The Complete Short Stories of James Purdy

by John Waters

  “Do you understand everything in it?” he fairly thundered at her after he had read it all. “You are the only heir,” he had added when she did not respond at once.

  “She left Sonny McGuire nothing?” Alda had managed to say in the rather menacing silence as Seavers waited for her to say (obviously) something.

  “I told you, Miss Bayliss, you were the only heir. It’s a very well-written will,” he smiled bitterly.

  “I’m surprised,” Alda had said. “I can’t believe he is to have nothing.” She looked though considerably satisfied on the whole and accepted a copy of the will from his broad hands which might have been more comfortable behind a tractor. “You are a very wealthy woman,” the lawyer remarked before closing the door on her.

  When Sonny did not come by for a week or so, Alda fully realized her predicament. Though she could now walk with a cane, she felt considerable pain in her back and legs. But even had she not had the fall, she realized she would need to see somebody. She had not quite been aware during Gertrude’s lifetime that she knew only her. Sonny had not counted then. He had been merely an errand boy. Now she had nobody to think of but him.

  His grief over Gertrude’s death seemed to have dried up. He never referred to her, and he acted more like a servant than ever under the changed circumstances. With Gertrude he had acted almost as an equal. Sonny was only about thirty-five years old at the time of her death. He looked even younger, perhaps because he spent most of the time in the open air, rode horses a good deal for exercise and did very little hard work of any kind. He lived down the road in a remodeled farmhouse which had been in his family for three generations.

  “Would you like to take supper with me every evening?” Alda asked him one morning.

  Sonny removed his stocking cap and thought over her statement. Alda fidgeted when there was no immediate response.

  “I would prepare a genuine meal for you,” she added, fearing perhaps that he thought she would serve only soup and corn muffins.

  “If it would make your feet comfortable,” Sonny finally said.

  “The evenings are pretty long,” she told him. He made no comment on this.

  After a pause he asked, “Do you suppose I could have the little weather-vane she completed about a year ago? I am pretty fond of it and helped her to make it.”

  Alda stirred in her chair, and took hold of her cane and brought it in front of her dress. “The rooster?” she wondered. He nodded.

  “I don’t see any reason why not,” she said uneasily. “In fact, I wonder she didn’t leave it to you.”

  “Well, she didn’t,” Sonny said somewhat tartly.

  “Then take it—it’s upstairs in the storeroom.” Alda gave out a long sigh.

  Alda began to cook rather ambitious suppers then. She herself ate sparingly, and sometimes when her hip pained her she partook of almost nothing, while Sonny ate everything in sight, including, one supposed, her portion.

  “Was the meal to your satisfaction?” she said one night when they had dined on venison, wild rabbit, scalloped potatoes, Indian pudding, and coffee with thick, farm-fresh cream. He had merely nodded.

  “Do you think Gertrude would be surprised to see us mixing socially though?” Sonny inquired.

  As there was no reply, Sonny turned around and looked at Alda. She was, he saw, considering the question.

  “I don’t think she looked down on you socially, Sonny, if that is what you mean,” Alda responded. “But she thought of you as a boy. Almost a child.”

  “But they invite boys or children to supper,” he said in a somewhat spiteful tone. Her face became even more impassive.

  “I mean, you cook quite different grub for me than you did for her,” he commented.

  Alda grasped her cane as if she meant to rise, but she actually fell back further into her chair. “Gertrude was a picky eater,” she observed. “It cost me a lot of worry and trouble to tempt her appetite. She liked dainty things mostly, and fattening ones too. Towards the end very little pleased her.”

  “I would enjoy having the same menu you prepared for her,” Sonny spoke in a low toneless voice, yet it sounded like a command. “For instance, you would never have prepared venison and rabbit for her, would you?”

  “Will Hawkins brought me the venison and the rabbit,” Alda replied. “I wasn’t of a mind to let it go to waste.”

  “Would you have prepared it for her, though?” Sonny inquired.

