MARGARET MILLAR

AN AIR THAT KILLS

Copyright 1957 © Margaret Millar

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

An Air that Kills

Chapter 1

The last time his wife saw Ron Galloway was on a Saturday evening in the middle of April.

“He seemed in good spirits,” Esther Galloway said later. “Almost as if he was up to something, planning something. More than just a fishing trip to the lodge, I mean. He’s never really enjoyed fishing, he has a morbid fear of water.”

This was true enough, though Galloway wouldn’t have admitted it. He tried desperately hard to be a sport. He fished, played golf and cricket in the summers, curled at the Granite Club in the winters, wore a crew cut, and drove his Cadillac convertible with the top down even in weather which forced him to turn the heater on full blast to keep from freezing to death. Now in his late thirties, he still appeared somewhat lacking in co-ordination in spite of all the exercise he took, and his round face showed residual traces of teenage acne and adolescent uncertainty.

He was packing a duffel bag when his wife, Esther, came into his bedroom. She was going out for dinner and she had on a new pink taffeta dress trimmed with seed pearls and topped by a white mink stole. Galloway noticed the dress and approved of it, but he made no remark about it. There was no point in spoiling women by paying them compliments.

“So here you are, Ron,” his wife said, as if it were a surprising and interesting coincidence that a man should be found in his own bedroom.

Galloway did not respond.

“Ron?”

“Esther, angel, I’m right here, as you just pointed out, so if you have anything to say, go ahead.”

“Where are you going?’ Esther knew where he was going but she was the kind of woman who liked to ask questions to which she already knew the answers. It gave her a sense of security.

“I told you last week. I’m going over to Weston to pick up Harry Bream and we’re driving up to the lodge to do some fishing with a couple of the fellows.”

“I don’t like Harry Bream’s wife.”

“Harry Bream’s wife is not coming along.”

“I know that. I was merely making a remark. I think she’s queer. She called me last week and asked if there was anybody dead I wanted to get in touch with. I couldn’t think of anyone off-hand except Uncle John and I’m not sure he’d want to be got in touch with. Don’t you think that’s queer, her call, I mean?”

“Harry’s away a lot. Thelma has to do something to keep herself from getting bored.”

“Why doesn’t she have children?”

“I don’t know why she doesn’t have children,” Galloway said impatiently. “I haven’t asked her.”

“You and Harry are such cronies, you could broach the subject to him casually some time.”

“Perhaps I could, but I don’t intend to.”

“If Thelma had children she wouldn’t have time to go around being psychic and making other people nervous. I haven’t got time to be psychic.”

“Thank God for small mercies.”

Galloway fastened the straps of the duffel bag and set it near the door. The act was a definite invitation for Esther to say good-bye and be on her way, but she declined it. Instead, she moved across the room with an elegant swish of taffeta and stood in front of the mirror smoothing her dark hair. Over her shoulder she could see Galloway watching her with a prodigious frown of annoyance. He looked quite comical.

“I’m sick of my hair like this,” she said. “I think I’ll become a blonde. An interesting and psychic blonde like Thelma.”

“You’re psychic enough. And I don’t like phoney blondes.”

“What about natural ones, like Thelma?”

“I like Thelma all right,” he said obstinately. “She’s my best friend’s wife. I have to.”

“Just all right?”

“For Pete’s sake, Esther, she’s a fattish little hausfrau with some of her marbles missing. Even your imagination can’t build her up into a femme fatale.”

“I guess not.”

“When are you going to get over these crazy suspicions?”

“Dorothy—” She swallowed as she spoke the name, so that he wasn’t sure what it was until she repeated it. “Dorothy had no suspicions.”

“Why bring her up?”

“She didn’t suspect a thing. And all the time behind her back you and I were—”

“Be quiet.” His face was white with anger and distaste. “If your conscience is bothering you at this late date, that’s too bad. But leave mine alone. And for God’s sake let’s not have a scene.”

Esther had been going in for scenes lately, picking at the past like a bird at a stale loaf of bread, dislodging a crumb here, a crumb there. He hoped it was merely a passing phase and would soon be over. The past didn’t often worry or interest Galloway. When he thought of his first wife, Dorothy, it was without pity or regret. Even his vindictiveness against her on account of the divorce had faded with the years. Divorces in Canada are not common or easy to obtain, and the Galloway scandal had been an ugly one, widely publicized throughout the country and the border states.

Esther let her hands drop to her sides and turned from the mirror. “I heard she’s dying.”

“She’s been dying for years,” Galloway said brusquely. ‘Who told you that, anyway?”

“Harry.”

“Harry’s a pill salesman. He likes to think everybody’s dying.”

“Ron.”

“I don’t want to be rude, but if I don’t start moving, the fellows will be kept waiting at the lodge.”

“The caretaker can let them in.”

“Even so, as the host, I should be there first.”

“They’ll be too boozed up to care.”

“Are you deliberately trying to start another argument?”

“No. Really, I’m not. I guess I just wish I were going with you.”

“You don’t like fishing. All you do is sit around moaning about how sorry you feel for the poor little fish and what did they ever do to deserve a hook in the throat.”

“All right, Ron, all right.” She approached him rather shyly and put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him on the cheek. “Have a good time. Don’t forget to say good-bye to the children. Next time perhaps we can all go.”

“Perhaps.”

But she looked a little sad when she left the room, as if she had borrowed some of Thelma’s psychic powers and sensed that there wouldn’t be a next time or even a this time.

Galloway stood in the doorway for a moment listening to the rustle of her dress and the tapping of her heels muted by the stair carpet.

Suddenly, without knowing why, he called out in a loud urgent voice, “Esther! Esther!”

But the front door had already closed behind her and Galloway felt a little relieved that she hadn’t heard him because he hadn’t planned anything to say to her. The call had come from a part of his mind which was inaccessible to him and he didn’t know what it meant or why it happened.

He leaned against the door frame, dizzy, breathing very hard, as if he had just awakened from a dream of suffocation, and while the dream was forgotten, the physical symptoms of panic remained.

I’m ill, he thought. She shouldn’t have walked out on me like that. I’m ill. Perhaps I ought to stay home and call a doctor.

But as his breathing returned to normal and the dizziness abated, it occurred to him that a doctor wasn’t really necessary as long as Harry was around. Harry worked for a drug company, and his pockets were always bulging with pills and his briefcase full of pamphlets describing the newest medical discoveries which some of the doctors didn’t even know about until Harry told them, or gave them the pamphlets to read.

Harry was extremely liberal with free pills, diagnoses and advice. On occasion, he was more effective than a regular doctor, since he was unhampered by training, medical ethics or caution, and some of his cures were miraculously quick. These were the ones his friends remembered.

“I will get some pills from Harry,” Galloway said, and the very thought was soothing. Harry had a pill for everything, even sudden and inexplicable calls to one’s departing wife: It’s your nerves, old boy. Now, my company has just come out with a dandy little item…

Galloway flung his trench coat over his arm, picked up his duffel bag, and went down the hall to say good-bye to the two boys. They were ostensibly in bed: that is, the bedroom door was open and the night-light was turned on. But they were not asleep. Their low, furious voices bounced across the room and back again:

“Mama said the dog could sleep on my bed tonight. Let go of him.”

“Won’t won’t, won’t.”

“I’ll scream for Annie.”

“I’ll tell her you pinched me. I’ll tell Annie and Mrs. Browning and old Rudolph and Mama and my Sunday school teacher—”

“Why not tell me?’ Galloway said, and pressed the light-switch.

The two boys stared at him, silenced by amazement. They saw little of Galloway, and when they noticed the duffel bag he was carrying, they weren’t sure whether he was coming or going.

Greg, who at seven was already an opportunist, made a quick decision. “Daddy’s home,” he shouted. “Goody, goody, Daddy’s home! Did you bring me something, Daddy? What did you bring me?”

Galloway stepped back as if he had been shoved in the chest. “I haven’t been away.”

“Well, then, you’re going away.”

“Yes.”

“So if you’re going away you’ve got to come back.”

“Yes, I guess I do.”

“So when you come back will you bring me something?”

Galloway’s face was flushed and a nervous tic nagged at one corner of his mouth. That’s all I mean to them, he thought. Or to Esther. I’m the guy who brings them something.

“You could bring everybody something,” said Marvin, who was five and a half. “Annie and Mrs. Browning and old Rudolph and my Sunday school teacher.”

“I suppose I could. What do you think they’d like?”

“Dogs. Everybody would like dogs.”

“Everybody? You’re sure?”

“I asked them,” Marvin lied emphatically. “I asked them what did they want brung in a suitcase, and they all said dogs.” To prove his point he ran over to his brother’s bed and flung both arms around the little dachshund. The dog was quite used to these outbursts of affection and went on placidly chewing a corner of the blanket. “Everybody could have a dog like Petey on their beds every single night, even old Rudolph.”

“Rudolph says dogs dig holes in the flowerbeds.”

“Petey never digs holes. I dig holes. I dig about a million holes a week.”

Galloway smiled sadly. “That’s a lot of work for a little man like you. You must be pretty strong.”

“Feel my muscle.”

“Feel mine too,” Greg said. “I can dig a million holes too if I want.’

Muscles were being duly tested when Annie, the maid who looked after the boys, appeared in the doorway. During the daytime, when she wore her blue and white uniform, Annie was prim and self-contained and respectable. Tonight, dressed and groomed for an evening out, she was barely recognizable, with her mouth swollen by lipstick, and her eyebrows coyly arched in black, and her eyes cavernous behind a coating of mascara.

“Oh, it’s you, Mr. Galloway. I thought the boys were alone arguing about that dog again.”

“They won’t have to argue about Petey much longer. I have orders to bring them another dog when I come back.”

“Indeed.”

“Surely you want me to bring you something too, Annie? Everyone else does.”

She looked a little startled and disapproving. “I have my wages, thank you, sir.”

“I’m certain you could think of something if you tried, Annie. Perhaps a necklace? Or a bottle of perfume to stun the senses of the local boys?”

“Bring Annie a dog,” Marvin shouted. “Annie wants a dog!”

“I do not want a dog,” the girl said sharply. “Nor anything else. Now you two settle down and go to sleep without any more nonsense. My boyfriend’s waiting for me, but I’m not going to set one foot outside this house until you two are quiet.” To Galloway she added in a whisper, “They get overexcited sometimes.”

“You want me to leave, is that right?”

“I really think it would be better, sir. They were tucked in an hour ago.”

He looked over Annie’s head at the two boys. For a minute, before Annie came on the scene, he had felt quite close to them, he had thought what handsome and precocious children they were. Now, once again, they were strangers to him, a couple of little barbarians who wanted nothing from him but presents, who liked to see him go away because he would come back with something in his luggage.

The dizziness returned, and with it a sharp sour taste in his mouth. He said quickly, “Good night, boys,” and stepped out into the hall and moved unsteadily towards the stairs. The duffel bag was like lead in his hand. He walked like an old man.

I must get some pills from Harry. Harry has all kinds of pills.

Esther’s pink-and-cream de Soto was missing from the garage, but Galloway’s Cadillac convertible was in its place with the top down, freshly washed and waxed, the way old Rudolph liked to keep it, as if it were an irreplaceable heirloom instead of something that would be traded in within a year.

It was cold, even for April. But Galloway left the top down and climbed, shivering, into the front seat.

Upstairs, the two boys continued their argument, but its content had changed.

“What if he forgets to bring the dogs.”

“He can’t forget.”

“Or maybe he will never come back, like old Rudolph’s wife.”

“Oh shut up,” Gregory said fiercely. “When you go away you got to come back. There’s no place else to go, you got to come back.”

For Gregory it was that simple.

Chapter 2

When Galloway referred to his friends as a group he usually called them ‘the fellows’. Two of the fellows, Bill Winslow and Joe Hepburn, drove up together from Toronto and arrived at the lodge, which was located on Georgian Bay a few miles beyond Wiarton, at about ten o’clock. A third, Ralph Turee, came alone a few minutes later.

They were admitted by the caretaker, and each of them launched immediately into his special task. Turee took the luggage upstairs, Hepburn started a fire in the huge stone fireplace, Winslow pried the lock off the liquor cabinet, and, as Esther had predicted, the fellows began the process of getting themselves boozed up.

These were Galloway’s special friends, of approximately the same age as he was, and with a mutual aim, having as good a time as possible when they were away from the pressures of business and family: Bill Winslow, an executive in his father’s milling company, Joe Hepburn, manager of a firm which manufactured plastic toys and novelties, and Ralph Turee, who taught economics at the University of Toronto. Except for Turee, they were men of average intelligence and above average income. Turee never let them forget this. Chronically broke, he made fun of their money and borrowed it; possessing a superior education, he jeered at their ignorance and used it to his own advantage. But the group was, on the whole, a congenial one, especially after small differences had been dissolved in alcohol.

It was Turee who first remarked on the passage of time and the absence of Harry Bream and Galloway. “Peculiar thing Galloway hasn’t come yet. He makes such a point of being punctual.”

“I hate punctuality,” Winslow stated. ‘It is the hobgoblin of small minds. Right, fellows?”

Hepburn said it was chastity that was the hobgoblin of small minds and Turee corrected them both, as usual, and said it was consistency, and eventually they got back to Galloway.

“Galloway called me last night,” Turee said, “and told me he was going to pick Harry up in Weston and drive on up here and arrive about nine-thirty.”

“There,” Winslow said. “There you have it.”

“Have what?”

“The crux of the situation. Harry. Harry’s always late for everything.”

It was a logical as well as an agreeable theory, and they were all having another drink to toast Harry, the crux of the situation, when Harry unintentionally ruined the whole thing by walking in at the front door about 11.30. He was wearing a mackintosh and a deer-hunter’s cap with the flaps up, and carrying his fishing-gear.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said cheerfully. “Something went wrong with the fuel pump the other side of Owen Sound.”

They all stared at him in such a peculiar and disgruntled way that even Harry, who was not given to subtleties, sensed something was wrong.

“What’s the matter with you guys anyway? Have I broken out in spots or something?”

“Where’s Galloway?’ Turee asked.

“I thought he was here.”

“Wasn’t he supposed to come with you?”

“That was the original plan, but I had an emergency call to make at a clinic down in Mimico, so I left word with Thelma to tell Galloway to go ahead without me. I know how he hates to be late. You don’t suppose Thelma got her signals switched?”

It was generally agreed among the fellows that Thelma had been born with her signals switched, but none of them wanted to state this outright because it might hurt Harry’s feelings. Harry adored his wife. Her little eccentricities seemed endlessly fascinating to him and he was always entertaining his friends with detailed reports of her opinions and experiences.

Because he’d been the sole support of his parents, Harry had not married until they were both dead, and then he wasted no time. His marriage, at the age of thirty-five, to a woman who worked as a receptionist in a doctor’s office, came as a shock to his friends, especially to Galloway, who had become used to having Harry at his beck and call and ready for anything. The carefree bachelor Harry had been suddenly replaced by the hopelessly married Harry, subject to rules and restrictions and at the mercy of whims and worries. Though Thelma and Esther did not get along well, the two men remained the best of friends, partly because Thelma seemed to like Galloway and encouraged Harry to see him, and partly because the two men had been friends ever since their prep school years together. As a senior, Harry had been president of the class, and he still possessed the year-book with his graduation picture in it: Henry Ellsworth Bream. A great future is predicted for our Harry, who holds a warm place in all our hearts.

He still held a warm place in a good many hearts but the future remained elusive. He had missed a number of boats, by inches or minutes, by oddities of Fate like a flat tire, a delay in traffic, a wrong turning, a misplaced key, a sudden blizzard, a mistake in a telephone number.

“Poor Harry,” people said. “Always running into bad luck.”

It was generally expected that when his parents died Fate would step in and make up to Harry for all his misfortune by handing him a real stroke of luck. By Harry’s standards, Fate had. The luck was Thelma.

“She probably didn’t give him the message,” Turee said. “Perhaps she suddenly decided to go to a movie or something and Galloway’s still sitting there waiting for you to turn up.”

Harry shook his head. “Thelma wouldn’t do a thing like that.”

“Not on purpose, of course.”

“Not accidentally, either. Thelma’s got a wonderful memory.”

“Oh?”

“That girl’s never forgotten a thing in her life.”

“Well, all right, all right. It just seemed the logical explanation, that’s all.”

It was midnight by this time, and Bill Winslow, who couldn’t hold his liquor but would die trying, had reached the point of saturation. The excess fluid was seeping out of his eyes in the form of tears:

“Poor old Galloway, sitting down there on his can, sitting on his poor old lonely can, while we’re up here lapping up his liquor and having a swell time. It’s not cricket. Fellows, I ask you, is that cricket?”

Turee scowled at him across the room. “For God’s sake, stop blubbering, will you? I’m trying to think.”

“Poor old Galloway. Not cricket. Here we are having a swell time and there he sits on his poor old—”

“Hepburn, see if you can haul him off to bed.”

Hepburn put his hands under Winslow’s armpits and pulled him to his feet. “Come on, Billy-boy. Let’s go beddy-bye.”

“I don’t want to go to bed. I want to stay down here and have a swell time with you fellows.”

“Look, Billy-boy, we’re not having a swell time.”

“Y’aren’t?”

“No. So let’s get moving. Where’d you leave your suitcase?”

“I don’t know.”

“I put it upstairs with mine, in the room next to Galloway’s,” Turee said.

“I don’t want to go to bed. I’m sad.”

“So I see.”

Winslow tried to brush the moisture off his cheeks with his forearm. “I keep thinking about poor old Galloway and poor little Princess Margaret.”

“How did Princess Margaret get into this?”

“Ought to marry Townsend, have kids, be happy. Everybody should be happy.”

“Certainly.”

“I’m happy.”

“Sure you are.”

“I’m having a swell time with you fellows, aren’t I?”

“Nor for long, Billy-boy. Come on.”

With the tears still spouting from his eyes, Winslow shuffled across the room and began to ascend the staircase on all fours like a trained dog going up a ladder. Halfway up he collapsed and Hepburn had to drag him the rest of the way.

Turee got up and put another log on the fire and kicked it impatiently with his foot. “Well, what do we do now?”

“I don’t know,” Harry said gloomily. “This isn’t like Ron, to keep people waiting.”

“He might have had an accident.”

“He’s a good driver. He’s got a real bug on safety, seat belts and everything.”

“Even good drivers occasionally have accidents. The point is, if something happened, we’d have no way of finding out unless Esther sent a telegram to Wiarton and it was delivered out here.”

“Esther would be too upset to think of doing that.”

“All right, here’s another theory: Galloway never left home. He suffered an attack of indigestion, perhaps, and decided not to come.”

“Now that’s more like,” Harry said with enthusiasm. “Last time I saw him he was complaining about his stomach. I gave him some of those new ulcer capsules my firm’s putting out.”

“Galloway hasn’t got an ulcer.”

“He may have. The capsules worked like a charm.”

Turee turned away with an expression of distaste. He was the only one of the group who refused to have anything personal to do with either Harry’s diagnoses or Harry’s pills. “All right, all right. Galloway’s ulcer started kicking up and he went to the hospital. How does that sound?”

“Splendid,” Harry said, beaming.

When Hepburn returned, a conference was held and it was decided that Turee, the brainiest, and Harry, the soberest, should drive back to Wiarton and call Galloway’s house to test the ulcer theory.

The road wound along the cliffs above the bay and Turee had to concentrate on his driving while Harry, in case the ulcer theory might be incorrect, kept his eye peeled for signs of a Cadillac in distress. They met only two cars, neither one a Cadillac.

By the time they reached the town of Wiarton, nearly all the lights were out, but they finally located a phone-box in the lobby of a small tourist hotel which was just opening for the season. Since both the men were wearing fishing clothes, the manager of the hotel assumed they were customers and treated them very cordially until he learned they merely wanted to use the telephone. When, in addition to suffering a disappointment, he had to make change for five dollars, he became quite bitter about the whole thing and sat behind the desk glowering as Turee stepped into the phone booth.

It required ten minutes or more to put the call through to Galloway’s house in Toronto, and then the connection was bad and the conversation was punctuated by what sounded like static.

“Esther?”

“Ron?”

“No, this is not Ron. Is that you, Esther?”

“Just who is this, please?”

“Ralph. Ralph Turee. Is that you, Esther?”

“Yes,” Esther replied, rather coldly, since she’d been awakened from a sound sleep and even under the best of circumstances didn’t care much for Turee, Turee’s wife, or any of the little Turees. “Isn’t it rather late?”

“I can’t hear you. Would you speak up?”

“I’m practically screaming already.”

“Listen, Esther … what in hell is that noise? Operator, operator, do something about that noise … Esther? Are you there? Well, listen a minute. Is Ron all right?”

“Of course he’s all right.”

“No attack of indigestion or anything?”

“Are you drunk, by any chance?’ This was one of Esther’s favorite questions and after long practice she read the line with spirited contempt, rolling the r in drunk and broadening the a in chance.

“I am not drunk,” Turee shouted. “Why should I be?”

“I’m sure you have reasons. Now what’s all this about Ron?”

“Well, it’s like this. Harry’s up here at the lodge with the rest of us.”

“So?”

“Ron hasn’t arrived. Harry drove up alone in his own car. He had a business appointment to keep in Mimico and he told Thelma to tell Ron not to wait for him but to come up to the lodge by himself and Harry would get here when he could. Well, Harry got here all right, but Ron hasn’t. The fellows were beginning to get worried so we thought we’d better call you.”

Esther suffered from a chronic case of jealousy, and the first image that flashed through her mind was not of Galloway lying dead somewhere in a car wreck, but of Galloway lying cozily beside Thelma in a bed. She said, “Maybe Ron was delayed.”

“Where?”

“In Weston.”

“How?”

“How? Ask Harry. He’s married to the woman.”

“Now that,” Turee said irritably, “is the silliest remark in history. What’s got into you, Esther?”

“Just an idea.”

“Honest to God, I gave you credit for better sense. I can’t say more than that right now because I’m shouting as it is and Harry’s not ten feet away. Do you understand?”

“Naturally.”

“Listen, Esther—”

At this point the operator’s voice cut in and demanded another ninety cents. Turee deposited the money, cursing audibly. “Are you still there, Esther?”

“Naturally.”

“I think you should call the police.”

“Why? It might embarrass poor Ron. He’s rather sensitive about being caught by the cops in bed with another man’s wife.”

“For Pete’s sake, Esther, get off that kick, will you? This might be serious. Ron could be lying in some hospital or even a morgue.”

“He carries all kinds of identification in his wallet. If there’d been an accident I would have been notified.”

“Then you’re not worried?”

“Worried? Yes, I’m worried, but it’s not the kind of worry I want to share with the Police Department.”

“I’m amazed at your attitude, Esther, genuinely amazed.”

“You go right on being amazed. I can’t stop you.”

“But what about Ron?”

“Ron,” she said dryly, “will be home in due course with a perfectly believable story which I may even believe, for a time. You needn’t concern yourself about Ron. Wherever he is and whatever he’s doing, I assure you he’s not concerning himself about you, or me, or Harry, or anyone else.”

“That could mean he’s dead.”

“The trouble with you and the fellows is that you all get maudlin when you’ve been drinking.”

The statement contained such a large element of truth that Turee didn’t attempt to refute it. “I must say that’s not a very friendly remark.”

“I’m not feeling too friendly at the moment. Now look. You and the fellows went up to the lodge for a weekend of fishing. Or whatever. If Ron shows up here I’ll tell him you’re worried and ask him to wire you. If he shows up there, you might do the same for me. Right?”

“Right,” Turee agreed, though he didn’t feel it was right at all. The whole thing was wrong, Galloway’s absence, Esther’s attitude, Winslow’s wild, drunken sobbing. What a weekend this is shaping up to be, he thought. I ought to turn right around and drive home.

The air in the telephone booth had become hot and stale and when Turee opened the door and stepped out into the lobby he was sweating, red-eyed and ill-tempered.

Harry was standing beside the window looking intently out over the bay, as if there were many interesting things to be seen. But the bay was dark, nothing could be seen, and Turee knew that Harry had been listening, listening and perhaps hearing.

“Well, well,” Turee said with an attempt at heartiness. “It seems as though we were getting all discombobulated for nothing.”

“Ron’s at home, then?”

“Not exactly. But I assure you Esther’s not in the least worried about his well-being.”

“That sounds as if she’s worried about something else.”

“Oh, you know Esther. She’s hatched the idea that Ron went off on a bat. Who can tell, maybe she’s right.”

“Maybe.” Harry turned back to the window, his jaw clenched so tight that his voice seemed to be coming from some other place like a ventriloquist’s. “I thought I heard you say something about me.”

“You? Oh, certainly. I explained about the mix-up in Weston, how you had to keep your business appointment and—”

“I don’t mean that.”

“All right,” Turee said quietly. “What else did you hear?”

“You told Esther you couldn’t talk any more about something because I was only ten feet away.”

“That’s right.”

“What were you referring to?”

“Well, it’s like this.” Turee was an inexperienced liar, and the circumstances—the wearing off of the drinks he’d had, the lateness of the hour, and the presence of the hotel manager behind the desk, wide-eyed with curiosity—contributed to his awkwardness. “The fact is, Esther had a suspicion that you and Ron went off on a bat together.”

“Esther should know me better than that. In the old days, well, perhaps, she might have had a point, but I’m a married man now.”

“Yes.”

“Esther does know me better than that.”

“What Esther knows and what she feels are often miles apart.”

“Are you telling me the truth?”

“About what?”

“Come off it, Ralph. We’re friends.”

“Well, as one friend to another, I suggest we go back to the lodge and get some sleep.” Turee took a couple of tentative steps towards the door, but when he saw that Harry didn’t intend to follow, he turned around and came back. “We can’t stay here all night, old boy.”

“Can’t we?”

“Look, Esther’s crazy suspicions shouldn’t make the least difference to anyone. Now come on, let’s go back to the lodge. There’s nothing more we can do here.”

“Yes, there is,” Harry said. “I’m going to phone Thelma.”

“Why?”

“You don’t have to have a reason for phoning your own wife. Besides, I want to find out if Ron ever showed up at the house.”

“But it’s late, Thelma will be asleep. She may not even hear the phone.”

“It’s right beside our bed.”

“Go ahead and call her then. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Warn me?”

“What I mean is, if I phoned my wife at this hour of the morning she’d think I was drunk, and the next time I was invited to come up here with the fellows she’d raise a hell of a smell.”

“Thelma’s not like that. She wants me to have a good time. She’s a remarkably unselfish woman.”

Turee didn’t argue. It was one of Harry’s most ingratiating qualities, to attribute to other people the virtues he himself possessed.

As Harry slid into the phone booth and closed the door, Turee watched anxiously, thinking, God, suppose Esther’s right for once and Ron’s there with Thelma – No, that’s impossible. Thelma’s just as crazy about Harry as he is about her.

He began to whistle, almost inaudibly, I’m just wild about Harry.

Chapter 3

Thelma was not asleep, as Turee had predicted. She answered the phone on the second ring and her voice sounded alert, as if she’d been expecting the call. Or one like it.

“This is the Bream residence.”

Harry laughed. “I know that, sweetheart.”

“Oh, it’s you, Harry.”

“None other. I hope I didn’t wake you up.”

“No.”

“Are you glad to hear from me?”

“Of course.”

“Cross your heart and hope to die?”

“Cross my heart,” she said flatly, “and hope to die. How you enjoy playing games, Harry. You’re like a child. But isn’t it too late for games? Oughtn’t children to be in bed? I think so. Tomorrow,” she added, “tomorrow you can play all the games you like.”

In their three years of marriage she had never addressed him in such a wearily patronizing manner. Harry colored, as if his face had been slapped. “Thelma, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s not true. I know it’s not true. What’s happened, Thelma? Tell me. Tell Harry.”

Her only response was a sigh. He could hear it quite plainly; it was long and deep and sad.

“Thelma. Listen to me. If you want me to come home, I will. I’ll start out right this minute.”

“No! I don’t want you to come home!’

“What’s the matter. Thelma? Are you feeling all right?’ Again she made no reply. Harry felt smothered by her silence. He pulled open the door of the phone booth a few inches and breathed in the new air deeply and rhythmically. With the door open Turee could overhear, but Harry didn’t care. He was not timid or embarrassed about sharing his troubles with his friends since he had so frequently shared theirs.

“I’m ill,” Thelma said finally. “I’ve been ill all evening.”

“Get a doctor. Get a doctor right away.”

“I don’t need a doctor. I know what’s the matter.”

“What is it, sweetheart?”

“I can’t tell you. This isn’t – the time or place.”

“Look, Thel, take it easy. Lie down and relax. I’m coming home right away.”

“If you do, I won’t be here.”

“For God’s sake—”

“I mean it, Harry. I’ll run away. I’ve got to be alone for a while to think. Don’t come home, Harry. Promise me.”

“But I—”

“Promise me.”

“All right, I promise. I won’t come home, not tonight, anyway.”

She seemed relieved by his promise and when she spoke again her tone was quite friendly. “Where are you calling from?”

“A hotel in Wiarton.”

“Haven’t you been to the lodge yet?”

“Yes, but Turee and I drove back to find a phone so we could call Ron’s house.”

“Why on earth should you call Ron’s house at this hour?”

“To find out why he hasn’t arrived here.”

“He hasn’t arrived,” she repeated dully. “Is that what you said? Ron’s not there?”

“Not yet.”

“But he left here hours ago. He came before eight and I gave him your message and we had a drink together. And then—”

She stopped, and Harry had to urge her to continue. “And then what, Thelma?”

“I… I asked him – I begged him not to go up to the lodge.”

“Why?”

“Because I had this feeling when he came in – it was so strong I nearly fainted – I had this feeling.” She began to weep and the rest of her words were distorted by great choking sobs. “Oh, my God … warned … my fault … Ron’s dead … Ron … Ron—”

“What are you saying, Thelma?”

“Ron…” She repeated the name half a dozen times while Harry listened, his heart on fire, his face like stone.

Turee came over to the phone booth and opened the door. “Is anything the matter?”

“Yes. But I don’t know what.”

“Perhaps I can help.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Let me try, anyway. Go and sit down, Harry, you look terrible.”

The two men exchanged places at the telephone and Turee spoke briskly into the mouthpiece: ‘Hello, Thelma. This is Ralph.”

“Go away.”

“Listen, Thelma, I don’t know what the situation is, but calm down for a minute, will you?”

“I can’t.”

“Why don’t you have a drink? I’ll hang on for a minute while you go and pour yourself—”

“I don’t want a drink.”

“All right, all right. Just a suggestion.”

“It wouldn’t stay down anyway. I’m ill. I’ve been vomiting.”

“Maybe you have a touch of ’flu.”

“I haven’t got the ’flu.” She hesitated for a moment. “Is Harry standing anywhere near you?”

“No, he went outside.”

“You’re sure?”

“I can see him walking up and down on the veranda.”

“I’m pregnant.”

“What? What did you say?”

“I’m going to have a baby.”

“Well, for – well. I’ll be double-damned. That’s great, Thelma, that’s wonderful!”

“Is it?”

“Have you told Harry?”

“Not yet.”

“God, he’ll be thrilled to pieces when he finds out.”

“Maybe he will. At first.”

“What do you mean, at first?”

“When he starts thinking about it he won’t be so thrilled.’”

“I don’t get the point.”

“Harry and I haven’t taken any chances along that line for over a year,” she said slowly. “Harry didn’t want me to have a baby, he was afraid complications might develop because I’m nearly thirty-five.”

“No method is foolproof. You could have had an accident.”

“It wasn’t an accident. It was quite deliberate, on my part anyway. I wanted a baby. I’m getting old, pretty soon it would have been too late. I talked to Harry, I told him how I felt, many times. But he was terrified that something might happen to me. That’s what he said, anyway. Maybe his real reasons were deeper, subtler, I don’t know. Maybe he was jealous at the idea of my dividing my affections. But whatever Harry’s reasons were, at least now you know mine. I want this child. I love him already.”

“Him?”

“I have a feeling it’s a boy. I call him Ron.”

“For the love of God,” Turee said. “Ron? Ron Galloway?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Now that’s rather insulting, isn’t it? It sounds as though I’ve been promiscuous.”

“I only meant, in a thing like this you’ve got to be absolutely positive.”

“I am.”

“For the love of God,” Turee repeated. “What a mess this is going to be. Think of Harry. And Esther.”

“I can’t afford to. I have my child to think about. Esther never loved Ron anyway. She married him for his money, he told me so. As for Harry, I feel sorry for him, of course. He’s a good man, I hate to hurt him, but—”

“But you will?”

“I will. I must. I have my child to consider.

“That’s just it, Thelma. Think a minute. For the child’s sake, wouldn’t it be better to keep this whole business a secret? Harry would make a wonderful father, and the child could be brought up without any fuss or scandal.”

“That’s impossible. I don’t want to keep this whole business, as you call it, a secret.”

“I strongly urge you to think about it.”

“I’ve thought of nothing else for three weeks, ever since I found out I was pregnant. And one thing I’m sure of – I can’t go on living with Harry. He doesn’t even seem real to me any more. How can I explain it? The only thing that’s real to me is this baby inside me. Ron’s baby. They are my life now, Ron and his baby.”

The simple statement, spoken with such conviction, appalled Turee more than the actual circumstances behind it. For a moment he could hardly speak, and when he did, his voice was cold with disapproval. “I don’t imagine Ron will feel quite so single-minded about it. After all, he’s sired one child by his first wife and two by his second, so this is hardly a unique occasion for him.”

“If you’re trying to make me jealous or angry, don’t bother. Ron’s had other women, other children, yes, but this is special. The baby’s special. I’m special.”

There was no answer to this. Turee could only sit and stare silently and helplessly into the mouthpiece of the telephone, wishing with all his heart that he had stayed at home and painted the garage, as his wife wanted him to.

“Ralph? Are you there?”

“Yes?”

“Ralph, I don’t want you to get the idea that I’m – that I thought this all out ahead of time, that I planned it. I really didn’t. It just happened, but once it happened, I realized how right it was for me.”

“Right. Are you out of your mind, woman? What you’re doing, what you’ve done, is completely and unjustifiably immoral.”

“Don’t preach to me. Words aren’t going to change anything.”

“Well, for God’s sake, consider Harry. This will kill him.”

“I don’t think so. Oh, he’ll be upset for a while, but eventually he’ll meet some nice clinging-vine sort of woman who’ll let him fuss over her and pour pills down her throat.”

Turee was shocked. “You sound as if you actually hate him.”

“No. Just the pills. He was making an invalid out of me. I’m really quite strong. The doctor says I should have a fine, healthy baby. It’s what I’ve wanted all my life. I was an only child living with a maiden aunt, and terribly lonely. I used to dream of growing up and getting married and having a dozen children so I’d never be lonely again.”

“You may,” he said heavily, “be lonelier than ever. People around here take a dim view of—”

“Oh, people, I don’t care about them. All I need is Ron and the baby.”

“You’re pretty sure of yourself, Thelma.”

“Yes.”

“Are you equally sure of Ron?”

“Yes. I told him about the baby tonight when he came over to pick up Harry. It seemed the right time to tell him.”

Turee wasn’t certain he agreed with her. “How did he take the news?”

She said defensively, “Naturally I didn’t expect him to be deliriously happy about it right at first. He needs time to think, to adjust to the situation. Any man would.”

“I’m glad you realize that,” Turee said dryly.

“He loves me, that’s the important factor.”

“Is it?”

“Don’t worry, everything will work out fine. I have a feeling.” Thelma’s was a contradictory nature. This new feeling, that everything would work out fine, immediately eclipsed the old feeling that something had happened to Ron. Thelma could, in fact, superimpose one feeling on another feeling, like bricks, and it was always the latest, the top one, that was valid.

She added, “Oh, I know it’s going to be messy in some ways, the divorce, for instance.”

“Ron can’t get a divorce from Esther. He has no grounds.”

“I meant, Ron will pay her off and she can get the divorce.”

“Suppose she refuses?”

“Oh nonsense. Esther loves money. Besides, why should she refuse?”

“Some women,” Turee said with heavy irony, “aren’t exactly thrilled at the prospect of breaking up their home and family.”

“Don’t sentimentalize Esther. I haven’t done anything more to her than she did to Ron’s first wife. Except that my motives are cleaner.”

“How does Ron like the idea of going through the courts and the newspapers again as an adulterer?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, can’t you say something cheerful?’

“I can’t think of anything cheerful,” Turee said truthfully. “This isn’t the type of situation that appeals to my sense of humor. Maybe Harry will be able to think of something cheerful. He’s still outside on the veranda. Shall I call him?”

“No!”

“How are you going to tell him, Thelma?”

“I don’t know. I’ve tried, I’ve led up to it, but – oh, it’s all so difficult.”

“You should have thought of that when you and Ron were hopping into bed together.”

“What a terribly coarse remark!”

“The situation isn’t exactly genteel either.”

“Listen, Ralph. About telling Harry. I was wondering, you’re such a good friend of his—”

“Kindly leave me out of it.”

“I only thought, you can be so tactful when you choose—”

“On this occasion, I don’t choose.”

“Very well. But I won’t tell him. I can’t. I don’t even want to see him again.”

“For God’s sake, woman, you owe him that much, an apology, an explanation.”

“Why should I apologize? I’m not sorry. As for an explanation, how can I explain something I don’t understand myself? I didn’t know it was going to happen to Ron and me. If I had, maybe I would have asked Harry for a pill or something, a love-preventive pill.” She laughed briefly and bitterly. “He’s got every other kind.”

“When did it all begin?”

“A couple of weeks before Christmas. I went into town to buy Harry’s gift and I met Ron in Eaton’s by accident. We had lunch together at the Park Plaza and afterwards we went out on the terrace in the snow and looked down at the city. It was so pretty. I’d never cared much for Toronto before, I was brought up in the west, Vancouver. Well, that’s all, we just stood there. There was no flirtation, no hand-holding, we didn’t even talk personally or look at each other much. But when I got home I didn’t tell Harry. I had no reason not to. But I didn’t. I even made up a lie for him, told him I had lunch with a nurse I used to work with at the Murray Clinic in Hamilton. The next day I took a bus into Toronto again because I’d forgotten to buy Harry’s Christmas present. At least that was the excuse I gave myself. I went back to the same store, at the same time, and hung around the Yonge Street entrance for nearly an hour. I had this terribly strong feeling that Ron would show up. He didn’t, but later he told me that he’d wanted to very much, that he’d thought of me all morning but he couldn’t get away because Esther was giving a luncheon party at the club.”

A couple of dimwits, Turee thought contemptuously, dramatizing themselves, out of boredom, into a situation that neither of them was equipped to handle. He said, “And Harry hasn’t suspected a thing?”

“No.”

“For your information, Esther has and does.”

“I thought as much. She was very cold when I called her last week and invited her to go to a séance a friend of mine was giving. I was only trying to be affable.”

“Why?”

“For Ron’s sake. I don’t want him cut off from Esther’s children the way he was cut off from his first wife’s. It’s not fair.”

“The courts seem to think so.”

“The courts in this country, yes. Oh, this place is so stodgy and provincial. I wish we could live in the States, Ron and I and the baby.”

The front door opened and Harry came back into the hotel lobby walking unsteadily and with his feet wide apart like a newly debarked sailor bracing himself against the pitch and roll of a ship that was no longer under him. Although the night air was still balmy, his lips were blue with cold and his eyes had a glassy stare as if unshed tears had been trapped there and frozen.

“… Some place where they don’t have these long terrible winters,” Thelma was saying. “Oh, how I hate them! I’ve reached the point where I can’t even enjoy the spring any more because I know how short it will be and how soon autumn is coming when everything is sad again, everything dying.”

“Let’s go into that some other time,” Turee said brusquely. “Now tell me, was Ron driving the Cadillac when he came to your house tonight?”

“I think so.”

“Did it have the top down or up?”

“Down, I think. Yes, definitely down. I remember waving out the window to him and wondering if he might catch cold with all that draught on the back of his neck. He complained of feeling ill anyway.”

“I can believe it.”

“No, I mean he complained about it before I told him anything about the baby. Really, Ralph, you’re in a nasty mood tonight.”

“I wonder why.”

“After all, it’s not your funeral.”

