The Long, Long Afternoon

by Inga Vesper

  ‘Not quite the lesson you wanted to teach, I guess.’

  ‘Sometimes I despair.’ She nips at her whiskey. ‘Nancy Ingram is just the same. Her husband was in Korea. And just like Jimmy, he came back wrong. She left him after years of hell. But instead of looking for a partner who’d respect her, she grew jealous of Joyce and her children.’ She sighs again. ‘It’s always about the men. The men rule their lives. And they do not learn. They pick themselves up and redraw that lipstick and set out for the next one. Until one of them ruins them.’

  ‘Ruins them?’

  Genevieve Crane gives him a look. He refills his whiskey glass and leaves the silence hanging. There are things he does not want to think of. Things Genevieve is right about, and she really, really shouldn’t be.

  Mrs Crane lowers her glance. A shiver shakes her shoulders. The first sob hits him with terrible certainty.

  He sets down the whiskey glass. ‘Genevieve,’ he says. ‘Please. I know how you feel.’

  ‘How could you?’ She moves away from him. ‘You don’t see the misery I see. The violence. The hiding. The pretending. All that darkness.’

  ‘I do.’

  The images run past him. The wives who cannot hide their relief when their beloved husband is finally found drowned in the canal. Mothers calling the cops about their daughters’ broken arms, and when the cops show up at the hospital, there’s the little boyfriend with roses and his tail between his legs. And the broken arm was from a fall. Honestly, sir. Just a fall.

  Joyce. She must have been utterly, utterly alone. The thought sickens him. No, it’s not that. He is sickened from the things he refused to see.

  Genevieve turns around to face him. She reaches for her glass and empties it. ‘Sometimes . . . sometimes I feel I only make things worse. When I talk to these women and encourage them to leave, to run as fast as they can, am I really helping them? Or am I just tormenting them, because they know they’ll never run fast enough?’

  ‘You’re not hurting anyone.’

  ‘Well, look at what happened to Deena. I told her to make her own luck and find a man who would do right by her. And off she goes to seduce her best friend’s lover. Perhaps she thought that silly plan with the beer bottle would keep him on her side. And now she’s dead.’

  ‘That’s not your fault.’

  ‘And Joyce? I supported her art. Maybe I encouraged it too much. She was like a caged bird waiting to be freed . . . Oh, that’s a silly metaphor. I just didn’t want her to wake up one day and find that her life had passed without meaning. What if . . . what if that drove her to her death?’

  ‘How would a little painting kill her?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Then it cannot be your fault.’

  She turns toward him fully. Something passes between them, and if she were a man he might have called it brotherhood. Or is it more?

  Snap out of it. He pinches himself so hard he has to suppress a wince. This was how it got started with Beverly. The feeling that he was the big protector, the grand detective who’ll take care of things when the little ladies reach their wit’s end. It hits him like a brick. That’s why he got the tickets for Amblioni. To show her he cared. Just like he bought bracelets and hot dinners for Beverly Gallagher, that poor, poor girl so badly in need of help.

  But this is different, isn’t it? Genevieve Crane is a classy lady, and there’s nothing wrong with brightening her day.

  ‘By the way.’ He hates himself and yet he cannot stop. ‘I’ve got these tickets to Amblioni . . .’

  He nestles them out of his breast pocket. Mrs Crane stares at them, and then at him. A smile blossoms on her lips. But it is the wrong sort of smile. Sad, and almost mocking. It doesn’t break his heart. It seals it right up.

  ‘You are a lucky man,’ says Mrs Crane. ‘The exhibition is sold out. Your wife will be delighted.’

  She will be. That’s the thing. The realization washes over him in one warm wave. Fran will love to go to this thing. They’ve been here months now, and he’s never taken her to LA.

  They could make a day of it, head to Calcotti’s for lunch, see the exhibition, and, in the evening, stop by O’Toole’s for a whiskey. If they’re lucky, they’ll get to sit right by the beach. They’ll watch the sunset and, when the words run out, they’ll just listen to the surf like they used to on Coney Island, before the girls came along.

  Better that way. Better than any Beverlys and Genevieves. Better than that look Fran gave him after it all came out and he saw her trust breaking in a way that might never be fixed. In that moment he had thought that maybe letting Billy die had not been the worst thing he’d done in his life.

