Helen? Is that you, Helen, dear?”
“Yes.”
“This is Mother.”
“Yes.”
“I must say you don’t seem very happy to hear from me.”
“I’m trying.” Helen thought, she sounds the same as ever, like a whining child.
“Please speak up, dear. If there’s one thing I can’t bear it’s telephone mumblers. Helen? Are you there?”
“I’m here.”
“That’s better. Well, the reason I wanted to speak to you, I just had a very mysterious phone call from Mr. Blackshear. You remember, that broker friend of your father’s whose wife died of cancer?”
“I remember.”
“Well, suddenly out of a blue sky he called and asked if he could come and see me tonight. You don’t suppose it has anything to do with money?
“In what way?”
“Perhaps he’s discovered some misplaced stocks or bonds that belonged to your father.”
“I hardly think so.”
“But it’s possible, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I suppose.”
“Wouldn’t it be a lovely surprise, say just a few shares of A. T. & T. stuck away in a drawer and forgotten. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“Yes.” She didn’t bother pointing out that her father had never bought any shares of A. T. & T., and if he had, they wouldn’t be stuck in a drawer and forgotten. Let Verna find it out for herself; she had a whole closetful of punctured dreams, but there was always room for one more.
The expectation of money, however remote, put a bright and girlish lilt into Verna’s voice. “I haven’t seen you for ages, Helen.”
“I realize that.”
“How have you been?”
“Fine, thank you.”
“Are you eating properly?”
It was an impossible question to answer, since Verna’s ideas of proper eating varied week by week, depending on which new diet attracted her attention. She dieted, variously, to grow slim, to gain weight, to correct low blood sugar, to improve her complexion, to prevent allergies, and to increase the flow of liver bile. The purpose of the diet didn’t matter. The practice was what counted. It gave her something to talk about, it made her more interesting and unusual. While her liver bile continued at the same old rate, Verna flitted from one diet to another, making other women who could and did eat anything look like clods.
“Do speak up, Helen.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Oh. Well. The fact is, Dougie and I are having lunch tomorrow at the Vine Street Derby. It’s so close to where you are that I thought you might like to join us. Would you?”
“I’m afraid not. Thanks just the same.”
“But it’s quite a social occasion. In the first place, it’s Dougie’s birthday, he’ll be twenty-six. Tempus fugit, doesn’t it? And in the second place, someone else will be there whom I’d like you to meet, Dougie’s art teacher, a Mr. Terola. I’m told he’s a terribly fascinating man.”
“I didn’t know that Douglas was interested in painting.”
“Oh, not painting. Photography. Dougie says there’s a big future in photography, and Mr. Terola knows practically everything there is to know about it.”
“Indeed.”
“I do wish you’d make an effort to come, dear. We’ll be at the Derby at one o’clock sharp.”
“I’ll try to make it.” She knew why her mother was anxious for her to be there: she expected her to bring a check for Douglas as a birthday present.
“Are you still there, Helen?”
“Yes.”
“These long silences make me nervous, they really do. I never know what you’re thinking.”
Helen smiled grimly into the telephone. “You might ask me some time.”
“I’m afraid you’d answer,” Verna said with a sharp little laugh. “It’s all set, then? We’ll see you tomorrow at one?”
“I won’t promise.”
“My treat, of course. And listen, Helen dear. Do wear a little lipstick, won’t you? And don’t forget it’s Dougie’s birthday. I’m sure he’d appreciate some little remembrance.”
“I’m sure he would.”
“Until tomorrow, then.”
“Goodbye.”
Helen set down the phone. It was the first time in months that she had talked to her mother, but nothing had changed. Animosity still hung between them like a two-edged sword; neither of them could use it without first getting hurt herself.
“A hundred,” Verna said aloud. “Or two, if we’re lucky. She wouldn’t miss it. And if Mr. Blackshear has found those shares of A. T. & T., we’ll be able to keep going for a little while anyway.”
Verna was down to a single car, a second mortgage and a part-time servant. She had had the telephone company take out the extra phones in her bedroom and in the patio, and she’d covered the bare spot in the dining-room carpet with a cotton mat, and hung a calendar over the cracking plaster of the kitchen wall. In brief, she had done everything possible to cut expenses and keep the household running. But the household didn’t run, it shuffled along like a white elephant, and each week it got further and further behind.
