Rose's Last Summer [= The Lively Corpse]

9

Dalloway spent a restless night. The people in the adjoining suite gave a party and there was a woman in the crowd whose full, hearty laughter reminded him of the way Rose used to laugh.

In the morning he phoned Captain Greer at his office.

“This is Haley Dalloway, Captain.”

“Yes, Dalloway.”

“I may as well say it before you do — I have this Goodfield family on my brain.”

“I hardly envy you.”

“As far as you’re concerned, I expect this business about Rose is finished.”

“It’s finished,” Greer said, “because there’s simply nothing to go on with.”

“You could be wrong.”

“I often am. You’re at liberty to correct me if you can.”

“That’s the trouble. I have nothing definite except Clyde’s statement.”

“Which is hardly definite enough.”

“I realize that. Call it a hunch, if you like, but I have a strong feeling that at some time or another Rose had a connection with the Goodfields.”

“What if she had?”

“They deny it. That’s suspicious in itself — if, of course, there was a connection.”

“My own opinion is that the Goodfields are exactly what they seem. The mother’s a tyrant, Goodfield is a mouse, and his wife has forty-eight cards in the deck. If I investigated every family like it, I’d be working seventy-two hours a day. The Goodfields are more along Clyde’s line than mine.”

“Then you intend to drop the case?”

“Officially it’s dropped.”

“What about unofficially?”

“Some time if I ever get up to Frisco I may drop in to see how dolls are being made these days. No pun intended.”

“That’s really very good of you,” Dalloway said earnestly. “I appreciate it.”

“Why?”

“Well, after all, Rose was my wife.”

“You didn’t see her for thirty years, the bonds couldn’t have been too strong.”

“Perhaps I’m getting sentimental in my old age.”

“Perhaps, but I wouldn’t bet a plugged nickel on it.” There was a pause, and a rustle of paper. “We’ve had no word so far on your daughter, Lora.”

“I didn’t expect any.”

“To be perfectly realistic about it, the police don’t break their necks on these voluntary disappearance cases unless a minor is involved. When a girl’s old enough to vote and earn a living, she’s old enough to leave home.”

“She’s never earned a living, but I suppose that’s beside the point.”

“What is the point?”

“I merely want to find out where and how she is. I have no intention of forcing her to return home or anything like that. But the fact is she’s my only child, I’m no longer young, and I have a fair amount of money to leave behind. Before I make another will, I want to know just how that money’s going to be spent.”

“You mean if you find her married to a bum, no money, eh?”

“Not a cent.”

“Those are hard words for such a sentimental man.”

Dalloway laughed. “Money and sentiment don’t mix.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Greer said. “I’ve never had enough of either to try mixing them.”

“I’ll hear from you then, perhaps soon?”

“Perhaps soon, perhaps never. I haven’t committed myself.”

“By the way, I would like to look over the things Rose left behind in her room, but I was told by Clyde that it was sealed.”

“Not anymore. One of the boys from the County Administrator’s office made a routine check through everything in case any money or valuables were hidden around. Nothing was found.”

“I suppose they checked thoroughly?”

“That’s their job. They examine every feather in the pillows, every book, magazine, picture, mattress, letter—”

“I get it. You wouldn’t have any objection if I went and took a look around myself, though?”

“None at all. Just square yourself with Mrs. Cushman. It’s her house, and if she doesn’t want to let you in, no one can force her to.”

Force was not necessary. Mrs. Cushman was flabber-gasted by the appearance, in the flesh, of one of Rose’s husbands. Until the moment when Dalloway introduced himself at the front door, Mrs. Cushman had viewed Rose’s husbands as legendary creatures who might or might not have really existed.

“My land, I’ve heard Rose mention the name Haley Dalloway a hundred times.” Mrs. Cushman’s tone implied that each of the hundred mentions had been flattering; nothing could have been further from the truth.

“It’s nice to know that Rose didn’t forget me,” Dalloway said dryly.

“Oh dear, no, she didn’t forget you, I should say not. She often said—” Mrs. Cushman paused, trying desperately to invent something pleasant that Rose might have said, but the task was beyond her. “She spoke of you frequently. She was a great talker, Rose was. But look who’s telling who. I bet she talked your arm off.”

