The Man Who Loved His Wife

by Vera Caspary

  When she turned toward Ralph her eyes were empty. The face whose mobility he had loved was a taut mask. He tried to soothe her, but she rejected comfort. “Infidelity is murder.”

  “You don’t think that’s why he did it?” Ralph asked, less to get an answer than to show disbelief.

  “It’s not that simple. He probably planned it for a long time and that was the last straw. I shouldn’t have told him.”

  “Don’t go on punishing yourself. You were very good to him and took plenty of punishment. Don’t ask for more.” He saw by her remote expression that she was not listening. Consolation was less important to her than suffering. They sat in silence until the doorbell rang. Ralph admitted two white-coated men with a wheeled stretcher.

  “Do you want to see him again?”

  Elaine stared at the flowers. For five years there had never been a conscious hour without thought of Fletcher. She had reckoned his comings and goings, his pleasures and prejudices, irascibility, generosity, his boredom, his love, and his cruelty. She had adored, endured, raged, lived in the necessity of his presence and dreamed of freedom from the tyranny of his adoration. The body on the stretcher was none of these things.

  Ralph closed the door so that she would not have to see them roll the stretcher along the corridor. She sat curled up on the window seat and studied the flowers in her garden.

  9

  “HI, BEAUTY!” CALLED DON AS HE UNLOCKED THE front door. The salutation was for whichever of the two girls heard him first. “I’m back, sweet. Anyone call me?” The tone was loud and automatically cheerful. He had to force the appearance of high spirits. The morning had been spent drearily at a double-feature in a cheap movie theater. After a greasy lunch at a stinking drugstore counter, he had wandered among the downtown stores, looking at imported slacks and brass-buttoned blue jackets, which would have been correct and smart attire for the host of a beach house. He charged two ties and a blazer to Elaine’s account, less because he wanted the things than for the psychological effect. It was important that he appear jaunty and unconcerned.

  “Hey, where’s everybody?”

  At the end of the hall he saw a shape approaching, but it was his own image reflected in the mirror whose green and shadowed surface showed a dismal figure.

  “Cindy!”

  A silent house, a shadowed mirror, the echo of his own voice brought about a swift sinking of heart. Fletcher’s bedroom door was closed, Elaine’s, too. He burst into the guest room. “Good grief, you’re not still sleeping.” His wife stirred and moaned. “Don’t tell me you’ve been in bed all day. It’s half-past three.”

  She lay with open eyes, staring at the ceiling. “Where’ve you been all day?”

  “I called up a chap I knew at college. Tony Buchanan, I don’t think you ever met him. He’s in oil, I thought maybe he’d have some good contacts for me.” The explanation was swift and glib. “Just caught him before he left for Spain. I drove him to the airport and we had lunch. I ought’ve called you, oughtn’t I?”

  Cindy groaned.

  “Are you sick? What’s wrong? Didn’t I tell you not to drink so much champagne?”

  “Daddy’s dead.”

  “No! I don’t believe it. You’re kidding. Sorry, dear. That was a hell of a thing to say. As if I’d kid about it. But the shock.” He stretched out his arms, regarded the tremor of his hands. “Look how I’m shaking. How’d it happen? Suicide?”

  Cindy jerked up like a puppet on wires. “No! No!”

  Her temper showed more of resentment than grief. Don thought he knew all of her moods. The vehemence surprised him. “What was it? An accident?”

  “They said sleeping pills. Why does everybody think that?”

  “Who’s everybody? Have a lot of people been here?” he asked nervously.

  “The police. And the doctor, of course.”

  “Police?”

  “Two detectives. It’s the thing when somebody dies and they think it’s suicide. Why do they, Don?”

  “Elaine’s been afraid of it for a long time. How’s she taking it?”

  “Cold as ice. I don’t understand her at all.” An abundance of tears showed Cindy’s warmer nature. “Why are you so worried about her?”

  “She’s his wife.”

  “I’m his daughter. And I refuse to believe in any suicide.”

