“It was nice of them,” Katherine said.
“I only hope Angelí gets here in time. Weasel’s got the Smiths and their car at the airport and he even called the police station to ask for a police escort, but of course you can’t ever make them understand. I’m still crying so I can’t stop. I haven’t stopped since yesterday.”
“Someone’s coming,” Martin said, and Joan sobbed. “Weasel,” Martin said. “Weasel, dear old fellow. Any news?”
“I called the doctor. Katherine, hello. Joan, my dear, you shouldn’t be here, you really shouldn’t, you promised me you’d try and get some rest. Now I am cross with you.”
“I’m sorry.” Joan looked up tearfully. “I couldn’t bear it, not being near him.”
“What a day I’ve had.” Weasel sighed and sat down on a bench and let his hands fall wearily. “The police, honestly! I told them and told them the light of the literary world was going out right here, and so could we please just get some kind of an escort to bring the country’s foremost literary critic over from the airport to hear his last words and close his eyes and whatnot, but I swear, darling, it’s exactly like talking to a pack of prairie dogs. Calling me ‘sir’ and asking me who I was, and”—he sat up and slapped his forehead violently—“the wife, great Bacchus, don’t ask me about the wife! Cables to Majorca all day yesterday and phone calls to Washington and clearance on the plane and all those cousins of hers pulling strings just simply everywhere and she’s arriving with absolutely no baggage!”
“You mean his wife is coming?” Joan stared, openmouthed.
“Darling, she’ll be here practically any minute; I kept pleading with the woman, I swear I did, positively entreating her—no place to put her up, no one free to take care of her, we’re perfectly capable of making all arrangements this end, and she literally would not listen to a word I said, I swear that that woman would not listen to a blessed word I said. I knew you’d be furious,” he said to Joan.
Joan wailed. “Naturally we’d send her the body.”
Martin was pacing back and forth again, from the door to the window. “When will they let us go upstairs?” he demanded irritably.
Joan looked at him, surprised. “You think you’re going upstairs?”
“We were here first,” Martin said.
“But you didn’t even know him.”
“Katherine knew him exactly as well as you did,” Martin said flatly. “Besides, he had dinner with us Tuesday night.”
“Katherine certainly did not know him as well as I did,” Joan said.
“He did not have dinner with you,” Weasel said. “Not Tuesday. Tuesday he—”
“I certainly did,” Katherine said. “If you care for a public comparison—”
Joan opened her mouth to interrupt, then sobbed and turned as more people came into the waiting room. “That’s Philips, from Dormant,’” Martin said in Katherine’s ear. “The woman is Martha something-or-other; she writes those nasty reviews. I don’t know the other man.” He went forward, so that Weasel would have to introduce him, but more people came in, and he was suddenly involved in a group, talking in lowered voices, asking one another how long it would probably take, telling one another the names of people in the room. Through and around the quiet conversations went the soft half-moan that was Joan’s crying.
Katherine, unable to leave the bench where she was sitting, turned and said to a strange man sitting next to her, “Someone told me once how you could train yourself to endure physical torture without yielding.”
“Could it have been Neilson?” the man asked. “He did a nice piece on torture.”
“You pretend it’s happening to someone else,” Katherine said. “You withdraw your own mind and you just leave your body behind.”
“Did you know him?” the man asked, gesturing. “Upstairs?”
“Yes,” Katherine said. “I knew him very well.”
Somebody seemed to have brought a paper milk carton full of vodka, and somebody else went into the hospital hall and came back with a stack of paper cups. Martin pushed through the crowd to bring Katherine a paper cup with vodka in it, and said, “Angell’s here. He did make it. No one knows anything about the wife. The man in the blue suit by the door is Arthur B. Arthur, and the dark-haired girl next to him is that little kid he married.”
Near Katherine, Weasel was explaining to someone, “—stopped off in the chapel to pray. He’s thinking of being converted, anyway, you know.”
