Suspension of Mercy by Patricia Highsmith Read Free Book Online Page A

jockeying for position in the discount house where they worked, and for one another’s wife or husband.
    When Sydney was in the middle of writing Shell Game , he had been invited to a party in Sutton Place. There had been six or seven people at the party who might have been called celebrities—a television actor, an actress, a best-seller writer, a Broadway producer—and Alicia Sneezum, whom Sydney had liked from the moment he saw her. He had asked her if she were free for dinner and the theater in the following week, but she wasn’t, she was here for such a short time, etc. It had been a brushoff, and also a snub. Sydney had retreated to a corner for a few minutes, trying to think what to do, and had come up with something that he thought would both impress her and secure her company for at least one more evening: a party of celebrities. He would go up to each of the important people at the party and say, “Excuse me, are you free for cocktails at my house next Wednesday at seven? So-and-so (naming someone like Mary Martin or Leonard Bernstein or Greta Garbo) will be coming, and she (or he) would like very much to see you, I know, because he (or she) told me so. So-and-so is coming, too.” The last named would be a celebrity at the party. Then by telephone or letter he would actually invite Mary Martin, Leonard Bernstein, and Greta Garbo, and hope. Then he would invite Alicia, and drop a few names of the people who were also invited. He almost dared carry out his plan, but not quite. He used the idea later as an incident in The Planners , a young man with one bold stroke building a circle of important acquaintances, none of whom ever got onto his scheme, because his social life rolled merrily on from there. However, that evening, he did pluck up his courage and approach Alicia again, this time with the tritest of ideas, a boat ride around Manhattan Island. This proposal might have reassured her as to his honorable intentions, since it had to take place in daylight among hundreds of people, or the tourism may have had some appeal to her, or his persistence might have tipped the scales—anyway, she accepted. Sydney feigned illness and took an afternoon off from his job in a discount house. From then on, Alicia was his, Sydney felt, though he took nothing for granted about her, and played everything very coolly for fear of losing her through a misstep. They were simply in love with each other. He did not try to start an affair with her. He proposed, just before Alicia was to go back to England. Alicia accepted, but said they had to wait much longer—maybe three months—and that her parents would have to find out all about him, and perhaps her father in England would want to meet him. Sydney had confessed that he hadn’t much money and that his ambition was to be a writer. He felt sure enough of himself to say that, and he was correct, because Alicia wanted to be a painter, “or at least try to be.” She said she had an income of fifty pounds a month. Sydney met her mother, Mrs. Clarissa Sneezum, and her American-based aunt, Mrs. Pembroke of East 80th Street, where Alicia and her mother were staying. Alicia arranged to stay on another month while her mother went back to Kent, and this period was taken up with planning where they would live (in England) and how, and with Alicia’s answering her father’s questions by letter about Sydney. Finally came the parental consent, though Alicia had said she would marry him no matter what attitude her parents took. Her parents were not enthusiastic, Sydney knew. He felt he had just scraped by. Sydney and Alicia had decided to look for a house in the country rather than live in London. Both liked the country, and thought it would be better for writing and painting. On the honeymoon, Sydney continued to work on Shell Game , and when it was bought in America (but not in England), Sydney had felt rather established. Alicia praised him and so did her friends. But the advance had