This Sweet Sickness

by Patricia Highsmith

  David nodded, ashamed. When Thursday had he called? Had he called the factory or Wes’s house? “So you’ve still got your job, Wes?”

  Wes smiled. “It blew over, all right. They just like to scare you, and Laura’s the same as the rest of them. Things are back just where they were. With her. She’s not really worried about Effie, just pretending to be, so I thought, what the hell? I’ll spend the weekend with her. At your place, of course. If anybody doesn’t think it’s respectable, they know what they can do with their dirty minds.” He laughed.

  But David saw an anxious, scared expression on Wes’s face as he turned to look at Effie coming into the room.

  “Dave, I can’t get over how attractive your house is!” Effie sat down primly in the center of the sofa.

  Wes went to the kitchen to fix her a drink. David declined a drink, but said he would have one that evening with them. The long afternoon ahead took on mountainous proportions for David.

  David laid the table for lunch, thinking this might inspire him to make a decision between a ham omelet and a Chinese meal that he could prepare very quickly from packages and cans, but Effie came in and saw him and immediately got out the fried chicken.

  “All we have to do is make a big salad,” she said cheerfully.

  David fixed Wes a fresh drink and brought it to him. Wes was looking at books in the living room.

  “I tried to call Annabelle this week, Dave,” Effie said softly, when David came back into the kitchen. “I heard about the marriage. I’m sorry, Dave.”

  He nodded. “News travels fast, doesn’t it?”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re not as gloomy about it as I thought you’d be.” She smiled, and angular creases came into her flat cheeks. She wore a slim black skirt and a white blouse full of lacy ornaments. Effie, too, was thinner, her waist quite flat, and looking at her, David could understand why Wes had stopped his campaign for her. There was nothing attractive about her, David thought, except possibly her fluffy brown hair.

  “It won’t last,” David said calmly. He wished Effie would stop staring at him.

  Effie tasted his salad dressing and praised it. She admired also the espresso machine. He braced himself for the next personal assault from her.

  “I didn’t speak to Annabelle herself. She wasn’t there. This was Thursday night—after you called Wes. Do you think she’s happy, Dave? I mean, is she in love with this man?”

  “No.” He turned from the espresso machine, finished washing the lettuce that the water was running through, then stepped out the door and swung the wire basket until there were no more drops. “Have you heard from the Beck’s Brook police lately?” he asked as he came back in.

  “No. Why?”

  “William Neumeister went to them and explained why he hadn’t been available. He was out of town.”

  “You did go to them, Dave?” she asked, breathless with surprise.

  “And wrote—and wrote a letter to Annabelle explaining the whole damned thing again.” David bent over the salad bowl, dumping the lettuce into it.

  “Were they nice to you or—”

  “Very nice.” He looked at her.

  She might have turned into a pillar of salt.

  “Annabelle was very pleased with the letter,” he added.

  “She doesn’t suspect anything?”

  “What’s there to suspect?”

  Effie looked almost angrily. “I don’t know how you can be so cool about it. I don’t understand you.”

  And just then Wes came in. Otherwise David would have said he didn’t know how she could get so damned excited about it.

  Effie fixed another drink and took it with her to the table. Since Wes preferred beer to wine, David served beer and had one himself. The chicken was very good, the first half of the lunch very pleasant, and then both of them turned the conversation to him. It became personal. It was like an onslaught of little needles that became more and more painful, that he tried to ward off with shakes of his head, silences, with negations, frowns, but still they came at him and made their little punctures.

  “So you saw this Grant? . . . How did you happen to go up there? . . . You really think he’s a nice fellow, Dave?”

  “He’s all right. He’s got two eyes and a nose.”

  “You said on the phone he was second-rate and a moron . . . Are you going to stay on in this house, Dave?”

  “Yes. Why not? I don’t understand the reason for all these questions.”

  “I could’ve predicted this. A girl either makes up her mind right away or you’re out . . . you’re out . . . you’re out . . .”

