A Slipping-Down Life

by Anne Tyler

  She padded away, maybe still talking. Evie waited until she was lost in the darkness before she climbed her own porch steps.

  The house had not yet heard of the death. Clocks ticked, the refrigerator whirred, a desk lamp lit an ash tray with a pipe resting on it and the short-wave radio was speaking Spanish. Evie clicked the radio off and then moved through the house, still in her coat. She didn’t touch anything. She looked at the dishes in the kitchen sink, then at the bed upstairs which Clotelia had left unmade. She leaned forward to study an oval photograph above the bureau: a woman in a high-necked dress, perfect creamy features curled over the back of a chair, a tail of hair tied low on her neck with a wide black bow. An ancestor, maybe; no one could tell her any more. Under her father’s bed two socks lay like curled mice, startling her.

  Her old room held a bulletin board, a pennant-covered wastebasket, and the upstairs telephone. Everything else had been borne away by Drum in the U-Haul-It truck. Evie sat down on the floor and pulled the telephone by its tail until it rested between her feet. Then she dialed Clotelia’s number.

  “Clotelia?” she said.

  “Who’s this?”

  “It’s Evie.”

  “Oh. Hey.”

  “I’m calling with bad news, Clotelia. My father died.”

  There was silence. Then Clotelia said, “Oh, my Lord have mercy.”

  “It was a heart attack.”

  “Well, Lord have mercy. That poor man. Was he all alone when he passed?”

  “He was talking to Mrs. Willoughby.”

  “Her. I could think of better to die with.”

  “Well, I was wondering. Could you come stay the night with me? I’ll be here till tomorrow.”

  “Sure thing,” said Clotelia. “I be right over. Well, Lord. Did you ever?”

  “I’ll see you then,” Evie said.

  She hung up and dialed again. “David?” she said.

  “This is his brother. David ain’t here.”

  “Well, this is Evie Decker. Could I speak to Drum Casey? He’s out in your shed.”

  “Shed? What shed is that?”

  “Your tool shed.”

  “Is that a joke or something?”

  “He’s out in your tool shed.”

  “What would he be doing out there?”

  “Oh, Lord, I don’t know,” Evie said. “Just messing around. Give him a message then, I don’t care.”

  “Well, I will if I ever run into him.”

  “Say my father died. Say I’m sorry but I can’t bother sending the police after him right now and I’ll see him in the morning.”

  “What?”

  “Just tell him to come on home, will you?”

  “Oh, well, if I—”

  She hung up and started wandering through the rooms again. Now the house was quieting down. Beneath the surface noise of clocks and motors there was a deep, growing silence that layered in from the walls, making her feel clumsy and out of place. Her shoes clacked against the floor boards. Her full coat snatched at ash trays and figurines as she passed them. In the living room her mother smiled hopefully from a filigree frame, her hair tightly crimped and her lipstick too dark, remembered now by no living person. Her father’s textbook lay in an armchair on top of a sheaf of graded quizzes. And everywhere she looked there were props to pass time with: completed crossword puzzles, a face made out of used matches, a Reader’s Digest vocabulary test neatly filled out in pencil.

  Clotelia arrived wearing a long striped rope, like one of the three wise men. Her head was wrapped in a silk turban. Darts of gold dangled from her ears. “My Lord, I can’t take it in,” she said. “The news don’t stick in my head. Well, been one of those days, I might have known. Where is your bangs, may I ask?”

  “I’m pinning them back now,” Evie said.

  “You look like trash. Go comb them down. If you want I fix you some cocoa and then you tell me how it come about.”

  “There’s nothing to tell. I wasn’t there,” Evie said.

  But Clotelia only waved a hand and swept on into the kitchen—swept literally, gathering with the hem of her robe all the dust balls she had left behind that day. “Now then,” she said as she took down the cocoa box. “Did he pass peaceful? What was his last words?”

  “I wasn’t there, I said. He wondered why his potted plants were dying.”

  “Oh, that poor man. Blamed me, I bet.”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “You don’t look good, Evie. How far along are you?”