Harry walked slowly but directly towards the telephone booth and in spite of Turee’s restraining hand he forced open the door. “Let me talk to her.”

Turee said, “Thelma, here’s Harry. He wants to talk to you.”

“I don’t want to talk to him. I have nothing to say.”

“But—”

“Tell him the truth or give him a story, I don’t care. I’m going to hang up now, Ralph. And if you call back I won’t answer.”

“Thelma, wait.”

The click of the receiver was unmistakably final.

“She hung up,” Turee said.

“Why?”

“Didn’t feel like conversation, I guess. Don’t let it worry you, old boy. Women can get pretty flighty at—”

“I want to call her back.”

“She said if you did, she wouldn’t answer.”

“I know Thelma,” Harry said with a wan smile. “She can’t resist the ringing of a telephone.”

Once again the two men exchanged places and Harry put in a collect call to Mrs. Harry Bream in Weston.

The operator let the telephone ring a dozen times before she cut back to Harry. “I’m sorry, sir, there’s no answer at that number. Shall I try again in twenty minutes?”

“No. No, thanks.” Harry came out of the booth wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his fishing-jacket. “Sonuvabitch, I don’t get it. What’s the matter? What did I do?”

“Nothing. Let’s go back to the lodge and have a drink.”

“What were you and Thelma talking about all that time?”

“Life,” Turee said. Which was true enough.

“Lfte, at three o’clock in the morning, long distance?”

“Thelma wanted to talk. You know women; sometimes they have to get things off their chest by talking to somebody objective, not a member of their family. Thelma was in an emotional state.”

“She can always count on me to understand.”

“I hope so,” Turee said softly. “I hope to God so.”

“It’s this uncertainty that gets me down. Why won’t she talk to me? Why did she keep saying Ron’s name over and over again?”

“She’s – fond of Ron and worried about him. We all are, aren’t we?”

“My God, yes. He’s my best friend. I saved him from drowning once when we were in school together; did I ever tell you that?”

“Yes,” Turee said, not because it was true but because he’d had enough irony for one day, he couldn’t swallow any more; his throat felt tight and raw and scraped. “Come on, Harry, you look as if you need a drink.”

“Maybe I should stay in town for the night, take a room here and get a couple of hours’ sleep and then try to reach Thelma again.”

“Leave the woman alone for a while. Give her a chance to collect herself.”

“You may be right. I hope she remembers to take the orange pills I left for her. They’re very good for relieving tension. I’m told they’re the ones that cured the Pope of hiccoughs when he had that bad spell.”

Turee felt, simultaneously, a certain sympathy for Thelma and a twinge of impatience with Harry. He would have liked to point out that Thelma’s ailment was quite remote from hiccoughs and that it would require more than orange pills, or blue, or pink, to cure her. “There’s nothing more we can do here,” he said, “unless we inform the police that Ron is missing.”

“He may not be missing any more. By the time we drive back to the lodge, he’ll very likely be there. Don’t you agree?”

“It’s possible.” But not, Turee added to himself, very probable. If I were in Ron’s shoes, the last thing in the world I’d want to do would be to come up here and face Harry. Ron may have taken a room at a hotel for the night. Or gone down to his cottage near Kingsville. Or maybe he’s just driving around alone, the way he does sometimes when he and Esther are on the verge of a quarrel. Ron can’t stand scenes, trouble of any kind makes him sick. The time Bill Winslow and I had the big argument about politics Ron simply disappeared, and Esther found him later, retching behind the boxwood hedge.

Harry looked at his watch and the very sight of it made him yawn and brought water to his eyes. “My God, it’s nearly four o’clock.”

“I’m well aware of it.”

“In another hour or two the fellows will be up and raring to go. We’d better start back, don’t you agree?”

“I agreed some time ago.”

“By Jove, you know something, Ralph? I feel better. I feel much, much better. I don’t know what you said or did exactly, but you’ve given me a little perspective on things.”

Turee forced a feeble smile. “Good.”

“Yes, sir, you’ve given me a new slant. Why should we worry over two perfectly mature adults like Ron and Thelma? After all, neither of them would ever do anything foolish.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“Let’s go back to the lodge and have a drink to celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?”

“I don’t know, I felt so bad before and now everything’s fine again and I feel like celebrating.”

He went ahead to open the door. He was smiling and his step was jaunty.

“By Jove, it’s a glorious night,” Harry said. “Smell that air, will you?”

Turee had little choice. He smelled the air. It carried the scent of wind and water, delusion and betrayal.

Chapter 4

The ride back to the lodge began quietly enough. After a brief spurt of conversation Harry climbed over into the back seat, folded himself up, and went to sleep.

Turee drove slowly, his mind oppressed by the problem of telling Harry the truth in a way that would cause him a minimum of shock. Pain was inevitable, there was no way of sparing him that, but it might be possible to break his fall and lessen the concussion.

Until tonight Turee had always considered Thelma as something of a birdbrain. He now began to realize how cleverly Thelma had maneuvered him into the role of custodian of the secret. It was like finding himself custodian of a fissionable mass of uranium; if he didn’t get rid of some of it, the whole thing might blow up in his face. The problem, then, was to unload it a little at a time, with due respect for its explosive powers.

“Tell him the truth or give him a story,” Thelma had said, but it was clear that she intended him to tell Harry the truth, not because she felt he could do it in a more kindly and tactful way, but because she wanted to save herself the trouble. Thelma could no longer be bothered with Harry; she had no compunctions about hurting him, no apologies to offer him, no explanation to give him, no intention of ever seeing him again. This final fact seemed somehow more incredible to Turee than any of the others. For three years the Breams had been regarded as a model couple. They did not argue or correct each other in public, take verbal pot-shots at parties or confide their mates’ failings to friends. Turee had always envied them a little, since he and his wife Nancy engaged in frequent and spirited arguments which usually culminated in a series of glib psychological terms: Your Uncle Charles has that same paranoid streak – you’re a cyclic depressive, that’s all – it’s no wonder the kids are going through a manic phase – Instead of throwing ashtrays at each other, the Turees, in the modern manner, threw Oedipus complexes, father fixations and compulsive neuroses.

In the back seat Harry began to snore, rather gently and apologetically, as if he expected to be told to turn over and shut up. For some reason the sound exasperated Turee. It was like a sick puppy whimpering in its sleep.

“Harry,” he said sharply.

“Umph,” Harry said, as if he’d been prodded in the stomach by an elbow. “Aaaah. What? What?”

“Wake up.”

“Must have dozed off. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize all the time. It gets on my nerves.”

“Nearly everything does,” Harry said with a patient sigh. “I don’t intend that as a criticism, old boy. Far from it. You’re too high-strung, that’s all. You ought to learn to relax. Say, you remember those orange pills I told you about, the ones that cured the Pope of hiccoughs?”

“They’re quite difficult to forget.”

“I happen to have a few in my pocket. You could take one now and let me drive for a while.”

Turee had as little faith in Harry’s driving as he had in Harry’s ministrations. “Thank you, no. I prefer to remain tense.”

Harry climbed back into the front seat and then, out of habit that was becoming almost a compulsion, he began to talk of Thelma again, of her rare and various virtues. Harry didn’t claim that all other women were clods, he merely let it be implied.

“… So Thelma took the old man in the house and made him a cup of tea. Thel’s like that, opens her heart to everyone…”

“Harry.”

“…even a total stranger. Then she got in touch with the old man’s daughter-in-law…”

“Harry, I have something to tell you.”

“All right, old boy. I’d practically finished anyway. Go ahead.”

“Don’t expect Ron to be at the lodge when we get there.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t think he’s going to show up at all, either at the lodge or any other place he’s likely to run into you.”

“What have I got to do with it?”

“I believe Ron may be trying to avoid you.”

“Avoid me? Why?”

“Because he’s become quite fond of your wife.”

“Why, he’s always been fond of Thelma. They hit it off fine, right from the start.”

“Now they’re hitting it off finer.” Turee took his eyes from the road for an instant to glance at Harry’s face in the dim light from the dashboard. Harry was smiling. “Did you hear me, Harry? Ron’s in love with your wife.”

“That’s Thelma’s story, of course?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t let it worry you, there’s nothing to it,” Harry said firmly.

“You seem pretty confident.”

“Listen, Ralph, I wouldn’t tell this to anyone else in the world, but you’re my friend, I can trust you with a secret.”

Turee opened the car window. He had a sensation that he and Harry were stationary and the night was moving past them swiftly, turbulent with secrets. To the right the bay was visible in the reflection of a half moon. The waves nudged each other and winked slyly and whispered new secrets.

“The fact is,” Harry said, “Thelma day-dreams. Nothing serious, of course, but once in a while she gets the notion that so-and-so is in love with her. There’s never anything to it. A week later she’s forgotten the whole thing.”

“I see.”

“This time it’s Ron. Once, it was you.”

“Me! Why, for God’s sake, I never even—”

“I know. Thelma imagines things. She can’t help it. She’s got a romantic streak in her nature. It gives her satisfaction to believe that someone is hopelessly in love with her. Makes her feel glamorous, I guess.” Harry sighed. “So she thinks Ron is in love with her, that’s what she was upset about? That’s what she told you?”

“She told me that among—”

“Poor Thelma. This day-dreaming – well it’s like the séances she goes to. Thelma doesn’t really believe in them and she hasn’t anybody dead she’d like to communicate with. It’s just – she wants to be different, exciting, ah, you know, don’t you, Ralph?”

“I suppose so.”

“I’ve never talked about my wife like this before,” Harry said solemnly. “I hope you won’t think I’m being disloyal.”

“Of course not.”

“The séances, they’re new, a neighbor of ours got her interested. But the day-dreaming started when she was a girl and she’s never managed to get over it. It makes up for some of the things that are missing from her life, romance and excitement. I try to provide it but I’m afraid I’m not the type who – put it this way: I sell pills. That’s not very glamorous, I guess. Thelma makes up for it by day-dreaming a little.”

Or a lot, Turee added silently. “You don’t think day-dreaming can be dangerous?”

“Not to Thelma and me. How could it?”

“A prolonged dream can become mixed up with reality.”

“Now, look here, Ralph, you have this tendency to be critical. I know you mean well, but it’s not always wise. Thelma and I are perfectly happy as we are. If day-dreams make up for certain inadequacies in her life—”

“You’re contradicting yourself.”

“All right,” Harry said, with the first sign of irritability he’d shown all evening. “That’s my business. I can contradict myself to hell and gone if I feel like it.”

“Certainly. Do that.”

Harry lit a cigarette before he spoke again, in a softer tone. “You’re smart, Ralph, you’re deep, you know a lot of things me and the other fellows don’t on account of your advanced education and so on. Only—”

“Only what?”

“Just don’t start analyzing Thelma. I love her the way she is. Let her have her dreams.”

“She’s welcome to them, as far as I’m concerned.”

“My marriage is the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me. I wouldn’t do anything in the world to undermine the relationship between Thelma and me.”

“You won’t have to,” Turee said, but the noise of the engine and the sound of the water below the cliffs submerged his words. He didn’t try to dredge them up. Well, that’s that, he thought. Harry wants to stay on cloud seven. Let him.

They covered the remaining miles, not in silence, since Harry had begun to whistle very cheerfully, but at least without conversation. Turee shut his ears to the whistling and busied himself sorting out the various images of Thelma that had flashed across his mind throughout the night.

First there was, of course, the Harry’s-wife Thelma, a short, placid, pleasant-looking woman in her early thirties. An excellent cook and skillful housekeeper, she seemed to have few interests outside the small red-brick house she and Harry had bought in Weston. Turee had always found her a little on the dull side, since she seldom made any observations or remarks of her own, but instead, chimed in her agreement with Harry, in a kind of wifely echolalia: Harry’s perfectly right – as Harry was saying only yesterday – Harry told me and I agree that – She appeared, on the surface, to be a woman unwilling to make any decisions by herself, and incapable of originating any plans or ideas. Even her recent addiction to séances, and the ensuing psychic feelings, had been instigated by a neighbor.

But Turee’s mind was getting ahead of itself, because the séances belonged more properly in the second picture of Thelma, Thelma the day-dreamer, who fed her mediocrity with meaty chunks of dreams until it was fat beyond her own recognition. Under this system of mental dietetics Thelma became a woman equipped with great psychic powers, as well as a femme fatale with whom men fell hopelessly in love. It was girl stuff, this day-dreaming, and Thelma was no girl. Perhaps she was no day-dreamer either; the possibility occurred to Turee that Harry might have invented the whole thing to protect himself from the truth, that Ron Galloway actually was in love with Thelma.

This led to the third picture, blurred and more distorted, yet somehow more real than either of the others, Thelma, the woman who wanted a child, and with single-minded determination and not a trace of moral misgiving, had gone ahead and found the means to conceive one.

Harry had stopped whistling and was peering out of the window for the turn-off to the lodge.

“Why do you feel,” Turee said suddenly, “that if I start to ‘analyse’ Thelma, as you call it, something will happen to your marriage?”

“I don’t feel that.”

“It was implied.”

“Oh, Ralph,” Harry said with sadness, “don’t. Don’t go on. Some things are better left alone. Analyze your students, if you like, or your family, anyone else but Thelma. Perhaps she isn’t entirely happy, but I’m doing my best to change that. There are certain factors involved that I won’t go into.”

“She wants a child.”

Harry looked surprised. “How did you know?”

“She told me.”

“Just tonight? On the phone?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, then that’s what upset her. She must have gone to sleep and been awakened by another of her nightmares. She’s had quite a few of them this spring. She dreams she’s borne a baby, only something happens to it, it’s deformed, or it gets sick and dies; once it was kidnapped by a Chinaman. She’d been to the laundry to pick up my shorts that day, that’s how the Chinaman got into it, I guess – I haven’t told Thelma yet, I want it to be a surprise, but I’ve visited two adoption agencies this week, making inquiries – the turn-off should be along here some place.”

The turn-off was months ago, Turee thought. You missed it, Harry.

The lodge had been built by Galloway partly as a wedding present to Esther and partly as a place to hide out in until the scandal of his divorce from his first wife had blown over. It turned out not as a hideaway but as a show place the natives around the bay, all the way from Penetanguishene to Tobermory, came to admire and criticize. The structure was, in fact, too elaborate for its setting and its function. The lower story had been built of native stone and the second story was in English half-timbered style, with a shake roof angled sharply to shed the heavy snow that fell during the long winters.

The caretaker’s quarters over the garage, which was an exact miniature of the house proper, were inhabited from spring to autumn by an elderly, morose ex-mechanic named MacGregor. Theoretically, MacGregor’s job was to keep the house and grounds tidy, the wood-boxes filled and the plumbing in order. In actuality, he spent most of his time down in the boat-house fussing over Galloway’s Estron, a diesel-powered launch.

MacGregor and only MacGregor operated the boat. He did not insist on this prerogative, he merely let it be understood that the Estron was high-spirited and temperamental, and, like any such woman, needed a strong and knowing hand if she were to avoid the disastrous impulses of her nature.

No one, not even his wife, knew why Galloway had bought the boat. Galloway hated and feared the water, the slightest swell made him seasick, and he had no talent for or interest in the Estron’s mechanical aspects. When MacGregor was at the wheel, Galloway sat up front beside him, his fists clenched, his eyes moving uneasily in their sockets so that they seemed to be separately afloat, responding to every wave. When the trip was over and he was back on dry land, he always looked pale but exhilarated, as if he had proved himself by conquering an ancient enemy.

MacGregor’s quarters were dark. When there was a weekend party going on he kept aloof, disdaining what he called the shenanigans, and appearing only when Galloway and his guests wanted to use the boat.

Turee parked his car between two jack pines and the two men began walking towards the lodge, single file and in step, like a pair of convicts chained together by invisible irons. Only one light was burning, in the main room downstairs, and the fire in the grate was barely alive.

Hepburn had gone to sleep in the red leather lounging-chair, a book on his lap. He woke up at the sound of the front door opening, squinted across the room and said crossly, “About time somebody showed up. I feel as if I’ve been conducting a one-man wake.”

Turee raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Maybe you have.”

“No luck finding Ron?”

“He’s not at home. We called Esther and she hasn’t seen him or heard from him and doesn’t seem to care one way or another. Then we talked to Thelma.” He shot a glance at Harry to see if he would react to the name, but Harry was standing in front of the dying fire, his back to the room. “Thelma says Ron came by to pick up Harry, they had a drink together and some talk and then Ron left, presumably to come up here.”

It was merely the skeleton of the truth. Only an expert could add the flesh and blood and muscle and all the vital organs that would make it a whole, borrowing a little here, a little there, from Thelma, from Harry, from Ron, from Esther, from all the other people who had affected all these people. A truth is as complicated as a man. Constructing and articulating a skeleton is not enough. It must be made to live.

So now what, Turee thought. What do I do now?

Hepburn provided a temporary answer. “You fellows want a drink?”

Harry had turned from the fire and picked up a magazine from the drum table. The magazine was an old Maclean’s left over from the last time the lodge had been occupied, October of the previous year. The sight of the date sent a spasm of pain across Harry’s eyes. Last year, he thought. Last year at this time I was happy. I owned the world. Only last year…

On a sudden impulse he folded the magazine and threw it with vicious accuracy into the center of the fire. It began to smolder.

“Now what the hell did you do that for?’ Hepburn said.

“I don’t know.”

“There was an article in it I wanted to read.”

“Sorry.” The magazine had caught fire. Harry watched it burn with a kind of bitter satisfaction. Last year was over. “It’s late. I’m tired. I’d better be going to bed.”

“I’ve just made you a drink.”

“I don’t want it.”

“You need it, Harry boy.”

“No, thanks. It’s been a long day. Good night.”

“Take it easy, Harry boy.”

“Oh yes. Sure.”

He dragged himself upstairs, leaning heavily on the banister as if his legs had withered. A minute later Turee heard the dropping of shoes, the squeak of springs, a long sigh.

Hepburn handed Turee his drink. “What’s the matter with him, anyway?”

“What he said. A long day.”

“Baloney. I’ve never seen Harry tired in my life.”

“Now you have.”

“There must be a reason. Something’s up with Thelma, maybe?”

“Maybe.”

“Thelma’s a funny girl, if you ask me.”

“I don’t have to ask you,” Turee said, staring gloomily into the fire, trying to imagine what Thelma was doing right now. Planning? Weeping? Having second and third thoughts, or sleeping peacefully in the conviction that she’d been absolutely right the first time? It was impossible to tell.

“But I guess all women are.”

“Not all. Nancy’s different.” Turee believed this, and would continue to believe it until the next time he and his wife had a misunderstanding.

“You’re prejudiced.” Hepburn finished his drink and laid his empty glass decisively on the stone mantel. “Well, anyway, thank God I’m not married. On which cheerful note I shall depart.”

“Go ahead. I’ll turn out the lights.”

“Perhaps you’d better leave a couple of them on in case Ron—”

“Oh. All right.”

“Good night Ralph.”

“Good night.”

Hepburn hesitated, stroking his chin. He was already beginning to need a shave, his eyes were red from too little sleeping and too much drinking, and his flannel shirt was dirty and lacking a button.

Why, he looks like a bum, Turee thought. Maybe he is. Maybe they all are, and this is no place for me. I should be home with my family, not up here pretending to be like the rest of them.

“Go to bed and get some sleep,” he said roughly, irritated by his own thoughts. “God, what a night this has been.’

“It’s not finished.”

“Well, finish it.”

“O.K., but don’t go into one of your famous grouches. That’s not going to help. We’re all in this together.”

Chapter 5

The following morning, a few minutes after eight o’clock, Turee was awakened by the heavy pounding of the lion’s head knocker on the front door and the simultaneous ringing of the old cow-bell that served as a mess call. Making little noises of distress, he reached for his shoes and put them on. This was all the dressing he had to do because he had, like the others, slept in his clothes. It was part of the tradition of these weekends at the lodge, originated many years before by Harry Bream. (‘Makes me feel more sporty,” Harry had said. “Roughing it and all that.’)

Feeling somewhat less than sporty, Turee stepped out into the hall, where he met Winslow, wild-eyed and trembling, his back pressed against the wall.

“My God,” Winslow croaked. “I’m dying. Dying.”

“There’s some bromo in the bathroom.”

“My God. That bell. Tell it to stop. My ears—“

“Pull yourself together.”

“I’m dying,” Winslow said again and slid down the wall like a puppet whose strings had broken.

Turee stepped fastidiously around him and went on down the staircase. The encounter had done nothing to dispel the feeling he’d had the previous evening, that he didn’t belong in this place, with these people. Though they were old friends, they seemed, under stress, to have become strangers, and their ways of living—or, in Winslow’s case, dying—were alien to him. As he walked down the stairs the air from the room below rose up and struck his nostrils, and it seemed to him subtly poisonous, smelling of stale drinks and stale dreams.

He drew back the heavy wooden bolt on the front door and opened it, half expecting to see Ron.

During the early morning hours the wind had died down and the temperature had dropped. The ground was covered with hoar frost glittering so whitely in the sun that, by contrast, Esther Galloway’s skin looked very dark, as if she had quite suddenly and unseasonably acquired a tan.

She appeared to have dressed in a hurry and not for a trip. She was hatless, the shoes she wore were summer shoes without toes, and the black match plaid coat she had clutched around her was one Turee remembered from a long way back. Esther always made such a point of elegance that it was a shock to see her looking quite ordinary, if not actually dowdy.

“Why, Esther.”

“Hello, Ralph,” she said crisply. “Surprise, surprise, eh?”

“Come in.”

“I intend to.”

He held the door open for her and she came inside, peeling off her gloves and agitating her head as if to shake the frost out of her hair.

“My ears ache. I drove with the windows open to help keep me awake. Silly, I guess.” She laid her gloves on the mantel between two empty glasses left over from the night before. Then she picked up one of the glasses and sniffed it with distaste. “Gin. When will Billy Winslow ever learn?”

“That’s a difficult question.”

“Did you have a nice party?”

“Not very.”

“Ron – he’s not here, of course?”

“No.”

“No word at all?”

“None.”

“Damn his eyes.”

Some time during the early morning the fire had gone out and the room was so cold that Esther’s breath came out in little clouds of mist like smoke from a dragon’s mouth. Turee thought it suited her mood admirably.

“Damn his beady little eyes,” she said. “All right, start making excuses for him, as usual, why don’t you?”

Turee didn’t answer because he was afraid of saying the wrong thing and there seemed no possible right thing.

“The way you fellows stick together, it’s a scream really.”

“Sit down, Esther, and I’ll go and put on some coffee.”

“Don’t bother.”

“It’s no bo—”

“MacGregor’s coming over in a minute to set the fires and make some breakfast.” She turned and looked carefully around the room, one nostril curled very slightly. “The place needs an airing. It smells.”

“I hadn’t noticed.” He had, though.

“I didn’t expect him to be here, of course. I don’t even know why I came except that I couldn’t go back to sleep after you called last night, and I hate waiting, waiting and doing nothing. So I drove up here. I don’t know why,” she repeated. “It just seemed a good idea at the time. Now that I’m here I realize there’s nothing I can do, is there? …except possibly help nurse a few hangovers. How’s yours?”

“I don’t have one,” he said coldly.

“It couldn’t have been a very good party, then.”

“I said it wasn’t.”

“You could have another one today. Perhaps I’ll even be invited to join in for once!”

“It’s your house.”

“All right, I’ll invite myself. We’ll all sit around and be jolly until His Nibs decides to reappear.”

“You think it’s that simple?’

She turned and addressed him very slowly and distinctly, as if she were talking to someone quite deaf or stupid: ‘Ron has complete identification papers in his wallet and his car registration fastened to the steering wheel. If there had been any accident I would have been notified. Isn’t that correct?”

“I suppose it is.”

“There’s no supposing about it, surely. When an accident happens, it’s reported immediately. That’s the law.”

It hadn’t seemed to occur to her, and Turee didn’t mention it, that laws could be broken.

Sounds of rattling and crashing from the kitchen indicated that MacGregor was at work making breakfast. This was not part of his regular duties, and Turee knew from past experience that MacGregor would make himself as objectionable as possible; the coffee would be like bitter mud, the bacon burned and the eggs unrecognizable except for bits of broken egg-shell that would crunch between the teeth like ground glass.

“MacGregor’s in a sour mood,” Turee said lightly. “We’ll probably all be poisoned.”

“At this particular moment I wouldn’t care.”

“Esther, for Pete’s sake—”

“Oh, I know – you think I’m a drag and a droop. You think I always go around with a long face, spoiling for a fight.”

“I don’t—”

“You’re Ron’s friend, naturally you’re on his side. I have to admit, I guess, that Ron makes a pretty good friend. But he’s a lousy husband.”

“Spare me the details.”

“I wasn’t going into details,” she said flatly. “I was just about to make a generalization.”

“Go ahead.”

“Oh, I know you loathe generalizations, Ralph. You prefer intimate statistics like how many tons of mackerel were shipped last month from Newfoundland.”

Turee’s smile was wan. “Let’s have the generalization.”

“All right. Some men just shouldn’t get married, they have nothing to give to a woman, not even the time of day. Oh, they can bring her an expensive diamond watch so she can tell the time of day for herself, but that’s not sharing anything.”

She sat down on the leather hassock in front of the unlit fire as if the sudden release of emotions had exhausted her, like a blood-letting. “I wanted very much to come up here with Ron this weekend. Not that I’m particularly keen on fishing or even outdoor life, but I thought it would be fun to do the cooking and eat in front of the fireplace and take walks in the woods with Ron and the two boys. I asked him if I could come along and he didn’t even take me seriously, the whole idea was so incredible to him.”

She paused to take a long breath. “Why, the boys hardly know this place. They’ve only been here three times. Ron keeps making excuses—the boys might fall over the cliff, they might get bitten by a snake, they might drown, etcetera. But the real excuse he never mentions—the boys might interfere with him, they might want something from him that can’t be bought with money, they might demand two or three ounces of Ron’s very own self. They might even take a bite of his precious hide, not knowing, as I do, that it’s quite unpalatable and indigestible.”

“Esther—”

“That’s all. I’ve finished.”

“I don’t mean to shut you up.”

“You do, of course. But it’s nice of you, anyway, to say you don’t. I blab, don’t I? But not to everybody. I wouldn’t dream of saying any of these things to Billy Winslow or Joe Hepburn or even to Harry. They’re a pretty stupid lot.”

Turee was inclined to agree, but he didn’t care to encourage her in a new subject. He said, “You need some hot food and coffee, Esther. I’ll go and see how MacGregor is getting along.”

MacGregor was getting along exactly as Turee had anticipated. The bacon was already burned, the eggs were having convulsions in the skillet, and the odor of coffee was sharp as acid. MacGregor, wearing a chef’s apron over his grease-stained overalls, was trying to sedate the eggs with liberal doses of salt and pepper.

“I’ll take over,” Turee said.

“What say, sir?”

“I’ll carry on from here. You go and set the fire in the main room.”

“Things got a mite burned,” MacGregor said with satisfaction, as he removed the apron and handed it to Turee. “It’s the will of the Lord.”

“It’s a funny thing that whenever the Lord picks something to be burned He chooses you as His instrument.”

“Aye, sir, it’s peculiar.” He headed for the main room, whistling cheerfully through the gap between his two remaining front teeth. He had scored a victory, not just a personal victory, but one on behalf of all employees over all employers, and while Turee was not exactly an employer, still he was lined up on the same side. That was good enough. Let the bastard eat burned bacon. It was the will of the Lord.

After breakfast they sat in front of the pine-wood fire MacGregor had built and drank the bitter coffee out of heavy stoneware mugs. Food and warmth had improved the situation. The pinched look around Esther’s mouth and nostrils disappeared, and the uneasy little animals that Turee had felt moving around in his stomach were temporarily placated.

There was no sound at all from the upper rooms. Either Billy Winslow had gone back to sleep, or else his own prediction had been accurate and he had died. In either case, Turee didn’t much care at the moment. The heat and color and movement of the flames held him in a kind of pleasant stupor. He listened to Esther talking the way one listens to background music, recognizing the songs but without paying any real attention. Esther’s songs were about her two boys, Marv and Greg, and their latest pranks, and such was Turee’s state of mind that he was able to listen without even wanting to cap her stories with stories about his own children.

“… are you paying attention, Ralph?”

“Eh? Oh, certainly, certainly.”

“Well, don’t you think I’m right?”

“Absolutely.” This was safe enough. Every woman wanted to be told she was absolutely right, especially if she had some doubt of it.

“Well, she got quite unpleasant about it. She said I shouldn’t spank either of them, no matter what they did. She said I shouldn’t even threaten to spank them, that it would destroy their confidence in me, and that I was simply indulging my own anger. Now I ask you, how can you bring up two normal, lively boys without a spanking now and then?”

“I wouldn’t know. I have four girls.”

“That’s a different matter. Girls are more – well, you can reason with them.”

Turee was extremely surprised to learn this. “You can, eh?”

“Besides, she’s got her nerve telling me how to bring up my children when she doesn’t even have any of her own.” Esther paused long enough to take a sip of coffee. “It’s funny about that.”

“About what?”

“She’s so crazy about children, why doesn’t she have some of her own?”

“Who?”

“The who we’ve been talking about.”

“I must have missed the name.”

“Thelma. She’s so crazy about children, it’s funny she doesn’t have any of her own.”

Turee rose and went over to the fire and kicked one of the logs with his foot. The pleasant stupor had vanished; the background music had turned into a loud cacophonous modern symphony, and he was compelled to listen to it carefully, to make sense out of it, to distinguish the parts and players: Harry moaning on the trombone, Esther nagging at the drums, Thelma crowing through the clarinet, Ron off-stage with a silver whistle waiting for his cue. And the conductor out to lunch.

“After all, she’s still young and healthy,” Esther said, “and Harry makes a decent salary, and he’s just as fond of children as she is, I think. Don’t you agree?”

“I haven’t given it much thought.”

“Neither have I, really. But it’s not the kind of thing that needs much. I mean, the way he horses around with our two boys, you can tell he loves children. I think a baby would do them both a world of good.”

A baby, yes, Turee thought. But not this baby. He remembered what Harry had said while they were driving back to the lodge from Wiarton: “I haven’t told Thelma yet, I want it to be a surprise, but I’ve visited two adoption agencies this week, making inquiries.”

“Well, don’t you agree, Ralph? That’s what they need, a baby?”

“Yes. For heaven’s sakes, yes.”

Esther looked at him in surprise. “What’s got into you all of a sudden? Did I say something wrong?”

“No. I just consider it a subject that’s none of my business.”

“And none of mine either. Is that what you’re implying?’ Her face had hardened. “Very well, let’s drop it. I don’t like Thelma much anyway, if you want the truth.”

“I’ve gathered that.”

“Am I so obvious?”

“Obvious enough.”

“Well, do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Like Thelma.”

“I don’t like anybody this morning,” Turee said with an attempt at lightness. “Not even myself.”

Esther smiled without humor. “We’re in the same boat then – Listen, do you hear a car?”

“No.”

“I’m sure I heard a car.” She hurried to the front door, pulling her plaid coat around her in anticipation of the cold air. “Maybe it’s Ron. I’m sure it’s Ron.”

In spite of all the things she’d said about him she sounded excited and eager at the prospect of seeing him. Turee followed her outside. He could hear the car now quite plainly, and a moment later it came into sight, winding up the driveway between the spruce trees, leaving parallel black tracks in the frost.

It was a black-and-white car bearing the insignia of the Ontario Provincial Police on the front door. Esther turned, without a word, and went back into the lodge.

Turee waited while two uniformed policemen climbed ponderously out of the car and began walking towards him. Well, this is it. Ron’s been hurt. Or killed. They’ve come to tell us. This is it.

The two policemen moved slowly, looking around at the property with the careful scrutiny of a pair of assessors. The older man was heavy-set and red-faced with a scar along the crease of his right cheek that gave him a false one-sided smile.

He spoke first. “Hello there. Is this where Mr. Ronald Galloway lives?”

“Yes,” Turee said. The single word came out with difficulty. His contact with policemen had been limited to minor traffic tickets and he felt tongue-tied and uneasy, as if they had come to accuse him of a crime he had committed unawares.

“You’re not Mr. Galloway, by any chance?”

“No. A guest.”

“Mr. Galloway is here then?”

“No. We—the other guests and myself—have been waiting for him since last night. I thought – that is, when I first saw you, I presumed you had some news of him.”

“A missing report, if that’s news. I’m Inspector Cavell and this is my colleague, Sergeant Newbridge. May I ask your name, sir?”

“Ralph Turee. I’m an associate professor at the University of Toronto.” The words and the tone sounded snobbish and pretentious, as if he were deliberately attempting to lay a cloak of respectability over himself, like a child covering himself with a blanket and thinking he was well hidden. Yet the image irritated him. It seemed unfair to himself. He had committed no crime, he had nothing to hide, no reason to feel guilt.

Inspector Cavell’s eyes narrowed, and the scar along his cheek deepened into a smile, as if he was quietly amused by such boyish antics as hiding under blankets. “Is that a fact, sir. Now suppose we go inside and talk a little about Mr. Galloway. Newbridge, you can look around out here.”

“Yes, sir,” Newbridge said, but he appeared puzzled, as if he hadn’t any idea what to look for or what to do if he found it.

Turee and Cavell went into the lodge. Esther had taken her place in front of the fire and was sitting with her legs crossed and her hands in her lap, looking poised and casual. Too casual. Turee suspected that she’d been hiding behind the door listening to the conversation.

She acknowledged the introduction to Cavell politely enough, but she didn’t rise or offer her hand or even appear anxious to hear what he had to say.

It turned out to be very little. “I have only the barest facts. Less than an hour ago I received a radio message from the Toronto division that Mr. Galloway had been reported missing by his wife. I have the time and place he was last seen, the make, model of his car, and that’s about it. I am not in charge of the case or anything like that. I was merely asked to check up at this end, see if he had arrived or anything had been heard from him.”

“Nothing,” Esther said brusquely. “Not a word.”

“Well, now, it seems to me that if he’s still on the road it will be an easy matter to spot him. Late model Cadillac convertibles aren’t common in this neck of the woods, and if he had the top down in this weather, as I’ve been informed, he should stick out like a fire engine. If, on the other hand, he got tired and pulled into some motel for the night, we shouldn’t have too much trouble there either. Motels aren’t common in this area.”

“Suppose he isn’t in the area.”

“Why should we suppose that, Mrs. Galloway? He intended to come up here, didn’t he?”

“Intentions can change.”

“Is he the unpredictable kind who might take a notion to go off on a trip somewhere?”

Esther shook her head. “No. At least, not in the past.”

“Is he a heavy drinker?”

“He gets drunk sometimes, but it’s a quiet thing with Ron. He simply goes to sleep.”

“I hesitate to ask this, Mrs. Galloway, but it’s my duty. Have you any reason to believe he was interested in another woman?”

Esther glanced briefly at Turee before she answered. “Absolutely none.”

Her tone was so positive that it seemed to fluster Cavell. As if to cover his confusion with some activity, he removed from an inner pocket of his jacket a small brown notebook. “According to my information, Mr. Galloway was last seen by a Mrs. Bream who lives in Weston. Is she a friend of yours, Mrs. Galloway?”

“Her husband and mine have been friends since Upper Canada College. Ron went to Weston to pick up Harry, that’s Mr. Bream, and bring him along to the lodge. Only Harry had an emergency call to make first, so he came on alone. He’s upstairs now, still asleep. I can wake him up, if you like.”

Turee made a grimace of protest, but if Esther noticed it she paid no attention.

“I don’t think Harry can tell you any more than you already know,” Turee said. “I suggest we let him sleep. He had a rough night.”

Cavell raised his eyebrows. “Rough in what sense, Mr. Turee?”

I’ve got to learn to curb my tongue, Turee thought, and not to volunteer any information. Eventually they’ll find out everything, about Thelma and the baby and Ron, but it’s not my business to bring it out. He said cautiously, “We were up nearly all night attempting to track Ron down.”

“We?”

“Harry Bream and I, and the other two guests, Bill Winslow and Joe Hepburn.”

“And just what form did these attempts take?”

“Harry and I drove back to Wiarton and called Esther—Mrs. Galloway—on the chance that Ron hadn’t left the house for some reason or other. She told us he had left so then we called Harry’s wife. She said that Ron had turned up on schedule, stayed long enough for a drink and then set out again.”

“Is that all?”

“Well, Thelma—Mrs. Bream—said Ron had complained of feeling ill. There’s a possibility there, don’t you think?”

“Such as?”

“Well, Ron takes his symptoms pretty seriously. He may have stopped off to see a doctor, he may even be in a hospital somewhere.”

“He’s as healthy as a horse,” Esther said.

“Yes, but he doesn’t think so.”

“Besides, he’s scared to death of hospitals. He had to be practically dragged to come to see me when the boys were born.”

Cavell stared at her thoughtfully. “It seems to me you’re not very willing to accept any theory, Mrs. Galloway.”

“Willing, yes. Able, no. I know my husband quite thoroughly and none of the possibilities suggested so far has seemed plausible.”

“Have you any theory of your own, Mrs. Galloway?”

“I might have.”

“If you had,” Cavell said dryly, “what would it be?”

“I think Ron may be trying to avoid me, for some reason.”

It was so close to what Turee himself was thinking that he made a little sound of surprise, like a man who’s just had his mind read.

Cavell said, “Why should your husband be trying to avoid you, Mrs. Galloway?”

“I don’t – know.” She flashed another sharp look at Turee as if she half-suspected that he could supply the answer if he chose to.

Turee thought, she’s too damned bright for her own good. And too honest to hide it. No wonder she and Ron have some bad times.

“You might,” Esther added, to Cavell, “talk to Harry Bream.”

“Why?’

“He and my husband are what you might call buddies.” She put a sneer in the word. “If Ron has any secrets, Harry is his most likely confidant.”

Turee made one more attempt to spare Harry the ordeal. “No more likely than I, surely, Esther?”

“Much more and you know it.”

“All right, then. I’ll go and wake him up.”

Chapter 6

Harry was still asleep, lying on his stomach and without a pillow, like a baby; and, as a baby will suck at things for comfort and security, so Harry had seized a corner of the blanket and had it pressed tightly against his mouth.

The night-table beside the bed held an unlabeled bottle of red capsules and a nearly empty water glass.

“Harry? Hey. Harry.”

He did not respond either to his name or the touch of Turee’s hand on his shoulder. Turee leaned down and with great effort rolled him over on his back. Then he put his hand firmly under Harry’s chin and moved his head from side to side several times until Harry’s eyes opened.

“Don’t do that,” Harry said.

“Come on, wake up.”

“It’s cold.”

“It’s warmer downstairs. Get your shoes on. We have a visitor.”

“Don’t care.” He closed his eyes again. “Don’t care a damn.”

“How many of those red capsules did you take?”

“Don’t remember. Doesn’t matter.”

“It matters now.” Turee put his hands under Harry’s shoulders and forced him to a sitting position. Harry’s head lolled back and forth as if his neck was broken.

“Why?’ Harry said. “Why it matters?”

“There’s a policeman downstairs, he wants to talk to you.”

“Why?”

“About Ron. They’re still trying to find Ron. Esther reported his absence to the police and then she drove on up here.”

“Esther? Here?’ He shook off Turee’s hand and sat up by himself. His tone was more alert and his eyes had begun to focus properly. “Esther shouldn’t have come here.”

“Why not?”

“The place is a mess.”

“So?”

“We’ll have to clean it up a bit. Esther hates a mess.”

Like the other fellows, Harry stood in considerable awe of Esther. It was not that she was unpleasant to them, but she had a subtle way of always being right that reduced them to a state of self-doubt and confusion. She could, without saying a word, work through a room and indicate, merely by her posture and a faintly lifted eyebrow, that there were cobwebs on the rafters and dust under the rugs. And sure enough, if anyone took the trouble to look, the cobwebs would be there, and so would the dust.

Harry peered down at his wrist-watch. “It’s not even nine o’clock.”

“I know.”

“Esther – she must have stayed up all night.”

“Practically.”

“Why did she decide to come here?”

“To check up on Ron, for herself.”

“She doesn’t trust us, I guess.”

“Not very much.”

“What does she think we’re doing, covering up for him?”

