Deep Water

by Patricia Highsmith

  Melinda was within hearing.

  "I suppose you'll get around to it," Vic said, smiling. "My wife sees the Wilsons quite often. You might enjoy him, I don't know." Vic had no doubt that Carpenter had met Don. Don had probably picked Carpenter out for the job, gone to New York to do it for Melinda, because any trip she made to New York would have been noticed by Vic, she went so seldom. And an assignment like this would have needed personal contact. Harold Carpenter was a good private eye. Nothing rattled him. Vic said:

  "When did you start your psychiatric training?" Carpenter had told him that he was in his last year at Columbia, and that he needed only his thesis plus some examination for his doctorate.

  "Start? Oh, not until I was twenty-three. I lost some time by having to go to Korea."

  "And when did you stop?"

  Carpenter did not bat an eye. "Stop? What do you mean?"

  "I meant stop your classes to start your field research for the thesis."

  "Oh, well, at the beginning of the summer, you might say. I went to some summer classes." He smiled. "In psychiatry, there's never a limit to how many courses you can take—or should take, to be a good doctor."

  It was all rather vague to Vic. "And schizophrenia interests you most?"

  "Well—I suppose so. It's the commonest affliction, as you know."

  Vic smiled. Melinda had gone into the kitchen to freshen her drink. Neither Vic nor Carpenter was drinking. "I was wondering if you thought my wife had any schizophrenic tendencies."

  Carpenter frowned and smiled at the same time, showing his square white teeth in his generous, full-lipped mouth. "I don't think so at all. Do you?"

  "I don't really know. Not being an authority on the subject," Vic said, and awaited something further from Carpenter.

  "She has a lot of charm," Carpenter said."A kind of undisciplined charm."

  "You mean the charm of no discipline."

  "Yes," he said, smiling. "I mean she has more charm than she thinks she has."

  "That's quite a lot."

  Carpenter laughed and looked at Melinda as she came back into the room.

  It crossed Vic's mind then that Carpenter was the only person who had ever been to their house who had not, in some way,

  betrayed surprise on finding that he lived in another wing of the house. Carpenter had slipped up there. One or the other of them, however, was going to be very surprised before long. Which of them was it going to be? Vic smiled at Carpenter in a friendly way, as a good sportsman might at an opponent.

  Carpenter stayed perhaps half an hour on the afternoon that he came to borrow the shears. He had a curious, half-absent way of looking around at everything, of staring at Trixie—as if there were anything odd about that specimen of rampant normality—of looking around in the garage, or the kitchen, or wherever he happened to be in the house. It was not entirely an absent look. Harold Carpenter was not an absent man. But he was around a little too much, considering their house was out of the way between Kennington and his own house, Charley's old house. That was another sign that pointed in the direction of his being a detective, or a psychiatrist hired, part-time, to look him over.

  And then on October 4, when the bank statement came in, there was $200, at least $200, withdrawn that Vic couldn't account for. It was curious to think that they might be in Carpenter's pockets, that the $10 bill that Carpenter had used to buy a bottle of champagne on the evening of Melinda's birthday might have come directly from the Van Allen account. Vic had run into Carpenter on Commerce Street, the main street of Wesley, as he was coming out of a jewelry store where he had picked up his main present for Melinda. Carpenter had a couple of large books under his arm. he often had a large book of some sort under his arm.

  "Are you busy tonight?" Vic had asked.

  Carpenter hadn't been busy, and Vic had asked him if he would care to come out to the house for dinner. It was Melinda's birthday, and Vic imagined that Carpenter knew it. They were having a small dinner party, only the Mellers were coming, and he was sure Melinda would be glad to see him, Vic said. Carpenter looked politely hesitant, wanted to call Melinda first, but Vic said no, let it be a surprise for her. So Carpenter had accepted and had bought the champagne when Vic had told him that it was Melinda's birthday.

