Edith's Diary

by Patricia Highsmith

‘Our,’ she thought. Who was our? But she let it stand. She added only:

  I am happy.

  She wrote this with a rather defiant firmness. There was a smile on her face as she stood up from her worktable.

  The floor of the room was nearly covered now by a couple of plastic sheets meant to catch the clay droppings and plaster dust from castings. She had removed the two carpets, which were rolled up in the guestroom. In February, she had found what books she could on sculpture in the Trenton library, had bought others, and bought a book about Epstein’s work, which she admired. Her head of Melanie, life-size, was a bit in the style of Epstein, but there was no harm in imitating the masters, she thought, since even great artists had, at first. When she had begun her sculpting, Gert Johnson had said, ‘Oh! Let’s start a class! A club!’ but Edith had wriggled out of that. Edith didn’t fancy a bunch of semi-idle women, starting with enthusiasm, dropping out in less than a month. Anyway, who among them was equipped to teach?

  Besides the head of Melanie in Plasticine, Edith had done two abstracts, each about ten inches long, six inches broad and high. One looked like a crouching horned toad, though one could see many things in it – an interesting rock, peak-roof houses, the Alps, perhaps. The other abstract was ‘Four-Legged Animal,’ unidentifiable as any particular animal, lying heavily on its stomach, head turned slightly with an air of alertness. Gert liked this best.

  Actually, Edith was unhappy, and there were moments when she realized this, as for instance in late January, not long after Melanie’s death, when she had seen jonquils pushing upward again through the still frozen ground. Pushing upward for what? She had realized that another spring was coming (it was really coming on now in March), to be followed by another summer, blossoming red roses, dahlias and all that. For what? Nature had its own rounds, and now Edith felt out, left out. She realized, when she was thinking logically (or thought she was), that this was her own doing, that her thoughts made her more depressed and unhappy. Yet the thought (that she felt left out) had its own truth and reality, so what was so wrong in thinking it? She couldn’t just ‘deny’ it, like a Christian Scientist, and derive any solace from that.

  So the sculpting, amateurish, blundering though she might be as yet, took her away from the dreariness. It was a second crutch, maybe, her diary being the first. One had to live somehow. The Thatchery passed the time, brought in some money, and logically was a healthy escape, because she had to work with people, had to look presentable, had to be pleasant and efficient. Sometimes Edith saw herself quite objectively, she felt, and surely that was all to the good. Sometimes she imagined seeing herself from a great height up in the sky, trudging along Main Street toward the Thatchery at ten to 2 p.m., one more little cog in the messy human-race machine, full of proper food and vitamins, destined to die one day like everybody else.

  Edith went down to check the dinner in the oven. It was Sunday. She had a pot roast, surrounded now by carrots, onions and small potatoes, gently bubbling in brown juice. It could stand another twenty minutes, she thought. Cliffie was out in the garden, rather to Edith’s surprise, strolling about with a squirelike air, hands in pockets. He wore the tweed jacket with loud blue stripes which Edith didn’t care for, though to be nice she had paid him a compliment on it when he had bought it. She saw him teeter a little in his slow pace, knew he was a bit drunk, and congratulated herself for not caring at all. She went upstairs again to her workroom, which she had begun to call a studio.

  Her head of Cliffie showed a pleasant but determined face, looking to Cliffie’s left. The strong brows scowled a bit, the closed lips, however, turned up gently at the corners. The hair on the top of the head peaked as if blown by a wind, abundant hair, with sideburns, but not long in back, certainly not the way Cliffie usually wore his. Since two months or so, Cliffie looked like an unkempt Jesus, and of course he didn’t even comb or brush his hair, discouraged no doubt by the tangles.

  After gazing for a while at two photographs of Cliffie propped on a conveniently near bookcase, Edith made a slight addition of Plasticine to the right cheekbone. She loved the muscular neck, which she thought a success: it had dash, and was a constant inspiration to her to make the rest of the head as good. In the dark clay head, Cliffie was emerging as a young god, the way he was in her diary, conqueror of continents, master of rivers, fine husband and provider, begetter of the angelic little Josephine.

