Free Suspension of Mercy by Patricia Highsmith Page A

unable to think of a single man. “Meet anybody interesting?”
    “No,” Alicia said casually, and her expression, if any, was hidden by the sweater she was pulling over her head.
    He heard Alicia go out around two, heard the back door close, and absently he got up and looked out the window. She was going by way of the back gardens to Mrs. Lilybanks’. Sydney realized he was hungry, and went down to the kitchen. Alicia had found her post, he saw as he crossed the living room. She had had three or four letters, among them one from her mother. Sydney made some coffee while he ate a hot dog. Alicia had put out the pork roast, the potatoes, the veg—courgettes—on the kitchen table in her usual line-up. He did not look forward to her company tonight. And he felt her presence put a jinx on the synopsis he had posted to Alex from Ipswich that morning.
    He worked until nearly six, then went out to do some weeding in the garden. He cut some of the wild roses that grew by the garage, and took them in to put on the table. Alicia was cooking, and Sydney went in to make the salad.
    “You’re awfully quiet,” Alicia said.
    “I haven’t been doing anything exciting. You have.”
    “You had dinner with Mrs. Lilybanks, I heard.”
    “Yes. A very good dinner, too. Saturday night.”
    “We should have her over for a meal soon.”
    Sydney said nothing, grinding parsley with the mouli in his sauce.
    “What’re you working on? The Planners? ”
    Sydney took a breath and said, “I did another synopsis for The Whip and sent it off to Alex this morning.” There it was, out, a vulnerable, helpless target, like a yellow duckling waddling over a green lawn, an ugly duckling. “And now I’m back on The Planners , yes.”
    “What does Alex think about documentary one-hours? Not documentary, but things with a theme. Like bad housing, or birth control versus the church.”
    Sydney looked at her rather blankly.
    “The last few television reviews I’ve read in the Times are about plays with a theme. Management versus labor. You know.” She was pouring hot water off the potatoes.
    “You’re suggesting I drop The Whip and try something like that? What do I know about the inside of an English workshop?”
    “I’m not suggesting anything. I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said with sudden nervous hostility. “I’m making a remark about the market now. The public seems to be tired of silly entertainment, and they want something controversial. Or they seem to.”
    “I’d rather give The Whip a chance first.”
    “You might do both.”
    “And The Planners , too? I’d be pretty busy.”
    It didn’t seem to Alicia that it should make a person overly busy to be doing three things at once. “I meant irons in the fire. That’s all. You once said they were important. It takes a month or more for a synopsis to make the rounds, doesn’t it?”
    “At least. And I might do five, six, seven Whip synopses. I think they’re good. Good entertainment and not silly entertainment.”
    “I didn’t say The Whip was silly.” Alicia sighed.
    Sydney fixed them both a drink, and handed Alicia’s to her. “The Whip is not silly,” he said, and since the remark came two minutes after Alicia had last spoken, it hung heavily.
    Alicia looked at him and felt curiously detached. It seemed absurd to her to take an idea like The Whip with as much seriousness as Shakespeare had taken King Lear , and maybe more. It was selling something, even something as lightweight as a jingle for a commercial, that Sydney took seriously, and until he did, life was going to be hell. Alicia suddenly wished she were back in Brighton with Edward, spending this evening and all of tonight with him. “Let’s hope you sell it,” she said crisply, and turned to the sink.
    The clipped, English-accented words plucked at Sydney’s nerves with every syllable. She’d be there saying, “I told you so,” with the next rejection, with the rejection of the second synopsis, and