Margaret Millar - Wives and Lovers

“Ruby?”

But the only sign of life was the blinking tail-light of the East Beach bus and the gray plume of its exhaust as it rolled down toward the sea.

He got into his car. The air was stale because the windows were all shut, and the smell of Ruby’s powder mingled with the smell of dead cigars and souring hopes. He cranked down the window on his own side and was leaning across the seat to do the same to the other when he noticed that the door to the glove compartment was open. He knew he hadn’t left it that way. He rarely used the compartment except on trips, and then only to store his road maps and sunglasses and the five-dollar bill in the money clip which he kept for an emergency, using the same bill year after year because the emergency hadn’t occurred.

The clip was still there but the money was gone.

“Ruby,” he said, sounding very surprised. “Ruby.”

He thought of her waiting in the car while he went to talk to Hazel, waiting, catlike and curious, exploring the glove compartment to pass the time: What’s this? Money. How nice. I don’t have any. It’s mine now. Finders keepers.

Had it been that simple and childish? He knew in his heart that it had not, that she had taken the money not at the first opportunity, when she was left alone in the car, but at the second, when she had run out of the house; and she had taken it not like an amoral child, but like a woman, desperate to get away.

For a full minute he sat there staring into the night and seeing in its deformed shadows a mocking image of the truth. Then he started the car and turned it around and headed back toward the sea. He had no destination but it seemed easier to follow the descent of the road.

Six blocks down he caught up with the bus. As it pulled into a curb the interior lights switched on like stage lights suddenly revealing a new set and cast of characters. The set was almost empty. Two women in nurses’ uniforms were at the front of the bus talking to the driver, and behind them, oblivious to their chatter, an old man slept, knees up and chin on chest, in a return to infancy. At the back of the bus a girl sat with her forehead pressed against the window pane, her hands shielding her eyes from the interior lights as if she was trying to see into the darkness outside. She was very young and did not look like a thief.

“Ruby!”

He stopped his car alongside the bus and pressed the horn once and then again.

The old man did not awaken. The young girl turned away from the window and closed her eyes. The bus lights went out.

Elaine called from the bedroom, “Is that you, Gordon?”

“Yes.”

“Where on earth have you been?”

He heard her sharp footsteps approaching the head of the stairs, and in the background the sounds of the children quarreling: Gimme it, it’s mine, gimme it.

Elaine came down the steps with quick, exasperated movements. She wore her old housecoat, but her face was made up and her hair was swirled on top of her head, pinned with a large Spanish comb.

“You know we were going to the party at the club tonight, Gordon. Where have you been?”

“I took a drive.”

“All this time? I even phoned Hazel to see if you had an emergency appointment or something. She said no, she left the office at twelve noon and so did you.”

“I forgot about the party.”

“I kept your dinner hot for a full hour.”

“Well, I’m sorry, Elaine.”

“You’re sorry, well, that’s just fine,” she said with a bitter little smile. “You go off for eight hours without letting me know and then you say you’re sorry.”

Gordon said dryly, “I keep getting sorrier and sorrier, if that’s any consolation to you.”

“And now you’ve got the nerve to turn around and be sarcastic about it! I suppose you expect me to believe that, about your going for a drive.”

“I went for a drive, you don’t have to believe it.”

“I wonder.”

“I can’t stop you wondering. I still went for a drive.”

At the top of the stairs there was a faint rustle, a flutter of white. Gordon looked up and saw Judith and Paul standing there listening. They were in their pajamas, Paul delicate and nervous, and Judith round as a ball. She had a candy stored in her mouth and one cheek was distended.

“Hello, Judith,” Gordon said with forced cheerfulness. “Hello, Paul.”

The boy lowered his head and took a step back. Judith said, “Hello.”

“Well. And what have you two been doing all day?”

“We went for a drive.” She began to giggle. “We went for a drive. Didn’t we, Paul? Didn’t we went for a drive?”

The boy began to giggle too, and the giggles grew into long shuddering sobs of laughter. “We went for a drive, we went for a drive!”

They started to jump up and down, in time to the words, up and down the hall they went in a frenzy of excitement, repeating the magic, mysterious and somehow forbidden words: “We went for a drive!”

“Stop it!” Elaine shouted. “If you don’t go right back to your rooms I’ll tell Miss Kane not to come tonight.”

The boy stopped jumping immediately and said, “I want Ruth to come. I want Ruth.”

“Then go quietly to your room.”

“Is Ruth coming?”

“She’s coming if you behave yourself.”

“She’s not coming, you said she’s not coming!”

“I said I’d tell her not to come if you make any more fuss.”

“She’s not coming, she’s not coming!” The boy went, wailing softly, back to his room. He felt betrayed, cheated. She was not coming. His mother was a black witch and his father told lies.

The parents were too ashamed to look at each other. Elaine turned and started up the steps, her shoulders sagging.

“Elaine—”

“I pressed your costume. It’s on your bed.”

“Thanks.” He wanted to apologize, to his children, to his wife, but the children couldn’t understand and his wife wouldn’t listen.

He did the next best thing to please them all. He gave Paul and Judith a dollar each and he put on his Fiesta costume without argument. The embroidered caballero coat was too tight and the gold braided trousers flapped around his ankles when he walked, like broken wings. Under the dangling pompons of his broad-brimmed hat, Gordon’s eyes held a vast bewilderment.

He heard the front doorbell ring and Judith and Paul dashing down the stairs shouting for Ruth.

Elaine came in from the dressing room. She was dressed as a Spanish bride in white lace with a heavy white lace mantilla over her hair. A red velvet rose was caught in the mantilla, and another was pinned to her waist. She had painted her mouth larger than usual, going beyond its own firm outline. The new mouth changed the emphasis of her face and made her look like a stranger to Gordon.

“Ruth’s here,” Elaine said. “Are you ready?”

“I guess so.”

“That coat’s a little tight this year. You must be gaining weight.”

“Probably.”

“Gordon—” She sat down cautiously on the edge of the bed. “I wonder why Paul does that. I mean, he gets ideas in his head, he deliberately misunderstands. You heard me tell him Ruth was coming. He refused to believe me. He was practically hysterical, I don’t understand it.”

“I don’t either,” Gordon said. He would have liked to sit down and discuss Paul’s difficulties, to try and trace their origin. But he knew that Elaine didn’t want a discussion, she merely wanted to be reassured that it wasn’t her fault, that she was a good mother. Any serious discussion of the children would lead to a scene, to Elaine weeping, I did the best I could singlehanded without any help from you, they might as well not have had a father, you’ve never loved them, you’ve never even played with them like a normal father.