I'm Dying Laughing (79 page)

‘Do you remember the dinner at the Escargot de Bourgogne, if that’s the name?’

‘I couldn’t forget it.’ She laughed insolently.

‘Do you remember how we wondered how Daniels could eat with us, after he’d stabbed us in the back or so we’d heard, denouncing us as Trotskyists, renegades?’

‘Yes,’ she said sulkily.

‘I don’t feel like eating at the same table as Ruth and Axel, when we’ve both given their names to their enemy.’

She smiled, coaxed, ‘We had to do it, Stephen. They’ll be all right; they know how to get by. It doesn’t mean anything. You know they knew their names, they knew them long ago.’

‘Just the same, I can’t eat with such people. You know the story Vittorio told us, the time he was in concentration camp. The children were waiting to go to the gas chamber; but something was held up, so the young Nazi soldiers got the order, Play with them, amuse them. And they did, with a good heart, with the best spirit, glad I suppose to be kind for once. They played with them, tossed the ball to them for forty minutes, though everyone was shivering with cold; and then the fault was fixed. They stopped playing and the children went to the gas chamber. And Vittorio, who told so much—for once his voice faltered.’

‘Well, what about it?’

‘I prefer not to be out there playing ball.’

O
N MAY DAY, THOUGH
Emily was dubious, Stephen marched with Christy from the place de la Nation to the Bastille. The two Howards waited on a café
terrasse
till the great flood of Algerians, wearing the green of Islam, poured into the square, not in fours or eights or twelves, but as a flood; and right behind them, the Howards fell in, though the workers coming after were French metallurgists. Stephen said to Christy, ‘Christy, this is the happiest moment of my life: the best; also the most foolish.’

At the end of the march, the Howards separated. Christy had friends to meet. Stephen went home, kissed Emily and Giles, shook hands with the servants and said he had an appointment out in the country, not far away.

Passers-by notified local people and also the local police that there was a car in a distant field, burning fiercely, so bright that although it was clear daylight, no details could be seen. The police found that the car had burned totally and that there had been a man inside; and the man must have been drenched in gasoline to burn like that. But at last they identified the car and so the man. It was Marie-Jo who answered the telephone. She telephoned Suzanne, who spoke to the porter; and in a short time Suzanne, and Christy with her, were over at the house in the rue de Varenne.

Evening came. Emily now knew all that was known. She sat in an armchair in the sitting-room on the first floor, flushed, crying and gay and excited by all the attention being paid to her. To everyone who entered, she hospitably offered a drink. On a console table near the door stood two bottles of gin, one of vodka, two of scotch whisky and bottles of other drinks, with an ice-bucket and other fixings. She obviously was uneasy when anyone stood or sat without a glass in his hand. Suzanne was there, Maurice, the Trefougars, all sitting down and drinking, when Douglas Dolittle and his wife and Desmond Canby, summoned by Emily by telegram, came through the door. Emily greeted them all with smiles and tears, waved them to the bottles; Christy, on his feet, stood by the telephone. It rang—a Paris acquaintance was summarizing politely her shock and her sympathy.

‘Who is it?’ cried Emily.

‘Madame George.’

‘Oh, get her off the phone. The phone must be kept open for the AP, UP and for calls from the USA. We don’t want these local calls.’

Christy got her off the phone and waited by the telephone. In a moment it rang; Emily exclaimed joyously, ‘At last. It must be the UP. They haven’t called yet. Reuter’s called half an hour ago. How slow they are! Imagine letting Reuter’s get in ahead of them!’

She sat there, her crazed and fallen face gay, while she sucked at her drink. She was very genial, kept insisting on one or the other filling up the glasses; and when at last Christy said, ‘Chicago calling,’ she jumped up, ready to speak to Anna, who was then in Chicago with one of her daughters.

‘Oh, dear Anna—’

But Anna, speaking to Christy, said she did not want to speak to the widow; she just wanted to know what the latest news was and whether Maurice and Dale were there. Christy said that Emily wanted to speak, but Anna refused, ‘No, I can’t speak to her.’

Christy had a short conversation with his grandmother, then called Maurice to the phone. Emily was hurt. She could not understand why Anna would not speak to her, above all.

‘I am the widow. I am her daughter-in-law. I am the closest.’

She ran to the phone and tore Maurice away, and spoke with tears, ‘Oh, dear Anna, it’s Emily. Oh, dear Anna, what a tragedy, poor Stephen. This to happen to us, when we were all so happy. Oh, everyone is here, dear Anna, Maurice, dear Maurice, Christy, Des Canby is here, Dale is coming and everyone is looking after us. We are expecting a call from California. We had a call from London earlier this evening. Oh, everyone is so shocked and upset. Everyone so loved Stephen. Oh, Anna—Anna—he left me! Oh, Anna—he left me!’

She began to cry in earnest and Maurice took the phone from her and spoke quietly to Stephen’s mother.

‘No one knows what happened. It’s better for me to write to you, Anna. There’ll be an inquest and then the funeral. Yes, of course, we’ll send Stephen back to the States. I know you want him buried with our own. We’re all doing all we can and Dale has already arrived at the airport. He telephoned. Don’t worry. There is no need for you to come over. You can’t do anything here.’

Emily meanwhile had thrown herself into the arms of Douglas Dolittle, crying and saying, ‘He left me, Doug! I can’t believe it: I was sure he never would. Oh, Doug! Look after me.’ And, when later Dale entered the room, she did the same with him. Maurice sat at the back of all the chairs which had been assembled for the company, his hands to his face. Christy, obeying Emily’s orders, stood near the telephone.