The man next to Katherine leaned over and asked her, “Who’s doing the Memorial Fund?”
“Weasel, probably,” she said.
“Don’t ask me,” Weasel said beside her. “Simply don’t ask me. Any more dealings with that shrew of a wife, and I will positively be ready to die myself. I will simply have to get back to Bronxville for a long rest after all this; it’s been perfectly frightful ever since Friday morning; I haven’t been home since he had the attack, I came right down from Bronxville and I’ve had to stay in the Andersons’ place over on the West Side and it’s been just awful”
From the little group by the door, there was a little rustle of quick, hushed laughter.
“I want Angell to do the Memorial Fund, anyway,” Weasel said. “His name always looks so much better on a thing like that.”
Joan was crying loudly now, struggling in the arms of the tall man in the blue suit. “I want to go to him,” she was shouting. Vodka from her paper cup spilled onto the floor of the hospital hall.
“There’s a nurse,” someone said. “They’re not trying to offer her a drink?” someone else said. “Be quiet, everybody,” Weasel said, struggling to get through to the doorway.
“Is he dead?” the man next to Katherine asked her, “Did the nurse say he was dead?”
“About three minutes ago,” someone else said. “About three minutes ago. He died.”
“We missed every thing?” Weasel’s voice rose despairingly. “Because this just finishes it, that’s all. They promised to call us,” he said wildly to the nurse. “That’s just about the lowest I’ve ever seen.”
“You wouldn’t let me go to him,” Joan said to the nurse; her voice was heartbroken. “You wouldn’t let me go to him.”
“We weren’t even there,” Weasel said. “This poor child…” He put an arm tenderly around Joan.
“Mrs. Jones was with him,” the nurse said.
“What?” Weasel fell back dramatically. “They sneaked her in? No one let me know? She got here?”
“Can we go up now, anyway?” Martin asked.
“Mrs. Jones is with him,” the nurse said. “Mrs. Jones will no doubt want to thank all of you at another time. Now…” she gestured, slightly but unmistakably; she was indicating the hall that led to the outside doors of the hospital.
“Well.” Weasel tightened his lips. “How about the service?” he said. “I suppose Mrs. Jones wants to run that, too? She’s never read a word of his work, naturally. I was planning to read the passage on death from his Evil Man,” he explained to Angelí, “you remember: it begins with that marvelous description of the flies? He used to recite it when he was drunk. Mrs. Jones will simply have to come down here,” he said to the nurse. “How can we make any arrangements?”
“Mrs. Jones will no doubt be in touch with you,” the nurse said. She stood back a little, and this time her gesture was a shade more emphatic.
There was a minute of silent hesitation, and then Angell said, “Within the twilight chamber spreads apace the shadow of white Death, and at the door invisible Corruption waits.”
“A great voice has been stilled,” Weasel said reverently.
“My only, truest love,” Joan mourned.
“He writes now with a golden pen.”
“A great writer is a great man writing.”
“It was worth coming down for,” Martin said, coming over to take Katherine’s arm. “I talked to Angelí for a minute, and he said to call him tomorrow.” Impatient now, Martin led Katherine through the cro
wd to the doorway and out into the hall.
“Goodbye,” the nurse said.
Slowly, a little ahead of the others, who lingered, laughing a little now, gathering around Joan, listening to Weasel, Katherine and Martin went down the hospital hallway. “He might have a spot for me now in that lecture series,” Martin said. He gestured upward. “Now that he’s gone, I could do a talk on his work. His personal tragedy, maybe.”
“It was hot in there,” Katherine said.
Weasel caught up with them, and said quickly, “We’re all going on to Joan’s. I don’t think she should be alone right now. You two come along?”
“Thanks,” Martin said, “but Katherine’s pretty broken up, too. I’m going to take her directly home.”
Weasel glanced quickly at Katherine and said, “Terribly sad, the whole business, wasn’t it? I nearly died when I heard he was gone, and absolutely no one there who cared! I mean really cared.”
