She was tired enough to be able to sleep, she decided. She examined the new handbag and took out the paper stuffing. It was a smart bag. She was satisfied with her day’s haul.
She watched TV until ten o’clock, then she made her nightly preparations and was in bed fifteen minutes later.
She had a slight headache and therefore took two aspirins before retiring. They would relax her as well as take care of the headache.
She fell asleep almost immediately.
Half an hour later a fire siren screamed through the night and she woke up with her heart racing.
She lay trying to quiet it. Just relax, she told herself.
Her eyes were wide open in the dark. It was so dark.
She sat up quickly. Why? she asked herself. After all, why?
She got out of bed briskly, switched on the bedside lamp, went into the bathroom, opened the medicine chest, and got out the bottle of sleeping pills.
She shook out a handful. Then another handful. She counted out twenty-three — the number was merely a random choice — and put the bottle back into the cabinet. Then she left the bathroom.
In the kitchen she took down a cup from the overhead closet, dropped the pills into the cup and took them inside where she put them on the bedside table.
She went back to the kitchen, ran the water and filled two tumblers, carried them into the bedroom and put them beside the cup of sleeping pills, went back and turned off the kitchen light and in the bedroom once more crawled into bed.
There was only one shocked, unbelieving moment. A moment of wonder, with a sudden, horrible fear in back of it. It was, after all, a difficult thing to do.
She drew a deep breath.
Then she exhaled slowly, scooped out a few of the pills and put them in her mouth, washing them down with a quick swallow of water. Another handful, more water.
Her heart was pumping like a piston. That was all she was thinking about now, that it seemed as if her heart would burst through her chest. Her trembling hand was awkward with the last two or three pills. They slid through her fingers and scattered over the floor.
It didn’t matter. She had taken more than enough. She swallowed some more water, looked at the empty cup, reached over and turned out the lamp and lay down again in the dark.
Her heart stopped pumping in that awful way after a few minutes. There was no last thing she knew. She simply was conscious one second and the next was out of the picture.
The fire siren screamed again on its way back.
Doug took the nine o’clock call for Dinah, who was still in bed. He knocked at her door and then opened it. “Call for you,” he told her. “Someone asking for Miss Mason.”
“Thanks, Doug.” She pushed tumbled hair out of her eyes and reached for her extension phone. “This is Miss Mason.”
“This is Dr. Gregory, Dinah.”
“Well, hello.”
“I’m sorry to bother you on your weekend.”
“Perfectly all right.”
“Are you on a case?”
“No, just got off one.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Dinah, you remember Mr. Paley? You had him … I guess it was about eighteen months ago. The bronchogenic.”
“Yes, of course I remember him.”
“His wife’s in a bad way. She took an overdose last night.”
“My God …”
“She’s okay physically except for being knocked out. She was found in time. Someone she knew was visiting friends in her building and decided to stop in to see Mrs. Paley before leaving. Apparently she was worried when there was no response to her ring, because Mrs. Paley had declined an invitation to the same party, saying she didn’t feel up to it. At any rate, the friend decided to investigate. The superintendent used his keys and she was rushed to the hospital.”
“I’m so terribly sorry. You want me over there right away?”
“She’s not very well fixed as far as money is concerned,” Dr. Gregory said. “But I don’t want her to come out of this alone. There are friends, of course, but that brings guilt. The last thing she needs at the moment is to feel a responsibility to people. I really think she should have someone hold her hand for the next few days. A week if possible. You’re just the person. You have compassion and insight.”
“Well, thank you, Doctor. I’ll be very happy if I can help her.”
He told her the hospital and the room number. “I’ll be there by eleven,” she promised. “Have you told her you’d try to get me?”
“No, but I’ll go right in and tell her now. And, Dinah, thanks.”
“Thanks for thinking of me,” she said, and hung up.
