Edith’s Diary (14 page)

Carstairs smiled. ‘Indeed! How are you, Mrs Cobb?’

‘Pretty well, I think, thank you,’ Melanie said. ‘I don’t want to delay you, but I’m leaving tomorrow, and I wanted to ask you what you think of George’s condition – now?’

‘Well —’ Carstairs smiled again. He had declined a chair. ‘He hasn’t changed appreciably in years. It’s just a slow decline.’

‘And his back hurts him still?’ asked Melanie.

‘That’s what gives him pain – if he moves too much.’

‘And there’s no new drug, no massage, I suppose, at this point —’

‘He’s eighty-five or -six,’ Carstairs said. He had black and white straight hair, rather like Brett’s, gray eyes, rimless, delicate-looking glasses. ‘You don’t get many changes, at his age.’

Melanie glanced at Edith, then looked back at the doctor. ‘What do you think about a nursing home? I’m sorry you haven’t time to sit down, doctor, but – It’s that my niece has enough to do, running the house on her own now, and she’s thinking of taking a part-time job. George after all could afford a nursing home.’

Dr Carstairs looked evasive, as if he were thinking of his next appointment, trying to fish up a placebo, and it came. ‘That’s always a personal matter – within the family.’ He looked at Edith, his lips slightly parted as usual, though not in a smile. ‘It’s not for me to prescribe a home.’

Standing by the bar cart, Cliffie listened, rapt.

‘Yes, it’s for us to sound him out,’ said Melanie. ‘He might be quite willing.’

Inspired by Melanie’s directness, Edith said, ‘He wet the bed a couple of times recently. I really must buy a rubber sheet. Absurd that we haven’t bought one yet. He’s quite cognisant of what he does but – I admit it’s a pain in the neck when it happens.’ And Edith laughed, having tried to say it as lightly as possible, the awful, the plain fact that she was fed up. Ten, eleven or twelve
years
now.

‘Maybe what you’re concerned about is whether he’d go into a decline if he went into a nursing home,’ said Dr Carstairs. ‘I’m afraid I’m not capable of answering that. It’s a personality matter. You’d have to ask George direct, see what he says.’

‘He certainly spends most of his time sleeping,’ Melanie said. ‘How much codeine are you giving him? Would you call it a heavy dose?’

‘Medium,’ the doctor replied. ‘Liquid form. Injections of morphine just once a month to give him a little more comfort, a little blissful sleep if you like.’

‘That’s right,’ Edith said to Melanie. ‘He probably won’t wake up for dinner tonight.’

‘Good!’ said Cliffie.

The doctor glanced at Cliffie with no change of expression. He knew Cliffie. ‘He’s a grand old fellow, but his days are drawing to a close. Lots of cases like this. One has to try to make the last years as comfortable as possible.’ He was drifting toward the front door. ‘See you next month, Mrs Howland. Oh! Not quite true. My assistant will come instead. I’m off on vacation. You know Dr Miller. He’ll come. Good afternoon to you!’ Dr Carstairs let himself out.

Melanie sat down on the sofa again, her back as straight as ever. ‘You know, my dear – George is just one thing too many for you right now.’

Edith looked at Cliffie, who was still standing by the bar cart listening with a blank yet attentive expression. Cliffie didn’t even return George’s books to the library, unless Edith prodded him to take away the stack on the hall table, and even then he’d failed her once or twice, leaving the books in his Volks, which Edith only learned when Mrs Randall, the librarian, had spoken to her about their being overdue. ‘Cliffie, would you mind terribly – letting Melanie and me talk alone for a while?’

‘No,’ Cliffie said, moving off at once toward the kitchen.

Edith heard the inevitable plop of the fridge door, the pop of a beer can, then Cliffie’s transistor blared out. The sounds of chaos, Edith thought. Melanie looked at her strangely. Was Melanie thinking
she
was strange?

‘I think you ought to sound George out about a nursing home, Edith. I’d do it with you except – perhaps he’d think it was my idea, since I’m here.’ Melanie smiled, then just as quickly her blue eyes became serious. ‘There’s a tenseness about you I don’t like to see. The easier you make things for yourself – And if I may say so, George is Brett’s responsibility.’

‘True enough.’ But Edith couldn’t face or listen to any more, and she got up with the excuse that it was exactly news time, and switched on the television. The Arabs and Israelis were fighting. The noon news, which Edith had heard while making lunch, said that the Israelis were hitting Arab air bases with a startling accuracy. Melanie listened to the brief report, but not with the same interest as Edith. Edith knew Melanie’s mind was more than half on her problems. The war news was followed by a beauty contest report from Florida, and Edith switched off.

‘I’d like you to ring up Brett now, Edith – for your old aunt’s sake. Do you mind doing me that favor?’

