Ideal, page 6
The table was set in the middle of the living room. Mrs. Sliney had taken out the best set of silverware, and polished it all morning, and laid it out carefully under the light of a hanging brass oil lamp.
“Are we gonna have turkey?” she had asked that morning.
“Sure,” Jeremiah Sliney had answered.
“It’s the last one left, Pa. I was just thinkin’ maybe if we took it to town we could get maybe—”
“Aw, Ma, there’s only one golden anniversary in the whole of yer life.”
She had sighed and shuffled into the backyard to catch the turkey.
The table was set for nine. The children had gathered to celebrate. After the lemon chiffon pie was served, Jeremiah Sliney winked naughtily and opened a gallon jug of his best hard cider.
“Well,” he said, chuckling, “fur the occasion.”
“You know very well,” said Mrs. Eustace Hennessey, the oldest daughter, “that I never touch the stuff.”
“I’ll take Maudie’s,” said Mrs. Chuck Fink, the youngest.
“Now, now,” said Chuck Fink, beaming, “everybody’s gotta drink for the happy event. Can’t hurt nobody! A little glass a day keeps the doctor away.”
“I’m sure I won’t let Melissa have any,” said Mrs. Eustace Hennessey. “I don’t know how some people do, but I bring my daughter up as a lady should be brung up.”
Jeremiah Sliney filled eight glasses. Melissa Hennessey, the only grandchild old enough to be present, threw a dark glance at her mother, but said nothing. Melissa Hennessey spoke seldom. She was twenty, although her mother insisted that she was eighteen. She had faded brown hair in tight ringlets of an unsuccessful permanent wave around a face dotted with perpetual pimples. She wore a long green dress of dotted swiss with stylish ruffles, high and stiff on her shoulders, flat brown oxfords with fringed tongues, and a brand-new wristwatch on a leather band.
“Veter santee, as they say in society,” said Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant Sliney haughtily, raising her glass.
“Aw, can the fancy stuff, Angelina,” said Ulysses S. Grant Sliney gloomily. He had a long nose and a collar too wide for his thin neck, and he always looked gloomy.
Angelina Sliney shrugged. Her big celluloid earrings tinkled against her neck and the five celluloid bracelets tinkled against the knob of her wrist bone.
“A toast!” roared Chuck Fink. “Gotta have a toast.”
“Aw, now,” said Jeremiah Sliney, standing helplessly, hunched, embarrassed, spreading wide his two hands with a short stump in the place of his left forefinger. “Well, now, I never in my life . . . I wouldn’t know how to . . . I . . .”
“I’ll make it for you,” said Chuck Fink, bouncing up. He was not very tall when he stood up; his vest was stretched over a round stomach; his smile was stretched over a round face with a short nose with wide nostrils.
“To the best little parents that ever breathed God’s sunshine,” said Chuck Fink, beaming. “Many happy returns to one happy family. Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like the good old farm.”
Mrs. Eustace Hennessey nudged her husband. Eustace Hennessey had gone to sleep, his long face nodding over his pie plate. He jerked, one hand fumbling for his glass, the other one for his mustache, twisting it mechanically up into a sharp, thin needle of a glossy, waxed black.
Then they all drank but Melissa.
Mrs. Jeremiah Sliney sat silently in the shadows at the head of the table, her little hands folded in her lap, her white lips smiling in a gentle, wordless blessing. She had the serene face of a wrinkled cherub and glossy white hair, well brushed, combed tightly to a yellow knob on the back of her head. She wore her best dress of patched purple taffeta and a little shawl of yellow lace held by her best pin of tarnished gold.
“Well,” said Mrs. Eustace Hennessey, “the good old farm and all that is all very well, but I do think you oughta do something about that road, Pa. Honest, it’s enough to shake a body’s guts out to drive up here.”
“Well,” said Angelina Sliney, “you can stand a bit once in a while. God knows, you don’t do it often.”
“When I need telling to,” said Mrs. Eustace Hennessey, “I’ll choose the people to do the telling.”
“Aw, now, Maudie,” said Eustace Hennessey, yawning, “the road ain’t so bad. You oughta see some of the roads a fellow’s gotta travel in this here country.”
Eustace Hennessey was a traveling salesman for a cosmetic concern.