  Vic and Melinda would have asked the Cowans, but Phil was away all week in Vermont, teaching, and Evelyn was feeling under the weather with a cold virus, she said. It was Vic who had proposed the dinner party, and he had had some trouble in persuading Melinda to give it. Melinda felt that their old friends were down on her lately, which was more or less true, but he pointed out that they were inviting her to their houses nevertheless and that if she wanted to improve matters she would have to invite them now and then, too. Vic had always had a hard time persuading Melinda to do any entertaining. Not that he felt they had to worry about what they owed their friends in the way of invitations—not in a town as informal as Little Wesley—but Vic thought that once or twice a year they might give a big cocktail party or an evening party, as the Cowans and the Mellers did at least three times a year. But the thought of even two people coming for dinner, or twenty coming for cocktails, put Melinda in a dither. She would worry that the liquor would run out, or that the 'ice' cream would melt before it could be served, or she would suddenly realize that the house needed a thorough cleaning, or that the kitchen needed new curtains, and she would fret so that Vic would finally suggest they abandon the idea of a party. Even with two people, old friends like the Mellers, a buried inferiority would come to the surface, and she would be as nervous and unsure of herself as a young bride who was being hostess for the first time to her husband's boss. Vic found it somehow very appealing, found Melinda appealingly young and helpless on these occasions, and he would do all he could to reassure her and give her confidence—even though for the preceding month he might have been annoyed by her single men friends whom she had invited for dinner twice in the week, and who never made her nervous in the least.

  Vic had not thought Carpenter's presence would make her nervous—it might help, if anything, he thought—and he had invited him simply out of friendliness and good will. And Melinda's face did brighten when Vic walked in with him at seven-thirty. The Mellers were not due until eight. Carpenter presented his champagne, and Melinda thanked him and put it in the refrigerator to keep cold until they would open it after dinner. Melinda was pacing the house, sipping a highball, checking on the progress of the duck every five minutes, and checking with her eyes the cocktail table on which clean ashtrays, muddlers, and a big bowl containing a sour cream and shredded shrimp mixture stood in unaccustomed orderliness. And she was entirely dressed now in a dark-green linen sleeveless dress, gold sandals with wings on them, and a necklace of white coral pieces that suggested feral teeth about the size of tigers' fangs. Above the necklace her face looked absolutely terrified.

  Vic left Carpenter and Melinda alone for a few minutes while he changed his shirt and put on a dark suit, then he returned and took Melinda's present from his jacket pocket and gave it to her.

  Melinda opened it after a nervous, apologetic glance at Carpenter. Then her expression changed. "Oh, Vic! What a watch!"

  "If you don't like it, they'll take it back and you can change it for something else," Vic said, knowing she would like it.

  Carpenter was watching both of them with a pleasant face.

  Melinda put the watch on. It was a dress watch of gold set with little diamonds. Melinda had ruined her old watch by going into the Cowans' pool with it one night, two or three years ago, and she had been wanting a dress watch ever since.

  "Oh, Vic, it's just beautiful," Melinda said, her voice softer than Vic had heard it in many, many months.

  "And this," Vic said, drawing something in an envelope from his other pocket. "It's not really a present."

  "Oh, my pearls!"

  "I just had them restrung," Vic said. Melinda had broken them about a month ago, throwing them at him in an argument. "Thank y
ou, Vic. That's very nice of you," Melinda said subduedly, with a glance at Carpenter as if she feared he might have been able to guess why the pearls had needed restringing.

  Carpenter looked as if he were guessing, Vic thought. He might have been even more amused if he had known that while Vic was crawling around on the floor picking up the scattered pearls Melinda had kicked him.

  The Mellers arrived with a rotary broiler for Melinda, the kind that worked by electricity in the kitchen. The Mellers knew they had an outdoor broiler that used charcoal. Mary Meller gave Melinda a kiss on the cheek, and so did Horace. Vic had seen Mary when she had been warmer toward Melinda, but still it was a fine performance for Carpenter, he thought. Carpenter seemed to be keeping his eyes open especially for the social relations that night, how the Mellers behaved to him and how they behaved to Melinda. There was no mistaking the fact that the Mellers were friendlier toward him than toward Melinda.

  During the cocktails Melinda kept getting up to go to the kitchen, and Mary asked if she could help in any way, but both Vic and Melinda declined her help.