Mrs. Paley’s bed was only slightly raised at the headboard. There was a kidney-shaped basin next to the two plump hospital pillows, but it was free of matter. Good, Dinah thought. She must be over the vomiting. The woman’s face had almost regained its normal color, though the skin of it was dry, stretched tight across the cheekbones.
Her face was devoid of makeup. Some would-be suicides carefully made up their faces before their desperate act, clothed themselves in their finest. Mrs. Paley had on a beautiful nightgown, but Dinah was sure her patient habitually wore lovely bed-things, for she dressed in the best of taste, with a scrupulous attention to grooming.
She looks awfully young, Dinah thought. Young and vulnerable and not middle-aged at all. But so empty, so haunted. She bent down and lightly kissed the woman’s cheek. “I hope you’re glad to see me,” she said.
“Oh, Dinah …”
The empty eyes suffused with tears. Dinah reached for the box of tissues and pulled a few out. Mrs. Paley covered her eyes with a tissue and Dinah turned away. She had brought some flowers, pale yellow daffodils. She laid the cone-shaped parcel on top of the utility chest and went back to the bed again. “If you can cry, then cry,” she said. “I’ll be back in a few seconds. I want to put these flowers in water.”
Mrs. Paley took the tissue away and shook her head urgently. “No, don’t go,” she pleaded. “One of the nurses will do it. Oh, thank you, Dinah, for the flowers. Thank you, thank you. But please don’t go. Just sit down in the chair and stay with me, because I think I can go to sleep again now that you’re here. I told the doctor not to let anyone up. I don’t want to see any of my friends. But I’m glad you’re here. Will you just stay with me until I drift off?”
“Of course. Close your eyes and stop thinking. Just let yourself relax. You’ll go to sleep now I’m here.”
In only minutes Mrs. Paley’s regular breathing assured Dinah that her patient was asleep. She didn’t move, though. One of the floor nurses walked soundlessly through the door a little later, and Dinah signaled her to put the flowers in a vase. “I’ll talk to you later,” she whispered, with a colleague-to-colleague smile.
It was over an hour before Mrs. Paley woke up again.
Her eyes flew to Dinah. “Oh, there you are,” she said.
“Of course here I am. You had a refreshing nap. It’s lunchtime. Hear the trays outside?”
“Oh, but I can’t eat anything!” Mrs. Paley’s face turned more pallid.
“Just a little broth and some toast?”
“I don’t see how …” Her hand fumbled for the basin beside the pillows. Dinah held it to her and she retched, breathed deeply, and then retched again. But nothing came up. Finally she relinquished the basin to Dinah.
“I’ll try to drink the broth,” she said bravely.
“Good. I’ll see to it. Be right back.”
She went out and spoke to the nurse in charge and in a short while a tray was brought in with the soup and toast. Mrs. Paley managed, and when the tray was taken away again Dinah told her she’d feel a little better for having taken the nourishment.
“You’re dehydrated, you see, and we must make an effort to slowly get something back into your stomach.”
Her patient lay back, exhausted. “I feel rotten,” she said. “Not just this kind of rotten, but bitter. I don’t know wh
y my life was given back to me. I don’t want it. It horrifies me to find myself alive.” Her hands clenched tightly on the sheet. “I’m even worse off now than I was before. I’ve pushed myself so far down I’ll never be able to go on … or to forget this.”
“Yes, you will,” Dinah said. “You won’t believe it, I know, but you will. You’re a young woman and you’ve lived only part of your life.”
“I don’t want the damned rest of it,” Mrs. Paley said thinly. “I have no shame about what I did, Dinah. Only despair that it was abortive. A person has a right to do with her own life what she wants to. Nobody can make me believe differently.”
“I wouldn’t try to make you believe differently. I don’t question your right to do what you did. Nobody kind and sympathetic and sensitive questions your right. You don’t think you’re being judged, do you?”
“It’s of the utmost indifference to me what others think,” Mrs. Paley said. Then she looked pleadingly at Dinah. “I do care,” she said. “I mean, I want you to reassure me about what you think. You don’t feel disgust with me?”