“Some people,” said Mrs. Chuck Fink, “sure do have to travel. And then again, some don’t.”
Chuck Fink owned his business, an all-night restaurant on South Main Street, Chuck’s Place, with eight stools by the counter and an electric coffee boiler.
“Now, now, Flobelle,” said Jeremiah Sliney, sensing danger, “we all do the best we can, as God permits.”
When the table was cleared, and they all sat silently in a circle on stiff, worn chairs and stared at the windows where tall gray weeds rustled softly against the sills; when Jeremiah Sliney lit his pipe, and Eustace Hennessey lit his cigar, and Angelina Sliney lit a cigarette under the smoldering glances of her sisters-in-law, and Melissa disappeared mysteriously into the kitchen, Mrs. Jeremiah Sliney sighed sweetly and said timidly, her little hands opening and closing nervously:
“Now, about that mortgage . . . it’s due day after tomorrow.”
There was a dead silence.
“Funny how many people drive around these days,” said Chuck Fink, looking at the distant headlights in the hills, “and at this time of the night. And in the hills, too.”
“If we don’t pay, they’ll take the house. The mortgage people, I mean,” said Mrs. Jeremiah Sliney.
“Hard times, these are,” said Mrs. Eustace Hennessey. “We all have our troubles.”
“If . . . It would be a shame to lose the old house like that,” said Jeremiah Sliney and chuckled. His pale blue eyes blinked under a moist, whitish film. His gentle old face smiled hesitantly.
“We all have our cross to bear,” sighed Mrs. Eustace Hennessey. “Times ain’t what they used to be. Now, take us, for instance. There’s Melissa’s future to think about. A girl’s gotta have a little something to offer to get herself a husband, these days. Men ain’t so easily satisfied. It ain’t like some folks what have their own business.”
“Junior had the whooping cough,” said Mrs. Chuck Fink hurriedly, “and the doctor’s bills is something fierce. We’ll never get outta debt. It ain’t like some people that never knowed the blessing of parenthood.”
She looked resentfully at Angelina Sliney. Angelina shrugged, her earrings tinkling.
“It’s a good thing some people don’t have no litter every nine months,” said Ulysses S. Grant Sliney, gloomily. “A man’s got a future to think about. How’m I ever gonna buy that meat counter of my own? Think I’m gonna sling hamburger for some other guy the rest of my life?”
“It’s fifty years we’ve lived in this house,” said Mrs. Jeremiah Sliney and sighed gently. “Oh my! What would ever become of us now?”
“With eggs the way they are,” sighed Jeremiah Sliney, “and our last cow what we had to sell . . . we just don’t have the money for the mortgage people at all.” He chuckled. He always chuckled when he spoke, a hesitant little chuckle that sounded like a moan.
“Oh my!” sighed Mrs. Jeremiah Sliney. “It would be the . . . poorhouse for us.”
“These are hard times,” said Mrs. Eustace Hennessey.
There was a silence.
“Well,” said Chuck Fink noisily, bouncing up, “here it is going on eleven and it’s pretty near to twenty miles driving back home. Gotta be going, Flobelle. Time to hit the hay. Gotta get up early. It’s the early bird that catches the good old nickels.”
“Us, too,” said Mrs. Eustace Hennessey, rising. “Melissa! Where’s that girl gone to? Melissa!”
Melissa emerged from the kitchen, her face flushed red under the pimples.
There were many kisses and handshakes at the door.
“Now you run on to bed, Ma,” said Mrs. Chuck Fink. “And don’t you stay up late worrying.”
“Well, so long, folks,” said Chuck Fink, climbing into his car. “Cheer up and keep smiling. The darkest hour is just before the silver lining.”
Mrs. Eustace Hennessey wondered why Melissa staggered uncertainly, getting into the car, as if she had trouble finding the door.
Mr. and Mrs. Jeremiah Sliney stood in the road and watched the three little red lights bumping away, low over the ground, in a soft cloud of dust.
Then they went back into the house, and Jeremiah Sliney locked the door.
“Oh my!” sighed Mrs. Sliney. “It’s the poorhouse for us, Pa.”
They had blown out the lights and pulled the blinds over the windows, and Mrs. Sliney in her limp flannel nightgown was ready to climb into bed, when she stopped suddenly, stretching her head forward, listening.
