Margaret Millar: An Air That Kills

The last time his wife saw Ron Galloway was on a Saturday evening in the middle of April.

“He seemed in good spirits,” Esther Galloway said later. “Almost as if he was up to something, planning something. More than just a fishing trip to the lodge, I mean. He’s never really enjoyed fishing, he has a morbid fear of water.”

This was true enough, though Galloway wouldn’t have admitted it. He tried desperately hard to be a sport. He fished, played golf and cricket in the summers, curled at the Granite Club in the winters, wore a crew cut, and drove his Cadillac convertible with the top down even in weather which forced him to turn the heater on full blast to keep from freezing to death. Now in his late thirties, he still appeared somewhat lacking in coordination in spite of all the exercise he took, and his round face showed residual traces of teenage acne and adolescent uncertainty.

He was packing a duffel bag when his wife, Esther, came into his bedroom. She was going out for dinner and she had on a new pink taffeta dress trimmed with seed pearls and topped by a white mink stole. Galloway noticed the dress and approved of it, but he made no remark about it. There was no point in spoiling women by paying them compliments.

“So here you are, Ron,” his wife said, as if it were a surprising and interesting coincidence that a man should be found in his own bedroom.

Galloway did not respond.

“Ron?”

“Esther, angel, I’m right here, as you just pointed out, so if you have anything to say, go ahead.”

“Where are you going?” Esther knew where he was going, but she was the kind of woman who liked to ask questions to which she already knew the answers. It gave her a sense of security.

“I told you last week. I’m going over to Weston to pick up Harry Bream and we’re driving up to the lodge to do some fishing with a couple of the fellows.”

“I don’t like Harry Bream’s wife.”

“Harry Bream’s wife is not coming along.”

“I know that. I was merely making a remark. I think she’s queer. She called me last week and asked if there was anybody dead I wanted to get in touch with. I couldn’t think of anyone offhand except Uncle John and I’m not sure he’d want to be gotten in touch with. Don’t you think that’s queer, her call, I mean?”

“Harry’s away a lot. Thelma has to do something to keep herself from getting bored.”

“Why doesn’t she have children?”

“I don’t know why she doesn’t have children,” Galloway said impatiently. “I haven’t asked her.”

“You and Harry are such cronies, you could broach the subject to him casually some time.”

“Perhaps I could, but I don’t intend to.”

“If Thelma had children she wouldn’t have time to go around being psychic and making other people nervous. I haven’t got time to be psychic.”

“Thank God for small mercies.”

Galloway fastened the straps of the duffel bag and set it near the door. The act was a definite invitation for Esther to say good-bye and be on her way, but she declined it. Instead, she moved across the room with an elegant swish of taffeta and stood in front of the mirror smoothing her dark hair. Over her shoulder she could see Galloway watching her with a prodigious frown of annoyance. He looked quite comical.

“I’m sick of my hair like this,” she said. “I think I’ll become a blonde. An interesting and psychic blonde like Thelma.”

“You’re psychic enough. And I don’t like phony blondes.”

“What about natural ones, like Thelma?”

“I like Thelma all right,” he said obstinately. “She’s my best friend’s wife. I have to.”

“Just all right?”

“For Pete’s sake, Esther, she’s a fattish little hausfrau with some of her marbles missing. Even your imagination can’t build her up into a femme fatale.”

“I guess not.”

“When are you going to get over these crazy suspicions?”

“Dorothy...” She swallowed as she spoke the name, so that he wasn’t sure what it was until she repeated it. “Dorothy had no suspicions.”

“Why bring her up?”

“She didn’t suspect a thing. And all the time behind her back you and I were...”

“Be quiet.” His face was white with anger and distaste. “If your conscience is bothering you at this late date, that’s too bad. But leave mine alone. And for God’s sake let’s not have a scene.”

Esther had been going in for scenes lately, picking at the past like a bird at a stale loaf of bread, dislodging a crumb here, a crumb there. He hoped it was merely a passing phase and would soon be over. The past didn’t often worry or interest Galloway. When he thought of his first wife, Dorothy, it was without pity or regret. Even his vindictiveness against her on account of the divorce had faded with the years. Divorces in Canada are not common or easy to obtain, and the Galloway scandal had been an ugly one, widely publicized throughout the country and the border states.

Esther let her hands drop to her sides and turned from the mirror. “I heard she’s dying.”

“She’s been dying for years,” Galloway said brusquely. “Who told you that, anyway?”

“Harry.”

“Harry’s a pill salesman. He likes to think everybody’s dying.”

“Ron.”

“I don’t want to be rude, but if I don’t start moving, the fellows will be kept waiting at the lodge.”

“The caretaker can let them in.”

“Even so, as the host I should be there first.”

“They’ll be too boozed up to care.”

“Are you deliberately trying to start another argument?”

“No. Really, I’m not. I guess I just wish I were going with you.”

“You don’t like fishing. All you do is sit around moaning about how sorry you feel for the poor little fish and what did they ever do to deserve a hook in the throat.”

“All right, Ron, all right.” She approached him rather shyly and put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him on the cheek. “Have a good time. Don’t forget to say good-bye to the children. Next time perhaps we can all go.”

“Perhaps.”

But she looked a little sad when she went out the door, as if she had borrowed some of Thelma’s psychic powers and sensed that there wouldn’t be a next time or even a this time.

Galloway stood in the doorway for a moment listening to the rustle of her dress and the tapping of her heels muted by the stair carpet.

Suddenly, without knowing why, he called out in a loud urgent voice, “Esther! Esther!”

But the front door had already closed behind her and Galloway felt a little relieved that she hadn’t heard him because he hadn’t planned anything to say to her. The call had come from a part of his mind which was inaccessible to him and he didn’t know what it meant or why it happened.

He leaned against the door frame, dizzy, breathing very hard, as if he had just awakened from a dream of suffocation, and while the dream was forgotten, the physical symptoms of panic remained.

I’m ill, he thought. She shouldn’t have walked out on me like that. I’m ill. Perhaps I ought to stay home and call a doctor.

But as his breathing returned to normal and the dizziness abated, it occurred to him that a doctor wasn’t really necessary as long as Harry was around. Harry worked for a drug company and his pockets were always bulging with pills, his brief case full of pamphlets describing the newest medical discoveries which some of the doctors didn’t even know about until Harry told them, or gave them the pamphlets to read. Harry was extremely liberal with free pills, diagnoses and advice. On occasion, he was more effective than a regular doctor since he was unhampered by training, medical ethics or caution, and some of his cures were miraculously quick. These were the ones his friends remembered.