It was at this point that she noticed that Dalloway’s arm was indeed talked off, or at any rate missing.

Dalloway touched his artificial arm, casually. “Rose didn’t talk it off, she merely tried.”

“I didn’t mean... I—”

“Please don’t be embarrassed. I’m not.”

“It was real tactless of me. That’s what my late husband used to say, that every time I opened my mouth I put my foot in it.”

To avoid further marital reminiscences, Dalloway told her why he had come, and Mrs. Cushman led him upstairs explaining, as she paused on the landing, that she hadn’t had the spirit to clean Rose’s room and it was very likely a mess.

It was. The bed, the bureau, the chairs were strewn with old magazines, dresses, stockings, underwear, letters, sachets, empty containers of makeup, a discarded light bulb, an apple, and a flattened and distorted red rose that looked as though it had been recently pressed between the pages of a book.

Dalloway glanced around the room, frowning. It was a crude ending for a sentimental journey.

“A real mess,” Mrs. Cushman said with considerable satisfaction. Cleaning up a real mess was more enjoyable than cleaning up a half mess, since the results were more startling.

“I thought Rose had given up this room,” Dalloway said.

“She did.”

“It seems odd that she’d leave so much stuff behind, especially clothing. I understood she was broke.”

“Couldn’t be broker. She was always behind in her rent. Impractical, Rose was — not wishing to speak ill of the dead, but that’s the honest truth.”

“When did she decide to leave? Did she give you any notice?”

“Not a minute’s notice. Monday at lunchtime she comes in, hands me the money she owed me, and says she’s leaving to take a job out of town. Inside of twenty minutes she was gone, taking just that one suitcase with her best clothes in it. Gone like that.” Mrs. Cushman snapped her fingers. “Of course I knew she was up to something because of the maps.”

“What maps? I don’t see any.”

“She must of took them with her. She had a lot of maps that she’d marked things on with a pencil.”

“Things such as?”

“I didn’t pay too close attention, but I remember one where she’d written some people’s names on the top and some dates beside the names.”

“Can you recall any of them?”

“Phil was one. And Baker, I remember that because it was my maiden name. Now let me think a minute, don’t rush me.”

Dalloway went over to the bureau and picked up the pressed rose while Mrs. Cushman thought a minute.

“Paul. That’s another,” she said finally. “And Byron. Or Bernard, was it? Yes, it was Bernard.”

“Any women’s names?”

“I can’t recall any, but I think there was. Yes, I’m sure there was. Millie or Minnie, something like that.”

“And a date beside each name?”

“Yes.”

“What did you make of it?”

“I just figured she was making up a birthday list and didn’t have anything else to write on. Isn’t that reasonable?”

“It might be, if Rose had developed into the type of person who remembered anyone else’s birthday.”

“Rose could be very thoughtful at times,” Mrs. Cushman said cautiously. “She gave me a nice Christmas present last year, five pounds of caramels. I thought that was real nice of her, considering she couldn’t chew caramels herself on account of her dentures. For instance she could have given me peppermint patties and eaten half of them herself. Or maraschino cherries.”

Dalloway began to circle the room, looking at everything but not touching anything except the pressed flower he had taken off the bureau. His feelings about Rose were stronger here in this room than they had been at the funeral. He was depressed by the sordid litter of stuff she had left behind her, and impatient at Rose herself. How like her to make a birthday list on a map (and that’s all it was, probably) and then go off and die in somebody’s garden. She had no sense of propriety, never had had any.

“Maybe you’d like to be alone with her memory for a while?” Mrs. Cushman suggested.

“No,” Dalloway said. “No, thanks. I came here actually with the idea of finding something worthwhile to give my daughter, Lora, as a keepsake of her mother.”

“Her mother?”

“That’s right.”

“Why, Rose never breathed a word—”

“She had a very faulty memory about some things.”

“Well, my land, I just can’t feature Rose as a mother.”

“Neither could she.” Dalloway smiled, trying to conceal his hot rush of anger. It was as powerful now as it had been thirty-two years ago, the day Rose had left him.

