The Price of Salt

by Highsmith, Patricia

  "All right. I'll try a rye and water."

  Phil was standing on the other side of her now. He looked cheerful, but a little dark around the eyes. For the past week, in a sullen mood, he had been writing a play. He had read a few scenes of it aloud at his New Year's party. Phil called it an extension of Kafka's Metamorphosis. She had drawn a rough sketch for a set New Year's morning, and showed it to Phil when she came down to see him. And suddenly it occurred to her, that was what was the matter with Richard.

  "Terry, I wish you'd make a model we can photograph from that sketch you showed me. I'd like to have a set to go with the script." Phil pushed the rye and water toward her, and leaned on the bar close beside her.

  "I might," Therese said. "Are you really going to try to get it produced?"

  "Why not?" Phil's dark eyes challenged her above his smile. He snapped his fingers at the barman. "Check?"

  "I'll pay," Richard said.

  "No, you won't. This is mine." Phil had his old black wallet in his hand.

  His play would never be produced, Therese thought, might not even be finished, because Phil's moods were capricious.

  "I'll be moving along," Phil said. "Drop by soon, Terry. Cheerio, Rich."

  She watched him go off and up the little front stairs, shabbier than she had ever seen him in his sandals and threadbare polo coat, yet with an attractive nonchalance about his shabbiness. Like a man walking through his house in his favorite old bathrobe, Therese thought. She waved back at him through the front window.

  "I hear you took Phil sandwiches and beer New Year's Day," Richard said.

  "Yes. He called up and said he had a hangover."

  "Why didn't you mention it?"

  "I forgot, I suppose. It wasn't important."

  "Not important. If you—" Richard's stiff hand gestured slowly, hopelessly. "If you spend half the day in a guy's apartment, bringing him sandwiches and beer? Didn't it occur to you I might have wanted some sandwiches, too?"

  "If you did, you had plenty of people to get them for you. We'd eaten and drunk everything in Phil's house. Remember?"

  Richard nodded his long head, still smiling the downward, disgruntled smile. "And you were alone with him, just the two of you."

  "Oh, Richard—" She remembered, and it was so unimportant. Dannie hadn't been back from Connecticut that day. He had spent New Year's at the house of one of his professors. She had hoped Dannie would come in that afternoon at Phil's, but Richard would probably never think that, never guess she liked Dannie a lot better than Phil.

  "If any other girl did that, I'd suspect something was brewing and I'd be right," Richard went on.

  "I think you're being silly."

  "I think you're being naive." Richard was looking at her stonily, resentfully, and Therese thought, it surely couldn't be only this he was so resentful about. He resented the fact that she wasn't and never could be what he wished her to be, a girl who loved him passionately and would love to go to Europe with him. A girl like herself, with her face, her ambitions, but a girl who adored him. "You're not Phil's type, you know," he said.

  "Whoever said I was? Phil?"

  "That twerp, that half-baked dilettante," Richard murmured. "And he has the nerve to sound off tonight and say you don't give a damn for me."

  "He hasn't any right to say that. I don't discuss you with him."

  "Oh, that's a fine answer. Meaning if you had, he'd know you didn't give a damn, eh?" Richard said it quietly, but his voice shook with anger.

  "What's Phil suddenly got against you?" she asked.

  "That's not the point!"

  "What is the point?" she said impatiently.

  "Oh, Terry, let's stop it."

  "You can't find any point," she said, but seeing Richard turn away from her and shift his elbows on the bar, almost as if he writhed physically under her words, she felt a sudden compassion for him. It was not now, not last week that galled him, but the whole past and future futility of his own feelings about her.

  Richard plunged his cigarette into the ash tray on the bar. "What do you want to do tonight?" he asked.

  Tell him about the trip with Carol, she thought. Twice before she had meant to tell him, and put it off. "Do you want to do anything?" She emphasized the last word.

  "Of course," he said depressedly. "What do you say we have dinner, then call up Sam and Joan? Maybe we can walk up and see them tonight."

