Margaret Millar - Wives and Lovers

He switched on the ceiling light and went over to the sink and poured himself a glass of water. The water left a long cold trail all the way down to his stomach. The rest of his body felt like fire.

Hazel came in from the dining room, heavy-eyed and yawning. “I thought I heard some one.”

He stared at her without speaking.

“What do you want at this time of night?”

“I think you know.”

“How should I know? What’s the matter with you, are you drunk or something?”

“Come here, Hazel.”

“What for?”

“Come here. I want to look at you.”

“You can see me from there.”

“Not well enough.”

“Say, what’s wrong with you, anyway? Are you losing your mind?”

“Hazel.” He went over and took hold of both her wrists. “Tell me about the money, Hazel.”

“What money?”

“You bitch. You creeping little bitch. I’d like to kill you.”

She was afraid of him but she made no attempt to free herself or to scream for help. Letting her wrists dangle limply from his hands, she thought, it wouldn’t really matter so much anyway; Ruth is settled, Harold and Josephine have a place of their own, Gordon is gone.

“Let go of me, George.”

“Why? You’ve got something important to do, maybe? You want to cook up another of your fancy schemes?”

“Oh, stop it. I didn’t — it wasn’t a scheme. Gordon had to have the money. I got it for him the best way I could.”

“There was no scheme, eh?”

“None.”

“No idea of getting rid of Ruby because you couldn’t stand the thought of me getting married again?”

“No.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Maybe, in a way.”

“Maybe, what is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean, the idea might have been in the back of my mind at the time, but I didn’t know it was there.”

He let go of her wrists and took a step back as if to see her in a new perspective. “You don’t want me to get married again, do you?”

“Not to someone like Ruby.”

“To someone like who, then?”

“We’ve talked about it before.”

“Oh yes. The nice sensible widow my own age with a little cash and some real estate.”

“There must be lots of women like that.”

“In my business I don’t meet them. Most of the ones I see are already married again, to a bottle.”

“Well, I keep looking around.”

“Do you?”

“Naturally I do. I’d like to see you settled down. It would be a load off my mind, in fact. I can’t seem to — well, to get interested in anyone myself until I see you settled.”

He glanced at her dryly. “Is that supposed to be an insult or a compliment?”

“It’s how I feel anyway.”

“So you’re looking around for a nice sensible widow for me?”

“Sure. Sure I am. Just today at lunch in the cafeteria I met a very—”

“What a liar you are, Hazel. You almost make me laugh.”

“Laugh yourself sick if you want to. I’m going back to bed. I have to get up early for work.”

“Wait a minute.”

“Why should I? All you can do is swear at me and call me names.”

“I can do more than that.”

“I wish you’d—”

“I can do a lot more than that, even without your cooperation.”

“You’d better leave. I think you’re drunk.”

She stepped back, pulling her bathrobe closer around her throat.

“Afraid of me, Hazel?”

“No.”

“You are, though. You’re shaking like a leaf. What do you think I’m going to do to you?”

She shook her head.

“What would you like me to do?”

“Take — take your hands off me.”

“That’s what you really want?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”

“When I touch you like this you feel no response?”

“No.”

“Sure?”

“No! Yes! I’m sure.”

“All right. I just thought I’d ask.”

He took his hands away, looked at them for a moment as if they were strange new parts of his body, and put them in his pocket. The color had drained out of his face and his eyes bulged, dark and glassy like marbles.

Walking over to the table he pulled out a chair and sat down and crossed his legs, moving stiffly as if he was in pain.

He said in a low voice, “You’d better start looking a little harder for that widow. I don’t like living alone.”

“George.”

“I guess I owe you an apology. All right. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too.”

“You? What for?”

“The money.”

“The money,” he repeated with a grim little smile. “That seems like a long time ago. It hardly matters any more.”

“What does matter?”

“Nothing that I can think of.”

“Did you—” Hazel stopped and swallowed hard. “Did you love her very much?”

“Christ. What a question.”

“That’s no answer.”

“I thought about her a lot. When she was away I wanted to see her, but when I saw her she made me nervous, I couldn’t stand her sometimes. If that’s love, I loved her.”

“That isn’t how you used to feel about me, is it, George?”

“No.”

“We had a lot of laughs together, didn’t we? Remember the time you brought home that wrestler from New Jersey and he damn near wrecked the place and finally you had to pin him down?”

“I didn’t pin him down,” he said flatly. “He practically passed out. He could have broken my neck if he’d have been sober.”

“That’s not true. You’re very strong.”

“Oh stop it, Hazel.”

“Well, you are.”

“Stop it. I’m tired, I’m sick of myself. I’m a big fat nothing, let’s face it.”

“You’re just feeling a little low tonight. Tomorrow morning you’ll—”

“Tomorrow morning, next week, next month. It seems to me that all I’ve had for the past year is a future. The hell with it. I’d sell thirty years of future for ten minutes of present.”

“You’re pretty hard up then.”

“Sure I am. What do you expect? I haven’t had a wife for over a year.”

The phone began to ring in the dining room and Hazel went to answer it. It was impossible to tell from her expression whether she was relieved or disappointed by the interruption, but when she spoke into the telephone she sounded quite cross.

“Hello? Yes, it’s me... Now wait a minute, take it easy. Are you sure?... Well, lock all the doors and call the police... Who cares what she’d think, she’s halfway to Chicago by this time... You’re sure you’re not imagining things?... Well, wait a minute. George is here. Talk to him.”

She turned to call George but he was already there at her elbow.

He said, “Who is it?”

“Ruth. She’s staying with the Foster kids while Elaine’s away. She says there’s a burglar trying to get into the house.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

“I know, but suppose there really is?”

“I’ll talk to her.” He took the phone from Hazel’s hand. “Ruth, it’s George. Now what’s this about a burglar?”

Ruth’s voice came over the wire, dripping bitterness. “Oh, I heard what you said. I know what you’re thinking, that it’s all in my imagination. Well, I didn’t imagine the dog barking, I didn’t imagine someone trying the back door, I didn’t im—”

“All right, Ruth, you didn’t.”

“He’s out there now. I saw him with my own eyes, standing in the yard. And there’s a car parked out on the street. I can’t see if anyone’s in it but there might be, there might even be a whole gang of them. A man came around this afternoon trying to sell vacuum cleaners. I told him the Fosters were away, I was only the housekeeper. It could be the same man. I can’t tell, it’s too foggy.”