Wives and Lovers (19 page)

She transferred her eyes, very carefully, as if they would break under any swift movement, from the lamp to Ruth. “You're shocked.”

“No, no, I'm not.” Ruth's face was burning.

“Yes, you are. So am I. I never thought anything like this would happen to me.”

“Perhaps it hasn't,” Ruth said anxiously. “Perhaps you're imagining. At certain times in the month I often get depressed and start to imagine the awfullest things, mostly about myself, but about other people too.”

“He didn't deny it,” Elaine said.

“Oh, but if he was drunk—you can't take drunk people seriously. I wouldn't tell this to another living soul, but my father—drank. That's why I'm a little prejudiced against spirits. My goodness, the things he'd say when he was in his cups. But Mother learned not to take them seriously. She knew that as soon as he'd sobered up he'd be his real self again.”

“No, no, this isn't like that.” She heard a car coming up the hill. She listened, extremely relieved because she knew it was Gordon. The relief passed and gave way to a deep anger. She was already planning how she'd act and what she'd say, when the car passed the house without a pause.

“Hazel must have known,” she said wearily. “Hazel must have said something to you.”

“Hazel? My goodness, no. Even if she did know she'd never breathe a word to anyone. Hazel's very loyal, and you know what she thinks of Dr. Foster. She's always said he was a wonderful man.”

“And she never mentioned a girl? A young girl?”

Ruth shook her head, embarrassed, uneasy, trying to recall anything that Hazel had said about Dr. Foster. But her remarks were all ordinary: Dr. Foster had removed two impacted wisdom teeth in half an hour; Dr. Foster had gone home early with a cold; one of Dr. Foster's patients was an old lady who talked to herself, and even with her mouth crammed with instruments her words were miraculously clear and articulate; Dr. Foster wondered if Hazel could do anything about getting a job for a friend of his, a young girl, pretty inexperienced.

Ruth frowned, annoyed at herself for remembering this at such an awkward time. It couldn't be the same young girl—Dr. Foster must have hundreds of friends and acquaintances whom he helped. Besides, Hazel said later that George had given the girl a job, and if this girl really was Dr. Foster's kept woman she wouldn't have needed a job, she would be kept. In the back of her mind Ruth saw a fleeting image of a heavily draped, heavily scented bou­doir, with a large canopied bed; Dr. Foster would never fit such a place.

“No, really,” Ruth said earnestly. “Hazel's never said a word.”

“She'd be on Gordon's side anyway.” Elaine unpinned the velvet rose in her mantilla, and took the high Spanish comb out of her hair. She held them in her lap, moved by the same feeling she had had when she picked up Judith's abandoned scooter and put it on the veranda; as if some­thing was gone, lost, dead, and only its death gave it any value. “Not that it matters, whose side anybody's on. It isn't a tug-of-war. It isn't a case of me winning if I get twenty people on my side and Gordon has only ten. It's a case of what we are going to do. I pray—” She raised her eyes suddenly to the ceiling, as if she were half-afraid that the person she prayed to was listening in, checking up on her. “I pray every night. I was brought up very religious, but now, I don't know, I seem to have lost my faith, I can't really believe that anyone is listening to me. Or if He is, He's not going to help, He's going to judge me, very harshly.”

“You're wrong. I'm sure you're wrong.”

“I know I have lots of faults, but I try to restrain my­self, I try to be just. I try to be humble too, but I can't. Something comes flooding over me like acid, it's terrible, it spreads all over me. When I'm alone and calm, I think to myself, I will do anything for the sake of my children, I will control myself, I will by sheer determination keep my family together. Then I start thinking about Gordon going to meet that girl in the cafe. That's where they meet, at an awful little place down on lower Main Street. Only drunks go there, and people like Gordon, people with secrets.”

Ruth turned her face away. “Perhaps you're just im­agining—”

“No. I know it.”

“Even so,” Ruth said helplessly. “Even so. He might be quite innocent.”

“He might be,” Elaine said with a sharp laugh. “That's the crazy part of it. I don't even know if anything
happens.
I don't know if they sit there and hold hands and stare at each other, or if they go to her place, or take a room in a hotel, or park down by the ocean.” She broke off suddenly, her face squeezed up with pain. “I've always done Gor­don's planning for him. I suppose if I wanted to save my reputation, I should have planned this affair of his too. As it is, everyone in town is laughing at me. They never laugh at the man, the one who's making a fool of himself. Oh no! They laugh at the wife, the one who gets left, who gets the wool pulled over her eyes.” Tears were burning the inside of her eyelids. She turned off the lamp beside her and said in a controlled voice, “Did the baby take all his bottle?”