“Maybe.”

“Covering up what. I’d like to know. Does she think we bring women up here, or something?”

“Could be.”

“My God, that’s a laugh.”

“Not to her, it isn’t.”

“Esther’s a funny girl. When I compare her with Thelma, for instance – why, that’s the last thing in the world Thelma would suspect. Thelma likes me to go away and have a good time. There isn’t a selfish bone in her body.”

Turee felt like gagging but he managed to say quite calmly, “Hurry up and get ready.”

“All right.” Harry swung his legs over the side of the bed and began putting on his shoes. “A policeman, eh?”

“Yes.”

“What kind?”

“One of the provincial police on duty in this area. He got the report from Toronto by radio and was asked to check up.”

“And you say Esther reported it?”

“Yes.”

“Funny, when you talked to her last night she wasn’t worried at all, wouldn’t hear of bringing in the police.”

Turee, too, had noticed the discrepancy but had ascribed it merely to the unpredictability of women.

Harry stood up, ran a comb through his hair, and buttoned the collar of his flannel shirt. “I ought to shave, Esther being here and all that.”

“There isn’t time.”

“Thelma wouldn’t like it if she—”

“Thelma’s not here.”

“Well, all right.”

“And Harry, listen, this Inspector, he seems pretty cagey. Watch yourself.”

“How do you mean?”

“Don’t talk too much.”

“About what?”

“About anything you and I discussed last night.”

“We discussed a lot of things last night.”

“You know what I’m referring to.”

“But I don’t. So help me, I don’t.”

“About Thelma – Ron’s having a crush on her, I mean. Don’t mention it.”

Harry blinked. “Why should I? It’s not true. I told you that last night. Thelma likes to day-dream, to pretend things. I told you that last—”

“I know you told me.”

“Well, don’t you believe it?”

“Certainly, certainly,” Turee said, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice. “But the Inspector might not. He doesn’t know Thelma the way we do. So keep quiet about it, eh?”

“You never give me any damn credit for any damn sense. You’d think I was a moron.”

“Everybody’s a moron about something.”

“Meaning?”

“No meaning, no meaning at all,” Turee said and walked out of the room with Harry following along behind, taking short, angry little steps.

Downstairs, Esther and the Inspector had apparently reached the end of their conversation. Cavell, an unlit pipe in his hand, was studying the rows of books in the bookshelves, while Esther stood with her back to the fire, watching him with silent intensity. She was smoking a cigarette, rapidly and furiously, as if she had a great many things that she wanted to say and couldn’t, and was using the cigarette as a cork to bottle them up.

Turee introduced Harry and Cavell, and then he turned and said pointedly to Esther, “You and I can wait in the game room. The Inspector might want to talk to Harry alone.”

Esther gave him a sharp look, but she made no verbal objection as he put his hand on her elbow and guided her out into the hall.

The game room, which was across the hall from the kitchen, contained ample proof that the fellows were not as enthusiastic about fishing as they were about certain other sports: a well-used poker table with ivory chips, a pin-ball machine, an elaborately carved billiard table with a dozen cues racked up on the knotty pine wall.

Esther perched on the side of the billiard table, her right leg swinging aggressively as if it wanted to kick at something or someone.

She said, “All right, let’s have it.”

“Have what?”

“The reason you spirited me away from Harry and the Inspector.”

Turee smiled. “My dear Esther, no one spirited you away. You’re too big a girl to be spirited away, for one thing.”

“Don’t go off on verbal maneuvers. Why were you so anxious to get rid of me?”

“I wasn’t anxious. I simply thought it would be polite if you and I let the Inspector talk to Harry in private.”

“Politeness. That was one reason?”

“Certainly.”

“Now what are some others?”

“Others?”

“You always have an ulterior motive, Ralph, sometimes several of them. You remind me of a set of boxes the boys used to play with when they were younger—when you open the largest one, you find a smaller one, and inside that, still a smaller one, and so on.”

“I’m not sure I follow you.”

“Every time you give me a motive for doing something, I know there’s another reason inside it, and yet another inside that one. Inside every box there’s a motive.”

“It can’t go on ad infinitum. What’s in the smallest box?”

“Your fat little ego.”

Turee’s laugh had a brittle note. “You make me sound extremely complicated.”

“Or devious.”

“I’ll make you a promise, Esther. If I ever open that last box. I’ll invite you over. Will you come?”

“With bells on,” Esther said primly. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Of course, I don’t guarantee there’ll be much of a surprise inside. Just one fat little ego.” Turee could see that she was enjoying the game; he was even beginning to enjoy it himself. “What do you suppose it’ll look like?”

“A kewpie doll. One of those tiny celluloid kewpie dolls you can buy in the dime store.”

“That’s not very flattering.”

“Oh it is, really. Compared to what I think mine would look like. Or Ron’s.”

“What about Ron’s?”

“Ron would never get to the last box. Or if he did, he’d never invite me over to see it, or anyone else. It would be strictly a private showing.”

“I wish you could think more kindly of Ron.”

“I wish I could, too,” Esther said slowly. “I happen to love him.”

MacGregor had laid a fire in the fireplace and the room by this time was so warm that the windows had steamed up. Turee had a childish impulse to go over and write his name in the steam, or print a message or draw a picture – a heart with an arrow piercing it, and underneath, ESTHER LOVES RON.

“I’m not very sensible,” Esther said in a detached manner. “I appear to be sometimes – very sensible and efficient and practical. Actually it’s all a front. I’m a fool, and the worst kind, too, the kind that knows it, that sees ahead of time all the wrong things to do and does them anyway. I fell in love with Ron the first time I met him. I knew he had a wife and child. I knew he was spoiled by too much money and a terribly foolish set of parents, I knew our backgrounds and our tastes were completely different. I went after him anyway, tooth and nail. It was easy. Ron was a perfect set-up. He still is.”

“How do you mean that?”

“If I could do it, any woman could. Or can.”

“Now, Esther, don’t go—”

“Ron is a patsy. The perfect patsy.”

“Your circumstances aren’t quite the same as Dorothy’s.”

“Oh, they’re different, all right. But are they any better?”

It was, perhaps, the opportune time to tell her everything he knew about Thelma and Ron, but Turee had neither the courage nor the desire, nor even all the facts. It seemed to him a fateful piece of irony that Esther should now find herself in the same position into which she had forced another woman a long time ago. Somebody would have to tell her. Who, he wondered, had told Dorothy?

Turee had not seen Ron’s first wife, Dorothy, for a number of years. Dorothy was a wispy blonde, the daughter of a furniture manufacturer, and as badly spoiled in her own way as Ron was in his. A confirmed hypochondriac before she was out of her teens, by the time she married, at twenty-one, she had become the prey of every quack in the city. Her infrequent outings with her husband, to concerts or plays or dinner parties, were always interrupted between acts, during intermission or before dessert, by sharp mysterious pains that sent her home, usually alone. Her one pregnancy, spent largely in bed, had resulted, to everyone’s surprise, especially Dorothy’s, in a perfectly normal girl child. The girl was raised from the beginning by a governess, so that Dorothy was left free to concentrate on her multitude of symptoms. If Ron had been, as Esther claimed, the perfect set-up, it was, without doubt, largely due to Dorothy.

The last news Turee had had of Dorothy was from Harry, who went to see her once or twice a year for old time’s sake. Harry reported that she was living in her mother’s town house on the north side, with two special nurses in attendance, a recluse before she was forty. She had confided to Harry, whom she had always liked, perhaps because of his interest in drugs and medicines, that she was suffering from an obscure malady of the bloodstream and would not last the year. She invited Harry to attend her funeral and Harry, ever one to oblige, had accepted the invitation.

Dorothy and Esther – they were poles apart, and Turee wondered how Ron could have married them both. Perhaps Dorothy’s frailty had made him feel more masculine, but after a liberal dose of that, he married Esther as an antidote, someone he could lean on.

Esther said suddenly, “Would you like to play a game of billiards?”

“Not much.”

“Nor I, really. I just thought it would help pass the time. I guess I shouldn’t have come up here. There’s nothing I can do, is there?”

“Now that the police are in charge we’d better let them handle everything. A bunch of amateurs milling around won’t help.”

“Ah, yes, the jolly old police.”

“Come here a minute.” Turee took his handkerchief and rubbed some of the steam off one of the windows. Outside, the younger policeman, Newbridge, was examining the tire-tracks on the driveway. “Look out there.”

Esther looked. “Well?”

“The police know what they’re doing.”

“Do they?’ She turned from the window. “They can examine all the tire-tracks to hell and back, but they’re not going to find Ron that way.”

“All right, be cynical,” Turee said. “At least you had sense enough to call them in.”

“That was sense?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe you’re right. But it wasn’t mine.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t call the police,” Esther said. “I didn’t call anyone.”

Chapter 7

The instant she put down the phone she knew she’d done something foolish. Not the call itself, that was necessary, but claiming to be Mrs. Galloway – that was the mistake. And yet, while she was talking, it had seemed so natural to pretend to be Ron’s wife. “This is Mrs. Ronald Galloway’ – the sound of it was exactly right.

After the phone call she went back upstairs to bed and to sleep, but in less than an hour she was awakened again by a bad dream. She could not remember the details of the dream, only that they had all been caught in a great flood, she and Ron and the baby and Harry, and they were being swept, screaming, out to sea. She awoke with the scream on her lips.

Her first thought was not of Ron or of Harry, but of the baby growing inside her. She pressed one hand gently to her stomach to calm the child in case it had been disturbed by the dream. Staring wide-eyed up at the ceiling, she tried to imagine through her fingertips the child’s contours, the tiny head, the curved neck, the curled-up little body. Thelma had worked in a doctor’s office before she married Harry, and she knew quite well that the fetus at this early stage was quite hideous and bore almost no resemblance to a human baby. But when she pictured her own baby in her mind, it was beautiful, and perfectly formed and proportioned, like a tiny doll.

She kept her hand pressed to her stomach, until she was satisfied that she’d felt a very faint movement, then she swung her feet over the side of the bed and stood up. Almost immediately a wave of nausea flooded over her. She opened her mouth and breathed deeply, watching herself in the bureau mirror and thinking how funny she looked and how glad she was that Harry wasn’t there to see her, or to ask questions or give advice.

Throughout most of her life Thelma had suffered from a nagging self-consciousness about her appearance. She knew she was not pretty, and now that she was beginning to gain weight she looked almost dumpy. But Harry’s unlimited devotion had given her both self-confidence and a sense of herself as a woman, so that the overall impression she presented was one of graciousness and femininity. Her friends spoke of her as “attractive,” a term intended to obscure some of nature’s mistakes. What justified the term in Thelma’s case was the quality of her expression, which was warm and friendly and humorous. Children passing on the street smiled at her spontaneously, clerks in stores usually gave her special attention, and strangers she met at bus-stops confided in her the most intimate details of their lives, mainly because Thelma looked at them as if she were really interested. Occasionally she was. But most of the time her expression was automatic and had nothing to do with how or what she was feeling. Turee called it “Thelma’s wan smile”, Harry called it her “sweet look”, Ron had never noticed it.

When the nausea had passed, Thelma put on her Sunday house-coat and combed her long hair carefully and tied it back with a ribbon to match the house-coat. Her eyes were still swollen from last night’s weeping, and the lids were transparent and tinged with purple like the skin of an onion. She bathed them in cold water and applied witch-hazel pads before going out to the back veranda to pick up the milk and the Sunday paper.

It was a beautiful spring day, alive with promises. Her neighbor, a widow named Mrs. Malverson, was already out in the garden cultivating her daffodil bed, which had just come into bloom.

“Hi there, Thelma.”

“Good morning, Mrs. Malverson.”

“This is a day, isn’t it? Isn’t this a day, though?”

“It’s lovely, yes.”

“You don’t look so good, dear.”

“I’m fine.” A minute ago it had been true, but now the stab of the sharp sunlight hurt her eyes and its warmth made her feel feverish. She hugged the cold milk-bottle to her breast.

“I bet you’re tired this morning. I saw your lights on till all hours last night.”

That snoop, Thelma thought, that nasty old snoop. But she couldn’t have seen Ron here – she always goes to the movies on Saturday night. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Couldn’t sleep, my land, you should have asked your husband for some pills. The ones he gave me last month for my neuralgia, they were a real blessing.”

“My husband went up north, fishing.”

“Did he now? Well, he couldn’t have picked nicer weather. I suppose you’ve noticed my daffodils?”

“You showed them to me yesterday.”

“Mulching, that’s the secret. You and your husband should start a compost heap. How long’s he going to be away?”

“I’m not sure.”

Mrs. Malverson pushed back her straw gardening-hat and wiped the perspiration off her forehead with her canvas glove. The gesture left a streak of dirt. “I’ll tell you what. Let’s go to church.”

“No, thank you just the same. I don’t feel—”

“You should come and get better acquainted at our little church. Today we’re having a very special service. Our leader is going to read the flowers.”

“Read the flowers?”

Mrs. Malverson threw back her head and laughed. “Spoken like a true unbeliever, curl of the lip and all. Well, I don’t mind. I was an unbeliever once myself. I said those very words exactly the way you just said them. Read the flowers? I said, just like that. Nevertheless, that’s what our leader does, he reads the flowers that we bring, and in every flower there is a message from someone dear to us who is far away.”

Thelma stood nervous and indecisive, still clutching the Sunday paper and the milk-bottle, which was beginning to weigh a ton. Yet she could not seem to drag herself away. Mrs. Malverson’s tongue and eye held her as securely as a lepidopterist’s pin holds a moth.

“Thelma,” Mrs. Malverson said softly. “You’ve changed. What’s happened to you?”

“Nothing.”

“I see such sorrow in you lately. Have you lost touch with someone dear to you?”

Thelma stared at her, pale and silent.

“Ah, that’s it. You’ve lost touch with someone dear to you and now you want a message, don’t you? Yes, I can see you badly want a message. Well, that’s easy. Come to church with me and bring a flower to be read.”

“No, I really—”

“Fresh, the flower must be fresh, and if you bring its root too, smelling of God’s earth, so much the better. Often the messages are stronger when the root is attached. This person you want a message from, is it a woman?”

“No.”

“A man, then. A man you have lost touch with. No, Thelma, I’m not prying. I only need to find out one other detail, for the color of the flower you bring will depend on it.’

“Color?”

“The color’s important. If he is alive, you will take a red flower, bright as blood. If he is what you call dead—we hate to use that term, it’s so misleading—but if he is dead, you will take a white flower.”

Thelma closed her eyes and began to sway. She could feel the milk-bottle slipping out of her hands, she could hear the crash of glass and Mrs. Malverson’s cry of dismay, but she was powerless to respond. If he is what you call dead – we hate to use that term – dead…

“My goodness, I hope I didn’t say anything to upset you.” Mrs. Malverson lifted her skirt, stepped over the tiny boxwood hedge that divided the two properties, crossed the driveway, and started up the steps of Thelma’s back veranda. “Here, let me help you clean up that mess.”

“No!”

“Well, it’s the least I can do, seeing I—”

“Go away. Just go away.”

“Well, my goodness, you fly off the handle at anything these days. A body might think you were pregnant.”

“Shut up and leave me alone!”

“Well. Well,” Mrs. Malverson said, and retreated to her own yard, her straw hat bouncing angrily as she moved. This was the thanks you got for trying to bring a little joy into someone’s life.

Ignoring the mess on the veranda, Thelma went back into the house and sat down at the kitchen table. A pair of curious houseflies chased each other in and out of the open window and Thelma watched them, thinking, Harry must put on the screens this week…

She had been doing this quite often lately, considering the future as if it were going to be a repetition of the present, thinking of little things that should be done around the house or yard, making tentative plans for the Decoration Day weekend. She knew better. She knew that Harry and she weren’t going to live in this house any longer; whoever put the screens on for the summer, it would not be Harry. She knew, too, that there were other, greater changes waiting for her around the next corner of time. She could not avoid this corner, every tick of the clock brought her inexorably closer to it, no matter how tenaciously a part of her mind tried to stay on a secure day-today basis.

Harry will…

No, Harry will not, she thought. I must get used to the idea that we won’t be here. Some stranger will be putting on the screens, at the request of his wife, also a stranger. They will live in our house, these two strangers, and pretty soon it will be theirs entirely. Well, I mustn’t get sentimental about it. I’ve never liked the place much. It’s the same as thousands of other houses in Ontario, a square red-brick box. I want to live in a house without stairs, a climate without winter.

The telephone began to ring in the dining-room. She was sure it was Harry calling, but she was not sure enough to keep from answering it.

“Hello?”

“Thelma, is that you, honey?”

“Yes.”

“Are you feeling all right again?”

“Yes.”

“Listen, dear, I’m phoning from Wiarton. Ron hasn’t shown up yet. I don’t suppose you’ve had any news at that end?”

“No.”

“Well, don’t worry, everything will turn out right.”

“Will it?’ Thelma said, and hung up.

A minute later the phone began ringing again. Thelma turned her back on it. As she walked towards the kitchen she counted each ring deliberately, like a defiant child counting the number of times she is called to supper: ‘Thelma. Thelma? Thelma! Thelma—”

Long after the final ring, the sharp shrill sound kept echoing in her ears, stirring up memories.

“Thelma? You hear me, Thelma.”

Oh yes, Aunt May, I hear you. Everyone in the city can hear you.

“You come in this house right away and finish up these dishes.’

No, Aunt May.

“Hiding again, aren’t you, pretending you don’t hear me? Well, you don’t fool me, Thelma!”

I can fool you any time.

“Sneaky, that’s what you are, a born sneak. If you don’t march right in this house, I’m gonna write your ma and tell her I can’t look after you. The Lord knows you’re eating me out of house and home, and not a penny does she send for your keep. We’ll all end up in the poor-house, how would you like that, Miss Royalty too good to do dishes?”

If you end up in the poor-house I’ll come and visit you dressed in mink and diamonds.

“Thelma Schaefer, where are you hiding?”

Under the porch. You could reach out and touch me. Do. I’ll bite.

“That no-good sister of mine, what else would you expect from her but a no-good child? You answer me, you hear?”

Aunt May had been dead for years, but every shrill sound reminded Thelma of her, an alarm clock, a telephone, a doorbell, each was the voice of authority, the call to duty: Come in and do the dishes. Get up and go to work. Answer the phone and talk to Harry.

The child hiding under the porch was imprisoned for ever within Thelma. Aunt May’s voice still soured the sweetest melody, and the bile green of her nature had colored the universe.

Thelma began to make breakfast, moving around the kitchen with a kind of grim efficiency, as if she had in some way been challenged to prove her worth.

Aunt May was wrong, she thought. I won’t end up in the poor-house. There’s Ron’s money, a lot of money. My baby will have security and love. There’ll be no Aunt May for him, no poverty, no fear. He’ll have a house without stairs, a climate without winter, no running nose for him from fall to spring like the kids around here. He’ll have the best care, the best clothes, the best schools…

She ate her breakfast as if in a dream, not enjoying it, not even tasting it, eating only for the sake of the baby which needed nourishment. After she had finished, she took her coffee into the parlor at the front of the house.

The room was cool and dark, the shades still drawn from the previous night when she had waited there listening for the sound of Ron’s car on the driveway. It was spring now, but the parlor still smelled of winter, of the long weeks of unopened windows and artificial heat, a close dusty smell which, even into autumn, never quite disappeared.

Thelma pulled up the shades and opened two of the windows. Summer sounds drifted in, the children from down the street fighting over a bicycle, the whirr of roller-skates, the pounding of a hammer. The young married man who lived across the road was busy removing his storm windows while his wife watched him with great pride as if he were performing some unusual feat. The sun had drawn everyone out of doors like a magnet, but because the spring was new and people were still a little self-conscious about being outside, idle, and bare-armed and bare-headed, they had to find excuses to stay out. Cars were being washed, screens painted, babies walked, lawns rolled, gossip exchanged.

And Thelma, watching, thought, I wonder how much each of them knows about me. When it all comes out in the papers—and it will, I must face that fact—when they find out, will they be surprised, or will they claim they suspected it all along because they’d often seen Ron’s car here?

The telephone in the dining-room began to ring again. She was positive this time that it was Harry, and she would have let the call go unanswered, except for the fact that the front windows were now open and the people across the street could hear the phone ringing quite plainly. They knew she was at home, they’d seen her at the window, and they would wonder why she didn’t answer. It was the kind of neighborhood, the kind of country, where little things like that didn’t go unnoticed.

She hurried into the dining-room and picked up the receiver, annoyed by Harry’s persistence. “Hello.”

“Is this the Bream residence?”

“Yes.”

The woman’s voice was low and soft, and self-consciously cultured. “Is Mr. Bream at home?”

“No. I’m his wife, Thelma Bream.”

“This is Joyce Reynold calling, Mrs. Bream. You may recall we met two or three years ago, and of course I’ve known Harry for a long time. He’s been very kind to my poor daughter, Dorothy. Do you expect him home soon?”

“I’m afraid not. But if there’s anything I can do—“

“Sweet of you, my dear, but I’m not sure, I’m simply not sure. A very perplexing thing has happened. It happened last night, actually, but it seemed too late to call Harry, and besides I wasn’t sure what I was expected to do. I’m still not. You didn’t receive a rather peculiar call from Ron Galloway last night?”

“No.” Thelma took a deep breath. “How do you mean, peculiar?”

“Confused. Rambling. Those are Dorothy’s words. You see, the call wasn’t to me, but to Dorothy. I was tucking her in bed for the night when the telephone rang and it was Ron wanting to talk to Dorothy. We haven’t heard from him in years, and I assumed it must be important, so I allowed Dorothy to talk to him. She’d had a good day and was feeling stronger than usual, and I like to let her have a bit of excitement when I’m certain no harm will come of it. I was wrong, of course. I should have realized the man was drunk or out of his mind. Dorothy’s been in a frightful state ever since.”

“How does Harry come into it, Mrs. Reynold?”

“He mentioned Harry several times, something about making amends and regretting what he’d done to Harry. Now obviously that doesn’t make sense, does it? Ron would never do anything to Harry; the two have been thick as thieves ever since they were children. And why, after all these years, should Ron suddenly call Dorothy and get maudlin about his treatment of her?”

“I don’t – know.”

“The poor child has suffered enough. I thought perhaps if Harry were there and could come and talk to her it might calm her down a bit. She’s always been fond of Harry, and she seems to think, from Ron’s conversation, that Ron wanted her to see Harry.”

“Why?”

“He seemed to believe he’d done something terrible. Has he?”

“No.” The word was sharp and final.

“Have you seen him recently?”

“Yes.”

“Did he seem quite normal to you?”

“Yes. Quite normal.”

“How very puzzling. Surely a normal man doesn’t suddenly call up a former wife he hasn’t seen in years and tell her he wants to apologize before he leaves.”

“Leaves?”

“He said he was going away. And when Dorothy asked him where, he said he couldn’t tell her, it was an undiscovered country. According to Dorothy, it sounded as if he was quoting a line of poetry.”

Thelma leaned back and closed her eyes. The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.

“Mrs. Bream? Are you still there?”

“Yes.” A reluctant whisper. When Aunt May called, Thelma could hide and pretend she hadn’t heard. But this time there was no place to hide. “Yes, Mrs. Reynold, I’m here.”

“Did Ron say anything to you or Harry about taking a trip?”

“No.”

“I’m perplexed, I truly am. How inconsiderate of Ron to annoy people like this, and I shall tell him so the first chance I get. As a matter of fact, I tried to call his house a little while ago but no one answered. Do you suppose he’s already left?”

“I don’t know.”

“Undiscovered country,” Mrs. Reynold said. “Undiscovered country, indeed.”

“I must – I must go now, Mrs. Reynold.”

“Of course. I’m sorry to have taken up so much of your time. And I do hope I haven’t upset you in any way.”

“I’ll – I’ll give Harry your message when he comes home.”

“Thank you, child. I’m sure Harry will know what to do.”

“Good-bye.”

When she’d put down the telephone, she wiped her right hand carefully with a handkerchief, as if she had touched something dirty and been contaminated. Then she rose and groped her way to the stairs. The child in her womb felt as heavy as stone.

She reached her room, exhausted, and fell across the bed on her stomach with her arms outstretched. High school. The smell of books and dust, and oiled wood floors. Memory work today, class. It’s your turn, Thelma. We had the first part of the soliloquy last week. No need to repeat. Start with “For who would bear—” Quiet, class, while Thelma recites.

“For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely.

The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay.

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes.

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear.

To grunt and sweat under a weary life—”

Go on, Thelma.

No, I can’t. I don’t remember!

Go on, Thelma.

“… But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country from whose bourn

No traveler returns…”

Such beautiful language, the teacher said. Lovely, lovely. But do put a little more feeling into it, Thelma.

Chapter 8

It was ten o’clock, Sunday morning, and a woman unknown to any of the principals in the case was getting ready to go to church. Her name was Celia Roy, she lived alone on the outskirts of the small town of Thornbury on Georgian Bay; she was a widow with a pension and two married daughters and no hope of much more in this life.

She was the kind of woman to whom nothing extraordinary had ever happened. True, she’d seen people die, babies born, mistakes committed, tragedies enacted, sacrifices made, but this was all run-of-the-mill stuff to Celia. What she dreamed of, in her declining years, was winning a new car on a radio quiz program, or an all-expense trip to Hollywood in a slogan contest, or a thousand dollars for submitting the best recipe. She would have settled for a really good night at the church bingo on Thursday, but even that hadn’t happened.

She put on her hat in front of the sideboard mirror. She’d worn the hat for three years and could have put it on properly in pitch darkness, but she stood in front of the mirror out of habit, not really seeing either the hat or herself under it. Her hands were trembling with excitement and fear. It was the Sabbath, she was on her way to church, and she’d done something wrong, perhaps quite wrong. What was more, she had no intention of telling anyone about it. The dog was dead. She’d buried him herself in the dark of night, and no one knew a thing about it.

She heard her daughter Mabel’s old Ford wheeze up in front of the house and cough to a stop. Each time Celia heard this noise she expected it to be the car’s last—it sounded exactly like old Mr. Thurston’s death rattle—but each time, under Mabel’s expert pumping and pounding and shouting, the car would miraculously come to life in every joint and pulsate vigorously as if to deny all charges of age and infirmity.

Mabel bounded in through the front door. She was a lively young woman with a hearty laugh and a quick temper and little or no patience with people who slunk, as she called it, through life.

“Hi. Ready, Mom?”

“Just about,” Celia said. “I look a fright. It’s this hat. It’s getting out of shape.”

“Who isn’t?’ Mabel said cheerfully. “I told you to get a new one for Easter.”

“And what to use for money?”

“Speaking of money, I don’t have a cent for the collection plate. John didn’t get his check, this is the third time in a row it’s been late.” She saw her mother’s handbag lying on the wicker jardinière and picked it up. “Mind if I borrow a quarter?”

Celia had turned quite white. “Stop. Wait.”

“What’s the matter with you?”

“I… I don’t like other people opening my handbag.”

“You never objected before.”

“Well, I am now. Give it here.”

“Honestly, honestly, you’d think I was trying to steal from you or something.”

“I want none of your lip. Give me that handbag.”

“I just don’t like your attitude, like I was a thief or something. What’s wrong with you anyway? You’re shaking like a leaf.”

“You show some respect, girl. Now give me—”

“All right. Here’s your old handbag. Catch.”

Celia’s reflexes were no longer quick enough to respond to the unexpected, and the handbag landed at her feet, the clasp open, the contents strewn on the hooked rug: a lace handkerchief, a pencil, a tarnished silver compact, a creased snapshot of Mabel’s two children, a worn calfskin change purse, a prayer-book, a postcard, an alligator wallet.

“Gee, I’m sorry,” Mabel said. “Honestly, I thought you’d catch it. Here, I’ll pick everything up for you.”

But Celia was already on her knees, scooping up her things and stuffing them back into her purse with fierce determination.

“Mom.”

“Fresh. That’s what you are. Fresh.”

“I didn’t know you had a wallet, Mom.”

“There’s lots you don’t know, including how to behave to your elders.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Someone gave it to me. As a gift.”

“It looks like genuine alligator.”

“So?”

“Mom. It don’t make sense. Who would give you a genuine alligator wallet?”

“A man, a very rich man.” Celia rose, clutching her handbag to her chest. “Now that’s all I can tell you. The rest is my business, and my business alone.”

“You don’t know any very rich man.”

“I do, too.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“On the road, just outside.”

“Mom.”

“It’s the truth, so help me. I met him on the road. And he just came up and tipped his hat and said, ‘Madam, I’m a very rich man, here is my genuine alligator wallet.’ ”

“Mom.”

“Stop saying Mom like that.”

“Well, it don’t make sense.”

“What’s more,” Celia said loftily, “you use bad grammar. That’s what comes of marrying beneath you. Well, I warned you. I said, he’s a common laborer, he’ll drag you down with him and you with a high school education—”

“Don’t change the subject, Mom. I want to hear more about the very rich man. He intrigues me.”

“And don’t get ironical-sounding either. It so happens I’m telling the truth and I don’t expect my own child to be ironical-sounding to me.”

“What are you going to do when other people notice the wallet, tell them the same story you told me?”

“Nobody else is going to notice it.”

“How come?”

“I’m going to get rid of it, that’s how come.”

“Get rid of it! Mom, are you losing your mind? Someone gives you a genuine alligator wallet and now you say you’re going to get rid of it. It’s worth, well, ten dollars at least. And now you say you’re going—”

“Stop it. Stop pestering me.”

“But it just don’t make sense, Mom. A real genuine alligator wallet and you want to get rid of it, I never heard anything so crazy.”

They stared at each other across the room, Celia pale and grim, and her daughter red-faced and bewildered.

“I’ll keep the money,” Celia said finally.

“What money?”

“There’s money in it.”

“How much?”

“Nearly a hundred dollars.”

“A hundred dollars?”

“Not quite. Nearly.” Celia clung to the word as if it somehow provided a saving grace.

“Mom. Where did you get it?”

“I told you. The man gave it to me.”

“When?”

“Last night.”

“Why?”

“For Laddie. To pay for Laddie.”

“What’s Laddie got to do with it?”

“Don’t you shout at me! I haven’t done anything wrong!”

“Something happened to Laddie?”

“Yes.”

“He’s dead?”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t even sound sorry. Your own dog.”

“I am sorry! Only it wasn’t my fault, he ran out in the road. He couldn’t see very well anyway any more, and the car was speeding.”

“What car?”

“One of those sporty-kinds without a roof.”

“A convertible.”

“I guess so. There was a man driving. He had on one of those fancy plaid caps people wear sometimes in the movies. He knew right away he’d hit Laddie. I guess he must have heard me scream too. He slowed up and yelled a word back at me, it sounded like ‘Sorry.’ Then he threw something out of the car. At first I didn’t know what it was.”

“But you found out quick enough, eh?”

“I don’t like your tone. It’s not respectful.”

“Stop bothering about tones and get back to facts. What happened then?”

“The car went on. Laddie was lying by the side of the road. I picked him up and I could tell right away he was dead. So I buried him myself, in the backyard.”

“And kept the wallet.”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

Mabel shook her head. “It just don’t sound right to me. It sounds sneaky, if you want the truth.”

“The money’s mine. It was given me fair and square, in just payment for my dog. Laddie was a very valuable dog.”

“He was a half-blind ten-year-old mongrel and you know it.”

“Even so.”

“Mom, last night when it happened, why didn’t you call me?”

“Why didn’t I? This is why, all this questioning.”

“I’m only trying to get things straightened out so we can decide what to do.”

“I’ve already decided. I’ll get rid of the wallet so nosy people won’t see it and ask nosy questions. And I’ll keep the money because it’s mine, given me fair and square.”

“How do you know?”

Celia pursed her lips. “How do I know what?”

“The man driving the car, he might have thrown the money out on purpose to keep you quiet, so you wouldn’t tell anyone you saw him.”

“Why should he do that?”

“Maybe he was a criminal escaping from the scene of a crime.”

Celia was shaken but refused to admit it. “Oh, nonsense.”

“He hit Laddie and didn’t stop to leave his name or to see if he could help. That’s hit-and-run driving, right there. That’s a crime in itself.” Mabel’s imagination was like her car: once it started to move, it moved all over, in every joint and with a great deal of noise. “How do you know he wasn’t a bank robber escaping with his loot?”

“The banks,” Celia pointed out, “are closed on Saturdays.”

“Or a murderer. How do you know he won’t come back?”

“Why would he come back?”

“To make sure your lips are sealed.”

“Oh, my goodness.” Celia sat down abruptly in a wicker chair and began fanning herself with a handkerchief. “I’m not well. I feel – I feel faint.”

“I’ll fetch you a glass of water. Wait there.”

The water was administered, and with it, since nothing else was readily available, a chunk of Mabel’s horehound. Mabel sang soprano in the choir and used horehound as a ladder to some of the higher notes.

“Are you feeling better, Mom?”

“No thanks to you I’m not dead,” Celia said bitterly. “Giving me a fright like that, at my age.”

“I was only trying to make you see reason.”

“Reason, is it, to throw away nearly a hundred dollars. If that’s reason, I want to be crazy, thank you.”

“All I’m asking you to do is to tell someone about what happened.”

“Such as who?”

“The Reverend Wilton might know what to do.”

“Over my dead body,” Celia said. “He and I don’t see eye to eye on too many things as it is.”

“The constable, then, Mr. Leachman.”

“Mr. Leachman has fits.”

“Now, what has that got—?”

“His own sister told me. He has fits. He even,” Celia added with an air of triumph, “foams at the mouth.”

Mabel’s face was so red it seemed ready to burst its skin like an over-ripe tomato. “Will you stop changing the subject?”

“I didn’t change the subject. You brought up Mr. Leachman and I merely pointed out that he has fits. Bad ones.”

“That’s simple gossip.”

“Gossip, is it? How is it that when you find out something interesting about a person you get information, and I merely get gossip.”

“Put your coat on, Mom. We’ll be late for church.”

“I don’t feel like going to church.”

“Maybe you don’t feel like it, but you need it; I think maybe I do too. And after church we’ll go see Mr. Leachman. And I don’t care if he’s foaming like a bubble bath, you’re going to tell him what happened and show him the wallet and describe the man in the car.”

“I didn’t see him very well, only by the street light.”

“The wallet had a name in it?”

“Yes. Galloway. Ronald Gerard Galloway.”

“Sounds phoney to me,” Mabel said. “Come on, let’s get going.”

Chapter 9

The news that Ron Galloway had been seen alive at Thornbury at approximately ten o’clock Saturday night was relayed to Esther late on Sunday afternoon.

She had just returned home from the lodge and was having early tea with the two boys in their playroom on the second floor. The boys were on their worst behavior. Sensing Esther’s remoteness and preoccupation, they were using every trick in the book to draw her back into immediacy and re-focus her attention on them. Food was thrown, epithets exchanged, tears shed. Through it all Esther tried to remain firm and kindly, but the cumulative strain of the past twenty-four hours proved too much for her, and she herself had almost reached the point of tears when Annie came in to announce that Mr. Bream was waiting for her in the library.

“I told you I wasn’t at home,” Esther said sharply, in a transfer of anger. “To anyone.”

“I couldn’t help it, Mrs. Galloway. He said he had some very important news. And anyway, it’s Mr. Bream.” She inflected the name to give it special importance, partly to excuse her disobedience of orders and partly because she liked Harry. He treated her with respect.

“All right. Take over these hellions. I can’t do a thing with them.”

Annie gave her a superior you-never-could glance which Esther pretended not to notice. Esther was well aware that Annie had more power over her than she had over Annie. The balance of power lay in the boys, and Annie handled them with the ease and poise of a skilled animal-trainer who realizes the exact limitations of her beasts and expects no more from them than what they can give.

“They’re really quite good boys,” Annie said firmly.

“Yes, of course they are.”

Harry was waiting for her in the library. Even before she entered the room she could hear him pacing up and down as if he were angry.

Esther said, “Annie tells me you have news.”

“Of a kind.”

“Is it about Ron?”

“Some of it is.”

“Don’t talk in riddles, Harry. This isn’t the time or place.”

“I can’t help that. It is a riddle. Everything is.” His hair and clothing were disheveled and his face feverish-red, as if he’d just been battling a high wind. He was rather a short man, but he usually held himself straight and tall so that people seldom thought of him as short. Yet during the afternoon he seemed to have shrunk by inches, his shoulders sagged, his neck was bent, and he looked small and wizened and old.

Perhaps I’ve changed just as much as Harry has, Esther thought, and she was grateful that there was no mirror in the room to tell her so.

“It’s bad news, of course,” she said, sounding very detached. “No. No, it’s not. Not about Ron, anyway.”

“Tell me.”

“Some woman saw him last night in a little town called Thornbury, about ten o’clock. He ran over her dog.”

“He what?”

“Ran over her dog and killed it. He slowed down, saw what he’d done and threw some money out of the car to pay for the dog. The woman described the car, and Ron, the cap he was wearing and so on. It was Ron, all right.”

“How can you be sure?”

“There were all kinds of identification in his wallet. I guess he didn’t have time to take the money from his wallet so he just threw out money, wallet and everything. It was one of those impulsive things Ron does without thinking.”

“Without thinking? Oh no. He thought, all right. He thought, as usual, that money will pay for anything.”

“Now look, Es, I might have done the same thing myself if I’d been in a terrible hurry.”

“Why should he be in a terrible hurry?”

“I don’t know. I just say maybe he was.”

“And that’s why he didn’t stop the car, because he was in this terrible hurry?”

Harry hesitated. “He could have been scared, too.”

“That’s better. That sounds much more like Ron. He makes a mistake and runs away, throws money out of cars instead of stopping. Oh, it must have been Ron, all right. Even if there hadn’t been any identification in the wallet, I’d know it was Ron. Will he ever grow up? Will he ever just once stand and face things?”

“Now, Es, don’t start—“

“Where’s Thornbury?”

“Well, it’s about halfway between Collingwood and Owen Sound. You pass through it on the way to the lodge. You must have seen it today.”

“I didn’t notice.” She let out a long deep sigh, as if she’d been holding her breath, waiting for an attack. “And that’s all the news?”

“Yes.”

“It’s worse than none.”

“I don’t see how you figure that.”

She turned away so that when she spoke again she seemed to be addressing the window. “All this time, right up until now. I’ve been thinking that Ron went away deliberately to avoid me. Perhaps he drove to Detroit, I thought, and after wrestling with his conscience for a while he will call me and tell me where he is and everything will be all right again. Or as close to all right as it ever has been. That’s what I’ve been thinking, that he did something wrong and couldn’t bear to face me and ran away.”

“That’s quite possible.”

“No, it isn’t. Not now. If he wanted to run away he wouldn’t run to the one place in the world where I’d look for him first. If he was seen in Thornbury, that means he was on his way to the lodge, or had been there and was coming back. In which direction was he going when he went through Thornbury?”

“I never thought to ask. There actually wasn’t time. The Inspector returned to the lodge right after you left for home and told me about the Thornbury business. I thought you’d want to know right away so I drove down here.”

“You could have phoned.”

“I wanted an excuse to leave anyway.”

“Why?”

“I’d been trying to get in touch with Thelma. I got through to her once but she hung up on me. I tried again several times after that, the phone kept ringing all right. But no one answered. I know the reason, now.”

His tone was so peculiar that she turned to stare at him. “What’s the matter, Harry?”

“She’s left me,” Harry said, and began suddenly and silently to cry. He covered his face with his hands in an effort to hide his tears but they dribbled out between his fingers and down his wrists into his shirt-cuffs.

Esther had never seen a grown man cry before, and the shock of it temporarily immobilized her. She couldn’t speak, and her only thought at first was that Harry needed a handkerchief, somebody should give poor Harry a handkerchief, he was getting his shirt wet.

When she finally found her voice it fitted her strangely, it was so tight and small. “Harry? I’ll make you a drink, eh, Harry?’

“No. I’ll be – all right. Give me – a minute.”

She turned back to the window. She had looked out of this window a thousand times and she still had the same impression, that somewhere, beyond the circling driveway, the high hedges and the iron gates, life was going on without her and she hadn’t been invited to the party. Sometimes, over the high hedge, she fancied she could hear the strains of distant music and between the iron rails could catch a glimpse of couples dancing.

