“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 I’ve got a new doctor, the last one was hopelessly out of date.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 triphammer, 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 copywriter 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 canceled 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 doctors says I’m not over it to this day. Just last week I had to have a bromsulfalein—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 pincushion. 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? What ever 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.”
&nbs
p; “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 disappeared, 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.
ELEVEN
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, beaten 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 or 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 gho
st.”
“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 mohair sofa and rose and brown Axminster rug.
An Air That Kills Page 10