Emily was annoyed, astonished, ‘UP haven’t called yet. What’s the matter with them? Here in Europe they certainly haven’t the zip they have in the USA. I see now why we get such stale news. No reporter worth his salt in the USA would let a news item like this slip through his fingers. My God, if only I were on their news service, I’d have telephoned two hours ago—when did the news come through, Maurice? You don’t know. Where’s François? Well, Suzanne, you know. My God—anyway keep the line open. We must keep them open for the news services.’

Axel and Ruth Oates turned up. She got up to greet them and eagerly offered them drinks, while they were weeping.

‘This is the first big party we’ve had in months. And for such an occasion. Well, life, life! My God! Everything in reverse. Oh, poor Stephen. He loved me so. He wrote such beautiful letters to me and to Giles and Christy. He was just going away on a business trip for a couple of months, and he wanted us to know how much he loved us. The police have taken the letters, but I can tell you what he said. To me he said, “My darling wife; you were always the perfect wife, I have never had anything to reproach you with. You were perfect. Your loving husband Stephen.” He wrote to Christy that he had been the perfect son; and to Giles that he loved him and always would; and he even wrote a letter to you, Axel and Ruth, that you had always been the perfect friends. I would show them to you, but the police took them all, because of the accident and because there must be an inquest. Of course, the idea that he planned it is stupid. No one would write such beautiful letters and plan a thing like that. It was a terrible accident. The only thing I know is that he loved me and us all and he knew it and he lived for us.’

After a while and when they had all drunk a little more, and she was still waiting for the news services, disappointed and put out, she said sulkily to Axel and Ruth, ‘And do you know what is going to happen now? Uncle Maurice and Dale are closing the house and they are sending me off to Switzerland, second-class in the plane. I am not used to that. I am used to luxury travel. They don’t understand that Stephen would never allow it. He always had the best for me. They never understood Stephen. Stephen would be furious if he knew the arrangements. I might as well have no seat in the plane, like on the floor, have people walking over my hair, tramping on me. That is what they plan for me. Christy is looking after his brother; Suzanne is taking them both till it is all worked out. The servants are going. And I am to go to a cheap hotel, bed and three meals a day, not even a sitting-room and they will write to me, pay my board and send me to a doctor. I can’t choose the doctor. If Stephen were here he’d be crazy-furious to see me treated this way.’

Christy, standing by the telephone, said, ‘Mother, I will always look after you and Giles. Don’t feel like that. You won’t have to live that way. It is just till we get everything settled. I promised Father that I would always look after you and Giles and I will.’

‘When did you promise that?’

‘A little while ago, last month. He said he had to go away on a business trip and I promised, in case anything happened then or any time, to do as he would always have done for you.’

She, with her tormented face, half-merry and half-morose, drunk but very keen, looked at him with a cunning smile. She smiled fully, got up, put her arms around him, and thanked him with many kisses.

‘Oh, my dear good boy. Thank you! Bless you!’

In the end everyone but Maurice and Christy left and she seemed not sorry to get rid of the consoling company, standing between the festive console table and the telephone which was still being kept open for AP and other newspaper services.

When all was settled, Christy and Maurice saw that Emily packed and got ready for the plane trip to Lausanne, where she was to visit doctors and possibly go into hospital. The estate had enough money: she could have a long course of treatment. But when they came for her, she had gone. No one knew where she had gone. The truth is she had taken another plane, to Rome; and with her she had only a valise, filled with papers, The Monster.

Someone who had known her long ago in Hollywood days, going through Rome, which at that time was full of Americans, passed her in the Forum Romanum, without recognizing her and then stopped, came back and looked again. This old woman, with the straggling half-grey hair, the droll, hanging-fat face, the untidy silk suit, was still unmistakably only one person in the world, Emily Howard. He came up to her.

‘Emily! What are you doing here?’

Emily was sitting on the stones near the Trajan Column. She had a handbag on her lap and beside her a worn valise, of snakeskin with gold fittings, which lay open. Some loose papers lay on the steps and in her lap were letters it seemed.

‘Emily! What are you doing here?’

Emily looked up into the face.

‘Don’t you know me? I’m Jim Holinshed. Here’s Vera!’

Emily looked strangely at them.

‘Oh, I’m waiting for someone. Hello! He comes by here.’

‘Emily, what are you doing here?’

‘This is my office.’

She looked up at the sky, shook her head and held up some letters.

‘This is my office. I have no other office. Stephen would never have wanted to see me like this. But there is someone will help me. He believes in me, in all of us. He will help us. Vittorio! You know him? I am waiting for him. I get my mail here. I send letters. This is the only good place.’

She put her hand in the valise and brought out papers, which she strewed about the steps.

‘Emily, where are you staying?’

‘Staying? I am staying here.’

‘No, where is your hotel? Can we take you there?’

‘Oh, I live here.’

‘Where do you sleep, we mean?’

‘Oh, I sleep here. You know the saying, The son of man has nowhere to lay his head? That is absurd. You can lay it anywhere. I lay my head on the steps. And I stay here.’

‘Emily, come and have a meal with us.’

‘Oh, no, I don’t want to play ball with the little children; that’s too funny.’

‘What do you mean?’

She began to laugh and could not stop. She lay on and rolled about the steps, endless laughter.

‘Oh, Jim—Jim Holinshed! What a funny thing. It is all so funny! Everything is so funny!’ She kept on laughing, until she cried ‘If Stephen could see me now! But he’s in jail. He’s in jail for contempt. They took him from us in the end.’

They left her, in the end, and went to the American Embassy. They did not know what else to do.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

copyright © 1986 by The Estate of Christina Stead

Preface copyright © 1986 by R. G. Geering

cover design by Mimi Bark

978-1-4532-6523-9

This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media

180 Varick Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com