Friends till the End Read online

  “Okay.”

  Isabel sat down again in the corner next to the young man she had invited. Laura regarded her stepdaughter thoughtfully. When Isabel had announced that she was bringing this friend of hers—what was his name again? Snooky? She hoped she was remembering it wrong—Laura had looked interested and asked a few questions. Who was he? Where was he from? How had they met? Isabel had smiled in that cool way of hers and said, “He’s a friend—an old friend from college.” Laura wondered what that meant, nowadays. Perhaps it meant that he really was just a friend. There was no telling anymore, was there? She thought he looked a trifle young for Isabel, who was in her mid-twenties and typically dated men ten years older than she.…

  Laura crossed the room and took the drink out of her husband’s hand, giving him a warning look as she did so. The look said, Don’t fight with me. Of course he didn’t. He just shrugged and turned away. Laura began to chat with Ruth and Sam Abrams, rescuing them from a discourse on the water resources of the Pantanal by Professor Crandall, who seemed to have worked himself up into a positive frenzy of factual information this evening.

  An hour later the party began to break up. The guests drifted back and forth aimlessly, as opposed to their earlier purposeful perambulations. Heather Crandall floated over to Laura and said, “Such a wonderful party, as always.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We should be getting home now,” said Heather, casting a faintly worried eye over to where her husband stood furiously expounding the merits of field research versus laboratory work. “Little Harry will be tired of babysitting for the other two.”

  Laura nodded. She suddenly felt very tired and a little sick.

  “To paraphrase Alice B. Toklas,” Heather Crandall said with amusement in her eye, “it will take Harry ten years to understand what he’s said here tonight.”

  Laura looked at her sharply. Heather was Harry Crandall’s third wife—or was it the fourth?—but she wasn’t a fool like the others. She may have her own private obsessions about health food, but she saw her husband’s more public obsessions clearly. Good for her, Laura thought wearily.

  “I think I’ll go upstairs and lie down,” she said. “I don’t feel very well. Thank you so much for coming.”

  “Probably something you ate,” Heather said. “Remind me to talk to you about fried foods sometime.”

  Laura went upstairs to bed, and Walter Sloane stood by the door seeing his friends out. He came back into the living room with a smug expression on his face.

  “Bunch of fools,” he said to his children. Isabel’s young man still lounged in the corner. “That Harry Crandall especially is an idiot. Did you hear him blowing off steam about the Pantanal? I’m sure he doesn’t even know where the damned thing is. He’s never even been to Argentina.”

  “The Pantanal,” said Isabel’s friend in a lordly manner, “isn’t in Argentina.”

  “What?”

  “It’s in Brazil. In the southwest corner, to be exact. A region of swamps and flourishing animal life. Anacondas. Snails. Jaguars.”

  “Good Lord,” said his host, giving him a frozen glance. “It’s as bad as having that stuffed shirt Harry around. Where’s the whiskey? Laura never lets me drink a decent amount. Whiskey, anyone?”

  No one wanted any whiskey.

  “Good,” said Walter Sloane with satisfaction, and poured himself out a huge drink.

  * * *

  Conversations in the various cars departing from the Sloanes’ house:

  “That Walter,” Freda Simms said with emphasis, “is an old bore. And a deadly miser. Did you see him watching every drink I took? What a creep. How could darling Laura have married him, I ask you? Eddie?”

  Eddie shrugged. “I just met these people.”

  “Well, what do you think?”

  Eddie maneuvered the car expertly onto the main road. “They’re okay, I guess.”

  From there the conversation turned to his next performance at the circus and various other things. It was only when the car drove up to Freda’s house that she caught herself saying with venom,

  “That old hog Walter had better watch out! Did you see Harry Crandall giving him the evil eye tonight, wondering if he would pick a fight? He didn’t, but only because of Laura, poor dear. Old Wally had better watch out—someone’s going to do it in for him one of these days!”

