Mermaids on the Golf Course Read online

  With the dummy installed in the back seat, Christopher returned to shop for a hat. He found more or less what he was looking for, a round hat trimmed with black velour instead of fur, and the crown was white and not beige, but the resemblance to Louise’s hat in the photograph, which he was sure Penny remembered, was sufficient and striking enough. When he returned to the car, a small child was staring curiously at the mannequin. Christopher smiled amiably, pulled a blanket (used to keep Jupiter’s paws off the back seat when he went to the vet for arthritis shots) gently over the figure, and drove off. He felt a bit pressed for time, and hoped that Penny had decided to have tea at Beatrice’s house instead of theirs.

  He was in luck. Penny was not home yet. Having ascertained this, Christopher carried the dummy from the car into the house via the back door. He set the figure in his chair in front of his desk and indulged in a few seconds of amusement and imagination—imagining that it was Louise, young and round-cheeked, that he could say something to her, and she would reply. But the girl’s eyes, though large and blue, were quite blank. Only her lips smiled in a rather absent but definite curve. This reminded Christopher of something, and he went quickly up the stairs and got the brightest red lipstick he could find among several on Penny’s dressing table. Then down again, and carefully, trying his best to steady his hand which was trembling as it never had before, Christopher enlarged the upper lip, and lowered the under lip exactly in the center. The upturned red corners of the lips were superb.

  Just then, he heard the sound of a car motor, and seconds later a car door slamming, voices, and he could tell from the tone that Penny was saying good-bye to Beatrice. Christopher at once set the dummy in a back corner of his study, and concealed the figure completely with a coverlet from his couch. At any rate, Penny almost never looked into his study, except when she knocked on the door to call him to tea or a meal. Christopher put the bag with the hat under the coverlet also.

  Penny looked especially well coifed, and was in good spirits the rest of the afternoon and evening. Christopher behaved politely, merely, but in his way, he felt in good spirits too. He debated putting the effigy of Louise out in the garden tonight versus early tomorrow morning. Tonight, Jupiter might bark, as he slept outdoors in this season in his doghouse near the back door. Christopher could take a stroll in the garden, if he happened to be sleepless at midnight, tell Jupiter to hush, and the dog would, but if he were carrying a large object and fussing around getting it placed correctly, the silly dog just might keep on barking because he was tied up at night. Christopher decided on early tomorrow morning.

  Penny retired just after ten, assuring Christopher cheerfully that “It’ll all be over so quickly tomorrow,” he wouldn’t know it had happened. “I’ll tell them to be very careful and not step on the flower beds.” She added that she thought he was being very patient about it all.

  In his study, Christopher hardly slept. He was aware of the village clock striking faintly at quite a distance every hour until four, when the window showed signs of dawn. Christopher got up and dressed. He sat Louise again in his desk chair, and practiced setting the hat on correctly at a jaunty angle. The extended forearm, without the glass stem in the fingers of the hand, looked able to hold a cigarette, and Christopher would have put one there unlighted, except that he and Penny didn’t smoke, and there were no cigarettes in the house just now. Just as well, because the hand looked also as if Louise might be beckoning to someone, having just called out someone’s name. Christopher reached for a black felt pen, and outlined both her blue eyes.

  There! Now her eyes really stood out and the outer corners turned up just a little, imitating the upturn of her lips.

  Christopher carried the figure out the back door with the coverlet still over it. He knew where it should be, on a short stone bench on the left side of the garden which was rather hidden by laurels. Jupiter’s eyes had met Christopher’s for an instant, the dog had been sleeping with forepaws and muzzle on the threshold of his wooden house, but Jupiter did not bother to lift his head. Christopher flicked the bench clean with the coverlet, then seated Louise gently, and put a stone under one black pump, since the shoe did not quite touch the ground. Her legs were crossed. She looked charming—much more charming than the longhaired Pekinese called Mao-Mao who peeked from the foliage to the left of the bench, facing the little clearing as if he were guarding it. Mao-Mao’s tongue, which protruded nearly two inches and had been made by the taxidermist out of God knew what, had lost all its pink and was now a sickening flesh color. For some reason, Mao-Mao had always been a favorite target of his and Penny’s dogs, so his coat looked miserable.

