Those Harper Women

by Stephen Birmingham

  Finally, he says, “Well, aren’t you going to ask me if I did my little errand?”

  “What little errand?”

  “To find out about your Mr. Winslow.” He clears his throat. “Edward George Winslow, Journalist. Age thirty. Graduated Columbia School of Journalism nineteen fifty-four. Specializes in financial reporting. Impecunious parents. Ambitious—”

  “Oh, Alan,” she says. “Never mind, never mind! I know all this, and besides—”

  “Oh,” he says, and he sounds disappointed that Edith does not want a complete dossier on Mr. Winslow any longer.

  “No, Alan, it really doesn’t matter any more,” she says in a soothing voice. “Mr. Winslow is now completely out of the picture.”

  Eight

  “Thank you for the lift, Arch,” Leona says, her hand on the handle of his car door.

  “Don’t mention it, buddy. I’m always glad to help a lady in distress.” He looks at her curiously. “And you know something?” he says. “I think you are a lady in distress, in a funny way. But what are you distressed about?”

  “Distressed?” Leona says, forcing a laugh. “Why should I be distressed? I could easily have called a taxi from the beach, but you came along and offered me a ride. That’s all.”

  “I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about you—something about you I can’t quite figure out.”

  “No girl likes to think she’s been completely figured out.”

  “Look,” he says. “I’m a sucker for punishment. Will you have dinner with me again tonight?”

  “I can’t, Arch. I promised Granny I’d have dinner with her tonight.”

  “Then maybe I could pick you up after dinner.”

  She shakes her head. “I haven’t spent a single evening with her since I’ve been here. I’m sorry …” Leona looks up at the house and sees, at one of the tall French windows, recessed behind its ornamental grillwork balcony, the figure of her grandmother. She looks away quickly, hoping that Arch has not seen Granny watching them. But he has seen her.

  “Is that her?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, look,” he says, “if you change your mind later on, and feel like going out, I’m not doing anything. You know where I am. Give me a call.” The tiny muscles of his face are gathered in a grin.

  They have both looked up at Edith, and have looked away, which means that they have not seen her standing there. For if Leona had seen her, she would certainly have smiled and waved. Edith has recognized him, the old-house enthusiast from the night before, and thinks that he looks less appetizing by daylight than he looked by night. His neck, she thinks, is too short and, as everybody knows, men with short necks tend to assume the characteristics of Napoleon. And as for the formation of his cowlick, it almost looks—with that very short, brush-cut hair of his—as though he has no cowlick at all, a bad sign. His open car looks expensive. Perhaps it is the automobile which amuses Leona about him. But, quite obviously—a fact which may not have dawned upon Leona—the car is rented; touring gentlemen do not, as a rule, ship their automobiles to St. Thomas. The man leans unpleasantly close to Leona, saying something to her, and Leona nods. Poor Leona. She wants to get out of the car, and he will not let her; she has her hand on the handle of the door. Edith feels that she should warn Leona about this man, exactly as she used to warn her, when she was a little girl, to put on her arctics in the rainy season. At last, Leona manages to make her escape. She steps out of the car and waves to him. She walks slowly into the garden, up the steps, and into the house.

  “Is that you, Leona?” Edith calls.

  Leona pauses in the hall for a moment. Then she says, “Hi, Granny,” and starts up the stairs. “What time is it, d’you know?”

  “Twenty past five, dear.”

  “Oh—I’ll have time for a swim before dinner then.”

  “Fine,” Edith calls. “I’ll join you at the pool.”

  When Edith arrives at the pool, Leona is already there, lying on an inflatable air mattress, wearing a face mask and snorkel, propelling herself about the surface of the water. She looks up once, seeing Edith coming down the path, and waves. Then her head bobs under the water again.

  “Well, how was your day?” Edith asks.

  Leona’s breath spits and gurgles through the snorkel tube. It is difficult to talk to a submerged granddaughter.

  At last Leona rolls off the mattress and swims to the pool’s edge, pulls herself out of the water, and removes the mask.

  “Well,” Edith says, leaning toward her, “did you speak to Mr. Winslow, dear?”

  Leona nods.

  “And did he—did he agree not to write anything about us?”

