An Air That Kills

by Margaret Millar

  “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 at 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 a 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 be 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 a
nd 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 bunched 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 meant 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 came 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 t
o 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 off the face of reason as if by a stone door. “I won’t.”

  “You haven’t even . . .”