  But Louise! She was fantastically smart with her round hat on, in her crisp new navy outfit, her happy eyes directed towards the approach to the nook in which she sat. Christopher smiled with satisfaction, and went back to his study, where he fell sound asleep until Penny awakened him with tea at eight.

  The journalist and the photographer were due at 9:30, and they were punctual, in a dirty gray Volkswagen. Penny went down the front steps to greet them. The two young men, Christopher observed from the sitting-room window, looked even scruffier than he had foreseen, one in a T-shirt and the other in a polo-neck sweater, and both in blue jeans. Gentlemen of the press, indeed!

  Christopher had two reasons, his legal mind assured him, for joining the company in the garden: he didn’t want to appear huffy or possibly physically handicapped, since the journalists knew that Penny was married and to whom, and also he wanted to witness the discovery of Louise. So Christopher stood in the garden near the house, after the men had introduced themselves to him.

  “Jonathan, look!” said the man without the camera, marveling at big Jeff, the Irish sheep dog who stood on the right side of the garden. “We must get this!” But his exclamations became more excited as he espied old Pixie, whose effigy made him laugh with delight.

  The cameraman snapped here and there with a compact little machine that made a whir and a click. Stuffed animals were really everywhere, standing out more than the roses and peonies.

  “Where do you have this expert work done, Mrs. Waggoner? Have you any objection to telling us? Some of our readers might like to start the same hobby.”

  “Oh, it’s more than a hobby,” Penny began. “It’s my way of keeping my dear pets with me. I feel that with their forms around me—I don’t suffer as much as other people do who bury their pets in their gardens.”

  “That’s the kind of comment we want,” said the journalist, writing in his tablet.

  Jonathan was exploring the foot of the garden now. There was a beagle named Jonathan back to the right behind the barberry bush, Christopher recalled, but either Jonathan didn’t see him or preferred the more attractive animals. The photographer drifted closer to Louise, but still did not notice her. Then, focusing on Riba, the cat in the catalpa, he stepped backward, nearly fell, and in recovering glanced behind him, and glanced again.

  Penny was just then saying to the journalist, “Mr. Taylor puts a special weatherproofing on their coats with a spray . . .”

  “Hey Mike!—Mike, look!” The second Mike had a shrill note of astonishment.

  “What now?” asked Mike smiling, approaching.

  “Mao-Mao,” said Penny, following them in her medium-high heels. “I’m afraid he’s not in the best—”

  “No, no, the figure. Who is this?” asked the photographer with a polite smile.

  Penny’s gaze sought and found what the photographer was pointing at. “Oh!—Oh, goodness!” Then she took a long breath and screamed, like a siren, and covered her face with her hands.

  Jonathan caught her arm as she swayed. “Mrs. Waggoner! Something the matter? We didn’t damage anything.—It’s a friend of yours—I suppose?”

  “Someone you liked very much?” asked Mike in a tactful tone.

  Penny looked crushed, and for brief sec
onds Christopher relished it. Here was Louise in all her glory, young and pretty, sure of herself, sure of him, smack in their garden. “Penny, a cup of tea?” asked Christopher.

  They escorted Penny through the back door and into the kitchen. Christopher put the kettle on.

  “It’s Louise!” Penny moaned in an eerie voice, and leaned back in the bamboo chair, her face white.

  “Someone she didn’t want us to photograph?” asked Jonathan. “We certainly won’t.”

  Before Christopher could pour the first cup of tea, Mike said, “I think we’d better call for a doctor, don’t you, Mr. Waggoner?”

  “Y-yes, perhaps.” Christopher could have said something comforting to Penny, he realized—that he had meant it as a joke. But he hadn’t. And Penny was in a state beyond hearing anything anybody said.

  “Why was she so surprised?” asked Jonathan.