‘Now?’

‘Yes, and now he’s on the way home or it’s the cocktail hour, I suppose, and you’re afraid of interrupting. I’ll go straight up to my room so I won’t hear a word. I’ll close my door.’

Edith took a breath, looked at the carpet and at once looked up at her great-aunt’s tall figure. Melanie’s blue eyes regarded Edith like the eyes of a mother-father figure – or maybe God. Could Melanie even be
right?
‘I haven’t any hope.’

‘Tell him that you love him, that’s all, because you told me that’s true. Is there any harm in that?’

‘No,’ Edith replied, because Melanie’s tone expected an answer. After all, Melanie had been married too, and for a long time, and Edith even remembered a story of some scandal which had happened when she, Edith, might have been five years old. Great-uncle Randolph had run off with another woman. Hadn’t that been it? And he had come back, perhaps because Melanie had known how to handle the situation. ‘All right.’

‘You’ve got the number?’

‘Not by heart. I’ve got it somewhere.’ It was on a pad by the hall telephone, written by Brett. Edith hoped that they’d both be out, that the telephone wouldn’t answer.

‘Do it, my dear.’ Melanie went into the hall and climbed the stairs.

Edith looked for the number and dialed it.

Brett answered on the fourth ring.

‘Hello, it’s Edith. How are you?’

‘All right, thanks. And you?’ His voice sounded the same as always, a little tense, and rather young.

‘All right too. Aunt Mel’nie’s here. But she just went up to her room, so I won’t call her.’

‘Well – give her my love. What did you want to say? – Anything the matter? Cliffie?’

‘No, he’s all right. I —’ Edith had to swallow to make sure she could talk, and she sat forward, a bit straight, as she had used to do in classrooms when she was frightened by an exam. ‘I wanted to say I love you.’

‘I know you do,’ said Brett in his most earnest tone. ‘I love you too. But this is different. – Don’t you see? I – I’m not torn between two things. This is different. I mean that, Edith. I still love you too, and I’m not going to let you down. Or even Cliffie down. If you need anything —’

‘Yes, I know.’ Edith tried to take comfort from the familiar firmness of his voice.

‘Still there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Cliffie all right?’

‘The same.’

‘Nelson?’

‘He’s fine. Well —’

Edith couldn’t even remember the last exchanges, once she had hung up. She felt worse, and disliked herself for having telephoned. It wasn’t a matter of pride, but what had she accomplished? Her only consolation was that she had obeyed Melanie’s wishes.

Four months later, in October, Melanie suffered a stroke. Edith’s mother informed her by a telegram which said that her aunt was in a Wilmington hospital. Edith thought it might be the end. She telephoned her mother, who told her that Melanie was not in a coma, and that the doctors had some hope that she would pull through and without paralysis.

‘What’s the latest about you and Brett?’ Her mother’s accent sounded very southern on the telephone. ‘You haven’t written in more’n a month, Edie, and even then you didn’t —’

‘Nothing’s changed. Didn’t I tell you he wants a divorce? I signed the papers for it last week.’

‘Oh! Edie!’ Her mother seemed astonished, shocked – as if Edith hadn’t prepared her for this for the past eight months, even a year. ‘Are you doing all right? Can you manage?’

‘Of course! I’ve been managing. – Mother, would you telephone me if there’s any change in Melanie?’

Her mother promised that she would. She asked about Cliffie. Her mother had liked him, doted on him when Cliffie had been small, then her affection had cooled, Edith felt. Her mother seemed to center all her love on Edith’s father and their house there, and their garden. Edith knew her mother was reluctant to use the telephone (maybe because of slight deafness), and would prefer to send another telegram if anything happened to Melanie.

Cliffie noticed Edith’s tension and asked, ‘Something the matter, Mom?’

This was when Edith had known about Melanie’s condition for two days. Edith knew Cliffie simply wouldn’t care much, and an unconcerned remark from him would have made Edith furious, so she hadn’t mentioned Melanie. Cliffie was sensitive to moods, but never to the reality that had caused the moods.

‘Just that I failed to get some advertising in Flemington today which would’ve been useful for the
Bugle
.’
That was true. Edith had spent more than three hours driving, waiting, then talking to the manager of a department store, but the store preferred to stick with the local paper plus their throw-away system.

‘George okay?’ Cliffie asked with a nervous glance at his mother. They were then having dinner.

‘He’s all right. Why not?’

Cliffie took a forkful of baked beans. ‘When is he going into this nursing home?’

‘What nursing home?’ Edith waited.

‘I thought you were talking about it – you and Aunt Melanie.’

