Suspension of Mercy

by Patricia Highsmith

  Sydney slid his chair back and stood up. “Bought a new rug for us,” he yelled into the hall.

  “Let’s see it. Where? Debenham?”

  “Yep.” Sydney came downstairs. “Only three pounds.” He helped her to unroll it.

  “Why, it’s very nice. I didn’t know you took an interest in carpets, darling, whether they’re falling apart or not.”

  Sydney smiled but made no comment. They pushed back and lifted the furniture, until the rug was in place. It touched the front and back walls, but they agreed it would be that much cozier in winter, and winter drafts were certainly something to contend with. Sydney rolled the old rug up, and started outdoors with it.

  “It’ll get damp in the toolhouse, Syd,” Alicia said. “Or were you thinking of the garage?”

  “I’ll park it in the guest room.” The guest room had a rug, but he could leave the old one rolled somewhere out of the way.

  “We might sell it. Trade it in or something,” Alicia said.

  “You think they’d give us ten bob for it? Abbott?” Sydney said as he climbed the stairs.

  In the next week, Sydney received Alex’s first draft of The Whip Strikes. He went into his room and read it eagerly. From the first page, he felt it was incomparably better than anything he and Alex had done before. But Alex had written on his cover note merely:

  Syd, dear boy,

  See what you think of this. Not so sure we need the exchange with stranger in Act Two, fourth scene, P. 71.

  Alex

  Sydney thought the exchange with stranger was great, adding a little humor to the suspense. He had no suggestions for Alex except to cut some of the conversation of The Whip and the cab driver at the beginning. As usual, Alex had done a good job on his side characters, people Sydney had not even written into the synopsis. Alex had a Dickensian gift for minor characters. Sydney had an impulse to ring Alex and tell him how much he liked it. No, no use being gushy, just send it back ordinary post and say he liked it very much, and go ahead with the final typing after the cutting. After all, the script was no better than scripts ought to be, it was just that he and Alex weren’t in the habit of writing them so good.

  5

  Sydney’s euphoria over The Whip script enabled him to lose a day in Ipswich more or less cheerfully, getting the car serviced. He spent a couple of hours in the library, browsing in the stacks downstairs, and then upstairs in the reference department. He took out some books on his thirty-shilling-a-year card, then walked through the business and shopping part of town, gazing into windows with the indiscriminate curiosity of a sailor ashore after a long voyage. A pair of brass-rimmed binoculars in a junkshop window caught his eye. They looked as if they had seen service with Montgomery in Africa, or maybe with Rommel. Their black leather was worn, and showed brown scuff marks between the brass-framed lenses. The strap was worn also, but looked still trustworthy. Sydney was tempted. The price was less than that for a bottle of gin. But did he need binoculars? Not really.

  The car was waiting when he arrived at the garage at 3:30, the time they had told him to arrive, and Sydney as usual had the feeling the car had been ready long before. He felt in a good mood as he drove home. Tonight after dinner, he would polish another few pages of The Planners for typing up, then watch a suspense play at 9:10 on television.

  “Letter for you in the living room,” Alicia said when he came in. “From Alex, I think.”

  Sydney left the groceries in the kitchen for Alicia to unpack, and went to get his letter. It was in one of Alex’s little buff envelopes. There was a letter from Barlock in it besides Alex’s letter. The Barlock letter was a rejection of The Whip Strikes, which had been sent back to Alex.

  Dear Mr Polk-Faraday,

  I have read THE WHIP STRIKES with interest—more at the beginning than at the end, alas, because I am afraid it declines to what we already have too much of—crime, plain crime unrelieved by any hero-sleuth with whom the audience can identify . . .

  Sydney muttered a curse at Barlock, then read Alex’s letter. Alex’s reactions were violently derogatory of Mr. Barlock’s brain and other things, and he went on:

  . . . Too much crime? The TV men are turning out miles of film of good-looking heroes dabbling at catching crooks with one hand and fondling their girls with the other. We hardly see any crooks any more. I suggest we tell Barlock to boil his balls and I send this off to Plummer at Granada. Unless I get a ring from you tomorrow (Thursday) I’ll do this in late Thursday post.

  Alex

  “Well?” Alicia said from the doorway.

  “It’s another rejection.” He tossed the two letters down on the telephone table. “The hell with them all,” he said quietly.

