Эд Макбейн - Mothers and Daughters

April 13, 1949

DAUGHTER,

Your father and I have just returned from Sandstone State Hospital where we were told that the results of the operation they performed on your sister, though they seemed encouraging at first, have not been at all what was hoped for, there is no hope.

Amanda dear, there is no hope.

We are getting old, your father and I. The child is not yet seven. It was Penny’s wish that she come to live with you in Connecticut. She is not a burden, daughter. She is a lovely child and well-mannered, and she needs young people who can give her love. We are getting old.

I would take it very kindly, my daughter, if you would give her a home and the love she needs. I would take it very kindly.

God love you.

Your mother,

The scene was a particularly difficult one, and David’s absence wasn’t making it any easier. Gillian kept alternating her attention between the open script in her lap and the clock on the wall. He’ll call, she told herself. As soon as he knows anything, he’ll call. Now think of the girl in the play.

She looked at the clock, and then turned her attention back to the script, gathering the shreds of her concentration, seeking in herself a key to the girl’s character. She loves her husband, Gillian thought, that much we know. All right, so why did Igor ask me to work with an actor I despise? Just because of that, I suppose. The effectiveness of the scene depends entirely on how convincing the girl’s love is. Igor’s given me something that will be especially difficult for me. All right, I’ll be deeply in love with my husband. I’ll be charming and warm and sympathetic to him from the moment we step onto that stage. Oh brother, she thought.

She looked again at the clock, and then turned back to the script and began drumming an attitude into her mind. She told herself she liked him, no, better than that, she absolutely adored this simple, untalented jerk, she worshiped the ground he walked on, the last thing she wanted from him was an argument. The girl she was playing had been raised strictly, and on the premise that marriage was a sacrament, that marriage and obedience, and duty to one’s husband, the bearing and raising of children, were a woman’s only real goals. She was somewhat shy and reticent, a good wife and a good mother. In the scene, she was supposed to discover that her husband had been unfaithful to her, had indeed withdrawn a thousand dollars from their joint bank account and given the money to his paramour. Faced with this moment of truth, the girl was supposed to explode in a complete reversal of character, expressing whatever hostilities had been repressed during the years of her childhood and the eight years of her even-keeled marriage. Gillian made a face. She found the scene and the character difficult to believe, but she supposed this meant only that the character was someone beyond the scope of her own personality. Nonetheless, a good actress was supposed to create believable experience in terms of related, if seemingly obscure, experiences of her own, wasn’t she? Gillian sighed heavily, closed her eyes against the clock, and began to probe.

She could understand the girl’s upbringing because it was faintly reminiscent of her own, possibly reminiscent of every girl’s upbringing, but the similarity ended right there. As any of the embryo actors in Igor’s class might have put it, Gillian had “never done the marriage bit.” But she had certainly been subjected to the interminable pounding of a marriage-oriented mother, perhaps even a marriage-oriented society. Her own training was not unique. She recognized that possibly every son and daughter in the world were exposed to a childhood of propaganda, the word-of-mouth advertising passed from generation to generation, the key words of which were “when you get married.” She thought it interesting that this was the transmitted prophecy, an allegation that left no real room for choice. She could not imagine any mother, except in the novels of Colette, saying to her daughter, “When you grow up and become someone’s mistress,” no, she could not imagine it. Nor would anyone say to her son, “When you grow up and become a bachelor.” The word came down with unflinching adult authority, camouflaged in various guises, but always essentially the same:

“Wait until you have children of your own.”

“Someday you’ll meet a nice girl.”

“I’ve saved my wedding veil for you.”

“You want to plan for the future.”

The double talk of subliminal direction, which, when translated from the English, always added up to the same four words: when you get married.

Gillian had been subjected to the same subtle dunning approach, perhaps more so because she was a girl and marriage was the dangling carrot of successful womanhood. The training, she supposed, was as much a part of her as her liver or her heart, and although she accepted her relationship with David, accepted her role in the honesty of an unquestioning love that she felt was real and enduring, she admitted to herself that she was sometimes uneasy about it. Somewhere inside this uninhibited girl, there was a girl quite different, a young child who listened to and heeded the words of mother and God, who reeled back in shock at her own impropriety. Perhaps this was why she chose not to meet Julia Regan.

She could remember the first time David had asked her to accompany him to Talmadge on a weekend. She had hesitated a moment before answering, and then had said, “No, I don’t think so, David.”

“But why not?”

“It isn’t that... David, I’d love to meet your mother, really I would.” She shook her head. “But not now, not yet.”

She had turned away from him, avoiding his eyes, suddenly shy and embarrassed. But she knew she could not meet his mother yet, not this way, not the way things were.

She looked at the clock again.

Come on, she thought, think of the character in the play.

She turned her attention back to the script, read two speeches with forced concentration, slapped the page suddenly, and looked back at the clock again.

He should have been here by now. Or, lacking that, he should have called. He should have known she’d be on tenterhooks waiting for word one way or the other. The appointment had been for a five-thirty drink, she had made the appointment herself, she had called Curt personally the moment she heard about the job opening.

“I’m sorry, Gilly,” he’d said. “This isn’t an acting job. And besides, I’m looking for a man.”

“That’s why I’m calling, Curt. A friend of mine might be right for it.”

“Who? Anybody I know?”

“I don’t think so. His name is David Regan.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Nobody ever heard of you, either, Curt. Until Westport in 1946, and it was my agent who got you the job because I told her you’d—”

“Hey, what is this?” Curt asked. “Blackmail?”

“Not at all,” Gillian answered. “I’m refreshing your memory. Now that you’re a big-shot television magnate, maybe your memory—”

“Has he ever worked in television before?”

“No, but who has, Curt?”

“Well, Gillian, to tell you the truth...”

“Curt, darling, don’t snow old friends. This is primarily an administrative job, and hasn’t got at thing to do with television techniques. Will you talk to him, please?”

“Where do you get all your information, Gilly? What do you do, run at spy system in New York?”

“I simply keep track of old friends,” she said.

“Yeah, go ahead. Hit the ‘old friends’ theme one more time.”

“If you don’t like him, you don’t have to hire him.”

“I wouldn’t hire your father if I didn’t like him.”