Evil Friendship (4 page)

“And the egg, lifted by the serpent’s hissing?”

“Oh dear, Martha, yes! Superb!”

“Exactly the word I thought this morning! Uncanny! The exact word, Druid!”

“Well, why not — it is superb! You must call me Druid often. I have the egg — and yon, too. We two, succeeding in every contest, courted by those in power! Oh, I love my new name, and our egg … and — even Chillam, today!” Martha sat on the steps hugging her legs while Mary Drew stood at the bottom step, smiling up at her. “Loved your notes!”

“Loved
yours,”
Martha said. “But Miss Buddy almost found the one in the library, the one inside Gibbon.”

“That would have been the decline and fall of
our
empire!”

“Not now that we own the Druid’s egg,” Martha laughed. They both laughed.

Then Martha said, “Are you curious about the surprise?”

“You know it.”

“First, this — read this.” She passed a note to Mary Drew, the note which Rush had enclosed in the box she had given Martha that morning.

“Read it aloud,” Martha said.

Mary Drew Edlin said, “You knew I would.” She unfolded it. “Oh, it’s a poem … Well, here goes:

Mary Drew looked up at Martha when she finished.

“Who wrote it?”

“Not I!” Martha giggled.

“I should hope not. It doesn’t rhyme!”

“You know who wrote it, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Mary Drew said, “I don’t know why Beth Dragmore didn’t die of boredom. She should be glad to be rid of her.”

Martha held out her hand, “And here’s the ring. Big enough for an ostrich’s leg!”

“Oh,” Mary Drew laughed. “It
is
huge!”

“Let’s sting it to death with Druid’s egg, and give it back charred and ruined!”

Mary Drew said, looking up at the statue, “Or ring it on Victoria’s nose.”

“Or present it to Beth Dragmore, with the poem and all, as though Rush had sent it to her.”

Mary Drew said: “No, I have it. Let’s return it.”

“Too simple.”

“Wait; return it minus the stone … I quite like the stone. It’s pretty. Simple to pry it loose.”

“Druid, you’re horribly wonderful!”

“I’ve thought of a name for you too,” Mary Drew Edlin said, “I’m going to call you Moly. Do you know what you are?”

Martha flung her hands in the air: “Oh, this is great fun, Druid! What am I?”

“You’re an herb!”

“An herb!” Martha shook with laughter.

“Yes. Your roots are black, but your flower is white. Now, do you know?”

“The herb given to Ulysses. Eight?”

“Oh, right! It kept him from turning into a swine, remember?”

“And I’m your Moly? Oh, Druid, you
are
just priceless!”

“No,” Mary Drew Edlin said, “We are … And now, let’s free this stone!”

Martha Kent scampered down the steps to the bottom, where both girls squatted then to pry loose the very blue stone.

J
UNE
8, 1956

It was not quite true that Mary Drew Edlin’s father had had
complete
peace of mind, that day in June of 1956. Something began nagging at his normally easygoing disposition just before he had gone into lunch, while he was in the garden talking with his wife.

He had been still discussing their costumes for the Masque Ball that coming Wednesday, saying that for heaven’s sake they would have to make an immediate decision; that he had thought pro and con, thought it through and through, and still believed — was absolutely convinced, as a matter of fact — that it would be a really novel idea if they went as Mrs. Miniver and Yankee Doodle Dandy. For one thing, he began to point out for maybe the hundredth and second time that month, the theme of the ball
was
the year 1942; and for another —

But Louisa Edlin interrupted him there.

She said, “Henry, I feel all right about it now.”

Henry said, “Of course you do! It may be tiresome — the fact that people are always telling you about your resemblance to Greer Garson, but Louisa, what could be easier? In 1942, Mrs. Miniver was — ”

“No, I don’t mean that,” his wife said.

He looked at her and realized that she had hardly been listening at all to what he’d been saying. This was an exasperating thing about Louisa. He always listened to
her,
didn’t he? To everything — every little trouble of Tony’s, every little detail of afternoon tea with the Garden Association, every little thing Mary Drew did or didn’t do —
he
always listened. But she didn’t. Not about any of his operations (“Oh, did you pull a molar?” she’d say), nor about the new drainage instrument, invaluable to root canal work, nor about the increase of trucks on his route home, and how he had found the new route — nor any of it! And now, she was not even remotely concerned about the fact they probably didn’t even have the devil’s chance of getting anything more than a scrubby honorable mention for their costumes next Wednesday.