  Christopher didn’t answer. He was on his way to the telephone, and Mike was coming with him, because Mike had the number of a doctor in Ipswich, in case the local doctor was not available. But this got interrupted by a shout from Jonathan. He wanted some help to get Penny to a sofa, or anywhere where she could lie down. The three of them carried her into the sitting room. The touch of rouge on her cheeks stood out garishly on her pale face.

  “I think it’s a heart attack,” said Jonathan.

  The local doctor was available, because his nurse knew whom he was visiting just now, and she thought he could arrive in about five minutes. Meanwhile Christopher covered Penny with a blanket he brought from upstairs, and started the kettle again for a hot water bottle. Penny was now breathing through parted lips.

  “We’ll stay till the doctor gets here, unless you want us to take her directly to Ipswich Hospital,” said Jonathan.

  “No—thank you. Since the doctor’s on his way, it may be wisest to wait for him.”

  Dr. Dowes arrived soon after, took Penny’s pulse, and at once gave her an injection. “It’s a heart attack, yes, and she’d best go to hospital.” He went to the telephone.

  “If we possibly could, Mr. Waggoner,” said Jonathan, “we’d like to come back tomorrow morning, because today I didn’t get all the pictures I need to choose from, and the rest of today is so booked up, we’re due somewhere in a few minutes.—If you could let us in around nine-thirty again, we’d need just another half hour.”

  Christopher thought at once of Louise. They hadn’t got a picture of her as yet, and he wanted them to photograph her and was sure they would. “Yes, certainly. Nine-thirty tomorrow. If I happen not to be here, you can use the side passage into the garden. The gate’s never locked.”

  As soon as they had driven off, the ambulance arrived. Dr. Dowes had not asked if anything had happened to give Penny a shock, but he had gathered the journalists’ purpose—he knew of the stuffed animals in the garden, of course—and he said something to the effect that the excitement of showing her old pets to the public must have been a strain on her heart.

  “Shall I go with her?” Christopher asked the doctor, not wanting at all to go.

  “No, no, Mr. Waggoner, really no use in it. I’ll ring the hospital in an hour or so, and then I’ll ring you.”

  “But how dangerous is her state?”

  “Can’t tell as yet, but I think she has a good chance of pulling through. No former attacks like this.”

  The ambulance went away, and then Dr. Dowes. Christopher realized that he wouldn’t have minded if the shock of seeing Louise had killed Penny. He felt strangely numb about the fact that at this minute, she was hovering between life and death. Tomorrow, Penny alive or not, the journalist and the photographer would be back, and they would take a picture of Louise. How would Penny, if she lived, explain the effigy of a young woman in her garden? Christopher smiled nervously. If Penny died, or if she didn’t, he could still ring up the Ipswich Chronicle and say that under the circumstances, because his wife had suffered such emotional strain because of the publicity, he would be grateful if they canceled the article. But Christopher didn’t want that. He wanted Louise’s picture in the newspaper. Would his children Philip and Marjorie suspect Louise’s identity, or role? Christopher couldn’t imagine how, as they had never heard Louise’s name spoken, he thought, never seen that photograph which Christopher had so cherished until Penny asked him to destroy it. As for what their friends and neighbors thought, let them draw their own conclusions.

  Christopher poured more tea for himself, removed Penny’s unfinished cup from the living room, and carried his tea into his study. He had work to do for the London office, and was supposed to telephone them before five this afternoon.

  At two o’clock, the telephone rang. It was Dr. Dowes.

  “Good news,” said the doctor. “She’s going to pull through nicely. An infarction, and she’ll have to lie still in hospital for at least ten days, but by tomorrow you can visit . . .”

  Christopher felt depressed at the news, though he said the right things. When he hung up, in an awful limbo between fantasy and reality, he told himself that he must let Marjorie know about her mother right away, and ask her to ring Philip. Christopher did this.

  “You sound awfully down, Dad,” said Marjorie. “It could have been worse after all.”

  Again he said the proper things. Marjorie said she would ring her brother, and maybe both of them could come down on Sunday.

