Evil Friendship (9 page)

“It would have to be very emotional to make it believable.”

“I know,” Mary Drew Edlin said. Then she said,” Sort of this way,” and before she reached out to touch Martha Kent, the other girl came into her arms. They stayed pressed together, their lips fastened on one another for a long moment, which ended suddenly, with a crash heard outside the room.

Instantly, they jumped apart.

“What was that?”

Martha Kent sighed.
“That
was the mice I hear every night.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was mother,” Martha Kent said, “falling upstairs on her way to her lover!” Both girls sighed.

“I think I hate Roddy Sawyer more than anyone on the face of this earth,” Martha Kent said. “I know I do.” She rolled over to her own side of the bed. “I guess we’d better try and sleep, hadn’t we, Druid.”

“I guess we had,” Mary Drew Edlin answered.

Then she turned too, and both girls stayed very still, each one suddenly shy about moving in the bed they shared.

“Goodnight, Druid,” Martha Kent finally said. “Goodnight, Moly.”

And so it was settled. They would sleep.

J
UNE 8, 1956

I am fifteen years of age and live with my parents, Dr. and Mrs. William Arthur Kent. For the past nine months I have been a close friend with Mary Drew Edlin. We met at Chillam School, where we were both day girls. She has often been my overnight guest here, and I have been hers at her parents’ home.

In August my mother planned to take me to America to live. Mary Drew and I decided to do something nice for her mother before I was to leave. Yesterday she telephoned me and asked me if I would like to take her mother on an outing with her to Southwark Park.

Shortly before noon I went to the Edlins’. Everything was pleasant. We had lunch, Mary Drew and I, with her father and mother. After Dr. Edlin went back to the office, Mary Drew and I did the dishes and cleaned up. Then we set off for Southwark Park. The time was then about three-fifteen.

We took the “F” bus at the center of town, arriving at the entrance to the park about three-thirty. We went directly to the tearoom for refreshments. Mrs. Edlin had tea, and Mary Drew and I had soft drinks.

After that we decided to walk down into the valley through the trees toward the brook. We were all walking along together, when suddenly Mrs. Edlin lapsed behind. Mary Drew and I continued walking. Mrs. Edlin seemed to be examining something on the path. Mary Drew and I wanted to walk to the brook. We thought perhaps Mrs. Edlin was resting, and we wanted to go on a little more. We were just out of her sight when she called, “Martha, isn’t this yours
?” I
did not know what she meant. Now I know she was referring to a blue stone I always carried as a good luck piece. She had seen me wear it about my neck on a chain once before, and remarked on it. It had come loose and fallen to the ground, and that was what she had stopped to examine.

I did not realize I had lost anything and I remember shouting back, “What!”

She did not answer. Mary Drew and I asked each other if we should go back and get her, and at one point Mary Drew called, “Mother?”

When there was no answer, we both decided to go back.

As we were walking back in that direction we heard her scream. We ran very fast, but by the time we had reached the spot where she was, she had already been struck down.

We found Mrs. Edlin lying on the ground. Mary Drew became hysterical. There was blood all around Mrs. Edlin’s head. I was shocked. I tried to lift her, and Mary Drew tried to help me. We were not able to move her. There was a great deal of blood, and we were becoming more and more afraid. We then ran up the path to the tearoom for help.

When we got there we told the story between us as to what had happened. We waited there for my father to come and get us. He was summoned by telephone. He brought us home.

I do not remember seeing a red stocking with a knot in it. I did not take any particular notice of an egg-shaped rock.

At no time did I see anyone arrive at or leave the vicinity while we were there. I have no idea who could have done this.

(Signed)

MARTHA KENT

J
ANUARY, 1956

Henry Edlin was putting on his coat in the hallway.

“I’ve not had much luck with novocain on Mrs. Ardley either,” he was saying, “but that wouldn’t bother me if it were an incisor. A bicuspid is another matter altogether.”

His wife had come back from the doorway with the morning mail.

She said, “There’s another one this morning.”

“I remember last year I did crown work on her rear molar. At that time — ”

“Did you hear me, Henry?”

“What? Oh. Another one, you said.”

She held the letter out for him to see. It was addressed to Mary Drew. Martha Kent was the sender.

“I don’t like it one bit, Henry,” Louisa Edlin said. “They see each other every day, talk to each other on the phone every day, stay over with one another on weekends, and now
this I”

“They’ll grow out of it, Louisa.”

“Will they? And what will they
grow
into?”

“If you’re trying to convince me that this Dr. Mannerheim is the answer, I’ll say the same thing I said yesterday and the day before yesterday. A psychiatrist will do more harm than good.” Henry Edlin reached behind him for his hat. “It’s the same in my work. I have a patient now with a youngster who has a slightly imperfect bite. I told her orthodontia would be the last thing I’d recommend at this stage in her development. People are too eager for correctives. There has to be a chance for normal growth processes.”

Louisa Edlin took a piece of folded yellow paper from the pocket of her apron. “Will you
read
this?”

With an impatient sigh, her husband took it from her and looked at it:

He handed it back to his wife, saying nothing.