  In a cajoling tone Don asked what made her so certain. Her answer showed family loyalty, if not logic. A man like her father would never do a terrible thing like that. Besides, he had no reason to end his life. “He had everything he wanted, didn’t he? Unless there was some trouble about his investments and he lost everything. There was a broker that called him from New York this morning. You don’t think he’s lost all his money, Don?” Grief at her father’s death was overshadowed by deeper fear.

  “I’ve heard nothing about it. The market’s strong now. Everything seems in good shape financially.”

  “You see!” Cindy exclaimed. “I knew it wasn’t anything like that . . . I mean . . . why should he? Disgrace himself and his family. I don’t want my father remembered as a suicide.”

  “It’s no disgrace.”

  “It’s the coward’s way out. I loved my father too much to believe that of him.”

  Don consoled her as best he could, petted her gently, said she ought to be glad her poor father had found peace, and that they ought not to question the will of God. He sat in the darkened room, holding her hand until she fell asleep again. There was only one idea in his mind, to get his hands on the diary. His fingers itched for the touch of that potent book, his eyes ached for the sight of Fletcher’s handwriting. He dared not move until he was sure that Cindy was asleep. Fortunately, the house was quiet. He listened at Elaine’s door before he went to Fletcher’s bedroom.

  On the dresser lay the things Fletcher had taken out of his pockets before he lay down for his final sleep; wallet, address book, keys, pencil, fountain pen. Don’s hands trembled with the key ring. He had to wipe sweat from his fingers before he could unlock the drawer. He opened the diary at random, turned from one entry to another, finding in each some new excitement.

  Elaine came into the room quietly.

  Don managed to slide the diary into the top drawer before he rose and took her in his arms.

  “I’m glad you’re home,” she said. “I’ve been sleeping so hard that there could have been an earthquake and I wouldn’t have known. Dr. Julian gave me a shot of something absolutely lethal.”

  “I’m so sorry, dear.”

  She patted his shoulder to show gratitude.

  Don looked over his shoulder to be sure that the diary was safely out of sight.

  Elaine was neat and severe in dark trousers and a white shirt. Untinted lips and shadowed eyes added to the look of austerity. A purple bruise scarred her jaw. “I can’t believe it, Don . . . that he’s . . . gone. Or maybe,” she licked dry lips, “it’s just that I don’t want to. Don, do you think it was that awful fuss last night and his getting so furious and losing his voice? It made him so desperate. I feel that—” But she cut herself off and assumed a locked-away look that denied feeling.

  “How awful it must have been for you this morning. What bad luck that I wasn’t here to help you.”

  She caressed the bruised jaw. “I tripped in the kitchen last night and knocked my face against the edge of the sink. Dorine puts too much wax on the floor. Is it still so swollen? Fletcher put an icebag on it.” An inexperienced liar, she added unnecessary detail.

  Cindy drifted in like a sleepwalker, sipping instant coffee and saying she had not been able to sleep again. “Has anybody got a cigarette?” She looked around frantically, as if she could not live another ten seconds without one. “Donnie, I haven’t told mom yet.”

  “Want me to?”

  Don saw that Elaine had gone over to the desk. He came over quickly and touched the papers that lay there. “As a lawyer I can be a big help to you girls.”

  “I’d better tell Mom myse
lf. After all, I am her daughter.”

  No one denied this, and Cindy took the telephone on the long wire into the hall where she could speak privately, but excitement raised her voice to such a pitch that the others heard every word. She broke the news with ecstatic importance.

  The first Mrs. Strode was, of course, hideously shocked. From time to time Cindy would put her hand over the instrument and call in to report that her mother who had, after all, lived with Daddy for so many years, did not believe he was a man who would kill himself in any circumstances. Every question and statement was repeated several times. Fletcher would have been irritated by the long conversation. Since she was a little girl, Cindy had been scolded for tying up the telephone. Now she was free to talk as long as she liked. They were all free to be themselves without considering the whims of a sick and surly man.

  She was through at last. “My mother wants to know when we’re having the funeral.”

  “That depends upon when they finish the autopsy,” Elaine said. “That detective promised to ask them to rush it. I thought he might have tried to call while I was sleeping. And Dr. Julian said he’d help me with the arrangements.”

