by Ira Levin
He drew together all his surprise and anger and, pointing back over his shoulder toward the kitchen, cried it at her. “Is that what those bitches were giving you in there? Is that their hint for today? Change doctors?”
“They’re my friends,” she said; “don’t call them bitches.”
“They’re a bunch of not-very-bright bitches who ought to mind their own God-damned business.”
“All they said was get a second opinion.”
“You’ve got the best doctor in New York, Rosemary. Do you know what Dr. Hill is? Charley Nobody, that’s what he is.”
“I’m tired of hearing how great Dr. Sapirstein is,” she said, starting to cry, “when I’ve got this pain inside me since before Thanksgiving and all he does is tell me it’s going to stop!”
“You’re not changing doctors,” Guy said. “We’ll have to pay Sapirstein and pay Hill too. It’s out of the question.”
“I’m not going to change,” Rosemary said; “I’m just going to let Hill examine me and give his opinion.”
“I won’t let you,” Guy said. “It’s—it’s not fair to Sapirstein.”
“Not fair to—What are you talking about? What about what’s fair to me?”
“You want another opinion? All right. Tell Sapirstein; let him be the one who decides who gives it. At least have that much courtesy to the top man in his field.”
“I want Dr. Hill,” she said. “If you won’t pay I’ll pay my—” She stopped short and stood motionless, paralyzed, no part of her moving. A tear slid on a curved path toward the corner of her mouth.
“Ro?” Guy said.
The pain had stopped. It was gone. Like a stuck auto horn finally put right. Like anything that stops and is gone and is gone for good and won’t ever be back again, thank merciful heaven. Gone and finished and oh, how good she might possibly feel as soon as she caught her breath!
“Ro?” Guy said, and took a step forward, worried.
“It stopped,” she said. “The pain.”
“Stopped?” he said.
“Just now.” She managed to smile at him. “It stopped. Just like that.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and deeper still, deeper than she had been allowed to breathe for ages and ages. Since before Thanksgiving.
When she opened her eyes Guy was still looking at her, still looking worried.
“What was in the drink you made?” he asked.
Her heart dropped out of her. She had killed the baby. With the sherry. Or a bad egg. Or the combination. The baby had died, the pain had stopped. The pain was the baby and she had killed it with her arrogance.
“An egg,” she said. “Milk. Cream. Sugar.” She blinked, wiped at her cheek, looked at him. “Sherry,” she said, trying to make it sound non-toxic.
“How much sherry?” he asked.
Something moved in her.
“A lot?”
Again, where nothing had ever moved before. A rippling little pressure. She giggled.
“Rosemary, for Christ’s sake, how much?”
“It’s alive,” she said, and giggled again. “It’s moving. It’s all right; it isn’t dead. It’s moving.” She looked down at her brown-velvet stomach and put her hands on it and pressed in lightly. Now two things were moving, two hands or feet; one here, one there.
She reached for Guy, not looking at him; snapped her fingers quickly for his hand. He came closer and gave it. She put it to the side of her stomach and held it there. Obligingly the movement came. “You feel it?” she asked, looking at him. “There, again; you feel it?”
He jerked his hand away, pale. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. I felt it.”
“It’s nothing to be afraid of,” she said, laughing. “It won’t bite you.”
“It’s wonderful,” he said.
“Isn’t it?” She held her stomach again, looking down at it. “It’s alive. It’s kicking. It’s in there.”
“I’ll clean up some of this mess,” Guy said, and picked up an ashtray and a glass and another glass.
“All right now, David-or-Amanda,” Rosemary said, “you’ve made your presence known, so kindly settle down and let Mommy attend to the cleaning up.” She laughed. “My God,” she said, “it’s so active! That means a boy, doesn’t it?”
She said, “All right, you, just take it easy. You’ve got five more months yet, so save your energy.”
And laughing, “Talk to it, Guy; you’re its father. Tell it not to be so impatient.”
And she laughed and laughed and was crying too, holding her stomach with both hands.
