Evil Friendship

by Packer, Vin

  “One thing,” Martha Kent said, looking up from her diary, “if anyone were to find these, they’d be rather confused. When I wrote up about the Druid’s egg, I called it ‘D,’ and wrote it up as though it were a man we both knew.”

  Mary Drew laughed, “Anyone would think we’d been with every man in long trousers.”

  “I like that!” Martha Kent said. “As long as we understand what we mean. That’s what counts!”

  “I wouldn’t care if father did read mine,” Mary Drew grinned. “He’d never believe there was a Horrible. He’d be more likely to suspect Raynor, my prince in my book. I write about him as though he were real, just like you and the Egg. I’m six chapters into the book now. When will we read our books aloud?”

  Martha said, “Are you still writing about Grace Kelly, or did you change it?”

  “I changed the names so they won’t sue. She’s Gretchen and he’s Raynor. I have the best love scene under water, in the fourth chapter! Shocking!”

  “Read what you wrote in your diary,” Martha said.

  She straddled the chair, leaning her chin across her arm, while Mary Drew read. She still had not told her anything about what had happened with Rush. Maybe she never would. I was too vile! She did admit the lie, though, about being with the man, and she made the promise to go with Mary Drew to Horrible, to make up for the lie. Now everything was the same again, or better. When Mary Drew read the part about Martha saying “watching was exciting,” Martha squealed, “Did you put that in?”

  “No one’s going to read it,” Mary Drew said. “And I wish I had watched. Did it give you an odd sensation?”

  “Yes. You didn’t seem real to me. Yet, in a way you did, very real.”

  “HOW do you mean?”

  “Oh, Druid, I can’t explain it. It was as though you were sacrificing yourself for me, or to me. I can’t be sure. It was gruesome and beautiful. He was so evil. I felt that!”

  “Moly?”

  “What?”

  “Did you feel like crying? A little?”

  “Terribly like that. Though not from sadness, exactly. Do you know?”

  “I know,” Mary Drew Edlin said. “It was queer.”

  They looked at one another a moment, very seriously. Then Martha lowered her eyes, and Mary Drew read the rest of her entry.

  When she was finished, Martha said, “I feel very solemn somehow.”

  “And I,” Mary Drew said.

  Again, they looked across the room at one another, watching one another in that same close fashion as before. It was Martha Kent this time too who broke the contact by looking away.

  “I’ll go for more tea,” she said, “You can read my entry while I’m gone.”

  After she had left the room, Mary Drew walked over to the desk and picked up Martha’s diary.

  “Saturday night. How close I feel to Druid after today! It was horrible to be with Horrible and yet how can I explain my true feeling in the matter. It was as though we shared all that is good and bad in this world, together; as though life opened up for us at the same time, and we got a glimpse of it, side-by-side, seeing it through our mutual eyes. It was my first time. I didn’t mind the pain, because of Druid. I wanted to go through pain for her, as she had for me. How awful and awe-inspiring life is when there there are two so much alike. How precious, and fearful, and good it is with Druid and me!”

  When Martha Kent came back with the tea tray, Mary Drew was sitting at the desk, staring down at the diary thoughtfully. Her face was flushed, and she did not turn to look at Martha as she entered the bedroom.

  Martha said, “It’s eleven after ten. Pretty soon we’ll hear the mice.” She set the tray on the table by the window. “That’s what Roddy always says I hear, when I say I hear noises in the night. Some mice. My mother’s footsteps rushing up the back stairs to her lover!”

  Martha handed Mary Drew a cup of tea. “Two sugars, Druid?” she asked.

  Mary Drew’s hands trembled as she took the cup from her. “Yes, thanks.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No, nothing.” She took a deep breath and forced a smile. “I was just thinking.”

  “I’m getting sick of Roddy Sawyer up above,” Martha continued the subject, “and his lies and sneaking about. My mother’s a fool too, of course, but I suppose she has more reason. Father’s so ancient…. Still, it’s gruesome, isn’t it, Druid. I mean, women actually needing men that way!”

  “It’s silly,” Mary Drew answered in a far-off tone.

  “I’ll never need a man that way. Oh, I’ll probably get married and all, but I’ll never go sneaking around for the likes of Roddy Sawyer. Would you, Druid?”

  “Heavens no! Never!”

  “I know they’re up to something. I mean, good heavens, they spend a lot of time up there. Yet I rather doubt they do anything. Kiss around, or something.”

  Mary Drew said, “I suppose,” sipping her tea.

  “Did you like my entry, Druid?”

  “Very much!”

  “It’s exactly the way I feel.”

  “I too.”

  “Druid?”

  “What?”

  “Do you possibly think that Rush and Beth Dragmore, and silly people like that, really feel anything. What I mean is, do you imagine they have any deep feelings?”

  “They’re too silly for that!”

  Martha Kent stretched out on the comforter atop the bed, placing her hands behind her head and staring at the ceiling. “That’s what I think. Those crushes, they’re all adolescent nonsense … Druid … Druid, do you want to know something?”

  “What?” Mary Drew got up and carried her teacup around to the bedside table, sitting there beside Martha Kent on the bed.

  “Rush told me she’s been with a man.” “She was lying, I think.” “Do you?”

  “Of course. She’s too much like a man to have been with one.”

  “That’s what I think! She must have been lying. She is too much like a man. Do you want to know something else?”

  “Yes, what?”

  “She said she loved girls. Not just girls. Miss Nicky too. She showed me a love letter, and do you want to know something — ”

  Then the story came spilling out of Martha Kent — everything that had happened that dreadful day with Rush but one thing: What Rush had said about Mary Drew and herself. She still could not bring herself to tell that to Mary Drew. It was a vile lie anyway.

