Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings

by Shirley Jackson

  Miss Lederer looked up. “You know, Evelyn, if you wanted to change the tickets for some other day, I wouldn’t mind at all. Of course it’s not my place to say anything, since it’s your treat, but somehow the prospect of a stuffy theater…”

  “I just don’t feel in the mood for a play today, I guess,” Miss Alliston said. “They’re holding our tickets at the box office; I’ll just call the theater.”

  “Get the papers after you do everything else, and then you’ll probably get a later edition,” Miss Lederer suggested. Miss Alliston, walking quickly, let the door slam behind her.

  Miss Lederer started clearing the dishes off the table. She had the new pot of coffee percolating cheerfully when Miss Alliston returned, arms full of packages.

  “It’s really dreadfully chilly out, dear,” Miss Alliston said. “You’ve no idea how wise we are to cancel our plans today.”

  “Did you get the papers?” Miss Lederer asked.

  Miss Alliston put the packages down. “All the papers,” she said, “and some potato salad and two codfish cakes and some rye bread, and, Paula, a tiny little bottle of Chianti! And I got myself a pack of cigarettes, too; the man said they were a very popular brand.”

  “Good for you,” Miss Lederer said heartily. “You deserve a little treat after being so generous about giving up the matinee.” She took the coffeepot from the stove and stood it on the table next to the two fresh cups, then sat down. The big gray cat leaped up on her lap, and she petted him. Then she selected a tabloid from the pile of papers Miss Alliston had brought and turned to the story of the murder.

  Miss Alliston took her packages into the kitchen, then returned and sat down in her own place at the table. She opened her new pack of cigarettes carefully, lit one, and put it down beside her in the clean ashtray. Then she poured herself a cup of coffee and sat back comfortably.

  “I saw in the headlines,” she said, “that they’ve found a new secret clue.” She picked up her cigarette and puffed vigorously. “Paula,” she continued through the smoke, “you know, I don’t think it would do any harm if we went out later for a short constitutional, and just ran over to Gramercy Park for a minute to see what we could see—”

  “Dear, can I clean the turtle in there now?”

  IV

  •••

  Somehow Things Haven’t Turned Out Quite the Way We Expected

  Humor and Family

  •••

  “I get a lot of unnecessary sarcasm from the eggbeater.”

  •••

  Here I Am, Washing Dishes Again

  Here I am, washing dishes again. If I were any sort of a proper housewife at all I’d start my dishwashing at a specific hour in the morning, duly aproned, trim and competent, instead of heaping the dishpan high while my neighbors and no doubt the rest of the world are off on some blissful pursuit—frying doughnuts, perhaps, or flying kites with their children. Three times a day, seven days a week, how on earth many weeks a year? What sort of look do I have on my face? The subway rider’s, probably, sort of resigned and do–all–the–glasses–before–Times Square.

  I don’t really hate these brass faucets and the complete perfect circle of the dishpan, though; I love the things, I own them, they are so essential a part of me that I like to be near them, and when I am away from home, next to the children the thing I miss most is the sight of my own dear sink. When I wash dishes, I stare into the dishpan and at my own hands, which are the only alien things in the dishwater, the only things that don’t rattle.

  The green glasses from the five-and-ten love their bath; they roll luxuriously in the soapy water and seem almost to stretch. They’re trying to forget their humble ten-cent origin, and they sort of hope that everyone else will forget it too. I watch them sitting on the table, holding themselves proudly; they expect that guests—they don’t expect much, anymore, from members of the family—will comment on them and hold them up appreciatively. “Where did you get these lovely glasses?” someone may ask, and all along the table the glasses stiffen, not daring to glance at one another, tense until I answer, “I bought them at an auction. I expect they’re quite valuable, really.” Then along the table the green glasses will preen themselves, relaxing, and nod condescendingly at me. They have grown quite fond of me because of that little lie, and make a definite effort not to break when I drop them. I have noticed, too, half a dozen times, that if I forget, and confess that they did come from the five-and-ten, then inside twenty-four hours one or another of the glasses, no longer able to stand the disgrace, will plunge nobly to its death on the floor. I have only six of these glasses left, and the five-and-ten no longer carries them. My great hope is that someday I shall find some at an auction.