“I went home,” Harry said. “She wasn’t there. Just a letter on the kitchen table saying – saying she’d left me.”

“Did she give a reason?”

“Not anything I could understand. She wanted a chance to think things over, she said. I can’t believe it. We were so happy.” He stumbled over the word and picked himself up again. “Everybody knows how happy we were. I can’t understand. What’s she got to think over?”

“Perhaps quite a bit.”

“But what?”

“It’s an interesting coincidence, don’t you think? Now they’re both gone, Ron and Thelma.”

“You’re not implying they went off together?”

“Maybe you and I have been pretty stupid about the whole thing.”

“They’re not together,” Harry said sharply. “I know where Thelma is. She said in her letter she was going to stay for a while with a cousin of hers over on Eglington Avenue. She asked me not to try to get in touch with her. I did, though. I called Marian, that’s her cousin, and Marian said she was there all right, but didn’t want to talk to me just yet.”

“Cousins,” Esther said dryly, “have been known to lie.”

“Not Marian. She and Thelma aren’t that close, for one thing.”

“I never heard Thelma mention a cousin in town.”

“I just told you, they’re not very close. Lunch together downtown twice a year, that sort of thing. Marian’s never even been to visit us at the house.”

“Then why should Thelma go to stay with her now?”

“She had no place else to go, I guess.” He sounded as if he were going to start crying again, but he didn’t. Instead, he swallowed hard several times before he resumed speaking. “She must have been desperate, to decide to go to Marian’s. She doesn’t even like her. She must have been desperate. Poor Thelma.”

Esther turned abruptly from the window, her fists clenched tight against her sides. “Poor Thelma. I’m getting bloody sick of the poor Ron, poor Thelma routine. I’d like to hear a little more about poor Harry and poor Esther!”

“No, Es. Don’t. Don’t be harsh.”

“It’s time I was harsh.”

“It’s never time, if you love somebody. I don’t know what Thelma’s problem is. All I know is that she’s in trouble and I want to help her.”

“Suppose you can’t.”

“I’ve got to,” Harry said with quiet firmness. “She’s my wife. She needs me. I would do anything in the world to help her.” Esther knew it was true. She stood, pale and motionless, thinking that if Ron ever said that about her she would be the happiest woman in the country. She would feel that at last she’d been invited to the party and the music was no longer distant but in the same room, and the couple dancing to its strains was herself and Ron.

“I wish I had your faith, Harry,” she said finally.

“I wasn’t born with it. I built it up brick by brick, until now it’s so high I can’t see over it.”

“You don’t want to see over it anyway.”

“Thelma has done nothing shameful,” Harry said. “Whatever your suspicions are about her and Ron, they’re wrong, believe me.”

“I’d like to.”

“Read her letter.”

He took the letter out of his coat pocket and handed it to her, but she drew away. “No, I don’t want to. It’s private.”

“Thelma wouldn’t object.”

“I don’t want to,” she repeated, but even while she was speaking her eyes were seeking out the words on the paper, written in green ink in a highly stylized backhand. The effect of style was ruined by some misspellings, several clumsy erasures, and one place where the ink was blurred as if by a teardrop.

DEAR HARRY,

I have gone to stay with Marian for a time. It is so hard to explain to you, I feel so terribly mixed up, and I thought if I went away by myself to think things over it would be better for all of us including you. It is hard for me to figure out the right answers when I am so emotionally upset like this. I can’t talk to you just yet, so please don’t call me or try to get in touch with me. Please, I mean it Harry. If Mrs. Malverson or any of the neighbors wonder why I’m not there just tell them I’ve gone to visit with a cousin, which is the truth anyway.

I know you are wondering what’s the matter with me, have I lost my mind or something. Well, I don’t think so but right now I’m not sure of anything except that I must go away and figure things out without having to think of other people or feel sorry for anyone. The past is all very well but it’s the future I’ve got to live in. I must find the right course and stick to it.

Please try to be patient with me, Harry. I’ll get in touch with you as soon as I feel that I can talk sensibly and without breaking down. By the way, Marian knows nothing, so please don’t try and pump her. I told her you and I had had a little spat.

THELMA.

PS. – Mrs. Reynold called this morning and said Dorothy Galloway wants to see you as soon as possible about Ron.

Esther almost dropped the letter in her amazement. “Mrs. Reynold. Why on earth should she call you?”

“I’ve no idea. I hardly know the woman. As for Dorothy, well, I go to see her now and then, but God knows we never talk about Ron. If his name were mentioned she’d stage a heart attack.”

“Do you think it’s possible she’s heard something about Ron that we haven’t?”

“How?”

“By mistake, perhaps. She’s still Mrs. Galloway; a message could have been sent to her by mistake, instead of to me.” The idea excited her, splashed color into her cheeks. “Isn’t that reasonable?”

“I guess it is.”

“You must go and find out, Harry.”

Harry sagged against the desk, his head bowed. “Not now.”

“You’ve got to.”

“I can’t face anyone right now.”

“You’re facing me.”

“That’s because we’re both in the same spot.”

“Not quite,” she replied sharply. “You know where your wife is, you know she’s alive and well. So we’re not quite in the same spot, are we?”

He raised his head, slowly and with effort, as if it had turned to stone. Their eyes met, but he didn’t speak.

“Harry. I need your help. You’ll go and see Dorothy?”

“All right.”

“Now?”

“Now,” he said wearily.

Chapter 10

He reached out and switched on the radio in his car. The six o’clock news broadcast was just beginning. Trouble in Israel. A train wreck in California. Stock market still going up. A warehouse on fire near the waterfront. A plane crash outside Denver. No mention of Ron’s disappearance. Probably because it’s Sunday, Harry thought. This whole damn city goes dead on Sundays. Maybe Thelma’s right and we ought to move to the States. I’ll call her and tell her – no, she said to wait. I must be patient.

He turned north on Avenue Road and west on Grant, and about two miles from the intersection he came to what Dorothy’s mother called her town house.

The neighborhood was beginning to crumble around it but the house itself remained intact, as impervious as a stone fortress with its three-storied turrets and barred windows. A medieval castle, Harry thought as he parked his car in the driveway. And inside the castle awaits the princess in her tower of ivory. Not the sleeping beauty, however. Poor Dorothy has insomnia.

He could laugh at the house, make fun of Dorothy, and even feel pity and contempt for her, but at the same time he was a little awed and uneasy and resentful in the presence of wealth, like a dwarf who has been denied some secret hormone that stimulated growth suddenly finding himself among giants.

He pressed the door chime and waited, bracing himself as if for attack the instant the huge mahogany door opened. When the door finally opened he almost laughed out loud at the sight of a little old woman in a black uniform, no bigger or braver than Harry’s dwarf-image of himself. She stared up at him, round-eyed, as if male visitors to the household were scarce, and objects of suspicion.

“Mrs. Galloway wanted to see me,” he said. “I’m Harry Bream.”

She didn’t speak, and only the slightest nod of her head indicated that she had heard him. But she opened the door wider and Harry took it as an invitation to enter. Then she closed the door, gave a little curtsy in Harry’s general direction and darted off down the hall and up the stairs with several backward glances as if she perhaps feared pursuit.

The hall was like a museum, with a domed ceiling and marble floors and massive pieces of statuary. Harry would have liked a cigarette, but there were no ash-trays in sight and the walls seemed to be posted with invisible ‘No Smoking’ signs. The only evidence of life in the room was a pair of battered roller-skates abandoned at the bottom of the staircase. The skates struck a note of sad surprise in Harry: he was always forgetting that Dorothy had borne a child and that the child still lived here in this house. Harry hadn’t seen her for years. She was kept, or chose to remain, out of sight.

He put his hands in his pockets and waited, and in a few minutes the little old woman came darting back down the steps, her white cap bobbing up and down on her head like a captive bird.

“Mrs. Galloway will see you in her room.” She spoke very slowly and not too clearly, as if at some time in the past, through illness or injury, she had lost the ability to speak and had had to learn the use of words all over again.

Harry followed her upstairs. The pace she set was so brisk that Harry was breathing hard by the time he reached the first landing, and openly puffing when he came to the top.

Dorothy’s suite was in the south turret and the door was open.

Dorothy was stretched out on a chaise-longue in a tangle of satin pillows, wearing a white lace negligée like a bride still dressed and waiting for a bridegroom long overdue. She was almost forty now, but she resembled a frail and fretful child. Extreme emaciation and years of discontent had ruined her good looks without ageing her. It was as if she had been kept inaccessible to the weather in the streets. Neither sun nor wind nor rain had ever penetrated her high window.

Her mother sat in a slipper chair at Dorothy’s right, and between the two women was a long low table holding a scrabble board with a half-finished game laid out on it.

“Harry, dear, how nice of you to come.” Dorothy extended her hand and Harry took it and pressed it for a moment, disliking the feel of the long fleshless fingers that were like claws. He noticed what an unusually high color Dorothy had and the extreme brightness of her eyes, and he thought at first that she was in the throes of a fever. But her hand felt cool and her voice was alert and Harry was forced to change his opinion. Dorothy was suffering not from fever but from fury. She was, in fact, as sore as a boil.

“Harry, you remember Mother, of course?”

“Certainly. Good evening, Mrs. Reynolds.”

“Good evening, Harry. So good of you to come.”

“Not at all,” Harry said politely. “I hope I’m not interrupting your game?”

“Game,” Dorothy repeated with a twist of her mouth. “It’s not much of a game. I’m miles behind as usual.”

Mrs. Reynold flushed with embarrassment. “Now, Dorothy dear, that’s not true and you know—”

“It is true. Besides, I loathe scrabble. It gives me a headache.”

“I can’t help winning once in a while if I happen to get the right letters.”

“It’s not that I mind losing; not in the least. I’ve always been a good sport, I’ve made it a point to be a good sport, in spite of everything. Losing means nothing at all to me. It’s just that you have all the luck.”

“Now, dear, remember last night, you got the Q and the Z right at the beginning and made ‘quartz’.”

Dorothy couldn’t decide between signalizing last night’s triumph and losing the argument about luck, so she turned away deliberately and said to Harry, “You must forgive us. Mother takes her scrabble very seriously.”

“I’ve never played it,” Harry said.

“Don’t. It’s a tiresome thing. It always gives me a headache, especially when other people have all the luck. Sit down won’t you? I’ll ring for tea.”

“Don’t bother.”

“It’s time for my medicine anyway and I can’t take it without tea. It’s the foulest stuff.”

“I’ll get the tea,” Mrs. Reynold said, rising. “I hate to bother Miss Parks when I can just as easily do it myself.”

“It’s her job to be bothered.”

“Even so, dear, I’d rather do it myself. Sometimes she forgets to scald the pot.”

Mrs. Reynold seemed both grateful for an excuse to leave and guilty about using it. As she passed Harry she gave him an anxious little look. It seemed to ask him to be kind to Dorothy, or at least tolerant.

When she had gone Dorothy said, “Mother’s bored with all this hospital routine. I am, too, only I have to stand it. I wouldn’t last a week without expert care.”

“You’re looking better, Dorothy.”

Harry knew right away that this remark was a mistake. Dorothy frowned with displeasure and her fingers plucked at one of the satin pillows. “I don’t see how I can be. I was so upset this morning Miss Parks had to call the doctor. I’ve got a new doctor; the last one was hopelessly out of date. Nothing but psychology, psychology. What good is psychology when your heart is beating like a trip-hammer and the least excitement makes you feel faint?”

“What was the cause of the excitement?”

“Ron’s call. I thought your wife might have told you.”

“She didn’t.”

“I’m much calmer tonight, my pulse is just a shade under ninety—the doctor gave me an injection. Honestly, the way I’ve been prodded and poked with needles!”

“What about Ron?”

“He called here last night and told Mother he wanted to talk to me, and Mother, for some obscure reason put him on to me. Mother means to do the right thing.” Dorothy paused and let the implication go on without her, like a riderless horse: but she never does, of course. “I wasn’t feeling very well anyway and it was after nine o’clock, past my bedtime, and I’d had a nagging pain in my left kidney all day.”

“How long after nine o’clock?”

“A few minutes. I remember taking my pulse after the call. It was,” she added with an air of satisfaction, “nearly a hundred and twenty.”

“Why did the call upset you to such an extent?”

“It was so unexpected for one thing. Ron hadn’t called me, hadn’t communicated with me in any way, for years. He had no reason to. At the time of the divorce I asked for nothing from him but Barbara, and of course I was given sole custody of her, in view of his behavior with that terrible woman – what was she, a stenographer or something? Common, anyway.”

“She was a copy-writer for an advertising agency.”

Dorothy raised her brows. “That’s common enough, surely? At any rate, I was totally unprepared for any call from Ron. I’d almost forgotten he existed. He never had a very strong personality, he’s not the kind of person one remembers. My father, for instance, died when I was barely ten and yet I can recall him so much more distinctly than I can Ron.”

“What was the call about?”

“I’d like to know, really. His words were distorted, confused.”

“What was the matter with him?’

“Plain and simple intoxication, that’s what I’ve since decided. He was roaring drunk, maudlin drunk. You know Ron – he never could hold his liquor like a gentleman.”

It seemed to Harry that this was the dozenth time in the past twenty-four hours that someone had said to him, “You know Ron.” Yes, he knew Ron, better than anyone did, and one of the things he knew very well was that when Ron was drinking, before he reached the point of confusion he always got sick and sobered up. If he had a weak head he also had a weak stomach, and the latter cancelled out the former.

“He seemed terribly contrite,” Dorothy went on. “He apologized for the harm he’d done to me and said he was going to straighten everything out, pay all his debts, I think that was the way he put it. He asked about Barbara. I told him he had no right even to ask. I told him Barbara was being brought up to believe that her father was dead.”

“That was pretty – cruel, wasn’t it, Dorothy?”

She smiled. “Wasn’t it, though? But I thought while he was paying his debts. I’d pay one of mine. I owed him a little cruelty. All those times when I was so ill I could scarcely move and he went off partying – that was the year I had my liver trouble. The doctor says I’m not over it to this day. Just last week I had to have a bromsulsalein, that’s the dye test for liver functioning. More needles. I tell you I’m getting heartily sick of needles. I’m little better than a pin-cushion. And what good does it all do anyway. I haven’t much longer. They all know it, they simply refuse to admit—”

“Dorothy.”

Her name, spoken sharply, almost contemptuously, shocked her into a brief silence. She looked at him with her mouth half open, as if he had ordered her to be quiet. But she could not be quiet for long; an order was what she gave, not took, and a minute later she was off again.

“I know you think I’m feeling sorry for myself, that I oughtn’t go on like this about my illness. But what else have I to talk about? Whatever happens to me? Shut up in this hideous house with an old woman and a pair of incompetent nurses who can’t even take a temperature properly. It’s always normal—that’s what they tell me—it’s normal they say, when I know perfectly well that I’m running a fever, when my head feels as if it’s burning up. And they’re careful, oh, they’re very careful, not to leave the thermometer around so I can take my own temperature. They hide it.”

Harry was disturbed by what was to him this new development in Dorothy. In the past her egocentricity and her symptoms had been just as extreme, but now they were underlined by delusions of persecution. No longer did the princess dwell at ease in her ivory tower: she was imprisoned in a hideous house at the mercy of an old woman and bumbling nurses who lied and hid thermometers.

She continued to talk, her words coming faster and faster, and it seemed to Harry that she was incapable of stopping voluntarily and must be helped. He wondered how he could draw her attention away from herself without antagonizing her to the point where she would faint or go into hysterics or use any of the other tricks which by this time came as naturally to her as breathing.

He said, “Ron disappeared last night.”

She stopped in the middle of a sentence and her right hand, on the point of making a gesture, dropped quietly into her lap. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I tried.”

“Disappeared. That could mean anything.”

“In this case it means that he failed to keep an appointment, one that he was looking forward to, and that he hasn’t communicated with anyone since.”

“Not even his – that woman?”

“Her name is Esther,” Harry said with a trace of irritability. “You needn’t bite my head off. I have quite enough trouble as it—”

“Esther has not heard from him.”

The words seemed to please her. “Well, well. That’s very interesting. Have you a cigarette, Harry?”

“I thought you didn’t—”

“I can smoke if I want to. I want to.”

He gave her a cigarette and lit it for her. The smoke curled up from her mouth in a quiet smile.

“Very interesting,” she repeated. “Doesn’t it suggest anything to you?”

“No.”

“He told me on the telephone that he was going away on a long trip. Well, he did. Without taking her along.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s walked out on her, exactly the way he did on me.”

For the first time since he’d known her Dorothy looked contented. Her eyes were serene, her mouth had lost its bitter lines, and when she spoke again her voice was almost dreamy: ‘I wonder how she feels now. How funny life is sometimes, a mammoth hoax. I was the butt once, now it’s her turn.”

“Dorothy, it’s not—”

“Who is the other woman this time?”

“There is no other woman,” Harry said brusquely.

“How can you be so sure?”

“I’m as sure of that as I am of anything. In this life nobody gets a written guarantee of anything, but you do get eyes and ears and the ability to form conclusions. I’ve formed mine.”

“Tell me just one thing, Harry.”

“I’ll try.”

“When Ron first became interested in this woman, this Esther, did he tell you? Did he confide in you?”

“No.” It was a lie, but Harry knew the truth would have destroyed whatever relationship he had with her.

The truth was that Harry had been the first to hear about Esther. To this day he remembered Ron’s initial reference to her: ‘I met a girl at the Temples’ last night. She’s very attractive, and smart as a whip. I know I sound like a heel, but I’d like to see her again. What do you think I should do?’ And Harry had said in reply all the things dictated by his conscience and common sense: Go easy, forget her, you’ve got a wife and child, and so on. Ron sincerely agreed with everything Harry said. Equally sincerely, he called Esther the next day, took her to lunch and fell in love.

“Well, you see?’ Dorothy said with satisfaction. “If Ron didn’t tell you about Esther, why should he have told you about this new one?”

“There is no new one.”

“Wait and see.”

“There isn’t much else I can do.”

“I know what I’d do. Want to hear?”

“All right.”

“I’d get the police after him, and when they caught him, I’d make him pay and pay and pay.”

I’ll bet you would, Harry thought. He felt suddenly too weary to continue talking.

In contrast, Dorothy appeared more and more lively and cheerful, as if she drew some secret nourishment from the woes and afflictions of other people. This was a real banquet, Ron missing, Esther deserted, Harry grieving.

She eyed Harry greedily as if he were holding back some fancy tidbit she wanted for dessert. “Poor Esther, I suppose she’s taking it very badly. Well, that’s life. Ye shall reap what ye sow. You’ll stay for tea, of course, Harry?”

“No, I really can’t, thanks just the same.”

“What a pity. I’ve so enjoyed talking to you. You’re a veritable tonic for me, Harry. I feel better than I have for weeks and weeks. I do wish you’d stay a bit longer.”

“Sorry, I have to get home.”

“Home. Of course. I keep forgetting you’re married now. I keep forgetting my manners too, I’m afraid. How is your wife?”

“Thelma’s fine, thank you.”

“Thelma. What a pretty name; it just suits her. Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you one other thing Ron said on the telephone. I couldn’t quite understand it myself. Perhaps you can.”

“I’ll try.”

“He seemed to be under the impression that he had harmed you in some way. I’ll see if I can give you his exact words. ‘I’ve done something terrible to Harry and I’m sorry, I want him to know I’m sorry.’ Do you know what he meant?”

“No.”

“You must have some idea.”

“None. None at all.” Harry rose. His face felt stiff, like cardboard, as if it would crack if he tried to move it. “I don’t know what he was talking about.”

“How very odd, don’t you think?”

“I… yes. Yes, it is.”

“But you mustn’t let me keep you with my chattering.”

She extended her hand and Harry took it just as he had when he greeted her, but this time he wanted to squeeze it hard, as hard as possible, until he could hear the bones squeak.

“Is something wrong, Harry? You’re so pale.”

“Nothing is wrong.”

“Well, give my best to Thelma. You’re a lucky man; she’s such an attractive young woman.”

“Yes. Please say good-bye to your mother for me.”

“Of course. It was sweet of you to come, Harry. We must get together more often.”

They exchanged brief farewells and Harry went out into the hall, leaving the door of Dorothy’s room open as he’d found it.

He should have closed it. All the way down the steps he fancied he heard noises coming from the tower, little chuckling sounds. Dorothy was laughing. The princess was burping after her banquet. Harry wished she would choke.

Chapter 11

Marian Robinson, a spinster at thirty by choice, was now in her middle forties, and the choice had long since been taken out of her hands. Marian’s reaction to this fact was characteristic: she had begun to hate men, all men, with an almost religious intensity. She saved clippings, and collected stories, of men who had murdered, embezzled, kidnapped, beat their wives, been unkind to cats, or committed any of fifty other acts which she found distasteful. She was, therefore, in the correct frame of mind when her cousin Thelma phoned and asked if she could share Marian’s apartment for a time.

To Marian this could mean only one thing, that Thelma had finally discovered she was married to a brute, a lecher, or at the very least an alcoholic and the poor girl needed sanctuary. Marian’s apartment was small, closet space minimal and bed linen insufficient, but Marian was quite prepared to make sacrifices for a good cause such as the dissolution of a marriage. When Thelma, upon arriving, made it clear that Harry was not a brute nor even an alcoholic, Marian swallowed her disappointment along with two aspirin tablets and a cup of strong hot tea.

Thelma did not confide in Marian either the fact of her condition or the rather circuitous route by which she’d reached it. She told her merely that she and Harry had had a slight argument.

The two women had a light supper in the kitchen and Marian was washing the dishes and Thelma drying, when the front doorbell rang.

“I’m not expecting anyone,” Marian said. “Are you?”

Thelma shook her head listlessly.

“You don’t suppose it’s that husband of yours, do you? I told him quite distinctly on the phone that as far as he was concerned you were incommunicado.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “Well, I’ll just go and give him a piece of my—”

“No. No, Marian. I’ll answer it. You sit down and have another cup of tea; it will do you good.”

“I don’t need any good done to me,” Marian said crisply. “It’s you I’m worried about; you look like a ghost.”

“I can face – handle things. You just wait here and stop worrying.”

Marian would never have admitted it aloud but she found it rather pleasant to be told what to do for a change. At the insurance office where she’d worked for twenty-three years she gave the orders. It wasn’t always easy, but it had to be done. She had some dozen girls under her. She knew none of them liked her, some of the younger ones made fun of her behind her back and called her Old Corsets, and others sat around hoping she’d fall down and break a leg. Marian knew the whole office would go to pot without her, so she was careful about falling and kept right on giving orders whether or not they made her popular. In the past Marian had never actually paid much attention to Thelma, but now she thought how different Thelma was from the girls in the office, not silly, and not timid by any means, just sort of sweet, in a womanly way.

Marian poured herself a third cup of tea and sat down at the kitchen table to enjoy it. She did not intend to eavesdrop, heaven forbid, but it was surprising the way sounds carried in a small apartment.

When Thelma opened the door Harry did not wait to be asked to enter. He thrust his way inside like an overzealous salesman, then closed the door and stood with his back against it in a kind of childish defiance, as if he were daring her to evict him.

He looked so silly that Thelma wanted to laugh, but she knew if she laughed she might also cry. The two, laughter and tears, seemed inextricably knotted inside her so that she couldn’t move one without disturbing the other.

She said quietly, “You shouldn’t have come here.”

“I had to.”

“I asked you to wait. I can’t – I don’t feel qualified to discuss anything with you reasonably.”

“O.K. Be unreasonable.”

“Don’t play games, Harry.”

“I think it’s you playing games,” he said, with a little smile to soften the criticism. “Mysterious notes, hints, forebodings. I’m just an ordinary man. I don’t understand mysterious notes, I’ve never had a foreboding in my life, and I guess I can’t take hints very well either. What’s it all about, Thelma?”

Instead of replying, she moved to the opposite side of the room, as if she feared intimacy or anger and wanted to get as much distance between Harry and herself as possible. It seemed safer and easier to face him across Marian’s green mohair sofa and rose-and-brown Axminster rug.

Harry raised his voice to bridge the distance. “We’re not a couple of kids any more, Thelma. We’re married. We’ve shared a great many things. Whatever’s bothering you, we’ve got to share that too.”

“We can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I have to share it with – with somebody else.”

“Marian?”

“Marian.” She began to laugh, and almost instantly she could feel the sting of tears inside her eyelids.

He looked away, giving her time to compose herself. “All right, not Marian. Who, then?”

“I begged you not to come here, not to force me to talk before I was ready, before I knew.”

“Knew what?”

“What’s happened to Ron. I can’t – I can’t talk to you until I know where Ron is.”

“Ron, he’s part of your trouble?”

Her face disintegrated like paper crushed in a fist. “Oh God, I begged you, I asked you not to – Why did you come? Why can’t you let me alone? Why didn’t Ralph tell you?”

“Tell me what?’ Harry said, but she just kept moaning, “My God, my God,” and swaying back and forth with her hands covering her face.

He waited, watching her quietly, noticing for the first time the slight thickening of her abdomen, and thinking, this is it. She doesn’t have to tell me. I know.

The things Ralph had said and Esther had suspected and Dorothy had subtly inferred – they all added up to the little bulge at Thelma’s waistline.

“There’s a child,” he said finally. “Ron’s?”

“Yes.”

“How – how far along are you?”

“Three and a half months.”

“And Ron knows?”

“I told him. Last night.”

He leaned heavily against the door frame, staring down at the roses of Marian’s rug. They had pink, fretful faces like babies. “What does Ron intend to do about it?”

“The right thing, of course.”

“After having done quite a number of wrong things, do you think it’s going to be easy for him to do the right one?”

“There’s no use getting sarcastic. It won’t accomplish anything. I’ve thought the whole thing out. It’s not going to be easy, but Ron and I, each of us will have to get a divorce and then we’ll be married.”

“By that time your child will be born a bastard.”

The name staggered her like a blow and she might have fallen except that there wasn’t room to fall. She was jammed between the wall and the mohair sofa.

“Thelma!”

He started across the room to help her, but she waved him away. “No. I’m – all right.”

“Let me—”

“No.” She clung to the back of the sofa for a moment and then she straightened up, looking strangely dignified. “Don’t use that word. Don’t use that word about my son.”

And Harry, watching her, thought, She’s got it all planned, two divorces, a marriage, even the child’s sex. “A lot of words are going to be used which you won’t like, Thelma. You’d better start thinking of them now so you won’t be surprised when they come up.”

“I don’t care what anyone says about me.”

“Yes, you do. Try and face reality.”

“I am. This is reality.” She pressed her hand to her abdomen. “This child, this is my reality. I’ve wanted a baby ever since I can remember, and now I have one right here growing inside me.”

“Reality isn’t a single fact like that. It’s a combination of thousands, millions—”

“You denied me a baby, Harry. You made excuses, you said I was too old to have a first child now, you were afraid something would happen to me and you’d lose me. Well, you have lost me.”

He shook his head helplessly, unable to speak.

“It’s your fault, Harry. That’s why I’m not even apologizing to you, because I think it’s your fault, not mine. I wanted this one thing more than anything in the world, and I could see the years slipping by and I was getting older, with nothing to show for it. I felt dead inside, dead and useless. Don’t talk to me about reality, Harry. No matter what happens, I’m not sorry. I won’t be sorry. I have my son to keep me alive.”

It sounded almost like a speech she had prepared and practiced in front of a mirror, day after day, so that she would be ready for this moment.

“You had the whole thing planned,” Harry said, “in advance?”

“That’s not true.”

“To put it coarsely, you hooked him.”

She looked at him with a kind of contempt. “Believe whatever you want. It’s too late to change anything.”

“But why? Why Ron? Why my best friend, with a wife and family of his own? For God’s sake, couldn’t you have stopped to think? Couldn’t you at least have talked it over with me, told me how you felt?”

“I tried. You never listened. You only heard what you wanted to hear. To you everything was idyllic, you had a house and a wife to look after it, your meals were on time, your clothes laundered—”

“I was satisfied just having you,” Harry said. “I didn’t require anything or anyone else because I loved you. I still do. Oh God, Thelma, couldn’t we forget this nightmare and go back?”

“I don’t want to go back. Even if I could. I may be in trouble, but at least I feel alive. I’ve got a future and a child to share it with. And Ron.” Her voice shook a little over the name in noticeable contrast to the confident way she spoke of the child. “Ron, too, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Oh, I know what you’re thinking about – that silly notion I had that he was dead. It’s not true. Mrs. Malverson got me all upset with her talk about spiritual messages. What nonsense. I know he’s not dead. I know where he is.”

“Where?”

“Oh, not specifically. I just know he’s hiding somewhere for a while because he’s frightened. Of Esther, probably. Of course she’ll be impossible about the whole thing, but he’ll simply have to face up to her. She’ll make trouble, I expect that, she’s the type.”

“Name a type who wouldn’t, under the circumstances.”

“Esther’s special, she’s so determined. Well, I’m determined too. Let her make trouble. Ron and I won’t be living here anyway. When everything is over we’ll move to the States, California perhaps. I’ve never been there, but they say that children brought up in California are bigger and healthier than any other children in the world.”

The change in her tone indicated that she was off on another dream, an express train whizzing across the border and through the states towards California. Nothing stood in the way of this train. If it did, it was demolished. Harry knew this from experience. He had stood on the tracks once too often.

“… and because they play outdoors all the time even in winter. They eat outdoors, too. Everyone cooks over a barbecue pit or they go down to the beach and build a bonfire.”

Harry stepped in front of the train with the fearlessness of one who had nothing to lose. “Stop. Stop it, Thelma.”

“Why should I?”

“Don’t start living a year from now when you have to get through tonight, tomorrow, next week.”

“I’ll get through. Don’t worry about me, Harry. Get angry, call me names, anything, but don’t worry about me.”

“I can’t afford to get angry. I might – hurt you.”

From the kitchen came a sudden sharp crash like a plate breaking.

“Marian,” Thelma said. “Dear heaven, I forgot about Marian.” As if she’d been waiting for her cue, Marian thrust herself through the swinging door, head down, like a charging ram.

She didn’t look at Harry or give any indication of his presence. She shouted at Thelma, “You slut. You nasty little slut. Pack up your things and get out of here.”

Thelma appeared pale but composed, as if her dream of California had blunted the sharp corners of the present. “Do you always eavesdrop on your guests, Marian?”

“Eavesdropping is one thing; cuckolding is another. And I want none of your insolence, do you hear me?”

“I hear you. You sound just like Aunt May.”

“You leave her name out of it. We’re a respectable family and you’ve disgraced us all. I want no part of you. You can go on the streets for all I care.”

“I might do that. And if business gets too heavy I’ll send some customers on to you. The experience might improve you.”

“Why, you dirty – you cheap—”

“Shut up!” Harry ordered. “Shut up, both of you! Thelma, go and pack your stuff. You, Marian, sit down.”

Thelma disappeared hastily into the bedroom, but Marian stood pat, her hands on her enormous hips. “I don’t take orders from any man. I will not sit down.”

“All right, you can stand on your head as far as I’m concerned. Just stop shrieking like a fishwife. You have neighbors, neighbors have ears.”

“She insulted me. You heard her, she insulted me.”

“You insulted her first.”

“But she deserved it, she asked for it. After what she’s done to you, how can you stand there and take her part?”

“She’s my wife.”

“Wife. A fine word, but that’s all it is, a word. She’s used you, deceived you, made a fool of you. And she intended to do the same thing to me. To think I was taken in by that sweet smile of hers and that soft ‘Sit down and have a cup of tea, Marian; it will do you good.’ As if she cared. Lies, lies. The soft-talkers, they’re the worst. I’ve been taken in by them before. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson.”

Her voice broke and spots of color blotched her face and her neck. In a moment of perception Harry realized that she was not so much angry as disappointed. She had been looking forward to having Thelma around for a while to alleviate her loneliness and lend her life a little excitement. Thelma’s visit would have meant a transfusion of vitality; now the transfusion had been stopped almost before it began. Marian had closed the valve herself: she could not accept the blood of a slut, she would prefer to die.

“The girls at the office,” Marian said, “maybe they’re silly, yes, even malicious, but there’s not one of them bad like her. Not one of them’s ever gotten into that kind of trouble.”

Harry found himself saying, without conviction, “Thelma’s not bad. She made a mistake.”

“When people make a mistake they’re sorry. They’re not proud of it, like her. They don’t go around bragging about a trip to California. I want to go to California too, I’ve dreamed of it for years, but you can bet I’ll choose a more respectable way of getting there.”

“I’m sure you will.” The dry irony of his tone added, I’m sure you’ll have to.

“This man she called Ron. Who is he?”

“I’m afraid,” Harry said, “that it’s none of your business.”

“News like that gets around. I’ll find out.”

“I’m sure of that, too.” Not only would Marian find out. Once Ron’s disappearance hit the news-stands, the whole city, the whole country would find out, and Thelma would have to get used to stronger words than ‘bastard’ and ‘slut’. Harry wondered, with weary detachment, if anyone dared print the word cuckold.

Thelma came out of the bedroom wearing the navy-blue coat and hat she’d bought for Easter and carrying a rawhide suitcase which had been a wedding present from Ralph and Nancy Turee. She ignored Marian, who was standing tense, braced for the next round, and said to Harry, “I’m ready. We can go now.”

“And good riddance,” Marian said.

“The same to you.”

Harry interrupted quickly, “Come on, Thelma. I’ll take you home.”

“I’m not going home. You can drop me at an hotel.”

“The house is yours. You need it more than I do. I won’t bother you.”

“I wish you’d stop being noble. I can’t stand it!”

“I’m not being noble. It’s just that I’d feel better if I knew you were looking after yourself properly. Me, I can stay anywhere, with Ralph, or Billy Winslow or Joe Hepburn. I’m used to bumming around. You’re not. You have to take care of yourself, now more than ever.”

She bit her lip in indecision, weighing her pride against her common sense and her concern for the baby.

“I won’t bother you,” he repeated. “I’ll just take you home and pack up some of the things I’ll need.”

“All right.” Her voice was tight and squeaky. “Thank you, Harry.”

Harry took her suitcase and opened the door, and she walked out into the hall with quick, impatient steps. Harry hesitated, as if he wanted to say something pleasant to Marian before he left, but Marian had turned her back, and it was like the closing of a steel safe to which he didn’t know the combination. No one did.

Outside a spring rain had begun to fall, lightly and steadily. Neither of them seemed to notice. They walked in silence for a time, unaware of any weather but their own, inside.

“Harry?”

“Yes.”

“Where will you stay? In case anything happens and I have to get in touch with you—”

“I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet. With Ralph and Nancy, perhaps.”

“But they have four children.”

“Yes; I know,” Harry said quietly. “I like children.”

Chapter 12

The private day-school which the two Galloway boys attended had been closed for two weeks because of an epidemic of measles. One of the ways Esther had devised to keep them busy, and presumably out of mischief, was to give them certain duties and responsibilities previously assigned only to adults. The particular duty the boys enjoyed most, since it involved a rare freedom, was that of collecting the mail. They were allowed to walk all the way down to the end of the driveway, unescorted except by the little dachshund, Petey, and wait at the gate for the postman.

When the postman handed them the day’s mail, they assumed it was a gift, and so they usually took him a gift in return, a cookie coaxed out of the housekeeper, Mrs. Browning, or a new drawing by Marvin, or the prize from a box of cereal. On Monday they had a special gift for him, the first angle-worm of the season, a scrawny specimen elongated by considerable handling and rather dried out after a time spent in Greg’s shirt-pocket.

The boys arrived early and the postman was late, so they had plenty of opportunity to indulge in the usual arguments and fights about who was to present the gift, who was to carry the mail into the house, and who was to occupy the place of honor at the top of the iron gate. But on this particular morning neither of the boys seemed inclined to fight. Their energies were directed not against each other but against the mysterious tensions which now seemed to dominate the household. The boys had not been told, or allowed to overhear, anything about their father’s absence. They had no means of understanding their mother’s strange preoccupation, Mrs. Browning’s snappishness, Annie’s sudden lapses into silence, or the unusual permissiveness of old Rudolph, the gardener who lived over the garage. Rudolph, the most continuous male contact the boys had, loomed large in their lives. When the holes Petey, the dachshund, had dug in the rose-bed on Sunday afternoon were filled quietly and without comment, both of the boys realized that something was the matter.

Their reaction was instinctive. Instead of remaining brothers, each jockeying for position in the household, they became friends, joined together against the world of adults. They climbed to the top of the iron gate and stuck out their tongues in the direction of the house and chanted derisive insults.

“I’m the king of the castle,” Greg sang, and named individually the people who were dirty rascals, Annie, Mother, old Rudolph, Mrs. Browning. Marvin was all for including Daddy, but Greg reminded him sharply that Daddy had promised to bring them a new dog when he came home, and shouldn’t be listed among the dirty rascals.

“What if he forgets,” Marv said, “he’ll be a dirty rascal, then can we sing him in it too?”

“He won’t forget. He’ll bring something. He always does.”

“A cat maybe, huh? I wouldn’t say no to a cat.”

“Petey would. Petey hates cats. Petey’s a real cat-killer.”

Petey, who had never seen a cat, responded to his new, unearned distinction with a happy yelp. This settled the matter as far as the boys were concerned. They couldn’t possibly keep a cat, and if Ron brought one home by mistake they would simply hand it over to old Rudolph to trade in on a dog. Until the previous day they’d been willing to settle for any kind of dog, but now, sensing that a very large one would be more annoying to the adults, they decided on a St Bernard.

“We can teach it to bite Annie,” Greg said. “When she makes us go to bed we’ll say sic ’em, and then boiling, Annie gets bit.” Marv laughed so hard at this delightful picture that he nearly fell off the gate. “Boiiing, Annie gets bit. Boiiing, boiiing, Mrs. Browning gets bit. Boiiing, boiiing, everybody gets bit.”

“’Cepting us.”

“’Cepting us.”

They screamed with laughter and the gate shook and Petey broke into excited yelps. By the time the postman arrived, the boys’ faces were red as tomatoes and Marv had started to hiccough, as he always did after a laughing fit.

“Mr. Postman! Hi, Mr. Postman!”

“Hello, boys.” The postman was long and lean, with a weather-cracked smile. “How come you’re not in school this morning?”

“Measles.”

“You shouldn’t be out here if you got measles.”

“We don’t got measles,” Marv explained. “The other kids got them.”

“Well, I declare. I was never that lucky when I was a boy. The whole town could be dying of plague but they never closed the school, no, sir.” He put down the heavy mail-sack, propped it against the fence, and stretched his arms high in the air. “That’s how I got an education. Force. I didn’t want one.”

“What’s a plague?’ Greg asked, climbing down from the gate.

“Like measles, only worse.”

“You got something for us in your bag?”

“Sure thing.”

“We got something for you, too.”

“Well, how about that.”

“You want to guess what it is?”

“I guess it’s a cookie.”

“No.”

“An apple?”

“No. You can’t eat it. A human bean can’t eat it, I mean.”

“What does a human bean do with it?”

“Keep it as a pet.”

“Oh. Well, I’m just about ready to give up. What is it?”

“Let me tell him!” Marv shouted

“Let me! It’s an angle-worm!”

The postman took off his cap and scratched his head. “An angle-worm, eh? Let’s see it.”

The angle-worm, now fairly moribund, was duly produced from Greg’s pocket and placed carefully in the postman’s hand.

“Well, now, isn’t he cute. I must admit no one’s ever thought of giving me an angle-worm before.”

“You’ll take good care of him?’ Greg said anxiously.

“You bet I will. I think I’ll put him in my garden where he’ll find other angle-worms to play with. There’s nothing worse than a lonesome angle-worm, so I’ve been told.”

“How do you know he’ll meet the kind of angle-worms he likes to play with?”

“They’re not fussy.” The postman opened his sack and distributed the mail as impartially as possible to the two boys. “Well, I’ve got to be on my way now.”

“Some day,” Greg said, “can we come with you and carry the sack?”

“Some day, sure. So long, fellows.”

“So long.”

They watched him until he turned the corner, then they set out for the house. Usually they hurried at this point; it made them feel important to hand over the mail to their mother or Mrs. Browning. But this morning their feet lagged and they kept glancing back at the gate as if they half-expected the postman to reappear and offer to take them along on his rounds.