“Pa,” she whispered, alarmed.
Jeremiah Sliney pulled the blanket from over his head.
“What is it?”
“Pa, d’you hear?”
“No. Hear what?”
“Sounds . . . sounds like someone was coming here.”
“Nonsense, Ma. Some rabbit, most like . . .”
A hand knocked at the door.
“Lord in heaven!” whispered Mrs. Sliney.
Jeremiah Sliney fumbled for his slippers, threw an old coat over his shoulders, and shuffled resolutely to the door.
“Who’s there?” he asked.
“Open the door, please,” a low feminine voice whispered.
Jeremiah Sliney opened the door.
“What can I do for . . . Oh, Lord!” he finished, gasping, when he saw a pale face under a black hat, a face he recognized at once.
“I am Kay Gonda, Mr. Sliney,” said the woman in black.
“Well, as I live and breathe!” said Jeremiah Sliney.
“Can you let me in?”
“Can I let you in? Can I let you in? Well, I’ll be a— Come right in, ma’am, right, right in. . . . Ma! Oh, Ma! Come here! Oh Lord!”
He threw the door wide-open. She entered and closed it cautiously. Mrs. Sliney trudged in and froze on the threshold, her hands fluttering, her mouth wide-open.
“Ma!” gasped Jeremiah Sliney. “Ma, can you believe it? This here is Kay Gonda, the pichur star, herself!”
Mrs. Sliney nodded, her eyes wide, unable to utter a sound.
“I’m running away,” said Kay Gonda. “Hiding. From the police. I have no place to go.”
“Oh Lord! Oh Lord Almighty!”
“You heard about me, haven’t you?”
“Have I heard? Why, who hasn’t heard? Why, them papers said . . .”
“It was . . . murder!” whispered Mrs. Sliney, choking.
“May I stay here for the night?”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“Ye mean—right here?”
“Yes.”
“Good God! Why . . . why, certainly, ma’am. Why, of course! Why, it’s an honor ye’re doing us and . . . and . . .”
“It’s an honor, ma’am,” said Mrs. Sliney, curtseying.
“Thank you,” said Kay Gonda.
“Only,” muttered Jeremiah Sliney, “only how did ye ever . . . I mean, how could ye . . . I mean, why would ye, of all places?”
“I had your letter. And no one would ever find me here.”
“My . . . letter?”
“Yes. The letter you wrote me.”
“Oh Lord, that? You got it?”
“Yes.”
“And ye read it?”
“Yes.”
“And ye . . . ye came here? To hide?”
“Yes.”
“Well, will miracles ever cease! Why, make yerself to home, ma’am. Take your hat off. Sit down. Don’t ye worry. No one will find ye here all right. And if any cops come nosing about, why, I have a shotgun, that’s what I have! Make yerself to—”
“Wait a minute, Pa,” said Mrs. Sliney, “that’s not the way. Miss Gonda is tired, she is. She needs a room, a place to sleep, at this hour of the night.”
“Ye come this way, ma’am . . . this way . . . the spare room. We have a nice spare room. No one’ll bother ye.”
Jeremiah Sliney opened a door, bowing. They let their guest enter and shuffled in hurriedly, breathlessly, after her. The room smelt of dried hay and pickles. Mrs. Sliney brushed quickly a cobweb off the windowsill.
“Here’s a bed for ye,” said Mrs. Sliney, hurriedly beating the pillow, pulling down a patched cotton blanket. “A nice soft bed for ye, ma’am. Just make yerself comfortable and sleep like a kitten.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, Miss Gonda. The place ain’t so swell for a great lady like ye, but it’s yours, same as this whole house. . . . My, I bet ye’ve seen some swell places out where the movie folk live!”
“It is very nice here, thank you.”
“Just be careful of this chair, ma’am. It ain’t very steady. . . . I bet it must make ye scared, don’t it, when they work them cameras making pichurs?”
“I’ll bring ye an extry blanket, ma’am. The nights are sorta chilly around here. . . . Oh my, what a pretty suit ye have, Miss Gonda! I reckon it cost all of twenty dollars, no less.”
“I’ll get ye some water in that pitcher, ma’am. And some nice clean towels . . . Dear me, ye look just like in them movies! I knew ye right at once!”