  “Well, it’s only one person. Barlock, isn’t it? What did he say?”

  “Stuff that doesn’t make any sense.” Sydney was talking calmly, but he twisted up the brown envelope until it was a tight, stiff length like a twig.

  “Can I see it?”

  “If you want to.” Sydney left the room, went upstairs, but near his study door he found he couldn’t go in to his typewriter, didn’t want to see his table or his chair. He turned around in the hallway, wishing he were anywhere but where he was. He wandered downstairs again and out into the garden, caught a snail—a hobneydod, Rutledge the handyman called it—on the lettuce and hurled it far across the road. He wandered about in slow strides, not doing anything constructive, though he noticed half a dozen things he might have done, pull a weed, put the hoe back in the toolhouse before the next rain, straighten a tomato stake. He paused and looked straight at Mrs. Lilybanks’ house with an air of defiance, but he didn’t see her outside or in. He’d had the feeling she was looking at him.

  At dinner, Alicia said, “I read that rejection. Maybe he’s right and it is old hat. I sometimes think Alex has a cramping effect on you. On your imagination.”

  “It’s I who think up the plots, dear,” Sydney replied, on guard against a coming dig from her. “But he knows how to write a television play once he’s got the plot.”

  “But the fact the synopsis is going to him may be cramping you. I think you should go more on your own imagination. You act afraid of it.”

  He felt as if she were poking at a raw wound deep within him. She wanted him to try something on his own and fall flat on his face, Sydney thought. It would hurt worse than a joint failure.

  “You take it all much too seriously, anyway. You’re—”

  “You’re not in my shoes,” he interrupted. “You’re not trying to make a go of anything, because you don’t give a damn. You just go on painting with your little finger like Mrs. Lilybanks.”

  Alicia’s eyes widened—with anger, not surprise. “All that bitterness. My, my. How could you create anything—anything salable? It’s impossible.”

  “It’s certainly impossible with your heckling.”

  “Heckling? Would you really like to see me heckle?” She laughed.

  “I’d like to see you dare.”

  She said more softly, “This isn’t the night to have a meal with you, is it? You might keep your temper while we’re eating, anyway.”

  But neither of them was eating now.

  “Just like Mrs. Lilybanks, sweetness and light,” Sydney said. “But I’m at the beginning of my life, not the end.”

  “You’re at the end of your creative life, if you keep this up.”

  “Who’re you to tell me?”

  Alicia got up. “Whatever you say about Mrs. Lilybanks, she’s better company than you, and if you don’t mind, I’ll spend the rest of the evening with her.”

  “Go ahead.”

  She took a jacket from the clothes hook by the door, glanced into the mirror there to see if her face looked all right. Then the front door closed.

  Sydney had no heart for any work on The
Planners that evening, which made him feel more depressed, as he knew the work would have to be done at some time. He watched television, then went to bed with one of the books he had taken from the Ipswich Library. Alicia came in just after ten.

  “I think I’m going to Brighton tomorrow,” she said, not looking at him.

  “Um-m. For how long?”

  “Several days.” She began to undress, taking her pajamas out of the room to the bathroom, though she usually undressed in the bedroom.

  There was nothing else to ask her about Brighton, so Sydney asked nothing more. It meant driving her to Ipswich tomorrow morning, unless she preferred to take the train at Campsey Ash, a bit closer home.

  “I’m sorry, Syd, but when you get in these moods, they go on for days, and I find them unproductive and not at all fun.”

  “I don’t blame you, and I hope you have a nice time. Brighton is it?”

  “Brighton or London.”

  She didn’t want him to know which it was, so he wasn’t going to pin her down.

  The next morning, he did the breakfast dishes, so he did not see what kind of clothes she packed into her navy blue zippered suitcase. By 11:15, he was back at the house, alone. She had left from Campsey Ash, just outside Wickham Market. The day was rainy and miserable, and Sydney plunged back to work on The Planners. At 2 P.M., the drizzling rain became heavier, with thunderclaps.

  Mrs. Lilybanks telephoned. “Hello, Sydney—” She now first-named them both, though Sydney could not get out of the habit of calling her Mrs. Lilybanks. “I wonder if Alicia’s forgotten her clothes on the line?”

  “Oh! I’ll get them in. Thanks.” Sydney hung up and ran out for the clothes—half a dozen dishtowels and two of Alicia’s cotton blouses on the square revolving tree. He dashed in the back door with them, and had just removed his raincoat, when the telephone rang again.

