The Night Guest

by Fiona McFarlane

  The cats were buried under the quilt and twisted in protest when Ruth disturbed it by sitting on her bed. The bed seemed haunted, then, by phantom lumps of Harry: one turning arm, or a twitching foot. It was macabre and awful and stupidly comforting all at once, and just thinking of it embarrassed Ruth with Richard in Jeffrey’s room. And Frida in Phillip’s room. When had her house become so populated? Ruth, the cats, Frida, Richard. It occurred to her that Frida might actually do what she’d threatened: that she might leave. Ruth stretched out her feet—sitting on the bed, they didn’t quite touch the ground—and said, “I’ve done it now, haven’t I.” She saw her head speaking in the dresser mirror, and that was another thing she used to do: pretend to be Harry as he watched her move and speak. She turned her head away; she had no time for herself. Had she really forgotten that Frida was living in her house? But she had forgotten to wash her hair, and it was Frida who fixed it.

  So the day was over, and Richard would leave tomorrow afternoon. The weekend was just like the boat to Sydney: days of promise with Richard, on which nothing definitive happened. Now she had lost him again, because of Frida. But as she lay in bed and thought this through, and considered Frida’s reading a detective novel and soaking her feet, and remembered Richard’s sad, smug explanation of the difficulties of having a Japanese wife and why that meant he was allowed to kiss whomever he felt like, her anger turned in his direction. Why had he come? And since he’d come, why was he only here for a weekend, when the days of the week didn’t matter anymore? They were both old, and outside of time. She lay in bed, pinned by the cats, and fumed. And why had he told her Frida was in the house at night? Now she would lose Frida, thanks to him. She would lose him because of Frida, and Frida because of him; and with that thought, her last before sleep, the whole house emptied out.

  9

  Ruth woke late the next morning. The day was so clear that, when she went into the kitchen, she could see the town lighthouse from the dining-room windows. Ruth called for Frida, and Richard answered. He came from the lounge room looking like Spencer Tracy: all that bright hair and good humour, only taller.

  “Frida’s gone out for the morning,” he said.

  “Gone where?”

  “She had some shopping to do. Her brother came in his taxi.”

  “How did she seem?”

  “Fine,” said Richard. He put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her cheek good morning; she was far too distracted to enjoy it.

  “She’s just gone to do some shopping,” said Ruth. Sufficient, she thought; a little world. “It was all just a misunderstanding.” She resisted the temptation to run to Phillip’s room—Frida’s room—to see if it was empty of Frida’s possessions.

  “These things happen,” said Richard.

  He made her a cup of tea and sat on the window seat close to her chair while she drank it. He touched her arm and her hair as they talked about the weather and the day’s activities: Ruth’s back was fine, the weather was fine, and they could walk on the beach with binoculars and look for whales. They might even make it as far as the northern headland. George wasn’t coming for Richard until the afternoon: they had hours yet. They talked about these plans, but made no effort to execute them. Ruth couldn’t help thinking about Frida.

  “Just a misunderstanding,” she said again. “My memory’s not what it used to be.”

  “Your memory is fine. Think what you remember about Fiji, all those years ago.”

  “But that’s what they say about being old, isn’t it? That you’ll remember things from years and years ago, and not what you ate for breakfast. And sometimes I do—you know—imagine things.”

  “You’re not old,” said Richard. “You’re a girl in Fiji coming to meet the new doctor.”

  It was a silly and untrue thing to say, but Ruth ignored that; she inclined her head towards the pleasure of it. He was looking at her now in exactly the way she’d wanted him to when she was that girl. Time and age were a great waste laid out before her; they had also brought her here, so quickly, to Richard. But she was embarrassed by her pleasure, despite herself.

  “Look at the birds,” she said, and finally Richard looked away from her and out the window. White and black seabirds gathered in particular places on the bay; they seemed all at once to throw themselves at the water and then rise again. “The whales are there where the birds are—that’s one way to spot them. Can you see anything? A spout? A tail?”