Edith said calmly, ‘I don’t think George has said anything about it.’ She suddenly had a recollection of the beige, two-story building on a hill about twelve miles from Brunswick Corner – resident apartments or some such euphemistic appellation it had, plus a real name like Sunset Lodge. Old people had apartments of their own, even with kitchens, and nurses were on hand. Gert had pointed it out to Edith years ago, when they had been driving past. Edith wondered if she should sound it out.

Cliffie soon drifted to the living room for television, Edith did the dishes, and when she was finished, Cliffie had left the house. Cliffie couldn’t be upstairs with George, could he? She went into the hall to hear, if she could, any murmur of voices. Sometimes Cliffie went up to see George, or to look at him, because George was so often asleep. But Edith sensed that Cliffie was not in the house. She was quite good at sensing that (had never been wrong that she could recall), so she decided to do some
Bugle
work, type a couple of reminder letters about subscriptions, then go to bed with a book.

The next morning shortly after 8, the telephone rang, and it was Melanie herself.

‘I’m phoning from the hospital, but I’m going home in two days. Isn’t that nice?’ Melanie said.

Edith had been awaiting a word from her mother, had been afraid to ring the hospital. She felt she had received a charge of energy herself. ‘I can’t believe it! I’m so glad, Aunt Mel’nie! I was
worried
!’

Melanie chuckled. ‘I think I was too! Can’t talk long, m’dear, doctor’s orders.’

When they hung up, Edith was smiling a broad smile, for the first time in days, she realized. Good old Melanie! How nice to have a great-aunt you could say to ‘I was
worried
!’
as if she were a contemporary and a pal!

Edith rang up Gert to tell her the good news, because only yesterday Edith had told Gert that she was quite braced for her great-aunt’s demise. Edith breezed through her chores that morning, changed her bed and Cliffie’s, and took the sheets to the launderette to be collected in the afternoon, then stopped at Stan’s for cough syrup for George, because his bottle had run out. She thought of changing George’s bed, but she deliberately changed his bed, usually, on a different day so she wouldn’t have so many beds to do the same day. She’d best stick to that. Since she was feeling strong and optimistic, however, she thought she might approach George on the subject of rest homes.

It was around 11:30 when she went up to George’s room, and she thought of telling him the good news about Melanie, then realized that George did not know Melanie had been ill. She knocked on the partly open door, and called, ‘George?’

Thank goodness, he wasn’t sound asleep, and he moved his head on the pillow, looking toward the door. ‘Edith.’

‘George, I —’ Edith pulled a straight chair nearer his bed and sat down. She made sure he was reasonably alert before she went on. ‘George, I’m wondering if you wouldn’t be more comfortable in a place near here that has
residential apartments
.
You’d have your own things around you, a nurse day and night when you push a button. Just twelve miles from here!’

George was watching her with a pink, fearful expression. Edith wished she had visited the place before talking with him.

‘To go off somewhere?’ George asked. ‘Who?’

‘I was talking about
residents’ apartments
,’
Edith began again somewhat louder. She was glad Cliffie had gone out. ‘There’s a place near here. Where you’d be more
comfortable
than here! Better service.
Other people to talk to
!’

George shook his head. ‘Don’t need other people!’ He panted slightly. ‘Me?’

Edith had taken a breath, but she released the breath, wordless. She tried again. ‘But
I
do!’ Now it was like a battle. And was she going to yield? ‘I’m busy enough, George. If
you
wouldn’t mind – If you could
think
about it —’

The front door slammed shut. Cliffie had returned. Edith got up and closed George’s door, and returned to the chair.

‘If you wouldn’t mind too much, George – just for a
couple of months
– try it. Then you could come back here if you didn’t like it.’ Why hadn’t she thought of this before?

‘Don’t want to go anywhere.’

‘I’m
tired
!’
Tired of the goddam trays, library books, bedpans, which she’d had to bring to him several times in the last weeks when he’d shouted for her. ‘A
vacation
from each
other
for a while —’ She’d go to the residential apartments place and get some information, a brochure to show him. Edith stood up, frustrated, aching, miserable.

George’s brown, shiny, pink-rimmed eyes gazed at her with sadness and mistrust.

‘I’ll be going, George!’ she shouted. ‘Do you need anything now? – Lunch coming soon.’ Edith went out.

Cliffie was standing in the hall, leaning against the balustrade. ‘What was all
that
?’
he asked with interest.

Edith was sure he knew what it was.

Cliffie was smiling.

Edith continued down the stairs, suddenly exhausted. She’d go to the damned home after lunch, she vowed to herself.

‘Is he leaving?’ Cliffie asked, following her.

‘Not sure. Maybe,’ Edith replied as matter of factly as she could. ‘Are you in for lunch, by the way?’

‘Oh – I dunno. It’s not even twelve yet.’

Edith detested his vagueness.

‘Be great if he’d leave. It’d give you an extra room.’