There were occasions, usually at the beginning of the month when the bills poured in, when Verna thought it would be a good thing if Douglas went out and got a job. But most of the time she was content to have him around the house. He was good company, in his quiet way, and he did a great deal of the gardening and the heavier work, when he wasn’t studying. In Verna’s opinion, Douglas was a born student. He hadn’t finished college because of some highly exaggerated incident in the locker-room of the gym, but he had continued studying on his own and had already covered ceramics, modern poetry, the French impressionists, the growing of avocados, and the clarinet. The clarinet hurt his lip, the avocado seedlings in the backyard had withered and no one seemed interested in exhibiting his ceramics or listening to him read Dylan Thomas aloud.
Through all this, Douglas remained good-natured. He didn’t openly blame the public for its stupidity or the nurseryman for selling him defective avocados, he simply let it be understood that he had done his best and no one could expect more.
No one did, except Verna, and the day he’d sold his clarinet, even though she hated the shriek of it, she went up to her bedroom and wept. The sale of the clarinet wasn’t like the gradual loss of interest in ceramics and poetry and all the other things. There was an absolute finality about it that hit her like a fist in the stomach. Her pain was so actual and intense that Douglas sent for the doctor. When the doctor came he seemed just as interested in Douglas as he was in Verna heself. “That boy of yours looks as if he needs a good tonic,” the doctor had said.
The “boy” would be twenty-six tomorrow.
“Two hundred at least,” Verna said. “After all, it’s his birthday and she’s his sister.”
She covered the canary cage for the night, checked the kitchen to see if the maid had tidied it properly before she left, and went into the den, where Douglas was lying on the couch, reading. He was wearing beaded white moccasins and a terry-cloth bathrobe with the sleeves partly rolled up revealing wrists that were so slim and supple they seemed boneless. His coloring was like Helen’s, dark hair and the kind of chameleon grey eyes that changed color with their surroundings. His ears were like a woman’s, very close-set, with pierced lobes. In the right lobe he wore a circle of fine gold wire. This tiny earring was one of the things he and Verna frequently quarreled about, but Douglas would not remove it.
When he heard his mother enter the room, Douglas put down his book and got up from the couch. Verna thought, with satisfaction, at least I’ve brought him up to show some respect for women.
She said, “Go and put some clothes on, dear.”
“Why?”
“I’m having company.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Please don’t argue with me, dear. I have one of my headaches coming on.” Verna had a whole battalion of headaches at her disposal. They came on like a swarm of native troops; when one of them was done to death, another was always ready to rush forward and take its place. “Mr. Blackshear is coming to see us. It may be about money.”
She explained about the shares of A. T. & T. that might have got stuck in a drawer, while Douglas listened with amiable skepticism, tugging gently at his golden earring.
The gesture annoyed her. “And for heaven’s sake take that thing off.”
“Why?”
“I’ve told you before, it makes you look foolish.”
“I don’t agree. Different, perhaps, but not foolish.”
“Why should you want to look different from other men?”
“Because I am, sweetheart, I am.”
He reached out and touched her cheek lightly.
She drew away. “Well, it seems to me—”
“To you, everything seems. To me, everything is.”
“I don’t understand you when you talk like that. And I won’t have another argument about that earring. Now take it off!”
“All right. You don’t have to scream.” There was a thin line of white around Douglas’s mouth and the veins in his temples bulged with suppressed anger. He unfastened the earring and flung it across the room. It ricocheted off the wall on to the blond plastic top of the spinet piano, then it rolled forward and disappeared between two of the bass keys.
Verna let out a cry of dismay. “Now look what you’ve done!”
“I’m sick of being ordered around.”
“You’ve wrecked my piano. Another repair bill to pay—”
“It isn’t wrecked.”
“It is so.” She ran over to the piano, almost in tears, and played a scale with her left hand. The C and D keys were not stuck, but they made a little plinking sound. “You’ve ruined my piano.”
“Nonsense. I can fix it easily.”