“Well, what do you mean?” he said, feeling sorry for himself suddenly (but Louisa
was
beautiful — 42 now, still like a girl of 35),
“What
do you feel all right about?”

“Mary Drew.”

“Why not? She’s been behaving.” “No, I mean the whole thing, Henry. With Martha and all.”

Louisa Edlin sighed, crossed her arms at her bosom and looked off toward the geranium bed. Her hair was a soft, reddish shade, cut in a curling monk’s cap across her forehead; the light blue eyes, pensive, the slightly turned-up nose and smooth-cut other features of her face in profile, pretty, somehow bequeathing a sudden sense of overwhelming dignity and poise to the casual observer.

To Henry Edlin, who knew her better, it was a pitiful pose, a disheartening stance, because it spelled out something still unforgotten about the years so far in the past, when Louisa had wanted to be a great actress. He remembered how, during those beginning years in the forties when the American movie star who so resembled Louisa had become famous, poor Louisa — reminded of this resemblance at every turn — had fairly begun to believe she
was
this Greer Garson. Begun to pose, to turn to smile at a stranger who had suddenly noticed the resemblance, as though she expected applause; to speak of Greer as though Greer were a best friend, a sister, or actually herself…. And even Henry, who realized the hidden sadness behind these facts, was never keen enough to realize too that through the whole strange, half-mad, mixed-with-war period when Louisa was Greer, he was even more physically drawn to her than he had been when he married her, than he ever would be again.

• • •

“Don’t you see,” Louisa Edlin said, “even though Martha is leaving in August, I couldn’t in all honesty believe our problems would depart with her. Henry, the thing between them was very deep. Very deep!”

“And isn’t now?” Henry half-turned, looking back toward the house with its, open windows letting out the noise they made — his daughter and the Kent girl. To him, there was never any other way of describing the combined gigglings, screechings, whisperings, and croonings that came from the pair, than “the noise
they
made.” Henry Edlin was an average-sized, average-looking gentleman in his beginning forties, with a serious, patient disposition; sometimes inclined to be dull, as when he brooded over the fact that dentists were never granted the same respect as physicians; or over the fact that Louisa’s and his first child was born defective, that Mary Drew was a thorough enigma, and that Louisa really did prefer Tony, the child she had by her first husband — a scoundrel who was a drunk and a nobody.

“I know,” Louisa nodded her head, indicating she too was well aware of the sounds of them behind her — the same sounds that had grown to be deeply feared these last five months, like some black threat to cut across their serenity. “I know…. But today, Henry, they’ve been perfect. Martha has talked about nothing else but her trip to America, and how much she’s going to enjoy it. And Mary Drew has joined in with the spirit of things. I can’t explain it, but something’s changed. I — well, I sincerely feel that their
relationship
has changed.”

“High time!” Henry Edlin could never keep the disgust out of his voice when the “relationship” was spoken of.

“And asking me for this outing this afternoon. It’s such a good sign!”

“Then Martha’s to stay for lunch again?”

“Oh yes, I asked her. After all, the three of us are going on this little — outing. We’ll leave right after lunch.”

“I won’t pretend to enjoy my meal.” “This hasn’t all been Martha’s fault, you know.” “I don’t even care to discuss it, Louisa. You know I don’t like to discuss it.” “Henry, we can’t ignore it.”

He said, “If Martha Kent is leaving, I think we can. And she
is
leaving.”

“But Mary Drew has been involved in something that’s bound to have some serious psychological effects on her — ”

Henry Edlin rarely broke in on his wife’s conversations, but at such times he invariably did: “Louisa, you know my opinion of psychological this and psychological that! It’s a lot of foolish nonsense, if you’ll excuse my saying so! Just because these so-called physicians, these damned psychiatrists, stay a few years longer at a university, sitting on their behinds and thereby emerging M.D.’s, ready to tell the whole world about “relationships” and “psychological” and I don’t know what, don’t force me to listen to the jargon in my own home. Or hear all this psychological nonsense about Mary Drew. All Mary Drew needs is to be rid of that witch in there. The child is under some sort of absurd spell. I half the time think it’s because Mary Drew is flattered that a beautiful girl would choose her for a companion. It makes Mary Drew feel indebted to her, almost worshipping! … I don’t know,” he whirled abruptly, in a motion to leave and end the discussion, “and I don’t care!”