  "Don't think about it," Vic said. "Stay here and enjoy your drinks. I'm butlering tonight." He went into the kitchen to take care of the crucial problem of getting the duck from oven to platter. They lost the apple out of the duck's posterior, but Vic caught the ball of fire in midair and deposited it, smiling, on top of the stove.

  "Oh, Christ," Melinda muttered, ineffectually waving the carving knife and the honing stick "What 'else' can happen?"

  "We can burn the wild rice," Vic said, checking in the oven. It didn't seem to be burning. He picked up the apple on a large spoon and started to put it back in the duck.

  "I'm not even sure it belongs there—in a duck," Melinda groaned.

  "I don't think it does. Let's leave it out."

  "There's such a gap there," Melinda said miserably.

  "Don't think about it. We'll put some wild rice around it."

  Together they organized the duck, the wild rice, the peas, the hot rolls, the watercress salad. But the salad dressing wasn't made. Melinda always liked Vic to make the dressing, and besides, he had seven varieties of homegrown herbs in little labeled boxes to go in. He used the herbs in varying combinations.

  "Don't worry about anything," Vic said. "I'll put everything back in the oven, and the dressing'll be made in a flash!" He slid the silver platter with the duck back into the oven, left Melinda to put the other dishes on top of the oven, then made the salad, crushing the garlic and salt together in the bowl while he added vinegar; then he put in the herbs—one, two, three different kinds—with his left hand while he stirred constantly with his right. "Nice of you to have the watercress all washed," he said over his shoulder.

  Melinda didn't say anything.

  "I hope Harold isn't expecting to begin with snails," Vic said. "Why should he?"

  "He said he liked them. To eat, I mean." Vic laughed.

  "Did you tell him it'd be like eating your own flesh and blood?"

  "No. I didn't. Well, the salad's ready Would you like to go and alert the guests?"

  Horace and Carpenter were deep in a conversation and were the last to come to the table. Horace looked troubled, Vic saw. Melinda was in a state of petrified anxiety as to whether everything tasted all right or was hot enough, and hardly got a word out for the first quarter of an hour. Everything did taste all right, and the dinner went along well enough. It was not quite as a dinner among old friends should have been, but that may have been partly due to Carpenter's presence. Vic noticed that Horace did not attempt to talk to Carpenter at the table. From Carpenter's sculpturesque, immobile, pleasant features, Vic could learn nothing. Except that it was interesting that he and Melinda said so little to each other. It suggested to Vic that they had been together earlier in the day. Carpenter spent most of the dinner listening.

  They had their coffee in the living room. Horace strolled to a front window and stood looking out. Vic was watching him when lie turned around finally, and Horace made him a sign to come over. Vic went. Horace opened the front door and they walked out on the lawn.

  "He's not at Columbia University, that fellow in there," Horace began immediately "He doesn't know anybody at Columbia. He seems to know one name—the head of the Psychology Department, but he's never heard of anybody else there." Horace was frowning.

  "I didn't think he would," Vic said quietly.

  "I don't mean he didn't 'try' to sound as if he knew what was going on at Columbia, but I know enough about the Psychology Department there to know he's faking the whole thing. Is he one of Kennington's outpatients, did you say?"

  Vic put his head back and laughed loudly into the empty night air. "No, Horace. I said he was doing research there toward a thesis." "Oh. Is it true?"

  "Well—I don't really know if it's true, considering what you've just told me."

  Horace lit a cigarette impatiently, but refrained from throwing the match on the lawn. "I don't like him. What's he up to?"

  "Search me," said Vic, pulling up a few grass blades, holding them up against the pallid circle of the moon. It occurred to him that he should try some offset printing with grass blades, leaves, maybe a razor-cut cross section of a clover blossom. It would be very effective in Brian Ryder's book of poems, Vic thought. So many of his poems had allusions to plants and flowers.

  "Vic—"

  "What?"

  "What's he up to? Don't tell me you haven't thought about it. Is he interested in Melinda?"

  Vic hesitated. "I don't think so," he said indifferently. Might as well tell the truth when one could.

