Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 8, No. 7, July 1963

J. S. Loves V. M by Richard Hardwick

The quickest way to a man’s heart, we’re told, is through his stomach, a cliché that was completely lost on this overconfident romanticist.

It was always just another business operation with Jerome Staley, yet he had to admit to himself that from the very first correspondence with Veronica he had felt something different. Something in her tone set her apart from the others. There was none of the whine, none of the deep-grained self-pity that permeated all their letters like the hollow ring of a gong, echoing the loneliness. They all showed it, whether they knew it or not, and he had come to expect it, and to play upon it.

But it was missing in Veronica’s letters. There was sorrow there, of course, but it was of a by-gone sort, not a clinging thing that could not be shed.

The second letter, for instance.

Staley smiled, though not from any feeling of conceit. His letters were most carefully designed to do exactly as they had done, to bring out the precise feelings Veronica McCullough had described with such poignancy.

That had been her second letter. The first, quite naturally, had exhibited the shyness and embarrassment that was obvious in all first contacts. They all seemed to feel that there was something a little vulgar or common in having to meet someone, a stranger, through the machinations of other strangers, the personnel of the friendship club. The very name of this particular club had repulsed Staley — The Senior Citizens Friendship League. The term ‘senior citizen’ had quite obviously been coined by the devil. Nonetheless, Staley could not take the chance of working through the same organization twice, and so he had to put up with minor annoyances.

Though he was no academic master of psychology, Jerome Staley knew that the shyness and embarrassment could be overcome by proper handling. It was a third item, inertia, that often was more difficult. Older people have a tendency to remain on the same heading, often whether it is to their liking or not. It is the way they know, and even after the first tentative try at breaking away, they will draw back quickly, as if from an unseen flame, and try to circumvent new and strange contacts. More important to Staley than to be able to quote from Freud or Jung or Adler, was the practical ability to crack firmly through this shell.

His stock second letter was specifically molded so as gently to brush aside this reticence and the shadows of suspicion, to establish an aura of trust, a feeling of their being, as it were, in the same boat.

Once more, it had accomplished its purpose.

And now, in letter #3, the possible personal meeting would be touched upon. Lightly at first, as though the possibility, in view of the distance separating them, was hardly a probability at this point. It simply served to broach the subject. Letter #3 drew an appropriate reply, four sanguine pages supporting the hope of a meeting, and soon.

The fourth and fifth letters carried it forward. Almost unconsciously, it was now Dearest Jerome, and My darling Veronica. Photographs passed in the mails.

The stage was now set. The leading man waited confidently in the wings. He penned letter #6 in his bold script, #6, which he fondly thought of as his literary coup de grace, the missive which effectively put them out of their suffering by bringing Jerome Staley onstage, in person:

This was the letter that invariably occupied the place of honor beneath the ribbon binding the pack. It was infallible. The reply came, tersely passionate, via Western Union.

She met him at the airport and his first impression was one of near-disbelief. He recognized her immediately, and she him. As she Came to him through the crowd, smiling, Jerome was suddenly aware that the picture she had sent him simply did not do her justice. It was strange indeed, for it had always been precisely the opposite, flagrantly touched-up likenesses that were not likenesses at all. Wrinkles painted out, double-chins removed, baggy eyes firmed, dewlaps miraculously absorbed, thin lips made full. But Veronica was beautiful, from the top of tastefully coiffured white hair to the tips of her spike-heeled feet.

“Jerome!”

“Veronica!”

She stopped two paces before him and tilted her head. She smiled again. “Jerome.”

He gave his head a little shake. “Veronica.”

He held out his hands, palms up, and she extended hers, palms down. Their fingers touched.

“It’s... it’s almost as if this were a reunion, my dear,” she said. Her voice was soft and pleasant, with none of the unintentional harshness, the lost inflection, the catarrhish tones that often accompany age.

“It is, my sweet. We met long ago, in my dreams.” He surprised himself by the utterance. He had never used that line before, in fact, he had said it completely ad lib, and it did not even have a corny ring to it under the circumstances.

They took a cab into the city, holding hands, talking as freely and easily as if they had known each other for years. She had reserved a room for Jerome at her own hotel, which was not expensive nor was it inexpensive, but quietly comfortable. He felt a certain relief at this, as he tipped the bellboy. Edna had passed away two years ago, and the $30,000 she had left in insurance and property was down to five thousand or so, and Staley was not a man who liked to live on short rations.

