Donna Tartt - The Little Friend

Scarcely had she time to begin loading the revolver when she heard the front door open, her mother stepping inside. Quickly, in one broad movement, she pushed everything under Ida’s armchair—guns, bullets, encyclopedia and all—and then stood up.

“Did you bring me some pancakes?” she called.

No answer. Harriet waited, tensely, staring at the carpet (for breakfast, she’d certainly come and gone in a hurry) and listening to her mother’s footfalls skimming up the steps—and was surprised to hear a hiccupy gasp, like her mother was choking or crying.

Harriet—brow wrinkled, hands on hips—stood where she was, listening. When she heard nothing, she went over cautiously and peeked into the hallway, just in time to hear the door of her mother’s room open, then shut.

Ages seemed to pass. Harriet eyed the corner of the encyclopedia, the outline of which protruded ever so slightly beneath the skirt of Ida’s armchair. Presently—as the hall clock ticked on, and still nothing stirred—she stooped and tugged the encyclopedia out from its hiding place and—lying on her stomach, chin propped in her hands—she read the “Firearms” article from beginning to end again.

One by one, the minutes threaded by. Harriet stretched out flat on the floor and lifted the tweed skirt of the chair and peered at the dark shape of the gun, at the pasteboard box of bullets lying quietly alongside it—and, heartened by the silence, she reached under the chair and slid them out. So absorbed was she that she did not hear her mother coming down the stairs until suddenly she said from the hallway, very close: “Sweetie?”

Harriet jumped. Some of the bullets had rolled out of the box. Harriet grabbed them up—fumbling—and stuck them by the handful into her pockets.

“Where are you?”

Harriet had barely enough time to scrape everything under the chair again, and stand up, before her mother appeared in the doorway. Her powder had worn off; her nose was red, her eyes moist; with some surprise, Harriet saw that she was carrying Robin’s little blackbird costume—how black it looked, how small , dangling limp and bedraggled from its padded satin hanger like Peter Pan’s shadow that he’d tried to stick on with soap.

Her mother seemed about to say something; but she had stopped herself, and was looking at Harriet curiously. “What are you doing?” she said.

In apprehension, Harriet stared at the tiny costume. “Why—” she said and, unable to finish, she nodded at it.

Harriet’s mother glanced at the costume, startled, almost as if she’d forgotten she was holding it. “Oh,” she said, and dabbed at the corner of her eye with a tissue. “Tom French asked Edie if his child could borrow it. The first ball game is with a team called the Ravens or something and Tom’s wife thought it would be cute if one of the children dressed up like a bird and ran out with the cheerleaders.”

“If you don’t want to lend it to them, you should tell them they can’t have it.”

Harriet’s mother looked a bit surprised. For a long strange moment, the two of them looked at each other.

Harriet’s mother cleared her throat. “What day do you want to drive to Memphis and buy your school clothes?” she said.

“Who’s going to fix them?”

“Beg pardon?”

“Ida always hems my school clothes.”

Harriet’s mother started to say something, then shook her head, as if to clear it of an unpleasant thought. “When are you going to get over this?”

Harriet glared at the carpet. Never , she thought.

“Sweetheart … I know you loved Ida and—maybe I didn’t know how much….”

Silence.

“But … honey, Ida wanted to leave.”

“She’d have stayed if you asked her.”

Harriet’s mother cleared her throat. “Honey, I feel as bad about it as you do, but Ida didn’t want to stay. Your father was constantly complaining about her, how little work she did. He and I fought about this all the time over the phone, did you know that?” She looked up at the ceiling. “He thought she didn’t do enough, that for what we paid her—”

“You didn’t pay her anything!”

“Harriet, I don’t think Ida had been happy here for … for a long time. She’ll get a better salary somewhere else…. It’s not like I need her any more, like when you and Allison were little….”

Harriet listened, icily.

“Ida was with us for so many years that I guess I sort of talked myself into thinking I couldn’t do without her, but … we’ve been fine , haven’t we?”

Harriet bit her upper lip, stared obstinately into the corner of the room—mess everywhere, the corner table littered with pens, envelopes, coasters, old handkerchiefs, an overflowing ashtray atop a stack of magazines.

“Haven’t we? Been fine? Ida—” her mother looked around, helplessly—“Ida just rode rough shod over me, didn’t you see that?”

There was a long silence during which—out of the corner of her eye—Harriet saw a bullet she’d missed lying on the carpet under the table.

“Don’t get me wrong. When you girls were little, I couldn’t have done without Ida. She helped me enormously . Especially with …” Harriet’s mother sighed. “But for the last few years, she hasn’t been pleased with anything that went on around here. I guess she was fine with you all but with me, she was so resentful, just standing there with her arms folded and judging me….”

Harriet stared fixedly at the bullet. A little bored now, listening to her mother’s voice without really hearing it, she kept her eyes on the floor and soon drifted away into a favorite daydream. The time machine was leaving; she was carrying emergency supplies to Scott’s party at the pole; everything depended on her. Packing lists, packing lists, and he’d brought all the wrong things. Must fight it out to the last biscuit …. She would save them all, with stores brought from the future: instant cocoa and vitamin C tablets, canned heat, peanut butter, gasoline for the sledges and fresh vegetables from the garden and battery-powered flashlights….

Suddenly, the different position of her mother’s voice got her attention. Harriet looked up. Her mother was standing in the doorway now.

“I guess I can’t do anything right, can I?” she said.

She turned and left the room. It was not yet ten o’clock. The living room was still shady and cool; beyond, the depressing depths of the hallway. A faint, fruity trace of her mother’s perfume still hung in the dusty air.

Hangers jingled and rasped in the coat closet. Harriet stood where she was, and when, after several minutes, she heard her mother still scratching around out in the hall, she edged over to where the stray bullet lay and kicked it under the sofa. She sat down on the edge of Ida’s chair; she waited. Finally, after a long time, she ventured out into the hall, and found her mother standing in the open door of the closet, refolding—not very neatly—some linens that she’d pulled down from the top shelf.

As if nothing at all had happened, her mother smiled. With a comical little sigh, she stepped back from the mess and said: “My goodness. Sometimes I think we should just pack up the car and move in with your father.”

She cut her eyes over at Harriet. “Hmm?” she said, brightly, as if she’d suggested some great treat. “What would you think about that?”

She’ll do what she wants , Harriet thought, hopelessly. It doesn’t matter what I say .

“I don’t know about you,” said her mother, returning to her linens, “but I think it’s time for us to start acting more like a family .”

“Why?” said Harriet, after a confused pause. Her mother’s choice of words was alarming. Often, when Harriet’s father was about to issue some unreasonable order, he preceded it with the observation: we need to start acting more like a family here .