Margaret Millar - Wives and Lovers

“It was right after we were married. They’re moved away now.”

“Your memory has a long arm, hasn’t it, Elaine?”

“I never forget any unpleasant scenes, if that’s what you mean. Who does?”

“A lot of people.”

“I’m not one of these soft-headed women who forgets a quarrel just because it ends in a kiss. If a quarrel took place, then I’m justified in remembering it, surely. Anyway, people can’t help themselves from remembering things.”

“I guess not.”

All the way to the U-Club Gordon tried to recall the Lamberts and couldn’t.

He parked the car in the palm-lined driveway and locked the doors.

The club was an L-shaped structure made of adobe brick. Here, the more successful men of the community — the professional men, lawyers, doctors, real-estate agents, retired army and navy officers — found a sanctuary from their wives and families. They lunched and dined, played poker and billiards and gin rummy, secure in the knowledge that no female trespasser could get past the front door. About once a month a special entertainment was held in the form of mildly dirty movies. No one, not even the head waiter in the dining room who ran the projection machine, knew where these movies came from, or who owned or rented them. This uncertainty gave rise to considerable speculation, especially among the members who were embarrassed and disgusted by the movies and were afraid the members of the Don Cabrillo Club would find out about them and act even more insufferably superior. Suspicion settled on various members, and there was a great deal of dissension and hard feeling in the club. Mr. Westervelt, who sold insurance, was one of the chief suspects because he liked to look at women’s legs. He subsequently resigned, refused to pay his outstanding bill, and threatened to sue everybody in the club for slander, including the bus boys. Dr. Lavery, who took Westervelt’s place as chief suspect because he’d had three wives, was made of sterner stuff. He wrote a scathing letter to the newspaper, and only the fact that the publisher of the paper was a loyal member of the U-Club prevented the scandal from becoming public.

No one member was entirely free from suspicion except Judge of the Superior Court, old Anton Bowridge. A childless widower, Bowridge led a dull life. Nearly every day he sat on the judge’s bench amid the somber beauty of the Superior Court. The high windows were heavily draped against the sun. The chandeliers that hung threateningly from the ceiling gave just enough light to accentuate the gloom, the twilight of guilt. No one in the court ever felt like a free man, least of all Bowridge.

The judge’s bench was a masterpiece of design. It looked comfortable, and yet it was just uncomfortable enough to prevent one from going to sleep. Sometimes he sat upright, sometimes he held his head in both hands, or rested his chin in his right hand, then his left hand; he crossed his legs and leaned way over on the right, or the left. But always the chair prodded him sternly in the vertebrae, the eyes of the chandelier accused him of inattention, and conscience lurked in the rigid drapes of the closed windows.

Bowridge had no interest in watching the movies himself. He had spent most of his life in courtrooms and there was nothing that he hadn’t seen or heard. His interest lay in watching the people who watched the movies — Johnston kept opening and closing his eyes, repelled, fascinated; poor old Coolidge often had sneezing fits, and the young architect with the buck teeth (McTavish? MacGregor? McSomething) cleared his throat, ahem! Afterwards they were all embarrassed, they smiled sheepishly at each other, some of them left in a hurry and others stayed around to discuss the question of where the movies came from. They asked Judge Bowridge if it wasn’t illegal to make or possess these movies and Bowridge ruled that it was, but that they were not, however, to accuse any one member of being the guilty party unless they were convinced, beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty, that such was the case.

Watching the watchers not only amused Bowridge, they restored to him some faith, not in the essential goodness of most people, but in their essential harmlessness. The poor fellows, they felt so guilty at watching the movies it was impossible to imagine them committing a felony. They were really quite simple, harmless fellows who would never crack a safe, take a potshot at their wives, embezzle or commit mayhem. Simple assault, perhaps (no deadly weapon, no intent to kill), or manslaughter involving a motor accident — but none of them, he was convinced, would ever repeat the crime. Their sins were little, their fears great, their lives short, and always in store for them was the Superior-Superior Court with God on the bench (looking a little like Bowridge except that He had a beard), God on the hard bench with an aching back, a little weary and bored, given to inattention, leaning His chin on His right hand, then His left hand, and wondering why someone didn’t push aside the drapes and open the windows and turn off the infernal lights of the chandelier.

The Little Sinners was Bowridge’s private name for his fellow members of the U-Club. He never missed any of their parties, mainly because they gave him an opportunity to see the wives and so fill in a number of blank spaces about their husbands.

Bowridge entered the club on the heels of Elaine and Gordon. (This young man Foster, now, had a lot of blank spaces. He didn’t attend the special movies, he didn’t play poker or bridge after dinner. When he came to lunch he left immediately afterwards. A shy duck.)

“Hello, Mrs. Foster,” Bowridge said. “Hello, Gordon.”

“Why, Judge Bowridge,” Elaine said. “You didn’t dress up!”

“I prefer to stay on the sidelines watching the beautiful señoritas.”

“That’s no excuse. Honestly, I think you’re mean. Don’t you, Gordon? Don’t you think he’s mean?”

“The fact is,” Bowridge explained dryly, “when no one forces me at the point of a gun to dress up, I don’t dress up. What caliber weapon did you employ, Mrs. Foster?”

“None at all, so there,” Elaine said. “Gordon, wait here a minute while I fix my hair. Excuse me, will you, Judge?”

“Certainly.”

They both watched her as she went down the hall toward the powder room.

“We’re early,” Bowridge said.

“I guess we are.”

“The others, I presume, are judiciously getting pie-eyed before they start. The punch they serve at these affairs is highly suspect. Come and try some.”

“Thanks, I’ll wait for Elaine.”

“She’ll be able to find you.”

“Well—”

“Come along, come along.” Bowridge walked ponderously ahead, with his head down and his hands clasped behind his back, as if he were thinking great and solemn thoughts. “As a matter of fact, I have a little surprise for you.”

“For me?”

“Well, not strictly for you. You happened to come along at the correct psychological moment and so we will share the surprise. Look.”

The judge removed from his hip pocket a pint bottle without a label.

“Gin,” Gordon said.

“You’re absolutely wrong. Compared to this stuff, gin is mother’s milk.”

“Alcohol.”

“Correct, one hundred percent pure grain alcohol. A medical friend of mine gave it to me for my birthday. Most unusual gift, I consider. His instructions were to mix it with grapefruit juice and the resulting potion is termed a Graveyard Special, I believe. I suggest that we try some — very, very cautiously, mind you — in a glass of punch. Or—” He squinted up his face in such a jovial frown that one of the waiters, who had just received a ticket for overtime parking, scurried back into the kitchen for sanctuary. “Or we might — and I grant that this suggestion has a faint touch of the macabre — we might simply pour the whole bottle into the punch, thus sharing it with the common herd. What do you think, Gordon?”