  As usual, time flew, and twenty-five minutes had passed before she knew it. Edith went into the bathroom to scrub her hands, then down the stairs. She cut off the oven, then poured herself an iceless scotch and water. She went to the back door to call Cliffie, but he wasn’t there.

  ‘Cliffie?’ She directed this toward his room.

  ‘Yep?’

  ‘Lunch in about one minute.’

  Edith had already set the table. She added a jug of inexpensive Italian red wine to the table, then carved the meat. It looked delicious, and she was hungry. Cliffie came in and sat down in silence.

  ‘Cliffie, would you mind turning that music off?’ Edith had realized it was not the transistor now, but his record player, because ‘Hey, Jude’ was playing over and over.

  ‘Why? That’s a good song.’ Cliffie looked at her with pinkish eyes, and shoved his fork in his food.

  ‘I know it’s a good song, but this must be the sixth time —’

  ‘It is not the sixth time.’

  Edith stifled her temper, because the alternative was to go in and turn it off herself, and she didn’t want a fight.

  ‘My record player, after all,’ Cliffie added in the gentle tone he sometimes assumed when he was saying something defiant. ‘Got to have some rights around here.’

  Edith sighed and ate slowly. ‘Did something happen this morning? – Yesterday?’ Cliffie had come home late, maybe 3 or 4 a.m., and Edith assumed he had been at Mickey’s bar, because he never went to anyone’s house, as far as she knew.

  ‘Not at all,’ Cliffie said. ‘Nothing happened. Why? – Why’re you picking on me?’

  Edith decided to ignore it, reminded herself she had weathered many a meal like this before, that there was no use spoiling Sunday dinner with a quarrel. Better to have an imaginary conversation with an imaginary person sitting at one of the places to right and left of her. And – to make her food go down better – she reminded herself that Cliffie had been badly shocked by Melanie’s death, though he had hardly said a word. He had reacted with a frozen fear, a paralysis of tongue, maybe of feeling. Melanie had been a link with Cliffie’s childhood. Perhaps, Edith thought and hoped, Cliffie was capable of more normal and deep emotion than she and Brett had ever given him credit for. Edith herself, though carrying on her duties, had been also in a kind of paralysis for at least a week after Melanie’s burial. She could sympathize.

  ‘You know, Cliffie,’ Edith said, ‘I miss Melanie very much – shall miss her. You mustn’t let the fact that she’s dead get you down too much. We all have to face death. I wanted you to know it depresses me too – upsets me.’

  Cliffie threw his knife down with a clatter that sounded loud enough to have broken the plate. ‘I don’t give a damn about the dead! What makes you think I do? What can anybody do about it, anyway? What’s the use of talking about it?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to be talking about it, going on about it,’ Edith said quickly.

  ‘Then shut up about it!’ Now Cliffie was on his feet. He seized his wine glass and drank it off, dribbling red wine down the front of his sweater. He grabbed a napkin and gave the sweater a single wipe, wiped his mouth, dropped the napkin, and went to his room. A second later, ‘Hey, Jude’ boomed up louder.

  Edith took her plate into the kitchen, shut the door, and finished her meal. There were baked apples for dessert, keeping warm in their pan atop the stove, but she had no appetite for anything more. For God’s sake, she had wanted only to try to join him in whatever was troubling him, to make him feel he wasn’t alone in feeling troubled, or hopeless sometimes, or di
scouraged. And his eyes had flashed red, it seemed to her.

  She washed up halfway, so the kitchen wouldn’t look like too much to do when she faced it again. There was, of course, George’s meal to be served. George was eating later, and less, but Edith had not as yet failed to give him his three meals plus, usually, tea. Edith prepared a tray, an attractive hot plate of food, a half glass of wine – surely good for him – and took it up.