  Alda fidgeted. “I would have made her some broth out of it, I guess,” she conceded.

  “I would be quite satisfied if you prepared the same menus for me as you did for her.” He spoke neutrally now, and smiled a little. Her face looked discomposed at the sight of his smile. “Otherwise, I could just drop in on you once every week or every two weeks.”

  Alda now leaned forward with the cane. Her face had gone white, then flamed into a kind of hectic flush.

  “Just tell me what you’d like to eat, Sonny. Then we’d both know where we’re at.”

  “No, no.” He raised his voice. “I ain’t the cook. You are. And you cooked good for her all these years. I want the same grub you prepared for her. I can eat venison and rabbit with the hunters, but if I come here I want the quality grub or I don’t come back.”

  She looked at his chapped, heavy hands. One of the thumbs was bandaged. As she stared at his hands he put on his mittens.

  “I just never thought a man would care for her type of food.” Alda spoke slowly, cautiously, and she stammered on: “I have been cooking you meals I thought a man would like.”

  “Well, go back then, why don’t you, to the quality menu.”

  “I will, Sonny,” she said in a sort of prayerful voice, “I’ll oblige you,” she added, and smiled weakly. He said good night then and went out.

  Waiting until he was well out of earshot, Alda picked her cane up and beat it against the heavy timber of the floors. She beat several times, and then she broke into a fit of weeping.

  ALDA WAS COOKING supper the next evening when she heard the scissors-grinder’s bell outside. She hurried to open the door at once, for he had not come by for some months and all her kitchen knives, not to speak of the axe and hatchet, wanted sharpening.

  Flinders, the grinder, was a tanned, wiry fellow of about forty, with lank yellow hair which fell from under his slouch hat, and he had already moved down the road with his wagon and horse when he heard Alda’s imperious command.

  He stopped the horse and walked back to the fence on which Alda leaned, having forgotten her cane. “You must have missed us last time,” she was querulous.

  He followed her on back to the kitchen, carrying his whetstone with him.

  “You remember where I keep all the sharp-edged instruments,” Alda said, and returned to her cooking.

  “Where’s the fat lady who was here before?” the grinder inquired after he had begun to sharpen her butcher knife on his grindstone.

  “Gertrude, you mean,” Alda said in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “Yes, I guess that was her name.” Flinders took up the axe now and looked at it. “Why don’t you take decent care of your tools?” he wondered. “You should always wipe these sharp-edged instruments after use; I’d put a little oil on them when you put them away—I told her that.”

  Alda said nothing. She was making dumplings.

  “Well, where is Gertrude?” he inquired testing the edge of the axe.

  “Gertrude passed away a few months ago,” Alda informed him.

  “Was it sudden?” he wondered, taking up the hatchet now and shaking his head over its wretched condition.

  “Yes, it was fairly sudden,” Alda replied.

  He had finished sharpening all the tools and stood waiting to be paid.

  “I’ve forgotten how much you charge,” Alda told him, for Gertrude always took care of things like this.

  He named a figure, and Alda hobbled over to a little china closet, opened one of its lower drawers and took out her purse.

&
nbsp; “I’d appreciate it if you came more often,” she had begun telling Flinders when the door opened and Sonny came in. The two men glanced at one another but did not speak.

  “Why didn’t you let me know your knives needed sharpening?” Sonny said when the scissors-grinder had gone, and he was tucking his napkin under his chin. “I could do that just as well.”

  “As long as he showed up, I figured he ought to do it.”

  “Remember I can do it just as good from now on—if not better,” Sonny warned her.

  “Look here,” Alda said, dishing him out some veal stew and dumplings, “I don’t like that tone of command in your voice.” Her hands trembled as she gave him a portion of lima beans. “I’ll do just what I think is right.”

  “Then do it alone!” He loosened his napkin and threw it down.

