Suspension of Mercy

by Patricia Highsmith

  Best to be neighborly to both and not meddle, she warned herself.

  Later, in her nightdress and her red woolen dressing gown, Mrs. Lilybanks took a last look at her new painting before she went to bed. It was a yellow vase of white roses and pale lavender clematis, and though it had dash, it did not look as good now as it had at five o’clock when she stopped work. Or as good, Mrs. Lilybanks thought with resignation, as it would have looked had she spent her life painting instead of her Sundays. Art, as they said, was long, and the life so short.

  7

  Alicia sat tensely in a tearoom in Brighton called the Eclair, having a pot of tea and a Sally Lunn. It was 11 A.M. Sunday. She was waiting for Edward Tilbury, who was due at any moment. On Friday, after reaching Liverpool Station, Alicia had taken a taxi to Victoria and bought her ticket for Brighton, but she had decided to take a later train (there were trains every hour) and enjoy a little shopping in the West End. She had checked her suitcase, and caught a bus to Piccadilly, and had browsed for a while in Fortnum and Mason’s—her mother’s favorite store. Ah, the good old days, Alicia thought, when she and her mother had gone on shopping trips to Fortnum’s, never thinking of money, buying what pleased them, finally having tea and divine pastry in the busy tearoom of the store, her mother feeling exhausted yet virtuous with her afternoon which had been two or three hours of the most wanton self-indulgence. Now Alicia bought herself only a box of a half-dozen handkerchiefs, with a four-leaf clover embroidered in green at their corners, for sixteen and six. Then, coming out of Fortnum’s, she had run into a man she had met at Inez’s and Carpie’s last party. She hadn’t been sure of his name, but he had said, lifting his hat:

  “Oh, hello! It’s Alicia!—Edward Tilbury.”

  He was about thirty, slender and brown-haired with brown eyes. He was wearing a beautiful suit, and she remembered that he had been wearing another beautiful suit the night she met him. She also remembered that he had said he was a lawyer. He had flirted with her very boldly at the party, and had asked her if she were free for dinner the next evening, and when Alicia had answered with a smile that she was going to be back in Suffolk with her husband, Edward had showed the most charming embarrassment, and had apologized. Of course, Alicia had led him on a little, too. It had been after one of her and Sydney’s more ghastly quarrels, and Sydney had stayed across the room all evening.

  “Shopping?” Alicia had asked.

  “Yes. I don’t have to. Something for my kitchen. I’d gladly put it off, if you’re free for lunch.”

  It was 1:10. They lunched at Overton’s, because Alicia said she had an errand to do near Victoria. Over lunch, which went extremely well, because they found so many things in common like a love of the seaside, Braque, and Antonioni, Alicia confessed that she was off to Brighton for a few days just to get away from domestic routine.

  “If you’re going to be there Sunday—I’d love to come down and join you for the afternoon,” Edward said. “If you’re free.”

  Alicia had been just a little startled, but after all it was only for the afternoon. “Yes, that sounds lovely. But I don’t know where I’m going to be. I’d better meet you at the station.”

  “But I’d drive down.”

  So Alicia proposed their meeting at the Eclair, the first place that came to her mind except the lobbies of a few large hotels where she would not be stopping.

  Her heart took a somersault as Edward walked through the pink-curtained door. He looked nervous before he saw her, then he started toward her with a smile.

  They spent a glorious day, lunching at the Angus Steak House, strolling along the downs, driving to the Plough Inn in Pyecombe for a cozy tea, then lolling in chairs in the late sun on the beach. Edward was sweet and good-natured, such a relief after Sydney. He didn’t mention Sydney, and neither did Alicia. She had been afraid Edward would, that he’d naturally suspect a bad quarrel. It gave Edward full marks in Alicia’s book that he didn’t try to pump a thing out of her.

  “Have you seen Inez and Carpie lately?” Alicia asked.

  “No. Not since the party.” Edward turned his eyes to her for an instant, smiling. He was driving then. “I don’t know them very well.”

  Alicia felt relieved at that. She didn’t want their mutual friends in London to know Edward had come down to Brighton to see her. No doubt Edward realized that, too. She sensed that he could be most discreet, if he had to be. As far as Alicia knew, she and Edward had no friends in common except Inez and Carpie, and they seemed to be only acquaintances. They were always having people they scarcely knew to their parties. Edward was certainly more U and better mannered than most of their guests. Edward’s fast driving was the only thing about him that made her uneasy, though she could tell he was a good driver. A fear of speed was one of her neuroses. Speed and airplanes. She simply couldn’t fly without getting into a state of terror, so she hadn’t attempted to take a plane since her last nightmarish flight to Paris when she was twenty.

  They had a dinner even more delicious than their lunch. It was wonderful to eat anything, anywhere, and not worry about the bill. Edward started off a little before 10 P.M. for London, and Alicia was genuinely sorry to see him go.