  “No,” said Richard. “But the birds are beautiful.”

  “Look at everyone on the beach,” said Ruth. Weekend whale watchers stood motionless on the shore, and every now and then an arm would point, or someone would jump up and down. “Should we go down?”

  “I predict rain,” said Richard. “Rain, rain, and more rain. Best to stay indoors.”

  Ruth gave a small laugh and wouldn’t look at him. Instead she watched the people on the beach, and when they turned and pointed in one direction, she looked there, hoping to see a whale, but only saw the slap of travelling waves. It was odd to watch this from the window without going out or taking the binoculars down. Harry would disapprove. But then Harry wasn’t here. Richard leaned closer and kissed her, on the side of her face at first, and then, when she turned towards him, on her mouth. He was so exact, his hands were so dry, and he gave out such a lonely heat. With the sea and the window and the birds over the water, it was like—but at the same time not at all like—daydreams Ruth had nourished in Fiji; it was as if her youthful tending of those dreams had been so timid that only now could they bear fruit. And of course her body had been through a great deal since then—sex, and childbirth, and the effort of fifty years—and its response to Richard bore little resemblance to that girlish pulse. A dry warmth came up to meet his. And stop thinking these things, she told herself; you are being kissed. Richard is kissing you; isn’t this what you invited him for? You are a chaste and vain and sentimental old woman. She faltered and Richard drew away, but she pulled him back again by catching one hand on his shoulder.

  “Frida?” he said.

  “We’ll hear the car.”

  So she knew that she meant to do more kiss him. What confidence she had! In him, and in herself. She stood and said, “Come with me.”

  Richard took her hand and it felt as if she had lifted him from the window seat with her strength. They walked to her bedroom. Ruth didn’t like seeing their reflections in the mirror, but she scolded herself: she knew it was ridiculous to be shocked by this kind of sensible sex. There was no one to ask, Can I have this? Is this allowed? It felt like swearing: something small and private she could pit against the orthodoxy of her life. But she didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. She had refused a little of this, a little of that, until she found there was nothing much left to agree to; now she could agree to this.

  They were both prepared to be practical. Ruth arranged the pillows on the bed the way she knew from experience would be best for her back, and Richard drew the curtains. Then, in the false twilight, they approached each other. There was no rush, and as a result no fumbling; she let him unbutton her shirt, but removed her bra herself. It was the sturdy, flesh-coloured kind that left ridges on her shoulders and torso, and her loosened breasts were powdery and white. He ran his hands over the crepe of her skin, as if he had grown old with it and knew every stage of its buckling. Then, still wearing her skirt, Ruth removed his glasses and helped him pull his shirt over his head, where it caught for a moment and submerged his face. She kissed his mouth through the cotton. Richard had a sweet, monkeyish, fluffy chest, and his breasts and stomach were puckered. It seemed important that they both be naked. They finished undressing and Richard stood as if holding his hands in his pockets while Ruth settled herself on the bed. Then he lay over her.

  There was no sense of Harry in the room or in the bed; there was no sense of anything besides Ruth and Richard. There were noises, but Ruth didn’t speak. Richard was tender and obliging and prudent. He would probably have been the same fif
ty years ago, but now there was an additional care, a familiarity, and a relief in not loving him except retrospectively. She had observed something similar about sex with Harry as they grew older: that nothing depended on it, not in the way it used to. Richard was so calm, and he was so graceful, although his frame was thin and his breath scraped over her face. He was good-humoured, too, and patient; they both were. They attempted little, so as not to be disappointed, and also because less was required, but Ruth bit the inside of her mouth because she felt more pleasure than she expected to. This made Richard kiss her on the shoulder. Richard! The cats might have been here or anywhere, and Frida might have come down the drive and walked in on them; but she didn’t.

  Afterwards, Richard helped her dress. They sat on the edge of her bed. He was still shirtless, and she saw moles on his lower back she’d never known were there.

  “I wish I could stay,” he said.