  “Why him?” demanded Don.

  “He wants to be helpful, but if you’d prefer to take care of things, Don . . .” Elaine was on her way to the kitchen. “Is anyone hungry? We haven’t eaten all day.”

  “Did you ever see anyone so heartless?” asked Cindy.

  “We’ve got to go on living,” Don said. When Cindy had left the room, he took out the diary, put it in his pocket, locked the desk drawer, and went to the bathroom because it was the only place he could be sure of privacy while he read what Fletcher Strode had written about his life, his wife, and his death.

  AFTER HE MADE his last house call of the day, Ralph stopped at a delicatessen, bought noodle soup, roast chicken, ham, tongue, roast beef, corned beef, smoked salmon, coleslaw, pickles, potato salad, three kinds of cheese, rye and white breads, apple strudel, and chocolate cake.

  The abundance delighted Elaine. “How he would have loved this. Fletcher. Delicatessen was his very favorite food. He was even more extravagant than you are.” Such memories were tribute, a list of foods her service to the dead. “Smoked turkey, sturgeon, Nova Scotia Salmon, fois gras, Holland asparagus and caviar.” Here she paused to recall a naughty evening when they had started with an early snack of caviar and vodka, made love, and forgotten a theater party. Wayward memories restored her. She moved about gracefully as she fetched plates and laid out cold cuts in rows between bouquets of parsley. “Roquefort was his favorite cheese, but it had to be real, French, first-class Roquefort.”

  He would never again ask her to mix Roquefort with sweet butter, never stand as Ralph stood now, watching while she flew from table to refrigerator, from stove to sink, never come bumbling into the kitchen to find out what they were having for dinner. Now, poignantly, because of this small thing, his pleasure in the flavor of cheese, she saw death—his death—as something more than an end to suffering, for there had also been an end to pleasure. The joys of an ordinary day are what give purpose, if not meaning, to being alive: a clear sky, breakfast coffee, a walk on the beach, the car humming along the open road, the change of seasons, a good joke, the surprising conduct of one’s friends. The list is too long for recording. Even in the last sad years, after he had rejected gaudier activities, Fletcher had loved to lie back in his comfortable chair, drinking cold beer and watching a stiff fight, a close race, a tough game on TV. He enjoyed surprises and treats, like giving presents; no birthday or holiday had gone unmarked. Pretty women still fascinated him; he never failed to watch the sway of a firm buttocks under a tight skirt, considered himself a connoisseur of legs and breasts, and could never resist pinching or kissing her flesh when his wife came close. There were other things, indeed too many for recording, and now it would make no difference that the Mets won or lost a World Series.

  They ate so solemnly that the food lost flavor. Ralph’s efforts at lightness increased the weight of gloom. To divert them he talked about his boyhood in this house. Elaine’s bright eyes were turned toward him, but Ralph could not tell whether she was far away or listening too attentively. Just the same, he tried to divert her. “My Aunt Cora may not have been the world’s greatest cook, but she was tops with certain dishes. Her stuffed breast of veal was famous. She got the recipe from a Hungarian chef whom Uncle Jules treated for stomach ulcers.”

  “Do you think,” asked Cindy, “it would be correct for my mother to come to the funeral?”

  “If she wants to,” Elaine said.

  “Wouldn’t it be embarrassing for you, dear?” asked Don.

  Elaine shrugged. “For her, too, I imagine. With such a small and quiet funeral, we’d have to speak to each other.”

  “It won’t be that small,” declared Cindy. “There’ll probably be a lot of people. I won’t have you getting chintzy about my father’s funeral.”

  “She doesn’t mean it’s to be cheap, love. Elaine feels that your father hadn’t many friends here, and—”

  “We’ve got friends, you and I, Donnie. Dozens of people have entertained us, and with your contacts and all. It’s been bad enough, not being able to entertain, but the least we can do is give my father a proper funeral. He deserves it. He was an important man.”

  “Whatever you like. Please take care of it, Don. Let Cindy have whatever she thinks will impress her friends.”

