Slowly, Slowly in the Wind

by Patricia Highsmith

  “. . . if this keeps up with little Frances, the law will have to step in and I’m sure you wouldn’t want that. That would mean taking Frances to live somewhere else.”

  The idea was quite pleasant to Laura.

  “Where? Take’er where?” Georgie asked. He was in pajama pants, standing near the table.

  Mrs. Crabbe paid him no mind. She was ready to leave.

  Eddie gave a curse when she was out the door, and went to get another beer. “Goddamn invasion of privacy!” He kicked the fridge door shut.

  Laura burst out in a laugh. “That old sofa! Remember? Jesus!”

  “Too bad it wasn’t here, she coulda broke her behind on it.”

  That night around midnight, as Laura was carrying a heavy tray of four superburgers and four mugs of coffee, she remembered something that she had put out of her mind for five days. Incredible that she hadn’t thought of it for five whole days. Now it was more than ever likely. Eddie would blow his stack.

  The next morning on the dot of nine, Laura called up Dr. Weebler from the newspaper store downstairs. She said it was urgent, and got an appointment for 11:15. As Laura left for the doctor’s, Mrs. Covini was in the hall, mopping the part of the white tiles directly in front of her door. Laura thought that was somehow bad luck, seeing Mrs. Covini now. She and Mrs. Covini didn’t speak to each other any more.

  “I can’t give you an abortion just like that,” Dr. Weebler said, shrugging and smiling his awful smile that seemed to say, “It’s you holding the bag. I’m a doctor, a man.” He said, “These things can be prevented. Abortions shouldn’t be necessary.”

  I’ll damn well go to another doctor, Laura thought with rising anger, but she kept a pleasant, polite expression on her face. “Look, Dr. Weebler, my husband and I are practicing Catholics, I told you that. At least my husband is and—you know. So these things happen. But I’ve already got four. Have a heart.”

  “Since when do practicing Catholics want abortions? No, Mrs. Regan, but I can refer you to another doctor.”

  And abortions were supposed to be easy lately in New York. “If I get the money together—How much is it?” Dr. Weebler was cheap, that was why they went to him.

  “It’s not a matter of money.” The doctor was restless. He had other people waiting to see him.

  Laura wasn’t sure of herself, but she said, “You do abortions on other women, so why not me?”

  “Who?—When there’s a danger to a woman’s health, that’s different.”

  Laura didn’t get anywhere, and that useless expedition cost her $7.50, payable on the spot, except that she did get another prescription for half-grain Nembutals out of him. That night she told Eddie. Better to tell him right away than postpone it, because postponing it was hell, she knew from experience, with the damned subject crossing her mind every half hour.

  “Oh, Chr-r-rist!” Eddie said, and fell back on the sofa, mashing the hand of Stevie who was on the sofa and had stuck out a hand just as Eddie plopped.

  Stevie let out a wail.

  “Oh, shut up, that didn’t kill you!” Eddie said to Stevie. “Well, now what. Now what?”

  Now what. Laura was actually trying to think now what. What the hell ever was there to do except hope for a miscarriage, which never happened. Fall down the stairs, something like that, but she’d never had the guts to fall down the stairs. At least not so far. Stevie’s wailing was like awful background music. Like in a horror film. “Oh, can it, Stevie!”

  Then Francy started yelling. Laura hadn’t fed her yet.

  “I’m gonna get drunk,” Eddie announced. “I suppose there’s no booze.”

  He knew there wasn’t. There never was any booze, it got drunk up too fast. Eddie was going to go out. “Don’t you want to eat first?” Laura asked.

  “Naw.” He pulled on a sweater. “I just want to forget the whole damned thing. Just forget it for a little while.”

  Ten minutes later, after poking something at Francy (mashed potatoes, a nippled bottle because it made less mess than a cup) and leaving the other kids with a box of Fig Newtons, Laura did the same thing, but she went to a bar farther down Hudson where she knew he didn’t go. Tonight was one of her two nights off from the diner, which was a piece of luck. She had two whiskey sours with a bottle of beer as accompaniment, and then a rather nice man started talking with her, and bought her two more whiskey sours. On the fourth, she was feeling quite wonderful, even rather decent and important sitting on the bar stool, glancing now and then at her reflection in the mirror behind the bottles. Wouldn’t it be great to be starting over again? No marriage, no Eddie, no kids? Just something new, a clean slate.

