Edith’s Diary by Patricia Highsmith Read Free Book Online Page B

thought, back to the ironing which she now did in the kitchen, back to thinking of where next she might send the article on recognizing Red China. A vague depression crept through her, crepuscular, paralysing. She knew the feeling well. Sometimes it was incontrollable, so much stronger than herself that she had wondered, even in the first weeks she had been in the house, if it weren’t due to a vitamin deficiency or something physical. But the report of Dr Carstairs, a local doctor recommended by Gert, just last month, had been good. She was not anaemic, her weight was normal if not a trifle under normal, which the doctor thought preferable, and there was nothing wrong with her heart.
    It was a mental attitude, Edith thought, nothing else. She often consoled herself by thinking that probably everyone in the world, who was at all sensitive, suffered the same low moments and for the same reasons. Edith had constantly to bolster herself by remembering that she didn’t believe life had any purpose, anyway. To be happy, one had to work at whatever one had to work at, and without asking why, and without looking back for results. This plainly demanded good health for a start, and she had that. So why was she discontented, periodically (for a few hours at a time) unhappy? Edith couldn’t answer that.

4
    On Christmas Eve day, just after 4 p.m., Ed and Marion Zylstra arrived on the bus, bearing gifts, bottles, and a lightweight suitcase. Edith had met them with the car.
    ‘Hello, darling! Isn’t it perfect weather!’ Marion said, embracing Edith.
    Snow had fallen during the night, some eight inches of it, and now the sun shone brightly. Everything looked clear and white, and the Delaware River was a noble gray-blue between its rocky, snow-covered banks.
    ‘And how are you, Ed?’ Edith asked. They were storing things in the back of the car.
    ‘Pretty well, thanks. Looking forward to three days without duty. Not that we have to camp on you that long!’
    ‘But we hope you will. We really do.’ Edith remembered that Ed always called his work duty, like a soldier. He was about forty, blond and blue-eyed, with a muscular, not very tall figure which Edith had always thought rather sexy. It was only the second time the Zylstras had come to Brunswick Corner.
    ‘I suppose you’ve been working wonders in the house since we saw you?’ Marion said.
    ‘Well, you’ll see. Here we are.’ The bus stop was hardly a quarter of a mile from the house.
    Marion and Ed exclaimed at the changes in the living room. The curtains were all hung now, the windowsills graced with a potted plant here and there, the bookcase loaded – just as in New York. A six-foot Christmas tree stood by the back window, far enough from the fireplace that its needles had a chance of lasting ten days.
    Edith made old-fashioneds in the kitchen.
    ‘And where’s Brett?’ Marion asked. ‘Working today?’
    ‘Just this morning. He’ll be home any minute – from Trenton. He’s bringing the first issue of the
Bugle
so we can christen it.’
    ‘I’m longing to see it!’
    Edith went into the larder off the kitchen, and had just lifted a jar of maraschino cherries from a shelf, when she noticed the turkey – the turkey’s breast. A great gouge had been taken or eaten out of each side of the raw breast, and Edith at once thought of Mildew, because it looked as if a cat’s teeth had been as it, then thought of Cliffie, because the larder door had been firmly closed. Edith glanced at the floor. The cat was not in the larder. Cliffie might have put Mildew at the turkey, Edith thought, because Mildew on her own wasn’t a thief, well fed as she was. No, these gouges were man-made. No time to stew over it, and no time to buy another turkey either, though the appearance of this one was ruined.
    Brett arrived, bearing a stack of
Bugles
which he had to carry in both arms with interlocked fingers. Norm Johnson had just dropped him in front of the house, Brett said, but he