Free Eleven by Patricia Highsmith Page B

husbands came back and said what fine wives the girls made. So she’d thought about being mistress of a farmhouse that she would make neat as a pin and stock with good things to eat, but mainly of course she’d thought of being free and the next time he’d come, she’d said yes. And like a bird out of a cage, she’d almost died of happiness at first, not even wanting the honeymoon Clark had suggested, just wanting to get settled at home. She’d cooked and sewed and scrubbed every inch of the place and been delighted to do it. But why even tell them all that if they couldn’t imagine it? Or how good it felt just to be treated like a human being again, the way Clark had said, “Herbert,” speaking to Mr. Trelawney, “I’d like you to meet my wife,” presenting her on his hand as if she were a queen.
    She was pumping water by the back steps and the pump was acting queer, making a boom-crash-boom whenever the water gushed out, spilling all over the bucket but not filling it, and even Red Dog was up looking at it. Then she opened her eyes and discovered the sound came from out the window—a military band! Either a parade or a circus, she thought, jumping out of bed as gaily as when Marianne used to awaken her. The music was coming from a park a coupleof blocks down the street where she saw a lot of colored lights like a celebration. She whirled around and pulled her nightgown over her head.
    Clark!
    He’d still be lying on the back porch with the rag on his moustache, if the breeze hadn’t blown it off. She shimmied into her girdle. Well, so be it. Some actions were a necessity, like killing animals for food, or sawing through the bars of a prison to get free. And Clark’s house had been a prison as bad as the Star Hotel, except he never touched her, saying she was too dirty for him. Clark set himself up as her savior while telling her all the time she tortured him. Did it make any sense to torture her and torture himself, too? She made the two red arcs on her upper lip that Clark said made her look like a harlot but were simply better for her kind of mouth, and combed what was left of the curls into a loose short bob. She snatched up her handbag and went out into the hall, but on second thought came back and left her money, except for one dollar, in the pocket of her coat in the closet.
    From the sidewalk she could see a striped tent top and something like a ferris wheel lighted up and spinning, and could hear a man yelling over a loud-speaker, and between the boom-crash-booms that were louder than anything, the band played a song she was pleased she could recognize as “The Stars and Stripes For Ever.” She looked down and concentrated on getting across the dark road in her wobbly high heels. Her heart was going like sixty and she really must stop and get her breath before she went one step farther. And it was only a church benefit at that, she saw by the streamer over the entrance. FIRST METHODIST ANNUAL WELFARE NIGHT .
    “ Admission only twenty-five cents! ” roared the voice on one note. “ And dig down in your pocket for a second quarter if you’re really thinking of entering the Kingdom of Heaven! ”
    Geraldine pushed her money through the high window. “I’ll pay my two quarters.”
    “ One? ” a voice roared.
    “One.”
    The music stopped as soon as she went in, and there wasn’t any band, she saw, it was all from the merry-go-round that had a drum and cymbal machine in the center that kept going. A final boom-crash shimmered into silence, and Geraldine stood staring at the still bounding horses on the platform that made a hollow sound like roller skates on a wooden rink and for some reason excited her terribly. The roof of the merry-go-round was like a king’s crown with gilt scallops hanging around the edge, each set with a blue or red light like a jewel. Suddenly something made her gasp, something blurred her vision with tears: she had been on this very spot before, been on this