Mildred Pierce (40 page)

‘No, I haven’t forgotten it.’

Wally’s chair rasped as he stood to face her, where she was already standing, a few feet back from the big round table. ‘I haven’t forgotten it, and you’re quite right, nobody here can take one dime of your money, or your personal property, or Veda’s, to satisfy the claims they got, makes no difference how reasonable the claims may be. They can’t touch a thing, it’s all yours and a yard wide. All they can do is go to court, have you declared a bankrupt, and take over. The court will appoint receivers, and the receivers will run it. You’ll be out.’

‘All right, then I’ll be out.’

‘You’ll be out, and Ida’ll be in.’

‘. . .
Who
?’

‘You didn’t know that, did you?’

‘That’s a lie. She wouldn’t—’

‘Oh yes she would. Ida, she cried, and said at first she wouldn’t even listen to such a thing, she was such a good friend of yours. But she couldn’t get to you, all last week, for a little talk. You were too busy with the concert. Maybe that hurt her a little. Anyway, now she’ll listen to reason, and we figure she can run this business as good as anybody can run it. Not as good as you, maybe, when you’ve got your mind on it. But better than a stage struck dame that would rather go to concerts than work, and rather spend the money on her child than pay her creditors.’

At the revelation about Ida, tears had started to Mildred’s eyes, and she turned her back while Wally went on, in a cold, flat voice: ‘Mildred, you might as well get it through your head you got to do three things. You got to cut down on your overhead, so you can live on what you make. You got to raise some money, from Veda, from the Pierce Drive property, from somewhere, so you can square up these bills and start over. And you got to cut out this running around and get down to work. Now, as I said before, there’s no hard feelings. We all wish you well. Just the same, we mean to get our money. Now you show us some action by a week from tonight, and you can forget it, what’s been said. You don’t, and maybe we’ll have to take a little action ourselves.’

It was around eleven when she drove up to the house, but she tapped Tommy on the shoulder and stopped him when she saw the first floor brightly lit, with five or six cars standing outside. She was on the verge of hysteria, and she couldn’t face Monty, and eight or ten polo players, and their wives. She told Tommy to call Mr Beragon aside, and tell him she had been detained on business, and wouldn’t be in until quite late. Then she moved forward, took the wheel, and drove out again into Orange Grove Avenue. It was almost automatic with her to turn left at the traffic circle, continue over the bridge, and level off for Glendale and Bert. There was no light at Mom’s but she knew he was home, because the car was in the garage, and he was the only one who drove it now. At her soft tap he opened a window, and told her he would be right out. At the sight of her face, he stood for a moment in his familiar, battered red bathrobe, patted her hand, and said goddam it this was no place to talk. Mom would
be hollering, wanting to know what was going on, and Pop would be hollering, trying to tell her, and it just wouldn’t work. He asked Mildred to wait until he got his clothes on, and for a few minutes she sat in the car, feeling a little comforted. When he came out, he asked if she’d like him to drive, and she gladly moved over while he pulled away from the kerb in the easy, grand style that nobody else quite seemed to have. He said it sure was one swell car, specially the way it held the road. She hooked her arm through his.

‘Veda has to kick in.’

They had driven to San Fernando, to Van Nuys, to Beverly, to the ocean, and were now in a little all-night cocktail bar in Santa Monica. Mildred, breaking into tears, had told the whole story, or at least the whole story beginning with Veda’s return home. The singular connection that Monty had with it, and particularly the unusual circumstances of her marriage, she conveniently left out, or perhaps she had already forgotten them. But as to recent events she was flagitiously frank, and even told about the two 2,500-dollar cheques, as yet undiscovered by Miss Jaeckel. At Bert’s whistle there was a half-hour interlude, while he went into all details of this transaction, and she spoke in frightened whispers, yet gained a queer spiritual relief, as though she were speaking through the lattice of a confessional. And there was a long, happy silence after Bert said that so far as he could see, there had been no actual violation of the law. Then solemnly he added: ‘Not saying it wasn’t pretty damn foolish.’

‘I
know
it was foolish.’