  “Why don’t you?”

  Richard pulled on his shirt and laughed, and she shook her head in order to say, Of course not.

  “It’s my granddaughter’s birthday tomorrow,” he said. He held her hand and kissed it. “I’m not going to ask you to marry me. I think it would be unfair to our children to muddy the whole question of inheritances. I mean, at our age. Do you mind my being practical?”

  Ruth said, “Not at all.” And she didn’t.

  Then he lay his head in her lap. She brushed back his hair so she could see the upturned dish of his ear.

  “How would you feel about coming to live with me?” he asked.

  Ruth saw herself sitting by Richard’s bed. She watched him dying. Frida had once said of Harry, “At least he spared you a sickbed,” and Ruth had been appalled. Now the weight of Richard’s head in her lap was both heavy and dear. She pressed the hair above his flat ear and might have bent to kiss his forehead, but he sat up and said, apologetic, “Sorry. I’m rushing things.” Then he was buttoning his shirt, and she saw how thick his fingernails had become, and how his hands shook. “But you’ll think about it?”

  “Yes,” said Ruth. She stood up, aware of her calm, her lack of surprise, and her feeling not of great luck or pleasure but of amusement, as if someone had told her a slightly sad joke. None of this seemed urgent. They had waited half a century, so why were they talking like teenagers, as if they couldn’t bear to be apart? But she would think about it.

  They were both dressed now, and they brushed each other down, laughing, the way their mothers might once have done. Together they walked through the house discussing possibilities. Ruth could come to Sydney in a few weeks. Richard could visit again. They could talk on the phone and write to each other. There might have been a conquering armada of whales in the bay, and they would never have noticed. In fact they avoided the sea and sat in the lounge room, where the white light of midafternoon flooded through the curtains, and Richard placed his right hand on Ruth’s left knee and said, “Please think about it.” They heard George’s taxi in the drive, which surprised them both; he wasn’t due for half an hour.

  Frida had been gone long enough to do more than shopping, and Ruth was afraid for a moment that George was only here to pick Richard up; that this was his last act of service before he and his sister disappeared from Ruth’s life altogether. But there was a bustle in the garden, and then at the front door, of plastic bags and exaggerated breath, and then Frida announcing that George had a fare and would be back for Richard at the appointed time.

  “So what’s news with you two?” She wore her grey coat and looked unusually jubilant.

  Ruth and Richard smiled and shrugged.

  Frida, distracted, was giddily confidential among her shopping bags. “Well, I have news. Big news. Shark attack at the beach.”

  Richard and Ruth, still dazed, struggled up out of their privacy.

  Richard managed, “A shark!”

  “Oh, dear,” said Ruth. And she made Frida tell every detail—it was years since the last attack, and the news would be in all the papers: not a local boy (not the pineapple boy, thought Ruth), but a surfer who came regularly from the city; he wasn’t dead, not yet, but things were bad, loss of blood, and a leg that would most likely have to come off.

  “He’ll either wake up dead or one-legged,” said Frida, with a small grimacing laugh.

  So the visit came to an end in the commotion of this disaster. They all went out into the garden and saw a helicopter flying low over the bay.

  “They’re tracking him,” said Frida.

  “The boy?” asked Ruth.

  “The shark.”

  The knots of whale watchers scanned the sea in frantic sweeps. Frida walked down the dune towards them, and Ruth and Richard followed. Richard, gallant, held Ruth’s elbow on the slope.

  It seemed natural for the whale watchers to turn to Frida and call out, as she advanced over the sand, “Is it a shark? A shark?” They gathered about her, and she answered all their questions with a festive confidence. A young girl in a wet bikini began to cry, and others took out their mobile phones to take photographs of the empty sea. There were no visible whales. There was instead a continuous scurfy roll of poststorm waves onto the shore. The helicopter produced an insectile buzz that came and went over the water. Richard held Ruth’s hand as they watched it, finally, lift away from the bay; then the group on the sand disbanded.