“We paid him what tribute we could,” Martin said.
“The responsibility of the intellectual,” Weasel said vaguely. “Come over to Joan’s later if you can make it?”
He pattered away, back down the hall to Joan and Martin, and Katherine came down the steps of the hospital into the unexpectedly dark afternoon.
“My only, truest love,” Katherine said.
“Hmm?” said Martin. “You ask me something?”
“No,” said Katherine, and laughed.
“Anyplace special you want to go for dinner?” Martin asked.
“Yes,” Katherine said. “That nice little place where they make sweetbreads, I was thinking about it earlier.”
ALL sHE SAID WAS YES
Vogue, November 1962 (Other titles: “Cassandra”; “Not a Tear”; “Vicky”)
WHAT CAN YOU DO? Howard and Dorrie are always telling me I’m too sensitive, and let myself get worked up about things, but really, even Howard had to admit that the Lansons’ accident just couldn’t have happened at a worse time. It sounds awful when you come right out and say it, but I’d always rather be frank and open than mealy-mouthed, and even though it was a dreadful thing to happen anytime, it really made me furious to have our trip to Maine ruined.
We’d lived next door to Don and Helen Lanson for sixteen years, since before our Dorrie and their Vicky were born, and of course, living next door and with the girls growing up together, we’d always been friendly enough, even though you don’t have to get along with people all the time, and frankly, some of the crowd the Lansons knew were a little too fancy for us. Besides, they were never secret about things and expected us to be the same, and it bothered me sometimes when I stopped to think that for sixteen years we hadn’t had a day’s privacy; I like friendly neighbors as well as the next one, but it was a little too much, sometimes. I used to tell Howard that Helen Lanson always knew what we were having for dinner, and of course it worked the other way around, too; whenever the Lansons had one of their fights we had to close the windows and go down to the cellar to keep from hearing, and even then Helen Lanson was sure to be over the next morning to cry on my shoulder. I hope the new neighbors are a little more—well—reticent.
Howard and I felt terrible when it happened, naturally. Howard went out with the State Police, and I offered to go over and tell Vicky. It wasn’t the kind of thing I relished, you can imagine, but someone had to do it, and I’d known her since she was born. I was thankful that Dorrie was away at camp, because she would have been heartbroken, living next door to them all her life. When I went over to ring the doorbell that night I really couldn’t think how the child was going to take it; I never did think much of parents going out and leaving a fifteen-year-old girl alone in the house—you read all the time about men breaking into houses where girls are alone—but I supposed Helen always figured Vicky was all right with us home next door; we certainly don’t go out nearly every night like the Lansons did.
But then, Vicky was never much of a one for minding things, anyway; I know that she opened the door that night right away, without even asking who it was or making sure it wasn’t some man; I never let Dorrie open the door at night unless she knows who is on the other side. Well, I might as well come right out with it—I don’t like Vicky. Even that night, with all the trouble ahead for her, I couldn’t make myself like her. I was terribly sorry for her, certainly, and at the same time all I could keep thinking was what I was going to do when she heard the news. She was so big and clumsy and ugly that I really couldn’t face the thought of having to put my arms around her and comfort her—I hated the idea of patting her hand, or stroking her hair, and yet I was the only person to do it. All the way over from our house I had been wondering how I was going to say it, and then when she opened the door and just stood there looking at me—and never a “hello” or anything from her; she just wasn’t the kind who offered things, if you know what I mean—I almost lost my courage. Finally I asked her if I could come in, because I had to talk to her, and she only opened the door wider and stood away, and I came in and she closed the door behind me and stood there waiting. Well, I know that house almost as well as I know my own, and so I walked into the living room and sat down and she came along after me and sat down, too, and looked at me.
Well, there was nothing like getting right to it, so I tried to say something gentle first; what I finally settled on was looking very serious and saying, “Vicky, you’re going to have to be brave.”
