I'm Dying Laughing

by Christina Stead

  ‘Oh, shit, it’s shit, don’t let me catch you saying a word of it,’ said Stephen.

  Stephen and Emily had a hot argument about the historical facts contained in her history of the British. The Trefougars said nothing. They quarrelled so much that Emily said she wanted Violet to sit with her because she was British and she knew Emily’s story was true. Violet made no objection and Stephen sat in front with Johnny Trefougar.

  Johnny suggested that they should leave the women and Christy in Brussels to go shopping or to the art museums, while he and Stephen went on to Antwerp for Trefougar’s business. About this Stephen had guessed more than he said. He waited discreetly for Trefougar to make it plainer. Trefougar was quite plain. For the moment he was smuggling gold. Violet knew something about this and that partly accounted for her hysteria, Johnny said. At the frontier Violet behaved very wildly, demanding to be let through without examination because of their diplomatic status. Emily was quite calm and even laughed, while Johnny and Stephen behaved with natural dignity.

  Stephen had told nothing of the true purpose of the trip to Emily. He had invested about $3,500 in a partnership with Trefougar to bring in, illegally, gold ingots of one kilogram each. They were protected by Johnny’s status.

  All went well. They drove to Antwerp, leaving the woman and the boy behind. They ate well, went to the theatre, had a splended time in Brussels and so back again after the weekend. Stephen came to admire Trefougar’s self-control, nonchalant ambition, calm daredevilry. His control did not break down till they were nearly 200 kilometres from the frontier, when Johnny kept stopping and began drinking heavily. Stephen took no notice of this, for so far Johnny had driven like an ace, without a fault, swift and mild. But just outside Compiegne, Johnny began to behave wildly, shouted and, unexpectedly, he smashed them against a tree. He was himself in shock, but the only aid he asked of passing motorists was for them to send someone at once to pull them into Compiegne. Emily had a chipped wristbone, Christy a broken ankle, Violet had been thrown backwards and seemed to have hurt her neck but was otherwise well. They sat there, with Stephen gathering in the valises which had been thrown out and about, when suddenly, out of the back, shot some of the small ingots of gold.

  Emily looked, understood partly, but she was upset with her own pain, and even more upset about Christy’s injury. Stephen insisted upon the boy’s being taken to Chantilly for treatment, along with Emily; but at this moment there arrived an exchange car. The ingots by this time having been safely stored in the valises, they changed to another car in which Stephen drove them to Paris, where he took them to a ‘safe’ doctor, designated by Trefougar.

  ‘Why all this?’ stormed Emily, who had only partly understood.

  But Stephen said, ‘Supposing Anna hears about this? Christy is too dumb to understand but supposing you, for instance, with your longing for full confession, say something indiscreet, that we’ve been taking gold around the country, crossing frontiers with contraband, with half-mad smugglers, smashing up Christy. Where will it end? You just shut up about the whole thing.’

  Emily was shocked and became thoughtful. What had Stephen been doing all this time while she had been haranguing him about getting work? She now began to see the purpose of his friendship with the Trefougars.

  She soon recovered from her injury, but Christy, owing to delayed treatment, was some time in bed. Emily insisted on his spending his time in their house instead of going to Suzanne and so she was able to spend her time with him, doing lessons with him and talking to him about his future, their troubles; and about Fairfield, who was soon to come.

  She telephoned Vittorio, too, and he came to see her. Emily, in her anxiety, told him the whole story. Vittorio seemed in no way shocked and talked for a long time with her, when she said she could no longer trust Stephen. Imagine Stephen, the innocent and unwary doing this, getting into the toils of a British agent. For what else could Trefougar be? Now she understood his expensive car, his way of living. Poor Violet. This was the dreadful secret, secret beyond secret, which she had been unable to tell. No wonder she drank too much.

  How sympathetic Vittorio was! Not like the prudes and Grundies she would have met in America. Meantime, when not working, she spent long hours with Christy; and how they laughed! She set herself to ridicule, deride, mock the silly little schoolgirl who was being sent over to be his fiancée and then his bride.