‘I thought you wanted that room.’ Edith spoke just to be saying something, but it was true.

‘
I
don’t want it! After
he’s
been there so long? – Oh, well, if we got new furniture, changed it around, maybe painted the room —’

Edith would have liked a scotch before lunch, but didn’t take one, because Cliffie certainly would have joined her or made a remark, because Edith almost never drank anything at noon. She decided to have a sandwich and a glass of milk and start out right away for the Sunset Lodge or whatever it was.

Cliffie hung about the kitchen, sipping from a can of beer. ‘Do you think he’ll leave?’

‘Cliffie,
I
don’t know. It’s for him to decide.’

‘Ha! What can that old vegetable decide?’

Edith managed to ignore it.

Just after 1 (Cliffie had gone off earlier without lunch), Edith drove to the residential apartments, which she couldn’t find and had to inquire for at a gas station. She had overshot. It was called Sunset Pines, she was told. It was low and beige as she remembered it, nestled behind a green hill. Edith drove slowly toward it, alert for anything that looked like an entrance. She found it.

The hall floor was of black linoleum with a few oriental rugs here and there. There was a smell of carrots or carrot soup (nicer than medicine anyway), potted plants, a switchboard at which sat a nurse in blue and white. Edith said she wanted to inquire about accommodation for a male resident. The nurse summoned a younger nurse who was able to show Edith a typical room, the nurse told her, this one with bath, though not all the rooms had private baths. In the hall, some old people walked about, others propelled themselves in wheelchairs. The room was square, quite adequate and cheerful, Edith thought. The Sunset Pines was U-shaped. A ramp led down to a sunparlor at one end of the U, with a television set that several guests were watching. The other end of the U was a dining hall. ‘For our guests who are ambulant,’ said the nurse. ‘Of course we serve trays, if people can’t get up.’ The price was two hundred dollars a week for a room with bath and full meals and monthly check-up, but did not include medicines and drugs, and a room without bath was a hundred and eighty per week. ‘Of course the pension for Senior Citizens and Medicare take care of much of the expenses.’

Edith was a little stunned by the price, but after all George had it, and as Brett had said a few times, he couldn’t take it with him. Edith thanked the nurse, said she would be in touch, and departed with a handful of brochures and a couple of postcards with color photographs of exterior and interior views of Sunset Pines, which looked quite attractive, though devoid of guests, even of nurses.

Since it was nearly 4 when she got home, Edith made tea for herself and George, and took the brochures up with the tray. George was asleep, and she had first to put the tray on a chair and remove from the bed his lunch tray, which she set on the hall floor. George had to creep to the bathroom as soon as he awakened. He used his cane.
Tap-tap
.
When he came back and had settled himself in bed, Edith poured his tea.

‘I went to the
apartment
place today,’ Edith shouted freely, because Cliffie was still out. ‘Brought you some pictures of it.’ She showed him the postcards first, then the brochure which was printed on pale green paper.

‘Where is this?’ George asked, drooling a bit.

‘Oh, not far! Just twelve miles away.’

Propped on one elbow, George looked through it all. ‘Don’t like places like this,’ he remarked. ‘Like hospitals!’

Edith glanced at his worn slippers, flattened at the heels because he never put them quite on, and at a crumpled handkerchief on the floor which contained God knew what but was her job to pick up.

‘Expensive too,’ George added.

You must be a Christian
,
Edith told herself, but since this didn’t always work and wasn’t even always to be advised, she thought with equal swiftness that she’d better hang onto the initiative she had, so she plunged ahead and said, ‘Well, George, as I told you today, I have
enough
to do running this house – without Brett, you know – and I’m going to take a part-time job! I thought I could make it without but —’ Another deep breath and she went on, regardless of how much George could hear. ‘There’s a shop willing to take me on afternoons now, which is
something
,
considering the summer’s the most profitable for the shops here, and summer’s over. The point is, George, you’ve got the money to take care of
yourself
!’
After this, Edith felt exhausted.

George let his elbow collapse, and fell back upon his pillow with his aristocratic nose pointed toward the ceiling.

God damn it, Edith said to herself, she’d call up Brett tonight. She stood up. ‘Will you consider it, George?’

‘Don’t want to go anywhere. No, I don’t.’

Edith, feeling she had the patience of Job, gathered what she could of the clutter of dirty glasses and cups and teaspoons, a handkerchief, a napkin, and descended with the tray. Thank God, he hadn’t wet the bed; one had to be thankful for small things. She thought a letter to Brett might be more forceful than a phone call.

When she had brought down the second tray and washed up she went to her workroom and began the letter. She told Brett about visiting Sunset Pines and her failure to interest George in going there.

Edith felt a small admiration for her understatement. That day was Wednesday. The letter would go off tomorrow and Brett would have it by Friday.