“Darling, I only feel anguished for you,” Dinah said, and gripped the hand that reached out to her.
Mrs. Paley was permitted to leave the hospital on the following afternoon. Dinah, with her patient’s keys, took the bus down to the Fifty-Sixth Street apartment, the one in which she had spent so much time with another patient, Mrs. Paley’s late husband. It was a good building, though not one of the more affluent ones. There were few remaining rental buildings in the vicinity; most of them had gone co-op.
She got off the elevator on the seventh floor, found the right keys to let herself in, and went straight to the bedroom to choose Mrs. Paley’s going-home clothes. Mrs. Paley hadn’t cared. “Anything,” she had said. “A dress, or a cotton suit, and shoes to go with it. My lingerie and stockings are in the chest of drawers near the side window. A girdle, slip, stockings … oh, you know.”
It was eleven-thirty when Dinah had the small overnight case packed. She stood in the bedroom doorway and looked back. There were the two beds, one of them unused now. She supposed she would be sleeping in Mr. Paley’s bed, though she would offer to sleep in the living room.
It must be hard to see that empty bed all the time, she thought, and closed up the apartment again.
She went down to York Avenue for a cab, walking slowly uptown in the direction she would be going, with a finger raised as the traffic zoomed by, and suddenly she realized where she was.
The Sutton Place park was just to her right. Mrs. Paley probably spent time in that park … all by herself. She walked down the street to the embankment and stood looking down over the railing. It was odd how these things happened, she thought. Only a few days ago she had been sitting down there, and now she was here again, with a patient who lived nearby.
It was like some kind of predestination.
She saw him then, sitting on the same bench, the one nearest the river. There was something familiar about one of the figures, and then she remembered the man with the book of poetry. I can take a minute to go down and talk to him, she thought impulsively. Just a minute or two. What would be the harm?
She walked down the ramp and crossed the sunny square. “Good afternoon,” she said, when she stood in front of him. “Do you remember me?”
She saw his look of bewilderment and flushed. Now she was embarrassed. “Of course you don’t!” she said quickly. “I was here on Friday and you were reading Baudelaire. We got into a conversation.”
His face cleared immediately. “Yes, of course. I didn’t recognize you in that uniform.”
“Oh, yes, that’s right. I was in civvies.”
“With an orange hat,” he said.
She laughed. “I didn’t think men noticed things like that.” She sat down beside him, shoving the small suitcase under the bench. “Mind if I stay for just one cigarette?”
“I’d be delighted.”
“I’m on a case again,” she told him. “My patient lives only a few blocks from here.”
And in a few seconds they were deep in another conversation.
Dick Claiborne was standing at the railing, surveying the passing craft and trying to decide what colors he would use if he were painting the river. That is, if he were a painter. Green, mixed with lampblack. Cobalt blue. A dash of white. A few jagged smears of yellow.
Camilla was in Paris at this minute, perhaps standing as he was at the edge of a river. Only her river would be the Seine. Her first postcard had come this morning. Letter follows, she had written on the back of it. Miss me, darling?
Did he?
He was trying to decide if he was missing Cam and if so to what extent, when he heard his father’s voice. He turned to see what it was his father wanted, but although it had been Dad’s voice all right, it had nothing to do with him.
His father was sitting on his favorite bench and he was talking to a girl in a nurse’s uniform. That was surprising to Dick, because his father wasn’t given to idle chitchat with strangers. Particularly young girls.
A very pretty girl too. Looked like the young Joan Fontaine. He eyed her long and shapely legs and winced when he came to the stout, serviceable nurse’s shoes. A girl with legs like that shouldn’t have to wear those clumpy shoes, damn it. When were they going to do something about the shoes? Pucci was dolling up the airline hostesses. Why didn’t some designer give the nurses a break?
He went back to the river again, but his mind wasn’t on it. They must be blue, he was thinking. Blonde hair, very blonde … so the eyes must be blue.