  8

  At ten o’clock the following Monday evening, Sydney was typing the last sentence of the second Whip synopsis, in which The Whip murdered, for a woman friend with whom he had no emotional involvement, the woman’s husband. The husband was an almost unmitigated cad—almost, because his sadism, selfishness, philandering, and alcoholism had to be relieved by some minor good qualities, or he could hardly be believed. At any rate, no one could possibly like the husband, and Sydney could foresee The Whip’s strangle-murder of him being cheered by man, woman, and child of the television audience. Of course, The Whip got off scot free and the wife, too, as The Whip had made her spend the weekend in a town sixty miles away. Sydney wrote:

  Monday 10:10 P.M.

  Alex, old pal,

  Here is another synopsis, packed with Whiplike action that should make Robin Hood look like a sitting duck. Don’t be downcast about that one rejection. We’ll lash them with Whip stories till they open their glassy eyes and see how good they are. Next year we should be writing these from our own island in Greece.

  Yours forever,

  Syd

  Then, singing his own words to “After the Ball Is Over,” he went down to the kitchen with his empty cup and saucer, and treated himself to a scotch and soda. He was glad Alicia was out of the house for a while, because he felt her absence would give The Whip a chance.

  In fact, Alicia was dead. He had pushed her down the stairs the morning she had intended to leave. Her suitcase had fallen down the stairs with her, burst open, and there had been a mess on the living-room floor of scattered clothing, contents of handbag, Alicia sprawled with one shoe off, but no blood. Only a broken neck. Then Sydney had wrapped her in the red and blue carpet, the old one, and installed her against the front door on the floor. He had gathered up her things, put the handbag into the suitcase, the suitcase into the car, and driven to—to where? Toward Parham, about five miles away, where there was a small forest. Hard enough to find forests in Suffolk where a man wouldn’t be disturbed digging, but Sydney had found a place to bury the suitcase, and then he had driven on about a quarter of a mile and started digging another larger hole for the body tomorrow. Because of summer foliage, he hadn’t been visible from the road while digging. That had been Friday afternoon.

  Then on Saturday morning, very early, when it was just light enough to see things and the birds were starting to chirp, Sydney had carried the rug with Alicia in it out the back door to the car. Mrs. Lilybanks had been peering out her window—God knew what she was looking at at that hour, or maybe she always got up that early—but all she had seen was him carrying a heavy carpet over his shoulder, and if she asked him about it, he’d say it was their old living-ro
om rug he had taken out to dump somewhere. Anyway, she hadn’t asked him (Saturday evening), because the light was so dim, she probably hadn’t seen him at all. Or if she had, she hadn’t considered it worth asking a question about. And Saturday afternoon, he had made the telephone calls to the Polk-Faradays and to Inez and Carpie, preparing the ground. As the days passed, hotels in Brighton would be checked, then London hotels, finally overseas aircraft (though Alicia hated flying, and he would say so) and boats and trains. Because Alicia hadn’t written and hadn’t come home.

  Alicia’s parents would be notified, and would come bustling up from Kent. Sydney would tell them—this would probably be next Thursday or Friday—that he had put Alicia on the train at Ipswich Friday morning. Ipswich was better than Campsey Ash, because it was much bigger and there was less chance of anyone having noticed them. He would be firm in refusing Alicia’s fifty-pound-a-month income, because he didn’t want it, in fact. Not for him the Smith-brides-in-a-bath murders for peanuts, for petty gains that were incredibly part of what had betrayed Smith, the other part being his stupidity in repeating his method.

  On Tuesday, Sydney was back at The Planners again. He had only twenty more pages of typing to do, but since he was rewriting as he went, it was more than a day’s work. At a little past noon, a car drew up at the house. Sydney heard the motor through his back window, but went on typing, thinking that if it were the cleaners or someone dropping in, he would wait for a knock. The car drove off, and then Sydney heard the front door opening.

  “Syd?” Alicia’s voice called.

  “Hi,” he said without enthusiasm, but automatically he walked into the hall to the stairway, stood leaning against the top post with one foot dangling over the first step. Alicia was below with her suitcase, in high heels and in her best suit. “Have a nice time?”

  “Very nice, thanks. Did you get some work done?” She was removing her left glove.

  “Yes, quite a bit,” Sydney said, descending the stairs. “I suppose you want this—mounted?” He gripped the handle of her suitcase.

  “Oh, leave it, if you like. It’s not heavy.”

  But he took it up to their bedroom.

  Alicia followed. “Sorry I didn’t write you a postcard, Syd, but I really didn’t feel like it. I hope you weren’t worried.”

  She had never apologized before for not sending a postcard. “Nope. Neither was anybody else.”

  “Why should they be? . . . Who?”

  “Oh—Mrs. Lilybanks. Or Alex and Hittie.”

  “I suppose you told them I just went off for a few days by myself.”

  Sydney’s eyes narrowed. For the first time, he suspected she had had a date with a man. Alicia seemed unusually tense about something. Who, Sydney wondered. And he found himself unable to begin guessing, unable to think of a single man. “Meet anybody interesting?”

  “No,” Alicia said casually, and her expression, if any, was hidden by the sweater she was pulling over her head.