  “What?”

  “How far? Two months? Three?”

  “Three, almost.”

  “Oh, my, and never told your daddy. What is it makes you act like that?” She lit the flame under a saucepan of milk. “Well, they is a silver-backed mirror in the guest room he always said he would will to me. He tell you that?”

  “No, but you can have it anyway. I don’t care,” Evie said.

  “He give you the house, I reckon. Well, I will say this: He always was a gentleman. Never cause me trouble, like others I could name. Now I got to find me another job.”

  “You could get yourself a factory job,” Evie said.

  “Oh, you be roping me in to take care of that baby of yours, I expect.”

  “Are you crazy? You might sacrifice him up at a Black Panther rally.”

  “Listen to that. A death night and you talk as mean-mouthed as you ever did. Here, drink your cocoa.”

  She passed Evie a flowered mug and then leaned back against the sink, folding her arms in her long flowing sleeves. Her hands, striped a soft glowing yellow at the outsides of her palms, gripped her elbows. “And now I hear you quit school,” she said.

  “Who said that? I never quit.”

  “Been weeks since you been, I hear.”

  “Well,” said Evie. She ran her finger around the rim of her mug. It was true; she couldn’t remember the last time she had attended a class. “Anyway, I’m starting back next week,” she said.

  “You separated, too, ain’t you,” said Clotelia.

  “Separated?”

  “From that husband of yours.”

  “No, I’m not separated.”

  “Where’s he at, then?”

  “Oh, at home, I guess.”

  “Why ain’t he here, in your time of trouble? Or why ain’t you there?”

  “It’s complicated,” Evie said.

  “Oh, I just bet it is. No point in a husband if you ain’t going to lean on him during stress, now, is there?”

  “Clotelia, for heaven’s sake,” Evie said. “Will you stop just harping at me? Will you leave me be?”

  “Well. Sorry,” said Clotelia. She unfolded her arms and gazed down at her fingernails, shell-pink with half-moons left unpainted. “If I’d of thought, I’d of brought my mother,” she said.

  Evie put her head in her hands.

  “My mother is a consoler at the Baptist Church. She go to all the funerals and console the mourners till they is cheered up.”

  “How would she go about that?” Evie asked in a muffled voice.

  “Oh, just hug them and pat their shoulders, offer them Kleenex. How else would she do?”

  Then Clotelia, who was not like her mother at all, turned her back and rinsed out the cocoa pan, and Evie cupped her hands around her mug for warmth.

  16

  “It’s been weeks since I’ve been out in the country,” said Mrs. Harrison. “Wouldn’t you think winter would be over by now? Look at that sky. Look at those trees, not a sign of green. If you like, I can turn on the heater, Evie.”

  “I am a little cold,” Evie said.

  Mrs. Harrison reached for a lever somewhere beneath the dashboard. She drove with a look of suspense on her face, as if she constantly wondered how she was doing. Her back was very straight; six inches separated her from the back of the car seat.

  Mr. Harrison couldn’t come, of course. It was a school day. Evie understood that but Mrs. Harrison seemed afraid she hadn’t. She said,
“Oh, if only Bill could have made it. He wanted to, you know that. And naturally he will be coming to the funeral. He feels just terrible about all this. Your father was the first teacher we met when Bill came here to be principal. ‘I’m Sam Decker,’ he said—Oh, I remember it just as clear! Had on that baggy suit of his. There was some confusion in his mind about whether or not I meant to shake hands. And now look. But if Bill was to turn his back for a second, even, that school would just shatter into pieces. ‘Bill,’ I said, ‘Evie will understand. You are coming to the funeral, aren’t you?’ and he said, ‘Martha, you know I am.’ I felt sure you wouldn’t be insulted.”

  “No, of course not,” Evie said. “He did more than enough last night.”

  “Oh, that was nothing,” said Mrs. Harrison.

  “Well, I did appreciate it.”