‘Well then—’

‘You don’t have to
nag
me.’

She lifted his hand and kissed it, and then they were back to the corporation and its general problem. It could only be solved, he had insisted, through Veda. Now, on his second highball, he was even more of that opinion. ‘She’s the one that’s costing you money, and she’s the one that’s making money. She’s got to pay her share.’

‘I never wanted her to know.’

‘I never wanted her to know, either, but she found out just
the same, when I hit the deck. If she’d had a little dough when Pierce Homes began to wobble, and I’d taken it, and Pierce Homes was ours right now, she’d be better off, wouldn’t she?’

Mildred pressed Bert’s hand, and sipped her rye, then she held his hand tight, and listened to the radio for a minute or two, as it began moaning low. She hadn’t realised until then that Bert had been through all this himself, that she wasn’t the only one who had suffered. Bert, in a low voice that didn’t interfere with the radio, leaned forward and said: ‘And who the hell put that girl where she is today? Who paid for all that music?
And
that piano?
And
that car?
And
those clothes? And—’

‘You did your share.’

‘Mighty little.’

‘You did a lot.’ Intermingling of Pierce Homes, Inc., with Mildred Pierce, Inc., plus a little intermingling of rye and seltzer, had brought Bert nearer to her than he had ever been before, and she was determined that justice must be done him. ‘You did plenty. Oh, we lived very well before the Depression, Bert, as well as any family ever lived in this country, or any other. And a long time. Veda was eleven years when we broke up, and she’s only twenty now. I’ve carried on nine years, but it was eleven for you.’

‘Eleven years and eight months.’

Bert winked, and Mildred quickly clutched his hand to her cheek. ‘All right, eleven years and eight months, if you’ve got to bring that up. And I’m
glad
it was only eight months, how do you like that? Any boob can have a child nine months after she gets married. But when it was only eight, that proves I loved you, doesn’t it?’

‘Me, too, Mildred.’

Mildred covered his hand with kisses, and for a time they said nothing, and let the radio moan. Then Bert said: ‘You want me to talk to that girl?’

‘I can’t ask her for money, Bert.’

‘Then I’ll do it. I’ll drop over there this afternoon, and bring it up friendly, and let her know what she’s got to do. It’s just ridiculous that you should have your back to the wall, and she be living off you, and rolling in dough.’

‘No, no. I’ll mortgage the house. In Glendale.’

‘And what good will that do you? You raise five grand on it, you square up for a few weeks, and then you’re right back where you started. She’s got to kick in, and keep on kicking.’

They ran up the beach to Sunset Boulevard and rode homeward in silence. Then unexpectedly Bert pulled over, stopped, and looked at her. ‘Mildred, you’ve got to do it yourself.’

‘. . . Why?’

‘Because you’ve got to do it tonight.’

‘I can’t, it’s late, she’ll be asleep—’

‘I can’t help how late it is, or whether she’s asleep, or she’s not asleep. You’ve got to see her. Because you forgot, and I forgot, and we both forgot who we’re dealing with. Mildred, you can’t trust Wally Burgan, not even till the sun comes up. He’s a cheap, chiselling little crook, we know that. He was my pal, and he crossed me, and he was your pal, and he crossed you. But listen, Mildred: he was Veda’s pal too. Maybe he’s getting ready to cross
her
. Maybe he’s getting ready to grab her dough—’

‘He can’t, not for corporate debts—’

‘
How do you know
?’

‘Why, he—’

‘That’s it, he told you. Wally Burgan told you. You believe everything he says? You believe
anything
he says? Maybe that meeting tonight was just a phony. Maybe he’s getting ready to compel you to take over Veda’s money, as her guardian, so he can attach it. She’s still a minor, remember. Maybe you, I, and Veda will all have papers slapped on us today. Mildred, you’re seeing her tonight. And you’re getting her out of that house, so no process server can find you. You’re meeting me at the Brown Derby in Hollywood for breakfast, and by that time,
I’ll
be busy. There’ll be four of us at that table, and the other one will be a lawyer.’

