But as his breathing returned to normal and the dizziness abated, it occurred to him that a doctor wasn’t really necessary as long as Harry was around. Harry worked for a drug company and his pockets were always bulging with pills, his brief case full of pamphlets describing the newest medical discoveries which some of the doctors didn’t even know about until Harry told them, or gave them the pamphlets to read. Harry was extremely liberal with free pills, diagnoses and advice. On occasion, he was more effective than a regular doctor since he was unhampered by training, medical ethics or caution, and some of his cures were miraculously quick. These were the ones his friends remembered.
“I will get some pills from Harry,” Galloway said, and the very thought was soothing. Harry had a pill for everything, even sudden and inexplicable calls to one’s departing wife: It’s your nerves, old boy. Now, my company has just come out with a dandy little item...
Galloway flung his trench coat over his arm, picked up his duffel bag, and went down the hall to say good-bye to the two boys. They were ostensibly in bed; that is, the bedroom door was open and the night light was turned on. But they were not asleep. Their low, furious voices bounced across the room and back again.
“Mama said the dog could sleep on my bed tonight. Let go of him.”
“Won’t, won’t, won’t.”
“I’ll scream for Annie.”
“I’ll tell her you pinched me. I’ll tell Annie and Mrs. Browning and old Rudolph and Mama and my Sunday School teacher...”
“Why not tell me?” Galloway said, and pressed the light switch.
The two boys stared at him, silenced by amazement. They saw little of Galloway, and when they noticed the duffel bag he was carrying, they weren’t sure whether he was coming or going.
Gregory, who at seven was already an opportunist, made a quick decision. “Daddy’s home,” he shouted. “Goody, goody, Daddy’s home! Did you bring me something, Daddy? What did you bring me?”
Galloway stepped back as if he had been shoved in the chest. “I — haven’t been away.”
“Well, then, you’re going away.”
“Yes.”
“So if you’re going away you’ve got to come back.”
“Yes, I guess I do.”
“So when you come back will you bring me something?”
Galloway’s face was flushed and a nervous tic nagged at one corner of his mouth. That’s all I mean to them, he thought.
Or to Esther. I’m the guy who brings them something.
“You could bring everybody something,” said Marvin, who was five and a half. “Annie and Mrs. Browning and old Rudolph and my Sunday School teacher.”
“I suppose I could. What do you think they’d like?”
“Dogs. Everybody would like dogs.”
“Everybody? You’re sure?”
“I asked them,” Marvin lied emphatically. “I asked them what did they want brung in a suitcase, and they all said dogs.” To prove his point he ran over to his brother’s bed and flung both arms around the little dachshund. The dog was quite used to these outbursts of affection and went on placidly chewing a corner of the blanket. “Everybody could have a dog like Petey on their beds every single night, even old Rudolph.”
“Rudolph says dogs dig holes in the flower beds.”
“Petey never digs holes. I dig holes. I dig about a million holes a week.”
Galloway smiled sadly. “That’s a lot of work for a little man like you. You must be pretty strong.”
“Feel my muscle.”
“Feel mine too,” Greg said. “I can dig a million holes too if I want.”
Muscles were being duly tested when Annie, the maid who looked after the boys, appeared in the doorway. During the daytime when she wore her blue and white uniform, Annie was prim and self-contained and respectable. Tonight, dressed and groomed for an evening out, she was barely recognizable, with her mouth swollen by lipstick, and her eyebrows coyly arched in black, and her eyes cavernous behind a coating of mascara.
“Oh, it’s you, Mr. Galloway. I thought the boys were alone arguing about that dog again.”
“They won’t have to argue about Petey much longer. I have orders to bring them another dog when I come back.”
“Indeed.”
“Surely you want me to bring you something too, Annie? Everyone else does.”
She looked a little startled and disapproving. “I have my wages, thank you, sir.”
“I’m certain you could think of something if you tried, Annie. Perhaps a necklace? Or a bottle of perfume to stun the senses of the local boys?”
“Bring Annie a dog,” Marvin shouted. “Annie wants a dog!”
“I do not want a dog,” the girl said sharply. “Nor anything else. Now you two settle down and go to sleep without any more nonsense. My boyfriend’s waiting for me, but I’m not going to set one foot outside this house until you two are quiet.” To Galloway she added in a whisper, “They get overexcited sometimes.”
“You want me to leave, is that right?”
“I really think it would be better, sir. They were tucked in an hour ago.”
He looked over Annie’s head at the two boys. For a minute, before Annie came on the scene, he had felt quite close to them, he had thought what handsome and precocious children they were. Now, once again, they were strangers to him, a couple of little barbarians who wanted nothing from him but presents, who liked to see him go away because he would come back with something in his luggage.
The dizziness returned, and with it a sharp sour taste in his mouth. He said quickly, “Good night, boys,” and stepped out into the hall and moved unsteadily toward the stairs. The duffel bag was like lead in his hand. He walked like an old man.
I must get some pills from Harry. Harry has all kinds of pills.
Esther’s pink and cream De Soto was missing from the garage, but Galloway’s Cadillac convertible was in its place with the top down, freshly washed and waxed, the way old Rudolph liked to keep it, as if it were an irreplaceable heirloom instead of something that would be traded in within a year.
It was cold, even for April. But Galloway left the top down and climbed, shivering, into the front seat.
Upstairs, the two boys continued their argument but its content had changed.
“What if he forgets to bring the dogs?”
“He can’t forget.”
“Or maybe he will never come back, like old Rudolph’s wife.”
“Oh shut up,” Gregory said fiercely. “When you go away, you got to come back. There’s no place else to go, you got to come back.”
For Gregory it was that simple.
Two
When Galloway referred to his friends as a group he usually called them “the fellows.” Two of the fellows, Bill Winslow and Joe Hepburn, drove up together from Toronto and arrived at the lodge, which was located on Georgian Bay a few miles beyond Wiarton, at about ten o’clock. A third, Ralph Turee, came alone a few minutes later.
They were admitted by the caretaker, and each of them launched immediately into his special task. Turee took the luggage upstairs, Hepburn started a fire in the huge stone fireplace, Winslow pried the lock off the liquor cabinet, and, as Esther had predicted, the fellows began the process of getting themselves boozed up.
These were Galloway’s special friends, of approximately the same age, and with a mutual aim, having as good a time as possible when they were away from the pressures of business and family: Bill Winslow, an executive in his father’s milling company; Joe Hepburn, manager of a firm which manufactured plastic toys and novelties; and Ralph Turee, who taught economics at the University of Toronto. Except for Turee, they were men of average intelligence and above average income. Turee never let them forget this. Chronically broke, he made fun of their money and borrowed it; possessing a superior education, he jeered at their ignorance and used it to his own advantage. But the group was, on the whole, a congenial one, especially after small differences had been dissolved in alcohol.