His wife caught his sleeve, touching it as though to calm him, stall him.

“We shan’t need the car.”

“Fine. Are you walking or what?” He looked up at her and couldn’t help smiling, never could help that after an outburst, when her eyes looked so forgiving.

She said, “I’m sorry. I just felt better about it.”

“I’m sorry too, Louisa. Busy morning and all.”

“We won’t walk,” his wife said. “The bus passes the park.”

“Oh?” He looked more than surprised. “Now, Henry — ”

“Well, I do take it that you mean Southwark Park?”

“Yes, Southwark.”

“I thought we’d agreed — ”

“It was a long time ago.”

He said, “It was Christmas. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that.”

It was Christmas night. He had gone to the telephone with the intention of breaking in on the conversation to ask Mary Drew to finish it. She had been talking with Martha Kent for what seemed like hours, while Tony, Louisa and himself had waited to open the gifts. Tony had arrived late for the holidays, and they had delayed the celebration; and Mary Drew seemed to have no concern that she was prolonging it even more. He had heard the words “Southwark Park,” and then the hideously embarrassing reference his daughter had made to the experience she had had there, with a man. How had she put it? “The blossom is plucked, Moly. Wasn’t that what you wanted!”

They had never known the man. She had lied and cried and denied, and in a sense, that had begun it all — the long months of dreary agony. That had started her going to the first doctor, the one who had confirmed the words Henry Edlin had heard his daughter say to Martha Kent. And then there were the other doctors; then the psychiatrist — the headshrinker — with her loathsome interpretations.

Louisa Edlin said, “I know we forbade her to go to Southwark.”

“Ever!” Henry Edlin said, “Ever again!”

“But after all. Henry, I’m going along. And it
is
in the past. It
is
forgotten. Forgiven too, I hope,” she looked at him with her eyes pleading. “I want things to go well, so badly. Martha suggested Southwark; they both did … I don’t think they’ve even remembered back to that day. Really, Henry.”

He sighed, shrugged, giving in again.

Then Louisa said, “Everything’s going so well here at home. I want it to. I want it to be smooth when Tony arrives next week.”

There you were — the world was Tony, Louisa’s world…. The world was Tony.

But for Henry Edlin, that afternoon of June 8th around four-thirty, the world was the Masque Ball once again, what costumes to wear; and a first fitting for porcelain caps on the left and right near incisors of a balding tailor.

“The theme of the ball is the year 1942,” he was saying, “and in America that year, two rather good films were made. You may remember ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy,’ but of course there’s no reason why you should.” The man nodded, his mouth stuffed full of Henry Edlin’s right hand, “Or ‘Mrs. Miniver,’ you may remember. My wife looks quite a lot like the film star who played the part. You may remember — ” and at that point, the slight tapping came on the window of the door between the room Henry Edlin was in with his patient and the room in which his receptionist sat.

“She’s new,” Henry Edlin explained to his patient. “Not terribly capable of understanding simple instructions. And when my nurse is on vacation, as she is now, the whole day is one shocking interruption after another. Any little telephone call — anything from someone asking for charity to a patient cancelling an appointment — knock, knock, knock.”

There were the three knocks again, slightly more persistent.

“Busy! Busy!” Henry Edlin called out. “She has no appreciation of my duties. Girl like that wouldn’t
think
of bursting in on a physician when he was operating, but however — ”

And the knocks once more — three more, loud.

“I beg your pardon,” Henry Edlin said to the tailor, “but I’m going to have to shout. I can’t take my hand from your mouth with the impression setting, so I’m going to have to shout through the door. Please pardon me!”

Then Henry Edlin shouted.

The girl outside did not know who to fear most — Dr. Edlin or this woman who was so insistent upon speaking to the doctor directly. An emergency, she claimed … well, didn’t they all.

The girl chose to fear her employer more.

“I know,” she said, “I know it’s an emergency, but — ” still slightly intimidated by the desperate and firm sound of the woman — “but you see, the doctor isn’t here. He’s gone out, he has. I’m telling you the truth. The doctor is not here.”

Then dutifully, the girl copied down the message the woman shouted into her ear:

Call Ruby Tullett, Tearon, Southwark Park. 4848.