“I don’t remember.”
“I thought so. Go home and go to bed. I’ll stop by about six. That all right?”
“But Jane—”
“She’s fine.” He was impatient. “By the day after tomorrow she won’t know anything’s happened to her. Why can’t you let your family carry its own troubles? They’re perfectly able and willing to.”
She went home in a taxi, feeling guilty and extravagant. But she did not go to bed immediately. Andy was waiting for her in the lower hall. He was pacing back and forward, with his hands in his pockets and the familiar forward thrust of his head that she knew so well. She sat down on a hall chair and looked at him. He was the handsomest of her children, and the most unpredictable.
“What is it, Andy? Is anything wrong?”
“Not unless it’s wrong for you, mother.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said feebly.
He stood in front of her, looking down at her.
“I think you do, mother. I’ve held off. You’ve had your share of war, with father and Joe. And in a way I’m the only one you have left, with Beulah and Joe both married. But I’ll have to go now. I only—well, I’d like to think you are willing. That’s all.”
So it had come, after all, she thought tiredly. Her hostages to fate, her contributions to charities, her Red Cross work, her bundles to Britain, even her prayers—all that, and they had won her exactly nothing.
“You mustn’t put it up to me, Andy,” she said, her voice tight and thin. “It isn’t fair.”
“I’m not putting it up to you, mother. I only want—I suppose in the old days they called it your blessing.” He smiled down at her. “Maybe it will bring me luck!”
She tried to return his smile.
“Of course you have that, darling,” she said. “What about Edna? Is she willing?”
“Edna’s in uniform, working her head off. How do you think I like that?”
“If it’s a uniform you want,” she began feebly. But he threw his head up. It frightened her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Don’t think of me, darling. Don’t even think of Edna. It’s your life that’s at stake.”
“It’s my country that’s at stake,” he said grimly.
She was in bed when Tommy Stewart came. She was thinking that after all it might be rather peaceful just to die. Not to worry any more, not to think about war, or operations, or even income taxes. When Tommy came in she was lying still in her bed, her hands folded across her breast and her eyes closed.
“What on earth is that for?” he said suspiciously.
“I was wondering what would happen if I were to die,” she said, not opening her eyes. “You haven’t a lily to put in my hand, have you?”
Tommy laughed.
“No lily,” he said. “And you’d probably be surprised about what would happen.”
She opened her eyes.
“What?”
“Nothing much. Things would go along all right. You’re just feeding your vanity, you know. Now let’s get that blood pressure. What do you bet it’s low?”
She eyed him resentfully. What did he know about her life and its problems? Or the sort of day she had had? She did not speak while he put the tubing around her arm and blew it up. When it was over he grinned at her.
“Low is right,” he said. “Take it easy for a while. Let the family get along. It might even like it. And stay in bed if you can for a couple of weeks. Jane’s all right. Don’t worry about her. Don’t worry about anything.”
He went away, whistling cheerfully. She was still indignant. Feeding her vanity, she thought bitterly! So that was the way the young felt about the old. This was their world. It wasn’t the old who made wars. It was the young who wanted to fight, to get out of the rut, to find adventure, to have someone else do their thinking for them. Even Joe—she knew Joe wanted to go. He couldn’t, of course, but there it was. As to the rest of it—
But she was very tired. Her feet began to feel better, and after a while she dozed. She was still asleep when Sarah brought her the telegram. It was from Isabel, and it was a typical Isabel message.
“Think best to do shopping personally. Arrive with Marian four-thirty tomorrow. Staying only four or five days. Please have car meet us.”
She lay staring at it. Isabel at any time was a trial. Isabel and Marian together at any time was a catastrophe. She groaned and sitting up in bed looked at Sarah.
“It’s from Mrs. Warwick,” she said weakly. “She’s coming tomorrow. She and Miss Marian. She doesn’t even know I’ve laid up the car.”
Sarah’s face tightened.