Their mother was waiting for them at the front door. “What a lot of mail. It must be heavy.”

“I could carry the whole sack,” Greg said, “if I wanted to. Some day I will, he said I could.”

Marv put up an immediate protest. “He said both of us, me too.”

“That will be very nice, I’m sure,” Esther said, and began glancing through the mail, putting the bills in one pile on the hall table and the circulars in another. There was only one letter.

For a long time Esther stood staring down at the handwriting on the envelope. Then she said in a cold, quiet voice, “You boys had better go to Annie.”

They were afraid of this voice, but they couldn’t admit it, to each other or to themselves.

“I hate Annie,” Marv shouted. “I don’t want—”

“Do as I say, Marvin.”

“No! I won’t! I hate Annie!”

“I hate her, too,” Greg said. “We’re going to teach the new dog to bite her.”

“Boiiing!”

“Boiiing, boiiing, Annie gets bit.”

“Boiiing, boiiing, old Rudolph gets bit.”

“Stop it,” Esther said. “Please. Please be good boys.”

“Boiiing, boiiing, everybody gets bit.”

"Cepting us.”

“Boiiing—”

“Oh God,” Esther said, and turned and ran across the hall into the library.

Her sudden flight and the loud shutting of the door stunned the boys for a minute. Then Marv said, tentatively, “Boiiing?”

“Oh, shut up. You’re such a baby. Shut up.”

Marv began to cry. “I want Mummy. I want my Mummy.”

The letter, postmarked Collingwood, was addressed to Esther in Ron’s handwriting.

She knew in advance that it would contain bad news and she tried to prepare herself for it by imagining the worst, that he’d left her for another woman and wasn’t coming back.

She was only half right.

DEAR ESTHER,

By this time you may know the truth, that Thelma is carrying my child. I won’t try to excuse myself or explain; I can’t. It happened, that’s all I can say. I didn’t know about the child until tonight. It was a terrible surprise, too terrible for me to face. My God, what I’ve done to you and Harry.

I don’t ask your forgiveness. I give you instead my promise that I will never hurt you or anyone ever again. I’m not fit to live. I’m sick in mind and body and soul. God help me.

RON.

She did not faint, or cry out, or weep. She stood like a stone; only her eyes moved, reading and re-reading the words on the page.

She was not aware of the door opening and when she looked up and saw Annie her eyes wouldn’t focus properly. Annie seemed misty and remote, as if she were surrounded by ectoplasm.

“Mrs. Galloway?”

“Please don’t – don’t bother me right – right now.”

“But I can’t do a thing with the boys. They’ve both gone wild, screaming and laughing and carrying on. And Marvin just bit me.” Annie exhibited her wounded wrist. “I’m not sure but what they’re coming down with something. Do you think I should phone the doctor?”

“All right.”

“You don’t look so good yourself, Mrs. Galloway. Maybe you’re coming down with the same thing. Can I do anything for you?”

“Yes,” Esther said. “Call the police.”

“The police?”

“I’ve had a letter. From my husband. I think he’s killed himself.”

Marvin came bouncing into the room, screaming, “Boiiing! Boiiing, boiiing!”

Esther turned with a sob and picked him up in her arms and held him tight. Too tight. There seemed to Marvin only one logical thing to do and Marvin did it. He bit her.

Chapter 13

While the two Galloway boys were waiting for the mailman in Toronto, little Aggie Schantz was on her way to the small country school she attended near Meaford. In the winter when Aggie had to follow the road because snowdrifts made exploring foolhardy, if not impossible, she took the quick and direct route. But it was spring now, and the only snow left lay in crevices between rocks, in the hollows of tree trunks along the snow fences sagging under the weight of winter.

Aggie was a quiet child of eleven. She behaved decorously at school and obediently at home, and no one ever suspected what an adventurous spirit lurked behind her brown braids and black bonnet, or what itchy feet were buckled inside her canvas galoshes. Aggie came from a family of Mennonites whose outside contacts were limited and whose meagre amount of travelling, to and from church or from one farmhouse to another, was done by horse and buggy. Aggie dreamed of a larger world. Sometimes when she was looking at a map in geography class, she grew quite dizzy thinking of all the hundreds, the thousands, of places she wanted to visit. They were all places of extremes – the highest mountain, the largest ocean, the biggest city, the coldest country, the hottest desert, the highest waterfall, the fastest rapids – Aggie intended to see each and every one of them.

While her dreams were wild, her plans for escape showed both common sense and resourcefulness. As a farm child she knew enough about horses to realize that they were a slow and unsatisfactory means of transportation. Horses had to be fed and watered and sheltered and rested and groomed. Trains and buses were equally impossible, since she had no money. And so Aggie’s eyes turned to the lake, to the fleets of fishing boats and the passing freighters that were so large one small stowaway wouldn’t be noticed. She couldn’t stay away from the lake; she scanned it constantly as if she were shipwrecked on an island, waiting, cold and hungry, for rescue.

As soon as the spring sun melted the snow from the cliffs above the lake, Aggie began taking an indirect route to school. Carrying her books and her lunch in a grey canvas bag, she climbed up to the top of the cliff and then down to the beach by a special steep path used only by agile children and venturesome dogs. The beach along here was very narrow, six feet at its widest, and strewn with boulders and rocks of all sizes. To keep from getting wet she was forced to leap from one boulder to another, but this proved tiring work and she sat down for a minute to rest, tucking her legs modestly under her long, full cotton skirt. Her sense of time told her she was going to be late for school, and her conscience warned her she’d better do something about it.

“There’ll be hell to pay,” Aggie said aloud, and the sound of the forbidden word was as intoxicating as a strange tropical drink. “Maybe I’ll go there. It’s the hottest place.”

Half-shocked, half-delighted with her own wit and daring, she began to giggle self-consciously, turning her face sideways so that it was almost hidden by the folds of her black bonnet. And it was then, out of the corner of her right eye, that she spotted the red-and-black plaid cap wedged between two rocks.

She often found things on the beach, especially in the summertime, sometimes a piece from an old tire, a soaked and dilapidated shoe, a rusty tin can, or an empty bottle, but these were all worthless things, discarded by the owners and battered by the waves. The cap was dry, and no one would ever have discarded it because it was brand new. It had a plastic visor at the front and a scarlet pompon on the crown and to Aggie, who had never owned anything bright colored in her life, it was a thing of beauty. She pushed back her bonnet, letting it hang from her neck by its strings, and put the plaid cap on her head. It came down grotesquely over her ears and eyes, but Aggie did not know that this wasn’t correct. Nor did she, like most eleven-year-old girls, long for a mirror to see how she looked. Mirrors were banned in the house she lived in, and the only glimpses of herself she ever caught were chance and fleeting reflections in a sunny window or in the pond behind the barn on a still day. Therefore she didn’t realize that she looked foolish; she knew only that the cap was beautiful, and so it must look beautiful on anyone, anywhere.

But because it was beautiful, it was, by the same token, forbidden. She looked around to check her privacy, and finding it complete, she took off the cap, compressed it as carefully as possible and tucked it inside her waist blouse. Under her bulky clothes it was barely noticeable, and it might have escaped detection entirely if Aggie herself had not been so extremely conscious of its presence, partly from pride in its possession and partly from discomfort over its location.

By the time she reached the small brick schoolhouse the final bell was ringing and the pupils were already lined up to go inside. Red-faced and panting, holding her arms across her chest, Aggie slipped into her place in line, and began marching into the smaller of the two classrooms.

Here, Miss Barabou taught, or tried to teach, the four upper grades. They were a mixed group, not only in age and ability, but in background and religion. Miss Barabou herself was a Presbyterian of French Canadian ancestry, and among her pupils she counted Anglicans, Baptists, Mennonites, Christian Scientists, Methodists, and even two Dukhobor children from Alberta. Like many teachers, Miss Barabou chose her favorites principally on the basis of their obedience. The Dukhobor children were wild and unruly, often disrupting the class or flouting authority, and with them Miss Barabou was sharp and critical and sarcastic. On the other hand, the Mennonite children were quite docile; they never questioned adult authority or criticized adult behavior or expected adult privileges. While Miss Barabou disparaged the Mennonite religion, she was often grateful for its results, and Aggie was her special pet. Aggie’s position was not entirely enviable, however, for Miss Barabou expected a great deal from her special pets and easily became exasperated when she didn’t get it.

After the class had bowed their heads and mumbled the Lord’s prayer in unison, they sat down at their double desks and began removing their books from their school-bags.

Miss Barabou took her place at the front of the class. She was large and majestic, and though she seldom punished her pupils, most of them stood in awe of her.

“Spring is here,” Miss Barabou announced with satisfaction, as if she’d had a personal part in its arrival. “Did anyone see a robin on the way to school?”

Hands were raised and seven robins counted. An American eagle was offered by Boris, the Dukhobor boy, but was turned down on grounds of improbability.

“We do not have American eagles in this part of the country, Boris.”

“But I saw one.”

“Indeed. Describe it.”

Boris described the eagle with such complete accuracy that Miss Barabou was visibly shaken.

But she was also determined. “We do not have American eagles in this section of the country. Ever. Now will someone please mark our seven robins on the bird chart? You, Agatha?”

Aggie sat motionless and mute.

“Agatha, I am addressing you. Do you know where we keep the bird chart?”

“Yes, ma’m.”

“Will you kindly mark out seven robins.”

“I can’t.”

“Indeed, and why not?”

“I can’t find my crayons.”

“Well, stop squirming like that and take another look.”

“I can’t.”

“Which do you mean, you can’t stop squirming or you can’t take another look?”

Aggie didn’t answer. Her face was burning and her tongue felt fuzzy and dry.

“If you have an itch, Agatha, kindly go into the cloakroom and relieve it,” Miss Barabou said in exasperation, thinking, The awful way they dress their children; it’s no wonder they itch. I’ll bet she’s got on six layers of clothing at least. She added, more gently, “Agatha, is anything the matter?”

“No, ma’m.”

It was at this point that Miss Barabou noticed Aggie’s empty desk. “Where are your books, Agatha?”

“I… don’t know.”

“You lost your school-bag, is that it?”

“I don’t know.”

The rest of the class had begun to titter and whisper behind their hands. Miss Barabou ordered them brusquely to start work on their book reports, and went down the aisle to Aggie’s desk, her heavy step warning the class to behave. She was positive now that something was the matter with Aggie; the child’s face was such an odd color and she was trembling. Maybe she’s coming down with something, Miss Barabou thought. That’s all I need right now is an epidemic. Oh well, if it gets bad enough they may close the school and I’ll have a holiday.

“Do you feel ill, Agatha?’ Miss Barabou asked, somewhat heartened at the idea of a holiday. “Stick out your tongue.” Aggie stuck out her tongue and Miss Barabou studied it with a professional air. “I can’t see anything wrong. Does your head hurt?”

“I guess so.”

“Let’s see, you had measles and chicken pox last year. No mumps yet?”

“No, ma’m.”

“Well, think of a lemon.”

“A what?”

“Pretend you’re eating a lemon. Or a dill pickle. Can you pretend that?”

“I guess so.”

“All right now, does your throat feel queer on both sides just under your chin?”

“No, ma’m.”

“Perhaps you’re not pretending hard enough. Keep picturing that pickle; it’s very, very sour and you’re eating it. Now do you feel anything?”

“No, ma’m.”

Sylvia Kramer raised her hand to announce that she had a real dill pickle in her lunch-box and would gladly offer it for the sake of research. Miss Barabou replied that that wouldn’t be necessary, and led Aggie into the cloakroom for further and more private diagnosis.

“Has any of your brothers or sisters been ill, Agatha?”

“Billy has the toothache.”

“That’s not catching. Why are you squirming and clutching your chest like that?”

Aggie shook her head.

“Do you have a pain there?”

“No, ma’m.”

“Honestly, the way they dress you children, it’s a crime. Are you still wearing your long underwear?”

“Yes, ma’m.”

“I’ve a good notion to write a note to your parents. It’s hard enough teaching without having to teach itchy children. For all I know, you have lice.”

Tears welled in Aggie’s eyes. She blinked them away, hard.

“Agatha,” Miss Barabou said quite gently, “now tell me truthfully, what is the matter?”

“I lost my school-bag.”

“Perhaps you forgot and left it at home.”

“No. I lost it. On the beach.”

“When were you on the beach?”

“This morning on my way to school.”

“The beach isn’t on your way to school. Besides, all you children have specific instructions not to go near the beach by yourselves. A lonely spot like that, you can’t tell what will happen.” Miss Barabou paused, significantly. “Did anything happen?’ Aggie merely looked up at her in helpless bewilderment, and Miss Barabou realized that the child didn’t understand. She tried to explain patiently that little girls didn’t go to lonely beaches by themselves because there were some bad men in the world who might do nasty things to them. “Did you see any men down there?”

“No.”

“I hate to be suspicious, Agatha; or to nag. But I have the distinct impression that you’re not telling me the whole truth.”

Though Miss Barabou’s voice was kindly, her eyes burned with such intensity that Aggie had the feeling they were looking right through her waist blouse at the red-and-black plaid cap.

“What occurred down at the beach, Agatha?”

“Nothing!”

“You know how important the truth is. What happens at home when you don’t tell the truth?”

“I get the strap.”

“As you very well know, I don’t have a strap, and wouldn’t use it if I had. Now you’re not going to cry, are you?”

Aggie was, indeed. Tears spilled out of her eyes and she had to wipe them away with her sleeve. It was when Aggie raised her arm that Miss Barabou noticed the extra bulk under her clothes.

“What on earth have you got stuffed in the front of your blouse? So that’s what you’ve been fidgeting about. You’ve got something hidden in there. What is it, Agatha?”

Aggie shook her head, helplessly.

“You won’t be punished if you tell the truth. That’s a promise. Now stop crying and tell me – no, better still, show me what it is.”

“It’s – nothing. I found it.”

“Nobody finds a nothing,’ Miss Barabou said dryly. “It’s impossible, factually, as well as grammatically. What did you find?”

“A cap. An old cap somebody left on the beach that didn’t want it any more.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so before? All this fuss and fume about an old cap. Honestly, I sometimes wonder what kind of home life some of you children have that makes you afraid to speak up. Now remove the cap, and we’ll leave it here on the shelf in the cloakroom, and you can take it home with you after school.”

Aggie turned her back, removed the plaid cap from under her waist blouse and handed it to Miss Barabou.

Miss Barabou appeared surprised. “What an odd-looking thing. I’ve never seen one like it. Where did you find it, Agatha?”

“Between two rocks, just sitting there. I guess somebody just threw that old cap away.”

“It isn’t old. It’s hardly been worn at all.”

“It looks old to me.”

But Miss Barabou seemed to have lost interest in Aggie. She was examining the inside of the cap, and when she spoke again it was more to herself than to Aggie: ‘There’s a label. Abercrombie & Fitch, New York City. Funny. There aren’t many Americans around at this time of year. The thing’s new, no doubt about it. Expensive, too. Abercrombie & Fitch; I think they sell sporting goods. I wonder what kind of sport this would be worn for. Curling, perhaps, except that I’ve never seen a curling cap with a sun-visor. Or golf. But the golf courses won’t be open for ages. I’m not even sure if it’s a man’s cap or a woman’s.”

“Miss Barabou…”

“You may go back to your desk, Agatha.”

“Is it my cap if I found it?”

“I can’t promise you that,” Miss Barabou said thoughtfully. “I’d better consult with Miss Wayley.”

Miss Barabou escorted Aggie back into the classroom, pronounced her free of disease, assured the pupils they could associate with her without fear and warned them not to start getting symptoms out of the blue. Then, leaving the class in charge of one of the seniors, she made a bee-line to Miss Wayley’s room next door.

Social visiting between the two teachers during school hours was forbidden by the school inspector. But the inspector was miles away and not due for another month.

Miss Wayley, upon being apprised of the situation, put her entire class, including those who hadn’t yet learned to write, to work on a composition entitled ‘How I Will Spend My Summer Vacation’. Then she and Miss Barabou retired to the tiny room at the rear of the school where they ate their lunch and made coffee during recesses and conducted their private business in general. The room was cold and cramped and ugly, but it had two distinct advantages: a lock on the door which had so far resisted even the expert picking of Boris, and a telephone installed the previous winter after a bad storm left the school marooned for nearly twenty-four hours.

Miss Wayley lit a cigarette, took three quick, furtive puffs and butted it before any of the smoke could seep under the door and cause alarm or suspicion among the students. She saved the butt in an empty band-aid box inside the first-aid kit.

“I think,” Miss Barabou said, “we should phone somebody.” But Miss Wayley was busy trying on the cap in front of the yellowed, broken mirror hanging on the wall. “Don’t I look sporty, though. Say, this is kind of cute. I wouldn’t mind having one myself. Makes me feel years younger.”

“Be serious.”

“I am.”

“It looks like a man’s cap to me. Have you seen any strange men around town lately?”

“If I had,” Miss Wayley said cheerfully, “I’d be on leave of absence tracking him down, believe you me.”

“Be serious.”

“I can’t. I feel sporty. Here, you try it on, Marie.”

“I wouldn’t dream of—”

“Go on. See how it looks. Just for fun.”

Miss Barabou took a quick glance at the door to make sure it was locked, then she, too, tried on the plaid cap. For one instant, in the cracked mirror, she did indeed look sporty, but the instant was overwhelmed by years of common sense. “It’s ridiculous. I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing such a thing.”

“Well, I would. I can just picture myself whizzing along in some snazzy convertible—”

“Why a convertible?”

“Because that’s what the cap’s for, riding in a convertible with the top down. I’ve seen them in the movies.”

“That’s how it happened, then.”

“What did?”

“Someone was riding along the cliff road in a convertible and his cap blew off and landed on the beach where Agatha found it.”

“It couldn’t blow off, not easily, anyway. That’s what the elastic band at the back is for, to keep it tight-fitting so the wind won’t blow it off.”

“How odd,” Miss Barabou said, and for the first time she appeared disturbed by the possibilities. “I know it sounds silly, but – well, you don’t suppose there’s been a crime committed?”

“No such luck.”

“Please be serious.”

“I am. I said no such luck and I mean it. Nothing ever happens around here.”

“There’s always a first time.”

The noise from the two unattended classes was increasing by the minute—thuds, screams, laughter, whistling—but neither of the two teachers paid any attention. Din was a part of their lives and a few decibels one way or another didn’t matter.

“I’d feel like a fool,” Miss Barabou said, “if I called in the police and it turned out to be absolutely nothing.”

“Call anyway.” Miss Wayley selected one of the dozen or so cigarette butts she kept stored in the first-aid kit, and lit it with a reckless air. “We might as well whip up a little excitement while the whipping’s good. Here, help yourself to a butt.”

“No, thanks. It wouldn’t be sanitary.”

“Sorry I can’t offer you a fresh one. Gee, it’d be wonderful to buy cigarettes cheap the way they do in the States.”

“I’m not sure whom to call.”

“The local constabulary. What a marvelous word, constabulary, isn’t it?”

“The way you chatter, I can’t think.”

“You don’t have to think. Let the local constabulary do the thinking. You and I, we’re teachers, we don’t get paid for thinking, we get paid for teaching, and what a whale of a difference there is.”

“Oh, stop it, Betty.”

Miss Barabou picked up the phone.

Constable Lehman arrived at the school about nine-thirty, a small, droll-faced man in his fifties who took his work, but nothing else, quite seriously. He came in his own private car, an old Buick, a device intended to allay the curiosity of the students. Through no fault of his own the device backfired. A good half of Miss Barabou’s class, and even several members of Miss Way ley’s lower grades, recognized him immediately and such excitement spread through the school that a recess had to be declared.

The children, with the exception of Aggie Schantz, were herded into the yard like wild ponies, and a conference was held in Miss Barabou’s room with the plaid cap on exhibition on her desk. Instead of being nervous, as Miss Barabou had expected, Aggie luxuriated in the special attention she was receiving. She told her story in full detail, and Lehman, who’d had experience with children of his own, did not interrupt her even when she included such non-essentials as what she had for breakfast and how many robins she saw en route to school.

“We count robins,” Miss Barabou said by way of apology and explanation. “For the bird chart. Natural history, you know.” Lehman’s nod indicated that he understood perfectly, and was, in fact, an old hand at counting robins himself.

“I see more than anybody,” Aggie said with becoming modesty, “mostly because I have a longer way to go to school. Boris saw an American eagle.”

Lehman pursed his lips. “Did he, now. Well, they say more and more American people are coming up this way every year, why not eagles, too, eh? Can you show me this special path you take down to the beach, Aggie?”

“I can show you. You can’t go down it, though.”

“I can’t, eh? Why not?”

“You’re too old.”

“You may have something there,” Lehman said, and sighed for Aggie’s benefit, and winked for Miss Barabou’s.

Miss Barabou, who was not accustomed to being winked at, blushed in confusion and turned to Aggie. “Of course you’ll show the Constable the path, Agatha. I’ll excuse you from school for the rest of the morning. You go with Constable Lehman.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Get your coat and galoshes on.”

Aggie didn’t move.

“Agatha, did you hear me?”

“I don’t want to go without you.”

“You know perfectly well I have to stay here and supervise my class.”

“You could send them all home,” Aggie said hopefully. “They wouldn’t mind.”

“No, I’m sure they wouldn’t. Neither would I, until it came time to explain to thirty howling parents. Why on earth don’t you want to go with the Constable?”

“The bad men.”

“What bad men?”

“That do nasty things to little girls on beaches.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Miss Barabou’s blush had spread to the tips of her ears and down her neck to the collar of her jersey dress. “I was only trying to – oh well, it doesn’t matter. I give up. I’ll go along; there’s no point in arguing.”

Miss Barabou sat in the back of the Buick alone, holding herself stiff and resistant to the feeling of adventure that was growing inside her with every turn of the road and every glance at the Constable’s face, half visible in the rear-view mirror. He’s really quite a nice man. Humorous, too. Betty said she heard he’s a widower, all his children are grown and he lives by himself. He needs a haircut.

She tried to discipline her thoughts by planning the next eighth grade British History assignment, but she could not seem to concentrate properly. The scarlet pompon on the plaid cap which lay on the seat beside her seemed to be taunting her: Come on, live now. The Magna Carta is very old; King John is very dead. Be sporty.

She looked sternly, ponderously, out of the window, though her head felt quite light and empty, as if giddy little bubbles were whirling around inside, released by some strange alchemy she did not understand.

“We’re almost there.” Aggie’s voice pealed with excitement. “Right around the next corner.”

“Roger,” Lehman said.

“What’s that mean?”

“It means right-ho. Roger, dodger, you old codger. I’m a major too.”

“Oh, you make me laugh.”

“I aim to please.”

He stopped the car on the side of the road and all three of them got out. Aggie still giggling behind her hand, Miss Barabou very sober and dignified as if to make up for the levity of the others. Looking down at the water a hundred feet below, and the path by which she was expected to descend, she offered up a short, silent prayer.

Lehman said to Aggie, who was impatient to start down the path, “Hold your horses a minute, lass. Now when you found the plaid cap, was it directly below here?”

“No, sir. I walked along a piece first until I got tired and sat down and then I found it.”

“About how far did you walk?”

“I don’t know. I can show you down there.”

“Show me up here first.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Try. Start walking.”

They began walking single file up the road with Aggie in the lead like a general with delusions of troops.

The road was not a main one, and though it was marked on maps as ‘improved’, the improvements had long since disappeared in the throes of winter. The surface had buckled in places and some of the pot-holes were as large as Aggie’s head.

Lehman appeared to be watching his footing very carefully, paying no attention to Miss Barabou struggling along in the road. Aggie was skipping on ahead, not looking down at the road at all, but avoiding every bump and hole as if she had made a complete mental map of the route and knew its every pitfall.

“I’m beginning to get tired,” Aggie said, “so I guess it was right about here.”

She looked up expectantly, as if awaiting Lehman’s commendation, but he seemed too preoccupied to notice her. He was staring down at the mud along the side of the road, his eyes narrowed against the morning sun.

“Well?’ Miss Barabou said when, out of sorts and breath, she finally caught up with the others.

“Look here, ma’m.”

“I can’t see anything out of the ordinary.”

“No?”

“Some tire marks, that’s all. It’s a road; you’d expect to find tire marks.”

“Not ones leading over the top of the cliff.” Lehman turned to Aggie, who was bouncing all over the place. “Be a good lass and stay out of the way. In fact, how about you going back and waiting in the car?”

“But I haven’t showed you anything yet.”

“You’ve shown me quite a lot more than I expected.”

“Tell me what.”

“Well, stand still a minute. See these marks here? They were made by the tires of an automobile, a new one and a heavy one, my guess is a Lincoln or a Cadillac. Now where do they lead?”

“Nowhere. They just stop.”

“Exactly. They just stop.”

Lehman walked to the edge of the cliff and Miss Barabou followed him, wide-eyed and nervous. “What does it all mean?”

“It means there’s a car down there, perhaps with people in it.”

“People. But we’ve got to do something right away, help them—”

“I’m afraid it would be too late. The marks aren’t fresh and the water’s deep.”

“Perhaps you’re being too pessimistic. It could be that some people just stopped here for a look at the view and went on again. That’s more likely than—”

“There’s no sign that the car turned around.”

Miss Barabou’s hand moved to her throat. “I’ll – I’d better take Aggie back to the car.”

But she stood peering down at the water below, as if she hoped to distinguish the outlines of a car, the contours of people. The glare of sun on water dazzled her eyes and she stumbled back half blinded.

Lehman caught her by the arm. “Watch it. That’s a long fall.”

“Yes.”

“It’s a city car. I’ll bet you that.”

“How can you tell?”

“Around these parts a person driving an expensive car would still be using snow-tires at this time of year. The kind of winters we have up here, we need them. But in a city where the roads are kept clear, snow-tires wouldn’t be necessary.” He paused. “I wonder.”

“You wonder what?”

“What makes a person drive over a cliff.”

Lehman drove Miss Barabou and Aggie back to school and left them there with instructions to say nothing to anyone. Then he called the provincial police and returned to the cliff. Three police cars were waiting for him when he arrived, as well as the resuscitation squad of the local fire station, all ready to go into action.

No action was necessary.

Two barges, sent down from Meaford with winches and dredging equipment, located the car in twenty feet of water just below the cliff where Lehman had found the tire-tracks. The car was barely damaged, the windows and windshield were unbroken, and Ron Galloway was still inside, fastened snugly to the driver’s seat by his safety belt.

Chapter 14

Ralph Turee returned to his office from his eleven o’clock seminar feeling hungry and exhausted. He had got up too early for sufficient rest and too late for breakfast. Harry had spent the night at his house and the two men had talked until after three in the morning. Talked and talked and settled nothing beyond what was already settled – Galloway was missing, and Thelma was waiting for him to come back and claim her as his future wife.

He sat down at his desk and was unpacking the lunch Nancy had made for him when the door opened and Nancy herself appeared.

Turee looked up in surprise. It was not a rule that Nancy should stay away from his office during working hours, but her visits were so infrequent that she looked strange in the surroundings, like a new graduate student perhaps, or someone who’d lost her way in the corridors and merely stopped by for directions. She was a small, pretty woman with a round, cherubic face and rather short, sturdy legs – ‘practical’ legs, Turee called them, in contrast to what he considered her impractical mind. She was wearing her new violet-colored Easter suit, which meant that the occasion, whatever it might be, was important.

He rose and kissed her briefly on the forehead by way of greeting. “How did you get here?”

“Took a cab.”

“A cab. My God, Nancy! I told you we’re short of money this month after those Easter outfits you bought for the kids and—”

“Save your lecture. This is an emergency.”

Her tone rather than her words stopped him. “Has one of the kids been—”

“Nothing like that. Esther called. She wants me to spend the rest of the day with her.”

“Why?”

“Ron’s been found.”

“Dead?”

“Yes.”

Something inside Turee that had been stretched tauter and tauter like a violin string broke suddenly with a twang. Along with a dozen other sensations, he felt a sense of relief that the suspense was over. Ron was, in a way, now safe; safe from Esther’s cold scorn, and Thelma’s demands, and Harry’s reproach, and the ridicule of the world. “How did it happen?”

“He drove off a cliff into the bay, somewhere not too far from the lodge. He had the convertible with the top down. Esther said the policeman who came to tell her said Ron mightn’t have been found for days, or weeks even, if he hadn’t had his safety belt fastened.” Her lower lip projected childishly and began to tremble. “I don’t know, there’s something so f-f-funny about that, Ron was always p-playing it s-s-safe.”

“Don’t cry.”

“I can’t help it.”

“All right, then.” He watched with detachment while she dabbed at her eyes, wondering for the hundredth time what peculiar things roused a woman’s emotions. The fact that Ron drove over a cliff to his death didn’t seem to bother her as much as the safety belt being fastened. “Ron did it intentionally?”

“Yes. Esther had a letter from him this morning – he’d posted it Saturday night in some little town up north. She told me about it on the phone.”

“And?”

“Well, this will come as a great shock to you, Ralph, but – well, Thelma’s pregnant. By Ron. It’s incredible, utterly incredible, he and Harry were such good friends. I can’t believe it. Can you?”

He turned away deliberately, without answering.

“You don’t even seem surprised, Ralph. You mean you knew? All along? And you didn’t tell me?”

“We’ll go into that another time.”

“But you—”

“How is Esther taking it?”

“I don’t know. She sounded calm enough. She seemed anxious for me to come and stay with her, though, so I will.”

“Good girl.”

“I couldn’t very well refuse. Oh yes, and I’ve made arrangements with Mrs. Sullivan to go and meet Janie’s school bus. The other kids are big enough to look after themselves for a while.”

“They won’t have to. My last class is at two o’clock. I’ll be home before four.”

“No, dear, you won’t.”

He looked exasperated. “What the hell does that mean, no-dear-you-won’t.”

“I’ve been thinking it over. Somebody has to tell Thelma. It wouldn’t be humane to let her hear on the radio or read it in the newspaper. Someone has to drive to Weston and tell her in person.”

“Meaning me.”

“You’re the logical one. I thought of Harry, but it’s so difficult locating him when he’s on the job going from office to office. Besides, having Harry tell her wouldn’t be very – well, delicate, would it? So that leaves you.”

“Obviously.”

“You don’t mind very much, do you?”

“I mind like the very devil.”

“Someone has to do it. I’d volunteer, but I don’t trust myself. I’m angry with her, bitterly angry, I couldn’t even pretend any sympathy.”

“Can I?”

“No, but you can feel it,” she said earnestly. ‘You’re much kinder than I am about human frailties.”

When he reached Weston it was five o’clock and his nerves were rubbed raw by traffic tensions and anticipation of his errand. At the very outskirts of the city he was still thinking up excuses to turn around and go back, or to call Bill Winslow or Joe Hepburn and pass the buck to one of them.

Though it was still bright and sunny, the blinds were already drawn on the windows of the square red-brick house where Thelma lived. Turee had to ring the doorbell half a dozen times before Thelma finally appeared.

Freshly scrubbed, without make-up, and with her long, fair hair combed straight back, Alice in Wonderland style, she appeared younger and more vulnerable than Turee remembered her. Although he had talked to her on the telephone, he hadn’t seen her since the last time the fellows had gathered at Harry’s house a month ago, and on that occasion, as on other similar ones, she’d been unobtrusive and efficient, quietly refilling glasses and passing sandwiches, more like a good maid than the mistress of the house. Looking at her now, Turee tried to recall whether at any time during that night she’d paid special attention to Galloway, whether hands had touched briefly, or significant glances had passed back and forth or knowing smiles been exchanged. The only incident Turee could think of happened late in the evening: Galloway had dropped and broken his glass and Thelma had cleaned up the mess. No one thought anything of it at the time, no one saw anything significant or symbolic in Thelma’s kneeling docilely at Galloway’s feet, picking up the pieces of glass and blotting the carpet with paper towels. Galloway had not offered to help. He’d seemed, in fact, stunned by the accident, as if he’d broken some valuable crystal by Steuben instead of an ordinary tumbler from the dime store.

“Hello, Ralph.”

“Hello, Thelma. How are you?”

“Fine. I think, fine.” She was carrying a man’s blue-and-white striped shirt and a threaded needle. “Come in, won’t you? I’m just sewing.”

The three lamps in the living-room were turned on, but the room still looked gloomy, and the atmosphere was cool and damp as if the place had been shut up all day and used as a refuge by someone hiding from the sun or the neighbors.

Thelma sat on the chesterfield beside a pile of men’s clothes, socks and shirts and undershorts. “Harry called at noon. Thanks for letting him spend the night with you.”

“He’s welcome to stay any time. The kids are crazy about him.”

“Oh.”

“He likes them, too. He doesn’t even mind them climbing all over him at six-thirty in the morning. That’s a true test.’

“Is it?”

“My own opinion is that Harry would make a very fine father. He’s got all the—”

“You’re wasting your time,” she said, flatly and finally. “Harry is not the father of my child. I couldn’t possibly go on living with him, pretending that he was. If that’s what you’re suggesting.”

“I’m not merely suggesting, I’m strongly urging you to reconsider. Harry and I talked it over last night. He’s willing, he’s actually eager to assume responsibility for the child. He loves you, Thelma.”

“I know that. But I don’t love him. And if I had to continue living with him under such false pretenses I might grow to hate him. No child should be brought up in a house of hate, as I was. No, Ralph, don’t argue. The future is settled.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. Oh, there’ll be a lot of talk, a lot of scandal, but it will blow over. Then Ron and I can move somewhere else and start a life of our own.” She spoke quickly, glibly, as if she had said these exact words to herself many times, perhaps because she believed them, perhaps because she was merely trying to believe them. “You don’t mind if I go on sewing, do you? Harry’s coming for his things after he finishes work and I want them to be in order. He won’t have anyone to look after him for a while.”

“For a while?”

“He’ll get married again some day. I know he thinks his love for me is unique and undying and so on, but I understand Harry pretty well. Some nice woman will come along and give him the kind of life he wants.”

“You’ve given him the kind of life he wants.”

“He’s easily satisfied. I’m not.”

“You put up a good front.”

“I have my pride. Oh, I guess you think that word sounds peculiar coming from me, but what I said is true. I couldn’t very well go around telling people like you and Nancy that I was bored and lonely sitting around this house all day, knowing the future would be exactly the same. The only person I ever told was Ron. He told me things too – that Esther was smarter than he was and he was always embarrassed when they went out together and she dominated the conversation and everything. He said it made him feel as if he were her idiot son whom she dragged along out of duty.”

It was, to Turee, a rather bizarre picture of the Galloways’ relationship, and yet he realized instantly that it showed some true colors and some bold, clear lines.

“I told him he needn’t fear anything like that from me, I’m not very smart. Or if I am, nobody’s ever mentioned it.” Suddenly she put down her sewing and flashed him a glance so sharp and direct that he blinked trying to meet it. “What are you doing here, Ralph? You’re usually home by this time. I know you and Nancy eat early because of the children. Did you just come to hear me chatter?”

“No.”

“I knew as soon as I opened the door and saw you, I knew there must be a reason. An important one. Is it about Ron?”

“Yes.”

“If it were good news you’d have told me right away. So it’s bad news. How bad?”

“He’s dead.”

“You’re not – there can’t be any mistake?”

“No.”

She hunched forward until her forehead rested on her knees and stayed there motionless, as if she’d lost the will to move. Street noises seeped in through the cracks of the windows and streaks of light past the edges of the drawn blinds. Turee wished he were outside with the noise and the light, instead of in this room where everything seemed to have died; not even a clock ticked or a fly buzzed.

Thelma spoke finally, her voice muffled by the folds of her skirt. “The car.”

“What about the car?”

“He had an accident?”

“There is reason to believe,” Turee said cautiously, “that the act was intentional.”

“What reason?”

“He posted a letter to Esther before he died.”

“To Esther.” Her head snapped up like a puppet’s jerked by a string. “Not to me? Why not to me? Why not to me? I’m the one who loved him. I gave up everything for him, my home, my husband, my good name, and I’d have given up anything more I had. Why not to me? Why not – oh God, I can’t stand it. Ron, Ron, Ron. Oh God, come back, Ron, come back. Don’t leave me alone. I’m scared. I’m scared.”

“Thelma. Please—”

“Ron, Ron, Ron darling. Oh, my God!”

She kept on moaning, her teeth pressed into her lower lip until the blood began to run, as if she were consciously inflicting mutilation on herself as punishment. Presently the metallic taste of the blood made her cough, and the moans turned into a fit of coughing. She held one of Harry’s shirts against her mouth to stifle the sound. When she put it down again it was stained with blood and tears, and Turee thought what a sharp piece of irony it was that Harry, who had done nothing against anyone, should have to sop up the tears and wipe off the blood.

“Let me fix you a drink, Thelma.”

“No!”

“Well, perhaps Harry has some pills lying around that will help calm you down a little.”

“Pills!” She spat the word into the center of the room as if she were aiming at an invisible cuspidor. “Harry has a million pills lying around. Go take them all as far as I’m concerned.”

“Damned if I wouldn’t if I could find them,” Turee said, rather pleased by her fit of temper. It means that she wasn’t too submerged in her grief to react to ordinary stimuli.

She held Harry’s shirt to her mouth again, and if Turee hadn’t known better he might have taken it for a gesture of affection. “What was in the letter he wrote to – to Esther?”

“I don’t know.”

“You haven’t seen it?”

“No.”

“Then she could be lying, deliberately lying, pretending there’s such a letter to make me feel bad.”

“That’s not very reasonable, is it?”

“You don’t know Esther.”

“Only for ten years.”

“Nobody knows what goes on inside somebody else.”

“There’s the circumstantial evidence of their actions and words. When you see a man obviously enjoying his dinner you can assume he feels hungry and thinks the food is good.”

“Assuming and knowing – there’s an appalling gap between them. And I fell into it.” Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks and she jabbed at her eyes viciously as if they were traitors betraying her. “The night—Saturday night—when I told Ron about the baby I could see he was surprised, shocked even, but I thought he was pleased too, pleased because he loved me and the baby was the bond of our love and we would all be together in the future. That’s what I assumed. What I know now is that he didn’t want any future with me in it, he’d rather die. He’d rather die.”

“Don’t blame yourself so much, Thelma.”

“There’s no one else to blame.” Her lower lip was beginning to puff and her eyes had swollen and reddened. “How could he have done it, deserted me, left me to face everything alone? “

“Thelma—”

“I thought he was a man, not a nasty little coward. No, no, what in God’s name am I saying – he wasn’t a coward! He – I don’t know. I don’t know! Oh, Ron. Oh Ron!” She seemed to be clinging wildly to a pendulum that swung between the extremes of love and hate, grief and fury. “I can’t stand it. I can’t go on living without him.”

“You must.”

“I can’t, I can’t do it.”

“You have to think of your child.”

She folded her arms across her abdomen as if she suddenly had a notion that the fetus was already aware and must be protected from the sight and sound of strangers who might be hostile. “What will happen to us, Ralph, to him and me?”

“I don’t know.”

“I had such high hopes, such wonderful plans.’

This was Thelma stripped down to essentials, like a hot rod with its top removed, its fenders missing, its engine exposed and unmuffled and its twin pipes roaring, I and me. All of Thelma’s high hopes had been built on deceit and her wonderful plans made entirely at the expense of other people.

Something struck the front window and landed on the porch with a plop. Thelma jumped, as if the little sound had been loud as a cannon, aimed at her.

“Probably the evening paper,” Turee said. “I’ll bring it in if you like.”

“I don’t like. I… will it be in, about Ron?”

“Perhaps.”

“And me?”

“I’m not sure who knows about you, except for Harry and Esther and myself.” A few minutes later he was forced to add, silently, and the entire police department.

The account of Ron’s death was headlined on the front page of the paper, “Prominent Torontonian Found Dead in Georgian Bay.” Esther had apparently refused to provide a recent photograph of Ron, so some newspaperman had scrounged around in the file room and come up with a picture taken several years previously at a New Year’s Eve party at the Granite Club. Ron was grinning self-consciously into the camera, serpentine entwining his neck and bits of confetti clinging to his hair and his dinner-jacket. Both the picture and the caption, “Galloway in a Gayer Mood’, were in incredibly bad taste. Turee had a futile hope that Esther wouldn’t see it. That Thelma should see it was inevitable, but somehow this seemed more fitting to Turee, since all of Thelma’s recent actions indicated her lack of the sense of propriety that was so strong in Esther.