  "All right." She hated it. Two of the most boring people she had ever met, a shoe clerk and a secretary, happily married on West Twentieth Street, and she knew Richard meant to show her an ideal life in theirs, to remind her that they might live together the same way one day. She hated it, and any other night she might have protested, but the compassion for Richard was still in her, dragging after it an amorphous wake of guilt and a necessity to atone. Suddenly, she remembered a picnic they had had last summer, off the road near Tarrytown, remembered precisely Richard's reclining on the grass, working ever so slowly with his pocketknife at the cork in the wine bottle, while they talked of—what? But she remembered that moment of contentment, that conviction that they shared something wonderfully real and rare together that day, and she wondered now where it had gone to, on what it had been based. For now even his long flat figure standing beside her seemed to oppress her with its weight. She forced down her resentment, but it only grew heavy inside her, like a thing of substance. She looked at the chunky figures of the two Italian workmen standing at the bar, and at the two girls at the end of the bar whom she had noticed before, and now that they were leaving, she saw that they were in slacks. One had hair cut like a boy's.

  Therese looked away, aware that she avoided them, avoided being seen looking at them.

  "Want to eat here? Are you hungry yet?" Richard asked.

  "No. Let's go somewhere else."

  So they went out and walked north, in the general direction of where Sam and Joan lived.

  Therese rehearsed the first words until all their sense was rubbed out.

  "Remember Mrs. Aird, the woman you met in my house that day?"

  "Sure."

  "She's invited me to go on a trip with her, a trip West in a car for a couple of weeks or so. I'd like to go."

  "West? California?" Richard said surprisedly. "Why?"

  "Why?"

  "Well—do you know her as well as that?"

  "I've seen her a few times."

  "Oh. Well, you didn't mention it." Richard walked along with his hands swinging at his sides, looking at her. "Just the two of you?"

  "Yes."

  "When would you be leaving?"

  "Around the eighteenth."

  "Of this month?—Then you won't get to see your show."

  She shook her head. "I don't think it's so much to miss."

  "Then it's definite?"

  "Yes."

  He was silent a moment. "What kind of a person is she? She doesn't drink or anything, does she?"

  "No." Therese smiled. "Does she look like she drinks?"

  "No. I think she's very good looking, in fact. It's just damned surprising, that's all."

  "Why?"

  "You so seldom make up your mind about anything. You'll probably change your mind again."

  "I don't think so."

  "Maybe I can see her again sometime with you. Why don't you arrange it?"

  "She said she'd be in the city tomorrow. I don't know how much time she's got—or really whether she'll call or not."

  Richard didn't continue and neither did Therese. They did not mention Carol again that evening.

  Richard spent Sunday morning painting, and came to Therese's apartment around two. He was there when Carol telephoned a little later. Therese told her that Richard was with her, and Carol said, "Bring him along."

  Carol said she was near the Plaza, and they might meet there in the Palm Room.

  Half an hour later, Therese saw Carol look up at them from a table near the center of the room, and almost like the first time, like the echo of
an impact that had been tremendous, Therese was jolted by the sight of her. Carol was wearing the same black suit with the green and gold scarf that she had worn the day of the luncheon. But now Carol paid more attention to Richard than to her.

  The three of them talked of nothing, and Therese, seeing the calm in Carol's gray eyes that only once turned to her, seeing a quite ordinary expression on Richard's face, felt a kind of disappointment. Richard had gone out of his way to meet her, but Therese thought it was even less from curiosity than because he had nothing else to do. She saw Richard looking at Carol's hands, the nails manicured in a bright red, saw him notice the ring with the clear green sapphire, and the wedding ring on the other hand. Richard could not say they were useless hands, idle hands, despite the longish nails. Carol's hands were strong, and they moved with an economy of motion. Her voice emerged from the flat murmur of other voices around them, talking of nothing at all with Richard, and once she laughed.

  Carol looked at her. "Did you tell Richard we might go on a trip?" she asked.

  "Yes. Last night."

  "West?" Richard asked.

  "I'd like to go up to the Northwest. It depends on the roads."