  ‘You, Christy, think of it, a young European, with your culture and your fine instincts, you going to the Sorbonne perhaps, to the Beaux-Arts at any rate, and perhaps to Cambridge on Oxford, they are going to tie you up even before you get to college to a dirty-minded tittle wax doll, for believe me, Christy, you with your sure, pure, earnest innocence, your cleanness, will never understand the mental slovenliness, the verminious’ (she said) ‘soul, the dunghill mind, the grasping and grabbing little smirched toilet-paper ideas of a contaminated little dunghill flower like Fairfield, brought up in corruption and moral squalor to live off others and unite her ill-gotten gains with other money, in a world of abomination. That is not for you, Christy. Your grandmother is a grandmother. A grandmother is like an old man who loves little girls and thinks them so sweet and pure and hopes he can fool them. An old woman is the same as an old man. Disgusting, revolting people. Old age is horrible. And so, Christy, she means to tie you up to this purulent little worm, this maggot of greed, so that you can both be tied to her apron-strings. Do you see, Christy love? Oh, how dreadful if you ever fell in with her schemes! But you are too good and clean, too nice a boy to like her and certainly you are far from marrying a miserable little lousy flyblown heiress like Fairfield, who has never had an honest thought in her head. And she knows nothing. I have seen her. She is not like you, honouring learning and wanting to do something for mankind. She is thinking only of herself, getting married to a rich boy, buying clothes, getting another automobile. In all, Christy, she is one of the most despicable products of our flyblown excrementitious civilization. What would your poor mother Emily feel, after all our love for you and our agony for you, if you had no more character than to fall in with your grandmother’s plans like a child, like a helpless babe, like a basket-case? No, Christy, you won’t do that. You won’t let us down. Think of our love for you, Christy. It is rare to be loved and admired and understood as you are by us. No silly little ignorant miss, with a crippled moronic mind could understand you or love you. We do, Christy. I love you, Christy, God, Christy how I love you. Remember that. Think of me. Think of my love, my yearning, my great, great, deep love for you.’

  She would go away, leaving him astounded, bewildered, sensing an enigma he had not the means to solve.

  Stephen stayed alone in his room; he seemed angry and upset. He was anxious about the police and the unpredictable behaviour of his friend Johnny. He even spoke of returning to the USA—‘nothing but hard luck has struck us here.’ He thought he would go the United States to have an operation on his colon. He did not trust European medicine. But Emily would not let him go alone.

  Pretty soon Emily had guessed that he still had dealings with Johnny and she was terrified when, just before Fairfield arrived, Stephen agreed to go to Switzerland with Trefougar alone.

  She spent much time with him begging him to give up the trip. What was it for? Why was Trefougar constantly crossing frontiers? ‘I know, he’s bootlegging, black-marketing. But what? I don’t want you in it, it’s dangerous. These people are not our sort. We don’t understand them. Stay away, I implore you, Stephen.’

  He laughed at her. ‘You believed in Violet and thought Johnny was a maniac, God knows what sort of a degenerate. When it turns out simply that Violet is a drug-fiend. Ask Suzanne. She knows, even if she doesn’t tell you.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t believe it. Her sorrows were real. Her tears were real. I was scared myself. You can’t believe she made all that up.’

  ‘I don’t know if she made it up. I know she should never have said it, and if she said it and is like that, s
he is a drug-taker.’

  ‘You can’t know. You know nothing about such people. Oh, you are so transported, fascinated, overpowered by this miserable Johnny. He’s exactly like the people in the Resistance we met, except on the other side. They’re all corrupt. There isn’t anyone here that you can trust. You can’t put your hand on your heart and say, Here is an honest man, or woman. Perhaps you’re right. We ought to go back. What’s air and life to them, is poison to us. I don’t know.’

  But very soon, he was packing his bag. Theirs was a short trip, just over the weekend, like the Brussels trip. And why not? I am doing something at last, I am making a little money, no matter how. You yourself always said not to respect money, that money was money, no matter where its roots were.’

  She said, ‘But you aren’t the man. It’s you I’m worried about. What ever would I do, or Anna or any of us, if something dreadful happened? If you went to jail? How do you know you aren’t the fall-guy? Johnny won’t go to jail and you, the dirty American taking over Europe dishonestly, you will go. Why this infinite trust reposed in a crafty, unreliable Briton?’

  The evening before he left, she was sitting at table with Stephen and Christy who could now get about a little; and after Stephen said that he was leaving at eight-thirty in the morning, Emily said, ‘Christy, my son, I have now only you to rely upon. You’re my knight errant, my gallant cavaliere servente.’