  Mary Drew listened to it all with fascinated squeals and squeaks, and expressions of horror and amusement and disbelief. When Martha was finished, she said, “Oh, good Lord, why didn’t you tell me all of this!”

  “I don’t know, Druid. It was queer. I think I was afraid it would spoil something for us.” She paused and looked up at her. “Do you understand what I mean?”

  “I think I do,” Mary Drew said seriously. “I do know what you mean, Moly, but — we aren’t fools.”

  “Oh, I know!”

  “I really hate Rush. She’s just like a man! She walks and talks and looks like one. She can’t stand to be out of those black sports pants of hers.”

  “I know that! It was funny too,” Martha Kent said, “the very day it happened, you cut your hair short. Remember?”

  “That’s right, I did.”

  “It was shocking, to go to meet you in the woods and see it short. I think it threw me off course just a bit.”

  Mary Drew set the teacup down and frowned at Martha. “You didn’t think I was like Rush?”

  “No, Druid, Lord — but don’t you see?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Oh, now, don’t get upset, Druid.” Martha sat up on the bed and touched Mary Drew’s arm. “It was just silly of me. I was quite upset.”

  “I’ve never wanted to be a man,” Mary Drew said, “I hate men!”

  “I do too, Druid! That’s what I mean. We’re different. We don’t have any crush or anything silly. We have a friendship, a rather splendid one, I think
.” She paused and took her hand from Mary Drew’s arm. “Maybe you don’t think so.”

  “You know I do,” Mary Drew said, sitting perfectly still, looking down at her hand. “You know that, Moly. I don’t have to tell you that.”

  “Let’s stop being silly.” Martha got up and put her cup back on the tray.” Let’s go to bed.”

  “Shall we?” Mary Drew Edlin said, handing her her own cup.

  They talked of a hundred things after that, of Roddy and Tony and their novels they were writing; of the Druids and more ceremonies they could dream up; of Grace Kelly and the Prince; of going to America, of Elvis Presley; and a chateau in Prance. With the lights out, lying side by side in the darkness, they rattled on, schoolgirl fashion, until they had exhausted most every subject.

  Then after a silence, Martha Kent burst into the giggles.

  “What are you laughing at?” Edlin asked. “Oh, Druid, just imagine Miss Nicky making love to Rush!”

  Mary Drew began to laugh too, and the big bed shook with their laughter.

  “Can’t yon see it,” said Martha Kent. “Can’t you see her grabbing Rush and smacking her right across the lips, and saying something absurd like, ‘Good one!’ the way she does when we score at hockey!”

  “Or ‘Hooray!’ “ Mary Drew giggled. “She’d probably say, ‘Oh, hooray, Rush!’ when Rush kissed her back.”

  Martha said, “I could die imagining!” “I too! Just die!”

  “Do you suppose she kisses hard or light?” “Hard! Like a steamroller!” “Oh, exactly!”

  “I know how she’d do it,” Mary Drew said, “She’d grab Rush like this,” taking hold of Martha’s arm and pulling her close. “And then she’d just dive into her!” Mary Drew brought her mouth down on Martha’s, very hard, very quickly, pulling away just as quickly, laughing.

  Martha laughed too. “Exactly! Oh, exactly, Druid!”

  They both propped themselves up on their elbows, grinning at one another in the darkness.

  “Beth Dragmore’s such a sissy, she’d be different,” Martha said. “She’d pussyfoot around. Here, like this — ” She gave Mary Drew a quick peck on the lips, and they both laughed convulsively.

  “It’s funny about people and kissing,” Mary Drew said. “I can’t imagine my father and mother ever kissing seriously.”

  “Nor I!”

  “Roddy would probably kiss like a Hollywood movie star!”

  Martha nodded. “Yes, something like this.” She reached for Mary Drew and the two embraced, this time for a longer time, slowly, artfully. They laughed less hard when they broke apart, and the soft attempt at laughter was short-lived.

  They rested momentarily, staring at one another.

  “In my book,” Mary Drew said, “my Prince is so in love with Gretchen that he trembles when she’s near him. Trembles when they’re not even as close as we are. She just has to be in the room. I don’t know if that’s believable.”

  “Oh, I’d say so,” said Martha. “I would too.”

  “I should think so,” Martha said. “That’s what I thought.”

  They were silent for another short space of time. Then Martha Kent said, “They’d kiss very emotionally, of course. Nothing put on.”

  “I know exactly how they’d kiss,” Martha Drew said.

  Neither spoke again. The tin clock’s ticking sounded loud on the desk across the room.

  “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.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Statement of Martha Kent, obtained by Sgt. Detective Larson Cudahy at nine p.m. at Kent residence on Alden Road

  JUNE 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

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The girls wrote to each other in the characters of the stories they were writing together, and in the characters of movie stars, famous people, and imaginary ones.

  — Dr. Rose Mannerheim, testifying at the Edlin-Kent trial

  JANUARY, 1956
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br />   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:

  “Darling Raynor,

  When you held me with that sudden strength of love (that would have choked me had it not been love) then yes, I saw the stars. You are the stars, when they all sing together. Never mind the darkness, nor the grinning hinds that let in light, for we are too well-crowned with love not to be King and Queen of our dear shabby kingdom. Gold and glory and all the rest are shaky staves for us to lean on. Take my hand gently, while we discard them, and never believe, never believe again in anyone who will tell you, this alone cannot suffice. Place your answer again in our garden, where I will find it and treasure it.