Although Thelma hadn’t wanted him to bring in the newspaper in the first place, she was now watching him with nervous impatience, twisting and untwisting her small plump hands. “Well, what does it say?”

“Read it for yourself.”

“No. I can’t. My eyes hurt.”

“All right. First, there’s a factual account of how and where he was found. I see no point in reading that aloud; it will only upset you.”

“Go on from there, then.”

“ ‘An autopsy has been ordered. Authorities are still investigating the possibility of accidental death, although the present evidence points to suicide. A letter received this morning by his wife, the former Esther Ann Billings, allegedly indicated Galloway’s intention of killing himself. This letter is now in the hands of the police, who, because of its delicate and personal nature, refused to release its contents to the Press.’ ”

“She gave the letter to the police?’ Thelma’s tone was incredulous, and Turee’s would have matched it if he’d spoken. It seemed incongruous to him that Esther should have handed such a personal letter over to the police. The locker-rooms of a police department could spring as many leaks as locker-rooms anywhere else, and Esther was sophisticated enough to know this. Perhaps she’d had no choice and the police had demanded the letter as evidence of intent to commit suicide. Or perhaps Esther had meant, without thinking of the consequences to herself or her children, to involve Thelma, immediately and publicly.

Thelma said, “I’m in the letter, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

“By name?”

“I think so.”

“So it’s only a matter of time until everybody in town knows. My God, how can I face it?”

“You have friends.”

“Ron’s friends, and Harry’s. None of my own, not one.”

“There’s still a solution,” Turee said. “If you’ll accept it, if you’ll be reasonable.”

But she turned away, closing in the face of reason like a stone door. “I won’t.”

“You haven’t even—”

“Hide behind Harry, that’s your solution?”

“Harry’s willing. I told you that. Don’t underestimate him. He’s a fine man, a generous man.”

“Oh, I know. Good old Harry, always willing to give his last shirt to a friend – or lose it to him in a poker game. Harry’s such a good loser, is that why everyone likes him so much? He loses so gently and gracefully. But he loses. He always misses the boat. Why?”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to go any place.”

“Well, I do. And I will. Anything will be better than going on living with Harry, in this house, in this town.”

Her tone was final, and as if for emphasis she picked up her needle again. In and out of the holes of a button her hand moved, quick, precise, without a tremor. Either the pendulum had stopped swinging, or Thelma had let go of it.

Turee rose and crossed the room, awkwardly and painfully. His legs had gone numb and his feet felt as if they were being pierced by a thousand needles, all sharper than the one Thelma was wielding. She looked up and met his questioning gaze. “Stop worrying about me,” she said bluntly. “I’ll be all right as long as I keep busy, keep doing things. Tomorrow I’ll start on the baby’s layette. Everything will be sewn by hand – You’re not leaving, Ralph?”

“It’s getting rather late.”

“I was hoping you’d stay until Harry comes for his clothes. He’s probably seen the papers and he’ll be very upset. He’s terribly emotional about things – friends, home, mother, lost dogs.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Me? I haven’t any friends, and I never had either a home or a mother or owned a dog. Does that answer your question?”

“Not very satisfactorily.”

“How you love to analyze people, Ralph; but please don’t try it on me.”

Turee remembered Harry’s saying similar words early Sunday morning while they were driving from Wiarton back to the lodge: Just don’t start analyzing Thelma. I love her the way she is. Let her have her dreams.

Well, she had them, Turee thought dryly. What a blind fool Harry has been. Not like a husband, but like a too-permissive parent, overly ready to cover up a child’s errors, and eager to accept the most comfortable explanations.

“I’ll make you some tea, Ralph. Perhaps you’d like a sandwich, too?”

“No thanks to both. I’ll wait for Harry, though.”

“That’s good of you.” She picked up the pile of clothes from the chesterfield and rose, a little clumsily, as if she were not yet used to the new proportion of weight in her body. “If you’ll excuse me. I’ll finish Harry’s packing.”

“Where is he going to stay?”

“He told me he’s taking a room at a hotel. I don’t know which one. I didn’t ask.”

“Will he keep on with his job here?”

“I didn’t ask that either.” She paused in the doorway. “I keep telling you, but you still don’t seem to understand. Harry and I are through. He is part of the past. We must both start right now forgetting each other. I’ve made my decision – it wouldn’t be fair to Harry if I kept in touch with him, if I fostered any hope in him that we would get together again. I don’t want to know where he’s living or what he’s doing. I wish him good luck, that’s all. And happiness too.”

“How magnanimous.”

She missed the irony. “I bear no grudge against Harry. Why should I? He did his best.”

After she’d left the room, Turee picked up a magazine, but it was impossible for him to read. He found himself listening to Thelma’s step, on the stairs and along the hall, heavy and uncertain as if she were dragging something behind her. He could hear her moving around in the bedroom directly overhead, opening drawers, closing them, mumbling to herself now and then, muted sounds that disintegrated before they could reach Turee as words.

She’s frightened silly, he thought. If Harry could force himself to take a really firm stand with her, she might be willing to give in, to lean on him. Thelma’s repeated protestations of independence seemed to be covering up a real need to lean. Perhaps the reason she couldn’t yet do it was her fear that Harry might not be able to bear her weight. It was now up to Harry to prove his strength.

The telephone began to ring in the next room and Thelma came downstairs to answer it, quite slowly, as if she knew in advance that the call couldn’t be important; all the important things had already happened to her.

“Hello … Yes, this is Mrs. Bream … Is he hurt? … Oh, I see … No, I can’t come myself; it’s impossible. I’ll see if I can get somebody else … Thank you for telling me. Good-bye.”

Turee met her at the door of the living-room. “Harry’s been injured?”

“Not badly. He jammed the back of a street-car on College Avenue and he has a few head cuts. He’s in the emergency ward at Toronto General. They’re going to keep him there overnight.”

“Why, if it’s nothing serious?”

“Why?” The corners of her mouth twisted in bitterness. “Because he’s too drunk to go anywhere.”

Chapter 15

The curtained cubicle was so small that Turee barely had room to stand beside the bed. Harry lay on his back, his eyes closed, his entire head bandaged very tightly, so that the skin of his forehead had contracted into a petulant little frown.

“Harry—”

“He’s out,” the nurse said. She was a type Turee recognized, stout, middle-aged, efficient, with a false front of maternality that wouldn’t deceive a child, but had fooled many an adult. She added, “He talks a blue streak, then passes out, and a minute later he’s talking again.”

“I thought he was only slightly hurt. All those bandages—”

“They don’t mean anything. Head cuts bleed a lot, so the doctor usually applies a pressure bandage for a day or two in case of hemorrhage. Actually he’s only got eleven stitches. He’ll suffer more from the hangover. And other things.”

“Such as?”

“As soon as he’s released from here they’ll take him down and book him for drunk driving. He’ll get a stiff fine. Too bad, him with no job and his wife pregnant. Maybe that’s why he did it.”

“Did what?”

“Drank so much. Some men get all emotional over their first baby. I guess it strains their sense of responsibility. Do you want to stay here with him for a while?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I have things to do. If he gets rambunctious, just give me a buzz.”

“All right.”

“I’m Miss Hutchins.”

Turee stood in silence at the foot of the bed, observing the differences that lack of consciousness emphasized. Harry’s affability seemed to be unmasked as weakness, his urge to please as anxiety. And this is what Thelma sees, he thought, Harry with his guards down. This is what she based her decision on. She simply can’t afford to lean on a straw.

“Harry.”

Harry shook his head back and forth on the pillow as if he was trying to shake off the sound of his own name nagging him back into a world he wanted to forget.

“It’s Ralph, Harry. You don’t have to talk. I just want you to know I’m here.”

“Thelma?”

“She’s all right. She’s at home. The next-door neighbor is staying with her, a Mrs. Mai – somebody.”

“My head hurts. Wanna sit up.”

“I’m not sure you—”

“Wanna sit up.”

“All right.” Turee cranked the bed up halfway. “That better?”

“Nothing’s better. Nothing’s better in the whole world.” His slurred speech and glassy, unfocused eyes made it clear that either Harry was still drunk or under the influence of a sedative. “Nothing. See?”

“I see. Sure.”

“You’re a good head, Ralph. There’s no better head than you, nowhere. See?”

“Sure, sure. Now take it easy.”

Harry closed his eyes and lapsed into incoherence for a time. Only the odd word was distinguishable, but his angry, guttural tone and his bellicose expression indicated strongly that Harry was telling somebody off.

Turee moved up to the head of the bed and put his hand lightly and firmly on Harry’s shoulder. “Harry, can you hear me?”

“Can’t hear you. Go away.”

“What’s bothering you?”

“I bumped into a street-car. Damn thing wouldn’t move. I was in a hurry.”

“Where were you going?”

“No place. No place to go.”

“Before you hit the street-car, Harry, what happened?”

“I had a little drink.”

“I know that.”

“One little drink. ’S what I told the policeman. ’S what I’m telling you.”

“I thought you were at work. You don’t usually drink between office calls.”

“No office calls. No more office calls.”

“What do you mean?”

“Take your goddam pills, I said. I quit, I said, the whole bloody bunch of you can go jump in the lake. Lake.” He repeated the word, wincing, as if it had pierced his consciousness like a needle. “Lake. I was in a bar. I heard them talking about a lake. Ron. That’s what Ron did. Jumped in the lake. Isn’t that funny, hah? Isn’t that funny?” Tears were streaming down his face, and he had begun to hiccough. “Wanted to jump in the lake too. Couldn’t find it. Couldn’t find the bloody lake.”

“You can find it some other time,” Turee said dryly. “Right now you’re supposed to take it easy.”

“Street-car in my way. Wouldn’t move. Giddyap, I said, giddyap, and I stepped on the gas. Didn’t mean to hit it, just wanted to push it along, get it started. I was in a hurry. I was – where was I going? Can’t remember.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Harry wiped his face on a corner of the bed sheet, then held it against his mouth to stem the flow of hiccoughs. “My head hurts. I broke something. Did I – broke something?”

“No.” He wishes he had, Turee thought. It would be easier on him if he could misdirect his misery at something physical. But all Harry’s breaks are in places no doctor could reach to use a splint or apply a cast. “You’ve got a hangover,” Turee added bluntly. “How much did you have to drink?”

“Just one little—”

“Come off it. I’m not a policeman. How much?”

“Don’t, don’t, don’t, I can’t remember’.

“All right.”

“I needed a drink. I quit my job.”

“Why? You’ve always liked your job.”

“No wife any more, no home, might as well have no job, start from scratch.”

“That’s pretty childish logic. How do you expect to live?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care.”

“Do you think the Company will take you back? You’ve been with them for years.”

“I’m not going back.”

“You could apply for a transfer to another city.”

“No wife, no home, no job.”

“Also no friends, if you want to play it that way.”

“Friends.” Harry spit the word across the room as if it had a foul taste. Then he turned and buried his face in the pillow and started to curse. He kept it up for a long time.

“You’re beginning,” Turee said finally, “to repeat yourself.”

“Shut your goddam—”

“All right, all right, all right.”

“How the hell did you get here, anyway? Who asked you to come?”

“Thelma. I was with her when the hospital phoned.”

“Doing what? Or is that too personal?”

Turee, white with anger, explained in very elementary language what he was not doing with Thelma. “Now is that clear enough for you or shall I draw pictures?”

“Goddam you, shut up! Shut up, shut up!”

As if on cue, Miss Hutchins, the nurse, reappeared. She wore the professional smile which she picked up outside the door like a surgical gown and left there when she departed. “Just what is going on in here? Do you want to wake the whole hospital? How does your head feel?”

Without waiting for any answers, she began adjusting the tray-holder on Harry’s bed. “Here we are. Some nice cream of wheat. And a cup of chocolate with a marshmallow – one of the new dietitians is bugs on marshmallows, puts them in everything. And two little pills to help with the jitters.”

Harry glanced briefly at the pills. “Chlorpromazine.”

“Now how did you know that?”

“Never mind. I won’t take them anyway. I want my clothes.”

“What for?”

“I’ve got to get out of here. Where are my clothes?”

“Where I put them. So let’s not have a hassle, Mr. Bream. In a hospital when the doctor says you stay, you stay. Might as well pretend you’re a guest and be polite about it.”

“I have to talk to my wife. It’s urgent.”

“Look, Mr. Bream, even if you managed to get out of here, you wouldn’t be allowed to go home. You were driving while drunk and involved in an accident. You’ll have to be taken down to the jail and booked. There’s a policeman at the desk now waiting to question you about the accident. This isn’t the Royal York Hotel, but it’s better than a cell in the local pokey.”

“Bail. I could get bail. Ralph, how much money have you got?”

“Here?’ Turee said. “About a dollar and thirty-five cents. In the bank, a little more.”

“Well, there’s Bill Winslow or Joe Hepburn. Or Esther. No, we couldn’t bother Esther. But Bill would—”

“Bill won’t,” Miss Hutchins said bluntly. “Not tonight, anyway. Now if you behave yourself, you can stay here. You’re warm, comfy, well looked after. But if you start throwing fits they’ll haul you up to the psycho ward. Some of the beds there have cages around them. Now do you want to spend the night locked up like a monkey in a zoo, or are you going to be a good boy, eat your cream of wheat, take your pills and stop arguing?’

Harry peered at her resentfully from under his bandages. “You’re very rude.”

“Am I now?’ Miss Hutchins’s smile for the first time was one of genuine amusement. “Well, I’ve been handling drunks for thirty years. I guess it’s not the best way in the world to learn manners. Think you can feed yourself?”

“Of course I can feed myself.”

“Try.”

Harry tried. He picked up the spoon and dipped it in the dish of cereal, but his hand was shaking so badly he didn’t attempt to raise the spoon to his mouth. He lay back and closed his eyes. “I’m not hungry.”

“None of you are,” Miss Hutchins said dryly. “But some protein helps with the shakes. The pills ought to help, too. Are you going to take them?”

“I – guess so.”

Miss Hutchins gave him the pills in a tiny paper cup and Harry swallowed them like an expert, without any water.

“There now,” Miss Hutchins said. “I’ll take your tray away and we’ll try eating again later after you’ve had a little rest.”

“Chlorpromazine never affects me. I’ve had it dozens of times.”

“Is that a fact?”

She removed the tray and cranked down the bed. Within a few minutes Harry was asleep again, snoring heavily through his open mouth.

Turee followed Miss Hutchins into the corridor. “Should I stay around?”

“Oh, there’s no reason to. He’ll be fine. It’s nearly eight o’clock, he may sleep clear through the night.”

“I hope so,” Turee said, wishing he could do the same, sleep through the night right up until noon the next day. By noon some things would be settled. Harry would be free, and Esther would have weathered the first day of widowhood. Perhaps, too, the autopsy would be completed and any uncertainty about Ron’s death dispelled. Turee wondered, and felt a little shocked at himself for wondering, if Ron had made a will, and if he, or any of the rest of Ron’s friends, were mentioned in it. I can’t help it. I have a dollar thirty-five in my pocket.

“… a funny thing about Mr. Bream,” Miss Hutchins was saying. “Before I took in his tray, I checked the result of the blood alcohol test they ran on him. It was only 0.1 of one per cent. In a normal person that’s not even intoxication level, yet Mr. Bream was almost dead drunk when they brought him in. I guess he’s the kind who can’t hold his liquor.’

“I guess he is.”

“Or else he’s under some severe emotional strain which aggravated the effect of the alcohol. It’s odd his wife didn’t come to see him.” Miss Hutchins’s tone was casual; there wasn’t the faintest emphasis on the word wife. But her eyes gave her away.

They were honed sharp as a fortune teller’s on the lookout for some slight reaction that would indicate whether she was on the right road to her client’s secrets. “When I talked to her on the telephone she sounded quite cool and collected, just the kind of person you’d think would rise to emergency.”

Noon. Noon tomorrow, Turee said to himself as a child says Christmas. By noon some things will be settled and Miss Hutchins will have laded into the past, and good riddance.

He had no reason to suspect that a long time later Miss Hutchins would reappear in his mind, her features distinct, her voice persistent, her outlines as precise as they were now while he was watching her bustle off down the corridor to the nurses’ station.

Turee began walking in the opposite direction towards the exit door. The policeman Miss Hutchins had referred to was waiting at the registration desk, talking to a young man wearing a crew cut and a trench coat.

As Turee was about to pass, the young man turned and his face brightened with recognition. “Why, hello, Professor.”

“Good evening.”

“I guess you don’t remember me. I’m Rod Blake. I was in a poli. sci. course of yours a couple of years ago.”

“Blake. Of course.” He recalled Blake now as a brash youngster whose good opinion of himself had been considerably higher than his grades. “What are you doing this year, Blake?”

“A little of this and that. I’ve got my sights set on a job. A good one. Why start at the bottom, I always say.”

“Well, good luck.”

Turee was impatient to leave, but the young man took a step to the left, blocking his way. It was an unobtrusive and expert motion, as if Blake was accustomed to people trying to get away from him and had practiced means of circumventing them.

“Nothing the matter with your family, I hope?’ Blake said.

“They’re all well, thank you.”

“That’s good. I thought your being here in this ward might indicate—”

“I was visiting a friend who had an accident.”

“Nothing serious, I trust?”

Turee glanced at the policeman, who appeared bored, either by the conversation, his job, or Blake. “Nothing serious, no. Well, good night, Blake.”

“It was a real pleasure bumping into you like this, Professor.”

They shook hands, firmly, like old friends or secret enemies, and Turee went out into the spring night.

The cold wind evaporated the moisture on his brow and spread a chill through his entire body. I flunked him in the course. He hates my guts. I wonder what his angle is.

Chapter 16

It was characteristic of Blake that when he wanted something badly he went after it with such tactless determination that he weakened his own chances. The job at the Globe and Mail was a case in point.

He had decided on journalism as his field because it apparently offered glamour and excitement and a chance of advancement. “Wait’ll I’m editor,” he’d told one of his girlfriends. And he had chosen the particular newspaper, the Globe, because it was old, established, solvent, and the news editor was a man named Ian Richards whom Blake respected as much as he could respect anyone.

Every day or two, for the past month, he’d been dropping in at Richard’s office, trying to prove, by means of story ideas, plans for a new sports column, revamping the front page format and so on, that the Globe had tired blood and needed a quick transfusion of Blake. He oversold himself. Richards’s preliminary interest had turned into dislike, his amusement into acidity. Yet no matter how clearly Richards indicated these changes, Blake seemed to remain obdurately unaware of them.

Late Tuesday afternoon he appeared at Richards’s office in an elated mood. Richards didn’t pay much attention to the mood. He’d seen samples of it before, and it usually meant only that Blake had been thinking beautiful thoughts of himself again.

“I’d ask you to sit down,” Richards said, “but I’m busy.”

Blake grinned. “I can talk on my feet.”

“You can talk on your head, I’m still busy.”

“You’ll be sorry if you don’t listen. I’m on to something.”

“Again?”

“This time it’s big. You’ve been following the Galloway case?”

“I read my own newspaper, naturally. What about it? Suicides are a dime a dozen.”

“And the stories behind them?”

“I’m sure they’re all very interesting, but it’s not the kind of thing we print.”

“You might want to print this one. You, or some other newspaper. I’m giving you first chance. Nice of me, eh?”

“Dandy.” Richards’s mouth puckered as if he’d bitten into something sour. “Just dandy.”

“Well, the whole thing started in kind of a chancy way. Last night I dropped in at the Emergency Ward at General. It’s a good place to pick up things, there are always policemen around waiting to question accident victims and so on. Anyway, I was just standing there minding everybody else’s business when I happened to see an old prof of mine from U.C., Ralph Turee. He handed me a bum deal in his course, but I figured, let bygones be bygones. Besides, I had a hunch – it seemed like the last place in the world you’d meet a guy like Turee. I mean, he’s just not the type you associate with accidents or emergencies or the like. He’s cold, and cautious, probably never even had a parking ticket in his life – maybe a little like you, eh, Richards?”

“So you had a hunch. Go on.”

“It seems Turee was in the ward, visiting a friend of his who had an accident. That much I got from him, the rest I got from the nurse in charge. I had no trouble at all. Nurses always go for me. I gave her the treatment and she opened up like a flower. The friend Turee was visiting was a guy named Harry Bream who’d been brought in drunk after hitting a street-car. Bream did a lot of ranting and raving during which he dropped some names. Galloway was one, Ron Galloway. As soon as I heard that, bells started to ring.”

“Same old bells, or new ones?”

Blake brushed away the sarcasm as he would a fly, with a sweep of his hand. “So I began checking. First the records at City Hall, then your file room downstairs. When Galloway was married, nine years ago, to his present wife, Harry Bream was his best man. And get this, he was also best man at Galloway’s first marriage to the heiress, Dorothy Reynold. The conclusion’s obvious: Bream and Galloway had been very good friends for a very long time.”

“So?”

“Well, Bream now has a wife himself. They were married about three years ago, no children, live out in Weston. Her name is Thelma. Mean anything to you?”

“Not a thing.”

“You should get around, Richards. Like me. That suicide note Galloway left – well, let’s put it this way: I’ve got a pretty good friend in the Police Department.”

“He let you see the note?”

“No; but he told me what was in it.”

Richards looked grim. “For how much?”

“Not a cent. He likes my pretty blue eyes.”

“I suppose policemen find you as irresistible as nurses do?”

“You might,” Blake said with a smile, “put it like that, yes.”

“You’re a fresh kid, Blake. Full of ideas, some of them good, full of stories, some of them true. But mostly full of you-know-what. I wouldn’t give you a job here even if I could. You’re trouble.”

“Trouble or not, I have some very, valuable information.”

“My advice is, take it to the News.”

“The News has no class. Besides, I hear it’s going to fold. I don’t want to start a trip on a sinking ship. I can’t swim.”

“You’d better learn.”

“O.K., the hell with you, Richards. Let a silly personal prejudice cut you off from a scoop.”

“We don’t depend on scoops for our circulation.”

“All right, but would you turn one down?”

Richards hesitated, drumming his pencil on the desk. “Listen, Blake, if you’ve got a story, I might buy it. I won’t buy you.”

“How much?”

“That depends on the story. If it’s good, if it’s true. And if it’s printable.”

“I’d print it, if I were news editor.”

“We don’t always think alike. Let’s hear the story.”

“Not yet. I have to check out one more thing before everything’s positive. Oh, it’ll check, don’t worry. My methods may not come under the Boy Scouts rules, but they work.” He perched on the edge of Richards’s desk, clasping his hands together as if he were congratulating himself. “You know, that’s the trouble with this paper, you need a live wire around with some high voltage.”

“You might blow the fuses.”

“Think it over. I’ve got guts, energy, youth, a nose for news—”

“What makes you hate yourself so much?”

“I’ve got to talk myself up. Who else will do it?”

“Haven’t you got a mother?”

“Oh, come off it, Richards. How do you pick reporters around here, for their modest smiles and the way they sweet-talk you? Anybody can do that. Oh, you’re a great man, Mr. Richards, sir, I don’t really deserve to work for such an outstanding newspaper, sir, but I’ll do anything. I’ll scrub floors. I’ll wash out the cuspidors—”

“Beat it, Blake. I told you I was busy.”

“O.K., but I’ll be back. Unless I get a better offer somewhere else.”

“If you do, take it.” He picked up a piece of copy from his desk and began reading.

Blake craned his neck to look at it. “The autopsy report on Galloway, eh? You know what I bet you’ll do with it? Take your little red pencil and reduce it to something as dull as a stock quotation.”

“That’s my business.”

When he had gone, Richards took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. They felt gritty, as though he’d been bucking a strong and dirty wind. He felt more distaste for than interest in Blake’s promises. If the Police Department had so many leaks that a kid like Blake could find out the contents of a supposedly secret suicide letter, this was a story in itself, perhaps a bigger story, in the long run, than any Blake could dream up.

He replaced his spectacles and turned back to the autopsy report. It was, as far as Richards was concerned, considerably duller than a stock quotation: death had been caused by drowning, water was found in the stomach and lungs, and foamy mucus in the trachea, and the blood chlorides on the left side of the heart were thirty per cent lower than those of the right, a positive indication of drowning in fresh water.

The report revealed only one surprise, that Galloway had made a previous attempt at suicide in the earlier hours of the night, Saturday, that he had died. Considerable amounts of a barbiturate compound were found in the stomach and other vital organs. When questioned about this point, Dr. Robert Whitewood, the pathologist who performed the autopsy, stated that it was fairly common to discover traces of previous suicide attempts, which he compared roughly to the ‘hesitation marks’ frequently found on victims of suicide who had used razors, knives, or other sharp instruments.

Nothing in the early part of the report affected Richards – water in the lungs, chloride contents of the heart, mucus in the trachea, these meant only that Galloway was a dead man. But the phrase, hesitation marks, conjured up a live one.

“Hesitation marks.” Richards repeated it aloud, thinking, Galloway was a man, like himself, going through all the motions of living, until one day he no longer felt any incentive to move. He had tried to kill himself, and failing, had tried again. Between the two attempts there was the time of hesitation. At what point had he written the letter to his wife?

And who, Richards wondered, was Thelma?

Chapter 17

Thelma seldom read the newspapers. She was not actually concerned about other people, and though she had her share of female curiosity Thelma’s ran round and round on a limited track like a toy train stopping only at certain junctions, responsive only to the lever of Thelma’s immediate interest.

On the front lawn the morning paper lay unopened, already yellowing under the sharp spring sun. For several hours Turee had been trying to reach her by phone to warn her about the small but strategically placed paragraph on the second page of the News, headed ‘Mystery Woman Hinted in Galloway Death’, Thelma had heard the phone ringing and had refused to answer. She was practically certain that the caller was Turee and that he merely intended to repeat what he’d been telling her for the past two days, that, in the interests of good taste if nothing else, she was not to attend Galloway’s funeral. Thelma had resisted this advice with voluble obstinacy. For one reason, quite unconscious, it presented her with something definite to rebel against, and so helped to take the edge off her grief. Turee’s interference served as a counter-irritant, and the time she spent resenting and opposing it was time she would otherwise have spent in self-pity and regret and guilt.

The funeral was scheduled for three o’clock that afternoon, and though it was not yet one, Thelma was already dressed for the occasion in an old black wool suit that didn’t quite accommodate her new proportions. She had bathed her eyes to reduce the swelling and used powder on the lids to hide their blister-like transparency. She wore no other make-up, and her light hair was pulled back from her face into a small tight knot. She looked more like a sorrowing widow than Esther could have looked after a month of practice. She was aware of this fact, too, and it gave her a grim sense of triumph.

But the thought of Ron brought tears to her eyes and she was on the point of breaking into sobs when the telephone began to ring again, and, almost simultaneously, the front door bell.

“Damn you,” she whispered. “Damn you, leave me alone!”

Then she turned deliberately away from the ringing phone and, wiping her eyes on her sleeve like a small girl, she went to answer the front door.

On the threshold stood a good-looking young man with a crew-cut, a handful of pamphlets showing the advantage of owning a water-softener, and such a fast-opening spiel that Thelma didn’t even hear all of it.

“… not more than a few pennies a day, ma’m, and the luxury of rain-water right out of your tap.”

“It’s no use wasting your time. I simply haven’t the money right now.”

“A softener will save you twice that amount in soap and detergent, water bills, wear and tear on clothing, and what’s more, it will conserve your water-heater. If I could just step inside a minute and show you the actual figures—”

“Well, I don’t know.”

The young man took quick advantage of her hesitancy. Feigning clumsiness, he dropped one of the folders he was carrying, and in bending down to pick it up he changed position expertly so that when he rose again he was inside the house. The maneuver was so smooth that Thelma couldn’t help admiring it. At one period of her life she’d sold cosmetics from door to door and she knew some of the tricks, but this one was new to her.

Thelma closed the door behind him, somewhat amused at the idea of playing dumb and letting the young man think he was getting away with something. It did not occur to her that he actually was, that until an hour ago he’d known no more about water-softeners than a baby and the pamphlets he was presenting to her were distributed free at the Hydro Electric office.

“My name is Blake, ma’m. Rod Blake.”

“I’m Mrs. Bream. Sit down if you like.”

“Thanks. Now about this water-softener – of course it may seem like a large initial expense, but in the long run it will more than pay for itself, believe me. Now take this model. Begging your pardon, ma’m, but if we could have a little more light

Thelma pulled open the drapes, unaware that Blake wanted more light so that he could study her more carefully. Observing the bulge beneath the shabby black suit, the pallor of her skin, her tear-swollen eyes, he felt no pity at all, only a glow of exultation that his hunch had been right. This was the woman. He was more sure of it than ever when he noticed the framed, tinted picture on top of the piano. A wedding picture, obviously, and the self-conscious stiffly smiling bridegroom was the man he’d seen in the emergency ward at General Hospital on Monday night. The bride was Thelma, looking ten years younger than she did now, though Blake knew the Breams had been married for only three years.

“My house is so small,” Thelma was saying. “There wouldn’t be room for it.”

“Ah, that’s the story I hear all the time. It usually turns out that there’s some corner nobody’s thought of. Mind if I take a look for myself?”

Thelma didn’t answer or turn from the window. She was staring out at the street, her small, plump hands clenched rigidly together like desperate lovers.

“Ma’m? I asked if I could—”

“Be quiet.”

Surprised, Blake followed her gaze. He could see nothing extraordinary, nothing even worth watching: a couple of children having a tricycle race, an elderly lady walking slowly between two walking-sticks, a young mother wheeling a pram, a man painting his porch, a trio of small, giggling girls lurching along in their mothers’ high-heeled shoes.

“Mrs. Bream—”

“Is that your car parked in the middle of the block facing this way?”

“I don’t have a car. I’m just getting started in the business.”

“The car – I don’t see very well these days – is it a Buick?”

“I think so.”

“About five years old?”

“About that, I guess. I don’t under—”

“Is there a man in it? My eyes – all this crying – I’ll go blind if I don’t stop – is there a man in the car?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, my God, he’s watching me. Maybe he’s been there for hours, all morning – my God what will I do? Why can’t he leave me alone?”

Blake shifted uncomfortably. What had started out, on his part, as a kind of lark was disintegrating before his eyes, like a sawdust doll spilling its insides. “I think maybe I’d better be on my way. If your kitchen’s too small and all that—”

“You can’t go now.”

“But I—”

“He’s getting out of the car, he’s heading here. You can’t leave me here alone with him.”

“It’s none of my business.”

“God knows what he’s thinking, seeing you come into the house. He may believe that you and I – oh, I don’t know. But you can’t leave now, without explaining to him that you’re just a salesman. You must have some card or identification from the company you work for.”

Blake had begun to sweat. “I’m new at the job. This is my first day. The company’s just trying me out.”

“You can tell him that.”

“No, no. I mean, I don’t work for any particular comp—”

“The pamphlets are from the Hydro Electric Company.”

“Yes, but—”

“All right, you work for the Hydro Electric Company. You needn’t be afraid,” she added contemptuously. “Harry can be unpleasant, but he’d never hurt anyone.”

“Why drag me into it, for Pete’s sake?”

“You dragged yourself. No one invited you.”

Harry knocked on the front door, and when Thelma didn’t answer it immediately he let himself in with his own key.

They met in the hall.

“Hello, Harry,” she said. “How are you?”

He peered at her through the dimness, blinking, like a man accustomed to wearing spectacles, who finds the world strangely altered without them. “You’re dressed funny.”

“Am I?”

“I don’t remember that suit.”

“I had it before we were married.”

“Black – You’re going to the funeral?”

“Yes. Are you?”

He shook his head. “Turee says it would be bad form if either of us went, under the circumstances.”

“Turee says this, Turee says that – Well, Turee can run your life for you, but he’s not running mine. I’m going to the funeral. I have a right to go.”

Harry smiled at her sadly. “We all have rights we don’t, or can’t, use. Technically, I have a right to come into my own house, kiss my own wife, make love to her if I want—”

“Is this another of Turee’s ideas?”

“No. My own.”

“Well, you can stop that kind of talk, speaking of bad form. If you and Turee pretend to have such fancy manners, why don’t you practice them?’ She turned away. “Besides, I – we have a visitor.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“He’s nothing, nobody. A man selling water-softeners. Claims they save money. I wonder if they really do.”

“I wonder.” Harry still wore his smile, but it seemed oddly changed. It was sly, wary, incongruous, a cat-smile on a cocker spaniel. “You have a perfect right to have visitors, to buy water-softeners – But then, as I said, I have rights too. It’s when our rights conflict that there’s bound to be trouble.”

“I’m not afraid of your threats.”

“You’re trembling.”

“Oh, I admit you make me nervous, only it’s like walking in front of a small boy with a supply of snowballs – the idea of being hit by a snowball makes me nervous. But even if one should hit me it wouldn’t be so bad. It’s only snow. So go ahead. Throw one.”

“It’s spring. There’s no snow. Small boys might switch to rocks.”

“Oh, stop all this talk. Do what you came to do and get it over with!”

“I will. I thought I’d better explain myself first. I’ve appealed to you in various ways, Thelma, to save us both. I’ve begged for your mercy, and I’ve asked for your pity. But no matter what words were used it always amounted to me asking you. Now I’m telling you.”

She looked at him, silent and sullen.

“My bags are out in the car, Thelma. I haven’t unpacked since I left here on Monday afternoon.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m coming back,” he said calmly. “I’m moving back into my house with my wife.”

“Stop talking like a fool.”

“I’m not a fool. Or a small boy. And I have something in my pocket more authoritative than a snowball or a rock.”

“What?”

“A gun.”

“You must be cra – Harry! Harry, listen to me—”

She put out her hand to stop him, but he brushed past her and went into the living-room. She could see, quite distinctly, the contours of the gun in the lower left pocket of his suit coat.

Blake was standing in the far corner of the room, clutching his pamphlets as if they were a passport to the outside world. Drops of sweat wriggled down his temples and behind his ears, leaving moist, shiny trails like slugs.

“Hello there,” Harry said brightly. “About this proposition of yours, I think my wife and I might be interested. Tell me, does soft water make shaving any easier?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come, you’re old enough to shave, surely? How old are you?”

“Twenty-one.”

“A mere boy. Do you throw snowballs?”

“I—”

“Never mind. You must excuse my wife and me for bringing you in on our private little difference of opinion. My wife hasn’t been well lately. We’re expecting a child in a few months, our first. Say, that’s going to mean a lot of extra washing, isn’t it? I think a water-softener might be a good investment. How about it, Thelma?”

“Harry,” she said dully. “Don’t. Stop.”

“Go take a pill, Thelma. You’re not well.” He turned back to the young man, who had managed one surreptitious step towards the door. “You look familiar to me. Have I seen you before?”

“No,” Blake said, thinking: It’s true. He couldn’t have seen me, he had his eyes closed when I was talking to the nurse. She said he was out, out like a light…”

“What’s your name?”

“Rod Blake.”

“Funny. I’d have sworn we met some place. A hospital – have you been in a hospital recently?”

“No.”

“Well, no matter. Tell me more about your product.”

“We have—several models.”

“Go ahead; talk about them. Speak your piece.”

“Well – well, as I was just saying to your wife, this is my first day on the job.”

“So?”

“I don’t know much about it yet.” Though he was still pouring sweat, he had begun to shiver, as if a cold wind was blowing through the house up from the basement of the past. “I – I’ve thought of a good idea.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Perhaps I could leave these folders with you and you can study them for yourself, facts and figures and so on. Then when you decide—”

“I’ve already decided. We’ll take one.”

“Which – which model?”

“Any model.”

“But—”

“Any model,” Harry said graciously. “All we want is enough soft water for the baby’s clothes. I’ll probably be doing some of the washing myself, so my motives aren’t entirely unselfish. Are you married?”

“N-no, sir.”

“Ah, well, you’ve plenty of time. I was well over thirty when I got married – took me that long to find the right girl. I found her, though, I found her. And I don’t intend to lose her.”

“Well – ah, I’d better be going now.”

“What’s your hurry?”

“I – the fact is, I have to get hold of an expert to come and measure – measure things.”

“I can see you’re a real eager beaver. Ever see a beaver dam, by the way?”

“No, sir.”

“Highly interesting. You should go out of your way to find one some time.”

“Yes, sir. I will.”

“Industrious lot, beavers.”

“They certainly are.” Blake began moving towards the door, breathing heavily, as if he had just completed building a dam entirely by himself with no help from any beavers. “I’ll – I’ll put your order in right away and see about installation.”

“Oh, there’s no great rush about it.” Harry smiled fondly at his wife. “We can’t hurry Mother Nature anyway.”

“Harry. Listen to me.”

“Now, dear, don’t be embarrassed or upset about a perfectly natural process.”

“Be quiet.” Thelma watched Blake approach her and she stood squarely in the middle of the doorway, so that he couldn’t pass her on either side without pushing her away. “We don’t want a water-softener. My husband is merely amusing himself at your expense and mine. He’s probably been drinking.”

“Not drinking,” Harry said. ‘Thinking.’

“Drinking,” she repeated to Blake, softly, as if she were confiding a secret. “And he has a gun.”

“I know, I know, but what the hell am I supposed to do? I want to get out of here.”

“You can’t leave me alone with him.”

“You said before you weren’t afraid.”

“I didn’t know about the gun then.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Blake whispered, and he felt his knees buckle like a sick colt’s. Let me out of here in one piece and I’ll go to church every Sunday for a year.

“Thinking,” Harry went on, as if he had not heard the exchange or else considered it too trivial to bother about. “Yes, my dear, that’s what I’ve been doing, a lot of plain, common-sense thinking. And I’ve decided that you’re in no condition to make the decisions for the family, now that there are going to be three of us. You’re too emotional to be allowed a freedom of choice. It’s up to me to take a firm stand, and I will. I’m head of this house, it’s time you realized that. I will decide the future. You hear that, Thelma?”

“Yes,” Thelma said. “I hear.”

“I’m glad you’re coming to your senses. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but the fact is, you’ve always been a little unstable.”

She looked grim. “Have I?”

“So it’s up to me to take over, to make all the decisions. Now the first decision I wish to make is about the water-softener. I want a water-softener and I intend to get one. Is that clear?”

“Yes.”

“You see how easy your role is going to be from now on? All you have to do is agree.”

“Yes.”

“Actually, it will save you trouble, it will be easier on you if I shoulder the burden of responsibilities. It puts too much of a strain on a woman, making decisions, being boss. It puts a strain on anyone.” He passed the back of his hand across his forehead. “A great strain. I’m – I’m really quite tired. Haven’t been sleeping much. Working all day, thinking all night, thinking—”

“You should lie down here, Harry, and get a good rest.” She crossed the room and began arranging the pillows at one end of the davenport. “Lie down, Harry.”

He didn’t have to be told. He sank back among the pillows, limp with exhaustion. “Lie down with me.”

“I can’t right now. I have to go out.”

“Not to the funeral? You’re not—”

“Of course not. If you don’t want me to, I won’t. You’re the boss, Harry.”

“Where are you going, then?”

“To the store. Now that you’re moving back into the house I have to stock up on groceries. What would you like for dinner?”

“I don’t know,” he said, closing his eyes. “I’m so tired.’’

“Fried chicken?”

“I don’t know. Kiss me, Thelma.”

Her lips touched his forehead briefly. It felt hot and dry, like something cured in the sun, or slow-baked in an oven. “You rest now, Harry. It’s such a strain, all this thinking and being boss, it’s given you a fever.”

His eyes snapped open, painfully, as if he had been pierced by a splinter of irony from her voice. “You don’t care. You don’t care about anything.”

“I do care, very much.”

“No – You listen to me, Thelma. I’m the boss. I want fried chicken for dinner tonight. Hear that?”

“Yes.”

“I make all the decisions from now on. Is that clear?”

“Of course.”

With a sound of desolation he turned and buried his face in the pillow.

She stood looking down at him, tight-lipped, cold-eyed. “I’ll need the car keys if I’m going to do the shopping. Are they in your pocket?”