  David got up from the table feeling sweaty and half sick.

  After that, it really didn’t stop, even when Wes tried to tell a joke, and when Effie tinkled on the piano for a while and Wes pretended to listen and to be amused. If Effie wasn’t murmuring to him, Wes was.

  “If you’d just tell us what’s behind this, Dave—Effie and I are your friends. If you know Neumeister—Is he deliberately hiding?”

  When Wes began his pre-dinner drinking at five, David joined him. David had told Wes he could have his room, as there was only one guest room and he thought Effie should have that. David intended to sleep in the room he called his sitting room, where most of his books were. Effie went upstairs around six to change her clothes, and David made a fire in the fireplace, more out of nervous energy than because he or anybody else wanted one.

  “Dave,” Wes said, “I’m sorry we asked so many questions, but you don’t know how you sounded Thursday night. You’re a lot different now.” Wes spoke quietly and earnestly, though his face had started to get the fuzzy look that came when he was on the way to being drunk.

  “Well—how did I sound?”

  “You sounded desperate. You said you had to see me. Maybe you’d had a few martinis, but I thought there was some truth in it. I got myself up here, all right. I even offered to come that night. Remember?”

  David didn’t remember. But what he did remember was that he wasn’t drunk. He had had a good day Thursday and a good day Friday at the lab. “What time did I call?”

  “It was about nine. Laura answered. You said hello and you were—very polite to her. Laura was kind of pleased.”

  “And what else did I say?”

  “You said you were at the end, old boy,” Wes said as pleasantly as if he were narrating a joke. “And you sounded pretty shaky. You said you were at the end with Annabelle.”

  “‘The end with Annabelle’?” David repeated, and gave a laugh. “I must’ve been out of my head.”

  “I said ‘why?’ and you said because she’d gotten married again. You said she’d married another nobody. No, another second-rater. A moron and second-rate and a lot of other things.” Wes laughed. “I don’t think you think he’s a nice guy. But maybe this is the only kind Annabelle likes.”

  “That’s not true. She fell in a trap just as she did before she married Gerald,” David said.

  “What kind of a trap? A financial trap?”

  “Maybe partly.”

  “But there was you.”

  “Maybe a trap with me then. I was too intense—or I didn’t behave just the right way. But there’s still time. This marriage isn’t going to last. It’s a joke.” David got up and walked to the fire.

  “Well, I—I thought you’d given her up, Dave.”

  The phrases! Given her up. As if one could do it merely by a decision! “I’d rather not talk any more about it, Wes.” He stared at the flames. In those evenings, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday evenings, he had played the game again, the William Neumeister game. He had drunk two martinis before dinner. It had been like the weekends in the Ballard house, almost like them. And what had slipped Thursday at 9 P.M., what had happened inside his head that he couldn’t even
remember now? He’d had a blackout. Wes was watching him.

  Effie came down in fitted black slacks, and Wes made her a scotch and soda and brought in the martini pitcher from the refrigerator to refill David’s glass. Then David said he would go out and start the charcoal fire for the steak.

  “I’ll come out and help you,” Effie said.

  “Honestly, I’d rather do it myself.” David shoved his fingers through his hair and felt at the end of his tether. He finished the martini quickly in the kitchen, and went out with matches and the charcoal sack and an old newspaper. No lighter fluid tonight. He wanted to make an honest little fire of paper and twigs and add the charcoal gradually. It was slow going, because even the driest twigs were dampish, but the fire made progress and he enjoyed it—until the kitchen door opened and Wes came out, catching his heel on the step, staggering a little.

  “Not going to disturb you, old man, just bringing you some refreshment.” He had a new pitcher of martinis and a glass.

  “Thanks, Wes, I’ve had about enough.”

  “Come on.” Wes poured it.

  David took it in his smutty right hand, and felt that he was in hell. When Wes had gone back into the house, David picked up the glass, which he had set on the rim of the barbecue pit, and hurled its contents toward the woods.