“Every drop. Honestly, he's the greediest little angel I ever saw. He must have gained two pounds since I saw him last.”

“Nearly.”

“Paul didn't want to go to bed after our story was finished, but I told him—” Ruth flushed guiltily. “I told him that maybe next Saturday night I'd bring Wendy, my dog, with me. Would that suit you, Mrs. Foster?”

“I guess so.

“Then I gave him his pretend-dog which he promptly named Wendy, and he popped right off to sleep holding the dog in his arms.” She saw the look on Mrs. Foster's face (grief? remorse? fright?) and she added, uncertainly, “If you really want me to stay the night, I'd be glad to.”

“It's very kind of you, Ruth.”

“I'll just phone Hazel, then, so she won't worry.”

She phoned Hazel, and then she tiptoed upstairs to the baby's room. She checked to see if his blankets were straight, she listened to his breathing, and she felt his cool, soft forehead. Then she lay down in her slip, on the cot beside the baby's bed.

11

Gordon swung the car off the highway and switched off the ignition. He had turned the radio on very loud, to keep him awake. As long as this fast, jerky music continued, he didn't feel like sleeping and he didn't feel like thinking. He didn't know the tune the orchestra was playing but he sang anyway, “chewy, chewy, chewy,” and honked the horn to emphasize the rhythm.

By squinting up his eyes and concentrating, he could make out the row of houses along the highway, dark, locked for the night. In one of these houses Ruby was sleeping. He couldn't see very well but he was pretty sure which house it was, so he honked the horn insistently. As if in answer, a train came wailing around the bend, and all other sounds were lost in its dismal echo, Yoo hoo, yoo hoo hoo! The road shuddered, the houses trembled, their windows vibrating like chattering teeth. Long after the light on the caboose had disappeared, Gordon could hear the train mourning its farewell, adieu, adieu! He would have liked to follow the train, driving along the tracks, until he caught up with it. But this was im­practicable, he realized. The wheels of the car wouldn't fit the tracks, and even if they did it would be hard to keep on them. And suppose another train came along from be­hind? It would smash the car to pieces, and Elaine would be mad.

He honked the horn again, to drown out the echo of the train whistle.

In one of the houses a light appeared in an upstairs window. A shadow moved behind the blind, and a minute later a light went on in the downstairs hall. A woman in a bathrobe came out on the porch, carrying a flashlight. She shone the flashlight at the car, then directly into Gordon's face. Gordon blinked. The woman came down the porch steps, cautiously, as if she didn't quite trust them. She was middle-aged, heavily built. Her gray hair swung in pigtails against her shoulders. She had some kind of grease plastered on her neck and around her eyes.

“What do you want?” Mrs. Freeman said. “Waking decent people in the middle of the night, you ought to be ashamed. Turn that radio down, my land, do you want to attract the cops?” She sounded very cross, but it was a surface crossness. Mrs. Freeman was, in fact, rather re­lieved at seeing a total stranger. When she had wakened to the sound of the horn and the blare of the radio, she'd been half-afraid that it was Robert coming home all of a sudden, as he usually did, with one of his noisy friends.

“What do you want?” she repeated, when Gordon had turned down the radio.

“I want Ruby,” Gordon said. “Tell Ruby—you tell Ruby—”

“Ruby's asleep like everyone else with a grain of sense to them. The trouble with you is, you're drunk.”

“I know. I know I am. I'm very sorry.”

“You better be more careful. There are cops going up and down here all night. The highway patrol is just a couple of blocks up.”

“It is?” Gordon said, blinking. “I never knew that.”

“Well, you know now. You just skiddoo on home and go to bed like everyone else.”

Gordon shook his head, apologetic but obstinate. “I prefer to sleep here. I won't disturb anyone. I'll go to sleep in the car and when Ruby wakes up, you tell her I'm here.”

“You can't sleep here. They'll pick you up and put you in jail.”

“They can't put me in jail just because I'm very tired.”

“You and who else,” Mrs. Freeman said in disgust.

“It wouldn't be cricket.”

