Mildred Pierce (10 page)

‘Do you know what a peasant is?’

‘A peasant is a – very ill-bred person.’

‘Sometimes, Veda, I wonder if you have good sense.’

Veda stalked out, and Mildred grimly arranged the tray, wondering why Veda could put her so easily on the defensive, and hurt her so.

Having a drink was a gay ritual in the household, one that had started when Bert made his bathtub gin, and that proceeded on its prescribed course tonight. First he poured two stiff drinks for the children, cluck-clucking loudly at what rummies they were getting to be, and observing that he didn’t know what the younger generation was coming to anyway. Then he poured two light drinks for himself and Mildred, containing perhaps two drops of liquor apiece. Then he put in ice and fizz water, set the drinks on the tray and offered them around. But by a fascinating switcheroo, which Mildred never quite understood, he always contrived to give the children the light drinks, himself and Mildred the others. So adroit was this sleight-of-hand, that the children, in spite of their sharpest watching and concentrating, never got the drinks that were supposedly prepared for them. In the day when all the drinks were exactly the same colour, there was always a delightful doubt about it: Bert said the children
had
got their drinks, and as there was at least a whiff of juniper in all the glasses, they usually decided to agree. Tonight, although the switcheroo went off as smoothly as ever, the colour of the Scotch betrayed him. But on his plea of fatigue, and the need of a stimulant, they agreed to accept the light drinks, so he set one of the stiff ones for Mildred, and took the other himself.

It was a ritual, but after the preliminaries were out of the way, it was enjoyed by each child differently. To Veda, it was an opportunity to stick out her little finger, to quaff elegantly, to play Constance Bennett. She regarded it as an occasion for high-toned conversation, and plied her father with lofty questions about ‘conditions’. He replied seriously, and at some length, for
he regarded such inquiries as signs of high mentality on Veda’s part. He said that while things had been mighty bad for some time, he now saw definite signs of improvement, and believed ‘we’re due to turn the corner pretty soon’.

But to Ray, it was a chance to get drunk, as she called it, and this she did with the utmost enthusiasm. As soon as she got half of her fizz water down, she jumped up and began spinning around in the middle of the floor, laughing at the top of her lungs. Mildred caught her glass when this started, and held it for her, and she spun around until she was dizzy and fell down, in a paroxysm of delight. Something always caught in Mildred’s throat when this wild dance began. She felt, in some vague way, that she ought to stop it, but the child was so delightful that she never could make herself do it. So now she watched, with the tears starting out of her eyes, for the moment forgetting the Scotch. But Veda, no longer the centre of the stage, said: ‘Personally, I think it’s a disgusting exhibition.’

Ray now went into the next phase of the ritual. This was a sing-song recitation her father had taught her, and went as follows:

I went to the animals’ fair
,

The birds and the beasts were there
,

The old baboon

By the light of the moon

Was combing his auburn hair;

The monkey he got drunk
,

And fell on the elephant’s trunk
,

The elephant sneezed

And fell on his knees—

And what became of the monkety-monk
?

However, as Ray recited it, there were certain changes. ‘Beasts’ was a little beyond her, so the line became ‘the birds and the bees’. ‘Auburn’ was a little difficult too, so the old baboon acquired a coat of ‘old brown hair’. The ‘monkety-monk’ was such a tempting mouthful that he became the ‘monkety-monkety-monkety-monkety-
monk
,’ a truly fabulous beast. While she was reciting, her father contrived to slip off his belt and stuff the
buckle down the back of his neck, so that suddenly, when he pulled the free end over his head and began trumpeting on all fours, he was a sufficiently plausible elephant for any animals’ fair. Ray began circling around, coming nearer and nearer with her recitation. When she was almost on him, and had tweaked his trunk two or three times, he gave a series of mighty sneezes, so that they completely prostrated him. When he opened his eyes Ray was nowhere to be seen. He now went into a perfect dither of anxiety over what had happened to her, put his head in the fireplace and called loudly up the chimney: ‘Monkety, monkety, monk.’