  I really spend a lot more time in the kitchen than I ought, although it doesn’t surprise anything in the kitchen to find me there, considering what a busybody I am, always meddling in things that are clearly none of my business. Take the forks, for instance; I’m sure I’ve done nothing to clear up that unhappy situation. I have two kitchen forks, one with four prongs and one with two prongs, and the four-pronged fork is of course my favorite because of its amiability; it is a far sweeter and more malleable character than the two-pronged fork, which was originally the fork to an inexpensive carving set, and regards this fact as an automatic entrée into the dining room.

  My two forks are insanely jealous of each other, and I find that I must take a path of great caution with them, something I would not do for many of my friends. I try to keep out of their quarrels—who wouldn’t be afraid of an angry fork?—but I am always fumbling the delicate balance of power that is all that keeps them from each other’s throats. For instance, four-prongs is traditionally the fork for scrambling eggs, but two-prongs takes precedence in the dishwater. Four-prongs prides himself on the fact that no two-pronged fork knows how to scramble eggs adequately. There is, however, some hair-thin line between scrambling eggs and beating eggs; past that certain line the job rightly belongs to an eggbeater. If I try to force four-prongs beyond his notions of right and fitting duty, he turns limp and useless in my hands.

  Then, of course, as though my life were not enough complicated, when I finally give up on four-prongs and take out the eggbeater, that surly character is offended in turn, and twists himself into a rigid, disobedient confusion of metal when I try to turn the handle. I get a lot of unnecessary sarcasm from that eggbeater, too. I have let cake batter stand, half-mixed, for half an hour while the eggbeater and the fork calmed down, and at least twice I have had to set them on opposite sides of the kitchen table to keep them from tangling themselves into a snarling battle. All this, while two-prongs sits sedately watching, observing that any vulgar fork with four prongs is bound to get himself into low trouble, particularly if he consorts with eggbeaters.

  Two-prongs is the kitchen carving-and-roast fork, and I shall never forget the taut moment in the kitchen when I inadvertently tried to lift a roast out of the pan with four-prongs. I was in a hurry, company was waiting, the gravy was not made, and four-prongs was the nearest fork. There was a moment of absolute resistance, then the incredulous turn of four-prongs in my hand, the sudden furious clatter of two-prongs from the stove where he had been waiting, the slippery tipping of the roasting pan; even the potholder hesitated. There was nothing I could say, of course. I was at fault, so I picked the roast up off the floor, kicked the interfering roasting pan into a corner, set four-prongs pointedly in the sink, and went to work with two-prongs, who was mollified, but sullen for several days.

  I do not mean to say that I am under the thumb of my forks, any more than I am honestly afraid of the meat grinder’s threats, or the bullying of the coffeepot. It is simply that one cannot live a day in the middle of so many personalities without occasionally treading on some fork’s toes, or sideswiping the fundamental makeup of a dishtowel. A dishtowel is, I think, the most easily cowed of all kitchen implements, excepting only the steel wool, which hides a heart of gold under its gruff exterio
r. My striped dishtowels take a vulgar, unholy joy in getting into the living room to clean up spilled juice. There is one dishtowel that adores my three-year-old daughter, I think because she once carried it off to her doll carriage to serve as a blanket, which is a pleasure usually beyond the reach of dishtowels. My daughter’s friend is pleased to serve her now in any menial capacity, and has occasionally done service as a bib, at which it is well meaning but inefficient, as it prefers to lie back and admire her rather than catch the little bits of bacon and butter she is apt to let fall from her mouth.