  She now had the old radio in her workroom, because she spent so much time there since the sculpting. She switched on to an afternoon concert. Beethoven’s fourth piano concerto, she recognized, somewhere in the first movement. That was splendid. She picked up a wooden tool shaped like a spoon with a pointed tip. With this she pressed a deeper crease under the lower lids, finished them off with an upward sweep. Excellent! That was all right, and she wasn’t going to touch the eyes again. She felt pleased. And now she wanted the mouth less wide, with the same puzzled, amused expression.

  Edith went to work, lit a cigarette, continued. She kept a big metal ashtray on the floor now.

  Into the last movement, into the full orchestra which sounded like the finale of a symphony, came a discordant roar that Edith first supposed was a car horn. But it hadn’t come from the street side. She paused with the wooden instrument still held high. It had come from behind her. Cliffie was in George’s room, shouting something at him, of course. Suddenly she lost the train of the music, lost pleasure in following it.

  What was happening now? Curiosity made her put down the wooden thing on the square platform of the armature, go to the door and look into the hall.

  Now Cliffie’s tones sounded soothing. Cliffie even laughed. Then there was silence. Edith advanced farther. She could see Cliffie through the partly open door, bending over George, holding something for him.

  ‘Ha! There we go!’ Cliffie said.

  Another step, and a floorboard creaked under Edith’s foot.

  At once, George’s door went briskly shut with a familiar slam of latch. Cliffie had kicked it with his foot, Edith was sure. What was he doing?

  Edith had an impulse to call out ‘Cliffie!’ and didn’t. Maybe he was arranging the tray to bring it down, making George drain the last of the wine, but she knew Cliffie wasn’t. Cliffie never did anything constructive. That was an axiom, wasn’t it?

  To hell with him! To hell with them both!

  Edith pivoted round, faced her own room again where Beethoven played on, then turned once more to look at George’s closed door. If she was so curious, she told herself, she could go and look through the keyhole. Better yet, knock once and open the door.

  She didn’t want to open the door. She wanted to keep standing there, looking, not even trying to listen. The music would have kept out all but quite loud sounds, anyway.

  Was Cliffie just wandering about in there, whistling, tippling from a bottle of codeine? Making insulting remarks, inaudible to old George?

  But Edith was imagining Cliffie bent over George with a glass of something, Cliffie grinning and ghoul-faced, laughing a little.

  ‘A-ha! – Ha-ha!’ That was Cliffie. His stage laugh, a burlesque of triumph, but with no mirth.

  Edith faced her room again and walked toward it, and at that instant the brilliant music died, there were a few seconds of stunned silence from the audience, then applause began, gathered power, roared to a climax that peppered off the walls as she entered her room and closed the door. ‘Bravo!’ a voice from the audience cried. ‘Ey!’ ‘Hey!’ Thousands of hands proclaimed their delight. ‘Bravo-o-o!’

  Edith picked up the same wooden tool, lifted it to a level of the clay brow, then laid it down again. A voice had begun to announce a Schubert something-or-other. She seized the wooden stick and went to work. After a few seconds, she became absorbed, then lost. It was going to be a good session on the head. That was something. And she suddenly remembered that she was invited to the Quickmans’ for a drink at 6:30. That was nice to look forward to.

  Later, Edith didn’t know how much later, she heard the faint boom of the front door closing. She assumed it was Cliffie going out or coming in. Her radio began to play pop music, and Edith turned it off, bent and shook the clay particles into a heap on the plastic sheet, and swept them up. She straightened her back and stretched, looked at the head in profile now, and thought it not bad. And what would Gert say? Gert was a severe critic. Rotten and kitsch were Gert’s favorite words for some of the stuff in local gift shops, sick-making and phony for the imitation peasant pottery and machine-made wooden objects.

  George should be having his tea, Edith thought. In fact it was past tea time, already nearly 6. Edith took a leisurely bath, chose a madras wrap-around skirt she had not worn for months or maybe years, a white ruffled blouse, black patent leather sandals with medium heels. After all, it was only next door she was going. And the Quickmans were presenting another ‘nice man’, Edith remembered, and smiled a little. It wasn’t for the first time. Eligible bachelors of a certain age. So far Edith had not been swept off her feet (in fact, had any of the men?), but she appreciated the Quickmans’ thoughtfulness, or supposed she ought to.

