edith really wanted to inform Brett he was dead, since about three years now. Mr Starr’s arm was rising at long intervals to bring his glass to his lips, reminding Edith of toy ducking birds whose beaks absorbed liquid causing their heads to jump backwards, and Mr Starr’s head did jump a bit backwards soon after his glass touched his lips. ‘And how is your family?’ Edith asked Brett.
‘Oh, thank you, quite all right.’ Now Brett chuckled for no apparent reason, almost like his old soft laugh when he was happy and relaxed, but now it came out like a habit, a social gesture, like covering a mouth when yawning. ‘And Cliffie – you’ve put on weight, I see.’
‘Thenk you,’ said Cliffie with his English accent.
Edith laughed.
‘Fond of the beer, my son,’ said Brett to Starr. ‘That’s obvious.’
‘Miller’s, thenk you,’ said Cliffie, dead-pan but enjoying himself, and lifted his scotch to the two men and drank. He was pleased to see that his father was taking the best-to-retreat tactic, and concentrating on his mother again.
‘And how’s your —’
‘Can I freshen your drink, Mr Starr?’ Edith said at the same moment, and got up, because Mr Starr was hesitating, then relenting, and presenting his empty glass. While she was making the drink, Brett said:
‘How’s the sculpture coming along? I’d love to show Pete. Could you possibly —’
‘I don’t think my workroom’s in a state to be seen just —’
‘Oh, come on, doesn’t matter,’ Brett said.
She’d be a coward if she didn’t let them go up, Edith supposed. ‘Very well.’ She handed Mr Starr his drink. ‘It’s upstairs,’ she said to him.
Up they went, and Cliffie remained downstairs. Edith put on the light. Her heads of Melanie and of Cliffie were exposed, uncovered, and her work-in-progress, ‘City,’ was on its wooden pedestal, so nearly finished that the plastic sheet was not at the moment on the floor. Mr Starr strolled around reflectively with hands behind him, looking at her abstracts, Edith noticed, not the two heads. Her worktable looked its usual semi-mess, but her diary was neatly at the left back corner, closed of course, and under the last couple of
Bugles
.
‘Interesting. Yes. What’s this – called?’ Mr Starr asked of ‘City.’
‘Just “City”,’ Edith said.
‘Like a rabbit warren,’ he replied, smiling. ‘How right you are. Disturbed by – overcrowding. Hm-m. Thinking of – Lorentz, maybe.’
Edith hesitated, not caring one hundred percent for Lorentz. ‘I’m not a Lorentz fan. I like Fromm better, frankly.’ She wasn’t sure Starr understood that she didn’t believe in the necessity of aggression, and didn’t give a damn if Starr understood or not. She thought of asking him if he liked Daniel Bell’s work, then abandoned this, too. She wanted them both out of her room.
They drifted out, Mr Starr preceding, and he went down the stairs. Brett lingered in the hall.
‘How’re things really, Edie?’
‘Not too bad. Why?’
‘Cliffie doesn’t look in the pink,’ Brett continued in a low tone. ‘Gert phoned me. She thinks —’
Edith had suspected that Gert had telephoned. ‘Well, thinks what?’
‘Just that you’re under a lot of strain just now. You never cashed the ten thousand, it seems.’
‘No, thank you. I didn’t want it. I also don’t want any part of the fourteen thousand in the Dreyfus – just so there’s no fuzziness in the future about that one. – I’m doing all right, Brett, if it comes to money.’
‘But this silly job!’ Then he seemed to give that up. ‘And Cliffie boozing as usual.’ Brett was whispering.
What was all this, Edith wondered, an account of her woes? ‘What’s silly about my job? And what’re you doing about Cliffie, for instance, if you’re so worried? Have you asked him to New York to have a talk with him – get him a job, something like that?’
Brett smiled a little, as if trying to get Cliffie a job was an absurdity, something that would reflect badly on him, Brett. ‘I did invite him – a couple of months ago. By phone. He didn’t tell you? He didn’t seem interested.’
Maybe not, after you’ve accused him of giving George an overdose, Edith thought. She walked to the stairs and went down.
Mr Starr, who was not seated, suggested that he and Brett might be going. Edith had the feeling he had been talking with Cliffie, who was sitting in Melanie’s rose-sprigged armchair.
‘Your sculpture is most interesting,’ Mr Starr said. ‘Are you taking lessons anywhere – or did you?’
‘No,’ Edith replied. ‘It’s just a pastime.’
‘No, no, it’s quite good. I think you throw yourself into it!’ said Mr Starr genially. ‘Now if you two would like a minute in private, I’ll go out to the car. Thank you very much, Mrs Howland, for the lovely drinks.’ Mr Starr left.
Cliffie was watching all this from his chair.
Brett beckoned Edith into the front hall, away from Cliffie. ‘The inside of the house could use a painting too. And there must be a lot of things —’
‘Yes, there are a lot of things.’
Brett nodded. ‘I’d like you to be comfortable, Edie.’
She said nothing.
‘Well – bye-bye and thanks.’ Brett leaned through the door-way of the living room. ‘Bye, Cliffie!’
‘G’bye, Brett.’
Brett left. The car purred away.
Cliffie wriggled as if he had insects under his shirt. ‘What a prick! That old guy, I mean.’
‘You think so?’ Edith found the drink she had left and picked it up. She was thinking of ‘Shoot-the-President,’ pleased – she admitted for the tenth time – with her effort there. And there was her Democratic-Headquarters-burglary idea too, which she wanted to start on.
‘Guy looks like a spy. CIA type, you know?’ Cliffie said. ‘Something phony about him.’ And Cliffie got up to refresh his drink.
‘Cliffie, did you do anything with Brett’s check? That famous ten thousand?’ Edith remembered that she had simply left it, torn in half, on the kitchen table.
Cliffie was embarrassed, but not seriously so. ‘I did take it. It’s in my room. I can’t do anything
with
it, you know, because it’s made out to you.
I
don’t want to do anything with it.’
‘I know, but you may as well destroy it. Brett asked about it.’ Edith supposed that Cliffie was simply looking at it now and then, marveling at the sum.
‘Well – is it serious, whether I destroy it or not?’
Edith laughed. ‘Frankly no.’
She went into the kitchen to get dinner. Edith was thinking about Gert Johnson telephoning Brett and telling him about her ‘strain’ and what else? It had been personal, anyway, not just a business call about newspaper work. Edith had a feeling that people were ganging up on her. First signs of paranoia, Edith thought, and smiled. She was
glad
Brett had noticed that the interior of the house looked shabby, despite Melanie’s new chair and settee, which Brett had not noticed, perhaps. The house was still running along, at least. Brett should have seen George’s room, she thought, which looked terrific now! And Edith smiled again to herself.
Bang!
She was thinking of the alternative ‘wins’ and ‘winners’ she had put at the end of her ‘Shoot-the-President’ piece. One winner of the game was the genuine president-elect who was
not
shot at (after so many replacements), because there were simply no more assassins left among the spectators. Then she thought of Brett, imagined his Manhattan life in a well-kept apartment with his cozy little wife, his young wife in bed every night, and maybe again pregnant. She wondered if Brett said the same things to Carol that he had used to say to her? Edith felt that she didn’t care if he did.