  ‘Of course, as usual, you don’t know what you’re saying,’ said Stephen, aloof.

  ‘I am appealing to Christy’s sense of chivalry, which I know is very strong, to be my support, the oak I must cling to, when you, Stephen, go rushing about Europe on business you can’t tell us about. And I am sure you wouldn’t tell Anna either. Oh, Christy, Christy. To think I have you only; only you to protect me.’

  Stephen said coldly, ‘And I too am relying on Christy. Christy you are my son, the eldest in the house, I am placing the responsibility on you. A boy of your age and of your class is adult.’

  Christy looked at them both seriously. Then he said, ‘What am I to do? I will do whatever I can.’

  Stephen said humorously, ‘I’m putting Emily, your mother, in your charge, Christy. And don’t let that fellow Vittorio come too often, nor stay too late.’

  ‘No, Father,’ said Christy.

  Emily smiled coquettishly and grimaced. She had begun to have a quantity of winks, smiles, leers, cunning looks, and would ferociously flash her eyes; light and shadow of menace and grin would pass through her wild, bright, light eyes. She sat at the head of the table now, flushed, with damp eyes, hair and lips. She put out her dimpled, pudgy hand and stroked Christy. ‘My darling will look after me, I won’t need anyone else,’ she said.

  Christy was getting about but he still remained in the house. Suzanne came every day. He was getting on well in his studies now; and was preparing for an end-of-term examination for the bachot, the baccalaureate. This examination was important to Emily for she had to show that Christy was making great progress under her care. She herself, instead of writing, spent her whole day at his studies. She made complete preparation herself for every lesson, read ten times the material, wrote ten times the essays, and forced Christy to learn everything by heart.

  She had heard that Christy was going to be questioned on the French Revolution for the bachot; she had paid money to someone who was supposed to know, an old tutor.

  Day and night now they studied the subject. ‘By heart, every word by heart, Christy,’ she insisted; and hour after hour, till the boy was exhausted, those in the house could hear, ‘Danton, Georges-Jacques, member of the convention, born at Arcis-sur-Aube, 1759-1794. Attorney in the king’s council until 1791, founder of the Club des Ordeliers, Minister of Justice after the 10th August, one of the greatest statesmen of the revolution. Powerful and impetuous orator. He was accused of moderation by Robespierre, jealous of his popularity. He was beheaded in 1794. His motto was “Audacity, more audacity and still audacity!”’

  Emily became enraged on the subject of Danton, whom she soon came to think of as a martyr, destroyed by the hypocritically ‘just and pure’, a man of great talent, of genius, brought low by political rivals. A lion of courage, attacked because he loved luxury.

  At night, at dinner, after Suzanne had gone, Emily would say,

  ‘Now, Christy, Danton—’

  ‘Danton, Georges-Jacques, 1759-1794—’

  He had to have it pat. She pounced on every lapse. And afterwards, until late at night, phrase by phrase, learned by heart.

  ‘Danton said, “I don’t like this fantastic St Just. He wants to make France a nation of Spartans; whereas I want to make it a land of Cockaigne.” This was in the great debate where the fanatic St just accused him of luxury and treason.’

  Long, long into the night, till the boy’s eyelids closed.

  Stephen’s absence lasted not one weekend but six weeks. Emily, to blind and deafen herself to the misery, loneliness and fear, worked all day long and did not sleep, except with pills. She took pills to work, pills to sleep, pills not to cry bitterly at her weary, empty life.

  During Stephen’s absence she had to entertain visitors from the USA, most of them now on their way home after their European summer. They called on her without warning, sometimes announcing themselves by a telephone call and often expected her to find room for them in her house. If she had not room, they invited themselves to the next meal, came early for drinks and stayed until all hours. Her American visitors this summer were strangely impudent, hurtful, intrusive. Was it because Stephen was absent? There were the Shokays. Shokay had been an actor, was now a successful screen writer. He had been a witness before the Committee, stood his ground, received a handsome, if silent applause from people on the left. He had been in jail for a few months but was once more in work at the studios. He had with him his third wife, a thin schoolmarmish fair girl, who said little and allowed herself to be waited on. Meanwhile, Shokay followed Emily about the house, posed in a loose, engaging manner in corners and on couches, followed her with eyes, large, moist eyes, smiled as if at a secret understanding. So insinuating was his manner that she almost confided in him her most secret fears, the first time they met. But she did not. Her fears were real; they smelled of danger and disgrace. Then she thought, ‘Could I fall in love with him, have an affair with him?’ She felt very lonely. ‘My heart is abandoned, I am lonely.’