  "He's trying something with this school business, that's certain. He didn't even make any excuses, such as having been at another school most of the time so he didn't know Columbia well. He stuck to Columbia—floundering. But floundering very slickly, if you know what I mean."

  "You've got me, Horace. I don't know what he's up to." "And staying in De Lisle's house. Didn't Melinda arrange that?" "She recommended the house to him," Vic conceded. Horace thought for a moment. "It'd be interesting to know if he knows Don Wilson."

  "Why?"

  "Because I think he might. He might be a friend of Don's." "What do you mean? Hauled up here as a kind of spy?" "Exactly."

  Vic knew Horace had gone that far. He wanted to see if Horace had thought he might be a detective. "I don't think he's met Don. At least, the last time I asked Melinda she didn't think they knew each other."

  "Maybe they do know each other and that's why they're keeping apart."

  Vic chuckled, "You're about as imaginative as Wilson."

  "All right, maybe I'm all wrong. I think he knows 'something' about psychology. But he's not all he says he is. I'd just like to know his motives. How long is he going to be up here?"

  "I gather about another month. He's making a pilot test of schizophrenic treatment over at Kennington."

  "I'd be interested to know just what kind of pilot test," Horace said cynically "I know Fred Dreyfuss over there. I can easily find out."

  Vic made a sound indicating that he didn't consider it of much importance.

  "How is Melinda these days?" Horace asked.

  "Fine, I suppose," Vic replied, feeling himself stiffen in the old automatic defense of Melinda before the world, though he knew that Horace wanted to know if she was still accusing him of killing Charley. If Horace wanted to know how Melinda was, he had seen her all evening.

  "Well, she hasn't come to see Mary again," Horace said, with a trace of defiance. "You know, I don't think Evelyn'll ever get over that—from Melinda.'

  "I'm sorry," Vic said.

  Horace patted Vic on the shoulder. "I had a hard time with Mary. It's for your sake she agreed to come here tonight, Vic."

  "I wish everybody would try to forget it. I suppose that's too much to expect. Maybe in time."

  Horace made no reply.

  They went back into the living room. Melinda, her tension hardly decreased by alcohol, nervously propose
d opening the champagne that Carpenter had brought, but Mary protested that she should save it, so the champagne was not opened. Nobody wanted an after-dinner highball. The Mellers got up to leave at a quarter-past ten, an hour earlier than they might have left, Vic thought, if Mary had been completely comfortable with Melinda and if Carpenter had not been there. Carpenter left when the Mellers did, thanking Melinda and Vic profusely. He drove off in his own car, a dark-blue two-door Plymouth, which he had modestly told Vic he had recently picked up secondhand.

  "Don't you think he's loafing on the job?" Vic asked Melinda as they were standing at the front door.

  "What job?" she asked quickly.

  Vic smiled a little, and he could feel that it was not a very nice smile. "Maybe you can tell me."

  "What do you mean?" Then retreating hopelessly, "Who?" "Mr. Carpenter."

  "Oh. I suppose he—Well, I get the idea he's at Kennington most of the time."

  "Oh," Vic said, subtly mocking. "I just thought he was managing to spend an awful lot of time around us."

  Melinda went to the cocktail table and began to collect the cups and saucers. Vic got the tray from the kitchen to make things go faster. There were a million things to put away in the kitchen. Vic donned an apron and took off his wristwatch in preparation for washing the dishes. He said nothing else that night that would indicate to Melinda that he thought Carpenter was a private detective. Melinda was bright enough to know that he would have picked up the slightest clue Carpenter offered, but she was not bright enough to know that Carpenter had already offered a few.

  "Happy birthday, darling," Vic said, taking a package with the red-and-white striped paper of the Bandana shop from the lower part of a cupboard.

  "Another present?" Melinda said, her face relaxing, almost smiling with surprise.

  "I hope it fits."

  Melinda opened the package, took out the white angora sweater, and held it up."Oh, Vic, just what I wanted! How did you know?"

  "I live in the same house with you, don't I?" Then, for no particular reason, he went up to her and kissed her on the cheek. She did not draw back. She simply might not have felt it. "Many happy returns."