  He puts the tickets away and nods. ‘It’s going to be a surprise,’ he says.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Ruby

  A

  s they get off the bus, the driver looks at them strangely. Ruby’s stomach rolls. She can feel his suspicion settle on her skin. He drives on, but slowly, idling so as to miss the traffic light, watching what they’re up to in a town like this.

  Joseph appears completely unperturbed. He starts whistling a song and saunters up Roseview Drive as if he’s just nipped out to Safeway to get some patties.

  ‘Stop whistling,’ Ruby hisses. ‘Someone’s gonna hear you.’

  ‘Even better. ’Cause I’m a humble gardener, here to pick your flowers, sir. Ain’t got no care in the world.’

  Ruby has to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing. Joseph’s got a talent for acting. He’s put on some work pants from the garage and a light-blue shirt. A metal bucket dangles from his hand. Ruby asked him what a gardener needs a bucket for but Joseph just shrugged off the question. ‘People be seeing what they wanna be seeing.’

  But no one’s seeing anything. There is not a soul out and about. The only sound is the tss-tss from the sprinklers working hard to keep the back lawns juicy.

  Joseph lowers his voice. ‘It’s like the aliens have landed and teleported everyone up to Mars.’

  ‘It’s always this quiet in the afternoons. The husbands are at work and the wives are cleaning or making waffles for the children. And the children are watching TV.’

  ‘You think everyone here has a TV?’

  ‘For sure. And when one of them gets a bigger one, the neighbors run off to the mall to buy the same. On Sundays they all do barbecues in the yard.’

  ‘I’d fancy some barbecue.’

  ‘Not this one. They never marinate the meat. And the wives put salad in a Jell-O.’

  ‘What?’ Joseph stops dead. ‘That’s awful.’

  ‘Shh, we’re here.’

  They’ve reached the end of Roseview Drive. Number 47 stands guarded by a row of trees, the white fence glowing against the dark underbrush.

  ‘Through there.’ Ruby turns Joseph toward the patch of trees where Barbara stood that afternoon, waiting for her mother who never came back. ‘Go round the fence and wait. I’ll scream if anything happens.’

  ‘Sure.’ He steps into the shadows. ‘You take care, honey.’

  Mrs Haney opens the door. She is dressed in a weird, billowing dress that looks like a kid’s party tent. But her face is hewn in stone.

  ‘I can’t believe you went over my head like this, Frank,’ she says by way of greeting.

  ‘Mother.’ Mr Haney’s on the terrace, sharpening a pair of gardening shears. ‘You never asked me in the first place. Ruby is back and that’s that. No more discussion, please. Didn’t you want to go out? That’s why I left the office early.’

  ‘I said no such thing.’ Mrs Haney senior turns away. ‘Oh, this heat. I need a rest.’

  Ruby dons her apron and grabs the vacuum cleaner. She heads for the bedroom and opens both windows. The white fence blocks her view of the trees, but she’s sure Joseph would vault it in a second if she started to scream.

  She vacuums with fervor. After five minutes, she pauses to take a look around.

  Her heart pulses in her throat as s
he slides open the drawers in the bedside tables. Mr Haney has a Tijuana bible in his and uses a photo of Barbara as a bookmark. But there is no sign of anything useful.

  An organized man would leave any important papers with his secretary. Only, Mr Haney doesn’t strike Ruby as an organized man. Not after what happened to his wife. He’s been frazzled like a cat on the interstate these past two weeks.

  She spots a suitcase on top of the closet. The sleeve of a shirt is protruding from the zipper and one of the clasps is unfastened. It’s been stuffed there, for someone else to deal with.

  Ruby switches the vacuum cleaner back on to mask the noise and, gingerly, pushes Mrs Haney’s dressing chair up to the closet. She slips out of her shoes and climbs onto the seat. The suitcase is not big. She clicks open the remaining clasp. The smell of worn clothing with hints of aftershave rushes out. She has to rummage through underwear and a swarm of single, smelly socks before she finds his pants. Their pockets yield a piece of paper, flimsy and crumpled. She unfolds it and covers her mouth with her hand.

  It’s a check. For lunch at a motel called Family Inn. The address stamp at the top says it’s in Santa Clarita. The waitress has put the date on: Monday, August 23. And it was lunchtime service. Between 12 noon and 3 p.m.