  “I refuse to sit here and be insulted. With my father not cold in his grave.” Cindy pushed back her chair. High heels clattered on the tiled floor.

  Elaine said she was sorry. Don started after Cindy, but changed his mind and returned to his chair to remark that the poor kid seemed strangely obsessed with the notion that her father had not killed himself. “What’s your opinion, Doctor?”

  Ralph replied that he could not judge an act he had not witnessed. There could be no definite answer until the autopsy was done.

  “Elaine oughtn’t to be surprised. She’s been expecting it for a long time, haven’t you, dear?”

  Elaine’s face, which so frequently betrayed her with a rosy flush, had become bloodless, the ivory flesh as yellow as saffron. Her right hand protected the bruise.

  “She told me so quite frankly. Out there in the pavilion.”

  Her eyelids flickered, her long neck bent in acquiescence. “Yes, I did expect it. I was afraid for a long time.” Each word came out separately, forced by a reluctant will.

  “Not without cause,” Ralph said. “When a man keeps a supply of drugs hidden, it’s obvious what’s on his mind.”

  “Hidden! And you found them?” Don sounded angry as though he had been cheated of important information.

  “Yesterday. Before he died. Dorine and I were cleaning his closet. So I knew I’d been right about what I told you.”

  My wife, Fletcher Strode had written in his diary, is a devious woman.

  “What did you do with the pills?”

  “I hid them the way I hide the others.”

  “What others?” Don persisted.

  “The prescription. I kept the bottle hidden and only gave him two a night. Didn’t I tell you?”

  “No, dear, you didn’t. Probably forgot to mention it.” Don threw her an indulgent smile. “Bit complicated, isn’t it? Two hidden stores of pills. Did you remember to tell that to the detectives?”

  “She did,” Ralph said, “and we discussed it with them. It’s not extraordinary. A potential suicide always complicates things. With all the vacillations—he’s apt to change from hour to hour—and in the end, the act is triggered by an impulse.”

  “Impulse.” The word hung in the air while Elaine’s hand, bearing a fork, remained at the level of her chin.

  “Don’t you believe it was impulse? After all that storm and temperament last night,” Don said. “An impulse of that kind would be very natural. On anybody’s part.” He turned to Ralph. “It’s not good form to speak ill of the dead, but we
have to be honest about it. He was beastly to her.”

  “He was so miserable,” Elaine flared out. “You don’t know. None of us will ever know how miserable. Desperate!” Her hand tightened on her jaw as though she cherished the hurt Fletcher had given her.

  In a sudden fury she gathered up plates and coffee cups. “Are we finished?” Whether they were or not, she whisked their dishes off to the kitchen. They went after her, offered help, but proved a hindrance. She was nervous, declared they got in her way, that they would put things in the wrong places, clog the garbage disposal, let good food go to waste. “Please, may I do that?” and “Do let me pass,” or, with a shriek, “No, no, not there!” Ralph retreated to the edge of the kitchen and Don kept saying, “Sorry . . . so sorry, dear,” like a penitent schoolboy.

  “You must think I’m an awful bitch,” she said to Ralph when Don had gone off to his bedroom and she was finishing at the sink.

  “I think you’ve had enough. You’ve behaved admirably, but you’re worn out. I’m putting you to bed.”

  “And leaving?”

  “I’ll sit with you until you’ve relaxed.”

  “Not in there.” She led him along the hall past the door of her bedroom. Even as a doctor he was not to be allowed that privilege. She did not want him to remember that he had entered the room as her lover.

  He arranged pillows so that she could stretch comfortably upon the living room couch. They agreed not to talk about Fletcher’s death and could find nothing else to talk about. Neither lovers nor friends now, they looked at each other like strangers, and at the room as though they had no right to be there. When he had come to this house as an adopted child, Ralph had been drawn irresistibly to the formal parlor with its silk drapes, waxed woods, glistening porcelains, its pretty little objects of ivory and silver. The room had been declared out of bounds to a clumsy boy. It was cozier now, less formal, yet with all of Elaine’s books and lamps and pictures, he still felt himself an intruder.