  In the next hour or so, however, David drank at least two more martinis. They were almost a necessary anesthetic. He had taken a shower and put on a clean shirt and trousers. The baked potatoes were done, and Effie had made the salad, putting in an avocado that she had produced from the bottom of her basket. For a short while, David felt gay and happy, not at all annoyed because Wes kept insisting that they postpone the steak. He put out more cheese and crackers and black olives, and then they ran out of ice.

  “You know what’s the matter around here is Dave wasn’t expecting us,” Wes said. “He doesn’t remember calling me, d’you know that?”

  Effie looked stupid and astounded. It seemed to David that her face acquired a dozen creases as she tried to digest this terrible information.

  “Maybe that was somebody else calling. Who knows?” David said, and his shame suddenly vanished. Wes had certainly blacked out enough in his time. David drained the nearly empty martini pitcher into his glass. It was mostly ice water and little glassy fragments of ice cubes.

  Wes had turned the music up and he and Effie were dancing, Wes staggering and stepping on her feet. David laughed, and Effie looked at him in a hurt way, as if he had insulted her. Perhaps she wanted him to cut in, and out of politeness perhaps he should have, but the thought of circling her waist with his arm was distasteful. David had just sat down in the armchair when he heard Effie say, “Newmester went to the police himself. The Beck’s Brook police. They told me so last week.”

  “He did?” Wes asked with a laugh. “You might’ve mentioned it. Hey—am I supposed to believe you?”

  Over Wes’s shoulder, Effie gave David a slow wink, as if to say she was still in there plugging for him. David squirmed in his chair and looked at the floor.

  “I don’t think I do believe you,” Wes mumbled, amused. “What’s all this about protecting Newmester? Who the hell is he, anyway?”

  A short, charged silence.

  “Did you know that, Dave? That Newmester turned up at the police station?”

  “Not until Effie told me today,” David said.

  “Well—why’d he go to them, anyway? Did he say he’d killed Delaney or something?” Wes asked with more interest.

  “Of course not,” Effie said quickly. “The police wanted to ask him some more questions. I think Mrs. Delaney wanted to talk to him too.” She hiccuped.

  “Annabelle,” Wes said, and David felt Wes’s eyes on him. “She wanted to talk to him?”

  “Yes. They said Newmester went to see her in Hartford.”

  “Hartford, that’s the town,” Wes mumbled. “Well, what happened?”

  “Nothing. I guess he just told her how it was. An accident.”

  “An accident,” Wes repeated. “Hm-m. Well, I don’t get it, I don’t get it.” He began to dance more vigorously, squeezing Effie in his arm.

  “Stop it, Wes! Let me go!”

  “I didn’t mean it!” Wes tried to hold her, but Effie pushed him violently away.

  Effie staggered back herself, toward the fireplace. “It’s you I love,” she said to David. “You!—Well, why shouldn’t I say it?” she yelled to Wes. “You know it anyway, and what do you do about it? Nothing!”

  “What do you expect me to do about it?” Wes asked.

  “David! David Kelsey!” Effie cried, bending her knees slightly, extending her arms to him.

  David got up from the chair, afraid she would fling herself on top of him. “I’d better start the steak.”

  “Davy!” Effie caught his arm. “Can’t you listen to me for one minute?”

  David took her wrist and, as gently as he could, forced her fingers to break their hold on his arm. “Time I started the steak,” he said.

  “Maybe I have had too much to drink, but in vino veritas, isn’t that it, Dave? Listen, this may be the last time I’ll ever—I’ll ever see you—”

  “Dave hopes so!” Wes said, laughing.

  David wanted to laugh, and at the same time the staggering disorder of the two disturbed him.

  “I don’t see why,” Effie said, addressing herself to Wes, “my few private words have to be mocked by you, Wes Carmichael.”

  “I’m not mocking. Shall I go in another room?”

  David was walking slowly toward the kitchen. Hearing Effie behind him, he turned and sidestepped to avoid her, and she caught herself on the doorjamb.