  Leona says nothing for a moment; then she nods.

  “You mean everything is going to be all right?”

  “Yes,” Leona says. She sits very still at the pool’s edge, her arms hugging her knees. The sun has left the pool now. A cool breeze stirs the heavy tops of palm trees, and Leona shivers.

  “Oh, good!” Edith says, sitting back. “You see? I told you that you could persuade him. Oh, I’m awfully relieved, Leona—really I am. Thank you so much, darling.”

  Once more Leona nods. Her eyes travel away from Edith, across the pool, to the chattering leaves of the palm grove.

  “And now,” Edith says, “have you given any more thought to our talk this morning?”

  “This morning?” Leona says absently. “What did we talk about this morning?”

  “Well, among other things, about Gordon. Don’t you remember?”

  “What did we say about Gordon?”

  “You said that, of the three, you liked Gordon best.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Because, you see, I’ve always been fond of Gordon too. He’s an awfully nice man—a very sensible and mature human being. And he hasn’t remarried,” Edith says.

  Leona’s smile is small and bitter. “None of them has,” she says. “Do you suppose I soured them all on marriage, Granny?”

  “Of course not! They still love you, that’s all.”

  “Well, it’s a pretty thought.”

  “Now tell me, Leona. What went wrong with you and Gordon?”

  “Wrong? Oh, Granny—” She pauses, looking at Edith, briefly. “It’s so hard to say. Gordon is—well, you know the type, don’t you? Voted Most Likely To Succeed at Dartmouth. Editor in Chief of the Yearbook! As a boy, Gordon was famous in his neighborhood for all the things he could make out of his Lincoln logs. Then he graduated to an erection set—”

  “Erector set, I believe.”

  “And he was treasurer of Beta Theta Pi. He could have been President of Beta Theta Pi, but he declined the nomination in a noble gesture—on the basis that some other man was better qualified. Gordon’s remembered at Dartmouth for that!” She jumps to her feet now and begins marching stiffly up and down along the edge of the pool, her hands clasping her elbows. “The Eye of Wooglin was upon him, he said, telling him not to accept the nomination. Dear Lord, I think the Eye of Wooglin is still upon him, Granny!”

  “What in the world are you talking about?”

  “And then, later, his senior year, after so much mental anguish—so much Angst that you wouldn’t believe there could be so much Angst—he decided that fraternities were undemocratic. That’s Gordon Cogswell Paine for you in a nutshell!”

  Leona lights a cigarette and waves the match out, and Edith sits there wondering why she bothered bringing up the subject. “I’m glad you’re having dinner with me tonight, Leona,” she says finally. “I’ve asked Sibbie Sanderson to join us. You remember my friend Sibbie, don’t you?”

  “Yes. The one with the sandals.” Then Edith hears Leona say in a different voice, “But still—Still, he was very kind to me once. Gordon.”

  Edith sits forward again in her canvas chair, feeling that she has suddenly scored something of triumph. “There!” she says. “You see? That’s exactly what I meant. He’s so much nicer than any of the others.
So much better for you than that man you were with last night—”

  “Now wait a minute, Granny—”

  “I noticed he brought you home this afternoon.”

  “Granny, that man means nothing to me at all!”

  “Or your Mr. Winslow. Now, I have an idea, Leona. Tell me what you think of it. I’m thinking of writing Gordon a letter—asking him to come here and visit us for a few weeks. The invitation would come better from me than from you, I think. What do you think?”

  Leona stands quite rigidly for a moment. Then she says, “Playing Cupid, Granny?”

  “Well,” Edith says with a small, uneasy laugh, “isn’t that what grandmothers are supposed to do?”

  Leona steps to the edge of the pool once more, and Edith watches as she curls her toes over the lip of the coping, looking thoughtful. “Well, I suppose it’s all right,” she says, and performs a neat little dive into the water, making almost no splash.

  “Wonderful. Then I’ll do it.”