  It was again Mrs. Lilybanks. “I wanted to say a word to Alicia, if I may, Sydney.”

  “I’m sorry, she’s not here. She’s—I’m not quite sure where she is.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I drove her to Campsey Ash this morning. For the train. I think she’s going to Brighton. I thought she might’ve mentioned it to you last night.”

  “No.”

  “Occasionally, she—you know, likes to get away for a while by herself.”

  “Yes. Well, it’s not important, I only wanted to tell her she didn’t need to bring over that wild flower book this afternoon, since it’s raining so hard.”

  Sydney knew which book she meant, an old Victorian flower album with colored drawings made by some Victorian miss, which Alicia had picked up in a London bookshop. “I’ll tell her you called.”

  “When will she be back?”

  “I think in three or four days.”

  “Well, if you get lonely, do come over,” Mrs. Lilybanks said. “Any time.”

  Sydney thanked her and said he would.

  That evening a little after six, when the rates became cheaper for trunk calls, Sydney rang Inez and Carpie in London. They were two girls who shared a house together, and each had a baby about a year old. Inez was a Negro girl from New York, Carpie a Jamaican of nearly white skin, and they both were dancers, though since the babies, they had retired from their London dance group. Their husbands were always away, in New York or the West Indies, or had been since Sydney and Alicia had known them, which was more than a year, and at last it had dawned on Sydney that the girls had no husbands. Alicia thought Sydney was probably right, so they had stopped asking the girls anything about their husbands. Certainly the babies looked no more than half what the girls were, the rest of them white. Inez and Carpie were hospitable, bright, and good fun. On one of her runaway trips, Alicia had stayed with them, as they had a three-story house in a mews. But Alicia was not with them now. Sydney spoke to Inez.

  “Gosh. Well, you’re not really worried, are you?” Inez asked.

  “Oh, no. If she’s not in London, she’s in Brighton. It’s happened before. Or she could be with the Polk-Faradays, I suppose.”

  “If you want me to, I’ll call a couple of places here and call you back. Save you some dough.” Inez was always mindful of economy.

  “No, thanks, Inez. I’ll ring Alex, because I want to talk to him about something, anyway.”

  “But she’s okay, is she? Not mad or anything?”

  “Oh, no. She just gets housebound out here now and then.”

  Then Sydney called the Polk-Faradays.

  Hittie answered. “Oh, hello, Syd! Alex is having a drink with someone tonight. He’s not home yet.”

  “I hope he’s buttering up Plummer. That wouldn’t be it, would it?”

  “No, it’s some new author for Verge Press. I’m sorry about that reject, Syd. I thought that script was super.”

  “Well, it’s down but not out. Yet. What I called up about is—I don’t suppose Alicia is there, is she?”

  “Here?”

  “At your place.”

  “No. You mean you don’t know where she is?”

  “She went off this morning, I thought maybe to London, but it looks like Brighton, because you’re the second place I’ve called in London. Sometimes she likes to get away, and I can’t blame her. I’m not the picture of cheer with one rejection after another.”

  “Goodness . . . Did she take the car?”

  “No, I put her on the train. For London. I’m not worried, because she’s done it a couple of times before, you know.” He knew Hittie knew she’d done it a couple of times before. But he could almost hear Hittie’s brain clicking over, thinking Alicia wasn’t a good wife to desert her husband just when he was discouraged.

  “If you don’t hear from her by tomorrow, do let us know, would you, Syd?”

  “Thanks, Hittie. I will.”

  6

  Mrs. Lilybanks rang the next day and asked if Sydney would come for dinner. “The mobile butcher had a special treat today, fresh Dover sole, so I bought two, hoping you could join me.”

  “Thanks, I’d like to. What can I contribute, and what time would you like me?”

  “Is seven thirty too early? If you’re working hard, we’ll make it later.”

  “Seven thirty’s fine.”

  “And don’t bring anything, just yourself.”

  But Sydney took the car to Framlingham and bought a bottle of white wine. He had worked well that day, and was in a good mood. So was Mrs. Lilybanks for the same reason, she was pleased with her painting, and she said so (her work-in-progress was upstairs, so Sydney did not see it or ask to), but Sydney kept his good spirits to himself, pretending a slight loneliness and anxiety because his wife was not at home.