“I don’t want you to touch it. It’s a job for an expert.” She rose from the piano bench, her lips tight as if they’d been set it cement.
Watching her, Douglas thought, there are some women who expand with the years, and some who shrink.
Verna had shrunk. Each week she seemed to grow smaller, and when Douglas called her old girl, it wasn’t a term of endearment, it was what he really thought of her. Verna was an old girl.
“I’m sorry, old girl.”
“Are you?”
“You know I am.”
“Will you go up and change your clothes, then?”
“All right.” He shrugged as if he’d known from the very beginning that she would get her own way and it no longer mattered because he had his own methods of making her regret her authority.
“And don’t forget to put on a tie.”
“Why?”
“Other men wear ties.”
“Not all of them.”
“I don’t see why you’re in such a difficult mood tonight.”
“I think it’s the other way around, old girl. Take a pill or something.”
As he passed the piano on his way out of the room, he ran his forefinger lightly along the keys, smiling to himself.
“Douglas.”
He paused in the doorway, holding his bathrobe tight around his waist. “Well?”
“I met Evie and her mother downtown this afternoon.”
“So?”
“Evie asked after you. She was really very pleasant, considering what happened, the annulment and everything.”
“I will be equally pleasant to her, if and when.”
“She’s such a lovely girl. Everyone said you made a very attractive couple.”
“Let’s not dredge that up.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance you might want to see her again? She didn’t ask me that, of course, but I could sense she was still interested.”
“You need a new crystal ball, old girl.”
When he had gone, she began to circle the room, turning on the lamps and straightening the odd-shaped ceramic pieces on the mantel which had been Douglas’ passing contribution to the art. Verna didn’t understand what these pieces represented any more than she understood Douglas’ poetry or his music. It was as if he moved through life in a speeding automobile, now and then tossing out of the windows blobs of clay and notes in music and half-lines of poetry that he had whipped up while stopping for the red lights. Nothing was ever finished before the lights changed, and what was tossed out of the windows was always distorted by the speed of the car and the rush of the wind.
Verna Clarvoe greeted Blackshear with an effusiveness he didn’t expect, desire or understand. She had always in the past made it obvious that she considered him a dull man, yet here she was, coming out to the car to meet him, offering him both her hands and telling him how simply marvelous it was to see him again and how well he looked, not a day, not a minute, older.
“You haven’t changed a bit. Confess now, you can’t say the same about me!”
“I assure you I can.”
She blushed with pleasure, misinterpreting his words as a compliment. “What a charming fibber you are, Mr. Blackshear. But then, you always were. Come, let’s talk in the den. Since Harrison died, we practically never use the drawing-room. It’s so big Dougie and I just rattle around in it. Helen no longer lives at home.”
“Yes, I know that. In fact, it’s one of the reasons I’m here.”
“You’ve come about Helen?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” she said with a sharp little laugh. “Well, this is a surprise. I thought perhaps you were coming to see me about money.”
“I’m sorry if I gave you that impression.”
“It wasn’t an impression, Mr. Blackshear. It was a hope. Very silly of me.” She turned her face away. “Well, come along; we’ll have a drink.”
He followed her down the dimly-lit hall to the den. A fire was spluttering in the raised fieldstone fire-pit and the room was like a kiln. In spite of the heat, Verna Clarvoe looked pale and cold, a starved sparrow preserved in ice.
“Please sit down, Mr. Blackshear.”
“Thank you.”
She mixed two highballs, talking nervously as she worked. “Harrison always did this when he was alive. It’s funny what odd times you miss people, isn’t it? But you know all about that . . . That’s some of Dougie’s work on the mantel. It’s considered very unusual. Do you know anything about art?”
“Nothing at all,” Blackshear said cheerfully.
“That’s too bad. I was going to ask your opinion. Oh well, it doesn’t matter now. Dougie’s taken up something new. Photography. He goes into Hollywood to classes every day. Photography isn’t just taking pictures, you know.”
This was news to Blackshear but he said, “Tell me more.”
“Well, you have to study composition and lighting and filters and a lot of things like that. Dougie’s crazy about it. He’s a born student.”
