Evil Friendship (7 page)

C
HRISTMAS
D
AY
, 1955

Henry Edlin set the wig on his head and made his face into an expression of mock concern. “Tak soom o’ mah niff — ” he said, then burst into laughter. Louisa laughed too, setting her spoon by her cup of tea in the saucer. “Ah, you
were
excellent, Henry. And I’d always thought that I was the stage-struck one in our family. I wish Tony could have seen you!”

They were still talking about it, though it had happened two nights ago. Henry Edlin had played the part of the doctor in the annual Christmas mystery play. Mary Drew thought the plays were bores, never mind the tradition. They had silly plots, all about a victim being slain as Winter and brought back to life again as Spring, with the language so old and odd that it was hard to make anything of the whole matter. Her mother and father had chattered on and on about it all day yesterday, shutting up only long enough to go to church in the evening and to listen to carolers outside sing,
“God bless the master of this house.”

Mary Drew drank her tea and brooded on the same thing she had been brooding on for three days: Martha. Martha’s change. She felt not so much desolated by it as desperate because of it. She could not believe it, and so she felt that the solution to the problem was like finding the solution to the Chinese puzzle — a certain thing to do that would solve it … the right move to make. In everything between Martha and herself, there had been a way to play the game, a right way. And so now too, there was still the game, she believed, but she must find a way to behave that would win Martha back.

“Oh, I’ll say my lines for Tony,” her father was saying.

Then for the thousandth time, he repeated the jibberish he had said in the play: “Tak soom o’ mah niff naff dahn thy tiff taff!”

Louisa Edlin giggled again and exclaimed, “Hurrah!”

“And why are you so quiet, m’luv?” Henry Edlin said to his daughter in a twinkly tone, the wig lop-sided on his head. “Tell me, m’luv, wot ails ye?”

Mary Drew said, “Oh, nuts! I wish we could have Christmas!”

“And thot we will, when Anthony come, m’luv!” her father said.

Mary Drew sighed and stirred her tea. “Everyone’s had theirs by now. We’ll have ours on the day after, I suppose.”

Louisa Edlin looked across the table at her daughter. “Tell me,” she said, “have you and Martha had a spat, Mary Drew?”

“Of course not.”

“She hasn’t called up in days, and I don’t believe you’ve called her up either.”

“We don’t have to call each other up all the time!”

“Oh?” Louisa Edlin answered. “I thought you did.”

“Can’t I have one friend without your making so much of it?”

Henry Edlin said, “We’ve made nothing of it, m’luv. It’s been Martha this and Martha that, and Martha and I this and Martha and I that, and then Martha and me and me and Martha!” He chuckled. “Niff naff dahn thy tiff taff, if you ask me!”

“Oh, don’t be so silly!” Mary Drew snapped, “with that damn wig on your head!”

“Mary Drew!” Louisa Edlin said. Henry Edlin looked terribly hurt.

“I’m
sorry.”

“We don’t talk that way — ever!” her mother said.

“I said I’m sorry.”

Henry Edlin was off in the corner of the room, silently removing his wig, rubbing his eyes tiredly with his thumb. “I suppose I have carried on absurdly,” he said.

“Not at all, Henry I Mary Drew’s just terribly irritable this morning.”

“Tony will be home soon. Then you won’t have to listen to me,” Mary Drew said.

“Now, now,” her father walked back to the table and put his arm on her shoulder, “We don’t see much of Tony any more. Won’t it be rather good to see him again?”

“I wouldn’t know. He’s not here yet.”

“Mary Drew, you’re behaving very poorly for Christmas!” Mrs. Edlin said.

“I don’t have any Christmas spirit. That’s all.”

“Well, try to summon some up,” Mrs. Edlin stood and took up the teacups and saucers. “After all, dear, it only comes once a year.”

“That’s true,” Mr. Edlin said, “and when it comes it brings good cheer, dear,” and he pinched his daughter’s chin.

Mary Drew forced a smile. “All right. I’ll behave!” making her voice brave cheerfulness. “Maybe I’ll have a walk.”

“There’s my girl,” Henry Edlin said. He picked up a piece of peppermint and held it down to his daughter’s lips. “Tak soom o’ mah niff naff dahn thy tiff taff!” He roared with laughter.

• • •

Southwark Park was a little over a mile from the Edlins’. Mary Drew walked there in an aimless fashion, pausing now and then — once at a milk bar, once at the druggist’s — wondering if she should call up Martha Kent … perhaps just to say, “Merry Christmas, Moly.”

But that wasn’t the answer; there was nothing new in that.

She had never had a friend before — never once, and as she reviewed her friendship with Martha, it seemed that all this trouble since that day in the woods had something to do with a man … or men in general. They had not discussed men at all. It was a new, and still unfathomable, direction that Martha had taken.

Wasn’t it that Martha wanted her to be with a man? But why? Because Martha had…. Almost no one they knew had, of this Mary Drew was sure. No one at Chillam, certainly — the way they locked them in like prisoners at night. She and Martha were different from all of them — they were all a lot of damned fools; still, what
made
them different? What marked them different …? Was that it?

“Is that what you want, Moly?” Mary Drew murmured almost aloud.

It was strange, and yet, it was like a sacrifice; a rite, or a ceremony. The blood of the lamb.

But what was all of that about marriage and children! Mary Drew became confused when she tried to remember Martha’s exact words. She felt somehow that she was very close to the solution; still, too much puzzled her. And where would she find a man even so?