  They seemed to have reached the end of a dance set, both of them curtsying and murmuring a pattern of words. But Evie had trouble remembering what to say. Her voice wandered, searching for the proper tone. Had she shown the right amount of gratitude? Was anything else expected of her? A row of grownups lined the back of her mind, shaking their heads at the clumsiness of Evie Decker.

  “You’ll have to tell me where to turn, dear. I’ve never been out this far before.”

  “Oh. Right up there at the tobacco barn,” Evie said.

  “Don’t you have trouble with undesirable neighbors around here?”

  “I don’t know any of them.”

  Mrs. Harrison swung to the right, onto deep clay ruts hardened by frost. It sounded as if the bottom of the car were dropping out. Her gloved hands were tight on the wheel, strained shiny across the knuckles, and she looked anxiously around her while the car seemed to bound on its own accord through the dry fields. Around a curve there were two thin children, ropy-haired, lost in clothes too big for them, holding a dead rabbit by the heels and offering it forth. “My stars,” said Mrs. Harrison. She sailed on past them while a narrow line suddenly pinched her eyebrows tighter.

  “One thing I told Bill,” she said. “I told him, ‘Thank heaven she’s married, Bill.’ We hadn’t thought it at the time, of course, but now look. You won’t be all alone in the world. You have yourself a hand-picked guardian. Are you certain this is the road?”

  “Yes. Our house is just over there.”

  “Where?”

  “There,” said Evie, and she nodded at the tarpaper shack. Yet for a minute, she hadn’t been sure herself. It looked different. The sky today was a stark gray-white, arching over treeless billows of parched land and dwarfing the house and the single bush that grew by the door. Blank squares of gray were reflected off the windowpanes. A dribble of smoke rose from the rusted chimney pipe. Mrs. Harrison drove into the dirt yard and parked between a wheel-less bicycle and a claw-footed bathtub, but before she had turned the motor off Evie said, “Oh, don’t come in. Really. I’ll be all right.”

  “Well, are you sure?” Mrs. Harrison asked.

  “I’m positive. Thank you very much.”

  “Well. We’ll see you at the funeral, then. Or before, if you think of anything you need. You let us know.”

  She waited while Evie collected her coat around her and fumbled for the door handle. Then she raised one gloved hand and shot off into the road, still stiff-backed. A spurt of dust hovered behind her.

  Evie climbed the two wooden steps, avoiding the corner that was rotting off its nails. When she opened the door she was met by a damp smell, as if the wintry sky had seeped in through the cracks around the windows. It took her a minute to understand why things were in such a jumble; the kidnapping had slipped her mind. A chair lay on its side, poking splintery legs into her path. The shaggy rug, worn down to bare fabric in spots, was twisted beneath it. At the other end of the room there was a half-finished game of idiot’s delight on a footstool, a heap of paper airplanes made by Drum on an idle day, five empty beer cans and an ash tray full of cigarette butts and chewing-gum wrappers and the metal tabs from the beer cans. A grape-juice stain on the wall had seeped through the white poster paint she had covered it with. The room might have been left weeks ago, hardening beneath its stale film of dust.

  “Drum?” she called.

  She heard something from the bedroom, not quite a sound.

  “Is that you, Drum?”

  By the time she reached the bedroom door, Drum was already sitting up. One side of his face was creased from the pillow. Beyond him was Fay-Jean Lindsay, wearing an orange lace slip which seemed to have drained all the color from the rest of her. Her face and her pointy shoulders were dead white; her tow hair streamed down her back as pale as ice. “Oh-oh,” she said, and reached for the black dress crumpled at the end of the bed. Drum only looked stunned. He and Evie stared at each other without expression, neither one seeming to breathe.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked her finally.

  “This is where I live.”

  “Well, where you been? You think you can just stay away all night and then pop back in again?”

  “I’ve been home. My father died.”

  “Oh. Oh, Lord.” He looked for help to Fay-Jean, but Fay-Jean sat among the blankets groping her way upward through her black dress. Nothing showed but two limp arms raised toward the ceiling. When her face had poked through she said, “Well, excuse me for being here but you were away, after all. Will you zip me up?”