  He heard Alicia go out around two, heard the back door close, and absently he got up and looked out the window. She was going by way of the back gardens to Mrs. Lilybanks’. Sydney realized he was hungry, and went down to the kitchen. Alicia had found her post, he saw as he crossed the living room. She had had three or four letters, among them one from her mother. Sydney made some coffee while he ate a hot dog. Alicia had put out the pork roast, the potatoes, the veg—courgettes—on the kitchen table in her usual line-up. He did not look forward to her company tonight. And he felt her presence put a jinx on the synopsis he had posted to Alex from Ipswich that morning.

  He worked until nearly six, then went out to do some weeding in the garden. He cut some of the wild roses that grew by the garage, and took them in to put on the table. Alicia was cooking, and Sydney went in to make the salad.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” Alicia said.

  “I haven’t been doing anything exciting. You have.”

  “You had dinner with Mrs. Lilybanks, I heard.”

  “Yes. A very good dinner, too. Saturday night.”

  “We should have her over for a meal soon.”

  Sydney said nothing, grinding parsley with the mouli in his sauce.

  “What’re you working on? The Planners?”

  Sydney took a breath and said, “I did another synopsis for The Whip and sent it off to Alex this morning.” There it was, out, a vulnerable, helpless target, like a yellow duckling waddling over a green lawn, an ugly duckling. “And now I’m back on The Planners, yes.”

  “What does Alex think about documentary one-hours? Not documentary, but things with a theme. Like bad housing, or birth control versus the church.”

  Sydney looked at her rather blankly.

  “The last few television reviews I’ve read in the Times are about plays with a theme. Management versus labor. You know.” She was pouring hot water off the potatoes.

  “You’re suggesting I drop The Whip and try something like that? What do I know about the inside of an English workshop?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything. I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said with sudden nervous hostility. “I’m making a remark about the market now. The public seems to be tired of silly entertainment, and they want something controversial. Or they seem to.”

  “I’d rather give The Whip a chance first.”

  “You might do both.”

  “And The Planners, too? I’d be pretty busy.”

  It didn’t seem to Alicia that it should make a person overly busy to be doing three things at once. “I meant irons in the fire. That’s all. You once said they were important. It takes a month or more for a synopsis to make the rounds, doesn’t it?”

  “At least. And I might do five, six, seven Whip synopses. I think they’re good. Good entertainment and not silly entertainment.”

  “I didn’t say The Whip was silly.” Alicia sighed.

  Sydney fixed them both a drink, and handed Alicia’s to her. “The Whip is not silly,” he said, and since the remark came two minutes after Alicia had last spoken, it hung heavily.

  Alicia looked at him and felt curiously detached. It seemed absurd to her to take an idea like The Whip with as much seriousness as Shakespeare had taken King Lear, and maybe more. It was selling something, even something as lightweight as a jingle for a commercial, that Sydney took seriously, and until he did, life was going to be hell. Alicia suddenly wished she were back in Brighton with Edward, spending this evening and all of tonight with him. “Let’s hope you sell it,” she said crisply, and turned to the sink.

  The clipped, English-accented words plucked at Sydney’s nerves with every syllable. She’d be there saying, “I told you so,” with the next rejection, with the rejection of the second synopsis, and possibly the third. “I intend to keep trying,” he said, trying to be just as crisp, but with his accent, it was impossible.

  On Thursday at breakfast, Sydney proposed going to Ipswich. They could always think of a reason to go—the library, a piece of hardware Framlingham didn’t have, a Chinese lunch or dinner to vary their menu—but Sydney proposed it Thursday just for a change of scene. Alicia agreed, though without much enthusiasm. She detested and despised him, Sydney felt. She considered him “inferior.” But she was too cowardly or too unenterprising to make a move to get away from him. A divorce was too much trouble, perhaps, or her family would be too upset. Sydney felt that both he and Alicia were waiting for a sign, a sign of anything—of hostility or love—and that either one could tip the balance. If Alicia, for instance, would only put her arms around his neck and say, “Sydney, darling, I love you whether you’ve sold anything or not,” then things might have been different. Or if he had been able to go to her and say, “Alicia, I know I’ve been crabby for weeks. I promise I won’t be like that any more, ever.” But as it was, they drifted like a pair of old people in their accusto
med ruts, getting up, making breakfast, making the bed, sweeping the kitchen, hardly talking to each other, not hostile but barely tolerating the other’s presence.

  As they were leaving the house on Thursday morning, the telephone rang, and since Sydney was nearer, he answered. But he noticed as he picked the telephone up Alicia’s brief expression of alarm, then her pretended unconcern as she stared out the open front door, within hearing. Was she fearing a call from a boy friend?

  “Hello,” Sydney said.

  “Syd. Alex here. Got your synopsis this morning before I left the house, and I thought I’d ring you on office money. I like it.”

  “Good. Any suggestions?”

  “I think we might play up the suspect a little more. The wife’s friend. Make him really look guilty from the point of view of the police. I’ll drop you a note. I really rang to ask if Alicia got back.”