  “I asked you—are you married?”

  “No,” Laura said.

  But apart from that, he talked about football. He had won a bet that day. Laura daydreamed. Yes, she’d once had a marriage, love and all that. She’d known Eddie would never make a lot of dough, but there was such a thing as living decently, wasn’t there, and God knew her tastes weren’t madly expensive, so what took all the money? The kids. There was the drain. Too bad Eddie was a Catholic, and when you marry a Catholic—

  “Hey, you’re not listening!”

  Laura dreamed on with determination. Above all, she’d had a dream once, a dream of love and happiness and of making a nice home for Eddie and herself. Now the outsiders were even attacking her inside her house. Mrs. Crabbe. A lot Mrs. Crabbe knew about being waked up at five in the morning by a screaming kid, or being poked in the face by Stevie or Georgie when you’d been asleep only a couple of hours and your whole body ached. That was when she or Eddie was apt to swat them. In those awful dawns. Laura realized she was near tears, so she began to listen to the man who was still going on about football.

  He wanted to walk her home, so she let him. She was so tipsy, she rather needed his arm. Then she said at the door that she lived with her mother, so she had to go up alone. He started getting fresh, but she gave him a shove and closed the front door, which locked. Laura hadn’t quite reached the third floor when she heard feet on the stairs and thought the guy must’ve got in somehow, but it turned out to be Eddie.

  “Well, how d’y’do?” said Eddie, feeling no pain.

  The kids had got into the fridge. It was something they did about once a month. Eddie flung Georgie back and shut the fridge, then slipped on some spilled stringbeans and nearly fell.

  “And lookit the gas, f’Christ’s sake!” Eddie said.

  Every burner was on, and as soon as Laura saw it, she smelled gas, gas everywhere. Eddie flipped all the burners shut and opened a window.

  Georgie’s wailing started all the others.

  “Shut up, shut up!” Eddie yelled. “What the hell’s the matter, are they hungry? Didn’t you feed ’em?”

  “Of course I fed ’em!” Laura said.

  Eddie bumped into the door jamb, his feet slipped sideways in a funny slow motion collapse, and he sat down heavily on the floor. Four-year-old Helen laughed and clapped her hands. Stevie was giggling. Eddie cursed the entire household, and flung his sweater at the sofa, missing it. Laura lit a cigarette. She still had her whiskey sour buzz and she was enjoying it.

  She heard the crash of a glass on the bathroom floor, and she merely raised her eyebrows and inhaled smoke. Got to tie Francy in her crib, Laura thought, and moved vaguely towards Francy to do it. Francy was sitting like a dirty rag doll in a corner. Her crib was in the bedroom, and so was the double bed in which the other three kids slept. Goddamn bedroom certainly was a bedroom, Laura thought. Beds were all you could see in there. She pulled Francy up by her tied-around bib, and Francy just then burped, sending a curdled mess over Laura’s wrist.

  “Ugh!” Laura dropped the child and shook her hand with disgust.

  Francy’s head had bumped the floor, and now she let out a scream. Lau
ra ran water over her hand at the sink, shoving aside Eddie who was already stripped to the waist, shaving. Eddie shaved at night so that he could sleep a little longer in the morning.

  “You’re pissed,” Eddie said.

  “And so what?” Laura went back and shook Francy to make her hush. “For God’s sake, shut up! What’ve you got to cry about?”

  “Give’er an aspirin. Take some yourself,” Eddie said.

  Laura told him what to do with himself. If Eddie came at her tonight, he could shove it. She’d go back to the bar. Sure. That place stayed open till three in the morning. Laura found herself pushing a pillow down on Francy’s face to shut her up just for a minute, and Laura remembered what Mrs. Crabbe had said: Francy had become the target—Target? Outlet for both of them. Well, it was true, they did smack Francy more than the others, but Francy yelled more, too. Suiting action to the thought, Laura slapped Francy’s face hard. That’s what they did when people had hysterics, she thought. Francy did shut up, but for only a stunned couple of seconds, then yelled even louder.