“Go on, skiddoo home now.” She fluttered her hand at him as if she were shooing away a chicken. “I got enough trouble without a drunk man being picked up in front of my house.” She broke off suddenly and exclaimed, “My land, you aren't even dressed proper!”

“It's because I lost my hat,” Gordon said. “I put it down some place and lost it. It belongs to the costume. You see, the costume isn't complete without the hat.” He knew that the hat wasn't important to him, yet he was filled with an overwhelming sense of loss. I've lost my hat. I've lost something. I'm no longer a man, Elaine said so. I bear no resemblance to a man.

Mrs. Freeman was staring at him in disapproval. “You people that get drunk at Fiesta time, it's you people that give Fiesta a bad name.”

“I'm very sorry.” He leaned his head against the back of the seat, closing his eyes. He was sorry. He didn't want to give Fiesta a bad name or to cause Mrs. Freeman any trouble. All his desires of the evening—to sing with Judge Bowridge, to hit Elaine, to cry, to follow the train up the tracks, to go back and find his hat—they had all congealed into one great desire, to go to sleep. But Mrs. Freeman turned the flashlight full on his face again and he had to open his eyes.

“All right,” she said in a resigned voice. “I'll go and wake her up. Now don't go off to sleep while I'm gone, will you?” She reached in and shook his arm. “Don't go to sleep now, you promise.”

“I promise,” Gordon said earnestly. “Tell Ruby—tell Ruby—”

“You tell her yourself,” Mrs. Freeman said, and went up the porch steps, muttering under her breath.

He had promised not to go to sleep, and he didn't. He merely closed his eyes and floated, until he heard Ruby opening the door of the car. She was breathing hard, as if she was angry or had hurried to get out of the house.

“Ruby?” He moved his hand towards her in a helpless gesture of appeal.

She took his hand and held it, stroking it very gently, as if she was soothing a hurt. He still wasn't sure whether she was angry or not, until she spoke: “Where ever did you get so dirty?”

He opened his eyes. She was smiling at him, amused. She had her beige coat on over her pajamas, and a scarf around her head to hide the pin curls.

“I was sitting on the ground under a tree,” Gordon said.

“I've never seen you dirty before.”

“Am I dirty?”

“There's mud on your coat, and see, here's a grass stain on your hand. And your fingernails—you are a dis­grace. Mrs. Freeman thinks so anyway.”

“I'm very, very sorry,” Gordon said. “Would you like some music?”

“All right.”

He turned the radio up a little. “There. How do you like that?”

“What did you get drunk for?”

“Oh, now. Oh, now, now, now.”

“I just wondered. I've never seen you drunk before either.”

“I am full of surprises.”

“Well, yes,” Ruby said slowly. “I guess you are.”

“I'm not going home.”

“Nobody said you had to.”

“That woman said I did. I said, no—I was very polite, though.”

Ruby laughed. “I'm sure you were.”

“You're a funny girl. You sound so happy. Let me look at you.”

“No,” she said, quite sharply, turning her face away. “I haven't any make-up on and my hair's done up.”

“Well,
I'm
dirty. That makes us a pair. We're a pair, aren't we, Ruby?”

“Don't say it like that.”

“Well, but we are. We're a pair. Both victims. Can't fight back. Soft.” He felt something closing in his head, like a sliding door. He saw it closing, slowly and in­exorably, and he reached out to stop it. “No character, will power.”

He put his head on Ruby's shoulder and watched the door close.

“Chewy, chewy, chewy,” Gordon said, and went to sleep.

With her free hand Ruby switched off the headlights of the car and turned off the radio. She saw that Mrs. Free­man was still up, moving around the house, and she thought, with detachment,
She will probably ask me to move. I'll have to move again. Well, that's all right.

She sat listening to the beat of Gordon's heart and the ticking of the dashboard clock, until Mrs. Freeman came outside again. She was carrying a cup of coffee, and the flashlight. The steam rose from the coffee like mist.

“Well,” she said. “Well. I guess you know him, eh?”

Ruby nodded.

“I made some coffee. Here.”

“Thanks, thanks ever so much.”

“It will sober him up.” She stared at Ruby. There was hostility in her face, but a certain stoical tolerance too. Facts were facts, and she might disapprove of the fact of a drunken man outside her house, but there he was. “What will the neighbors think?”

“There's no one up, no lights.”