“Fancy Rose having a daughter and never breathing a word about it, not even when she was hitting the bottle. It’s just a miracle, Rose being the blabber she was — not wishing to speak ill of the dead.” Mrs. Cushman put her head to one side and glanced around the room like a plump, inquisitive robin. “There must be something here you could take home to the little one.”

“Lora is over thirty.”

“She is? Why, yes, I guess she must be. It’s too bad Rose took all her pictures with her.”

“Pictures of what?”

“Herself. She had the walls covered with them. I’m not so sure it was plain vanity either. She used to be very critical of them. Look at that silly pan, she’d say, or, look at that stupid expression.” Mrs. Cushman wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “We had many a good laugh together over those pictures, I can tell you. Nobody could be funnier than Rose when she was in a good mood. But I guess you know that.”

“Yes.” Nobody could be funnier, and nobody could be sadder.

“Which most of the time she was — in a good mood, I mean. Not lately, though. Lately she’s been real touchy, fly off the handle at anything. I often heard her talking to herself, too, talk, talk, talk, like she was ordering people around. Except there weren’t any people around. I asked her about it one day and she said she was just rehearsing because she expected a big part in a movie any day. Same old story, I heard it a million times. She couldn’t get it through her head that she was finished.”

“What finished her?”

“She finished herself. Too many good times and parties, they ruined her looks and her health. Rose dearly loved a party.”

“I know.”

“My, she must have been a lively one when she was young. I bet she led you a merry chase.”

“Yes.” The merry chase was over, the lively one dead.

Dalloway turned and walked out of the room, unaware that he still had the red rose crushed in his right fist.

Mrs. Cushman puffed along at his heels like a toy locomotive. “You don’t have to run off so sudden-like.”

“Sorry, I have an engagement. You’ve been very kind,” he added, seeing her disappointed expression, “and very helpful.”

“I was hoping maybe you’d stay and we could have a little chat about Rose?”

“Perhaps some other time.”

“I wish there was more I could tell you, like the names on the map.”

“There might be,” Dalloway said. “Did she ever mention any of those people to you — Minnie, Baker, Bernard, and so on?”

“She knew a Minnie that’s a checker down at the Safeway, but only in the line of business. Not likely she’d concern herself with that Minnie’s birthday.”

“It doesn’t seem so.”

“As for Phil, there’s a Phil Dickerson lives over on Bagnos Street, but he’s just a boy going to high school, delivers for Fred’s Drugstore on the side. I don’t know any Bakers or Bernards, not that I can recollect offhand. You know what I think? I think all those people were people she knew a long time ago, not ones she was associating with in the here and now. They were figures from her past, in my opinion. And there’s only one person that Rose ever let down her real back hair in front of, and that’s Frank Clyde.”

“Indeed?”

“Indeed.” Mrs. Cushman echoed the word lovingly. It was a good word and she intended to use it frequently in the future. When one of the boarders complained about something, Mrs. Cushman would say “Indeed?” raising her eyebrows just as Dalloway had done.

“Why?”

“Why did she talk to Frank, you mean? Well, first and foremost, she liked him. She never let on she did, she even insulted him, but you could tell that underneath she considered him a real good guy. Which he is.”

“I agree. I’ve met him.”

“Grade A, in my opinion, and I’m not the one to say that about everybody. I’ve met too many Grade C’s in my lifetime and they look all right on the outside but just try cracking their shell, if you get my meaning.”

“Quite.”

“Quite.” Mrs. Cushman beamed with pleasure. She liked the way Dalloway talked, the nice crisp words he used like “quite” and “indeed.” A most distinguished man. She wondered if he was married.

Dalloway saw her wondering and edged toward the front door. “Thank you for your trouble, Mrs.—”

“Cushman. Blanche.”

“Ah... yes, I believe I’ll go and have a talk with Mr. Clyde.”

He opened the door decisively, and Mrs. Cushman knew in her heart that he was walking out of her life forever. She made one final move to stop him.

Crossing her arms on her chest, she said ominously, “You know what I think? What I think is, Rose was murdered.”