Margaret Millar - Wives and Lovers

“It’s very simple,” the judge said. “Go on, guess.”

“I can’t.”

“Give up?”

“Yes.”

“It’s an umbrella.”

“Oh.”

“A very fine riddle, that. You don’t happen to know any, do you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, no matter, no matter. We will play Twenty Questions instead. Would you like that?”

“I really don’t know,” Hazel said earnestly. “I’ve never played them. Besides, I’ve got to go, I have an important engagement.”

Bowridge frowned. “It’s very peculiar, every time I suggest a game of Twenty Questions, people suddenly discover that they have an engagement somewhere. Is there something intrinsically repulsive about the game itself, or am I the repelling factor?”

“I really have a date. I’ve got to deliver some money.”

“Money. How very interesting. To whom?”

They were both watching her, the judge owlishly, over the top of his spectacles, and George with obvious eagerness, as if he believed that Hazel, now that she was in the presence of a Judge of the Superior Court, must tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. To some extent Hazel shared this feeling but it did not alter her decision to lie, it only made it more difficult to carry out.

George said, earnestly, “Listen, Hazel, has it entered your brain that if you give this guy money to run out on his wife, you’re kind of responsible for what happens?”

“I am not.”

“Just think about it.”

“I already have. He could get the money from someone else. The only reason he asked me is because, well, he just thought of me first, is all. He has lots of friends he could have asked.” She knew that this was a lie. Gordon had no close friends. “He would go away anyway, even without any money. I’m not responsible one bit. And I don’t see why you’re acting so petty about it.”

“It isn’t the money, it’s the way you let yourself get dragged into everybody’s business. You can’t walk up the street without getting involved with somebody.”

“You don’t have to worry about me.”

“I am not worried about you,” George said stiffly. “I’m pointing out to you a simple fact.”

“I already know some simple facts.”

“For instance, just for instance, remember the day you got the bright idea of driving over to Ojai to look up your mother’s long-lost cousin Gladys. That was all right, if it would have stopped there. But no. It turns out Gladys has a sister and the sister is living right here in town, teaching school. So naturally you look up the sister too, and by a strange coincidence she happens to be having a nervous breakdown and has to give up her job and has nothing to live on. The rest is history.”

“You’re getting awfully stuffy in your old age, George. I remember the bums you were always bringing home with you.”

“They didn’t stay for a couple of years.”

“I used to dread getting up in the mornings, never knowing how many bodies I’d have to step over to get to the kitchen.”

“That was different. We were married then, you had me to protect you.”

“The only thing you ever protected me from was having a good time.”

“That’s a lie, by Jesus!”

“And it’s none of your damned business who lives in my house because it’s my house. ”

“I gave it to you.”

“The judge gave it to me.”

“I signed the prop—”

“Now, now,” the judge said, looking sad. “Now, now, now.”

“I signed the property settle—”

“Order in the court.”

“—meat.”

“You’re in contempt, Anderson. I fine you one martini.”

George looked down at the floor, mute and stubborn.

“You refuse to pay, Anderson?”

“That’s right. I called you a cab.”

“You realize what this means, of course. If you should ever be forced to appear in my court, I shall take a very dim view of your innocence, a very dim view indeed.”

“I’ll ask for a jury trial.”

“Naturally. But in my instructions to the jury I always have the last word.” Bowridge rose unsteadily, hanging on to the ledge of the counter, and addressed the rows of glasses behind George’s head. “Ladies and gentlemen, you have heard the evidence. This niggardly fellow, Anderson, is—”

“You’d better sit down before you fall down.”

“Very well. I always address the jury in that position anyway.” He sat down with cautious dignity, but he looked suddenly very tired, as if the act of rising, or the change of emotional atmosphere in the room, had exhausted him. He tried to revitalize himself by humming, “Chewy Chewy,” but he couldn’t remember the tune, and the sound that came from his throat was a sad sighing which had no connection with music.

“A fine melody, that,” he said, pretending that he could sing it perfectly if he chose to. “Foster sang high and I sang low, but Foster couldn’t hold his liquor and finally I had to go it alone. That’s life for you — one ends up going it alone. Lacrimae rerum. You know what that means, Anderson?”

“I guess it’s Latin.”

“It means the tears of things, the sorrows of the world.”

“Sure, sure. Just don’t start on a crying jag in here.”

“Preposterous remark,” Bowridge said. The truth was, he did want to cry a little and then go to sleep. Simple, human desires; there was no real reason why he shouldn’t gratify them. A few tears, a little sleep, and one would wake up, refreshed, forgetting the long night.

Though his eyes felt moist he could not cry and when he folded his arms on the counter and buried his head between them like a scrawny sparrow hiding from the cold and desolate winter, he could not sleep. The spinning of his heart and the ticking of his mind kept him awake. It seemed to him that he was a freak, that the simple and commonplace gratifications were always just beyond his grasp, or around the corner, or in the middle of next week.

“Your cab’s here,” George said.

Ruth came home at noon, her cheeks pink from the walk and from excitement. Dr. Foster had stayed out all night, and never in all her born days had such a thing happened to someone who was as close to her as Elaine was. It was dreadful, it was scandalous, but the excitement kept flooding through her in waves. She greeted Wendy with almost hysterical fondness and the dog responded, leaping up at her, turning in circles, barking in ferocious delight.

“Quiet,” she said. “Be quiet. Down, down, Wendy. Quiet.” But the dog was positive she didn’t mean it and kept leaping up at her and nibbling affectionately at her clothes with its tiny front teeth. “Ah there, there. Yes, I’m home. Now that’s enough. Yes, yes, of course you’re glad to see me, oh my, yes, you are!” Dr. Foster didn’t come home! “She’s always glad to see her mother, yes, she is. Now get down, Wendy.” Dr. Foster ran away! “That’s a good girl, you get down. You get down like your mother’s good girl.” And I am the king of the castle.

She was not consciously aware of the children’s chant running through her head, but the derisive notes picked their way out of her memory and she thought of Manuel who climbed the pepper tree, and Margaret and the pennies she hoarded in her desk. Where were they now, all the children? Carrying the dog she went to the window and looked out at the playground across the street. The dust was rolling across it like a wall of yellow fog pushed by the wind.

She thought, some day soon I will go back. I feel much better. I feel very strong, actually.

The dog squirmed out of her arms and headed for the kitchen. She turned from the window, laughing, filled with a sense of power because Dr. Foster had run away from his wife. In contrast to Elaine, she had very little, only a dog instead of children and a husband, but the dog was all hers. It would never run off and stay out all night and get drunk.