“They're probably all peeking out the windows. I have a hard enough time holding my head up.”

“I'll move,” Ruby said. “I'll move out tomorrow if you want me to.”

“It's not your fault,” Mrs. Freeman said soberly. “My land, the things that happen. The things that happen that aren't really anybody's fault.” She sighed. “What's his name?”

“Gordon.”

She went over to the other side of the car and, grasping Gordon's left arm, she pulled him to a sitting position, saying his name over and over in a stern whisper: “Gor­don. Wake up, Gordon. Gordon! Now you just sit up, Gordon.”

She shook him until his eyes opened. Then she held him upright while Ruby fed him the coffee. Whenever she saw a car approaching Mrs. Freeman switched off the flashlight and the three of them were left in the dark­ness.

They put him to bed on the studio couch in Mrs. Free­man's dining room. He lay on his side, with his legs drawn up. His shirt stuck out from the ripped seam of his coat, and he slept with his cheek resting on his grass-stained, muddy hands. Ruby covered him with two blankets.

“Look like kids when they're sleeping,” Mrs. Free­man said with a kind of bitter melancholy. “I guess he'll be warm enough with two blankets. Anyway, it's all I have.”

“He'll be fine. I—it's—it's very nice of you—letting him stay.”

“I couldn't do anything else.”

“It's very nice of you not to be mad.”

“I
am
mad,” Mrs. Freeman said decisively. “I
am
mad. But I don't know who at.”

She flung a look of disapproval at the sleeping Gordon, but Ruby stepped between her and the couch, as if to shield Gordon. “He wouldn't put anyone out like this inten­tionally,” she said. “He never would. Something must have happened.”

“Something always does.” Mrs. Freeman pulled the chain hanging from the beaded chandelier. “Always. Well, no matter. There's some coffee left, if you want some.”

“Yes, I would. Thanks very much.”

“We'll have to drink it in the kitchen. We don't want to wake him up. Who knows, he might come to life and want to dance and make whoopee. You can't tell with drunks.”

“He's not a drunk,” Ruby said stubbornly. “He hardly ever drinks. Something must have happened.”

The kitchen was cold and damp. Mrs. Freeman lit the gas oven and left the oven door open. Then she poured the coffee, and the two of them sat facing each other across the linoleum-covered table. The table had already been set for Mrs. Freeman's solitary breakfast. None of the dishes matched—they were the surviving odds and ends of old sets, the remnants of the years. The salt shaker was shaped like an orange, the pepper shaker was silver plate, with some of the silver still clinging to its surface. Her cup was a shaving mug left behind by one of her tourists. Repeated washings in hot water had peeled away some of the lettering on it but it was still partly legible, Gr in s f El so, Texas. Her knife and fork belonged to her wed­ding present from her father, a set of silver, but the spoon didn't match. It had been a gift from Robert several years ago. He had arrived home unexpectedly one morning, broke, without a suitcase, without anything:
Carrie, it's me. Now don't be sore, Carrie, don't be like that. Look, I brought you something, it's a present, Carrie.
He had wrapped the spoon up carefully in tissue paper and tied it with a broken shoelace. He watched her eagerly while she un­wrapped it.
I hope you like it, Carrie. You're always saying we need some decent silver.
The spoon bore the imprint “Hilton Hotels.”
I knew you'd be pleased.

She picked up the spoon now and stirred some sugar in her coffee. She felt a savage anger welling in her stomach. It spread down her arm into her hand, making her stir the coffee violently.

“I don't know who at,” she said, as if to herself. “In the daytime it's all right. I write my letters and make the beds and do my work. I'm not bothered. It's when the night comes on that I begin to worry. It's funny out here—as soon as the sun goes down it gets cold. Not like back home where you could sit on the porch in the twilight and rock a bit. No, out here it gets cold right away, a kind of bleakness sets in. Such a change, all of a sudden, it makes you kind of scared that the sun's not going to come out again the next day. I'm getting like all the other old fogies around here, I depend on the weather too much, like it's a religion. It creeps up on you, gradual, and you get superstitious—like, if the sun shines, well, that's good, there's still plenty of life left in the old girl, that's how you feel. Dying seems awfully far away when I go out into the back yard in the morning and the sun warms my head. I feel quite youthful and confident, like God was smiling at me.” She added curtly, “Downright heathenish. A graven image.”