Women Crime Writers

by Sarah Weinman

  “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 special 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 1 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.”

  “Good-bye.”

  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 dollars,” Verna said aloud. “Or two, if we’re lucky. She wouldn’t miss it. And if Mr. Blackshear has found those shares of AT&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 farther and farther 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 back yard 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 herself. “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 dollars 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 terrycloth 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 gray eyes that changed color with their surroundings. His ears were like a woman’s, very close-set. In the right ear 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 AT&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’ 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 onto the blonde 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 in 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?”
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  “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, that’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 firepit 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 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 little 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 . . . 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 . . .”