He turned, smiling, and took Veronica’s hands. “We shall celebrate tonight in the grand style, my dear!” He looked quickly at his watch. “Can you be ready in an hour?”

“I can be ready in half an hour, Jerome. You have no idea how I’ve looked forward to this!”

He had an idea, but he did not express it. Instead, he showed her to the door, kissed her hand, and began to prepare for a whirlwind courtship.

And it was exactly that. Staley, from experience in depth, knew full well when the moment was right. He knew, in addition, that at the ages he and Veronica had reached passions do not blaze; rather, they simmer. Veronica, by his estimate, was simmering properly at exactly nine-fifteen that evening as they danced. Very quietly, very courteously, very expertly he whispered a marriage proposal into her ear. She accepted, gracefully and demurely.

They were married in a small chapel in a quiet ceremony. Neither had the necessary friends or relatives to warrant a large church wedding, but neither wanted one of those coldly commercial weddings, which Jerome likened to the coupling of two gondola cars in a freight yard, with a. switch engine in attendance.

The young minister finished tying the knot, and as he concluded with the admonition to all men urging them to refrain from putting it asunder, Jerome felt his newest bride’s gentle pressure on his arm.

“I’m so happy, Jerome,” she whispered, smiling up at him radiantly. “I am so very, very happy!”

“And I, my love,” he replied, somewhat astonished at the realization that he truly meant it.

For a while he felt a vague disquiet, wondering at what seemed to be happening to him. But by the time they returned to the hotel, where they had checked out of the two smaller rooms and merged into a larger suite, complete with a kitchenette, the feeling had vanished entirely.

There was a tacit agreement that there would be no carrying of the bride over the threshold, but an iced bottle of champagne awaited them inside, compliments of the hotel management.

As Jerome poured, his thoughts wandered to his last marriage. Edna, broad and square as an ox in a box, had undergone a complete metamorphosis as soon as the nuptial formalities were over. Her facade fell away, the smiling, absurdly coy face became a visage of determination. She had looked on Jerome, literally, as a dispeptic sculptor might regard a faulty block of marble, something highly imperfect, which nonetheless would be hammered and pounded upon until it was shaped to suit. It had been a genuine pleasure for Jerome when the time came to remove Edna. In fact, if the act could have been done twice, he would have done so with alacrity.

“Jerome?”

“Eh?” He turned quickly from the hotel window, where he was re-living Edna’s spectacular six-story plunge, and saw Veronica smiling at him. “Oh, forgive me, my darling,” he said, moving to her. “I was... well, the past will not be done with, will it?”

She looked at him curiously, and then she lifted her champagne. “It will take time. For both of us.”

During the first weeks of his marriage to Veronica, Staley felt as if he were growing younger. There was a spring to his step, his eyes shone with vigor, and whenever Veronica went out alone he found himself waiting expectantly for her return.

When a month had gone by — with the swiftness of a dove — Jerome began to wonder. A month was the longest any of them had lasted, and then — it was Matilda if memory served him correctly — only because he had been stricken with a virus shortly after the wedding and had found it expedient to keep her alive until after his own recovery.

But even as the fifth week came and went, he found that he was not even making plans for Veronica. She seemed more beautiful every day, her attentiveness did not waver, she made no effort at all to change him, and they often held hands, as ingenuously as any young lovers. And her cooking, to borrow from a younger generation, was out of this world. Never — even in the finest restaurants, and Staley had patronized the finest in his time — never had he tasted such chicken timbale.

But he worried, he worried a great deal. One evening as they sat by candlelight in a little Italian place, he gazed at Veronica over his wine glass. His face grew serious.

“Does it ever frighten you? Happiness?”

“Frighten me?” She shook her head. “I don’t understand. Why should happiness frighten one? It should be the opposite.”

He smiled wanly. “Then perhaps it is because I am happier than you.”

Veronica laughed then. “This is a side of you I haven’t seen before, Jerome.” She tilted her head, her eyes twinkling. “Is my young husband beginning to grow old?”

The idea had a sudden novel appeal to him. Perhaps she had just hit on it in a moment of jest. He had always been realist enough to admit to the existence of anything, was never one to. bury his head in the sand, no matter what confronted him. He had often had to cope with the unswerving attitude of older women, the dogged pursuit of the established ways. Perhaps here — with himself — he had failed to recognize it.