  By four o’clock, Christopher was able to ring his office and speak with Hawkins about a strategy he had worked out for a company client. Hawkins gave him a word of praise for his suggestions, and didn’t remark that Christopher sounded depressed, nor did Christopher mention his wife.

  Christopher did not ring the hospital or Dr. Dowes the rest of that evening. Penny was coming back, that was the fact and the main thing. How would he endure it? How could he return the dummy—Louise—to the department store, as he had promised? He couldn’t return Louise, he simply couldn’t. And Penny might tear her apart, once she regained the strength. Christopher poured a scotch, sipped it neat, and felt that it did him a power of good. It helped him pull his thoughts together. He went into his study and wrote a short letter to Jeremy Rogers, the window dresser who had given him his card in the Bury St. Edmunds store, saying that due to circumstances beyond his control, he would not be able to return the borrowed mannequin personally, but it could be fetched at his address, and for the extra trouble he would forfeit his deposit. He put this letter in the post box on the front gate.

  Christopher’s will was in order. As for his children, they would be quite surprised, and to what could they attribute it? Not to Penny’s crisis, because she was on the mend. Let Penny explain it to them, Christopher thought, and had another drink.

  Drink was part of his plan, and not being used to it, Christopher quickly felt its soothing power. He went upstairs to the medicine chest in the bathroom. Penny always had little sedatives, and maybe some big ones too. Christopher found four or five little glass jars that might suit his purpose, some of them overaged, perhaps, but no matter. He swallowed six or eight pills, washed down with scotch and water, mindful to think of something else—his appearance—while he did this, lest the thought of all the pills made him throw up.

  In the downstairs hall looking-glass, Christopher combed his hair, and then he put on his best jacket, a rather new tweed, and went on taking pills with more scotch. He dropped the empty jars carelessly into the garbage. The cat Flora looked at him in surprise when he lurched against a sideboard and fell to one knee. Christopher got up again, and methodically fed the cat. As for Jupiter, he could afford to miss a meal.

  “M’wow,” said Flora, as she always did, as a kind of thank-you before she fell to.

  Then Christopher made his way, touching doorjambs, fairly crawling down the steps, to the garden path. He fell only once, before he reached his goal, and then he smiled. Louise, though blurred a
t the edges, sat with the same air of dignity and confidence. She was alive! She smiled a welcome to him. “Louise,” he said aloud, and with difficulty aimed himself and plopped on to the stone bench beside her. He touched her cool, firm hand, the one that was extended with fingers slightly parted. It was still a hand, he thought. Just cool from the evening air, perhaps.

  The next morning the photographer and the journalist found him slumped sideways, stiff as the dummy, with his head in the navy blue lap.

  Not in This Life,

  Maybe the Next

  Eleanor had been sewing nearly all day, sewing after dinner, too, and it was getting on for eleven o’clock. She looked away from her machine, sideways towards the hall door, and saw something about two feet high, something grayish black, which after a second or two moved and was lost from view in the hall. Eleanor rubbed her eyes. Her eyes smarted, and it was delicious to rub them. But since she was sure she had not really seen something, she did not get up from her chair to go and investigate. She forgot about it.

  She stood up after five minutes or so, after tidying her sewing table, putting away her scissors, and folding the yellow dress whose side seams she had just let out. The dress was ready for Mrs. Burns tomorrow. Always letting out, Eleanor thought, never taking in. People seemed to grow sideways, not upward any more, and she smiled at this fuzzy little thought. She was tired, but she had had a good day. She gave her cat Bessie a saucer of milk—rather creamy milk, because Bessie liked the best of everything—heated some milk for herself and took it in a mug up to bed.

  The second time she saw it, however, she was not tired, and the sun was shining brightly. This time, she was sitting in the armchair, putting a zipper in a skirt, and as she knotted her thread, she happened to glance at the door that went into what she called the side room, a room off the living room at the front of the house. She saw a squarish figure about two feet high, an ugly little thing that at first suggested an upended sandbag. It took a moment before she recognized a large square head, thick feet in heavy shoes, incredibly short arms with big hands that dangled.