When she finally found her voice it fitted her strangely, it was so tight and small. “Harry? I’ll make you a drink, eh, Harry?”
“No. I’ll be — all right. Give me — a minute.”
She turned back to the window. She had looked out of this window a thousand times and she still had the same impression, that somewhere, beyond the circling driveway, the high hedges and the iron gates, life was going on without her and she hadn’t been invited to the party. Sometimes, over the high hedge, she fancied she could hear the strains of distant music and between the iron rails could catch a glimpse of couples dancing.
“I went home,” Harry said. “She wasn’t there. Just a letter on the kitchen table saying — saying she’d left me.”
“Did she give a reason?”
“Not anything I could understand. She wanted a chance to think things over, she said. I can’t believe it. We were so happy.” He stumbled over the word and picked himself up again. “Everybody knows how happy we were. I can’t understand. What’s she got to think over?”
“Perhaps quite a bit.”
“But what?”
“It’s an interesting coincidence, don’t you think? Now they’re both gone, Ron and Thelma.”
“You’re not implying they went off together?”
“Maybe you and I have been pretty stupid about the whole thing.”
“They’re not together,” Harry said sharply. “I know where Thelma is. She said in her letter she was going to stay for a while with a cousin of hers over on Eglington Avenue. She asked me not to try and get in touch with her. I did, though. I called Marian, that’s her cousin, and Marian said she was there all right but didn’t want to talk to me just yet.”
“Cousins,” Esther said dryly, “have been known to lie.”
“Not Marian. She and Thelma aren’t that close, for one thing.”
“I never heard Thelma mention a cousin in town.”
“I just told you, they’re not very close. Lunch together downtown twice a year, that sort of thing. Marian’s never even been to visit us at the house.”
“Then why should Thelma go to stay with her now?”
“She had no place else to go, I guess.” He sounded as if he were going to start crying again, but he didn’t. Instead, he swallowed hard several times before he resumed speaking. “She must have been desperate, to decide to go to Marian’s. She doesn’t even like her. She must have been desperate. Poor Thelma.”
Esther turned abruptly from the window, her fists clenched tight against her sides. “Poor Thelma. I’m getting bloody sick of the poor Ron, poor Thelma routine. I’d like to hear a little more about poor Harry and poor Esther!”
“No, Es. Don’t. Don’t be harsh.”
“It’s time I was harsh.”
“It’s never time, if you love somebody. I don’t know what Thelma’s problem is. All I know is that she’s in trouble and I want to help her.”
“Suppose you can’t.”
“I’ve got to,” Harry said with quiet firmness. “She’s my wife. She needs me. I would do anything in the world to help her.”
Esther knew it was true. She stood, pale and motionless, thinking that if Ron ever said that about her she would be the happiest woman in the country. She would feel that at last she’d been invited to the party and the music was no longer distant but in the same room, and the couple dancing to its strains was herself and Ron.
“I wish I had your faith, Harry,” she said finally.
“I wasn’t born with it. I built it up brick by brick, until now it’s so high I can’t see over it.”
“You don’t want to see over it anyway.”
“Thelma has done nothing shameful,” Harry said. “Whatever your suspicions are about her and Ron, they’re wrong, believe me.”
“I’d like to.”
“Read her letter.”
He took the letter out of his coat pocket and handed it to her, but she drew away. “No, I don’t want to. It’s private.”
“Thelma wouldn’t object.”
“I don’t want to,” she repeated, but even while she was speaking her eyes were seeking out the words on the paper, written in green ink in a highly stylized backhand. The effect of style was ruined by some misspellings, several clumsy erasures, and one place where the ink was blurred as if by a teardrop.
Dear Harry:
I have gone to stay with Marian for a time. It is so hard to explain to you, I feel so teribbly mixed up, and I thought if I went away by myself to think things over it would be better for all of us, including you. It is hard for me to figure out the right answers when I am so emotionaly upset like this. I can’t talk to you just yet, so please don’t call me or try to get in touch with me. Please, I mean it, Harry. If Mrs. Malverson or any of the neighbours wonder why I’m not there, just tell them I’ve gone to visit with a cousin, which is the truth anyway.
I know you are wondering what’s the matter with me, have I lost my mind or something. Well, I don’t think so but right now I’m not sure of anything except that I must go away and figure things out without having to think of other people or feel sorry for anyone. The past is all very well but it’s the future I’ve got to live in. I must find the right course and stick to it.
Please try to be patient with me, Harry. I’ll get in touch with you as soon as I feel that I can talk sensibaly and without breaking down. By the way, Marian knows nothing, so please don’t try and pump her. I told her you and I had had a little spat.
P.S. Mrs. Reynold called this morning and said Dorothy Galloway wants to see you as soon as possible about Ron.
Esther almost dropped the letter in her amazement. “Mrs. Reynold. Why on earth should she call you?”
“I’ve no idea. I hardly know the woman. As for Dorothy, well, I go to see her now and then, but God knows we never talk about Ron. If his name were mentioned she’d stage a heart attack.”
“Do you think it’s possible she’s heard something about Ron that we haven’t?”
“How?”
“By mistake, perhaps. She’s still Mrs. Galloway, a message could have been sent to her by mistake, instead of to me.” The idea excited her, splashed color into her cheeks. “Isn’t that reasonable?”
“I guess it is.”
“You must go and find out, Harry.”
Harry sagged against the desk, his head bowed. “Not now.”
“You’ve got to.”
“I can’t face anyone right now.”
“You’re facing me.”
“That’s because we’re both in the same spot.”
“Not quite,” she replied sharply. “You know where your wife is, you know she’s alive and well. So we’re not quite in the same spot, are we?”
He raised his head, slowly and with effort, as if it had turned to stone. Their eyes met, but he didn’t speak.
“Harry. I need your help. You’ll go and see Dorothy?”
“All right.”
“Now?”
“Now,” he said wearily.
Ten
He reached out and switched on the radio in his car. The six o’clock news broadcast was just beginning. Trouble in Israel. A train wreck in California. Stock market still going up. A warehouse on fire near the waterfront. A plane crash outside Denver. No mention of Ron’s disappearance. Probably because it’s Sunday, Harry thought. This whole damn city goes dead on Sundays. Maybe Thelma’s right and we ought to move to the States. I’ll call her and tell her — no, she said to wait. I must be patient.