Росс Макдональд - The Three Roads

It was really funny the lengths she’d go to avoid reading a book. There were no clients in the shop, and there probably wouldn’t be until later in the afternoon, so she could afford to admit it to herself for once. This particular Tuesday afternoon she had cleaned her drawer, counted her change, manicured her left hand (Frank would do her right one in the evening), cut several hundred bookmarks out of that pretty blue paper, made out filing cards for the six new books that had come in that morning, and phoned Mrs. Wionowski to tell her that Forever Amber was now to be had if Mrs. Wionowski happened to be coming by that day. Just when she had run out of things to do, and was beginning to be afraid that she might be forced by sheer boredom to take a look at one of the six new books, the afternoon paper came and saved her for another hour.

She went through the paper from front to back and read everything in it: the front-page stories, the murders on the third page, the movie advertisements, the sports page, the comics, the local news, the society pages, the editorial page, the women’s page, the deaths and divorces, and the business and finance section. Then she started in on the classified ads. This was really her favorite part of the paper, and she naturally saved it to the last.

There was real drama in the classified ads, so much more actual and satisfying than fiction, and such infinite variety. So many homeless people looking for a house. A young couple that simply had to have a refrigerator on account of the baby. Doctors that specialized in diseases of men or diseases of women. Private detectives who would go anywhere and find out anything for a moderate fee. Most interesting of all were the personals, those cryptic fragments of life that could lead you off into romantic daydreams for minutes at a time. “Edie come home, Mother gladly forgives you” (what had Edie done?). “Jack and Sim, the deal is still on if you contact me before Thursday. Charlie.” (A bank robbery? the black market? who could tell?)

The last personal in the column rudely thrust Mrs. Swanscutt out of her daydream and set her heart beating madly. “Bret Taylor,” it said, “call me at Gladstone 37416. P.W.”

It’s fate, that’s what it is, Mrs. Swanscutt thought. Here I’ve been reading these things all these years, eavesdropping on other people’s lives, and now fate has beckoned me into the inner circle.

Then the habitual dullness of her life reasserted itself and told her this couldn’t be happening to her. It couldn’t be her Bret; such things simply didn’t happen. Not to her. Yet Bret Taylor wasn’t a common name; she’d never have chosen it if it had been. Well, there was one way to find out. She could phone that number, if she dared.

After a period of nervous hesitation, she dialed Gladstone 37416 with an unsteady forefinger.

A woman answered: “This is Miss West’s residence.”

“Hello,” Mrs. Swanscutt said excitedly. “Did you – are you the party who placed an advertisement in the personals column? I mean–”

“One moment, please,” the woman said. “I’ll call Miss West to the phone.”

Servants, Mrs. Swanscutt noted. Bret must be on friendly terms with some very good people, if it is Bret. But of course it’s quite impossible that it is–

“Yes?” said another woman, younger than the first. “This is Paula West.”

Paula West, P.W. She was right so far. “Did you advertise in the personals for a Bret Taylor?”

“Who is speaking, please?” The voice was careful and brisk. Quite a good voice, she thought. A lady’s voice.

“My name is Theodora Swanscutt.” She laughed nervously. “It used to be Taylor. Bret Taylor is my son.”

“You must be mistaken, Mrs. Swanscutt. Bret’s mother died a long time ago. It must be another Bret Taylor. As a matter of fact, I’ve contacted him, so it’s all right.”

“I see,” Mrs. Swanscutt said dully. “Well, I’m certainly glad you found him. I was naturally misled by the similarity in names. I’m sorry to have troubled you–”

“Just a minute,” Paula said. “I’m afraid I’m being terribly abrupt. But would you mind telling me your husband’s name?”

“Why, no. Franklin. Franklin L. Swanscutt.”

“No. I mean your first husband. Your son’s father.”

“George,” said Mrs. Swanscutt. The young woman was being brusque to the point of rudeness, but after all she had asked for it and she’d go through with it. “George Watt Taylor. He was a philosophy professor,” she added, not without pride.

“Then you’re not mistaken. That was his father’s name. But I can’t understand it. Bret said his mother was dead.”

“Dead? Of course I haven’t seen him in twenty-five years. Tell me, is he there now? Could I speak to him?”

“No, I’m afraid he’s not. But I’d love to have you come and see me. I’m his fiancée. Can you come for tea?”

Mrs. Swanscutt said she could, and Paula told her how to find the house. Then Mrs. Swanscutt threw caution to the winds and closed the shop for the rest of the afternoon. She didn’t even call Frank to tell him she was leaving, and though she hardly admitted it to herself, there was a certain satisfaction in not telling him. Just let him come to the shop and find her gone, just let him wonder! She felt quite careless and gay in a way she hadn’t felt for years.

Paula waited in a state of uncertainty and fear, as one might wait to keep an appointment with a ghost. The dead past was springing to life in unexpected forms. The banished years were coming home from exile to roost under her eaves like homing birds. Bewilderment and excitement turned her head, but a deeper emotion dragged at the bottom of her consciousness: terror. Bret had told her that his mother was dead, not only since his crack-up, but long before when they first met. Evidently he had been harboring a delusion for years. His insanity – for the first time she permitted herself to think of his illness as insanity – went far back, to their first weeks together. And how much further would it go? Ever since the night of Lorraine’s death she had comforted herself with the belief that his mental condition was a temporary illness, an effect of shock that would wear off as its cause receded in time. But now she was uncertain.

Mrs. Swanscutt’s telephone call had crystallized the fear that had been growing in her mind, that Bret was permanently insane, in spite of all her efforts lost beyond redemption. She was afraid, afraid for him and beginning to be afraid for herself. Two Daiquiris and six cigarettes did nothing to anaesthetize her fear. She had done all the wrong things, made all the wrong decisions, and that was the surest guarantee that she’d go on doing and making them right up to the final smash, whatever that would be. Her knowledge that she deserved whatever punishment she was going to get only deepened her fear. Every time she moved she made a misstep. Every time the telephone rang it suggested a new and dreadful possibility.

Her mind went round like a demented squirrel in a cage and gave her no peace. She went to the kitchen ostensibly to talk to Mrs. Roberts about dinner, actually to hear the sound of a human voice. Her housekeeper spoke calmly and cheerfully about the standing rib roast she had managed to get hold of, and whether she should go to the trouble of making Yorkshire pudding, but Paula could hardly listen to her.

“Do what you like. As a matter of fact, I’m not hungry. You might as well save the roast.”

“But it’s in the oven,” Mrs. Roberts said firmly. “If I take it out now, it’ll dry out.”

“So what? Let it dry out!”

“You’ve got to get some food in your stomach, Miss West. I don’t like the way you been eating lately. You may think you’re feeling jittery, but going without your regular meals just makes you feel jitterier.”