He turned around again. His father didn’t even notice his movement. Dad swiveled around in his seat, facing the girl. And Dick didn’t solve anything anyway. They were just a little too far off for him to tell about the eyes.
He faced the water again, determined to let his father have his little adventure. Smiling to himself, he thought about how he’d kid Dad about it later. I won’t look again, he told himself determinedly. She isn’t all that pretty.
He leaned on the railing and watched the river.
He heard his father’s voice again, and this time it was raised. When he looked, his father was standing up, a small suitcase in one of his hands, and he was calling out, “Miss … Miss …”
Then his father began walking rapidly across the square.
Dick caught up with him halfway to the ramp. “What’s the trouble, Dad?”
“There was a girl here, and she forgot her grip.”
“I’ll take it to her,” Dick said. “She’s just at the top.” He laughed. “Oh, I saw you. Don’t worry, I’ll get it to her.”
“Well, all right.”
Spoiled his fun, Dick thought, sprinting up the ramp. At that moment the girl turned quickly, an alarmed look on her face, and started back. They met halfway.
“Oh, thank you,” she said breathlessly. “Imagine me going off and leaving that! It doesn’t even belong to me.”
“It … doesn’t?”
“I mean yes, I left it there, but it belongs to my patient. I’m taking it to her at the hospital. Thanks ever so much. I must get a cab right away. I didn’t mean to be away so long.” She gave him a dazzling smile. “Thanks again,” she said, still breathless, and walked up the rest of the way quickly.
He stood there for a second or two and then dashed after her. She was half running up the short street. He got up to her and touched her lightly on the arm. “Listen, I’ll drive you wherever you’re going,” he said. “My car’s parked at the end of the avenue.” He pointed. “Right down there.”
She laughed, said “thank you” again, and gently shook his hand off her arm. “I can’t do that,” she said, as if she were really saying, “Silly boy …”
“I don’t intend to kidnap you,” he assured her. Her polite but firm refusal made him more eager. “I only want to get you to your destination as quickly as possible.”
“I never in my life would consider getting into a moving vehicle with a
stranger … not in a city like this,” she said. “No offense intended, but I’m sure you understand what I mean.”
“It’s broad daylight,” he persisted. “You’re kidding, aren’t you? Can’t you tell when someone wants to help?”
She stopped walking and faced him. Her eyes swept over him slowly. They weren’t blue, either. They were a winy brown, with random gold flecks in them. They gave him a long, considering look.
Then she handed him the overnight case. “It’s very decent of you,” she said. “I’ll take you up on your offer and I appreciate it.”
“That’s better,” he said, and led her down to the farther corner, where his car was parked.
He put the grip in the back, asked what hospital, and they drove away. “My patient’s going home today,” she told him. “I had to come down here and get her some clothes to wear home, and I stopped off for a few minutes in the park, which I discovered only a day or two ago. Only I’m afraid I forgot the time. There’s a man who sits there and I just had to say hello to him.”
“He started after you with your bag,” Dick said, studying her in the rear-view mirror. “But I thought I could run faster.”
“Poor fellow,” she said reflectively. “People like that make my heart ache. He’s obviously of superior education, but he seems to be unemployed, and he’s far from retirement age. Isn’t it terrible what happens to some people?”
Dick nearly lost control of the car. He could scarcely believe his ears. Was she talking about Dad?
“He was reading Baudelaire the other day,” she went on. “It knocked me for a loop. Here was this shabby man, out at the seams, not working on a weekday … and reading immortal poetry.”
Dick got a proper grip on the wheel again and suddenly he began to see the funny side of it. He realized that this adorable girl was judging his father by the disreputable old clothes he was wearing. She apparently wasn’t hip enough to recognize the quality of the material or of the cut. All she had seen was that they were old and well-worn.
He suppressed a grin. “I’m not working on a weekday,” he pointed out.
“But that’s different,” she said, and then gave him a questioning look. “Why aren’t you working on a weekday?”
Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances Page 127