  “Now, now, no need to get riled, Sonny,” Alda spoke quietly. She went over into a far corner of the room and sat down in a cushiony chair whose bottom was beginning to fall apart.

  “Ain’t you going to eat nothing?” he inquired, staring at his plate.

  “Put your napkin back around your neck, and eat, Sonny—I’m not hungry.”

  “Let me see how he done those knives.” He walked into the little back room where all the tools were kept. He lifted up each of them, the axe, hatchet, butcher knives, and so on.

  “Well, what is your verdict?” Alda inquired sourly when he did come on back into the room and sat down but with his chair pushed considerably away from the table.

  “I can do everything for you,” he told her. “We don’t need no scissors-grinder.”

  “Good. Glad to hear you say so,” she humored him. “Now eat your veal stew and dumplings.”

  “I don’t like to eat alone,” he told her. “Why don’t you ever eat with me?” he cried.

  “Very well, if it will make you have a better appetite. I will have some.”

  She laid a plate, knife, fork, and napkin quickly at her old place and sat down with difficulty. He helped her to stew and dumplings. “Ah, ah, that’s too much,” she protested over the amount of the serving.

  “You eat it and shut up,” he spoke in surly indifference.

  “It is good,” she admitted, chewing.

  “How do I know you ain’t poisonin’ me when you don’t eat from the same pot,” he said at last. “From now on you eat what I eat,” he told her, eyes flashing under his hair which had fallen down low. He pushed upward the black forelock.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Sonny almost shouted one evening after they had had supper together, and as usual Alda had only picked at her food. “I know you didn’t care for her that much.”

  “I’d rather not talk about her,” she sighed. “It’s too painful. Too painful.”

  “It’s painful also to deal with a silent woman like you. You make me tired.”

  He set his coffee cup down on the table with a bang.

  “Go ahead and break the cup, why don’t you,” Alda told him.

  “Do you feel guilty she left you so much money?” Sonny said in a more conciliatory voice after they had sat there glaring at one another in short little spiteful glances.

  “The bequest does bother me, Sonny,” Alda said.

  “How?” he wondered.

  “I came here from a farm, you know. Had no mother and father of my own. The Baylisses who brought me up was glad to be rid of me. Gertrude had come there one day looking for a hired girl, Gertrude had come there one day looking for a hired girl, she said. She saw me and wanted me right away. What did I have to lose? She taught me everything I know about cooking, though I read cookbooks too of course. I occasionally consulted Mrs. Bayliss. But mostly I taught myself. Gertrude was pleased with my cooking, and in a way with my company, though we never talked much.”

  “Why do you feel guilty?” Sonny wondered now.

  “Did I say I did?” Alda wondered. The color had come back to her face, and she looked more youthful. “I am puzzled.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know what to do with so much money. And another thing . . .” She hesitated a long time until his snort of impatience made her bring out: “I feel like there is nothing left for me to do! I feel my life is over.”

  “With all that money, over?” he shook his head.

  “There’s nobody needs me,” she almost whined. “I worked for her twelve hours a day. Now what is there to do?”

  “Mind?” he asked her, and took out his pipe.

  “Smoke away, Sonny,” Alda consented.

  ONE EVENING WHEN she had shown even poorer appetite than usual, he had all at once thrown down his napkin and said, “How do I know you did not poison Gertrude?”

  Alda was so astonished she could say nothing. She remained dumbfounded for some time, and then she began to laugh hysterically. From laughing she soon turned to tears and wept loudly and had to use several handkerchiefs.

  He sat gloomily watching her, cold and unyielding.

  “I won’t go to the police if that’s why you’re bawling,” he said after a bit. He drank a little of the coffee, then spat it out in the saucer.

  “That was the last thing in my mind. The very last,” she said.

  “Oh, I don’t think you killed her,” he said. Then he got up and reached for his overcoat, hat, and gloves.

  “You cannot just up and leave after you have said such a terrible thing,” she told him. “Do you realize what you have done to me?”