“You can’t have them. The doctor said you were to rest.”
Mrs. Ayres looked at the clock.
“It’s too late to stop them, Sarah. They’ve taken the evening train. I’ll have to have them.”
“You wouldn’t if you were dead.”
“Good gracious, Sarah!”
But Sarah did not smile.
“A body can work herself to death for people,” she said darkly. “And when they’re gone, what? Annie says it’s like taking a thumb out of a bowl of soup.”
“Well, I’m not dead,” said Mrs. Ayres sharply. “You’ll have to fix two rooms for them. They don’t like being together.”
Sarah sniffed and went out, and Mrs. Ayres got out of bed stiffly and prepared to dress for dinner. She always dressed for these family reunions. It pleased her to sit at the head of her table, looking attractive and as young as possible; to have the boys say she didn’t look her age, and Beulah speak about her hair. But her high-heeled slippers hurt damnably, and with the thought of suppers she remembered. All those packages on their way West, and Isabel and Marian coming on to buy them after all!
Suddenly she knew she could not face Isabel. And not Isabel only. She wanted to escape from life for a time; to lie back and rest, even to forget the war and the price she might soon have to pay for it.
She looked over at Herbert’s picture, slightly faded in its frame. Herbert had had very definite ideas about things.
“I’m so dreadfully tired, Bert,” she said apologetically. “And everything’s so frightful.”
But of course Herbert said nothing. He merely continued to look firm.
The dinner was gay that night. It was, she thought, as though having lived through today, they were leaving tomorrow to take care of itself. Perhaps that was because they were still young. Perhaps one was only old when tomorrow became important. It wasn’t true, she considered, that age lived in the past. Who wanted to live on memories? Age looked ahead. It had to.
Nevertheless she watched them proudly. Joe and his Dorothy, her hands reddened with unaccustomed housework but her smile serene; Paul and Beulah, relaxed before going back to the hospital, even Andy, a trifle wary but with his jaw set, and only eyes for Edna.
And it was Edna, in a way, who spilled the beans. She was a small, determined young woman, still in uniform that night and with a horrifying habit of speaking her mind. So in a brief pause she did exactly that.
“I do hope, Mother Ayres,” she said, “that you are going to be a sport and let go of Andy.”
There was an appalled silence. Mrs. Ayres felt herself stiffening.
“Let go of Andy?” she said. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Well, let him go, anyhow. It’s the same thing, isn’t it? Send him off with a smile.” She looked around the table, rather startled. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m not noted for my tact. But after all—”
She subsided then. Joe’s face was furious and Andy had flushed. Mrs. Ayres rallied herself.
“I can’t live my children’s lives, Edna,” she said.
But Edna too had rallied.
“I think,” she said clearly, “that a good many mothers do that without knowing it. Take these family dinners! They’re fine. They’re grand. I love to come. But just the same—”
“Oh, for God’s sake shut up, Edna,” Andy said wearily. “I can manage my
own life, and mother knows it.”
Things went on smoothly enough after that, although there was tension all around the table. But Mrs. Ayres had an uncomfortable feeling that she was a sort of bone and that the family was quarreling over her. That mustn’t happen, she thought wildly. She must get away somewhere, die a little death, bury herself beyond finding. Like a bone. Like a thumb out of a—
At the end of the meal she rapped on her glass and smiled at them all.
“I have a little something to say,” she told them. “It’s not really important. But Tommy Stewart took my blood pressure today. It’s rather low.”
She could see them, their concerned faces turned toward her, the sudden silence.
“He thinks I need a rest cure. A—well, a really absolute rest cure. It sounds silly, doesn’t it?”
“What does he mean, an absolute rest cure?” Joe said. “Of course you need a rest. We’ve all known it for months.”
She smiled again, reassuringly.
“It’s to be rather drastic,” she said. “The idea is to cut myself off entire. I’ll not be seeing even any of you. No radio, no telephone, no newspapers, no visitors. I’m not even going to talk to Sarah and Annie. It’s to be—well, exactly as though one took a thumb out of a bowl of soup.”
