Margaret Millar - Wives and Lovers

“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.”