“That
came yesterday,” she said.

“It’s some sort of make-believe between them, Louisa.”

“It is? And is it make-believe what I heard last Friday evening in Mary Drew’s bedroom?”

“You shouldn’t have spied on them. It isn’t honorable. It isn’t right. Listening outside Mary Drew’s door, and sneaking her mail from her this way.”

“Aren’t you at all concerned, Henry?”

“It’s all some sort of make-believe, Louisa. You know how imaginative Mary Drew is. Apparently, Martha is the same way. After all, this business of Raynor and Gretchen and their garden. There’s none of that real.”

“Last Friday evening they were kissing, Henry! Need it
be
any more plain?”

“They don’t have any
garden,”
Henry Edlin said. “Why can’t you see that it’s all some sort of make-believe!”

He took his newspaper from the table behind him and folded it over to tuck in his overcoat. It embarrassed him somehow when Louisa dwelt on the matter of Mary Drew’s and the Kent girl’s relationship. For himself, he was convinced it was an adolescent stage Mary Drew was passing through, but each time it was mentioned, he could never help recalling how he had refused to believe that there was anything wrong with their first-born, Belinda.

“I’ve raised
one
normal child,” Louisa Edlin said, “and I think I know a little bit about what is a normal growth process and what is
not
a normal growth process.”

Even after all these years, she could never fail to hit her mark when she aimed at a comparison between
her
son and their daughters. Nothing could hurt him more deeply. That didn’t seem to be very obvious to her.

He said, “Do as you please, Louisa. Take her to Dr. Mannerheim, if you like,” glancing at his watch, “I have to operate at nine. Is Mary Drew ready for school?”

“She’s
your
child, Henry. I should think you’d be able to summon up a little more interest in her.”

“She’s our child,” Edlin answered.

His wife said, “Yes,
ours”
and something about her tone insinuated that she had been forced to share with him some wretched disgrace for which
he
was solely responsible.

He turned toward the staircase to call Mary Drew, to tell her he was ready to leave, but not until after he had spoken did he realize he had called out another name. “Belinda?” he had said,” are you ready?”

The two girls always met on the stone steps of the Victoria statue at Chillam before morning bell rang. School had been in session two weeks now, after the Christmas holidays, and first semester final grades were to be posted that morning. Roddy Sawyer had let Martha Kent off early, so that there was at least ten minutes to wait for Mary Drew. Martha sat on the steps writing in another of the copy books that comprised her novel. The name of it was
Only Fools Laugh.
It was a fantasy about a glacier in love with a warm body of water, moving against the elements to reach it. The glacier was named Lord Love-Lost, shortened to “L.L.,” and the body of water, Heart-Robbed, was called “Rob.”

A voice startled Martha Kent.

“Who’s ‘L.L.’?”

It was Rush, bending down to read over her shoulder, the black leather coat she must have gotten for Christmas draped around her like a long cape. They had had nothing to say to one another since vacation had ended, but Martha had seen Rush often, strutting about in the leather coat, with the monogrammed white silk scarf she affected as an ascot tied at her neck. Even indoors, Rush wore this outfit as long as she possibly could, and to complete it, a small black cap that she cocked to one side, with the Chillam insignia sewed to its crown.

Martha closed the copy book. “It’s not any business of yours.”

“Is it a story you’re writing?” Rush came down the steps and stood before Martha Kent in that Napoleon stance of bravado, with her hands behind her back and her shoulders squared.

“I don’t have to tell you.”

“I wish you wanted to,” Rush said.

“I don’t.”

Rush watched her for a moment without saying anything. Martha was putting her copy book with her school books, avoiding her glance. It was a cold winter day, and Martha put on the fur-lined gloves that were in the pocket of her polo coat, tied the yellow wool scarf she was wearing around her long black hair, and looked off in the direction Mary Drew would come.

“Will you leave another note in the library for Mary Drew today?” Rush asked.

“And so you know about that.”

“About everything it’s
possible
to know, where you’re concerned,” Rush said. “I can’t seem to help myself. It makes me feel like an idiot. When my parents brought me back to Chillam, I asked them not to come directly, but to drive down Alden road. I saw your house. I’d looked the number up in the directory. I wanted to see where you lived. There! You see what an ass you’ve made of me, Martha.”

Martha said, “Has Beth Dragmore changed schools?”

The biggest gossip at Chillam, after Beth failed to return from the holidays, was that she’d transferred elsewhere.

“I don’t think I want to discuss Beth,” Rush said. “In fact, I know I don’t.” She brought her hands from behind her back and folded her arms in front of her. “I’m afraid I shocked you right before Christmas. It was a poor thing to do. Will you accept my apologies?”

“Why not?” said Martha Kent.

“Look, Martha, can’t it be any different with us? What I want to tell you is, must we behave so impossibly together? I’m really not a bad sort. There’s so much I’d like to talk with you about. I read a lot. I know you do too. I’m not just a sports fiend, you know. There’s more to me than that.”

“You’re a show-off,” Martha Kent said, “wearing your coat that way, and that cap.”