  Shokay said he was broke, he had come over to preserve his fortune, live cheaply in Europe. He took several trips back to Hollywood leaving his wife, who was pregnant, with Emily. He came back before she had her baby and, to mark that occasion, went to Switzerland to buy for himself and her two expensive gold watches. He then rented a luxurious apartment in a quiet street near the Champs-Elysees, where he lived with his wife, his child and two servants, while he worked on a script with Henri Villeneuve. He told Hongree of his poverty and Hongree worked with him for nothing. Shortly after that, he lost his own gold watch and sent the police a case of Scotch whisky to encourage them to find it. Emily was at first soft and tender towards this engaging forty-year-old. But a time came when she was without money; and she noticed that he was spending freely. He came often to her house, with his family, dined and drank well, and never brought her a gift. At the same time, people came called the Sturts, Fred and Freda. Freda, a nervous woman of forty-five, short, plump, with loose dark hair, was his second wife and they were divorced. Fred was tall, fair, smooth-fleshed, with a nice rich-boy’s manner; long ago he had been fond of Emily; but now he was full of himself, his new academic dignities (he had gone back to college late), and his success with his psychoanalyst. The husband and wife, divorced, were travelling together for convenience. They made a round trip of Hollywood recounting the disasters or successes of old friends; and they drank deeply. Emily, who was out of funds, was frightened at the amount of whisky that was drunk during Stephen’s absence. They sensed her helplessness; they drank more. They sneered at her, flouted her, ridiculed her in
her loneliness. And Fred Sturt, who had once been so fond of Emily, before his second marriage, that he had wanted to come and live in the same house with her, now said sententiously, ‘You don’t know, Emily, what Stephen is writing about you, to everyone, to all your friends, all over the States. I think it fair you should know. I heard from a few of your friends that he thinks you’re going to pieces, losing your grip. He says worse things than that about you. He says you have boyfriends. He says the woman you are is not the wife he wants.’

  Fred Sturt talked on solemnly and piously, doing it all for the best. Then he once more discussed the decay of their friends. Alan was drinking himself to death. You couldn’t leave half a bottle of whisky in the house, he would find it. He would crawl around at ten in the morning looking anxiously for whisky. If he stayed with you, you might get up at seven to find him already half-way through a bottle.

  Emily looked at Sturt with horror. He himself had drunk half a bottle of whisky while talking to her. She too often drank half a bottle. Stephen objected. Did he write that about her, too?

  She was so dejected by this gossip that when the Sturts asked her out to dinner, she refused, though she knew they had money and dined well. Stephen would soon return and go over the accounts with her. If only Christy could help her out! He was a kind boy, who understood money matters well and spent very little. A little to help her out would mean nothing to him. Christy would not go back with Grandma, at all costs. She would push him in his studies here. When the Sturts had left for dinner, she ate something and then got out the lesson books, studied them and then went upstairs to bed. She could not sleep and began prowling round the house. She saw that the light was on in Christy’s room and gently pushed the door. Christy, who knew he was dull and was conscience-stricken about the money spent on his board, lodging and tutors, tried to study through the night. There he was at nearly three in the morning with his head on the table. She felt remorse. She knew his feelings. To make an impression on Grandma, she was driving him too hard. She went in and woke him. She had on a charming nightgown which Stephen liked. It had a low bodice for her splendid bosom and over this she wore a rosy chiffon dressing-gown. She took the boy to the kitchen to give him coffee and sandwiches and there they sat talking over their family troubles, both weeping together. If only he was able to help her, she said, she knew her darling boy would; and she kissed him many times. Of course he understood the trouble: they had to live beyond their means to show Grandma and others that they were good parents; and nothing, nothing they could do was too much to do for such wonderful precious children as he and Olivia and Giles were; but of all the blessings she had ever had, he, Christy was the greatest, so good, loving, clever a boy.