  The people below were thumping on their ceiling. Laura imagined them with a broom handle. Laura stamped three times on her floor in defiance.

  “Listen, if you don’t get that kid quiet—” Eddie said.

  Laura stood at the closet undressing. She pulled on a nightgown, and pushed her feet into old brown loafers that served as house slippers. In the john, Eddie had broken the glass that they used when they brushed their teeth. Laura kicked some of the glass aside, too tired to sweep it up tonight. Aspirins. She took down a bottle and it slipped from her fingers before she got the top unscrewed. Crash, and pills all over the floor. Yellow pills. The Nembutals. That was a shame, but sweep it all up tomorrow. Save them, the pills. Laura took two aspirins.

  Eddie was yelling, waving his arms, herding the kids towards the other double bed. Usually that was Laura’s job, and she knew Eddie was doing it because he didn’t want them roaming around the house all night, disturbing him.

  “And if you don’t stay in that bed, all of yuh, I’ll wham yuh!”

  Thump-thump-thump on the floor again.

  Laura fell into bed, and awakened to the alarm clock. Eddie groaned and moved slowly, getting out of bed. Laura lay savoring the last few seconds of bed before she would hear the clunk that meant Eddie had put the kettle on. She did the rest, instant coffee, orange juice, bacon and eggs, instant hot cereal for the kids. She went over last night in her mind. How many whiskey sours? Five, maybe, and only one beer. With the aspirins, that shouldn’t be so bad.

  “Hey, what’s with Georgie?” Eddie yelled. “Hey, what the hell’s in the john?”

  Laura crawled out of bed, remembering. “I’ll sweep it up.”

  Georgie was lying on the floor in front of the john door, and Eddie was stooped beside him.

  “Aren’t those Nembutals?” Eddie said. “Georgie musta ate some! And lookit Helen!”

  Helen was in the bathroom, lying on the floor beside the shower.

  Eddie shook Helen, yelling at her to wake up. “Jesus, they’re like in a coma!” He dragged Helen out by an arm, picked Georgie up and carried him to the sink. He held Georgie under his arm like a sack of flour, wet a dishtowel and sloshed it over Georgie’s face and head. “You think we oughta get a doctor?—F’Christ’s sake, move, will yuh? Hand me Helen.”

  Laura did. Then she pulled on a dress. She kept the loafers on. She must phone Weebler. No, St. Vincent’s, it was closer. “Do you remember the number of St. Vincent’s?”

  “No,” said Eddie. “What d’y’do to make kids vomit? Anybody vomit? Mustard, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, I think so.” Laura went out the door. She still felt tipsy, and almost tripped on the stairs. Good thing if she did, she thought, remembering she was pregnant, but of course it never worked until you were pretty far gone.

  She hadn’t a dime with her, but the newspaper store man said he would trust her, and gave her a dime from his pocket. He was just opening, because it was early. Laura looked up the number, then in the booth she found that she had forgotten half of it. She’d have to look it up again. The newspaper store man was watching her, because she had said it was an emergency and she had to call a hospital. Laura picked up the telephone and dialed the number as best she remembered it. Then she put the forefinger of her right hand on the hook (the man couldn’t see the hook), because she knew it wasn’t the right number, but because the man was watching her, she started speaking. The dime was returned in the chute and she left it.

  “Yes, please. An emergency.” She gave her name and address. “Sleeping pills. I suppose we’ll need a stomach pump . . . Thank you. Good-bye.”

  Then she went back to the apartment.

  “They’re still out cold,” Eddie said. “How many pills’re gone, do you think? Take a look.”

  Stevie was yelling for his breakfast. Francy was crying because she was still tied in her crib.

  Laura took a look on the bathroom tiles, but she couldn’t guess at all how many pills were gone. Ten? Fifteen? They were sugar-coated, that’s why the kids had liked them. She felt blank, scared, and exhausted. Eddie had put the kettle on, and they had instant coffee, standing up. Eddie said there wasn’t any mustard in the house (Laura remembered she had used the last of it for all those ham sandwiches), and now he tried to get some coffee down Georgie’s and Helen’s throats, but none seemed to go down, and it only spilled on their fronts.

