Джеймс Кейн - Mildred Pierce

“Are you?”

“I’m meeting them at his office.”

“Then get out. Now.”

“I’ll decide that. And I’ll decide when.”

“You’ll get your things out of this house right now or you’ll find them in the middle of Pierce Drive when you come back.”

Veda screamed curses at Mildred, but presently she got it through her head that this time, for some reason, was different from all other times. She went out, backed her car down to the kitchen door, began carrying out her things, and packing them in the luggage carrier. Mildred sat quite still, and when she heard Veda drive off she was consumed by a fury so cold that it almost seemed as though she felt nothing at all. It didn’t occur to her that she was acting less like a mother than like a lover who has unexpectedly discovered an act of faithlessness, and avenged it.

It was at least six months after this that Bert called up to invite her to the broadcast. For her, it had been a dismal six months. She had found out soon enough where Veda was staying. It was in one of the small, swank apartment houses on Franklin Avenue, in Hollywood. Every fibre of her being had wanted to pay a visit there, to take back what she had said, to reestablish things as they had been, or try to. But when this thought entered her mind, or rather shot through her heart like a hot arrow, she set her face as if it had been cast in metal, and not once did she even drive past Veda’s door. And yet, even in her loneliness, her relation with Veda was developing, twisting her painfully, like some sort of cancer. She discovered rye, and in the boozy dreams of her daily rest, she pictured Veda as going from bad to worse, as hungering and mending threadbare finery, until she had to come back, penitent and tearful, for forgiveness. This view of the future was somewhat obscured by the circumstance that Mildred didn’t know exactly how much Veda had obtained from the Lenhardts, and thus couldn’t calculate, with any degree of accuracy, when destitution was likely to strike. But Bert contributed a thought that assisted drama, if not truth. Bert, having tried unsuccessfully to stand on his rights as a father to bluff information out of Wally, and having threatened even to “hold up the settlement” unless full data were furnished, had learned only that his consent was not needed for a settlement; all the Lenhardts wanted was a release from Veda, a signed letter denying promises, intimidation, or pregnancy. But the episode had left him with a lower opinion of Wally’s honesty than he had had before, if that were possible, and he hatched the theory that “Wally would have every damned cent of it before the year was out, didn’t make a bit of difference what they paid, or what he got, or what she got.” On this theory Mildred eagerly seized, and pictured the cheated Veda, not only as cold, hungry, and in rags, but as horribly bruised in spirit, creeping to the strong, silent mother who could cope with Wally or anybody else. When the scene materialized almost daily before her eyes, with a hundred little variations and embellishments, she always experienced the same brief ecstasy as she lifted the weeping Veda into her arms, patted her, inhaled the fragrance of the soft, coppery hair, and bestowed love, understanding, and forgiveness. One slight incongruity she overlooked: Veda in real life, rarely wept.

At Bert’s mention of a broadcast it took her a moment or two to collect her wits. “What broadcast?”

“Why, Veda.”

“You mean she’s playing on the air?”

“Singing, the way I get it.”

“Veda? Singing?”

“Maybe I better come over.”

By the time he got there, she was a-tremble with excitement. She found the radio page of the Times, and there, sure enough, was Veda’s picture, with the news that “the popular singer will be heard tonight at 8:30, on the Hank Somerville (Snack-O-Ham) program.” Bert had seen the Examiner, but hadn’t seen the Times, and together they looked at the picture, and commented on how lovely Veda looked. When Mildred wanted to know how long this had been going on, meaning the singing, Bert said quickly you couldn’t prove it by him, as though to disclaim participation in secrets that had been withheld from Mildred. Then he added that the way he got it, Veda had been on the air quite a lot already, on the little afternoon programs that nobody paid any attention to, and that was how she’d got this chance on a big national hook-up. Mildred got the rye she had been sipping, poured two more drinks, and Bert revealed that his invitation had really been Mrs. Beiderhof’s idea. “She figured it meant a lot more to you than it would to her, so that’s how I came to call you up.”

“It was certainly nice of her.”

“She’s a real friend.”

“You mean we’ll go to the studio?”

“That’s it. It’s going out from the NBC studio right here in Hollywood, and we’ll be able to see it and hear it.”

“Don’t we have to have tickets?”

“... I got a couple.”

“How?”

“It’s taken care of.”

“From Veda?”

“Never mind. I got ‘em.”

At the look on Mildred’s face, Bert quickly crossed over, took her hand. “Now what’s the use of acting like that? Yes, she called me up, and the tickets are there waiting for me. And she’ll call you up, of course she will. But why would she be calling you in the morning, like she did me? She knows you’re never home then. And then another thing, she’s probably been busy. I hear they run those singers ragged, rehearsing them, the day of a broadcast. O.K., they’ve got her there, where she can’t get to a phone or anything, but that’s not her fault. She’ll call. Of course she will.”

“Oh no. She won’t call me.”

As Bert didn’t know the full details of Veda’s departure from home, his optimism was understandable. He evidently regarded the point as of small importance, for he began to talk amiably, sipping his rye. He said it certainly went to show that the kid had stuff in her all right, to get a spot like that with a big jazz band, and nobody giving her any help but herself. He said he knew how Mildred felt, but she was certainly going to regret it afterwards if she let a little thing like this stand in the way of being there at the kid’s first big chance. Because it was a big chance all right. The torch singers with these big name bands, they’re in the money, and no mistake about it. And sometimes, if they had the right hot licks on their first broadcast, they hit the big time overnight.

Mildred let a wan, pitying smile play over her face. If Veda had got there, she said, it was certainly all right with her. Just the same, it certainly seemed funny, the difference between what Veda might have been, and what she was. “Just a year or two ago, it was a pleasure to listen to her. She played all the classical composers, the very best. Her friends were of the best. They weren’t my friends, but they were of the best. Her mind was on higher things. And then, after Mr. Hannen died, I don’t know what got into her. She began going around with cheap, awful people. She met that boy. She let Wally Burgan poison her mind against me. And now, Hank Somerville. Well, that’s the whole story — from Beethoven to Hank Somerville, in a little over a year. No, I don’t want to go to the broadcast. It would make me too sad.”

Truth to tell, Mildred had no such critical prejudice against Mr. Somerville, or the torch canon, as her remarks might indicate. If Veda had called her up, she would have been only too glad to regard this as “the first move,” and to have gone adoringly to the broadcast. But when Veda called Bert, and didn’t call her, she was sick, and her sickness involved a bad case of sour-grapes poisoning: so far as she was concerned, torch was the lowest conceivable form of human endeavor. Also, she hated the idea that Bert might go without her. She insisted that he take Mrs. Biederhof, but he got the point, and miserably mumbled that he guessed he wouldn’t go. Then suddenly she asked what advantage there was in going to the studio. He could hear it over the radio. Why not ride with her to Laguna and hear it there? He could have his dinner, a nice big steak if he wanted it, and then later she would have Mrs. Gessler put the radio on the veranda, and he could hear Veda without going to a lot of useless trouble. At the mention of steak, poor Bert perked up, and said he’d often wanted to see her place at Laguna. She said come right along, she’d be starting as soon as Tommy brought the car. He said O.K., and went legging it home to change into clothes suitable to a high-class place.