‘Have you looked in the closet?’

‘Mildred, I bet that’s just where she is.’

He opened the closet, put his head in, and called: ‘Hey.’ Mildred suggested the hallway, and he looked out there. Indeed, he looked everywhere, becoming more alarmed every minute. Presently, in a dreadful tone, he said: ‘Mildred, you don’t suppose that monk was completely
atomised
, do you?’

‘I’ve heard of things like that happening.’

‘That would be terrible.’

Veda picked up her glass, stuck out her little finger, took a fastidious sip. ‘Well, Father, I don’t really see why you should get so upset about it. It seems to me anybody could see she’s right behind the sofa.’

‘For that, you can go to bed.’

Mildred’s eyes blazed as she spoke, and Veda got up very quickly. But Bert paid no attention. He draped the belt over his head again, got down on his hands and knees, said ‘woof-woof’, and charged around the sofa with the cut-out open. He grabbed the ecstatically squealing Ray in his arms, said it was time they both went to bed, and how would they like Daddy to tuck them in? As he raised the child high in the air, Mildred had to turn her head, for it seemed to her that she loved Bert more than she could love any man, so that her heart was a great stifling pain.

But when he came back from the tucking in, put the belt on his trousers again, and poured himself another drink, she was thinking sullenly about the car. It didn’t occur to her that he was
the half-dozenth person she had been furious at that day, and that all of them, in one way or another, were but the faces worn by her own desperate situation. She was a little too literal-minded for such analysis: to her it was a simple matter of justice. She was working, he wasn’t. He wasn’t entitled to something that would make things so much easier for her, and that he could get along well enough without. He asked her again how she had been, and she said just fine, but all the time her choler was gaining pressure, and she knew that before long it would have to come out.

The bell rang, and she answered. But when Wally gave her a friendly pat on the bottom she quickly whispered: ‘Bert’s here.’ His face froze for a moment, but then he picked up his cue with surprising convincingness. In a voice that would be heard all over the house, he bellowed: ‘Why, Mildred! Say, I haven’t seen you in a coon’s age! Gee, you’re looking great! Say, is Bert in?’

‘He’s right in here.’

‘I’ll only be a minute, but I got to see him.’

If Wally elected to believe Bert still lived here, Bert evidently preferred to follow suit. He shook hands with a fine show of hospitality, offered a drink as though the liquor was his own, and asked how was every little thing quite as though nothing had happened. Wally said he had been trying to see him for a couple of months now, over something that had come up, and so help him God, this was the first chance he had had. Bert said don’t tell him, he simply didn’t know what made the time fly. Wally said it was those three houses in Block 14, and what he wanted to know was, had any verbal promise been made at the time of the sale that the corporation would put a retaining wall in the rear? Bert said absolutely not, and launched into details as to how the lots were sold. Wally said it had all sounded pretty funny to him, but he wanted to make sure.

Mildred half listened, no longer in any humour for Wally, her mind on the car, and thinking only how she would begin. But then a perfectly hellish idea entered her mind, and she no sooner thought of it than she acted on it. ‘My but it’s hot in here! Aren’t you boys uncomfortable in those coats? Don’t you want to take them off?’

‘I think she said something, hey, Bert?’

‘I’ll say she did.’

‘Don’t get up. I’ll take them.’

They took off their coats, and she draped them over her arm, and stepped into the closet to put them on hangers. When she had them nicely hung up, she slipped her fingers into Bert’s change pocket, and there, as she knew it would be, was the key to the car. She took it out, slipped it into her shoe. When she came out of the closet she picked up her drink, which she had barely touched. ‘I think
I’ll
get tight.’

‘’Atta girl!’

‘Lemme freshen it for you.’

