Suspension of Mercy by Patricia Highsmith Page B

Her bill at the end of a week at the Hotel Sinclair had diminished her resources by nine guineas, but her meals out cost very little, and she thought she might last until her next check, and from check to check, but she foresaw that life might become boring without a job. And how to get the next check was a slight problem, because it would come to Roncy Noll and Sydney wouldn’t know where to forward it, and she did not want to tell her bank, and consequently Sydney, where she was. Her personal post was not important, she could let that go. Also, it would look as if she really had disappeared off the face of the earth, if she took no interest in her post, and therefore Sydney could play his games. She supposed he would act as guilty as possible, as if he had really murdered her, and irritate everyone. Just how far he went, Alicia thought, would be a good indication of his sanity and maturity. She had some misgivings about both.
    She thought of ringing Edward Tilbury one evening, or some Sunday afternoon. She might ask him, really not caring whether he came or not (he might have an all-absorbing interest in London by now), if he would like to come down on a weekend. Alicia played with several fantasies: Edward would come down some Saturday and they would register at an hotel under another name, maybe Ponsonby, and they’d have a wicked weekend; or Edward would spend another Saturday with her and a real love would develop between them, causing her to do something drastic, like divorce Sydney; or a passionate love affair would start, Edward would wangle a month’s leave from his firm, and they’d take a cottage somewhere. Or Edward might commute to London to his job, and spend the nights and weekends in Brighton. In case of a long affair, it was wiser if they took a cottage outside of Brighton, because some of their London friends might realize they were both “missing,” and draw a conclusion and think of Brighton because people knew she liked it.
    Alicia was obsessed with the color blue now, and she had bought sheets of heavy blue paper which she cut into six-by-eight-inch rectangles. With these in a drawing pad, her fountain pen that drew in India ink, and a single color pencil—a red one—she sat for hours on the beach and promenade benches making abstract drawings of the scene around her. She was inspired to send a few of them to Mrs. Lilybanks, but she didn’t. She did not want even Mrs. Lilybanks to know where she was. Mrs. Lilybanks would naturally tell Sydney. Sydney might think she was in Brighton, but Alicia didn’t want him to be sure of it.
    Two weeks passed, and Alicia felt much calmer and happier. She imagined her parents being a little worried about her, but she thought Sydney could smooth that over. Her parents should realize that if anything serious happened to her, it would be in the newspapers. But in the third week, Alicia grew tired of the speckled strawberry sundaes in tall glasses at the Eclair, of the scallopine at the Italian restaurant, of the rotten pastry in the tea shops that she could afford, and she even grew tired of her four walls in the Hotel Sinclair (papered with a tiny boat design, pink on cream) which had looked so delightful at first because the room was new to her, and her own. One evening she indulged in two double gins in a pub in Steine Street, and at the end of the second, she rang Edward in London.
    Edward was in, rather to her surprise, and she took it as a favorable omen.
    It was all arranged in an incredibly short time, even before the first three minutes had run out. Edward would come down the following Saturday morning, on the 10 A.M. train which arrived at 11, and he would stay over Saturday night and Sunday. He sounded extremely pleased that she had rung him.
    She met him at the railway station, nearly missed him among the people getting off, because he seemed to be ducking his head, and he also seemed shorter than she remembered. But his happy, open smile was the