I must say she didn’t help me much. She just sat there looking at me, and I suddenly thought that maybe all the unusual excitement, with Howard driving off in the middle of the night like that, and all the lights on in our house and my coming over the way I did, might have let on to her that something was wrong, and she might even have guessed already that it had to do with her parents, so the sooner she heard the truth, the better, I thought, and I said, “There’s been an accident, Vicky. Corporal Atkins of the State Police phoned us a few minutes ago, because he knew you were alone here and he wanted someone to be with you.” It wasn’t much of a way to go about it, I know, but I would much rather have sat there talking all around the subject than tell her what I had to say next. I took a deep breath and said, “It’s your mother and father, Vicky. There’s been an accident.”
Well, so far she hadn’t said a word, not a single word since I came through the door, and now all she said was, “Yes.”
I thought it must be shock, and I was glad that Howard had thought to call Doctor Hart before he left, to come and help me with Vicky, and I began to wonder how long it would be before the doctor came, because I’m simply no good with sick people, and would be sure to do the wrong thing. I was thinking about the doctor, and I said, “They always drove too fast—” and she said, “I know.” I sat there waiting for her to cry, or whatever a girl like that does when she finds out her parents have been killed, and then I remembered that she didn’t know yet that they were killed, but only that they had been in an accident, so I took another deep breath and said, “They’re both—” I couldn’t say it, though, just couldn’t bring out the word. Finally I said, “Gone.”
“I know,” she said. So I needn’t have worried.
“We’re so sorry, Vicky,” I said, wondering if now was the time to go over and pat her head.
“Do you think they really believed they were going to die?” she asked me.
“Well, I guess no one ever really believes…”I started to say, but she wasn’t listening to me; she was looking down at her hands and shaking her head. “I told them, you know,” she said. “I told my mother a couple of months ago that it was going to happen, the accident and their dying, but she wouldn’t listen to me, no one ever does. She said it was an adolescent fantasy.”
Well, that was Helen Lanson for you, of course. Adolescent fantasy is the way she talked, and pretended she was being honest with the child. It wasn’t any of my business, of course, but I can tell you that Dorrie got spanked when she did something wrong, and none of this psychological jargon to make her think
it was my fault, either. “I guess everybody told them,” I said to Vicky. “You can’t drive the way they did without asking for trouble. I spoke to Helen about it once myself—”
“That’s when I got over being sad,” she said, as though she thought she ought to excuse herself. “I told her, and she wouldn’t believe me. I even told her I’d have to go and live with Aunt Cynthia in London, England.” She smiled at me. “I’m going to like London, England; I’ll go to a big school there and study hard.”
Well, as far as I knew, Aunt Cynthia in London, England, hadn’t even been notified yet, but if this child could sit there coolly not five minutes after hearing that her parents had been killed in an accident and make plans for her future—well, all I could say is that maybe some of Helen Lanson’s psychology paid off, in a way she might not like so much, and I just hope that if ever anything happens to me, my daughter will have the grace to sit there and shed a tear. Although it’s probably kinder to believe that Vicky was in shock.
“It’s a terrible thing,” I said, wondering how long before the doctor could make it.
“Aunt Cynthia will get here on Tuesday,” she said to me. “The first plane will have to turn back because of engine trouble. I’m sorry about your trip to Maine.”
I was touched. Here was this girl, after the most terrible disaster that can happen to a child, and she could spare a thought for our trip to Maine. It was certainly just the worst luck in the world for us, but you can’t always expect a child to see things from a grown-up’s point of view, and even if the news about her parents didn’t bring a tear, I was pleased to see that the girl could still feel for somebody. “Try not to worry about it,” I told her. Of course we just couldn’t take off for Maine the morning after our next-door neighbors had been killed in an accident, but there was no point in Vicky’s bothering about that, too. “Please don’t be upset,” I said.
“You won’t be able to go later in the year because it will be too cold at the lodge. You’ll have to go somewhere else, but please don’t go on a boat. Please?”
Just an Ordinary Day: Stories Page 45