Bert put fresh ice in her glass, and a little more liquor, and a squirt of seltzer, and she took two or three quick swallows. She tinkled her ice, told the story of Harry Engel and the anchors, which amused the two gentlemen greatly. When she finished, she felt the key tickling her instep, and let out the first ripple of real laughter that had come out of her in months. She had a charming laugh, a little like Ray’s, and it startled the two men, too, so for a time they laughed with her, as though there had never been a Depression, a break-up of the marriage, or a sour feeling over who got the job with the receiver.

But Wally, evidently a little nervous, and more than a little uncertain about his status, decided presently that he had to leave. Bert took him ceremoniously to the door, but he discovered that he had forgotten his coat, and this gave him a chance to dash back for a quick word with Mildred. ‘Hey, is he back? I mean, is he living here?’

‘Just saying hello.’

‘Then I’ll be seeing you.’

‘I certainly hope so.’

When Bert came back he resumed his seat, took a meditative sip out of his glass, and said: ‘Looked like he hadn’t heard anything. About us, I mean. I figured there was no need to tell him.’

‘You did exactly right.’

‘What he don’t know won’t hurt him.’

‘Certainly not.’

The bottle was getting low now, but he poured himself another
drink, and got around to what he had come for. ‘Before I go, Mildred, remind me to get a couple things out the desk. Nothing important, but might as well take them along.’

‘Can I find them for you?’

‘My insurance policy.’

His voice was a little ugly, as though he expected an argument. The policy was for 1,000 dollars, paid-up value 256 dollars, and he had never taken out more because he didn’t believe in insurance as an investment, preferring A. T. & T. There had been wrangles about it, Mildred insisting that if anything happened to him ‘it’s the one thing between the children and the poorhouse’. Yet she knew it was the next item for sacrifice, and obviously he was bracing himself for opposition. But she gladly got it for him, and he said: ‘Thanks, Mildred.’ Then, apparently relieved at the easy way he got it, he said: ‘Well, goddam it, how you been, anyway?’

‘Just fine.’

‘Let’s have another drink.’

They had the last two in the bottle, and then he said he had to go. Mildred got his coat, and took him to the door, and submitted to a teary kiss, and he went. Quickly she turned out the lights, went to the bedroom, and waited. Sure enough, in a few minutes the bell rang. She opened, and he was standing there, looking a little foolish. ‘Sorry to bother you, Mildred, but my car key must have fallen out of my pocket. You mind my looking?’

‘Why, not at all.’

He went back to the den, snapped on the light, and looked all over the floor where he had been playing with Ray. She watched him with pleased, slightly boozy interest. Presently she said: ‘Well, come to think of it, perhaps I took that key.’

‘
You
took it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, gimme it. I got to go home. I . . .’

She stood smiling as the dreadful truth dawned on him, and has face sagged numbly. Then she stepped quickly aside as he pawed at her. ‘I’m not going to give it to you, and there’s no use in your trying go take it from me, because I’ve got it in a place
where I don’t think you’ll find it. From now on, that car’s mine. I’m working, and I need it, and you’re not, and you don’t need it. And if you think I’m going to pound around on my feet, and ride buses, and lose all that time, and be a sap, while you lay up with another woman and don’t even use the car, you’re mistaken, that’s all.’

‘You say you’re working?’

‘Yes, I am.’

‘Then OK. Why didn’t you say so sooner?’

‘Would you like me to ride you back?’

‘’Preciate that very much.’

‘You staying with Maggie?’

‘Prefer not to say where I’m staying. I’m staying where I’m staying. But if you drop me by Maggie’s, it’s all right. Got to see her for a minute, so you can drop me there – if it’s convenient for you.’

‘Anywhere’s convenient for me.’

They went out together, and got in the car. Fishing the key out of her shoe they started off, and rode silently to Mrs Biederhof’s where she said she was awfully glad he dropped around, and wanted him to feel welcome any time, not only for the children’s sake but for her sake. He solemnly thanked her, said he had enjoyed the evening, and opened the door to get out. Then he grabbed for the key. However, she had foreseen exactly that contingency, and palmed the key as soon as she turned on the ignition. She laughed, quite gaily malicious. ‘Didn’t work, did it?’