  “You didn’t kill her?” he joked, tying his scarf tightly around his neck.

  “No, no—I loved Gertrude,” she cried, for she failed to note he was not serious. “We were real friends, life-long companions. Don’t you see how miserably lonesome I am without her? And that you would even think such a thing, let alone say it. God in heaven! You are an evil, wicked man. Who put such ideas into your head? And why would I want to poison you? You are the only one I can depend on.” She sat down in Gertrude’s chair and began to weep even harder.

  After a while he took off his scarf and unbuttoned his greatcoat and sat down at the table.

  “If you put just a little poison in her food at the beginning she would gradually die from it all,” he pointed out.

  Alda cried harder. “I never expected to be her heir, and I don’t really want all that money now,” Alda said. “I never knew how to spend money. She handled all the business affairs. To think you would think such a thing of me—oh, merciful Christ!”

  “Yes, merciful Christ.”

  MR. SEAVERS CAME out of his office when his secretary told him Alda Bayliss was waiting to see him. He looked at her coat and shoes in a critical fashion before he said good morning and then invited her into his office.

  “I am very busy this morning, Miss Bayliss,” he informed her, and he looked at the face of his pocket watch which he already had in the palm of his hand.

  “It’s very important,” Alda began. “I have been accused of poisoning Gertrude,” she brought out.

  “By whom?” he said with glacial indifference, as if she had said she had been accused of having forgotten to stamp an envelope she had put in the mail.

  “Sonny McGuire,” she replied.

  He snorted by way of reply.

  “What am I to do, Mr. Seavers? If he should go around telling such a thing. . . .”

  Mr. Seavers put his watch in his vest pocket and shook his head. “What did you tell him when he accused you?” he wondered.

  “I denied it again and again.”

  “I will speak to him about it,” he said. He looked at her very carefully then. “He could find himself in serious trouble spreading such a story,” he went on, but with no indication he felt she was to be defended from such a charge.

  As soon as Alda had left, he picked up the phone and asked his secretary to call Sonny McGuire and tell him to get over to his office as fast as his legs could carry him.

  EVERY SATURDAY, MUCH against her will, and only because Gertrude had insisted she do so, Alda wo
uld take her weekly bath. She invariably caught a chill after bathing, and felt miserable until Sunday afternoon.

  She heard the front door open and then familiar footsteps. Sonny opened the door and stared down at her in the tub. She crossed her hands over her breast and mumbled something.

  “Why did you have to tattle on me?” he wondered. He took off his greatcoat and sat down on the edge of the tub. He barely looked at her so that perhaps he was not aware of the consternation and confusion he was causing Alda. Perhaps he hardly heard her cries of shame and alarm and suppressed rage.

  “Of course I did not mean what I said. I was only angry. I knew you didn’t want to poison Gertrude. And I know you do not care for money. I know all that. Alda,” he cried, “look at me—Alda, look at me!” he touched one of her arms held over her breast.

  She suddenly went into convulsions and writhed, and a kind of hoarfrost came over her mouth. He threw a huge bath towel over her, picked her up as if she were a doll and carried her into her room. He rubbed her thoroughly with the towel and then laid her down on the bed. “Where’s your nightgown?” he wondered, then found it hanging in her closet. He put her in her nightgown and pulled back the sheets and put her between them. Her teeth chattered loudly.

  “So I am sorry I accused you.”

  Alda said nothing. She had in fact become somewhat delirious and moaned a great deal. Occasionally she would look at him as much as to say, “Who are you?” or “Whose house am I in?”

  All at once Sonny rose and hurried into the next room. A few moments later she heard the front door close.

  ALDA CHANGED SO markedly after he had looked at her in the bathtub that there were times, especially when he had been drinking, that Sonny wondered if some other woman had not slipped into the house and taken her place.

  She no longer used her cane, and could walk without stiffness or discomfort. She spent all her time in the kitchen preparing him his “quality” evening meal.