“It’s strange, Veronica,” he said. “A man my age, to him any change in the way of life to which he has grown accustomed, even if that change is for the better, is extremely difficult to adapt to.”

She no longer reflected the amusement of a moment before. She simply nodded, sipped her wine, and said, “That’s not exclusively a trait of older men, my dear.”

Time slipped smoothly past, and occasionally Jerome would tell himself, very firmly, that he would do it soon. But tomorrow never seemed to come. This perfect blending of tastes, of likes and dislikes, this rapport that had undeniably existed from that very first letter, was a hard thing to break away from. Oftentimes they seemed to think as one. While listening to music or reading, one of them would make some casual remark, seemingly with no possible relevance to the other’s thoughts. But the thread would be picked up, the idea carried along as if. they had been talking of it for some time.

Yet, Staley’s way of life pulled him in the opposite direction. The spots of the leopard — especially the old leopard — are notoriously difficult to change. Staley knew this. He knew it well, and he knew it applied to him as well as others. From time to time he would try to convince himself that this was some sort of illusion, that his attachment for Veronica was not as strong as it seemed, that he was tiring of her.

But he wasn’t. The attachment was real, and it was growing stronger, not weaker, and attachment was the one thing in life he had never sought. In fact, he had long actively opposed it.

The second month went into the past. “This has been a happy time in my life, Jerome,” Veronica told him. “It’s almost... almost as if...”

He looked up from the newspaper he was reading. “Almost as if what?”

She tossed the question aside with a shake of her head. “Nothing, my dear. Nothing at all. We are going to the concert tonight, aren’t we? It’s Mozart, you know. I love Mozart!”

Jerome folded his paper and sighed lightly. He too loved Mozart.

When the third month had come and gone, he knew that the situation would never arrive at a propitious time. He would never grow tired of her, nor she of him. They would go through the remaining years hand in hand...

And that was not what he wanted. It never had been, it never would be.

He would be gentle. There would be no pain. Veronica would simply go to sleep and never wake up. Who could ask a better end? Who could offer a better end? In fact, when you got right down to it, what could be a more positive act of love?

They went to another concert the following week. Beethoven. They both loved Beethoven, and when they returned to the suite both Jerome and Veronica still felt the lingering, soul-deep stirrings of the music. It would be the ideal night for it. He had obtained the poison the previous week, and now, as Veronica prepared for bed, he poured it into the decanter of port, from which she almost invariably drank a small glass before retiring.

She was humming a theme from the Moonlight Sonata. “Would you like your glass of wine, darling?” he called from the livingroom.

“The concert was wonderful, darling, didn’t you think so? You’re so fond of Beethoven.”

“Yes. Absolutely fabulous. Shall I bring your wine?”

“Thank you... wait... no. No, I really don’t think I shall have it tonight. The music was intoxicating!”

He felt a sudden surge of relief as he replaced the glass stopper in the decanter. It would allow another day.

In her nightgown and robe, Veronica appeared at the door, smiling. “I think I shall cook chicken timbale tomorrow night! Would you like that, darling?”

“I should positively love that, my sweet,” he said, pushing the decanter to the back of the sideboard. Twenty-four hours more, and once again things would be normal. Life, as he knew it, would resume.

Jerome kissed his wife warmly as they went to bed, and Veronica returned the kiss with equal ardor.

The air conditioned suite was an oasis after the intolerable heat of the cemetery. It was done, at last. The service had been nice, considering the cost, and despite the heat. Perhaps, in a way, the heat had been an ally, speeding the funeral as it had. Grief — real grief — was an unaccustomed experience, and the sooner done with the better. Still, there was no denying it this time, there was a definite feeling of loss. Could it have been a mistake, an irremediable mistake, this time? Had age been given its proper due? Did not the final onslaught of time bring with it a need for quiet and congenial companionship? It had existed. The bond had been more than formal, it had been real.

It was over. Past. And it had been without pain, which was a consolation in itself. No need to dwell upon it further, for business was business and somewhere a new mate was waiting, waiting for that letter that reached slyly into the heart. In fact, the correspondence this time had given rise to new ideas, new approaches. There had been a noticeable talent there.

Funny, Veronica thought as she pushed back the black veil, how all of them had been so inordinately fond of her chicken timbale. She shook off her thoughts, and pausing only long enough to pour herself a much-needed glass of the port, she began to compose a letter of loneliness to another senior citizens club.

Senior citizens... she had always despised the phrase. She often wondered what sort of idiot invented it.