CHAPTER 6
AS BAD as it had been before, that was how good it was now. With the stopping of the pain came sleep, great dreamless ten-hour spans of it; and with the sleep came hunger, for meat that was cooked, not raw, for eggs and vegetables and cheese and fruit and milk. Within days Rosemary’s skull-face had lost its edges and sunk back behind filling-in flesh; within weeks she looked the way pregnant women are supposed to look: lustrous, healthy, proud, prettier than ever.
She drank Minnie’s drink as soon as it was given to her, and drank it to the last chill drop, driving away as by a ritual the remembered guilt of I-killed-the-baby. With the drink now came a cake of white gritty sweet stuff like marzipan; this too she ate at once, as much from enjoyment of its candylike taste as from a resolve to be the most conscientious expectant mother in all the world.
Dr. Sapirstein might have been smug about the pain’s stopping, but he wasn’t, bless him. He simply said “It’s about time” and put his stethoscope to Rosemary’s really-showing-now belly. Listening to the stirring baby, he betrayed an excitement that was unexpected in a man who had guided hundreds upon hundreds of pregnancies. It was this undimmed first-time excitement, Rosemary thought, that probably marked the difference between a great obstetrician and a merely good one.
She bought maternity clothes; a two-piece black dress, a beige suit, a red dress with white polka dots. Two weeks after their own party, she and Guy went to one given by Lou and Claudia Comfort. “I can’t get over the change in you!” Claudia said, holding onto both Rosemary’s hands. “You look a hundred per cent better, Rosemary! A thousand percent!”
And Mrs. Gould across the hall said, “You know, we were quite concerned about you a few weeks ago; you looked so drawn and uncomfortable. But now you look like an entirely different person, really you do. Arthur remarked on the change just last evening.”
“I feel much better now,” Rosemary said. “Some pregnancies start out bad and turn good, and some go the other way around. I’m glad I’ve had the bad first and have gotten it out of the way.”
She was aware now of minor pains that had been overshadowed by the major one—aches in her spinal muscles and her swollen breasts—but these discomforts had been mentioned as typical in the paperback book Dr. Sapirstein had made her throw away; they felt typical too, and they increased rather than lessened her sense of well-being. Salt was still nauseating, but what, after all, was salt?
Guy’s show, with its director changed twice and its title changed three times, opened in Philadelphia in mid-February. Dr. Sapirstein didn’t allow Rosemary to go along on the try-out-tour, and so on the afternoon of the opening, she and Minnie and Roman drove to Philadelphia with Jimmy and Tiger, in Jimmy’s antique Packard. The drive was a less than joyous one. Rosemary and Jimmy and Tiger had seen a barestage run-through of the play before the company left New York and they were doubtful of its chances. The best they hoped for was that Guy would be singled out for praise by one or more of the critics, a hope Roman encouraged by citing instances of great actors who had come to notice in plays of little or no distinction.
With sets and costumes and lighting the play was still tedious and verbose; the party afterwards was broken up into small separate enclaves of silent gloom. Guy’s mother, having flown down from Montreal, insisted to their group that Guy was superb and the play was superb. Small, blonde, and vivacious, she chirped her confidence to Rosemary and Allan Stone
and Jimmy and Tiger and Guy himself and Minnie and Roman. Minnie and Roman smiled serenely; the others sat and worried. Rosemary thought that Guy had been even better than superb, but she had thought so too on seeing him in Luther and Nobody Loves An Albatross, in neither of which he had attracted critical attention.
Two reviews came in after midnight; both panned the play and lavished Guy with enthusiastic praise, in one case two solid paragraphs of it. A third review, which appeared the next morning, was headed Dazzling Performance Sparks New Comedy-Drama and spoke of Guy as “a virtually unknown young actor of slashing authority” who was “sure to go on to bigger and better productions.”
The ride back to New York was far happier than the ride out.
Rosemary found much to keep her busy while Guy was away. There was the white-and-yellow nursery wallpaper finally to be ordered, and the crib and the bureau and the bathinette. There were long-postponed letters to be written, telling the family all the news; there were baby clothes and more maternity clothes to be shopped for; there were assorted decisions to be made, about birth announcements and breast-or-bottle and the name, the name, the name. Andrew or Douglas or David; Amanda or Jenny or Hope.
