William Gaddis - Carpenter's Gothic

— Yes hello! Oh… oh I'm… she caught breath, — I'm sorry Mister Mullins I didn't recognize your voice… She cleared her throat, — no, no I haven't seen Sheila since… I know yes of course you do, I know she's not well but… No he was here, Billy was here a little while ago but he… with him? No, no she wasn't no, he… He didn't know I mean I don't know no, where he was going he didn't… If I hear yes of course I will, yes…

Knees drawn up she pulled the towel round her bared shoulders and a shiver sent breath through her, staring at that page till she seized the pencil to draw it heavily through his still, sinewed hands, hard irregular features, the cool disinterested calm of his eyes and a bare moment's pause bearing down with the pencil on his hands, disjointed, rust spotted, his crumbled features dulled and worn as the bill collector he might have been mistaken for, the desolate loss in his eyes belying, belying… The towel went to the floor in a heap and she was up naked, legs planted wide broached by scissors wielded murderously on the screen where she dug past it for the rag of a book its cover gone, the first twenty odd pages gone in fact, so that it opened full on the line she sought, coming down with the pencil on belying, a sense that he was still a part of all that he could have been.

Her anxious morning greeting in the bathroom mirror was not returned: the glass was steamed over, and she trampled a clump of brown socks, a sodden towel getting to her bath, coming from it back down the hall for an exchange in the mirror over the bureau gone from bleak to critical as her eyes met there and fell to her breasts, to the open drawer idly turning up sweaters, blouses, pulling things on without a second look, finally drawn to the stairs and down by the smell of burnt toast.

— Liz?

— You came in so late last night I didn't…

— Look I don't believe this… He was sitting at the kitchen table in shorts and black socks, papers spread out in the blue haze from the toaster. — Montego Bay collect, thirty nine minutes. Fifty one dollars and eighty five cents.

— Oh. Oh that, must have been Edie…

— Look I know it must have been Edie. I just want to know why she called collect. I just want to know why in hell you'd accept a collect call from Montego Bay.

— Well I didn't realize it Paul the operator said it was Edie calling and I just, I so wanted to talk to her…

— She's trying to run through two million dollars from her dead aunt and she has to call collect?

— Well she, I don't know maybe she didn't have any change and…

— Change! Fifty one dollars and eighty five cents change?

— I don't, why it's always money… She poured scorched coffee, standing there at the sink looking out at a lawn chair overturned in the drift of discoloured leaves on the terrace, — why it just always has to be money…

— Because it always is money! See this? Comes in the same God damn mail, invitation to a gala she's giving for Victor Sweet.

— Oh! she turned, — could we…

— Donation two hundred dollars. I mean ever since I've known you Liz, every God damn invitation we've ever had from your rich friends has donation hidden down here in the corner, two hundred dollars five hundred don't they ever give free parties like other people? Just buy some whisky have some friends in give a party?

— Well of course Paul they, I mean these are benefits they don't, we don't have to go.

— Go? a benefit for Victor Sweet, go? told you where he gets his backing didn't I? Walk in there's half the KGB to meet you, told you where he takes his orders didn't I? Run him against Teakell they think they'll have a mouthpiece out on the Senate floor pushing disarmament, part of their whole God damn peace offensive tell you something else Liz, I heard he's got a prison record. Want your flaky friends giving galas for jailbirds with a tax writeoff helping the blacks without getting their hands dirty same thing Liz, your brother and his greasy Buddhists same God damn thing. Show contempt for Victor Sweet by giving him money and contempt for the money by giving it to Victor Sweet, he couldn't pour piss out of a boot if you wrote the instructions on the heel. Look at Mister Jheejheeboy, look at her Burmese, money like that's supposed to mean you can buy the best, best food, best cars, friends, lawyers brokers all these God damn doctors but the money attracts the worst so that's what they buy, they buy the worst and the worst scare off the best because you're not leaving money to the kids that's not what happens. You don't leave the money to the kids you leave the kids to the money, two or three generations everybody's crazy.

— Everybody who, Paul.

— Look at any of this big old money, you'll see a nut or two at the dinner table won't you? They take away Uncle William's striped trousers think that will keep him in the hospital, last he was seen running up Second Avenue in nothing but his underpants? Ten years ago the cops would have picked him right up, now everybody thinks he's just out jogging don't even turn around take a look at your father, Billy in there pissing on the floor if that isn't…

— You left me out, didn't you?

— Didn't say that Liz I didn't say that, didn't say you're crazy, have to admit it's God damn strange though don't you, five years ago you read in the paper somebody put a rattlesnake in somebody's mailbox you're still afraid to open one? just getting things lined up here with Senator Teakell now you want me to show up at a benefit for Victor Sweet?

— I didn't say that Paul. She'd turned back to the window, her eyes raised now to a sodden streamer of toilet paper blown high in the limbs of the mulberry tree. — Just, my friends I just wish you'd leave them out of your…

— Oh come on Liz, it's Edie's gala isn't it? She gets up there in a five thousand dollar gown, all the lights on nobody home and they drop their…

— I'm not talking about Edie just Edie I'm talking about Cettie! I'm talking about Reverend Ude showing up at that hospital in Texas with those hideous flowers the day her father came down to see her and all the…

— No now look Liz. Jump to conclusions we don't have to drag through that again, coincidence they both happened to…

— That those newspaper photographers just happened to be there? that your Doris Chin just happened to be there to tell us how he gently took Senator Teakell's arm at the bedside and drew him down in prayer honestly!

— Same thing Liz same God damn thing, jump to conclusions if you hadn't called that florist and…

— I didn't call them they called me! They called about the bill for a six foot cross made of white carnations they'd sent her, when I said I couldn't imagine such a thing they told me it went with a card from Reverend Ude's deepest something in the bowels of Christ it was sickening, the whole thing it was perfectly sickening.

— Look I said I was sorry they didn't come from you, must have got the orders mixed up they…

— Well thank God they didn't. Telling me you'd sent her flowers in my name, that ghastly thing it looked like a funeral why did you tell me that. Lining things up with Senator Teakell why didn't you just tell me that's what you were doing instead of, of using her just using her, lying there half dead you never thought of me did you, that I might really want to see her. Your Reverend Ude walking in out of nowhere to wash her in the blood of Jesus it didn't occur to you that I might really want to go down there and, just see her…

— Oh come on Liz what harm was there, here. Pour me some coffee, what time is it. Got your watch on?

— It was in my purse. Look at the clock, she said without doing so, looking instead at the cat out there crouched in the leaves.