Conspiratorial excitement carried Mildred to Veda’s room, where necessity might never have driven her there. It was after three when she came up the drive, and the house was dark, except for the hall light downstairs. She put the car away, walked on the grass to keep from making a noise, and let herself in the front
door. Putting the light out, she felt her way upstairs, carefully staying on the carpeting, so her shoes would make no clatter. She tiptoed along the hall to Veda’s room and tapped on the door. There was no answer. She tapped again, using the tips of her fingers, to make only the softest sound. Still there was no answer. She turned the knob and went in. Not touching any light switch, she tiptoed to the bed, and bent down to touch Veda, and speak to her, so she wouldn’t be startled. Veda wasn’t there. Quickly she snapped on the bed light, looked around. Nobody was in the room, and it hadn’t been slept in. She went to the dressing-room, to the bathroom, spoke softly. She opened a closet. Veda’s things were there, even the dress she had put on tonight, before Mildred went to Laguna. Now puzzled and a little alarmed, Mildred went to her own room, on the chance Veda had gone there to wait for her, and fallen asleep, or something. There was no sign of Veda. Mildred went to Monty’s room, and rapped. Her tempo was quickening now, and it was no finger rap this time. It was a sharp knuckle rap. There was no answer. She rapped again, insistently. Monty, when he spoke, sounded sleepy, and quite disagreeable. Mildred said it was she, to let her in, she had to see him. He said what about, and why didn’t she go to bed and let him sleep? She rapped again, imperiously this time, and commanded him to let her in. It was about Veda.

When he finally came to the door, half opened it, and found what Mildred wanted, he was still more annoyed. ‘For God’s sake, is she an infant? Suppose she’s not there, what do I do then? I went to bed – I don’t know what she did. Maybe she went somewhere. Maybe she had a blow-out. Maybe she’s looking at the moon. It’s a free country.’

‘She didn’t go anywhere.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Her dress is there.’

‘Couldn’t she have changed it?’

‘Her car is there.’

‘Couldn’t she have gone with somebody else?’

This simple possibility hadn’t even occurred to Mildred, and she was about to apologise and go back to her room when she became aware of Monty’s arm. He was leaning on it, but it was
across the door, in a curious way, as though to bar her from the room. Her hand, which was resting on the door casing, slipped up, flipped the light switch. Veda was looking at her, from the bed.

Monty, his voice an emasculated, androgynous yell, crammed all the bitterness, the futility of his life into a long, hysterical denunciation of Mildred. He said she had used him for her special purposes ever since she had met him. He said she was incapable of honour and didn’t know what it meant to stand by her commitments. He recalled the first 20 dollars she had given him, and how she had later begrudged it. He worked down to their marriage, and correctly accused her of using him as bait to attract the errant Veda. But, he said, what she had forgotten was that he was live bait, and the quarry and the bait had fallen in love, and how did she like that? And what was she going to do about it? But there was considerable talk about money mixed in with the chase, and what it added up to was that he had shown his independence of one woman who had been keeping him, with a pie wagon, by switching over and letting another woman keep him, with a voice.

Mildred, however, barely heard him. She sat in the little upholstered chair, near the door, her hat on the side of her head, her handbag in her lap, her toes absurdly turned in. But while her eyes were on the floor, her mind was on the lovely thing in the bed, and again she was physically sick at what its presence there meant. When Monty had talked some little time, stalking gauntly about in his pyjamas, Veda interrupted him with affectionate petulance: ‘Darling. Does it make any difference what such nitwits do, or whether they pay, or even know what a commitment is? Look what a pest she is to me. I literally can’t open my mouth in a theatre, or a radio studio, or anywhere, that she isn’t there, bustling down the aisle, embarrassing me before people, all to get
her
share of the glory, if any. But what do I do? I certainly don’t go screaming around the way
you’re
doing. It would be undignified. And very’ – here Veda stifled a sleepy yawn – ‘
very
bad for my throat . . . Get dressed now, and we’ll
clear out, and leave her to her pie plates, and by lunch time it’ll merely seem funny.’