  In the Crandalls’ car Heather was saying fretfully,

  “I told her never to eat anything that’s been fried in oil. Really, the only cooking oil that’s suitable for frying is Indian ghee. You know. It’s stable at high temperatures and—”

  “Did you see Walter’s face when I was talking about the resources of the Pantanal?” said Professor Crandall, following his own train of thought. “I’ll bet he doesn’t even know where the Pantanal is. Don’t you think so, darling?”

  “Yes, Harry,” Heather said submissively.

  “Ignoramus,” her husband said gleefully. “That’s what he is, you know, Heather. A total ignoramus.”

  “Yes, darling.”

  “What were you and Laura talking about?”

  “She wasn’t feeling well. I was going to tell her about ghee but I didn’t have the time.”

  “Oh, well. Next time, then.”

  “Yes,” said Heather. “Next time.”

  * * *

  In the Abramses’ car the conversation was short and direct.

  “That Freda,” Sam Abrams was saying. He was a little gray man with a resigned expression. “Has she ever had a day’s worry in her life?”

  “Oh, Sam, that’s not fair,” said Ruth. “Her husband died.”

  “And left her with more money than she knows what to do with.”

  “Oh, Sam.”

  Her husband gave her a quizzical glance. “You wouldn’t think of knocking me off, now would you, honey? For the insurance money, maybe?”

  “Oh, Sam.” Ruth felt resentful. You shouldn’t even joke about things like that, her expression said.

  But it was true enough, what he had said about Freda Simms. Not that she had had such an easy time of it—look at the way she drank, she certainly had her share of problems. She was running away from something. But she had never had to worry about money.

  Ruth felt that awful feeling again, that stab of resentment.

  She had never had to worry.…

  Isabel Sloane saw her friend out to his car.

  “Snooky,” she said, “it was terrific seeing you again. How long will you be at your sisters?”

  “About as long as she and her husband can stand me.”

  “Let’s get together soon.”

  The young man looked down at her thoughtfully. “Why don’t you come over for dinner tomorrow night?”

  “Your sister wouldn’t mind?”

  “Oh, no. She and Bernard love that kind of thing.”

  “Well … okay. That would be great. See you then.”

  She stood and watched as he drive away. She didn’t wave.

  On the way home he punched the radio dials aimlessly. Finally, giving up, he began to whistle an opera aria. He was singing by the time he reached his sister’s house and roaring as he climbed the front steps.

  His sister came out on the porch and flicked on the light.

  “So there you are, you slobhead,” she said affectionately.

  “Here I am, myself.”

  “Have fun at your party?”

  “Uh-huh. Hey, Maya?”

  “Speak on, little one.”

  “You wouldn’t mind having Isabel over for dinner tomorrow, would you?”

  “Oh, no,” said his sister, flicking off the porch light and closing the door. “You know I just live to entertain your little friends.”

  * * *

  “Sam,” Ruth Abrams said, “Sam, where’s the sugar bowl?”

  She was standing on a chair and reaching into the dark recesses of the upper shelf of the pantry.

  “Sam?”

  Her husband had d
isappeared somewhere, probably into the basement to tinker with the old radios and dinosaurlike remnants of electrical equipment he hoarded down there.

  Ruth did what she always did in these cases. She raised her voice and bellowed at the top of her lungs,

  “SAM?”

  The pantry rattled and the cat scuttled away, but there was no answer from below. Ruth sighed and scrabbled about among the items on the shelf.

  Something would have to be done about this pantry, she thought, as she always did when forced to find something. Just look at this. Old half-used containers of oatmeal (probably maggoty by now), sticky bottles of jam with the contents ossified beyond recognition, envelopes of instant soup mix, decades old. In fact, the whole thing could be reorganized as a kind of museum of how her children lived twenty years ago. And the sugar bowl nowhere to be seen.

  Well, she would just have to use something else in that cake batter. She descended from the chair and looked thoughtfully into the mixing bowl. How about maple syrup, or honey? Sam wouldn’t mind. Or how about that stuff her friend Heather Crandall had given her weeks ago … where was it now … on the bottom shelf under the sink …?