  Leona comes to the surface, takes two quick strokes across the pool, catches hold of the coping, and looks up at Edith. “Whom you invite to this house is your business, Granny!” she says sharply. “After all, it is your house, not mine! But I must ask you not to interfere in my affairs! Or feel that anybody you invite has anything to do with me! Because if that’s the case—”

  “Now wait a minute, Leona—I only meant—”

  Leona pulls herself quickly out of the water and stands dripping in front of her grandmother. “Oh!” she cries. “If you really want to know what I think of your idea, I think it’s just—terrible! And what do you mean this is the way grandmothers are supposed to behave? Is there an Ilg and Gesell Guide to Grandmothering?”

  “Leona—”

  “Really! If you’re not careful, you’ll turn into Mary Worth—just like that! You’re already displaying a number of very disagreeable Mary Worth tendencies!” She tugs at the strap of her bathing cap and pulls it off, shaking the dampness from her hair. “Don’t you have enough to keep you busy taking care of your own affairs? Without meddling in mine?”

  “Leona, please. I was only trying.…”

  “Don’t try! Just don’t. Don’t try to arrange peoples’ lives, Granny. You’re not qualified! As a marriage counselor, you stink! Why, you don’t even have amateur standing. You presume to try to doctor up some old dead marriage of mine, but your own was hardly a prizewinner, was it? Was it? It was a phony-baloney from the start. Everyone knows the whole thing was completely prearranged!” And she turns on her heel, and runs away, barefoot up the path, leaving Edith seated by the pool.

  After a moment or two Edith stands up, picks up Leona’s beach clogs, bathing cap, sunglasses, and cigarettes, makes a sort of vagabond’s tote-bag for these articles out of Leona’s damp towel, and walks back into the garden, under the wilted bougainvillea vines, the acacias struggling for life in their starved soil. How can a garden hope to survive without the ministrations of manures, or the caress of mulches, or the attention of someone who cares about it? Well, Mr. Barbus, she thinks, there is nothing for you to do. This house will go to the hospital, and the starved soil with it. The house will be torn down, and the garden will be bulldozed under, and the sooner it can all happen, I suppose, the better.

  Pausing there, thinking about it, she hears the sudden clatter of a stick pulled sharply across the grillwork of her gate, and the children’s voices:

  Edie, Edie, fat and greedy,

  How does your garden grow?

  With your husband dead

  And your lover in bed

  And dollar bills all in a row!

  Edith Blakewell smiles. It has been a long time since she has heard that little verse. The song passes on, she supposes, from one generation to the next, and once in a while a group of them, drunk with twilight, dares to chant it outside her gate—then runs off into the shadows, expecting the old lady to come charging out of her house after them with her cane.

  Edith goes up the steps and into the house, and picks up the evening mail that lies, neatly arranged by Nellie, on the long table in the hall. There is a letter from Edith’s insurance agent, a postcard from a New York department store urging her to hurry-hurry-hurry to a fifth-floor better-dress salon to take advantage of many bargains, and a small brown package for Leona. Leona Diaz it says—a name Edith simply cannot accustom herself to. Leona Diaz! It sounds like the name of some fandango dancer. Oh, wasn’t it nicer when Leona had those clean, neat, American names—Leona Paine, Leona Breed, Leona Ware?

  Edith puts the package down. Nellie is behind her, saying something.

  “What is it, Nellie?”

  “Miss Sanderson’s here, Miss Edith.”

  Edith turns toward the drawing room, preparing herself for Sibbie’s bellowed greeting.

  If she had heard the song the children sang, Leona, alone in her room, would not have known what to make of it. But the only sound in her ears is the roar of the electric hair-dryer she holds in her hand, letting its jets of warm air blow all over her head and face and neck and bare shoulders.

  She has just had an interesting thought. It is a new thought, a new plan of action. Now that her mother has turned her down (not even turned her down but, more typically Mother, has simply laughed at Leona’s request), suppose she asked Arch Purdy if he would be interested in financing her gallery? If he is as rich as Eddie Winslow says he is, the amount Leona needs certainly wouldn’t be any hardship to him. And besides, he even suggested it, didn’t he? Kiddingly, perhaps, but still he did mention becoming her angel. She has never thought of approaching a man and asking him for money—especially a man she knows so slightly as Arch Purdy. And yet he is a businessman. If she were to approach him on a straightforward, businesslike basis.…

  “Arch,” she says to the mirror, “I’d like to prove to you how serious I am about the gallery. How determined I am to make it a success. If you will lend me—” Is lend the right word? “If you will buy stock in my company … If you will help me with the financing …” It will be strictly a business loan. She will repay him, with interest. Six per cent.