  And Therese was suddenly impatient. Why did they sit here having a conference about it? Now they were talking about temperatures, and the state of Washington.

  "Washington's my home state," Carol said. "Practically."

  Then a few moments later, Carol asked if anyone wanted to take a walk in the park. Richard paid the check for their beer and coffee, pulling a bill from the tangle of bills and change that bulged a pocket of his trousers. How indifferent he was to Carol after all, Therese thought. She felt he didn't see her, as he sometimes hadn't seen figures in rock or cloud formations when she had tried to point them out to him. He was looking down at the table now, the thin careless line of his mouth half smiling as he straightened up and shoved his hand quickly through his hair.

  They walked from the entrance of the park at Fifty-ninth Street toward the zoo, and through the zoo at a strolling pace. They walked on under the first bridge over the path, where the path bent and the real park began. The air was cold and still, a little overcast, and Therese felt a motionlessness about everything, a lifeless stillness even in their slowly moving figures.

  "Shall I hunt up some peanuts?" Richard asked.

  Carol was stooped at the edge of the path, holding her fingers out to a squirrel. "I have something," she said softly, and the squirrel started at her voice but advanced again, seized her fingers in a nervous grip and fixed its teeth on something, and dashed away. Carol stood up, smiling.

  "Had something in my pocket from this morning."

  "Do you feed squirrels out where you live?" Richard asked.

  "Squirrels and chipmunks," Carol replied.

  What dull things they talked of, Therese thought.

  Then they sat on a bench and smoked a cigarette, and Therese, watching a diminutive sun bring its orange fire down finally into the scraggly black twigs of a tree, wished the night were here already and that she were alone with Carol. They began to walk back. If Carol had to go home now, Therese thought, she would do something violent. Like jump off the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. Or take the three benzedrine tablets Richard had given her last week.

  "Would you people like to have some tea somewhere?" Carol asked as they neared the zoo again. "How about that Russian place over by Carnegie Hall?"

  "Rumpelmayer's is right here," Richard said. "Do you like Rumpelmayer's?"

  Therese sighed. And Carol seemed to hesitate. But they went there.

  Therese had been here once with Angelo, she remembered. She did not care for the place. Its bright lights gave her a feeling of nakedness, and it was annoying not to know if one were looking at a real person or at a reflection in a mirror.

  "No, none of that, thanks," Carol said, shaking her head at the great tray of pastry the waitress was holding.

  But Richard chose something, chose two pastries, though Therese had declined.

  "What's that for, in case I change my mind?" she asked him, and Richard winked at her. His nails were dirty again, she noticed.

  Richard asked Carol what kind of car she had, and they began discussing the merits of various car makes. Therese saw Carol glance about at the tables in front of her. She doesn't like it here either, Therese thought.

  Therese stared at a man in the mirror that was set obliquely behind Carol. His back was to Therese, and he leaned forward, talking animatedly to a woman, jerking his spread left hand for emphasis. She looked at the thin, middle-aged woman he spoke to, and back at him, wondering if the aura of familiarity about him were real or an illusion like the mirror, until a memory fragile as a bubble swam upward in her consciousness and burst at the surface. It was Harge.

  Therese glanced at Carol, but if Carol had noticed him, she thought, Carol would not know that he was in the mirror behind her. A moment later, Therese looked over her shoulder, and saw Harge in profile, much like one of the images she carried in her memory from the house—the short high nose, the full lower face, the receding twist of blond hair above the usual hairline. Carol must have seen him, only three tables away to her left.

  Carol looked from Richard to Therese. "Yes," she said to her, smiling a little, and turned back to Richard and went on with her conversation. Her manner was just as before, Therese thought, not different at all. Therese looked at the woman with Harge. She was not young, not very attractive.

  She might have been one of his relatives.

  Then Therese saw Carol mash out a long cigarette. Richard had stopped talking. They were ready to leave. Therese was looking at Harge the moment he saw Carol. After his first glimpse of her, his eyes drew almost shut as if he had to squint to believe her, and then he said something to the woman he was with and stood up and went to her.

  "Carol," Harge said.