  When I turn my back on the sink to take up the dishtowel, the kitchen brightens and beams at me reassuringly. It rather resents being polished up, and there was quite a scene recently about the new curtains. I explained that I had made them myself, and was a little proud of them, and wanted to take the old ones down, but a great loyal voice was raised for the old curtains, and when they went into the hamper regardless, to be washed and turned into dust cloths, a vast silent resentment confronted me and my new curtains. The new curtains were edged awry, until I was persuaded I had sewn them wrong; the rods slipped down persistently. The color of the new curtains, by morning light, was made so vivid, so glaring, by the subdued martyrdom of the rest of the kitchen, that I was almost convinced that they were a mistake. But I give my kitchen time; it is primarily easygoing and friendly, and it will adapt to anything. I brought the old curtains back, in their new role as dust cloths, and left them on the table for a while, so that they might reassure their friends that they were happy and well treated. I gave the floor a wash—it hates washing, like a puppy, but, like a puppy, always feels better afterward—and promised the pantry new shelf paper, and things calmed down. There was only one morning, all things considered, when it was really impossible to serve breakfast in the kitchen.

  My husband and son, who are gadget-happy, set up for me to use in my kitchen a magnetic metal bar, about four inches long, that takes, and keeps, a violent hold on any metal objects near it, so that I have had to pry my can openers away from it and occasionally, working too near, have had fear for the fillings in my teeth, or my wedding ring, or the tips of my shoelaces. When I moved the kitchen table over to the opposite wall, things were a little better, but I still felt, using my two forks or the can opener, the strong steady pull of the magnet against me, so that if I let go of the fork for a minute it would fly across the room to lodge securely against the magnet.

  For a while I wondered about this, the advisability of having one spot in a kitchen to which all utensils would naturally gravitate, but now it reassures me. At least I can always be sure of finding my two warring forks there, nestling snugly in the broad magnetic arms of their common refuge, their maniac suspicions of each other lulled by the fact that it is big enough for both. Furthermore, I can feel through my wall magnet, even from the worktable across the room, the sure haunting echo of one magnet after another throughout the house: From the toy closet, my son’s collection of magnets and small metal toys joins its siren voice to the master one in the kitchen. From beyond it, the magnets in all the various toys in the upstairs playroom call shrilly to my forks. From far above comes the thin sweet voice of the magnet in the new lock to the attic workshop. My forks tremble, look at me imploringly, and resign themselves to their work.

  Sometimes, wandering as I do around my kitchen, I feel the magnetic pull myself, the urge to flatten myself against the wall and, until I am taken down for some practical purpose, lie there quiet, stilled, at rest.

  Perhaps it’s the magnet that holds me to my kitchen. Perhaps it’s the fact that I keep my fountain pen and notebook on the shelf near the clock, so that I always have to go into the kitchen to sign letters, as well as to see what time it is, or, as a last resort, to wash dishes.

  Perhaps I’ll wait and dry these tomorrow after breakfast.

  In Praise of Dinner Table Silence

  A long time ago, back in those unbelievable days when I used to buy half a pound of hamburger or four pork chops for dinner, and the living room furniture was new and I still had eight cups and eight dinner plates that matched—back in those days, if they ever did exist, my husband and I used to sit at the dinner table every night and talk to each other. I can’t remember what we talked about, but I do know we could hear each other.

  That was back in the time, too, when we had all sorts of ideas about bringing up children. We supposed that our children were not going to be messy all the time like other children we saw, and if we had a daughter, we assured each other, she was going to learn to like housework and sewing and cooking instead of being a drone around the house. And our children, we told each other happily, were going to have an intelligent share in family activities, such as sitting at the dinner table and joining in the conversation. We had a lot of these ideas.

  I still can’t figure out what happened. It was going to be so wonderful, all of us sitting there, lingering over coffee and hot chocolate, discussing the ballet and the good books we all had been reading. Perhaps occasionally something would come up in school that the children would care to examine a little bit more searchingly; perhaps an incident from the day would provoke a thoughtful argument. If the phone should ring (I don’t know why we assumed that the chances of the phone’s ringing during dinner were remote; perhaps it was because none of the people we knew called at that hour), a child would excuse himself gracefully and tell whoever was calling that we were dining. Compliments would be made on the food; an indulgent smile might pass between the parents at some childish quip.