  She snaps off the hair-dryer and lights a cigarette. Why not? There is nothing to be lost in simply asking him—in putting the proposition to him. Nothing ventured, after all, is nothing gained. Then why not? Besides, she thinks, who else is there to ask at the moment?

  There is Granny. But could she ever bring herself to ask Granny for something like that—for money? She confronts her face in the mirror, still-damp hair hanging in little wiggling strands, and thinks: I certainly can’t ask her for anything at all, not now—not after the things I said to her this afternoon. And how could I say such ugly, cruel things to her?

  “Oh, how could you!” she says aloud to her reflection. Then she turns away, making a small fist of her left hand, jamming the knuckles into her mouth, biting the knuckles till they hurt.

  “Hello, sweetie!” Sibbie cries, leaping up and giving Edith her bear hug, her grinning face wrinkled and leathery from years in the sun. Edith gives Sibbie’s cheek a little peck and murmurs a greeting. She goes to the cellaret and sets out glasses, ice, cocktail shaker. “I like your outfit, Sibbie,” Edith says, fixing their drinks.

  “Do you? I made it myself,” Sibbie says, twirling around in it. She has encompassed her formidable frame, tonight, in a giant dirndl—the kind that always seems to dip down in the back—and a peasant blouse with red ribbons run through the puffed sleeves and across the even puffier bosom. Sibbie Sanderson’s dresses have made her a landmark on the island—the dresses, the sandals, the clanking copper bracelets, and the big copper hoops which always suspend from her pierced ears.

  Carrying her drink to her, Edith says, “Well, what’ve you been up to, Sibbie?”

  “Oh, busy, sweetie, busy! Painting, painting. I’m working on a big picture now, a really important picture. But I can’t seem to get into it. The damn thing keeps resisting me, fighting back at me. Where’s Leona?”

&nb
sp; “I rather doubt Leona will be joining us after all,” Edith says. “We had one of our battles royal, I’m afraid.”

  “Mmm,” Sibbie says, “this is a yummy Manhattan, sweetie. You’re the best bartender on this island, that’s what I tell everybody. What was the tiff with Leona about?”

  “She thinks I know absolutely nothing about anything. The point is, I do. I know a little about some things.” Edith sips her whisky. “She seems terribly unhappy, Sibbie, and I just can’t seem to reach her.”

  Sibbie’s laughter booms across the room, and she gives her knee a whack. “The wisdom of one generation passed on to the next? Oh, come on, sweetie! Besides, who’s happy? Everybody talks happy-happy-happy, and it doesn’t mean a damn thing. I’m miserable ninety-five per cent of the time, and I’m happy. Hell, I’d rather be a Harper. Rich.”

  “I suppose that’s the only thing we ever have been,” Edith says quietly. “Rich.”

  “Cheer up. Life’s too short.”

  “That’s why I don’t want Leona to make any more mistakes.”

  “How can you stop her? How can anybody stop anybody from making mistakes? Life’s a party. Join the fun.”

  “Life is not a party. Sibbie, do you know anything about the history of the St. Croix Indians—before Sir Walter Raleigh came?”

  “Huh? What about the St. Croix Indians?”

  “They used to sail to Puerto Rico for wood for their canoes. But they were cannibals, Sibbie, and it was more than wood they wanted. They wanted meals. And once, on one of their trips, the Borinquen chief in Puerto Rico demanded seven hostages from the St. Croix, as insurance against future raids. The St. Croix were the most savage and vicious of all the West Indian tribes—”

  “What in the world has this got to do with the price of eggs?”

  “Let me finish, let me make my point. Do you know what the Borinquen chief did with the seven hostages? Killed them instantly, of course. And when the St. Croix came back and found that their tribesmen had all been murdered, what do you suppose they did? Why, they cut the chief and all his family into tiny pieces and ate them all—and then made torches, firebrands, out of their bones, and carried the torches back to the wives of the hostages as proof that their men had been revenged.”