It was a clear day, and she had thought of taking the boardwalk by the beach, of picking up some shingles, and looking out at the wonderful chalk bluffs of Trumpet Head. But
they
had been there together, Martha and she, that afternoon they had sat on the shingles and talked for the longest time about going to America one day together. They would have their own apartment, and both would write plays that Broadway would produce. Then Hollywood would buy them, and they would be very rich and go all around the world. They would buy a home in France. Mary Drew could remember how Martha had said, “Oh, say, listen — listen, Druid,” and both had sat on the shingles hushed, listening then to the little portable radio that rested beside them. There was a Frenchman speaking, an announcer, who said that the Gaité
Parisienne
melodies that they had been idly half-listening to, as they sat there, had been played by the Boston
“Poops”
Orchestra.

Both of them had howled with laughter; then in the next minute, sat in silence, with only the sea’s sounds as Martha snapped off the radio.

“It was like an omen, Druid,” Martha had said, “Oh, we will have that chateau in France one day!”

Mary Drew could not go back to Trumpet Head alone, not now, on Christmas without Martha. Instead, after an hour’s walk, she found herself turning into Southwark Park, passing by the firs and oaks, with the sun bright, but the air very cold this Christmas noon.

When she saw him, she was afraid. It was his eyes that made the fear. They looked dazed, like the eyes of someone gone soft in the head, and they were large eyes, watching her from inside the shrubbery. The face was red and puffy, and the lips, very narrow ones, were puckered in a tight-lipped odd sort of smile. She began to walk very fast, thinking of the tearoom up ahead.

But he came behind her, and then he said something:

“Tearoom’s closed, puppy.”

“What?”

She stopped, and he stopped, and they stood regarding one another, a good distance between them. She saw his breath in the cold air, and the red face, and those eyes, but not with fear now. He was short and chunky, wearing the striped wool jacket, his bare hands half-crammed into the pockets; he stood straddle-legged. She didn’t like him, but she was suddenly not afraid of him.

“Closed, puppy,” he repeated. “Holiday, puppy.” “I wasn’t going there anyway,” she said. “Oh? Where was you going then?” “For a walk.”

“By yourself on Christmas day, puppy?” He made an odd sound that might have been a laugh, then stepped up to her, slowly, as though he were measuring his chances of getting that close. They were very good. Mary Drew stayed still, regarding him coolly.

“I got a tearoom, puppy.”

“You!” Mary Drew snickered.

“Back there, I have,” gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb.

“What’s back there! A shack!”

“It’s mine, puppy.” He reached a chubby knuckle out and nudged her scarf, and at his touch, Mary Drew Edlin knew the solution to her problem. She looked at him.

“Don’t be afraid, puppy. I’ve met lots of little puppies here in Southwark,” he said.

“I’m not afraid,” she said.

“You speak right up, don’t you, puppy?” He knew too, and he gave a burst of laughter, his breath frosty in the noon air. Then he put his hand on her. “Naw, naw,” he said, “you’re not the first puppy,” and he slipped his hand inside her coat, let his fingers up under her sweater.

Mary Drew Edlin said, “Not here, you damned fool!”

He pulled away, bent double with laughter now; after a bit he straightened and passed the back of his hand across his unshaven chin. “Ah now, you’re a smart puppy, and you’ll follow like a good puppy, you will.”

He went ahead of her. “The shack is warm,” he said over his shoulder. “We’ll have some Christmas there, puppy!”

He walked fast. It was hard for her to keep up with him.

On Christmas night at the Kents’, Roddy Sawyer raised his drink for a toast. “To this house,” he said, “and to the best friends a man could ask for — Doctor, Helen, and Martha!”

Everyone held their glass in the air a moment, then sipped.

“I really mean it,” Roddy said. “It’s been the best Christmas I can remember. Oh, darn it — how I wish I’d not left the roses behind at the pub. Helen, you should have roses for Christmas night!”

“They’ll cheer some poor lonely person there who has no warm home,” Helen smiled. “Never mind, Roddy.”

William Kent settled back in the leather chair, closing his eyes and holding his drink aloft.

He said,

“Love’s Labour’s Lost!”
Roddy said. “Am I right?”

“Yes, but who said it, and what act was it?”

“Berowne, in the first,” said Roddy.

William Kent nodded. “Fine, fine, Rodney…. Yes, yes.”

Martha sat in the corner on the leather footstool, by the fireplace. For the occasion, she was allowed one drink and she had gulped it. She felt slightly fuzzy and quite sad. She wanted to think of some way to excuse herself and go phone Mary Drew. For days she had wanted to talk to Mary Drew, but there was no way to do that without explaining everything — all that had happened that afternoon, what Rush had said to her, all of that. And the lie she had told, about the man … Mary Drew would hate her for that. It seemed to Martha that she had lost Mary Drew, that things between them could never go on as they had. How she hated Chillam. How she hated Rush for telling her all the things she had, and herself for her own thoughts immediately after. The world seemed so dirty — Roddy with his sneaky ways, and her mother, her own mother. Last night, on Christmas Eve, she had heard her mother’s footsteps on the way to the Crow’s Nest, after her father was asleep. And an hour later, a good hour later, the same steps sneaking back down the stairs.

She had written about it in her diary:

“Just to think,” Roddy was saying, “that a year ago this time I was over the Atlantic, on my way here. Christmas over the Atlantic. It was a sad time, I’ll tell you.”

“Poor thing,” Helen Kent said.

“And
I
had the Crow’s Nest,” Martha spoke up.

“Aw, Martha, do you miss your room so much?” he asked. He stood by the mantle — tall, lean, handsome, Martha Kent had to admit, with the white-blond hair glistening in the light of the Christmas tree bulbs. “Do you?”

“Wouldn’t
you
miss it? It’s rather like a hide-a-way, I’d say.”

“I used to worry about you when you were in the Crow’s Nest,” William Kent spoke. “It’s too far from your mother and me. If you should cry out in the night or anything, we wouldn’t hear you.”