He didn’t respond. She waited for several minutes, still as a stone, until Harry began to snore. Then she bent over him, and, moving with delicate precision, she took the car keys from one pocket and the gun from the other, and put them both in her handbag. Blake watched her from the doorway with the awed expression of a man witnessing the dismantling of an unexploded bomb.

When she turned and saw that Blake was still in the house she seemed surprised and displeased. “I thought you’d left.”

“No.”

“You’re free to go any time.” She went out into the hall, closing the door behind her and began putting on her hat, arranging the black veil over her face, tucking in wisps of hair. There was a mirror built into the hall-rack, but she didn’t even glance towards it. “You’re free to go,” she repeated. “You were so anxious to leave a few minutes ago.”

“Naturally. What did you expect me to do, tackle a crazy man?”

“He’s not crazy. He’s emotionally exhausted.”

“Same difference, as far as I’m concerned. You’d better watch out for yourself, Mrs. Bream.” He appeared reluctant to leave, as if he had misgivings about his behavior and wanted to confess and apologize but didn’t know how to go about it. “What are you going to do about the gun?”

“I have no idea. What does anyone do about a gun?”

“Unload it, that’s the first thing. Let me see it.”

She opened her handbag. She knew nothing about guns, but it seemed odd to her that it wasn’t heavier, more substantial, “It’s not real,” Blake said in a high, tinny voice.

“Pardon?”

“It’s a toy, a cap pistol.” The color of shame and fury spread across his face. “A cap pistol. And I was taken in. I was—” I was a coward. I was scared by a toy gun and a little man years older than I am. Scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat.

“I’m so relieved,” Thelma said. “I should have guessed, of course. Harry just isn’t the type to harm anyone even if he wanted to. People can’t get away from their own type no matter how hard they try.”

“Can’t they?”

“Poor Harry. A toy gun. Well, I suppose we’ll all look back on this some day and laugh. I mean, there was I, scared out of my wits, and you – I thought you were going to faint, you looked petrified.”

“I wasn’t frightened in the least,” he said, and, giving her a look of hatred, he turned and opened the door and ran down the porch steps, fleeing from his own identity, pursued by his own shadow.

Thelma started to call after him, to tell him not to bother about the water-softener, but at that moment the telephone began ringing again. This time she answered it promptly, because she didn’t want Harry to wake up.

“Hello?”

“Thelma, this is Ralph. I’ve been trying to reach you for hours.”

“I was out.” I don’t ever have to lie, she thought. I was out. Out of patience. “Is anything wrong?”

“Maybe. Harry came to my office this morning. He looked in terrible shape, as if he’d been on a binge for a week. I know that can’t be true, though, because he’s been going to work every day. I’m worried.”

“Why?”

“He was talking – well, pretty unrealistically. About you, and going home, and how he intended to get a firm hand on the reins, that sort of thing.”

“So?”

“I thought you should be warned. He’s a hell of a good guy, Thelma, it’s up to us to keep him out of trouble.”

“Not us,” Thelma said dryly. “You.”

“What does that mean?”

“He’s here now. Sleeping. After making a delightful scene in front of a total stranger. It’s the last straw. If he’s going to be kept out of trouble you’ll have to do it, you and Bill Winslow or Joe Hepburn. You’re his friends. I’m not.”

“What are we supposed to do?”

“I’m going out now, to Ron’s funeral – and you can start raving and ranting about bad form or anything else, but it won’t do any good. I’m going. And when I get back, I want Harry out of here, out of this house. If he’s still here when I come back, I’m going to phone the police and have him arrested for threatening me with a gun.”

“A gun?”

“Oh, just a cap pistol, as it turned out. But the threat was real and I have a witness. Harry can be arrested.”

“You wouldn’t—”

“Wouldn’t I? Listen, I’m fed up. I’m sick and tired and fed up. These scenes are tearing me apart. I have my health to consider, and my baby. I need peace and quiet, relaxation. How can I get any, with him barging around like a maniac? I would do anything to get rid of him. And I will, if you don’t prevent it.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“He won’t be here when I come back?”

“No.”

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose I should thank you in advance, only – well, whatever you do will be for Harry’s sake, not mine. I ask no favors from anyone.”

“I understand that. Go-it-alone Thelma, as usual.”

“I’m not quite alone.” She hung up.

In the living-room Harry lay crushed among the pillows, dreaming of triumphs and defeats, the rhythm of his gentle snoring broken now and then by a catch of his breath, a pause, a sigh.

What long eyelashes he has, Thelma thought. Then she said softly, “Good-bye, Harry.”

Chapter 18

Harry slept through the funeral, partly from a desire to escape it, partly from genuine weariness. By the time Turee and Bill Winslow arrived at the house, he was awake and sitting up on the davenport, though still dazed.

“How did you fellows get here?”

“Thelma left the door unlocked,” Turee said.

“No, I mean, what brought—?”

“Action now, explanations later. Come on, Harry.”

“Come on where?”

“To my house.”

“I don’t want to go to your house. I’m staying here. I’m waiting for Thelma.”

“Thelma’s not coming back until you leave.”

“But she has to. She promised to make me fried chicken for dinner. I commanded her to.”

“Oh, great, great,” Winslow said. After the funeral, he’d had three quick, long martinis which had submerged his sorrow, but left a lump of anger sticking in his throat like an olive pit. “You commanded her to. Fine. With a toy gun. Even better. What makes you pull such damnfool stunts?”

“I was only trying to prove—”

“What you were trying to prove and what you proved are a couple of light-years apart. You threaten a woman and she gets frightened. But after the fright goes away, what’s left? Revenge.”

“Not Thelma.”

“Exactly Thelma. Get it through your thick skull that she wants you to get lost, or else. All these damnfool antics of yours, I don’t blame her. Now let’s hurry up and shove out of here. I need a drink.”

“Well, gee whiz,” Harry said plaintively. “What’s everybody so sore about?”

“Who’s sore?”

“You are.”

“The hell I am.”

“Quiet, both of you,” Turee said. “Come on, Harry. Bill has his car; he’ll drive us over to my house.”

“Where’s my car?”

“Thelma said she’d leave it at the house for you. Nancy’s expecting us; let’s get going.”

“I don’t want to go. I’m not a child. I can’t be ordered around.”

“You are and you can.”

“I thought you were my friends.”

“If we weren’t your friends, we’d both be home having a nice quiet dinner. Now let’s go.”

“All right, all right.”

Harry got up and went out through the door, muttering to himself. He paused at the bottom of the veranda steps and glanced back at the door, as if he had an irrational hope that Thelma was going to appear and ask him not to leave.

Mrs. Malverson was out on her front lawn watering a bed of daffodils. She spotted Harry and waved the hose playfully by way of greeting.

“Hello there, Mr. Bream.”

“Hello, Mrs. Malverson.”

“Beautiful weather for daffodils isn’t it?”

“I guess so.” He hung back while the other two men approached the car parked at the curb. “Mrs. Malverson, I’m – well, I won’t be around for a while. Business – you know how it is. I was wondering perhaps if you could drop in on Thelma now and then, cheer her up a bit. She hasn’t been well lately.”

“I know. I told her that myself only last Sunday. Child, I said, you look as if you’ve been up all night, and crying too. I’m sure it was Sunday. Yes, it was, because I remember now I asked her to go to church with me for the reading of the flowers. She dropped a bottle of milk, she was that nervous. And all this week she’s been avoiding me. Me, her friend. Of course that’s what you can expect from a woman at certain times.”

“Certain times?”

“Oh, come now, Mr. Bream. Surely you’ve suspected that a little stranger is coming into your life?”

“Stranger? Yes. Yes, that’s the right word.” He turned so abruptly that he almost lost his balance, and walked towards the waiting car.

Mrs. Malverson stared after him, her mouth open in surprise. Now what does that mean? Maybe I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that, but my goodness, these are modern times. People don’t hide things like a baby, they go round shouting it from the housetops as soon as they’re sure. Unless —

“Oh, that’s ridiculous,” she said aloud, with a violent tug on the hose. “Never have I seen a more devoted wife than Thelma Bream. Keeps the house spotless, airs the mattress every second Thursday. And never a cross word between the two of them. She’s always quoting Harry, Harry this, Harry that, as if he was some kind of god instead of an ordinary little man that sells pills, and some of them no darn good either. And every morning when he leaves for work out she traipses to the car to kiss him good-bye. A real womanly woman, if I ever saw one.” Unless —

“Absolutely ridiculous,” Mrs. Malverson repeated weakly. “I ought to be downright ashamed of myself.”

When they reached Turee’s old three-story house on Wood-lawn, Nancy came to the door to greet them. Though she looked red-eyed and worn, she spoke cheerfully: ‘Hello, Harry – Ralph – where’s Billy? Isn’t he coming in for a drink?”

“Not tonight,” Turee said. “His wife has a cold and he wants to go home and catch it, so he’ll have an excuse to cry.”

“What a time to try to be funny.”

“I’m quite serious.”

“Well shush, anyway. Harry, where’s your suitcase?”

“In my car. Wherever that is.”

“Thelma left it for you in the driveway. Here are the keys. Now go get your suitcase.’

“I can’t stay here. I’ve been enough bother—“

“Nonsense. You’re perfectly welcome to sleep in the sun porch. This is practically the only time of year it’s usable. You won’t freeze and you won’t stifle. Now, how’s that for an offer?”

“Well—”

“Of course you’ll stay. It’ll be just like old times, before you were married—”

Nancy’s tactlessness was sometimes as overwhelming as her hospitality, and Harry stood silent and embarrassed in the face of both, looking down at the carpet which was muddy with the tracks of children and worn in places right through to the padding.

Nancy touched his arm in gentle apology. “I’m always saying the wrong thing. Without meaning to. Come on. I’ve got dinner ready for you. Ralph will get your suitcase later.”

The children had already been fed and sent upstairs with instructions to amuse themselves, no holds barred, and the two men were left alone at the round oak table in the big old-fashioned kitchen. They were both preoccupied and hungry and the meal was disturbed only by the sounds from upstairs, sometimes loud, sometimes muffled, running feet, squeals and giggles, stifled screams, an occasional howl.

There was a hectic quality in the children’s playing, as if they knew something secret and strange and terrifying had happened and they were combating the knowledge with hysterical denial. “Uncle Ron is dead,” Nancy had told them calmly. ‘Now, if you have any questions I’ll answer them as best I can.” It was like asking a roomful of grade-schoolers if they had any questions about the mechanism of a hydrogen bomb. No questions were asked, out loud.

Death. A sacred word, yet an evil one, a beginning and a finality, heaven and hell, streets of gold and pits of fire, angels and demons, bliss and brimstone. If you have any questions -

The din from the second floor grew louder and more frantic. Nancy’s voice plunged into it, sharp as a scalpel. “What are you four doing up there? Avis? Sandra? You hear me?”

Sudden and complete silence, as if all four, simultaneously, had been anaesthetized.

“I want an answer. What are you doing?”

A girl’s voice, brassy with defiance, “Nothing.”

“It doesn’t sound like nothing.”

“It’s nothing.’

“Well, please do it more quietly.”

Whispers. A gasp. A frightened giggle. Then the muted chant of children:

“Galloway was laid to rest

In his Sunday pants and vest.

Galloway was laid to rest—”

The sounds floated down into the kitchen and Harry shivered and turned white. “I missed it.”

“Missed what?”

“Ron’s funeral.”

“That doesn’t matter. Barbaric custom, anyway.”

“Thelma, she was there?”

“Yes.”

“There wasn’t any scene, any trouble? I mean, with Esther?”

“The ladies,” Turee said with some irony, “are ladies, and don’t make scenes at funerals.”

“I was just wondering.”

“You wonder too much.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve got to stop it.”

“I know.”

“Start thinking on the positive side. You’re young, healthy, competent, you’ve got a future.”

“I can’t see it.”

“Not with your eyes closed and pictures of Thelma pasted inside the lids. Start looking around. The sky hasn’t fallen. The city is still here. The blood is still bouncing around in your veins. Here, have some of this port. An uncle of mine sent me a dozen bottles. He had to choose between his wine cellar and his ulcer.”

Harry eyed the glass of port with suspicion, then shook his head gravely. “No thanks. I haven’t had a drink all week.”

“Why not?”

“I was afraid it might interfere with my thinking.”

“Something should have.” Turee sipped at his port and made a wry face. “No wonder the old boy developed ulcers. This stuff’s godawful. Try it.”

Harry tried it. “It’s not so bad.”

Nancy came into the kitchen to ask Turee to go upstairs immediately and discipline the children.

Turee seemed unperturbed at the request, as if it was a very familiar one. “What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know. Something, anyway.”

“Be more explicit.”

“I can’t. All I know is, if I’m expected to do all the disciplining in the family, the children will grow up thinking I’m an ogre. They’ll have complexes.”

“Ogress. And they’ll have complexes anyway.”

“Sandra’s the instigator of this whole thing. I feel like spanking the daylights out of her.”

“Go ahead and do it, then.”

“You’re no help at all!”

Turee rose, kissed her on the left cheek, and pushed her gently towards the doorway.

The wine, the warmth of the kitchen, the playing-out of the little domestic scene, all combined to cast a flush across Harry’s face. He fidgeted with his empty glass, rolling the stem back and forth between his palms, and a glint of moisture shone in his eyes. “I can’t stay here, Ralph. I wish I could. But seeing you and Nancy—and the kids—well, I guess I couldn’t stand it. You understand.”

Turee was grave. “Make your own decision. I was only trying to help.”

“No one can help me. I’ve got to go it alone.”

It was the same sentiment Turee had heard Thelma express, and he wondered how deeply either of them meant it and how far either of them would go alone. Together, leaning on each other, entwined in marriage, they’d been able to remain upright, as cornstalks in a field can withstand a high wind.

“What you suggested on Monday,” Harry continued, “about leaving town, applying for a transfer, it’s beginning to make sense to me now.”

“Good.”

“I’m sure they’ll give me a transfer. I’m a good salesman and there’s nothing in the record against me, except that business on Monday. Maybe if I go away for a while Thelma will actually miss me, eh?”

“Maybe.”

“She might even change her mind. I could always send for her then, her and the baby, couldn’t I? I mean, it’s not impossible, is it?”

“Not at all.”

“She’s always wanted to leave this town anyway.”

Not with you, Turee thought, refilling Harry’s glass. “I realize that.”

“Say, you know something, Ralph? For the first time in days I’m beginning to feel that things are making sense again. Don’t you feel that, Ralph? Things will work out?”

“Certainly.”

“I guess I was practically going off my rocker for a while there, staying up all night, thinking, trying to figure things out, not eating, not seeing anybody. I feel quite different now. Almost hopeful, you know?’ He paused to sip at his wine and wipe the beads of moisture from his face with the back of his hand. “Now why did I say, almost? I don’t mean it. I mean very. Very hopeful. You were right, Ralph. I’ve got a future. I’ve really got a future, haven’t I?”

“Of course.” Turee saw Harry’s bright new smile, and the bright new confident look in his eye, and anxiety began to gnaw at his mind with the teeth of rodents. Harry was on his way up again, the long erratic journey up, like a crazed bird, or a misguided missile darting wildly in and out of the orbits of meteorites. “Harry. Listen. Don’t get too high.”

“Now that’s a funny remark. A few minutes ago you were trying to cheer me up and now that I’m cheered up, what are you trying to do? Puncture me? Well, you can’t, old boy. I feel wonderful, see, I feel—”

“Harry, before you leave town, I think you should hire a lawyer.”

Harry’s jaw dropped in astonishment. “Lawyer? What for?”

“For Thelma.”

“So she can divorce me? Is that what you mean?”

“No, no,” Turee said impatiently. “She’s going to need someone to protect her interests, that’s all.”

“Why? I’m going to protect her interests. I’ll send her every cent I can spare.”

“I know that. But suppose something happens to you – you become sick and can’t work, you get hurt in an accident – what then? Thelma would be left alone with a child to support.”

“I don’t see how a lawyer would help that.”

“You’re not thinking straight, Harry. The child is Ron’s – he’s admitted paternity – therefore his estate should be made responsible financially for the child’s upbringing.”

“Thelma would never take a cent from Esther. She’s too proud.”

“Pride be damned. There should be nothing personal in this situation. Thelma may be proud, Esther may be reluctant, you may be all churned up, but the fact remains that the child has a legal right to support. That’s where the lawyer comes in. He’ll act in the child’s best interests. His own, too. I understand in cases like this where a considerable amount of money is involved, they work on a percentage basis.”

“What exactly do you mean, a considerable amount of money?”

“I didn’t mean anything exact. All I’m saying is that Thelma should have a lawyer.”

“But then there’d be a law-suit? Everything would come out in the newspapers?”

“If Esther’s lawyers advise her to fight the case, there’d be a law-suit, yes, but I don’t think they will. And if they did, I don’t think she’d accept their advice. At the moment Esther’s pretty bitter about Thelma, but she’s not really a vindictive woman. She’ll simmer down between now and the time the child is born.”

“What it boils down to, then, is begging Esther for money. Well, I won’t do it. To hell with it. I can support Thelma and the child, and no begging necessary.”

“Oh, be reasonable, Harry. Why deprive the kid of its legal rights? I know how willing you are to support it, but it’s going to grow up, to need things, housing, clothing, education. Ask me. I’m an expert. I’ve been broke for fourteen years and no doubt will continue that way for another fourteen. Kids are expensive. They don’t always stay in the cradle, wearing diapers and living on milk. They need shoes, dolls, new suits, bicycles, baseball mitts, piano lessons, there are doctors’ bills, dentists’ bills—”

“All right,” Harry said listlessly. “Don’t go on. You’re telling me I can’t afford all those things.”

“No. I’m telling you you don’t have to. Thelma and the child are entitled to be kept in comfort and there’s no sensible reason why they shouldn’t be, except your pride and Thelma’s, if pride is the right word.”

“I don’t need charity.”

“Keep yourself out of it, Harry. Because you’re not really in it. You’ll have to face that squarely.” Turee paused, pressing his fingertips against his temples as if to press his thoughts into the right phrases. “You’re not really in it,” he repeated. “I think you’ve been day-dreaming this past week, Harry. I think you’ve half-convinced yourself that nothing took place between Ron and Thelma, that the child is actually your own. Don’t keep on like this, Harry; it’s dangerous.”

“But suppose—”

“There’s no supposing about it. The child is Ron’s. Now accept the fact and go on from there. If you keep setting up delusions to stumble over, you’ll get nowhere. Why can’t you face the truth?”

“I guess—I’ll have to.” The long erratic journey up had ended for Harry. The crazed bird had grown weary, the misguided missile had struck a meteorite and was falling through space. “I couldn’t give her the child she wanted. I tried. God knows I tried. I’ve been going to a doctor for over a year without telling her. I covered up for myself by pretending that I didn’t want her to have a child because of her health, her age.”

“Why didn’t you tell her the truth, Harry?”

“I wasn’t sure, at first. Then when I was sure, I was afraid to tell her. After that, when I began taking treatments and pills – well, I kept hoping things would change. They changed all right,” he added grimly. “In a way I never thought possible. My best friend, and my wife.”

“It’s happened before.”

“Yes, but didn’t they ever stop to think of Esther, of me?”

“There are times,” Turee said, “when people don’t stop to think of anything.”

Chapter 19

As far as the newspapers were concerned the Galloway story died on the obit, page, but rumors were flying wildly around town like kites without tails. One of them got entangled in Esther’s telephone wire: an anonymous caller accused her of murder and demanded five thousand dollars as the price of his silence.

After this episode, Esther refused to take any calls or to see anyone except the lawyers concerned with the probate of Ron’s will. It was a curiously simple will for a wealthy man to make. No trust funds or other safeguards had been set up for the children; except for a few minor bequests, everything was left outright to Esther, as if Ron had had greater faith in her good judgement and common sense than he had in his own. The lawyers came with papers for her to sign, and went away again, and came back with more papers. These visits were, for a time, Esther’s only contact with the outside world.

She stayed indoors, wandering from room to room of the huge house, trying to find things to do, straightening pictures that weren’t crooked, dusting ash-trays that hadn’t been used, moving chairs that had been moved only a few hours before, reading aloud to the two boys in a new gentle far-away voice which had a strangely quietening effect on them. The extremes of unexpressed grief and rage, which characterized the early period of her mourning, began gradually to moderate with the passing of the days, leaving behind a kind of acceptance, and a broader perspective. She came to realize that she was not the only injured and bereaved person, that it was Thelma, perhaps, who would ultimately suffer more than anyone else. She had a growing urge to call Thelma, partly out of pity, partly out of curiosity, but she was a little timid about doing it directly, since she couldn’t be sure how Thelma would interpret such a call.

As a compromise she tried to get in touch with Harry at his office. She was informed that Harry had left the country a week previously and his present location was unknown, since the head office in Detroit handled all transfers to the United States.

The following afternoon she received a badly typed letter from him, postmarked Kansas City, Missouri.

DEAR ESTHER,

I tried to say good-bye to you but I was told you were ill. I hope you are feeling better by this time and bearing up under the terrible strain. As you probably know by now, Thelma and I decided to separate, and I applied for a transfer and landed here of all places. It’s a lot like home, even the climate, though I guess it’s warmer here because there’s no lake.

I feel the way I did when I first left home for boarding school, like a mass of jelly inside from sheer homesickness. The nights are the worst. In the daytime I keep busy. I have to. This is a big city and I have to get to know it the way I know Toronto if I’m to be any good to the Company. They’ve given me a Company car to drive, by the way and everyone is very nice, so I’ve really nothing to complain of, jobwise. If I could only get over this sick, empty feeling inside.

I have just re-read the first page of this letter, and for a guy who has nothing to complain of, I certainly complain! Forgive me, Esther. You have your own sorrows. I’m a dog to add to them.

I’ve sent Thelma three special delivery letters but she hasn’t answered. I know you two aren’t likely to go out of your way to meet each other, but if you hear any news of her through Ralph or Billy Winslow or Joe Hepburn, please let me know.

I have so many things to say to you but somehow I can’t say them. I want you to know one thing, though – I accept full responsibility for what happened. It was entirely my fault. I should have been more alert, more suspicious, more everything, I guess. I can’t go into details, they are too personal, but I repeat – it was all my fault and mine alone. Ron would be alive today if it weren’t for my weakness and vanity. Last night I dreamed I was a murderer, so I guess this is how I really feel inside.

I will try to be more cheerful next time I write. Meanwhile, take care of yourself, Esther.

Love

HARRY

It was the second time within a week that the word ‘murder’ had come up.

She re-read the last part of the letter, thinking how simple-minded Harry was to believe that a catastrophe could be caused by any one person. A lot of people were involved, not just the leading characters, but the bit players, the prop man, the stage hands, waiting in the wings.

In the same mail a letter, with an imposing letterhead of six names and the address of a law firm, contained an incongruously informal message:

DEAR ESTHER,

I’d like to drop in early Friday morning. No papers to sign, but a few matters to discuss.

Yours,

CHARLES

Charles Birmingham was a tall, austere man in his early sixties with a strong British accent which he had picked up at Oxford and managed to retain for forty years, intact. His too-formal manner of dressing gave the impression that he was always on his way to a wedding or a funeral, and his cold fishy eyes indicated that it didn’t matter which.

Esther didn’t like him, and he considered her a fool, so there was little room for a meeting of minds.

He came to the point of his visit without any preliminary niceties. “Mrs. Bream has retained an attorney.”

“Yes. I just had a letter from Harry yesterday telling me he and Thelma have separated.”

“I’m afraid you miss the point.” Women always do, his tone implied. “This has no bearing on the separation. It concerns Mrs. Bream’s unborn child. If Ron hadn’t been so idiotic as to write that letter and you hadn’t been so precipitous about handing it over to the police, we’d have an excellent chance of winning our case.”

“Winning our case? You intend to fight?”

“To the best of my ability. As your attorney, it is my job to protect your financial interests.”

“Have I any say in the matter?”

“Naturally, but it’s customary for clients to take the advice of their attorney.”

“Is it, indeed?’ Esther’s smile was chilly. “Well, I don’t always do the customary thing.”

“I’m sure you don’t. However, in this case, I do hope your negativistic attitude towards me personally won’t interfere with your better judgement.”

“I don’t like the idea of going into court, not one bit.”

“If you’re sued, you’ll have to.”

“Well, fix it so I won’t be sued. Why can’t the whole thing be handled in a friendly, civilized manner?”

Birmingham’s lifted brows indicated his low opinion of this suggestion. “My dear Esther—”

“I don’t want any scandal or fuss.”

“There already is scandal.”

“I know that.” She remembered the soft, queer voice on the telephone, and her own terror, so paralyzing that she couldn’t answer, couldn’t even hang up. “It’s got to be stopped. I’m afraid to go out, afraid to send the boys to school. I have this feeling that we’re being watched.”

“By whom?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you propose we do about it?”

“Offer Thelma money to leave town. Once she’s gone, the rumors will die down, people will forget, I can begin to live again.”

“How much money?”

“Fifty thousand dollars. It would be worth that much to me to see the end of her.”

“Suppose she refuses?”

“I don’t see why she should. She has nothing to gain by staying here, except shame and humiliation and ridicule.”

“Perhaps that’s what she wants, self-punishment, self-debasement.”

“Thelma’s too sensible for that.”

“My dear Esther, one of the things you learn early in my profession is that you can’t tell from the outside who’s sensible and who’s not, and a great deal of the time you can’t tell for certain what’s sense and what’s not. As far as I was able to gather, Mrs. Bream is not the usual femme fatale with a string of extramarital affairs behind her. She is an ordinary virtuous woman who has committed the kind of sin which ordinary virtuous women don’t permit themselves to commit. If they do, they suffer. Mrs. Bream is suffering – suffering doubly because of the drastic consequences of her infidelity. In such a frame of mind she’d be unlikely, I think, to accept the kind of pay-off you suggest.”

“Why?”

“It might seem to her a reward for having done something she loathes herself for.”

“You read too much psychology.”

Birmingham permitted himself a small tight smile. “Not at all. I practice it.”

“I still think you’re wrong about Thelma.”

“Quite possibly. I talked to her only once, yesterday, in the presence of her attorney. She said very little, seemed disinterested, detached. Finally, she complained of feeling ill, stomach cramps, dizziness, and so on. Purely psychosomatic, of course.”

“Have you ever,” Esther asked coldly, “been pregnant, Mr. Birmingham?”

“Fortunately, no. When I left, Mrs. Bream was trying to get in touch with the doctor and her attorney was hopping around the office like a nervous stork. I deplore such excitements. Her attorney, by the way, hinted delicately at a small monthly stipend from the estate until the baby is born. This is impossible, naturally.”

“Why?”

“Any payment – including the one you suggested – would be a virtual admission that your husband was responsible for the child. Then, later, when the child is born, we wouldn’t have any grounds to fight the case. Mrs. Bream, or rather, her attorney, who will probably receive twenty-five per cent of any settlement, would be in a position to make some pretty stiff demands.” He added on a note of cheer, “Of course, there’s always the possibility that Mrs. Bream won’t carry the child to term, or that it will be born dead, in which case our responsibility ends.”

“What an inhuman remark to make.” Esther had turned white with anger and her hands trembled as she lit a cigarette.

“It wasn’t intended as such. You have an unfortunate tendency to over-emotionalize the issue. A natural womanly reaction, of course, but it increases the difficulty of my position.”

“What is your position, to distort the facts?’

“My dear Esther

“You know the truth and so do I. Let’s face it.”

“Facing the truth,” Birmingham said bluntly, “is going to cost you a heap of money.”

“All right. I’ve got a heap of money, haven’t I?”

“Considerable, yes. You also have two arms, but that’s hardly a reason for discarding one of them.”

“A very poor analogy. Look, Mr. Birmingham, let’s get this straight. I hold no brief for Thelma. I don’t like her and never have. But I feel a certain obligation towards her because I—” She hesitated, coloring slightly. “Because I understand her position. It could happen – has happened – to other – other women. I don’t intend to fight any claims she makes on the estate. My conscience wouldn’t allow it.”

Birmingham had not been Galloway’s lawyer at the time of his divorce, but he remembered the case and Esther’s role in it, and he began to realize that it was futile to argue with her. Whether or not she liked or approved of Thelma Bream, she had made a very strong identification with her: There went I. Only I was luckier.

“Very well,” he said. “We’ll let the matter ride for the present.”

You will, I won’t, she thought. But aloud she said cordially, “Of course. I’ll see you to the door.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“It will be a pleasure.”

She stood at the door watching his departure. He walked stiffly down the broad stone steps of the veranda and crossed the driveway to his car with ponderous dignity, like a penguin crossing an Antarctic waste, never missing the warm places of the world because he did not know they existed.

Though she had disliked Birmingham for years, she had never before openly opposed him. Now, like a child who has suddenly issued a declaration of independence, she felt a new power and vitality, as if some secret well of energy had been tapped. She ordered old Rudolph to check her car and bring it around to the front of the house. Then she went upstairs to dress for town. For the first time in a month she passed the closed door of Ron’s room without the increased heartbeat of fear and guilt.

“You’re out of practice,” Rudolph said. “You better let me drive you, Mrs. Galloway.”

“No, thanks. You can stay and help Annie with the boys. Tell them,” she added, “tell them they’ll be going back to school tomorrow.”

Usually, when Esther drove downtown, she avoided the heaviest flow of traffic. Today she deliberately sought it out, feeling a pleasant, reassuring sense of anonymity. She was a woman in a car among hundreds of other women in cars. There was nothing special about her to attract attention. No one would bother to watch her. No one but some crank on a telephone would believe she murdered her husband.

At the Bank of Commerce, on the corner of King and Yonge, she withdrew from her checking account two hundred dollars in twenty-dollar bills, sealed them in an envelope and addressed it to Thelma. It was not an act of kindness or of pity, but one of compulsion, and the emotions behind it were deeper and stronger than kindness or pity.

Whatever the reasons, it was, for Esther, the first step back into the flow of life. Others followed, as spring passed into summer. She met friends for lunch at the King Edward or the Royal York or the Plaza. She and Nancy took their combined brood of six to Sunnyside for a day of rides. She wrote to Harry, cheerful, impersonal letters which he answered in the same vein. She went to dinner at the Winslows’ house and to several outdoor concerts with Joe Hepburn, who was stone-deaf but liked fresh air and crowds. The first week in July she drove the two boys and Annie up to the lodge near Wiarton, and promised them a return trip before school started again in September.

Aside from sending the money to Thelma once a month, she had no contact with her, but she heard from Turee that Thelma was having a difficult time during her pregnancy. She had let her house in Weston and taken a small apartment in town to be nearer her doctor in case of emergency. Esther wrote down Thelma’s new address in her address book, and the following day, a stifling morning in early August, she drove slowly past the apartment house on Spadina, trying to find enough courage to stop and ring the bell. But her car kept right on, going as if of its own volition, and Esther thought, There was no parking space anyway. And it’s so hot. And early – she might not even be up. Besides, I have nothing special to say to her, no comfort to offer her, no special formula, no guarantee.

Throughout the summer she had been making similar excuses to herself, and while they oiled the surface of her mind, they did not seep down and touch the grit and gravel underneath. She was stoned by dreams of identification in which she became Thelma, harassed and trying to defend herself, accused and trying to justify herself, continually at the mercy of some cold-eyed stranger or some false friend. The accusing figures in the dreams varied – Birmingham, Turee, an unknown policeman who resembled her father, a school-teacher she had once hated – but the accused was always the same, Thelma-Esther, like a double exposure, one image superimposed on the other.

She took the two boys back up to the lodge again for the final week in August, and on returning she began outfitting them for the school year ahead.

The meeting which she had both anticipated and dreaded for a long time took place in Eaton’s College Street. She had just started up the escalator to the children’s wear department when some woman stumbled getting off at the top. There was a little flurry of excitement by the time Esther reached the scene – the escalator attendant had propelled the woman to a chair, a shopwalker was waving his handkerchief in front of her face in the vague hope of whipping up more oxygen, and an assistant had been sent for some water.

The woman, heavy with child, seemed embarrassed at all the fuss, and when the assistant returned with a paper cup full of water she refused it. Instead, she rose with awkward dignity, made her way to the nearest counter, and stood there a moment to steady herself.

Esther approached the counter and said, “Thelma?’ and the woman turned, squinting, as if she’d been summoned from some dark world into sunlight.

“Are you all right, Thelma?”

“Yes. I’m fine.” Her face was puffy, like rising dough, and her legs distorted by swelling. Her maternity dress, soiled around the collar, clung in wet patches between her shoulder blades and under her arms. Perspiration and oil had seeped through her make-up and stood out in droplets along her forehead.

“It’s good to see you,” Esther said. “I’ve thought of you so often.”

“Have you?’ Thelma smiled dryly. “Thanks.”

“I – Look, couldn’t we go some place for a cup of tea? We can’t talk here.”

“I have nothing to say. Besides, my intake of fluids is very limited. Thanks all the same.”

“I’ll admit I felt bitter towards you at first, but not any more. I wish we could be friends.”

“Do you?’ Thelma turned back to the counter, which was filled with infants’ toys, rattles and teethers and rubber dolls and stuffed animals. “I’ve gone this far alone. I think I can manage the rest of the way.”

“How much longer do you have to wait?”

“Why all the sudden interest?”

“It’s not sudden. Listen, we could go over to the Honey Dew for some toasted scones. Or some buttercakes at Child’s.”

“I’m on a diet.”

“All right, then, a leaf of lettuce and a dab of cottage cheese.”

“Why are you being so persistent?”

“I want to talk to you,” Esther said truthfully. “I’ve wanted to all summer, actually, but didn’t have the nerve.”

“Nerve?”

“Well, whatever you want to call it. I was – embarrassed, I guess.”

“That’s a word I’m beginning to understand quite well.”

“Have things – has it been hard for you?”

Tears appeared in Thelma’s eyes. She blinked them away, obstinately. “Why should you care?”

“I don’t know why, exactly, but I do.”

“It’s been hell.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t, don’t be sympathetic. It’s the one thing I can’t stand. Oh, for God’s sake, let’s get out of here, people are staring, I think I’m going to cry.”

She didn’t cry, though. By the time they reached the nearest Child’s she seemed to have herself under good control.

The coffee-break crowd had left and the early lunchers hadn’t arrived, so the place was nearly deserted. They chose a table in the corner furthest from the windows, and Esther ordered butter cakes and black tea, and Thelma a chicken salad which she looked at ravenously but barely touched, as if she knew too well the penalties of such a splurge.

“My blood pressure’s up,” she explained. “The doctor’s afraid of eclampsia. I have to count every ounce of fluid, every grain of salt.”

“Does Harry know?”

“Know what?”

“That you’re not well.”

“I am well,” she said stubbornly. “I have to be careful, that’s all. Harry.” She repeated the name, frowning, as if she had trouble identifying him. “No, Harry doesn’t know. I haven’t written to him since June.”

“He’s been writing to you, though?”

“Oh yes. He sends me money twice a month, more than he can afford, actually – a money order from Kansas City and two hundred dollars from here – I guess he arranges the two hundred through the local office. I don’t know why, it seems an odd way of doing things, but I’m grateful for the money. He must have been given a raise in pay.”

Esther didn’t even blink. “That’s very likely. Wages are higher over there.”

“His letters have changed recently. Oh, nothing definite you can put your finger on, he still misses me and so on, but I have the feeling – well, that it’s only words, that he’s doing quite nicely by himself. Or not by himself.”

“What does that mean?”

“Maybe he’s found somebody else,” Thelma said in a low voice. “Oh, I don’t blame him. I wanted it to happen.”

“Are you sure it has?”

“No. But I have this intuition. And I know Harry. If some woman ogles him at an office picnic he’s not going to run away, he’ll stand there and be ogled and love every minute of it.”

“I grant you there may be something in intuition, but carrying it as far as an office picnic and an ogling woman—”

“There actually was an office picnic. He mentioned it in his last letter. He said he’d had a very good time. Oh, not that I care. I want him to have a good time, to be happy. He deserves it. Only—”

“Only what?”

“I wish he wouldn’t tell me about it. I’m so miserable. I’m so miserable.” She dabbed at her eyes with a piece of Kleenex. “Office picnic. To hell with him.”

“Now, don’t cry.”

“I can’t help it.”

“Think of the future, the baby. How much longer do you have to wait?”

“Nearly three weeks.”

“That’s not very long.”

“It seems – it feels like an eternity.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No. No thanks.” She took another bite of the chicken salad, then pushed the dish away from her. “The next letter I get from him. I’m not going to read. I won’t even open it.”

“Aren’t you being a little unreasonable?”

“Just as unreasonable as I can get. I know that. I’m a dog in the manger. I don’t want Harry back, I could never live with him again. It’s just – well, the thought of him carousing around with other women, going to all kinds of parties—”

“One office picnic.”

“That’s all he mentioned. There are probably dozens of occasions he didn’t mention.” She dabbed at her eyes again. “It’s not that I begrudge him anything. I want him to be happy. I’ll give him a divorce so he can marry her.”

“By her, you mean the woman who ogled him at the picnic and pursued him relentlessly through the round of wild parties?”

“You needn’t laugh at me,” Thelma said sulkily. “I can read between the lines.”

“Some people become so expert at reading between the lines they don’t read the lines. You’re letting your imagination run riot. You’ve taken an office picnic and blown it up into a series of orgies.”

“No. Harry wouldn’t enjoy orgies. He’s not like that. He’s just the kind of man who should be married.”

“He already is.”

“No, not any more.”

“Some day, perhaps, the two of you will get together again—”

“No. Never.”

“How can you be positive?”

“Because I was never in love with him. I was over thirty when we met – I’d never had a real proposal before and I knew it was my last chance to – well, to have a full life, a baby – my God, how I wanted a baby.” She looked down at her distended abdomen pressing against the table, and smiled, very faintly. “I didn’t dream it would be so difficult.”

Chapter 20

Thelma’s baby was born at the Women’s College Hospital on a cold rainy morning during the last week of September. She’d gone to the hospital alone by taxi in the middle of the night, without notifying any of her friends or neighbors.

Ralph Turee was the first person outside the hospital to hear of the birth. Thelma’s doctor called him just before he left for a nine o’clock class, and told him that Thelma had been delivered of a fine, healthy eight-pound boy. Thelma’s condition was ‘only fair’ after two blood transfusions, and she was allowed no visitors for the present, but the baby could be seen through the glass walls of the nursery.

Feeling that something in the nature of a celebration was in order, Turee called a meeting of the remaining fellows for lunch at the Plaza. Over martinis and steak pie, Turee broached the subject of relaying the news to Harry.

“I think we should send him a telegram.”

“Why?’ Joe Hepburn asked. To congratulate him?”

“Well, no. But he ought to be told Thelma and the baby are all right.”

“I don’t know, it strikes me a telegram would be in bad taste under the circumstances.”

“Harry wouldn’t know the difference and it wouldn’t matter to him if he did. The only thing that concerns him is Thelma. The poor guy’s probably sitting around biting his fingernails.” Bill Winslow spoke for the first time. The combination of the weather, the martinis, and a breakfast quarrel with his wife, had put him in a sullen mood. “The hell he’s sitting around biting his nails. Poor guy, my eye.”

“What does that mean?”

“Never mind.”

“I do mind,” Turee said sharply. “Come on, what’s the big secret? What do you know?”

“Plenty.”

“Such as?”

“Such as Harry’s not sitting around biting his nails over Thelma. He’s not sitting around, period.”

“You seem pretty positive.”

“Why shouldn’t I be? I had a letter from him yesterday. We haven’t been corresponding much. I don’t know why he picked me to confide in instead of one of you.”

“Well, what did he say?”

“Read it yourself. I’ve got it here somewhere, been carrying it around. Kind of a shock.”

The letter was passed across the table and Hepburn and Turee read it simultaneously. Its contents were simple enough: Harry had met a girl, a perfectly wonderful, marvelous girl named Anne Farmer. She was divorced, through no fault of her own; her husband had been a brute, a real cad and so on, but through it all Anne had remained faithful, sweet, kind and so on. He intended to get a divorce and marry this paragon of virtue as soon as possible, and he hoped that the fellows would wish him luck. Not that he needed it, because Anne was so wonderful, so understanding, et cetera. All the best, Harry.