  “I know I’m a disgrace—now,” she said, “but that doesn’t change the way I feel about you and what I know—to be true. You’re wasting your life on that girl, Dave. Take some other girl. Maybe not me,” she quavered.

  David made a move to walk away, but Effie held him. There was an angry disgust on Wes’s face now as he lit a cigarette and hurled the match into an ashtray.

  “Let Davy lead his own life,” Wes said. “He’s going to anyway, whatever you say.” He started for the kitchen with his empty glass, and bumped past David with no apology.

  David flung Effie’s arms down from his neck, a movement that brought her face against his chest. He stepped back from her, trying to extricate his wrists from her hold, and jerked one arm frantically, suddenly breathing hard with panic. He heard Wes sounding off again in the kitchen, snarling and bitter. But Effie was worse, mewling and whining, clinging like a snail. David retreated half across the kitchen, on the brink of striking her.

  “Do’ want anything to eat,” Wes was saying, walking off with his full glass.

  “Then why don’t you both leave!” David said.

  Effie clung to the sink edge, looking down at the sink, weeping.

  Wes turned pugnaciously, and David walked toward him. Then Wes thumped his glass down on something. “Awright, I will leave! I’ll leave my gracious host!”

  “And take Effie!” David said.

  “Or maybe I won’t leave,” Wes said. “I don’t know why we should do so much to oblige you, Mr Kelsey.”

  “Call me Bill,” David said.

  “What?”

  “Dave, watch out,” Effie said, wobbling around from the sink. “Don’t talk, Dave.”

  “Who’s Bill, Eff?”

  “Nobody,” Effie said.

  Nobody. David yanked the back door open and went out, slamming the door behind him. The wind blew refreshingly cold on his entire body. He walked past the yellow-red coals of the charcoal fire and went on to the edge of the woods, where he stood with his face turned up to the lopsided three-quarter moon. There was no sound but that of his breathing. He was gasping, his eyes
blurred with tears, but he felt quite sober now, absolutely sober. The heavy moon floated through bluish clouds at a steady, easy rate. Once Annabelle had said to him, “I love you too, David,” and there had been a moon that night, the same moon he was looking at. Where had the words gone to? Weren’t they still in the air, somewhere? Couldn’t they be found and collected, grabbed with the hands out of the air? Somewhere. Somewhere they were preserved. Things didn’t vanish. Truth did not become a lie. Annabelle knew those words still existed. That was what troubled her. There would come a day when she would return to him. There was time yet, much time, only the time was so hard to get through. But one day she would be in this house, or some house with him.

  “Yes, William Neumeister,” he murmured.

  Then he heard a car door slam, a motor start. He listened as it backed, turned, and moved off down the dirt road. Thank God, he thought, and the pressure eased in his chest. He looked up at the moon and felt alone and happy and confident again. He breathed deeply a couple of times, then turned and walked back toward the house, opened the kitchen door and went in, not minding the mess he saw, because there was plenty of time for him to clean it up, alone. Time! Lots of it. He was free to stay up all night, if he chose, to read, to play his music, to write to Annabelle, to lie and dream of her, to dream of her one day in his bed. David seized a gin bottle, in which an inch of gin remained, and poured it into a glass, lifted it with an airy gesture and drank it off. He had a memory of finishing some other bottle once, on a dare, and bringing it off very well. Where had that been? When he set the glass down, he saw his old wristwatch a few inches away on the table. David shrugged.

  He whistled as he crossed the living room. There was something like a pleasant, huge cloud in his brain, a weightless blue-gray cloud, the color of Annabelle’s eyes. No troubles, no worries could get in. It was William Neumeister’s cloud. Deep inside it he was a very clever, lucky fellow, William Neumeister. David climbed the stairs. He wanted to undress, shower the afternoon off himself, and put on his blue jeans again.

  He stopped at the threshold of his room. “Annabelle—”