  "Hello, Harge." She turned to Therese and Richard. "Would you excuse me a minute?"

  Watching from the doorway where she stood with Richard, Therese tried to see it all, to see beyond the pride and aggressiveness in Harge's anxious, forward leaning figure that was not quite so tall as the crown of Carol's hat, to see beyond Carol's acquiescent nods as he spoke, to surmise not what they talked of now but what they had said to each other five years ago, three years ago, that day of the picture in the rowboat.

  Carol had loved him once, and that was hard to remember.

  "Can we get free now, Terry?" Richard asked her.

  Therese saw Carol nod good-by to the woman at Harge's table, then turn away from Harge. Harge looked past Carol, to her and Richard, and without apparently recognizing her, he went back to his table.

  "I'm sorry," Carol said as she rejoined them.

  On the sidewalk, Therese drew Richard aside and said, "I'll say good night, Richard. Carol wants me to visit a friend of hers tonight with her."

  "Oh." Richard frowned. "I had those concert tickets for tonight, you know."

  Therese remembered suddenly. "Alex's. I forgot. I'm sorry."

  He said gloomily, "It's not important."

  It wasn't important. Richard's friend Alex was accompanying somebody in a violin concert, and had given Richard the tickets, she remembered, weeks ago.

  "You'd rather see her than me, wouldn't you?" he said.

  Therese saw that Carol was looking for a taxi. Carol would leave them both in a moment. "You might have mentioned the concert this morning, Richard, reminded me, at least."

  "Was that her husband?" Richard's eyes narrowed under his frown. "What is this, Terry?"

  "What's what?" she said. "I don't know her husband."

  Richard waited a moment, then the frown left his eyes. He smiled, as if he conceded he had been unreasonable. "Sorry. I just took it for granted I'd see you tonight." He walked toward Carol. "Good night," he said.

  He looked as if he were leaving by himself, and Carol said, "Are you going downtown? Maybe I can drop you."

  "I'm walking, thank
s."

  "I thought you two had a date," Carol said to Therese.

  Therese saw that Richard was lingering, and she walked toward Carol, out of his hearing. "Not an important one. I'd rather stay with you."

  A taxi had slid up beside Carol. Carol put her hand on the door handle.

  "Well, neither is our date so important, so why don't you go on with Richard tonight?"

  Therese glanced at Richard, and saw that he had heard her.

  "Bye-bye, Therese," Carol said.

  "Good night," Richard called.

  "Good night," Therese said, and watched Carol pull the taxi door shut after her.

  "So," Richard said.

  Therese turned toward him. She wouldn't go to the concert, and neither would she do anything violent, she knew, nothing more violent than walk quickly home and get to work on the set she wanted to finish by Tuesday for Harkevy. She could see the whole evening ahead, with a half-dismal, half-defiant fatality, in the second it took for Richard to walk to her.

  "I still don't want to go to the concert," she said.

  To her surprise, Richard stepped back and said angrily, "All right, don't!" and turned away.

  He walked west on Fifty-ninth Street in his loose, lopsided gait that jutted his right shoulder ahead of the other, hands swinging unrhythmically at his sides, and she might have known from the walk alone that he was angry. And he was out of sight in no time. The rejection from Kettering last Monday flashed across her mind. She stared at the darkness where Richard had disappeared. She did not feel guilty about tonight. It was something else. She envied him. She envied him his faith there would always be a place, a home, a job, someone else for him. She envied him that attitude. She almost resented his having it.

  CHAPTER 13

  RICHARD BEGAN IT. "Why do you like her so much?"

  It was an evening on which she had broken a date with Richard on the slim chance Carol would come by. Carol hadn't, and Richard had come by instead. Now at five past eleven in the huge pink-walled cafeteria on Lexington Avenue, she had been about to begin, but Richard was ahead of her.

  "I like being with her, I like talking with her. I'm fond of anybody I can talk to." The phrases of some letter she had written to Carol and never mailed drifted across her mind as if to answer Richard. I feel I stand in a desert with my hands outstretched, and you are raining down upon me.