And there were exercises to be done, morning and evening, for she was having the baby by natural childbirth. She had strong feelings on the subject and Dr. Sapirstein concurred with them wholeheartedly. He would give her an anesthetic only if at the very last moment she asked for one. Lying on the floor, she raised her legs straight up in the air and held them there for a count of ten; she practiced shallow breathing and panting, imagining the sweaty triumphant moment when she would see whatever-its-name-was coming inch by inch out of her effectively helping body.
She spent evenings at Minnie and Roman’s, one at the Kapps’, and another at Hugh and Elise Dunstan’s. (“You don’t have a nurse yet?” Elise asked. “You should have arranged for one long ago; they’ll all be booked by now.” But Dr. Sapirstein, when she called him about it the next day, told her that he had lined up a fine nurse who would stay with her for as long as she wanted after the delivery. Hadn’t he mentioned it before? Miss Fitzpatrick; one of the best.)
Guy called every second or third night after the show. He told Rosemary of the changes that were being made and of the rave he had got in Variety; she told him about Miss Fitzpatrick and the wallpaper and the shaped-all-wrong bootees that Laura-Louise was knitting.
The show folded after fifteen performances and Guy was home again, only to leave two days later for California and a Warner Brothers screen test. And then he was home for good, with two great next-season parts to choose from and thirteen half-hour Greenwich Village’s to do. Warner Brothers made an offer and Allan turned it down.
The baby kicked like a demon. Rosemary told it to stop or she would start kicking back.
Her sister Margaret’s husband called to tell of the birth of an eight-pound boy, Kevin Michael, and later a too-cute announcement came—an impossibly rosy baby megaphoning his name, birth date, weight, and length. (Guy said, “What, no blood type?”) Rosemary decided on simple engraved announcements, with nothing but the baby’s name, their name, and the date. And it would be Andrew John or Jennifer Susan. Definitely. Breast-fed, not bottle-fed.
They moved the television set into the living room and gave the rest of the den furniture to friends who could use it. The wallpaper came, was perfect, and was hung; the crib and bureau and bathinette came and were placed first one way and then another. Into the bureau Rosemary put receiving blankets, waterproof pants, and shirts so tiny that, holding one up, she couldn’t keep from laughing.
“Andrew John Woodhouse,” she said, “stop it! You’ve got two whole months yet!”
They celebrated their second anniversary and Guy’s thirty-third birthday; they gave another party—a sit-down dinner for the Dunstans, the Chens, and Jimmy and Tiger; they saw Morgan! and a preview of Mame.
Bigger and bigger Rosemary grew, her breasts lifting higher atop her ballooning belly that was drum-solid with its navel flattened away, that rippled and jutted with the movements of the baby inside it. She did her exercises morning and evening, lifting her legs, sitting on her heels, shallow-breathing, panting.
At the end of May, when she went into her ninth month, she packed a small suitcase with the things she would need at the hospital—nightgowns, nursing brassieres, a new quilted housecoat, and so on—and set it ready by the bedroom door.
On Friday, June 3rd, Hutch died in his bed at St. Vincent’s Hospital. Axel Allert, his son-in-law, called Rosemary on Saturday morning and told her the news. There would be a memorial service on Tuesday morning at eleven, he said, at the Ethical Culture Center on West Sixty-fourth Street.
Rosemary wept, partly because Hutch was dead and partly because she had all but forgotten him in the past few months and felt now as if she had hastened his dying. Once or twice Grace Cardiff had called and once Rosemary had called Doris Allert; but she hadn’t gone to see Hutch; there had seemed no point in it when he was still frozen in coma, and having been restored to health herself, she had been averse to being near someone sick, as if she and the baby might somehow have been endangered by the nearness.
Guy, when he heard the news, turned bloodless gray and was silent and self-enclosed for several hours. Rosemary was surprised by the depth of his reaction.