She crossed the room, carrying the drinks, and sat down beside Blackshear on the cocoa rattan couch.
“What shall we drink to, Mr. Blackshear?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“All right. We’ll drink to all the millions of things in this world that don’t matter. To them!”
Blackshear sipped his drink uneasily, realizing that he had never actually known Verna Clarvoe. In the past he had seen her in character, playing the role she thought was expected of her, the pretty and frivolous wife of a man who could afford her. She was still onstage, but she’d forgotten her lines, and the props and backdrop had been removed and the audience had long since departed.
She said abruptly, “Don’t stare at me.”
“Was I? Sorry.”
“I know I’ve changed. It’s been a terrible year. If Harrison only knew—do you believe that people who have passed on can look down from Heaven and see what’s happening on earth?”
“That wouldn’t be my idea of Heaven,” Blackshear said dryly.
“Nor mine. But in a way I’d like Harrison to know. I mean, he’s out of it, he’s fine, he has no problems. I’m the one that’s left. I’m—what’s that legal term? Relict?—that’s what I am. A relict.” She gulped the rest of her drink, making little sucking noises like a thirsty child. “This must be very boring for you.”
“Not at all.”
“Oh, you’re always so polite. Don’t you ever get sick of being polite?”
“I do, indeed.”
“Why don’t you get impolite then? Go on. I dare you. Get impolite, why don’t you?”
“Very well,” Blackshear said calmly. “You can’t hold your liquor, Mrs. Clarvoe. Lay off, will you, please?”
“Please. Please, yet. You just can’t help yourself, you’re a gentleman. A born gentleman. Dougie’s a born student. He’s learning photography. Did I tell you that?”
“Tell me again, if you like.”
“Mr. Terola is his teacher. He’s a very interesting man. Not a born gentleman, like you, but very interesting. You can’t be both. Tragic, isn’t it. Why don’t you be impolite again? Go on. I can’t hold my liquor. What else?”
“I came here to talk about Helen, Mrs. Clarvoe, not about you.”
Blotches of color appeared on her cheekbones. “That’s impolite enough. All right. Go ahead. Talk about Helen.”
“As you may know, for the past year I’ve been handling her investments.”
“I didn’t know. Helen doesn’t confide in me, least of all about money.”
“Yesterday she asked me to serve in another capacity, as an investigator. A woman in town has been making threatening and obscene telephone calls; Helen is one of her victims. From what I’ve learned about this woman today, I believe she’s dangerous.”
“What do you expect me to do about it? Helen’s old enough to take care of herself. Besides, what are the police for?”
“I’ve been to the police. The sergeant I talked to told me they get a dozen similar complaints every day in his precinct alone.”
The effects of the drink were beginning to wear off. Verna’s hands moved nervously in her lap and a little tic tugged at her left eyelid. “Well, I don’t see how I can help.”
“It might be a good idea if you invited her to come and stay here with you for a little while.”
“Here? In my house?”
“I’m aware that you’re not on very friendly terms, but—”
“There are no buts, Mr. Blackshear. None. When Helen left this house I asked her never to come back. She said unforgivable things, about Dougie, about me. Unforgivable. She must be out of her mind to think she can come back here.”
“She doesn’t know anything about the idea; it was entirely my own.”
“I ought to have guessed that. Helen wouldn’t ask a favor of me if she were dying.”
“It isn’t easy for some people to ask favors. Helen is shy and insecure and frightened.”
“Frightened? With all that money?” She laughed. “If I had all that money, I wouldn’t be scared of the Devil himself.”
“Don’t bet on that.”
With a defiant toss of her head, she crossed the room and began mixing herself another drink. As was the case with the first drink, she began reacting before she’d even uncorked the bottle.
“Mrs. Clarvoe, do you think it’s wise to—”
“No, it’s not wise. I’m a very stupid and ignorant woman. So I’m told.”
“Who told you?”
“Oh, a lot of people, Harrison, Dougie, Helen, lots of people. It’s a funny thing being told you’re stupid and never being told how to get unstupid.” She raised her glass. “Here’s to all us birdbrains.”
“Mrs. Clarvoe, do you do this every night?”