  She emerged from her search triumphantly this time, her face flushed and gray hair tousled, holding a jar of brown rice syrup. She looked at it doubtfully. “Far better for you than sugar,” Heather had said, pressing it into her hands. “Trust me. It’s made up of maltose and other complex sugars. It’s not nearly as—as aggressive as table sugar. Try it.”

  Ruth had never thought of ordinary sugar as particularly hostile, but she supposed it could be. She stood in the middle of the kitchen, turning the jar over and over in her hands. She was a short plump woman in her early sixties with a mop of graying curls and a humble, anxious expression. Well, of course Heather always knew best about cookery. Heather would bake a cake using this strange syrupy stuff, and it would turn out delicious—her cakes always did. Ruth was miserably aware that the same was not true for her. She tried to copy Heather and turn out gourmet meals (how Heather did it, from carrot scrapings and turtle beans, Ruth could never quite figure out), but somehow the result was never the same. She gazed earnestly at the syrup, which had a pleasing golden color like honey, and sighed. Well, Heather knew best.

  The phone rang and she picked it up, absentmindedly unscrewing the top of the jar and tilting it over the mixing bowl.

  “Hello?”

  It was Heather. Her voice sounded strange; rusty, almost.

  “What?” said Ruth vaguely. She could never take in things quickly at the best of times. It was something everyone knew about her. “Poor Ruth,” they said, “not too quick, is she?”

  “Ruth,” Heather said with a choking sound, “Ruthie, I’m telling you, Laura Sloane is dead. She’s dead!”

  “She can’t be,” Ruth said slowly, in her hesitant way. “She was—she was fine last night.”

  “She was not. She didn’t feel well when we left. And then it came on her in the middle of the night—some sort of stroke or heart attack, we don’t know which—”

  “Laura? Laura?”

  Heather sighed impatiently. “Ruth. Please. Pull yourself together. Go tell Sam. We’ll have to go over to the house—bring flowers or something—”

  “Yes,” said Ruth. “Yes. Yes, we will. Flowers would be nice.”

  She hung up and stood there uncertainly. Her mind was going round and round; how could this … how could this happen … how could this happen …!

  All at once her attention was diverted by more mundane matters.

  “Oh, hell,” she said firmly.

  The syrup jar she was holding was empty; and now the cake mix would be very sweet indeed.

  Snooky and his sister Maya were having a busy Sunday morning. They sat amidst the wreckage of their brunch. Maya and her husband Bernard were doing the crossword puzzle.

  “Six letters,” Maya was saying. “A hollow cylinder.”

  “A hollow cylinder,” mused Bernard. He was a large man with intelligent brown eyes, dark curly hair and a beard; he looked like an amicable bear. “I don’t know. How about this one? ‘The stalk of an ovule.’ Any guesses?”

  There was silence around the table.

  “Gabion,” said Snooky, not looking up from the morning paper. He was reading the cartoon page as intently as if it were the News of the Week in Review.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Gabion.”

  “Which one?” asked Maya.

  “Hollow cylinder.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  There was another silence.

  “Funiculus,” said Snooky.

  “The stalk of an ovule?” said Maya.

  “Yes.”

  “It fits,” she said excitedly. “Hey, Snookers. How about ‘an extensive plain, in Spain?’ Five letters.”

  Her brother turned a page. “Llano,” he said. “L-L-A-N-O.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “This is no fun at all,” said Bernard dispiritedly. “Where’s the challenge?”

  “Snooky’s always been good at crossword puzzles. Don’t take it personally, Bernard.”

  Bernard subsided into an unhappy silence. Snooky raised a warning eyebrow at his sister.

  Maya was five years older, but other than that they looked very much alike. Both were lanky, with pale faces, thin crooked noses and straight golden-brown hair which Maya wore in a pageboy and Snooky wore carelessly brushed back. They were fine-boned and aristocratic-looking, like greyhounds.

  “Be careful, darling sister. You’re going to sour my visit here.”