She went alone to the memorial service; Guy was filming and couldn’t get free and Joan begged off with a virus. Some fifty people were there, in a handsome paneled auditorium. The service began soon after eleven and was quite short. Axel Allert spoke, and then another man who apparently had known Hutch for many years. Afterwards Rosemary followed the general movement toward the front of the auditorium and said a word of sympathy to the Allerts and to Hutch’s other daughter, Edna, and her husband. A woman touched her arm and said, “Excuse me, you’re Rosemary, aren’t you?”—a stylishly dressed woman in her early fifties, with gray hair and an exceptionally fine complexion. “I’m Grace Cardiff.”
Rosemary took her hand and greeted her and thanked her for the phone calls she had made.
“I was going to mail this last evening,” Grace Cardiff said, holding a book-size brown-paper package, “and then I realized that I’d probably be seeing you this morning.” She gave Rosemary the package; Rosemary saw her own name and address printed on it, and Grace Cardiff’s return address.
“What is it?” she asked.
“It’s a book Hutch wanted you to have; he was very emphatic about it.”
Rosemary didn’t understand.
“He was conscious at the end for a few minutes,” Grace Cardiff said. “I wasn’t there, but he told a nurse to tell me to give you the book on his desk. Apparently he was reading it the night he was stricken. He was very insistent, told the nurse two or three times and made her promise not to forget. And I’m to tell you that ‘the name is an anagram.’”
“The name of the book?”
“Apparently. He was delirious, so it’s hard to be sure. He seemed to fight his way out of the coma and then die of the effort. First he thought it was the next morning, the morning after the coma began, and he spoke about having to meet you at eleven o’clock—”
“Yes, we had an appointment,” Rosemary said.
“And then he seemed to realize what had happened and he began telling the nurse that I was to give you the book. He repeated himself a few times and that was the end.” Grace Cardiff smiled as if she were making pleasant conversation. “It’s an English book about witchcraft,” she said.
Rosemary, looking doubtfully at the package, said, “I can’t imagine why he wanted me to have it.”
“He did though, so there you are. And the name is an anagram. Sweet Hutch. He made everything sound like a boy’s adventure, didn’t he?”
They walked together out of the auditorium and out of the building onto the sidewalk.
“I’m going uptown; can I drop you anywhere?” Grace Cardiff asked.
“No, thank you,” Rosem
ary said. “I’m going down and across.”
They went to the corner. Other people who had been at the service were hailing taxis; one pulled up, and the two men who had got it offered it to Rosemary. She tried to decline and, when the men insisted, offered it to Grace Cardiff, who wouldn’t have it either. “Certainly not,” she said. “Take full advantage of your lovely condition. When is the baby due?”
“June twenty-eighth,” Rosemary said. Thanking the men, she got into the cab. It was a small one and getting into it wasn’t easy.
“Good luck,” Grace Cardiff said, closing the door.
“Thank you,” Rosemary said, “and thank you for the book.” To the driver she said, “The Bramford, please.” She smiled through the open window at Grace Cardiff as the cab pulled away.
CHAPTER 7
SHE THOUGHT of unwrapping the book there in the cab, but it was a cab that had been fitted out by its driver with extra ashtrays and mirrors and hand-lettered pleas for cleanliness and consideration, and the string and the paper would have been too much of a nuisance. So she went home first and got out of her shoes, dress, and girdle, and into slippers and a new gigantic peppermint-striped smock.
The doorbell rang and she went to answer it holding the still-unopened package; it was Minnie with the drink and the little white cake. “I heard you come in,” she said. “It certainly wasn’t very long.”
“It was nice,” Rosemary said, taking the glass. “His son-in-law and another man talked a little about what he was like and why he’ll be missed, and that was it.” She drank some of the thin pale-green.
“That sounds like a sensible way of doing it,” Minnie said. “You got mail already?”
“No, someone gave it to me,” Rosemary said, and drank again, deciding not to go into who and why and the whole story of Hutch’s return to consciousness.
“Here, I’ll hold it,” Minnie said, and took the package—“Oh, thanks,” Rosemary said—so that Rosemary could take the white cake.
