‘You haven’t started taking sugar yet, have you?’ she said, pouring.
‘No,’ he said. She had a good memory. Then again, maybe not. They had been married eighteen years.
‘Sorry I had to do it,’ said Ruth, apologising still. ‘Get you back, I mean. It seemed the only thing to do.’ Now the immediate shock of the police interviews and the court appearance was passing she was unsure whether she shouldn’t have tried to handle it herself.
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Blair at once. ‘Of course you should have got me back. How bad it is?’
She shrugged, an indication of helplessness, and said, ‘I don’t know, not really. He’s closed right up, after the initial shock. Frightened, I guess.’
‘What happened?’ prompted Blair gently. ‘Tell me what happened from the beginning.’
Ruth hesitated, arranging the story in her mind and Blair saw that while she was in the kitchen she’d cleaned the smudge off her nose. She said simply, ‘He got caught, trying to rob a pharmacy. He and three others, all from the same class. After pills, they said later. Any sort of pills, it didn’t matter. Cocaine, too, if it was there. They didn’t know if it was carried or not but they were trying to find it Intended to set themselves up…’
‘Set themselves up?’ queried Blair.
‘As dealers, in the school.’
‘Jesus!’ said Blair.
Ruth was more comfortable now, still embarrassed at his finding her in workclothes but better than she had been; after getting the house ready she’d wanted to shower and change and be prepared – absolutely – before he arrived. She dismissed the obvious tiredness as the effect of the non-stop flight; he didn’t seem to have changed much. Not at all, in fact. Had it really been eighteen months, since their last meeting? It didn’t seem that long. She went on, ‘Like I said, they were shocked at being arrested by the police…’ She smiled for no reason and said, ‘The cop didn’t know what he was confronting, apparently; actually had his gun out and was threatening to shoot…’
‘And if they’d run he probably would have done,’ said Blair, sick at the thought.
‘Anyway,’ said Ruth. ‘That was when it all came out, when they were scared. Seems they had been doing a lot of stealing, stuff from stores that they could sell on, to get money. Forcing coinboxes on newstands. They even robbed an old man of his welfare money, but Paul wasn’t involved that time, just the others…’ She hesitated and said, ‘I suppose we should get some consolation out of that although I don’t know if I do.’
‘All for drugs?’
Ruth nodded at the question. ‘Marijuana,’ she said. ‘Seems he’s been smoking it for a long time. Now I’ve gone back through it, checked it out with the teachers, it is the most likely reason for the poor grades. Pills, too. And there’s been some cocaine, although I don’t think a lot.’
‘What the hell sort of school is this!’ demanded Blair, needing to be angry at something.
Ruth, who had had longer to recover, said calmly, ‘Your average American school, no worse and no better than any other. The problem is so bad that it runs a drug programme and has a full-time counsellor. He’s a nice guy. Erickson. He wants to meet you.’
‘Sure,’ said Blair automatically, not yet wanting to move on. ‘You said Paul’s been smoking for a long time?’
‘One of the court orders was urinalysis,’ said the woman. ‘He had a high count. I had our own doctor check him out, too. There was some irritation of the nasal membrane, because of the cocaine – or maybe the crap they cut it with, before selling it – but not a lot…’ She stopped and then disclosing her abrupt new education she said, ‘You’ve got to do it for years, apparently, for it to cause real damage. Then it can actually rot your nose away.’
‘They were going to set themselves up as dealers?’ persisted the man, wanting to understand everything.
Ruth swallowed, arriving at the worst part. ‘Paul told the police he’d decided it was dumb to go on as they were. That dealing was where the money was.’
‘ Paul decided.’
Ruth nodded, at the demand for qualification. ‘He was the leader, Eddie. Actually set it up: checked out the pharmacy for the busy and slack times…’ Ruth stopped, lower lip trapped between her teeth, trying to stop herself crying. Of all the resolutions, this was the strongest, the one she’d repeated and repeated to herself, not wanting him to know how lost she felt. The threat passed, although her voice was still unsteady. She said, ‘He’d even planned the getaway, checked the times of the trains on the Metro and worked it out that they could make a connection and be halfway across Washington before the police had time to get there.’
‘Holy shit!’ said Blair, disgusted. ‘What’s happened, since?’
‘There was the initial juvenile court appearance and the remand, for tests and reports. There’s a court-appointed counsellor who wants to see you also, a man called Kemp. And Erickson, from the school, like I told you.’
‘What’s Paul say about it all?’
‘Nothing,’ said the woman. ‘Everything I’ve told you I got from the police.’
‘Didn’t you ask him?’ shouted Blair, immediately regretting it, holding up his hands as if he were physically trying to pull back the anger in his voice. ‘Sorry,’ he said hurriedly, ‘I’m really very sorry.’
Ruth’s face had tightened, at the eruption, but now it relaxed. There was another resolution, almost as important as not crying, which involved not losing her temper or making any accusations. Maybe it was a fantasy but it was a nice fantasy to hope that Eddie’s return might involve more than the immediate problem. ‘Of course I asked him,’ she said. ‘Not at first, not that first night. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything to him. But when I did he wouldn’t talk about it. Just said it was something that had happened.’
‘Not even sorry!’
‘Not even sorry,’ she said.
‘Christ, what a mess,’ said Blair. He smiled sadly at her. ‘I’m sorry, Ruth. That you had to handle it by yourself, I mean.’ Apologies after apologies after apologies, he thought.
‘Now I haven’t, not any longer, have I?’ she said, the gratitude obvious. ‘Now you’re back. Thanks for coming.’
‘Was it likely I wouldn’t?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It might have been difficult. There might have been something important happening.’
There was something important happening in Moscow, thought Blair. It pleased him to realise that the leadership uncertainty and the part he was supposed to have analysing it had never occurred to him as a greater priority than returning here. ‘At the moment I don’t think there’s anything more important than this,’ said Blair. Aware of her quick, hopeful smile, he said, ‘Don’t worry. Everything is going to work out OK.’
‘I hope so,’ she said. In so many ways, she thought, allowing herself the continued fantasy.
Blair rubbed his hand over his unshaven face, making a scratching sound. ‘I need to get cleaned up,’ he said. ‘I came straight here, from the airport.’
‘You know where the bathroom is,’ she said.
‘You sure that’s OK?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I didn’t want to make any awkward situations. I was thinking of the Marriott down by the bridge.’ Blair was trying to be considerate but didn’t think he was succeeding very well.
Don’t lose your temper, thought Ruth; whatever you do don’t lose your temper and let him see how upset you are. She said, ‘Wouldn’t that be kind of unneccessary?’
‘You sure it won’t be awkward?’
‘I would have thought it was rather essential, considering why you came all the way back,’ she said, coming as near as she intended to criticism. ‘There’s plenty of room: you know that.’
‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘You’ve hardly got to thank me, Eddie.’
‘Thanks anyway,’ he insisted.
‘How’s Ann?’ asked the woman, this part rehearsed.
‘Fine,’ said Blair. ‘You still friendly with…’ His voice trailed, at his inability to remember the name.