  He had shown up at their door with little or no advance warning only a week before. His full name was Arthur B. Randolph, and he had no occupation. Maya looked over at him fondly. He was their elder brother William’s greatest failure; William, who was ten years older than Maya and had single-handedly raised the two of them after their parents died. William, the lawyer, who had tried to instill the work ethic into each of his younger siblings and had succeeded only with Maya, who had a job writing a weekly column for a magazine called The Animal World. She wrote on subjects varying from the denizens of the Amazon to the possibility of life in outer space. Snooky referred to it as “the jungle beetle column”; he was vaguely scornful of her career, but then, of course, Snooky had never worked a day in his life. William had nearly broken down on that momentous day, four years ago, when Snooky had reached the age of twenty-one and William had been forced to give him his share of their parents’ wealth.

  “Wastrel,” William had told Maya, tears streaming down his face. She had never seen him so upset. “Wastrel! He’ll go straight through it. You’ll see, Maya. He’ll squander it all.”

  But Snooky had not squandered it. For the past four years he had roamed the country, settling first here, then there, flitting from place to place like a large good-natured dragonfly. One of his favorite places to visit was his sister’s sprawling Victorian house in Ridgewood, Connecticut. Ridgewood was a lovely little town that had retained some of its original New England charm; it had a quiet Main Street lined with shops and was surrounded by lakes and wooded hills. It was just over two hours away from New York City and featured what Bernard prized most in life: seclusion.

  “Sometimes I think,” Maya had remarked to Snooky once, “if Bernard could be a hermit and still be married, he would be.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Maya. Bernard is a married hermit.”

  Bernard and Maya had purchased the house four years earlier, when they got married. They had fallen in love with it at first sight, much as they had with each other (both were firm believers in intuition), and had bought it over the objections of their friend and real estate agent, a short surly individual named Seymour. Seymour had pointed out the many disadvantages: the plumbing, in a sad state of disrepair; the huge heating bills; the window on the third floor in the back bedroom which would have to be fixed; the cold
drafts through the ridiculous number of fireplaces (five). What Maya and Bernard had seen was a beautiful old house on a winding lane, with an expanse of green lawn, a patch of woods, and the nearest house, a geodesic dome made primarily of glass, far enough away for privacy.

  “I won’t let you buy it,” Seymour had announced in a menacing manner. “It’ll fall down. You’ll live to regret it. Trust me. It’s my business.”

  “We’re buying it,” Bernard said. Bernard, in general, spoke very little; this was a long sentence for him.

  “You’re not.”

  “We are.”

  “Over my dead body,” said Seymour.

  Bernard shrugged. “Get the gun,” he said to Maya.

  They settled the contract and moved in in record time. It turned out that Seymour had been wrong about nearly everything. The house was a little cold in winter, but the addition of a new and larger furnace took care of that problem, and within a year they had turned it into a comfortable, even luxurious, home. The sun room was filled with flowering plants and vines; the living room had leaded-glass windows and a window seat piled high with pillows. The dining room contained sturdy antique mahogany and oak furniture (Bernard, while not overweight, was heavily built and had managed to destroy an expensive French armchair simply by sitting down on it). Maya filled the house with unusual pieces of sculpture, odds and ends picked up at antique sales, and bright Navajo rugs.

  “It’s too comfortable,” Bernard would say whenever company arrived. Bernard hated company. “Too damn comfortable. Turn the heat down, Maya. Let them suffer.”

  One visitor whom Bernard regarded with somewhat less than his usual animosity was Snooky, who showed up at random intervals and appropriated for himself the small bedroom on the third floor at the back. He arrived with little or no baggage, ate huge amounts of their food and borrowed freely from Bernard’s wardrobe. He would leave just as suddenly as he arrived, getting on the plane to some distant place; his ambition was to live for a while in every state in the U.S., although he tended to shy away from the general vicinity of southern California, where his brother William lived. Over the years William and his stiff unbending wife, Emily, had issued warnings, then denunciations, then messages of despair and entreaty concerning Snooky’s lifestyle. William’s favorite phrase was “Think of Mother.”