“Je-sus,” Turee said, and flung the letter down on the table. Winslow picked it up and replaced it in his pocket. “Nice timing, eh?”

“I just can’t believe it.”

“Try a little harder.”

“In all his letters to me, he’s never mentioned another woman. I was led to believe he spent all his time working.”

“Does that sound like Harry? Not to me.”

“Hooked,” Hepburn said gloomily. “Hooked again, and we’re not there to protect him. Her husband was a brute. Naturally. All ex-husbands are brutes. All future husbands are angels. Then comes the switch.”

“Shut up,” Turee said. “I’m trying to think.”

“The time for thinking is past.”

“Listen. We’d better send that telegram to Harry after all. Suppose he suddenly decides to write Thelma a letter like this. The shock might kill her. The doctor said her condition was only fair. That’s hospital jargon for anything-can-happen. We’ve got to warn Harry.”

The telegram was drafted by all three men and Turee telephoned it in when he returned to his office: Thelma delivered of healthy son. Her condition fairly serious. Imperative that you do nothing to upset her. Wait for letter. Ralph.

Later the same afternoon Nancy took a dozen roses to the hospital for Thelma and stopped at the nursery to see the baby. A masked nurse wheeled the bassinet to the glass wall and pulled the coverlet part way down to reveal the baby’s face. He was quiet, but not asleep, a beautiful child with a shock of black hair and brilliant blue eyes.

Nancy tapped against the glass, smiling and cooing. She was unaware that she herself was being observed until a voice spoke suddenly beside her, “Hello, Nancy.”

Nancy turned with a little jump of surprise. “Why – why, Esther.”

“I came, too. I had to see for myself.” Her yellow raincoat and hat were still dripping with rain. “I guess I’m making a mess on the floor.”

“You can’t help it, in this weather.”

“I – he’s a lovely baby, isn’t he?”

“Yes, very.”

“He looks like his father. Don’t you agree? He looks like Ron?”

Nancy agreed but said nothing.

“Well, I had to see for myself,” Esther repeated, and with one more brief glance through the glass wall she turned and walked briskly down the corridor, her raincoat rustling around her legs like dead leaves.

It was two weeks before Thelma was released from the hospital. She left as she had entered, by taxi, but this time she wasn’t alone. She held her son in her arms, with a pride and joy she had never known before, or believed possible.

She moved back into the house in Weston. Her neighbors all knew or suspected the truth by this time, but they were kindly people, especially Mrs. Malverson next door, who threw herself immediately into the role of grandmother. She helped Thelma with the shopping, the washing, the cleaning, she clucked and cooed over the baby and took him for long walks in his pram, she measured out the ingredients of his formula with the severe precision of a pharmacist.

Mrs. Malverson believed herself to be Thelma’s closest friend and confidante. She was, therefore, extremely surprised when she went over to Thelma’s house one afternoon in late October and noticed a ‘For Sale’ sign posted on the front lawn.

She found Thelma upstairs sorting through the contents of an old trunk while the baby slept beside her in his bassinet.

“I saw the sign,” Mrs. Malverson said flatly.

“Oh, is it up already? Good. I asked the agent to hurry.”

“You’ve been crying.”

“Not much. Looking over old things always gives me the blues – I don’t know why, I’m happier now than I ever have been.”

“So you’re going to move.”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“As soon as I can.”

“Where?”

“Nevada.”

“But that’s in the States.”

“Yes. I have an appointment at the American Consulate for Friday morning. I’m applying for a permanent visa.”

“Well. Well.’ Mrs. Malverson plopped down on the side of the bed. “I’ve got to catch my breath. This is all so sudden.”

“Not to me.”

“Ronnie’s too young to travel that far.”

“No, the doctor said this is actually the best time, especially if we go by plane.”

“But – well, there’s the law-suit coming up and everything—”

“It won’t be coming up. Esther has agreed to a settlement out of court. I didn’t want to take it – she’s been so nice about things since that day I met her in Eaton’s – but my attorney said I’d be a fool to turn it down. It’s quite a lot of money.”

“And well it should be.” Mrs. Malverson was on the point of asking how much, but she desisted, in the hope that Thelma would volunteer the information.

Thelma didn’t. “Anyway, it’s all settled now. I signed the papers.”

“Nevada. I ask you, why Nevada? I hear it’s a wicked spot. Gambling, even on the Sabbath, that’s what I heard.”

“It’s a good place to get a divorce,” Thelma said grimly. “Six weeks, and it’s all over.”

“A divorce?”

“Yes. My husband—” She stumbled awkwardly over the word, and her face flushed. “Mr. Bream called me long distance last night. He wants a divorce. He’s in love with another woman.”

“Well. Well.”

“Don’t be shocked. I wasn’t. I’ve actually been expecting it for some time now. It’s almost a relief to have it confirmed.”

“You poor child. You poor—”

“No. I don’t really care. I thought I might when I heard his voice again, but last night on the telephone he didn’t even sound like himself, it was like talking to a stranger. Her name’s Anne.”

“Her?”

“The woman.” She slammed down the lid of the trunk, but the gesture, like Pandora’s, was a little too late. Too many things had already escaped. She said roughly, “All this old junk of Harry’s, I might as well throw it away.”

She left the first week of November. Turee offered to drive her out to the Malton Airport, but she refused. She said all her good-byes briefly and by telephone, as if she preferred not to risk any display of emotion which might make her change her mind.

She sent airmail letters to Mrs. Malverson, the Turees and Esther, assuring them of her safe arrival in Las Vegas. The trip had been pleasant and Ronnie a perfect angel all the way, but she didn’t like Las Vegas. The countryside was too desolate and the town itself full of very odd people. When her residence requirements were up she intended to move on, perhaps to Southern California. There was no mention of home-sickness, loneliness, regret. Or Harry.

At Christmas-time she sent large, elaborate baskets of fruit to all her friends, belts of hammered silver and Indian turquoise to the Turee children, and hand-tooled leather holsters to Esther’s two boys. On the back of a Christmas card to Joe Hepburn, which didn’t arrive until the New Year, she wrote that she had her divorce papers and she and Ronnie were staying temporarily in a motel in Pacific Palisades until she decided on a permanent place. She did not give the name of the motel, or the exact location of Pacific Palisades, which Hepburn had never heard of and couldn’t find on the map.

It seemed as though the Breams, who had once lived in such close proximity, were now trying to get as far away from each other as possible. In Harry’s next letter to Turee, in February, he said he had maneuvered a transfer to Florida. The Kansas City climate was proving too vigorous for Anne, who was inclined to be frail. Enclosed in the letter, almost as an afterthought, was the formal announcement of his wedding. Mr. and Mrs. Paul Davis Dugan announced the marriage of their daughter, Anne, to Mr. Harry Ellsworth Bream.

“Well, that’s that,” Turee said and passed the announcement and the letter across the breakfast table to his wife.

“Yes. Yes, I guess it is.”

“You don’t sound very happy about it. I thought you liked people to get married and live happily ever after and so on. What’s eating you?”

“Oh, there’s something so final about it, seeing it in print like this.”

“Let’s hope it’s final.”

“I can’t help – well, Thelma and Harry always seemed so right for each other. I kept hoping things would work out between them.”

“You’re a great hoper.”

Nancy re-read the letter, making little snorting noises of disapproval. “Frail. Huh. She was born and raised in Kansas City, now suddenly she’s too frail. Oh, I bet Harry has picked himself a lemon. A real lemon.”

“Nancy, love

“What’s more, I hear Florida is hotter than hell in the summer and people are always getting lost in swamps.”

The new Mrs. Bream did not get lost in a swamp. She did, however, become dissatisfied with Florida rather quickly, and once again Harry found himself on the move, this time to a new job, obtained through one of Anne’s relatives, with an oil company in Bolivia. Since he knew nothing about either oil or Bolivia, he expected to be extremely busy and would not have the chance to write as frequently as in the past.

By the time another Christmas rolled around, his letters had ceased entirely.

Chapter 21

Thelma’s Christmas card that year consisted of an enlarged snapshot of her son standing in a shallow wading pool, staring sober and wide-eyed into the camera. He was now some fifteen months old, a handsome child, dark-haired like his father, stockily built like his mother.

The enclosed letter to the Turees was unlike any Thelma had written before. Even her handwriting had altered: it was larger, less controlled, and the lines slanted ebulliently upwards.

DEAR NAN AND RALPH,

Would you ever have recognized Ronnie? I bet not. He’s getting so big I can scarcely carry him any more (23 lb), but fortunately, I don’t have to. He’s very good at getting around by himself, too good, sometimes!

It is so long since I’ve written to you that I hardly know just where to start. First things first, though, so here goes. I am going to be married this week, and if I were any happier I’d burst! His name is Charley, he’s a widower with grown children, and he’s quite the nicest person in the world. I met him last summer on the beach at Malibu. He was walking his dog and the dog bit me on the leg. Not very romantic! We’ll be going to live in Charley’s house in Santa Monica (as a matter of fact, I’m writing this from there – Charley is out in the yard making a swing for Ronnie). I hope you will find time to convey my good news to Esther and the Winslows and Joe and Mrs. Malverson and to give them my regards. I won’t be writing again for a long time, nor hearing from any of you. I’ll do my best to explain why, and I can only hope your feelings will not be hurt. Charley knows nothing about my past life. He thinks I am a widow – I told him that on the spur of the moment when we first met, and I’ve had to stick to my story. Please try to understand my position, and my reasons for not giving you Charley’s last name or my new address. He’s a wonderful man, and even if he found out the truth about me I think he’d forgive me, but I can’t afford to take that chance. I love him too dearly.

I feel that I’m on the brink of a whole new life for myself and for Ronnie (he needs a father now, you should see the cute way he trails behind Charley!) I can’t do anything to endanger our happiness, even if it means no more communications from my dearest friends.

Please try to understand, and give me your blessing.

Love,

THELMA.

Nancy was extremely happy over the news. “I think it’s terribly romantic.”

“Indeed,” Turee said ‘How do you know he’s not marrying her for her money?”

“What money? All she has is the settlement out of Ron’s estate.”

“Do you happen to know how much it was?”

“No, and neither do you, smartie. Esther won’t discuss it.”

“Other people aren’t so particular. One of the assistant professors in the French department is related by marriage to Martindale, the attorney Thelma hired. It seems that right after Thelma left town, Martindale bought himself a new house and car with his percentage of the take. So the take must have been considerable.”

“Even so, you have no reason at all to believe that this Charley is marrying Thelma for her money. She says right in the letter he has a house of his own, so he can’t be exactly poverty stricken. You’re an uncurable cynic, that’s all.”

“Really.”

“I still consider the whole thing very romantic.”

“You needn’t shout,” Turee said. “Oh, there’s one more point that occurs to me. If I were Charley, I think I’d be a little suspicious of my wife having no contacts whatever with her own past.”

That spring Turee received an offer of guest lectureship at the Santa Barbara campus of the University of California for the summer session. The pay was excellent, he couldn’t afford to turn it down. Nor, on the other hand, could he afford to transport a wife and four children across the continent and rent adequate housing for them. They were all very eager to go with him and emotions were running at an all-time high when Esther unexpectedly provided a compromise solution to the problem. She decided to take the two boys to Europe for July and August and offered Nancy and the children the use of the lodge while she was gone.

Nancy accepted with gratitude, and the Turee household returned more or less to normal. Tempers calmed down, tears stopped, sulks disappeared, and preparations for the summer began.

Turee departed in early June, travelling by bus as far as Detroit and then by air coach to the west coast. He intended to live as cheaply as possible during the summer, so that he could return home not merely with some memories and experiences but with some hard cold cash. With this objective in mind, he rented a small furnished apartment at the rear of an old house set in the middle of a lemon grove near the campus.

Time passed quickly at first. There was work to be done, and sightseeing, and exploring the strange little Spanish city crushed between the mountains and the sea. The members of the faculty and their wives were friendly and hospitable. They invited Turee to dinner, to concerts, to barbecues; but there was still left some long evenings to spend by himself, especially over the weekends when his colleagues were busy with their own families. It was on one of these evenings, a Friday, that the thought occurred to him of going down to Santa Monica the next day and trying to find Thelma.

He knew that the idea must have been in the back of his mind before he even left Toronto, because he had packed in his suitcase Thelma’s last letter enclosed in the Christmas card with the snapshot of Ronnie on it. He remembered packing it, surreptitiously, without mentioning it to Nancy, and as he took it out now to re-read, he realized that he had intended, from the first moment he’d been offered the appointment in California, to find Thelma. He wasn’t certain why, whether he wanted to see her again out of curiosity, or for old time’s sake, or merely to make sure she was all right.

He read the letter over twice, looking for clues. Then he got out his A.A.A. tour books, a map of Southern California and a scratch pad to make notes.

Charley. Last name unknown. Occupation: not stated. A preyer on women, for all I know, Turee thought grimly. Age: a widower with grown children, which might place him between forty-five and fifty. Maybe older, but this wasn’t likely, in view of Thelma’s infatuation. Other facts: he owned a house in Santa Monica, and a dog which bit, and he sometimes visited the beach at Malibu.

Turee checked the map and the tour book. There were miles and miles of beach along Malibu, and the city of Santa Monica, to the south, was listed as having a population in excess of seventy-one thousand. The chances of finding a middle-aged man named Charley who owned a house and a biting dog seemed extremely remote.

The letter, then, was useless, as far as clues were concerned. This left the picture of the boy, Ronnie. It was sharp and clear, and the boy’s unsmiling features quite distinct. It had obviously been snapped by someone more skillful with a camera than Thelma. Probably by Charley. Maybe Charley was a camera bug. That hardly narrowed the search down, though; camera bugs were as common in California as bleached blondes.

But as Turee studied the picture he felt a growing sense of excitement, as if an idea had already begun to germinate in the depths of his mind and was trying to push its way up through various layers of consciousness.

A very cute kid, he thought. Looks strong and healthy. Thelma probably watches him like a hawk, and has him checked by the doctor at least once a month. Not just any old doctor, either, but a specialist. A pediatrician.

Pediatricians. Of course. It’s so simple, why didn’t I think of it before? To hell with Charley, who needs him?

Once again he consulted the tour book – Santa Barbara, population about 50,000 – then he picked up the local telephone directory. In the yellow pages, listed under ‘Physicians and Surgeons’, he found eight pediatricians. If Santa Monica had a similar ratio, he could expect to find about a dozen.

A dozen pediatricians and a picture of a little boy. Perhaps, with luck, that would be enough.

He checked the southbound bus schedule by telephone, wrote an enthusiastic note to Nancy outlining his plan, set his alarm for five, and went to bed.

That night in a dream he saw Thelma walking along a wide and desolate beach, her long fair hair streaming in the wind. Suddenly from behind a boulder a man appeared with a little dog. The man pointed towards the sea, and Thelma turned and walked slowly and methodically into the water until it covered her head. The man laughed, and the little dog began to bark, and the air was filled with the screaming of gulls and the black whirring wings of cormorants.

He woke up with one alarm ringing in his ears and another, shriller one in the back of his mind.

It was still dark, and the cool foggy air pushed heavily into the room, redolent of lemon blossoms. Turee got up and closed the windows. The smell was sickeningly sweet. Like flowers at a funeral. He thought of Thelma drowning in his dream, and the last letter she had written with its strange alteration of style and handwriting, which Nancy had explained away by saying people’s writing changed with their moods, that at last Thelma was happy.

Perhaps she had not written that letter at all. Perhaps, even then, she had been dead, and Charley himself had sent the letter to mollify Thelma’s friends and at the same time discourage them from trying to find her.

And the boy, Ronnie? He, too, might be—

“No,” Turee said aloud. “No. It’s those damn’ lemon trees. The smell makes me sick. The kid’s all right.”

It was the damn lemon trees.

“The kid’s perfectly all right,” he repeated, as if someone in the room had denied it.

He reached Santa Monica shortly after nine o’clock, obtained a map of the city at the bus depot, and, with the aid of a telephone directory, made a list of the pediatricians in the area. Checking two of them by phone he learned that they would be in their offices only until noon, since it was Saturday.

That gave him two and a half hours. And a decision to make. He made it, with a silent apology to Nancy; he committed his first extravagance of the summer by hiring a car.

Neither his wife nor his friends considered Turee very methodical or efficient. Working against time, he turned out to be both. Instead of visiting the doctors in alphabetical order, he grouped them according to address. Five he was able to eliminate at once – they practiced in one building as a Children’s Clinic. None of them remembered seeing the boy in the picture.

A sixth was on vacation in Montana. A seventh had gone to Los Angeles to see a patient at Children’s Hospital.

It was half-past ten when Turee reached the eighth name on the list. A Dr. Hamilton who occupied an office in a diagnostic clinic. Turee was informed at the main desk that Dr. Hamilton was at St John’s Hospital but expected back any minute. Could his secretary do anything to help? Down the hall, three doors to the left.

Dr. Hamilton’s secretary turned out to be a harried-looking blonde wearing spectacles and a snug white uniform.

“I’m Miss Gillespie. Are you waiting for Doctor?”

“Yes.”

“He should be in any minute. He has a patient scheduled for 10.45. Please sit down.”

“Thank you.”

He didn’t sit down, however. He looked at his watch, picked up a magazine and discarded it, paced the length of the room twice, until finally Miss Gillespie said, “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Well, perhaps. How long have you worked for the doctor?”

“Over three years.”

“My name is Ralph Turee. I came from Toronto in the hope of finding an old friend of mine. I know she lives – or lived – in Santa Monica but I’ve lost her address. Since moving here she has re-married and I don’t know her new husband’s name.”

“Are you sure you came to the right office? Dr. Hamilton is a pediatrician.”

“Yes, I’m coming to that. The woman I’m looking for has a little boy. The only hope I have of finding her is through this boy. She sent me a picture of him last Christmas. He’d be nearly two years old now. His name’s Ronnie.”

“We have dozens of Ronnies,” Miss Gillespie said with distaste, as if every single Ronnie gave her a pain in the neck. “Perhaps if I could see the picture? – Actually, I know Doctor’s patients better than he does. I’m the one who entertains them and keeps them quiet until their turn comes. And if you think that’s easy, just come around some afternoon about four when we’re running behind schedule and emergencies keep popping in like flies and the kids are all howling and the phone’s ringing – well, you get the idea.”

“Vividly. I have four of my own.”

Turee handed her the picture of Ronnie and she studied it intently for a moment. “Yes, he’s one of our patients, I’m sure of it. Comes in quite frequently. He’s allergic – chocolate, eggs, milk, and so on.”

“Who brings him in?”

“His mother. She’s one of those fussy mothers, doesn’t care in the least about getting Doctor out of bed at one o’clock in the morning if the kid has the slightest symptom. Overprotective.”

It sounded like Thelma. She was not dead. It had been the lemon trees, after all. He said, “What does she look like?”

“Oh, nothing much. I mean, it’s hard to describe an ordinary looking woman. Except her hair, it’s really beautiful.” Miss Gillespie glanced at the picture again and handed it back with a puzzled frown. “Did you say the boy’s name was Ronnie?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sure you’re mistaken. Or I am. One of us is.”

“Why?”

“That boy is little Harry Bream.”

Chapter 22

The house lay high in the hills behind the city. The mailbox at the beginning of the curving concrete driveway was shaped like an old-fashioned stage coach. It bore no name, only the street number, 2479. The hinged doors were open, and the mail delivered but not yet picked up – a copy of Life, nothing more.

A wind was blowing down the canyon. It shook the rows of eucalyptus trees, and the pods struck the roof of the car and rattled off with the sound of scurrying mice.

The house itself was simple and elegant, of stained redwood, with a wide expanse of patio which had recently been hosed down. Steam rose from the flagstones as if secret fires were smoldering underneath. Except for the rising steam there was no sign that the house was now occupied. Turee pressed the door-chime, waited, pressed it again several times, but no one answered.

He crossed the patio and picked his way down a steep path through massed geraniums to the rear of the house. Here he found a second patio, more secluded, shaded by a Plexiglas roof and decorated with camellias in redwood tubs.

He saw the child first, sitting quietly in a sandbox completely absorbed in the operations of a dump truck. Then he saw the woman. She may have been inside the house and seen his car stop, or she may merely have heard the door chime and the unfamiliar footsteps on the path. At any rate, she seemed to be expecting him, waiting for him. She was sitting bolt upright, tense, in a canvas sling-chair made for lounging. Her hands were pressed tightly against her knees as if they had been frozen there.

“Hello, Thelma.”

Her only response to the greeting was a blink of her eyes.

“It’s been a long time.”

“Not long enough. Not nearly long enough.” She watched wearily as he approached. “How did you find me?”

“Through the picture of the boy.”

“Yes. That was a mistake, wasn’t it? Well, it can’t be helped now.” She leaned back in the chair and looked up at the sky, as if she were making some silent plea. “I was afraid that some day I’d be sitting here just like this and suddenly you’d turn up. Now that it’s happening, it hardly seems real.”

“It’s real.”

“Yes.”

“How is Charley?”

There was no response.

“And Anne?”

This time, by way of answer, she gave a tired little shrug. “There never was any Charley,” Turee said. “Or any Anne. There never was – a lot of things.”

“That doesn’t sound very grammatical, but it’s true, of course. There never was any Charley, or any Anne.”

“Just you and Harry?”

“Just Harry and me.”

“And Ron?”

“Ron.” She spoke the name as if it were one she hadn’t heard or thought about for a long time. “Yes. You’ll be wanting to talk about Ron, of course?”

“Won’t you?”

She smiled crookedly. “Not exactly. I – sit down, Ralph. I’d better put the baby to bed for his nap.” Climbing awkwardly out of the sling-chair, she crossed the patio to the sandbox where the boy was playing and held out her arms. “Come on, wee one. Put the truck down for now. It’s time for our nap.”

Wee one let out a rather perfunctory howl of protest.

“Now, Harry, don’t make a fuss. We have company. Come say hello to the man.”

Harry crawled out of the sandbox on all fours, grinned shyly at Turee, and ran ahead of his mother into the house, slamming the screen door behind him.

“I won’t be long,” Thelma said. “He’s very good about naps. He’s a -I wish—”

She pressed her hand to her throat as if to ease the pain of the unspoken words. Then she turned and walked swiftly into the house.

Turee wondered what she’d been going to say. He’s a wonderful boy – I wish you’d go away and leave us alone -I wish you had never come –

Sounds filtered out of the kitchen, the opening and closing of a refrigerator door, the clink of glassware, the whirring of a mixer.

“Here’s your orange juice, Harry.”

“I want milk.”

“Now, dear, you can’t have milk, you know what the doctor said.”

“I want milk.”

“You know something, Harry? When I was a little girl we didn’t have oranges the way you do now. Only at Christmastime did I see an orange, and then it looked too beautiful to eat, like pure gold. So I used to keep it in my room, dreaming of the day I’d eat it. But I never did eat it because it got all hard and shriveled and it was no good any more.”

It seemed that she was talking not to the child but to Turee, trying to explain, to excuse: the orange of pure gold which she had plucked was shriveled.

“There, you drank it all up like a good boy. Now come on, off to bed with you.”

Images rose to the surface of Turee’s mind like a series of colliding bubbles, each of them bursting until the final one remained fixed and clear. A figure in white. The nurse at the hospital after Harry’s accident, with the phoney smile and starched behind.

Miss Hutchins. He’d met her only once, over two years ago. He hadn’t expected ever to see or think of her again, yet she had travelled nimbly over the years and miles to reappear on Thelma’s sunlit patio and talk about Harry: “… dead drunk when they brought him in – his blood alcohol test showed only 0.1 of one per cent. – that’s not nearly intoxication level in a normal person – he’s the kind that can’t hold his liquor.”

But Harry had always been able to hold his liquor very well. Long after Winslow had slid under the table and Galloway was retching over the railing of somebody’s back porch and Turee himself had reached a state of doldrums, Harry would still be bouncing around, the life of the party.

He hadn’t been dead drunk, then. He’d been pretending. He’d been acting out one of a series of scenes, expertly timed, carefully planned, with himself in the role of tragic victim to distract attention from the real victim, Galloway. The whole thing had been staged, right from the first telephone call to Thelma from Wiarton, to the final letter about his new job with the oil company in Bolivia. And the gullible audience reacted as they were expected to. Act one, poor Harry, what a terrible break for such a nice guy. Act two, Harry starts on his brave search for a new life and finds it. Act three, Harry gradually fades away into the oilfields of Bolivia.

Bolivia, yes. My God, what fools we all were. We never questioned any of it for a minute. Thelma’s renunciation of Harry, his attempt and failure to win her back, her courageous persistence to carry on by herself, her refusal to answer his letters, her reaction to his ‘marriage’ – none of it had been real. All the time the Breams were supposedly drawing further apart, they were binding themselves closer and closer to each other, not only by ties of love but by the stronger ones of guilt.

Thelma came out of the house. She had put on a sweater and was buttoning it at the neck, as if for her the day had suddenly turned chilly. “I called Harry at the office. He’ll be right home.”

“He has a job?”

“No. He’s at the doctor’s. He hasn’t been – well.” She hesitated over the final word, then spoke very quickly to cover the hesitation. “You look fine, Ralph. How is Nancy? And the children? Are they with you?”

“No. They’re all up at the lodge for the summer.”

“The lodge, how far away that seems, and long ago. I wish – well, it doesn’t matter now.” She sat down in the green canvas glider and began to swing back and forth, as if, child-like, she found comfort in the motion of rocking. “You came all the way out here to find Harry and me?”

“Not Harry. You.”

“You didn’t expect to find Harry?”

“No,” Turee said, coloring slightly. “I thought – we all thought – he was in Bolivia.”

“Naturally.” She sounded grave, but a trace of sardonic humor flickered in her eyes for a moment. “That was Harry’s idea, about the oil job in Bolivia. Harry’s very – imaginative.”

Once again she hesitated over the final word, as if other phrases had occurred to her first, more damaging and more precise ones which her personal censor refused to pass. She must have realized that her hesitancy had piqued Turee’s curiosity, for she added by way of explanation, “It’s very hard to describe someone you love deeply. Try it.”

“This hardly seems the time or place.”

“Perhaps not.”

“Who dreamed up Charley?”

“Harry.”

“He threw a boomerang. If it weren’t for Charley I wouldn’t be here. I was suspicious of him. I wanted to make sure you and the boy were all right.”

“You came here because of Charley? How funny. How terribly funny.” She didn’t laugh, though. She merely swung back and forth on the glider, her eyes fixed on Turee’s face. “What are you going to do now?”

“I’m not sure. It’s a very complex situation.”

“Don’t hurt Harry. Please don’t hurt Harry.”

“How can I help it?”

“Blame me. I’m the one responsible. I planned everything.”

He didn’t believe her but he kept his doubts to himself. “Why?”

“Why? There wasn’t any one why. There were dozens, going back years. I’ve always resented Ron, the way he had everything handed to him on a platter, the way he used to order Harry around. It rankled to see Harry toady to him.” She paused. “Poor Harry, he’s always had such bad luck.”

Perhaps Harry’s worst luck had been meeting Thelma, but apparently this notion didn’t occur to her.

“Like your coming here and finding us like this,” she said. “Sheer bad luck.”

“Someone would have found you eventually.”

“No. You were the only person interested enough to try. And you would never have found me if it hadn’t been for the picture of little Harry. I wanted to show him off, I couldn’t help it. That was my mistake. Pride. Vanity.”

“Not pride or vanity. Your mistake was greed.”

“I didn’t want anything for myself, only for my husband and my child.”

“And the child belongs—”

“To Harry,” she said sharply. “He is Harry’s child. Ron never came near me until I was certain I was pregnant. Then, of course, I arranged it. I had to. It was part of our plan, the hardest part of all for me, but the most vital. Ron had to believe sincerely that the baby was his. Otherwise Harry could never have persuaded him to write the final letter to Esther, which was so necessary to the suicide build-up.”

“Persuaded?”

“No force was necessary. Ron had been drinking before he arrived, and he had had more, some Scotch, with Harry and me. He was always easy to handle when he was drunk. Besides, when he found out about the baby, he was so overcome with guilt and shame he actually wanted to confess, to atone, in some way for what he’d done to Harry and to Esther.”

“Harry told him what to write?”

“Harry suggested. Ron was too upset to do his own thinking. He was very fond of Harry, you know. Everyone was. Everyone is, I mean.” Color splashed her face. “What a silly mistake, using the past tense like that, as if he were dead or something.”

“Or as if he had changed.”

“He hasn’t changed, not a bit.”

But the denial was too quick and too vigorous, and Turee wondered what the years of pretense and deceit, of remorse and guilt, had done to Harry. “The phone call Ron made to Dorothy Galloway’s house the night he died—”

“It wasn’t Ron. Harry made the call. Like the letter, it was part of the suicide build-up. The idea of suicide had to be so strongly implanted ahead of time that no one would even think of murder. Because if anyone had thought of it, if anyone had started to make a real investigation, Harry and I were wide open. Neither of us could account for our time that Saturday night. Harry didn’t make any emergency call at a clinic in Mimico, he was with me, waiting for Ron, waiting to go ahead with our plan. Nor did his car break down, the excuse he gave you and the others for being late arriving at the lodge. He wasn’t even driving the car. I was. I was following him so that when the time came he could take over our car and go on ahead to the lodge. It was a tight schedule but we’d planned very carefully. Harry drove me into Meaford and I caught the 10.30 bus back to Weston. I arrived home barely ten minutes before Harry’s phone call from Wiarton.”

“That was planned too, of course?”

“Every word.”

Turee looked bewildered, confused. “I can’t – I can’t quite believe it.”

“I can’t quite believe it myself, sometimes.”

She turned her head suddenly as if she’d heard a sound she’d been waiting for and knew well. Half a minute later Harry appeared from around the side of the house.

He was a little paunchier, a little balder, than Turee remembered, but his step was still bouncy and his grin still boyish. It looked quite real, as if he was genuinely glad to see an old friend.

He crossed the patio, his hand extended. “Ralph, old boy. By God, you’re a sight for sore eyes. You don’t look a day older. Does he, Thelma? Sit down, sit down. How about a drink, fellow? What would you—?”

“Let’s not play games, Harry,” Thelma cut in sharply. “Please.”

“Come now, we’ve got to be polite, sweetheart. What’s the matter with a little drink for auld lang syne?”

“I’m not sure Ralph would accept a drink from either of us.”

“Nonsense. He’s our friend.”

No one spoke, but the words, so was Galloway, hung in the air like dust in a shaft of sunlight.

Finally Turee said, “Did Galloway?’

“Did he what?’ A fretful little frown appeared between Harry’s eyebrows. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The night he died, did Galloway accept a drink from you?”

“Two, as a matter of fact.”

“Loaded with barbiturates?”

“Loaded with nothing more than Scotch.”

“How did you manage to drug him?”

“Drug him? Absurd. He came in, he said he was feeling sick and wanted something to settle his stomach. I gave it to him. Maybe I gave him too much. Quite accidentally.”

“Harry—”

“Must we go into all this? It’s done, it’s over, it’s been over for years. Besides, I’ve got a headache. Every time I go to the doctor I get a headache. I hate his guts. He’s a quack and a fool.”

“Why go to him, then?”

“Thelma insists. There’s nothing the matter with me. The whole thing’s absurd. I feel fine. I only go to please Thelma. Isn’t that right, Thelma?”

Thelma was silent.

“Well, tell him, Thelma. Tell him there’s nothing the matter with me. I only go to the doctor to please you. Thelma?’ She sat mute, not looking at him but staring upwards as if she were lost and alone on an island, searching the sky for signs of rescue.

“Tell him the truth, Thelma. Go on. The truth.”

“God help us,” she said, and turned and began walking towards the house.”

“Thelma, comeback here.”

“No. Please.”

“I command you to come back here. You must obey me. I’m the boss. We settled that years ago, didn’t we? I’m the boss, aren’t I?”

She hesitated a moment, biting the corner of her mouth. Then she said quietly. “Yes. Sure you are, Harry.”

“You mustn’t walk out on me like that. It’s disrespectful. I don’t like it. I won’t tolerate it. You hear?”

“Yes, Harry.”

He held out his hands towards her, palms up, and Turee saw on each wrist a red scar in the shape of a cross. “You know what I’ve got to do if you don’t treat me right, if you don’t behave yourself.”

“No, Harry. Don’t. Don’t make me suffer any more.”

“You suffer? Thelma, Thelma, you’ve got it all wrong. I’m the one who must suffer. I must wash away your sins with my blood. Now sit down and be polite. Ralph came all the way down here to see us. We must be hospitable. He’s our old friend. Eh, Ralph? How many years has it been, Ralph?”

“About a dozen,” Turee said.

“Only a dozen? Ron and I were friends for twice that long. Ron’s dead,” he added, as if he were imparting a piece of news. “It’s my turn next.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Thelma and the doctor keep asking the same question. It’s not something I think. It’s something I know. Some people know things. Without rhyme or reason they just know. There’s a special day ahead for me. I will recognize it when it comes. There will be signs, in the sky, the air, the trees, so I will know, this is it, this is the day.”

“What about your wife and your little boy?”

“My little boy? So you believed her, too. I don’t blame you, it’s quite a convincing story she tells. Only it’s not true. The boy belongs to Galloway. Thelma lied to salve my ego. She’s a very talented liar. For a long time I believed her when she said she was pregnant before Ron ever went near her. I believed her because I so very much wanted to. I managed to convince myself that all the tests I’d taken back in Toronto were wrong, that I wasn’t sterile, I was a man like other men. Then one day, when I was giving the boy his bath, I noticed the way his left ear stuck out from his head a little more than the right ear, like Ron’s. And the shape of his hands and feet – exactly like Ron’s. And I knew then Thelma had lied to me. Oh, her reasons were noble, but she’d lied to me, deceived me, made a fool of me. She’d sinned. I had to do something, I kept thinking something must be done, Thelma must be saved. I tried to wash away her sins with my blood.” He held out his scarred wrists. “She didn’t understand. She called the fool-doctor and they took me to a hospital. They couldn’t keep me there, though. I’m too smart. I was polite, I behaved myself, I answered their questions. They let me go in a couple of weeks. The trick is to tell them enough but not too much. Let them think you’re communicating but keep your secrets to yourself. Talk all you want about your childhood but not about your child. Especially if he’s not really yours. Thelma.”

She raised her eyes to him. They looked pale and pure as if they’d been washed a thousand times with tears. “Don’t leave me alone, Harry. I love you.”

“I know that,” he said wearily. “I love you too. But the time has come when I must know the truth. I have been living with so many lies, I can hardly tell any more what’s real and what isn’t. Like Charley. Your husband, Charley. I know he isn’t real, we made him up together, you and I. Yet sometimes I can see him quite distinctly, sitting in my chair, driving my car, walking into your bedroom and closing the door. And if I listen hard enough I can hear the two of you whispering together, I can hear the creak of bedsprings, and I know you’re making love in there, you and Charley, and I want to kill him for the same reason I killed Ron, because he dared to touch you.”

“Don’t go on, don’t think about it.”

“You never knew that before, did you, Thelma? I didn’t want Ron’s money. I wanted his life. I killed him out of rage and hate and jealousy. When he was in the back seat unconscious and I was driving his car, wearing his cap, carrying his wallet, I felt like a man. Funny, isn’t it? He wasn’t really much of a man. But he had something I didn’t, something I wanted. And later when I was strapping him into the safety belt on top of the cliff, and Thelma was waiting on the road in our own car, all I could think of was, you’ll never touch her again, Galloway, you’ll never touch another woman, cuckold another friend, beget another bastard—”

“Stop. Please stop.”

“Not now. This is the time for truth. You’re such a natural liar, Thelma. You lie the way other people breathe, without thinking about it.”

“No!”

“But you must tell the truth now. There isn’t much time. The boy – my boy – he’s not really mine, is he, Thelma?”

“I lied for your sake. I wanted you to be happy. I—”

“The boy is Ron’s?”

“Yes,” she said in a ragged whisper. “Don’t hate me for it. Please don’t hate me.”

“Thelma, Thelma, you are my love, how could I ever hate you? You’ve told me the truth. That’s the first step.”

“Step?”

“To atonement, to peace.” He looked up at the sky, smiling and composed. “You see that single cloud up there, Thelma? That’s one of the signs I’ve been waiting for.”

“It’s only a cloud, Harry. Don’t imagine—”

“Only a cloud? Ah, no. This is the day.”

“Stop.”

“Don’t you feel how different it is from other days? You, Ralph, don’t you feel it, too?”

“It’s an ordinary day,” Turee said. “How about that drink you offered me a while ago?”

“Not now. You can pour it yourself after I’ve gone.”

“You just got here; don’t talk about leaving.”

“I must. Look, Ralph. There. See it? A bird flying across the cloud. If I’d had any doubts at all, that would dispel them.”

Turee tried to catch Thelma’s eye for some hint on how to handle the situation. But her eyes were closed. She seemed to have fallen into a troubled sleep. Her hands twitched and tears glittered on her lashes. “You can’t leave Thelma.”

“No,” Harry said. “I won’t leave Thelma. She’s coming with me. She wants to.” He reached down and touched her gently on the shoulders. “You want to, don’t you, Thelma? We’ve been down some pretty dreary roads together. This last won’t be any rougher.”

Turee said, “Stop this foolishness and let me help you.”

“It’s too late to do anything for me. Help the boy, if you can. He’s a good boy. He deserves to be brought up by a good man. You don’t have to be afraid he’ll grow up to be like me.”

“I won’t let you walk off like this—”

“You can’t stop us. Besides, I don’t think you really want to. They still hang people in Canada.” He leaned down and kissed Thelma on the forehead. “Come on, dear.”

Thelma rose silently, hanging on to his arm.

“For God’s sake, don’t go with him, Thelma,” Turee shouted. “Stop and think.”

“I’ve already thought,” she said quietly.

They walked together hand in hand across the patio and up the steep path along the side of the house.

Turee watched them go. They still hang people in Canada. It’s better this way. Better for the boy. He’s got a life to live, I must see that he lives it right – My God, I wonder what Nancy will say…

FIN

About Margaret Millar

Margaret Millar (1915-1994) was an American-Canadian mystery and suspense writer. Born in Kitchener, Ontario in 1915 and read classics at the University of Toronto. She moved to the United States after marrying Kenneth Millar (better known under the pen name Ross Macdonald). They resided for decades in the city of Santa Barbara, which was often utilized as a locale in her later novels under the pseudonyms of San Felice or Santa Felicia. The Millars had a daughter who died in 1970.

As well as having been a renowned mystery novelist, Margaret Millar also wrote autobiographical nature studies, was a screenwriter for Warner Brothers just after the Second World War and from 1957-8 was elected President of the Mystery Writers of America who, in 1956, awarded her the Edgar Allen Poe Award for her novel Beast in View.

Bibliography

"Paul Prye" Mystery Novels

- The Invisible Worm (1941)

- The Weak-Eyed Bat (1942)

- The Devil Loves Me (1942)

"Inspector Sands" Mystery Novels

- Wall of Eyes (1943)

- The Iron Gates [Taste of Fears] (1945)

"Tom Aragon" Mystery Novels

- Ask for Me Tomorrow (1976)

- The Murder of Miranda (1979)

- Mermaid (1982)

Other Mystery Novels

- Fire Will Freeze (1944)

- Do Evil in Return (1950)

- Rose's Last Summer (1952)

- Vanish in an Instant (1952)

- Beast in View (1955) (Edgar Award for Best Novel, 1956)

- An Air That Kills [The Soft Talkers] (1957)

- The Listening Walls (1959)

- A Stranger in My Grave (1960)

- How Like an Angel (1962)

- The Fiend (1964)

- Beyond This Point Are Monsters (1970)

- Banshee (1983)

- Spider Webs (1986)

- The Couple Next Door: Collected Short Mysteries. Ed. Tom Nolan (2004)

Other Novels

- Experiment in Springtime (1947)

- It’s All in the Family (1948)

- The Cannibal Heart (1949)

- Wives and Lovers (1954)

- The Birds and the Beasts Were There (1968) (memoir)

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

About Margaret Millar

Bibliography