They looked astounded.
“A bowl of soup?” said Beulah. “Mother, what on earth do you mean?”
Mrs. Ayres flushed faintly.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I really hadn’t meant to say that. It’s just that Sarah—but never mind. I thought I’d start tonight. You could all see me settled and then forget me. For two weeks only, of course. I couldn’t stand it any longer.”
It was Paul who broke the incredulous silence, Paul with his pleasant eyes and his soft voice.
“Does it have to be so drastic?” he asked. “No flowers, no baby pillows, no pretty bed-jackets?”
She felt grateful to him.
“None,” she said lightly. “Also no taxes to think about, no Isabel to worry about, and no tight slippers. I think I really want to rest my feet.”
They could understand that. It relieved them. They cheered enormously, and things began to move fast. Sarah and Annie were brought in, looking dazed when the matter was explained to them. The radio was carried out of her bedroom, the telephone shut off. They made a game of it, and at last they formed a procession and escorted her upstairs, singing Hail, Hail, The Gang’s All Here. It was all very cheerio, and Mrs. Ayres had all she could do to keep from howling like a wolf, especially when Joe, big dependable Joe, lingered behind the others. He stood in the doorway and looked at her gravely.
“Pretty weary, aren’t you, mother?” he said. “Glad to get rid of us for a bit.”
She denied it.
“It’s not that. It’s never that, Joe.”
“Then what is it?”
She tried to think. She wasn’t even sure herself.
“I’ll have to find my way around somehow,” she told him. “This is a new world, Joe. I haven’t accepted it yet. But I must. Only don’t ask me to like it. I can’t.”
When he had gone she sat down and took off her slippers. She wondered if after all her grand talk about a new world it wasn’t her feet anyhow. But after the front door had closed and quiet settled down over the house she felt suddenly frightened. She had cut herself off from them deliberately, and things moved so terrifyingly fast these days. Her hands were cold as she started to undress.
She was almost ready for bed when she remembered the income tax check, still unsigned. She sighed, put on her clothes again and went downstairs. The house looked lived in, she thought, after the family had been there. The girls’ cigarettes, stained with lipstick, the ashes from Andy’s pipe, the stub of Joe’s cigar, the crushed cushions, the chairs moved about. Usually she straightened it, but that night she did not touch it. It was as though, by leaving it as it was, they were still with her. She signed her check and went out to the mailbox at the corner with the envelope. It was a bright moonlit night, and a man with an air warden’s brassard on his left arm was standing on the corner.
Suddenly she felt the need of someone to talk to.
“Any chance of a raid?” she inquired.
“It’s a good night for them,” he said genially. “But I guess they’re pretty busy on the other side.”
He smiled down at her small rather fragile figure.
“We’ll beat them yet,” he said. “Just wait and see.”
“I hope so,” she said politely.
When she went back she closed the street door behind her with a strange feeling of finality. The last thing she did was to carry up an armload of books she had never had time to read, and she closed her bedroom door rather slowly, as though she were reluctant to close it at all.
Nevertheless she slept that night as she had not slept for years. The telephone, which usually started early, did not ring at all, and if Sarah grinned cheerfully when she brought the breakfast tray, she did not speak. While Mrs. Ayres took her bath she changed and cleaned the room. After that she disappeared.
Thus began the two weeks of Mrs. Ayres’ temporary death.
On her lunch tray that day there was a prescription blank from Tommy Stewart, and written on it were just three words: “Good for you.” They were the last communication she held with the active everyday world for some time. Or almost the last, although Isabel’s eruption was a one-sided affair.
It was late in the afternoon when the taxi drove up to the door. Mrs. Ayres could hear a number of bags being taken out, followed by the ringing of the doorbell. Rather guiltily she crawled out of bed and listened.