Rush’s face brightened. “Yes, exactly. You know me. At least that side of me. I like to strut and swagger about, and act like
somebody.
I like to have a style. Yes. But not for the reason
you
think. It’s not to show-off really. It’s to spark. To spark! Do you understand me?”

“I suppose so.”

“You
do,
don’t you?” Rush became more enthusiastic. “Do you know what’s queer — I’ve never said it right out that way to anyone. That’s the way you affect me, Martha. You’re like a short-cut to what’s inside of me.” She went over and sat down beside Martha Kent. “I guess you know how I feel. I’ve got to tell you.”

Martha felt wretchedly uncomfortable and suddenly conspicuous, with Rush so close to her.

She said, “I’m waiting for someone, you know.”

“I know. Mary Drew. But I’m not afraid of her. I’ve seen Mary Drews come and go — hundreds of them.” She placed her long square hand on Martha’s lap. “But I’ve
never
seen a Martha.”

“I wish you wouldn’t, Rush.”

“I can’t help myself, really. You know I want you. Let’s bring it out in the open.”

“Talk like that, behavior like this,” she pushed Rush’s hand away, “makes me nervous.”

“Nervous?” Rush smiled. “Why?”

“Not nervous,” Martha Kent said, irritated, “bored. I’m not like you, Rush! I don’t want to be anything but what I am!”

“I’ve heard people say that before. Plenty of times.” “Well, I mean it!” Martha Kent stood up, and then Rush did.

“This thing you and Mary Drew have,” Evelyn said, “it’s not healthy.”

“You
say that to me? After what you told me?” Martha forced a hollow, mocking laugh. “Oh, no, Rush. You won’t do that again! You won’t try to compare my friendships with yours again! I’m more wise now. I won’t be pulled in by
that!”

“Everyone says the same thing. You and Mary Drew cut off the world.”

“We cut off
Chillam!
We both think Chillam and all the silly people here are fools!”

Rush stared at her hard her hands knotted to fists. “I don’t know why I love you,” she said. “I wish I didn’t. But I do. Remember that today. Remember that I love you, and that I think Mary Drew is bad grapes for you. Not just sour grapes,
bad
grapes.”

“So?” Martha Kent said, looking straight at Rush, her bravado buoyed by the girl’s confession of love. “So?”

Rush said very gently and very seriously, “Just remember, Martha. That’s all.”

She gave a rather wistful salute before she turned and strode down the cement walk in the direction of Old House.

• • •

Mary Drew Edlin was late for school that morning. There had been the fight between her father and mother to delay her start; then the talk her father had given her, putting it off to the very last minute so that they had sat in front of the entrance to Chillam, with the car motor running, while he had mouthed such platitudes as “Mother knows best,” “It can’t hurt,” “Give it a try” and “It’s for your own good.”

So it was settled. As Mary Drew rushed up the walk to classes too tardy for her morning talk with Martha at the Victoria statue, she wondered how she would tell Martha. It would not be enough to say simply that her mother had the preposterous idea there was something neurotic about her and was planning to send her to a psychiatrist. Martha would want to know everything that had been said. And what
had
been said?

Her mother had explained it this way: “Your father and I are worried about you, Mary Drew. It’s not just the things you’ve refused to tell us about yourself and that man, whoever he may be; it’s much more. It’s the way you’re letting Martha devour your time and your thoughts, and your energy really. Young people should have a whole circle of friends, not just one.”

Mary Drew had answered, “You used to complain because I didn’t have any. Now you complain because I have a good friend.”

“It’s too extreme,” her mother had answered. “Far too extreme.”

And Mary Drew’s father?

“I know you and Martha seem to be very much alike. But your mother is afraid you’re missing a lot of opportunities to have other nice friends. She wants you to talk with the doctor.”

“Does she think I’m crazy?” Mary Drew asked.

“Of course not, dear. Mother just thinks you need to have someone in authority advise you. Someone not as partial to you as we are.”

But Mary Drew knew exactly what her parents were worried about. She had read
The Well of Loneliness
last year and thought it perfectly absurd. Just as absurd as Rush and Beth Dragmore were, with one of them acting like a man and the other playing the woman’s role. It was silly and laughable. Even when she and Martha pretended to kiss as their characters would, or wrote to one another as they would, or talked together as they would, neither one played the male, in particular, or the female. And that was only play.

The fact that sometimes — that a great many times — after Martha kissed her Mary Drew felt dizzy and shaken and weak all through had nothing to do with anything like
The Well of Loneliness!
It wasn’t as cheap, or as vulgar, or as adolescent as that.

It was ironical that at the one glorious moment in her life when Mary Drew had found Martha, and found a unique friendship, her mother had chosen to take her nose from Tony’s life, at last, and put it in Mary Drew’s. Just at the point Mary Drew no longer
cared
who her mother loved most and worried over most!

But how
would
she tell Martha?

She was ashamed for Martha to know her mother could dream such an absurd situation could exist. As she went up the steps to the library, where she always spent No.
1
period, she decided she would not tell Martha at all. It was too embarrassing!