  “Sweep up that crap so Stevie won’t get any,” Eddie said, nodding at the john. “What time’re they coming? I gotta get going. That foreman’s a shit, I told you, he don’t want nobody late.” He cursed, having picked up his lunchbox and found it empty, and he tossed the lunchbox with a clatter in the sink.

  Still dazed, Laura fed Francy at the kitchen table (she had another black eye, where the hell did that come from?), started to feed cornflakes and milk to Stevie (he wouldn’t eat hot cereal), then left it for Stevie to do, whereupon he turned the bowl over on the oilcloth table. Georgie and Helen were still asleep on the double bed where Eddie had put them. Well, after all St. Vincent’s is coming, Laura thought. But they weren’t coming. She turned on the little battery radio to some dance music. Then she changed Francy’s diaper. That was what Francy was howling about, her wet diaper. Laura had barely heard the howling this morning. Stevie had toddled over to Georgie and Helen and was poking them, trying to wake them up. In the john, Laura emptied the kids’ pot down the toilet, washed the pot out, swept up the broken glass and the pills, and picked the pills out of the dustpan. She put the pills on a bare place on one of the glass shelves in the medicine cabinet.

  At ten, Laura went down to the newspaper store, paid the man back, and had to look up the St. Vincent number again. This time she dialed it, got someone, told them what was the matter and asked why no one had come yet.

  “You phoned at seven? That’s funny. I was on. We’ll send an ambulance right away.”

  Laura bought four quarts of milk and more baby food at the delicatessen, then went back upstairs. She felt a little less sleepy, but not much. Were Georgie and Helen still breathing? She absolutely didn’t want to go and see. She heard the ambulance arriving. Laura was finishing her third cup of coffee. She glanced at herself in the mirror, but couldn’t face that either. The more upset she looked, the better, maybe. Two men in white came up, and went at once to the two kids. They had stethoscopes. They murmured and exclaimed. One turned and asked:

  “Whad they take?”

  “Sleeping pills. They got into the Nembutals.”

  “This one’s even cold. Didn’t you notice that?”

  He meant Georgie. One of the men wrapped the kids up in blankets from the bed, the other prepared a needle. He gave shots in the arm to both kids.

  “No use telephoning us for another two three hours,” one of them said.

 
; The other said, “Never mind, she’s in a state of shock. Better have some hot tea, lady, and lie down.”

  They hurried off. The ambulance whined towards St. Vincent’s.

  The whine was taken up by Francy, who was standing with her fat little legs apart, but no more apart than usual, while pee dripped from the lump of diaper between them. All the rubber pants were still dirty in the pan under the sink. It was a chore she should have done last night. Laura went over and smacked her on the cheek, just to shut her up for a minute, and Francy fell on the floor. Then Laura gave her a kick in the stomach, something she’d never done before. Francy lay there, silent for once.

  Stevie stared wide-eyed and gaping, looking as if he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Laura kicked her shoes off and went to get a beer. Naturally, there wasn’t any. Laura combed her hair, then went down to the delicatessen. When she came back, Francy was sitting where she had lain before, and crying again. Change the diaper again? Stick a pair of dirty rubber pants on her? Laura opened a beer, drank some, then changed the diaper just to be doing something. Still with the beer beside her, she filled the sink with sudsy water and dumped the six pairs of rubber pants into it, and a couple of rinsed-out but filthy diapers as well.

  The doorbell rang at noon, and it was Mrs. Crabbe, damn her eyes, just about as welcome as the cops.

  This time Laura was insolent. She interrupted the old bitch every time she spoke. Mrs. Crabbe was asking how the children came to get at the sleeping pills? What time had they eaten them?

  “I don’t know why any human being has to put up with intrusions like this!” Laura yelled.

  “Do you realize that your son is dead? He was bleeding internally from glass particles.”

  Laura let fly one of Eddie’s favorite curses.

  Then the old bag left the house, and Laura drank her beer, three cans of it. She was thirsty. When the bell rang again, she didn’t answer it, but soon there was a knocking on the door. After a few minutes, Laura got so tired of it, she opened the door. It was old Crabbe again with two men in white, one carrying a satchel. Laura put up a fight, but they got a straitjacket on her. They took her to another hospital, not St. Vincent’s. Here two people held her while a third person gave her a needle. The needle nearly knocked her out, but not quite.