  “Certainly,” Evie said. Now, too late, she hit upon the polite tone of voice she had needed for the grown-ups. She zipped the dress while Fay-Jean held her hair off her neck; she waited patiently while Fay-Jean trailed long toes beneath the bed feeling for her spike-heeled shoes. Meanwhile Drum had risen and was shaking out his dungarees. He wore yellowed underpants and an undershirt with a hole in the chest, its neckband frayed. He hopped one-footed into the dungarees, clenching his muscles against the cold. “Look,” he kept saying. “Wait. Listen.” But nothing more. Evie handed Fay-Jean her coat and saw her to the door. “How do I get out of here?” Fay-Jean asked.

  “Walk to the highway and catch a bus.”

  “Walk? In these shoes? Couldn’t you just drive me?”

  “I don’t have the time,” Evie said, and shut the door.

  She went to the kitchen and began making coffee, still in her coat. The coat gave her a brisk, competent feeling. While she was waiting for butter to melt in the frying pan Drum came out, dressed in his dungarees and a khaki shirt, and stood behind her. “Well, I don’t know what to say,” he said.

  Evie tilted the frying pan, evening the butter.

  “And then about your father. Well. He was a right nice guy.”

  She rapped an egg and broke it, neatly.

  “I don’t know what got into me,” Drum said. “It was that kidnapping. How could you do me that way? And then it looked like you had decided not to come back again. Either that or forgot all about it. We waited and waited, those three girls just tapping around the tool shed. Violet trying to start up campfire songs. Evie, say something. What are you thinking?”

  “I am thinking that we have to get organized,” Evie said. “Have you ever looked at this place? It’s a mess. And I’m freezing to death, it’s much too cold.”

  “Well, is that what you want to talk about? Housekeeping?”

  “Not housekeeping, just things in general. You’ve got to pull yourself together, Drum. I keep meaning to tell you this: I’m expecting a baby. It’s coming in six months or so.”

  She scrambled the eggs around rapidly, not looking at him. Drum said nothing. Finally she let out her breath and said, “Did you hear me?”

  “I heard.”

  “Well, you don’t act like it.”

  “It just took me by surprise, like,” Drum said. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”

  “I was waiting for the right time.”

  “Is this the right time?”

  Then she did look at him, but she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He leaned against the wall with his boots crossed, his
eyes fixed on the swirling eggs, so that all she could see were the straight dark lines of his lashes. “Right time or not,” she said after a minute, “we are going to have to make some arrangements. Now, my father has left me his house. We can move in this afternoon—just pack up and leave this place. Start a new life. Give some shape to things.”

  “You mean live there? Live in his house?”

  “It’s our house now.”

  “It’s your house.”

  “Well, what’s the difference?”

  “I like it where we are,” Drum said.

  “We can’t stay here, Drum.”

  “I don’t know why not.”

  “We just can’t.”

  “Well, I can’t go there,” said Drum.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I said. I can’t do it.”

  He sat down at the kitchen table, bracing himself with his hands as if he had a headache. Evie stared at him, but he wouldn’t say any more. He folded his arms on the table and waited. She poured his coffee, dished out his eggs, and found him a fork. Then she said, “All right. I’ll go there alone.”

  “You mean leave me?”

  “If I have to.”

  “You don’t have to,” said Drum. “Evie, I don’t know why you are talking this way. Is it Fay-Jean? Fay-Jean don’t mean nothing. I swear it. Oh, how am I going to convince you?”

  “Fay-Jean. Don’t make me laugh,” said Evie. “All I’m asking is for you to pick yourself up and move to a decent house with me. If you don’t do it, then it’s you leaving me. I did give you the choice.”

  “That’s no choice,” Drum said. “Evie, I would do almost anything for you but not this. Not get organized and follow after you this way. You used to like it here. Can’t you just stay and wait till my luck is changed?”

  He laid one hand on her arm. His wrist was marked with a chafed red line. Evie felt something pulled out of her that he had drawn, like a hard deep string, but she squared her corners as if she were a stack of library cards.