  The room grows very hot. So Mr Haney wasn’t in Palmdale on the day Joyce went missing. At lunch, he was halfway home.

  Ruby stuffs the paper down the front of her blouse. She puts the chair back and jerks the vacuum cleaner across the carpet. All of a sudden, it goes out with a moan.

  She spins around. Mrs Haney senior is standing in the doorway, grim like the archangel Azrael come to claim his own. But instead of a scythe, she holds the power plug in her hand. Her gaze snakes along the cable toward Ruby’s feet.

  ‘Where are your shoes?’

  ‘Sorry, ma’am.’ Her slippers are still parked up by the closet. ‘Mrs Haney never liked me to wear them in the bedroom.’

  Mrs Haney senior sighs. ‘Nancy just stopped by on her way to work. She’s asking you to deal with her kitchen. There’s a dollar in it for you.’

  She holds up a house key and a crisp dollar bill.

  Ruby puts on her daft voice and says: ‘Why, thank you, Mrs Haney. I’m a lucky girl today, me.’

  Mrs Haney senior mutters something under her breath and leaves the room.

  In the kitchen, Ruby fills the mop bucket. The paper in her blouse rustles with every move she makes. She opens the terrace doors and sings, a little louder than usual, to make herself heard over the snip-snap of Mr Haney’s shears. Just so Joseph knows she’s OK.

  Predictably, the mother of all dragons reappears and tells her to shut up. Ruby mops in silence, puts the bucket away and leaves by the front door, quiet as a mouse.

  Joseph catches her up between the trees, a mischievous smile on his face.

  ‘You look like Robin Goodfellow,’ Ruby says.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Some guy from England. Guess what, we’re stopping by at Nancy Ingram’s. She’s gone to work and left the key with the Haneys.’

  ‘We can turn the whole place upside down. Nice going.’

  ‘No way. You wait outside. Round the back. If anyone sees you—’

  ‘Who’s gonna care?’

  ‘Everyone. They’re crazy here. Imagine if Mrs Ingram came back. We’d—’

  Joseph waves a hand. ‘All right. I’ll hang back. Gonna sit on my bucket.’

  Mrs Ingram’s house is the usual scene of chaos. The living room is covered in dresses, discarded like the skins of a rainbow snake. In the kitchen, someone has attempted to cook and given up halfway through. Bowls filled with mashed peas and Jell-O are stacked up by the sink. The oven smells.

  There really ain’t no point in even starting. Ruby’s got a dollar in her pocket already, and once she’s called the detective and shown him the proof, she won’t ever be working for these people again.

  Upstairs, the bedroom curtains are drawn shut. She parts them a little and glimpses Joseph among the shrubs near the lake, sitting on his bucket as promised, his head turned toward the house. When she opens the closet, dresses tumble out, some still wrapped in plastic and with dry-cleaning tags. She cannot find the yellow dress, the one Mrs Ingram was wearing the other day. But there is another one, made from the same daisy-patterned fabric Mrs Haney found at the sale. Maybe Mrs Ingram got lucky, too.

  No, she didn’t . Ruby’s heart beats faster. This is the same dress. Exactly the same. These are Joyce’s clothes.

  Ruby throws the dress onto the bed and stares at it. Something that Barbara said, so long ago, creeps into her mind. I found Mommy’s dress. She thought it was a dream, but perhaps she had really seen it. In Mrs Ingram’s house.

  A possibility opens up, silent and wide like the space between stars. Mrs Ingram. She’s trying to make the illusion perfect.

  She tears her eyes away from the dress and burrows deeper into the closet. Her fingers are sweaty. They hit something hard. She pulls aside coats and skirts to reveal a piece of stiff paper.

  A painting. She pulls at it. It slips out, reluctantly, as if something holds it back. She unfolds it and lays it onto the bed. And the world flips over.

  The painting is not big, but it holds all the answers. It shows a pool, fringed by potted geraniums. The water is crystal blue and clear, soaking up the sky above. The geraniums jump off the paper in vivid reds, almost purple where the reflection of the water catches the bottom of the petals. In the middle, smiling shyly, stands a little boy.

  He has Joyce’s eyes. He is Joyce’s child. But he’s not Frank’s. The face betrays the secret. Ruby knows his father. He has tousled black hair and a lean walk like a panther’s. Right now he’s sitting in a cell, waiting for his conviction.