“Do what?”
“Drink like this.”
“I haven’t had a drink for months. As you said, I can’t take the stuff. And I don’t usually try. But tonight’s different. Tonight’s an end of something.”
She held the glass in both hands, rotating it as she talked so that the clink of ice-cubes punctuated her words.
“You think of an end as being definite, being caused by something important or calamitous. It’s not like that at all. For me tonight is final, but nothing special happened, just a lot of things. Some bills came in, the maid was rude about waiting for her salary, I met Evie on the street, the girl Dougie married, Dougie put on his earring and I made him take it off and he threw it and it— you see? Just little things.” She stared into the glass, watching the bubbles rise to the surface and burst. “Evie looked so sweet and pretty. I thought what lovely children they might have had. My grandchildren. I don’t mind getting old but I’d like to have something to show for it, like grandchildren. Mr. Blackshear—”
“Yes.”
“Do you think there’s something the matter with Douglas?”
A trickle of sweat oozed down the side of Blackshear’s face, leaving a bright moist trail like a slug. “I’m afraid I can’t answer that.”
“No. No, of course not,” she said quietly. “I shouldn’t have asked. You don’t know him, really. He’s a—very sweet boy. He has many fine qualities.”
“I’m sure he has.”
“And he’s extremely talented; everyone says that. Harrison was so strict with him, I tried to make it up to Dougie on the side, I encouraged him to express himself.” She put the half- empty glass on the mantel and leaned closer to the fire, her bony little hands stretched out until they were almost touching the flames. “Harrison was a very cruel man sometimes. Does that surprise you?”
“Not much. Most of us are cruel on occasion.”
“Not the way Harrison was. He used to—but it doesn’t matter now. I can tell I’m depressing you.” She turned from the fire, making an obvious effort to control her emotions. “You’ve listened to my troubles. Now you may tell me yours, if you like.”
“They aren’t very interesting.”
“All troubles are interesting.” Perhaps that’s why we have them, to keep ourselves from being bored to death. Go on, tell me yours.”
“Sorry, there isn’t time, Mrs. Clarvoe.”
“Don’t leave yet. You haven’t seen Dougie. He’s upstairs getting dressed. Tomorrow’s his birthday. We’re having a little party at the Brown Derby.”
While the maid waits for her salary, Blackshear thought grimly. “Wish Douglas a happy birthday for me.”
“I will.”
“There’s just one more thing, Mrs. Clarvoe. Do you know a young woman named Evelyn Merrick?”
She looked surprised. “Well, of course.”
“Of course?”
“She’s Dougie’s wife. She was, I mean. The marriage was annulled and she took back her maiden name.”
“She lives here in town?”
“In Westwood. With her mother.”
“I see.” It was as simple as that. There”d been no need to ask Miss Hudson or Terola or Harley Moore. Evelyn Merrick wasn’t a waif or a stranger. She had been Douglas Clarvoe’s wife, Helen Clarvoe’s sister-in-law. “Did Helen know the girl?”
“Know her? Why, that’s how Douglas first met her. Evie and Helen went to a private school together years ago in Hope Ranch and Helen used to bring Evie home for weekends. After graduation they went to different colleges and lost touch, but Evie used to come over here once in a while, mostly to see Douglas. Douglas had always adored her, she was such a lively, affectionate girl. She used to tease the life out of him, but he loved it. There was never any malice in her teasing.”
There is now, Blackshear thought. “Tell me about the wedding.”
“Well, it was a very quiet one, being so soon after Harrison’s death. Just the family and a few friends.”
“Was Helen there?”
“Helen,” she said stiffly, “had already moved out. She was invited, of course, and she sent a lovely gift.”
“But she didn’t come?”
“No. She was ill.”
“How ill?”
“Really, Mr. Blackshear, I don’t know how ill. Nor did I care. I didn’t want her to come anyway. She might have ruined the wedding with that gloomy face of hers.”
Blackshear smiled at the irony: Helen might have ruined the wedding, but Verna had ruined the marriage.
“Besides,” Verna said, “she and Evie weren’t best friends any more, they hardly ever saw each other. They had nothing much in common, even when they were at school together. Evie was quite a bit younger, and the very opposite in temperament, full of fun and laughter.”