  They ate in Mrs. Lilybanks’ half-sunken dining room. Two corners of the room were filled with tall, polished sideboards, and along the waist-high shelf on one wall stood Delft plates and bric-a-brac. In her unhurried way, Mrs. Lilybanks served a superb dinner, ending with homemade sponge cake and strawberry sauce. She asked Sydney questions about his writing, not prying questions, but the kind that kept him doing most of the talking and enjoying the sound of his own voice.

  “You sound more pleased about The Whip than your other things,” she said as they were having coffee.

  “Maybe because it’s the latest,” Sydney said. “Some more wine?”

  Mrs. Lilybanks had not finished her glass. “No, thank you, but do have some. It’s delicious. Just made the sole.”

  Sydney took only an inch more, which left a glass or two for a meal for Mrs. Lilybanks. “I expect Alicia’ll be back by Monday or Tuesday.”

  “Oh, good. She’s probably enjoying some exhibitions in London and just being by herself for a while.”

  “I now don’t think she’s in London,” Sydney said somewhat awkwardly. “I�
�ve called a few of our friends there. I think she went to Brighton. She’s fond of Brighton.”

  “Has she friends there?”

  “No. At least not that I know of. No, she’d have mentioned them.” Sydney frowned slightly and looked at his coffee cup. He would be saying the same things, he thought, if Alicia were dead now, if he had killed her Friday morning instead of putting her on the train at Campsey Ash. Mrs. Lilybanks would be saying the same things, too. The words were coming from both of them like lines in a play they were performing.

  “Artists need to be by themselves now and then,” Mrs. Lilybanks said kindly.

  “Yes.” He glanced at her, grateful. “I suppose I’ll have a postcard Monday. Or a telephone call.” It sounded gloomy. It was only Saturday evening. And Alicia never wrote a postcard on these excursions, at least not to him. “I’ll use these days to get some work done, too—I mean, assuming Alicia’s making sketches for new paintings in Brighton,” he added, feeling a blush come in his face. He shifted back in his chair. “More work on The Planners, you know.”

  “Well, suppose we leave all this and listen to some music. There’s a concert on the BBC tonight that starts in five minutes.”

  “If we’ve got five minutes,” Sydney said cheerfully, bouncing up, too, “I’ll help you clear away.”

  He insisted over Mrs. Lilybanks’ brief protest, and in a trice, they had the table clear and the dishes ready for washing in the kitchen. Then they listened to a concert of Bach and Hindemith, while Mrs. Lilybanks embroidered a pillowcase for her daughter.

  As he was leaving, Sydney said, “I’m going to Ipswich Monday, if you’d like to go. Just a little shopping trip.”

  “No, thank you, not this time. I seem to be pretty well supplied at the moment,” Mrs. Lilybanks said.

  And Sydney was secretly relieved, because he wasn’t really going to Ipswich—not unless Alicia called and asked him to meet her there—but he hadn’t been able to think of any other kindness he might do Mrs. Lilybanks.

  When he had gone, Mrs. Lilybanks put on an apron and did the dishes, then left the pots and pans in the sink to soak overnight. The dishes, she felt, were enough exertion for the evening, and she would be up tomorrow before Mrs. Hawkins arrived and would have all the pans washed and put away. She never left dishes for Mrs. Hawkins, because she felt there was so much else to do. She had enjoyed her evening with Sydney, and she thought he had, too, but her pleasant train of thought kept hitting the snag of his anxiety over Alicia. All wasn’t well there, Mrs. Lilybanks could see easily. She remembered what Alicia had said, that she wasn’t sure she wanted to have a child with Sydney, though maybe she ought to go ahead and have one. That wasn’t the right way to have a child, Mrs. Lilybanks thought, yet who was she to prophesy? Alicia must have gone away a little piqued, or she’d have told Sydney where she was and when to expect her back. Mrs. Lilybanks recalled Sydney’s sudden bitter anger the evening she had gone for dinner and met the Polk-Faradays. “Christ, is that the sixth or the tenth?” Sydney had said when Alicia dropped a glass, and his tone had been shockingly fierce. And then Alicia at the table, talking about Sydney’s muse not living with them any more, or some such thing. That hadn’t been nice, either, and Mrs. Lilybanks had seen Sydney’s resentment growing in his embarrassed face.