  Behind her, a man clears his throat. ‘So, Nancy was right.’

  Ruby spins around and stares into Mr Haney’s face. A scream dies in her stomach. Mr Haney’s face is weary but his eyes are blazing with something that is deeply frightening.

  ‘I-I’m just . . .’

  He shrugs. ‘I thought you were the one person in all this who did not give a damn.’

  ‘But I do.’ Ruby backs away. ‘I give a damn about Joyce. About what happened to her.’

  Mr Haney laughs. ‘The killer is in custody. A violent man. I promise you, Ruby, my witness statement in the stand will incriminate him most severely.’

  ‘You’re sending an innocent man to death.’

  Mr Haney’s laugh turns into a roar. ‘Innocent? He’s a criminal and a drifter. A home wrecker. Men like him are the cancer in America’s belly. The fewer of them around to menace our families, the better.’ His eyes narrow. ‘But now to you. You’ve been at my things. Give me what you found.’

  He moves closer, and Ruby shrinks back. ‘No, I won’t. It’s proof. For the detective.’

  ‘Yes, he told me you’ve been meddling. I’ve come to make sure you won’t wreck the case. Now, come on. Give me what you found.’

  Ruby edges toward the wall. Joseph needs to be here, right now. Where is he? Where—?

  Finally, her lungs comply. She takes a breath to scream, scream like Momma, who could holler a street to pieces.

  But Mr Haney is too fast. He grabs her and slams her into the wall. Her breath cuts off as his hand locks onto her face. He presses down on her mouth and nose. The scream dies on her tongue. His other hand curls around her throat.

  ‘You little bitch,’ Mr Haney says. ‘I wish you’d never set foot in my house.’

  She tries to fight but she’s got no fight left. Her chest roars for air that will not come. His fingers dig into her windpipe until her lungs reach bursting point. The world turns hazy. Her muscles give out. His eyes are blazing galaxies in the encroaching darkness. At the center of each galaxy lies a black hole.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Ruby

  R

  eality shatters with a bang. Mr Haney’s eyes grow wide. He slips out of Ruby’s vision,
revealing Joseph, standing tall. He drops the bucket and pulls her up. His voice sounds muffled in her head. ‘Ruby, Ruby. Please, Ruby.’

  The room is oddly skewed. She coughs. Air streams into her lungs. Precious, beautiful air. She retches – and the pain sets in, heavy and throbbing. She puts her hands around her throat, just like Mr Haney did, searching for the dents and valleys his fingers must have left.

  ‘Ruby. Jesus Lord, are you OK?’

  She nods, uncomprehending. Mr Haney groans and moves one arm. Joseph vaults toward him and squats on his back, one knee pressing between his shoulder blades.

  ‘Get me something to tie him up.’

  But Ruby can only stare and endure the pain. Red stars pop before her eyes. And the stabbing in her lungs is so excruciating it leaves room for nothing else.

  Joseph pulls his shoelaces out, ties them together and wraps them around Mr Haney’s hands. He ties a stocking around his legs and stuffs the sleeve of one of Mrs Ingram’s silk blouses into his mouth.

  He tried to kill her. Frank Haney nearly killed her. It’s only now that Ruby begins to understand what has just happened. And what Joseph has done.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘You saved me.’

  He grins. ‘Like I promised. Truth, justice and the American way.’

  Ruby picks up the painting. She opens the curtains and holds it up. The sunlight sets the geraniums on fire and throws sparkles over the pool. The boy’s face glows with life.

  ‘Neat,’ says Joseph. ‘Who is that?’

  ‘I think it’s Joyce’s baby. The one we found in the flowerpot. What he would have looked like now.’

  ‘Lord have mercy on his soul.’

  ‘It’s not Mr Haney’s child. Jimmy is the father. Joyce’s boyfriend.’

  At her feet, Mr Haney grunts.

  ‘But why was the baby in the flowerpot?’ Joseph wrinkles his nose. ‘That’s just . . . weird.’

  ‘She kept it.’ Ruby looks at the painting. ‘Can you imagine, all these years? Pouring water in there and watching the geraniums grow and maybe hoping against all hopes that one day her little baby will pop its head out and say: “Mommy, I’m fine”.’