“You saw her this afternoon.”
“Yes.”
“Is she still full of fun and laughter?”
“Not so much anymore. The break-up of the marriage was hard on her. Hard on all of us. I wanted grandchildren.”
The second drink had brought color to her face and made her eyes look like blue glass beads in a doll’s head.
“I wanted grandchildren. I have nothing to show for my life. Nothing.”
“You have Helen. I think perhaps the two of you have reached the stage where you need each other.”
“We won’t discuss that again.”
“Very well.”
“I don’t want any advice. I hate advice. I don’t need it.”
“What do you need, then?”
“Money. Just money.”
“Money hasn’t helped you much in the past. And it’s not helping Helen much now. She’s in the position of being able to indulge her neurosis instead of trying to do something about it.”
“Why tell me?”
“I think you’re the logical person to tell, since you’re her mother.”
“I don’t feel like her mother. I never did, even when she was a baby. The ugliest baby you ever saw, I couldn’t believe it belonged to me. I felt cheated.”
“You’ll always be cheated, Mrs. Clarvoe, if you put your value on the wrong things.”
She raised her clenched right fist and took a step forward as if she meant to attack him.
Blackshear rose to meet her. “You asked me to be impolite.”
“I’m asking you now to get out and leave me alone.”
“All right. I’ll go. Sorry if I’ve disturbed you.”
Her hands dropped suddenly and she turned away with a sigh. “I’m the one who should apologize. I’ve had—it’s been a bad day.”
“Good night, Mrs. Clarvoe.”
“Good night. And when you see Helen, tell her—tell her hello for me.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Good night.”
As soon as he had gone, she went upstairs to Douglas’ room, leaning heavily on the banister for support. I must be firm, she thought. We must reach some decision.
The door of his bedroom was open.
“Dougie, there are some things we should—Dougie?”
He had changed his clothes as she had ordered him to - the terrycloth robe and the beaded moccasins he’d been wearing were on the floor beside the bed - but once again he’d made her regret the order. Instead of coming down to the den to meet Blackshear, he had left the house.
She said, “Dougie” again, but without hope. She knew he was gone, she could even visualize the scene: Douglas coming downstairs, pausing at the den door, listening, hearing his name: Do you think there’s something the matter with Douglas, Mr. Blackshear?
She turned and moved stiffly towards the staircase. As she walked through the empty house she had a feeling that it would always be empty from now on, that the day had held a finality for Douglas as well as for herself, and he had fled the knowledge of it.
Pressing her fists against her mouth, she thought, I mustn’t get silly and hysterical. Of course Dougie will be back. He’s gone out to get a pack of cigarettes. Or for a walk. It’s a lovely evening. He likes to walk at night and name the stars.
The telephone in the hall began to ring. She was so sure that it was Douglas calling that she spoke his name as soon as she picked up the receiver.
“Douglas. Where are—”
“Is that the Clarvoe residence?”
The voice was so muffled and low that Verna thought it was Douglas playing one of his tricks, talking through a handkerchief to disguise his identity. “Where on earth did you disappear to? Mr. Blackshear was—”
“This isn’t Douglas, Mrs. Clarvoe. It’s me, Evie.”
“Evie. What a coincidence. I was just talking about you.”
“To whom?”
“A friend of mine, Mr. Blackshear.”
“Did you say nice things?”
“Of course I did.” She hesitated. “I said hello to Douglas for you. He was very pleased.”
“Was he?”
“I—I know he’d love to see you.”
“Would he?”
“He said, why don’t you come over some time; we’ll talk about old times.”
“I don’t want to talk about old times.”
“You sound so funny, Evie. Is anything wrong?”
“Nothing. I only called to tell you something.”
“What about?”
“Douglas. I know you’re worried about him. You don’t know what’s the matter with him. I’d like to help you. Mrs. Clarvoe. You were always kind to me; now I will repay you.”
She began to explain in detail what was the matter with Douglas and some of the things that went on in the rear of Mr. Terola’s studio.
Long before she had finished, Verna Clarvoe slumped forward on the floor.