“Are you still here?”
“Yes.”
“Want a drink?”
“Not now, thanks.”
“It’s rum,” she said. “Ella was wrong. I don’t fool myself, and I don’t mind admitting to the right people that I take the odd nip now and then, if there’s a chill in the air.”
Or if it’s hot, Meecham added silently, or dry or windy; in a spring rain or on a sunny afternoon, a smoky morning in fall, Indian summer or Easter moon. All weather had a chill to it, every day was winter.
Meecham went over and sat down in the old cherrywood rocker opposite Mrs. Loftus. “I know it’s late, but I wanted to talk to you. Earl asked me to.”
“Earl?” She put a hand to her throat as if the name had jabbed her there like a needle. “My bus. I missed my bus. I must...”
“There are other buses,” Meecham said. There could be a thousand buses but she’d never be on any of them. He realized now how hopeless his mission was: he couldn’t persuade her to leave town as Loftus wanted her to do, and he couldn’t give her the money because she was obviously unfit to handle it.
“Yes, of course there are other buses, aren’t there? I’ll go tomorrow, early in the morning. But first I must tidy things up a bit. I will not have anyone like Ella casting aspersions on my home. Did you hear what she said?”
“Yes.”
“She lied about Birdie leaving, too. Birdie didn’t leave, I kicked her out. You’re not good enough for my son Earl, I told her. Pack your bags and start moving, we don’t need your help to get along, I said.”
“What kind of help?”
“Money. Earl was temporarily unemployed — the firm he was working for went out of business — and Birdie took a job as a waitress. That’s when they came to live with me. Birdie managed all the money, wouldn’t let me do any of the shopping, treated me like a child. She even gave me an allowance. Yes, and you want to know how much? A dollar. A dollar a week. Every Saturday she’d give it to me and say, very sarcastic, don’t spend it all in one place. A dollar. What can you buy with that?”
Two bottles of dago red, Meecham thought.
“And then she started to accuse me of pilfering, taking money from her purse. She told Earl and Earl came to me, and I said, Earl, I’m only your mother but I have some rights, and what am I going to do when the poor paper boy comes for his money and I don’t have a cent? It isn’t fair to ask that poor paper boy to come back again and again when Birdie’s purse is lying there right out in the open, I said. Earl understood perfectly. You know what happened?” She let out a crow of laughter. “They raised my allowance to five dollars. I beat Birdie at her own game, didn’t I?”
“I guess you did,” Meecham said.
The little story, with its interlocking links of deceit and truth, humor and sordidness, was oppressive. The old lady had spoken with such a complete sense of right and justification. Petty theft? — never. Saving the poor paper boy a second trip? — of course. Meecham felt a flash of sympathy for the vanished Birdie.
Mrs. Loftus uncorked the bottle again. This time she didn’t sip quite so daintily, and her reaction wasn’t so immediate and distinct. It came gradually, into her speech and mannerisms — an occasional slurring of s’s and omission of final consonants, grand but vague gestures, and a constant widening and narrowing of her eyes in an attempt to blink away a film that wasn’t there. Meecham wanted to take the bottle from her and hide it some place, at least temporarily, so that she wouldn’t get too drunk to talk. He had a curious and irrational desire to hear more about Loftus and Birdie, as if Loftus’ relationship with his wife and mother might explain more about the murder of Margolis. Yet he was sure that there was no link except the psychological one — the effect of A and B on C had determined C’s conduct toward D.
“You bet I beat her at her own game. Yes, sir,” the old lady went on. “Birdie never fooled me. First time I saw her I had her spotted. She wasn’t any twenty-eight, as she told Earl, and she wasn’t any innocent virgin. Any woman could have sheen srough her but not Earl. Earl was always a pure boy, a good boy, took after my side of the family. Never smoked or drank like other boys, or went out carousing to parties. He stayed home nights and read, or we played carj together. It was a good innocent life he led until the day he met Birdie. Didden tell me he met her, didden say a word about her till the day he brought her home and said, this is my wife. Like that. This is my wife. And there she stood, with that hennaed hair and that hard look, forty if she was a day, forty, and him just a boy.”
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, but it was a meaningless gesture. The tears that had been wept had long since dried and formed a crust of salt over an emotion long since dead.
“If you knew Earl — how good he is, this deep feeling of love inside of him. But he gave it all to her. Never saw her as she was, a hard exshperienced woman. The day he got the divorce papers she sent him from Nevada he sat in his room. All day, just sat, looking out the window. You’d think he expected her to walk past. Well, she didden walk past. She coulden. She was in Nevada. Issen at right? Eh?”
“I suppose so.”
“You bet it’s right. And good ridushe to bad rubbish. Go, I told her. Go.” She pointed toward the door with majestic dignity. “Go! And she went. She...” Her hand fell to her side. “You go too. I’m tired. You go home.”
“I will in a minute. Have you heard from Birdie since she left?”
“No.”
“Has Earl?”
“Has Earl? What has Earl?”
Meecham said patiently, “Did she write to Earl?”
“She coulden write her own name. Ignorant, understand? Ignorant. Whyn’t you go home?”
“I’m going.” He picked up his coat and the package of letters. He stripped the brown paper from the package. Inside, there were about fifty or sixty letters, arranged, as far as Meecham could tell, in order of date. They were addressed to Earl Loftus in writing that was large and hesitant, like a school child’s. “Tell her to reread them” Loftus had said, and then he’d changed his mind: “No, don’t tell her anything.”
One of the envelopes was blank and new, and heavier than the others. Meecham put it in his pocket. He felt a kind of helpless anger against Loftus for giving him the responsibility of delivering the money, and against Mrs. Loftus, fumbling around in her twilit world where money could buy only one thing, darkness.
The old lady had closed her eyes, and her head had sunk like a tortoise’s into the worn fur collar of her coat.
“Mrs. Loftus, listen to me for a minute.”
“Whyn’t you go home?”
“These are your letters. I’m leaving them here on the table. I have some money for you too. I’ll give it to the Garinos to take care of. The fact is that you were right about Earl. He is in trouble. You’ll be hearing about it very soon anyway. If it will make it easier for you I’ll tell you myself right now... Mrs. Loftus? Hey, Mrs. Loftus!”
The old lady let out a delicate snore. Darkness had been bought.
Cursing under his breath, Meecham put on his coat, turned out the ceiling light and went into the hall. Mrs. Garino was just coming up the steps from her apartment in the basement. She looked pale and calm, like the sea after a storm. She was carrying a metal tray with a pot of coffee on it and a sandwich cut daintily into diamonds and garnished with a radish rose.
“She’s asleep,” Meecham said.
“I can wake her. She has to eat.”
“She should be in a hospital.”
“You know what that means, getting commitment papers for her as a habitual drunk. The booby hatch, that’s what it means,” she said bitterly. “Did you give her the money you brought?”