  ‘And what will you have, Admiral Nelson?’ Edith said to the cat who had followed her down. She was finishing the dishes in the kitchen, because she had five minutes to spare.

  Cliffie was out, evidently. The light was off in his room, his transistor silent. She gave Nelson only a couple of cat biscuits, because he was going to want a meal when she ate later.

  The Quickmans’ male guest was called Lawrence Hodgeson or Hodson, Edith was not sure, a tall slender man with black hair, graying at the temples, a Philadelphia accountant. Ben and Frances had a fire going.

  ‘You’re looking awfully well tonight,’ Frances said to Edith. ‘Had a good day?’

  ‘Not particularly. Well – yes, I suppose so. A little sculpting this afternoon. And there was a wonderful concert on the radio. Did you happen to hear it?’

  Ben and Frances were not interested in the concert, but they both talked about her sculpting.

  ‘When are you giving us a show?’ Ben asked.

  ‘I think Ben wants his portrait,’ Frances said, ‘or whatever you call it. His bust!’

  Laughter.

  Edith didn’t mind their remarks on her new pastime.

  ‘Cliffie didn’t want to come?’ Frances asked.

  ‘I think he’s out for a walk or something,’ Edith said. ‘I think he said thank you for asking him, – but I wouldn’t swear to it.’

  Then Edith developed a chill. She felt it coming on, and sat nearer the fireplace. Lawrence was asking her if she came to Philadelphia very often, and the Quickmans were telling her about his summer house or lodge by a lake, where Ben was looking forward to fishing in the summer. Edith’s teeth chattered. Frances brought a coat sweater.

  ‘I don’t know what’s the matter. It isn’t cold,’ Edith said. She felt stupid in the white blouse, which had long sleeves but was thin. Just because she had wanted to look nice! Why? ‘Silly of me to dress as if it was summer. My fault.’

  ‘That’s it, put the sweater on,’ Ben said.

  ‘We’re hoping you’ll stay for dinner, Edie. Can you? If we see Cliffie come in, we’ll ask him too.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, Fran, but I’d better get back. I haven’t —’ She stopped, about to mention George, that she had to give him his supper.

  They gave Edith a second drink. The Quickmans’ old red setter lay sleeping close to the fire near Edith’s feet, the picture of peace and security.

  ‘Perhaps next time the Quickmans come to Philly, you’ll come too,’ Lawrence said to her. ‘I happen to be Frances’ and Ben’s accountant – since a long time.’

  The rest was a little hazy to Edith. She remembered Frances – kind old Fran with her plump, freckled face – looking at her in a concerned way as they said good-bye at the door. They were all really disappointed that she was not staying for dinner.

  Edith saw a light in the front h
all as she approached the door. She went in and called, ‘Cliffie?’

  ‘Yep!’ His voice came from the living room.

  Cliffie was watching television, with a glass of something.

  ‘The Quickmans asked about you. Wanted you to come over.’

  ‘I didn’t know anything about it.’

  It was true she hadn’t mentioned it, because Cliffie usually didn’t want to visit the Quickmans. ‘It’s after eight. Want something to eat or have you had something?’

  His bearded face turned, showed itself round the wing of the armchair. ‘I can get something later. I’m watching this.’

  ‘I’d better take something up for George.’

  ‘He doesn’t want anything,’ Cliffie said at once, looking round at her again.

  ‘He doesn’t? You asked him?’

  ‘Yep. I asked him.’ And Cliffie faced the screen again.

  Edith went to the kitchen via the hall. Nelson at least would want something. Nelson joined her. She talked to him, lit the fire under the kettle, cut some heart slices into small pieces, and poured hot water over them to take the chill off. Then she poured off the water and set the plate on Nelson’s plastic dining mat. Nelson set to with guzzling noises. He had always eaten in such a manner, and often Cliffie said, ‘Snortin’ good, eh Nelse?’