“Did it hurt ye, Miss Gonda, when that feller stuck you with that big knife, in the movie, last year that was?”
They fluttered nervously, eagerly about the room, without tearing their eyes from the strange visitor. Her slender shadow rose up the whitewashed wall, and her hair looked like a huge black flower on the ceiling with tangled petals flung wide.
“Thank you,” she said, “I will be very comfortable here. . . . Please do not bother. I do not want to cause you so much trouble. Only, I will warn you, it’s very dangerous, you know, keeping me here.”
Jeremiah Sliney straightened his stooped shoulders proudly.
“Don’t you worry about that, Miss Gonda. There ain’t no cops in the world what can get you out of Jeremiah Sliney’s house. Not while he’s alive, they won’t!”
Kay Gonda smiled and looked at them. Her eyes were round and clear and innocent like a frail little girl’s, a very young girl in a dress too severe for her fragile body. She leaned against the dresser, and her hand looked like a piece of clouded crystal chiseled into old planks with bald patches of faded varnish.
“It is very kind of you,” she said slowly. “But why do you want to take the chance? You do not know me.”
“Ye . . . ye don’t know, Miss Gonda,” said Jeremiah Sliney, “what ye mean to us. We’re old folks, Miss Gonda, poor old folks. We never had nothing like ye ever come to us. Cops, indeed! Ye don’t think of cops in church, Miss Gonda, no more’n in this here room right now. And if . . . oh gosh! Ye must forgive a driveling old fool like me! Just make yerself comfortable and don’t ye worry about a thing. We’ll be right here in the next room, if ye need anything. Good night, Miss Gonda.”
There was no sound in the house, no light. Beyond the window, crickets chirped in the tall grass, a shrill, unceasing whistle, like the whining of a steady saw. A bird screamed somewhere in short, choked gasps and stopped, and screamed again. A moth beat dry, rustling wings against the window screen.
Kay Gonda lay on the bed, dressed, her hands under her head, her thin black pumps crossed on the faded old blanket. She did not move.
In the silence, she heard the bed creaking as someone turned over in the next room. She heard a heavy sigh. Then there was silence again.
Then she heard a voice, a soft muffled voice whispering hoarsely:
“Pa . . . You asleep, Pa-a?”
“No.”
The woman sighed. Then she whispered:
“Pa, it’s day after tomorrow . . . the mortgage is . . .”
“Yeah.”
“It’s seven hundred dollars, it is.”
“Yeah.”
The bed creaked as someone turned over.
“Pa-a . . .”
“Yeah?”
“They’ll take the house.”
“They sure will.”
The bird screamed far away, in the silence.
“Pa-a, think she’s asleep?”
“Must be.”
“It’s murder she’s done, Pa. . . .”
“Yeah.”
They were silent again.
“It’s a rich feller what she’s killed, Pa.”
“The richest.”
“Reckon his family, they’d like to know where she’s at.”
“What’re ye talkin’ about, woman?”
“Oh, I was just thinkin’ . . .”
There was a silence.
“Pa, if they was told, his family, where she’s at, it’ud be worth somethin’ to them, wouldn’t it?”
“Ye old . . . what’re ye trying to—”
“Reckon they’d be glad to pay a reward. A thousand dollars, maybe.”
“Huh?”
“A thousand dollars, maybe . . .”
“Ye old hag! Ye shut yer mouth before I choke ye!”
There was a long silence.
“Ma . . .”
“Yeah?”
“Think they’d . . . they’d hand over a . . . a thousand?”
“Sure they would. Them’s folks with plenty of money.”
“Aw, shut yer old face!”
A moth beat furiously against the window screen.
“It’s the poorhouse for us, Pa. For the rest of our days.”
“Yeah . . .”
“They pay more’n that for bank robbers and such, they do.”
“Ye got no fear of God in ye, ye don’t!”
“Fifty years, Pa. Fifty years in this house and now thrown out in the street in our old age. . . .”
“Yeah . . .”
“The children were born here, too . . . right in this room, Pa . . . all of them . . .”
“Yeah . . .”
“With a thousand, why, we’d have the house to the end of our days . . .”
He did not answer.
“And we could even build that new chicken coop we need so bad . . .”
There was a long silence.
“Ma . . .”
“Yeah?”