“Well, Sarah, how are you?” said Isabel’s high voice. “Do you mind bringing in the bags? Marian, a quarter tip’s too much for that taxi.”
“I’m sorry,” said Sarah, courteously but inexorably. “No visitors are allowed, Mrs. Warwick.”
“What do you mean, no visitors? I wired her I was coming.”
“Yes’m, but she isn’t seeing anybody. She says she’s dead.”
Even up in her room Mrs. Ayres heard Isabel snort.
“What sort of nonsense is that?” she demanded indignantly. “She says she’s dead!”
“That’s what she says, Ma’am. No visitors, no family, no papers, no radio, no telephone, no—”
“She must have lost her mind,” Isabel said in a loud voice. “I’m going to see her. Get out of my way, Sarah.”
Mrs. Ayres hastily retreated and locked her door. She was just in time. The attack on the door was short but noisy, but even Isabel, however, was daunted at last by the complete silence. With a final statement that Mrs. Ayres should be committed to a lunatic asylum she finally departed. There was the sound of innumerable bags being thrown into a taxi, Marian’s high protest, and then once more peace. Oh wonderful beautiful peace.
By the third day Mrs. Ayres’ feet felt much better. They even looked better. The rule of silence still obtained. Sarah brought her tray and took it away. Once or twice she looked about to burst into speech, but Mrs. Ayres merely shook her head. She was eating better, and her bathroom scale showed she had gained a pound. Once or twice she glanced at her knitting—for the Red Cross—but she did not touch it. For she knew by that time that what she was really escaping was the war.
Mostly she read and slept. But by the fourth day she began again to worry about the family. They could get into such dreadful messes. There was the time before her marriage when Beulah had threatened to go to Hollywood. A new mink coat had stopped her, but of course there were no new mink coats nowadays. And the time Joe’s Dorothy had come to her crying and said she was going to have another baby, and she didn’t want it. And of course Andy had fallen in love with a married woman while he was in college and had threatened to kill himself unless he got her. A trip around the world had cured him, and Herbert had had a fit and almost apoplexy. But there it was.
The poor children, she thought, and wondered what they were doing without
her.
By the end of the week she was beginning to be restless. One day she got out her old letters, Herbert’s first letter after their marriage when he was on his way to Cuba and the Spanish War. “My darling wife: How wonderful that I may call you that! I still can’t believe my luck”—only he had written it beleive. He never could spell—“and that you are really my own girl now. It is only an hour since I kissed you good-bye and we started South. The fellows are singing and yelling all around me on this train. You would think it was a picnic! But I don’t feel like singing. All I can think about is you.”
There was quite a bit more of it. It differed somewhat from the last one he had written her before he took sick and left her for good. That one merely said, “Dear Margaret,” and went on rather peevishly to state that she had forgotten to pack his dress studs, and for God’s sake to send them to him by airmail.
She had loved him dearly. She had not even resented the change from lover to middle-aged husband. But he had been gone for many years, and sometimes she wondered, in case she were to see him again in another world, just whether she would know him. It would be so frightfully embarrassing if she didn’t.
Her hands shook a little as she took up the thin bundle of letters from Joe in France in the last war. They all began “Dearest Mother,” and she tried to feel again some of the heroic endurance with which she had sent him away. But she did not. Perhaps war hadn’t been such a dirty business then. Soldiers had fought soldiers, not tried to kill the plain people, not rained death from the sky on children. But she found it hard to remember that war; only Joe coming home, rather quiet, and showing her rather sheepishly his little box.
“The nurse said you might want to see it, mother.”
Well, now it was all to be done over again, and here she lay in her bed, pretending that it was not. It wasn’t any good, she thought drearily. She couldn’t shut out the sound of newsboys crying extras, or the sound of planes at night shooting like bullets across the sky. Whether she liked it or not the war was here. It was, so to speak, on her doorstep, and closing the door did not shut it out.
Alibi for Isabel: And Other Stories Page 13