  As I say, I still can’t figure out what happened. All I know is that somehow things haven’t turned out quite the way we expected. Take that notion about lingering over hot chocolate: What we didn’t know then was that the older the child, the less time spent at the dinner table.

  A very small child, dawdling and playing and telling endless, giggling stories, can string out one French-fried potato until he is permitted—with some shrillness and a certain involuntary clenching of fists—to be excused from the rest of his dinner. A fifteen-year-old boy, however, can put away two lamb chops, a baked potato, a lettuce-and-tomato salad, three slices of bread and butter, and a quart of milk before his father has quite finished asking for the salt, please. Before the rest of the family has had time to compliment the cook (“String beans again?”), the fifteen-year-old is well on his way to the front door, jacket over one shoulder and a slab of blueberry pie in hand. If called back, he will perch unhappily on the edge of his chair, make a few perfunctory stabs at conversation, such as asking his younger sister kindly to be quiet for just one minute so other people can get a word in edgewise. He will also ask repeatedly if he can please be excused now, because he is really in a terrible hurry, and will answer all questions with “What?” He is in such a hurry, of course, because he has to get down to the soda shop and idle for two hours over a Coke.

  The only good book that seems to be discussed at our dinner table is the checkbook, usually introduced in some such literary phrase as “I gotta have a new…” Conversation, which is rarely initiated by the parents, is incessant, opinionated, and personal. It is the obligation of the parents to recognize, without hesitation, the Jerrys and the Lindas, the Davises and the Old Lady Winchesters, whose names wander so freely through the social conversation. A maternal question such as “Who is Tommy? Is he that sloppy little boy who borrowed all your records?” is regarded as out-of-bounds, partly because the parent is supposed to know who Tommy is and partly because Tommy is the rage of the seventh grade and looks that way on purpose. Equally, Old Lady Winchester has been teaching the fourth grade for forty-three years, and any parent who cannot recognize her by now is hopelessly out of it.

  Scientific discussions, seized upon by the father of the family in the hope of getting into the general conversation, can cause considerable chaos, with the father demonstrating the force of gravity with his butter knife or explaining what makes airplanes go, while on either side low-voiced conversations continue on t
opics such as whether Jimmie Smith is really the biggest drip in town or what is playing at the movies or who gets first rights at the television set at 8:30. Incidentally, a father, leaving the table to get an atlas to show someone where Alaska is, can count on losing his audience before he gets back. If the father has devoted considerable effort to telling how a camera takes pictures or how we get water out of a faucet and a child remarks that that was not at all the way Mr. Williams told it in science class, the father would be advised to get out of the conversation at once—and stay out.

  As for the small daily incidents that spur conversation, there are certainly plenty of them. Opening gambits on these may vary from such provocative questions as “Guess why Jerry got kicked out of study hall again today” to “You know that three-legged dog the Johnsons got? Well, he’s got four legs now.” (He never was three-legged. This was a canard, spread by Harry Johnson. All that happened was the dog got one leg cut chasing the Martins’ cat up a tree. So he used to limp. Now he doesn’t.) A parental attempt to introduce some small daily incident (“Who left the marbles lying on the stairs?”) is usually sensibly disregarded.

  The phone always rings during dinner.

  Conversation about the food, although, of course, not on a gourmet level, is constant. There is surprise expressed at a new dish (“You mean I gotta eat this?”), personal preference indicated (“I haaaaaate liver. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!”), and suggestions registered for improvement (“There’s too much salt in this soup, and I got a black speck on my lettuce”). Occasionally a dish will provoke universal enthusiasm (“Say, this isn’t bad at all”) or comparison with other cooks (“Mrs. Nash doesn’t make stew like this, but she’s a real good cook”). The mother of the family naturally receives these comments graciously (“Then why don’t you go eat at the Smiths’ if the food’s so good?”) and takes preferences into consideration in her menu planning, as in telling the father after dinner that he’s going to go right on getting hamburger once a week unless something is done about the housekeeping budget.