  Richard went to help Ruth climb the dune, but Frida took her arm from the other side and almost lifted her away from him. Richard walked behind them; he was like a small boy whose every attention is focused on how inessential he is. So he must make unnecessary noise, and Frida must wilfully ignore him, and Ruth must not notice, must climb the dune in Frida’s arms with only the dune on her mind. But all the while she replayed the way he had put his hand on her knee and said, “Please think about it.”

  The taxi was waiting for Richard. Ruth even saw, for the first time, the bulky and unmediated form of mysterious George. His window was rolled down and there he sat, in shade, at the wheel, with one meaty forearm crooked into the pink of the sun. Frida made no move to speak with or introduce him. Richard’s small suitcase was waiting by the front door. That was the weekend over; it had passed without Ruth’s noticing. She kept waiting for something more to happen, and she supposed it had; but she was still in a state of anticipation. It was George who spoiled things; George who took people away. His taxi was waiting, so Richard must wheel his suitcase out, and Ruth must stand with Frida on the doorstep and smile.

  “It’s all right about last night,” said Frida.

  “Of course it is,” said Ruth.

  “What I mean is that I forgive you.”

  Ruth and Frida held up their hands, and Richard waved from the back of the taxi, which reversed down the drive and vanished among the yellow grasses.

  10

  Ruth became sick almost as soon as Richard left. She decided these things were related, because of the timing—she couldn’t keep down the cup of tea Frida made her immediately after Richard’s departure—and because there was nothing specific about her illness. She was heartsick, possibly. It was too much to stir up her old heart, she thought; in her less sentimental moments, she berated herself for behaving like a schoolgirl, but remained quietly pleased at this evidence of her continuing romantic sensitivity. Still, she spent a few days in bed, always tired and rarely hungry, but never with a fever or headaches or any particular pain besides her back; she took her prescriptions and assured Frida that a doctor wasn’t necessary and her sons needn’t be alerted. Frida thought she had simply overexerted herself with Richard; Ruth blushed, but Frida paid no attention.

  Frida was a good nurse. She made soup and cleaned and checked on her patient in a sensible way, clinical rather than confiding. She exhibited no sympathy, but was never dismissive of Ruth’s vague troubles. She kept Ruth’s fluids up and, having quizzed Richard on the benefits of fish oil for elderly brains, introduced a large capsule fuzzily full of golden liquid. Ruth’s only complaint was that Frida kept the c
ats from the bedroom. A new atmosphere of calm settled over the house; it was cool and clean, and noiseless in the night. Frida didn’t mention George, her money troubles, or the argument about living in Phillip’s room. During periods of restless confusion—when she had slept too much, or too little—Ruth would try to talk about Richard, but Frida, so serene and straightforward, only shook her head a little. She wore the plump smile of a Madonna who always looks over the head of her child, as if deciding what to cook for Joseph’s dinner. Ruth, considering the possibility of going to Richard, sometimes said aloud, “Why shouldn’t I? Who could stop me?” and other times argued, “Anyway, I’m not the kind of woman who would up and leave her whole life for a man.” At other times, she felt she had an important decision to make, but was pleasantly unsure of what it was. Frida read detective novels and said nothing. The sun came through the window in long lines over the bed, and these lines moved throughout the day, and then it was dark again.

  These were comfortable days, although swampy and forgetful. Ruth found it easy to surrender to Frida’s care, and so, even when she began to feel better, she composed her face into wan expressions and pretended to sip soup. She was caught out of bed one morning preparing to smuggle one of the cats through the window, and there were recriminations.

  “This is what I get, is it, for looking after you like a saint?” Frida cried. “All right, up and out. No more of this lying around with me waiting on you hand and foot.”

  Frida behaved as if Ruth were not only better, but in the best of health: youthful, but lazy. She shooed her charge into the garden, where Ruth was expected to sit in the sun and tail beans or polish silver.

  “And don’t tell me any old family stories about that silver,” Frida warned.