But he wouldn’t phone, she knew that. And if she phoned him...
Think of the surprise he’d have, imagining he was so well hidden! Think of the fear (that would pay him back a little), and maybe some pleasure too (and then she’d be sorry for having thought of paying him back). Because there was nothing to pay back. She needn’t have stayed or let him stay.
If she phoned she’d hear his voice. She didn’t even have to ask for him. She’d keep on phoning until he answered it himself. All the other times she’d just hang up without saying anything. She could try it just once. Maybe he’d answer the first time, if she was lucky. And last days should be lucky days to make up for all the other days that had everything in them but luck.
No, she couldn’t phone.
She gave a little groan and rolled over on her face and one of the feathers worked through the pillow and pricked her cheek. She propped herself on her elbows and pulled the feather out and looked at it. She began to giggle suddenly, because the feather reminded her of a song Tony had sung once, about a pig who flew past with a feather stuck in him to see which way the wind blew.
“And the wind blew north,” Mamie hummed, “and the wind blew south, and the wind blew the feather...”
Imagine. Here it was her last day and she was giggling and humming as if nothing was going to happen to her.
Maybe I really want something to happen to me. Maybe I don’t give a damn as long as it’s a change, any change. I think I’d be ready for anything if...
No, don’t think about phoning him. How do you know the cops wouldn’t be listening in? Maybe they tapped your telephone wires. But they wouldn’t do that, I’m not important enough, and besides they think I don’t know where Tony is.
She sat up straight on the bed and pulled down the sheets. She wasn’t conscious of any of her usual morning pains and irritations — the sunken feeling in her eyes, as if they had fallen into her head from their own weight, the sight of herself in the mirror, the pale puffy face and mottled white legs. She went past the mirror without even looking at herself and opened the door into the hall. No one was using the telephone, and Mrs. Malley was upstairs making beds and swearing at her husband to get him up.
She slipped down the hall quietly in her bare feet. She waited until Mrs. Malley had started a new theme, then picked up the phone and dialed the number. She knew it by heart.
It rang three times, then a girl’s voice said, “Hello,” and Mamie hung up without speaking.
Well, you couldn’t count on luck, could you? The luck all went to the wrong people, the kind with brains and looks and money, who didn’t need luck. The kind like Tony and her didn’t get anything except what they snatched from each other. You had to grab something from somebody else before somebody else grabbed it from you. That was how you had to live. Mamie knew that. She knew that when Tony hit her he wasn’t hitting her at all, he was just hitting out at the first thing that was handy, he was hitting out at Life. Nothing personal in it. Funny how all these things became clear if you only had a little time left. If people could always think that, that they had only a little time, they’d be nicer, they wouldn’t always have to be thinking so far ahead of their own future.
Shivering as her feet struck the bare cold floor she went back into her room and sat in the chair by the window and looked out at Charles Street.
She thought, Stevie was right, it would be kind of gruesome to see the sun rise on Charles Street. Or even the moon. Charles Street was made for darkness.
She wondered if Stevie was dead. And now that things were clearer she even wondered why she shot him. It was late, she was tired, the gun was there in her bag, Stevie had been nasty and he was the only one who’d seen Tony running out of the house. When she shot him she thought she was doing it just for Tony, but this morning she knew that the other reasons counted too. She knew she wouldn’t have even thought of shooting him if the gun hadn’t been right there in her bag. She had been carrying the gun because she thought if she met Tony she’d give it to him. He might need it, and he’d forgotten to take it along.
It was very funny to think that Tony had murdered someone. He’d always talked about killing — “I’d like to kill that...” or “She needs a knife between the ribs,” or “I’d like to strangle you.”
Just words. He thought he was tough. And then it turned out he was. That was what was funny.
Just like me, Mamie thought. I’m always talking about killing myself and if I really did that would be funny too. I wouldn’t shoot myself because maybe I wouldn’t die.
She thought of the pills she had hidden in a drawer. You took the whole dozen of them and then you went to sleep. Then everything was settled for you. You didn’t have to worry about jail or Tony or getting old or holding a job or having headaches or washing your stockings...
She went back into the hall. The door into the kitchen had been closed, so that meant that the Malleys were in there and Mr. Malley was eating and Mrs. Malley was watching him, grudging the very grains of sugar he used.
She dialed again, slowly this time, putting off the moment when the girl’s voice would say, “Hello,” again and she’d have to go back to her room without hearing his voice. But it wasn’t the girl.
“Hello,” Tony said.
She hung onto the mouthpiece hard to keep from falling. He had only to speak one word and everything began to move inside her, churned up by hope, every kind of hope. This wasn’t the last day, it was just a day. And she wouldn’t go to prison because the cops were dumb. They’d never catch Tony. Joey wouldn’t fire her. Stevie would get better.
“Hello,” he said again, impatiently.
“Hello,” she whispered huskily. “Tony?”
He didn’t answer. She knew what he was doing in that silence. He was looking around quickly and furtively, he was frowning, he was trying to control his voice.
“Tony?”
“How did you...” He was so scared he could hardly speak.
“I knew,” Mamie said.
“What do you want?”
“I’ve got to see you, Tony.”
“See me? You must be crazy!”
“Sure,” Mamie said with a weak giggle. “Sure, I’m crazy. We could meet some place. Listen, Tony...”
“You shot Jordan?”
“Yes. For you. I did it for you. Honest, I did it for...”
“Not so loud, you fool!”
“I want to see you. Just once. He knows I did it. The policeman knows. I haven’t got much time left, Tony. I want to see you.”
“You must...”
“He took your clothes, to measure. And he knows I did it, and I haven’t got much..”
“Shut up, you fool.”
“I’ll kill myself. I will! I got those pills.”
“Go ahead. It’ll save me trouble. Only you won’t. Listen, what did you tell the cops?”
She was crying now and shivering and none of the words would come out of her mouth. He said something she couldn’t hear, and then the receiver was banged down.
She cried with her face up against the wall as if it could comfort her, pressing her forehead against the limp and faded daisies of the wallpaper.
“Please,” she said once, not to Tony or to God, but to the limp daisies and the telephone and the hard wall.
She heard Mrs. Malley moving in the kitchen and she left the wall and went back to her own room.
When she could see well enough she poured out two glasses of water from the pitcher; one was her glass and one was Tony’s glass. She used Tony’s glass for the first six pills and her own glass for the other six.
Then she went over to the mirror and combed her hair, twisting each curl carefully around her finger. She powdered her nose and put on some lipstick and straightened out her nightgown and the bedclothes. Then she lay down precisely in the middle of the bed and closed her eyes.