“She said that?”
“Not exactly.”
“What did she say, exactly?”
“She implied that—”
“What did she say?”
“Goddamn it, are you threatening me? Get your hands off me!”
“Tell me, tell me the truth.”
“Or you’ll what?”
“I’ll shake it out of you.”
“Try.”
His hand was still on her shoulder but force and urgency had gone out of it. It lay like a dead thing on Hazel’s black crepe shoulder, and when she moved to one side his hand fell away. He looked down at it, a little surprised, and then he put it in his pocket.
“Hazel?”
“Get out of here.”
“Tell me the truth, what she said.”
“Why should I?”
“Because I’ve got to know one way or another.”
“You already know. You just can’t face it. You want me to face it for you, just like in the old days, I got to spell it out for you because it’s easier to take that way. Well, I won’t. Get out and leave me alone.”
“You can’t—”
“And the next time you come bursting in here with one of your two-bit heart-throbs I’ll have you both thrown out on your ear. Now start moving before she comes back. I don’t want her in here.”
“She’s not coming back,” George said. “She didn’t have any purse.”
He began moving toward the door, his head bent, and swinging slightly with each step like a bear’s.
“Listen, George—”
“No. I guess you won’t have to spell it out for me this time.”
“You’re lucky she’s not coming back. You may not think so right now, but you’re really lucky, George.”
“Sure. I’m a very lucky guy.”
He went out on to the porch and down the creaking steps. From the shadowy denseness of the live-oak tree the relentless mockingbird chortled his derisive little song: Lucky guy, lucky guy, oh my!
George picked up a pebble from the driveway and threw it hard and accurately into the heart of the tree. The mockingbird skittered through the prickly leaves and across the garage roof to a telephone pole where it sat in silence. But the alarm had sounded: the whole tree seemed to come alive with squawks and twitterings and the whirring of wings; the wood rats responded, and began their noisy racing up and down the walls of the garage and across the hood of Hazel’s car; and from a clump of bushes came the gentle regret of the mourning dove, lamenting the sad things of this world.
The sound reminded him of Ruby. He quickened his step, stung by a sudden wild hope that he had been wrong about her; she had had her purse with her after all, and she had just gone to the car to get it; she would be there now combing her hair.
“Ruby!” he shouted, and broke into a run.
There was no one in the car, no one on the street. He looked carefully around as if he half-expected to find her hiding somewhere behind a tree or hedge, needing only a little encouragement to come out, like a half-tamed animal.
“Ruby?”
But the only sign of life was the blinking tail-light of the East Beach bus and the gray plume of its exhaust as it rolled down toward the sea.
He got into his car. The air was stale because the windows were all shut, and the smell of Ruby’s powder mingled with the smell of dead cigars and souring hopes. He cranked down the window on his own side and was leaning across the seat to do the same to the other when he noticed that the door to the glove compartment was open. He knew he hadn’t left it that way. He rarely used the compartment except on trips, and then only to store his road maps and sunglasses and the five-dollar bill in the money clip which he kept for an emergency, using the same bill year after year because the emergency hadn’t occurred.
The clip was still there but the money was gone.
“Ruby,” he said, sounding very surprised. “Ruby.”
He thought of her waiting in the car while he went to talk to Hazel, waiting, catlike and curious, exploring the glove compartment to pass the time: What’s this? Money. How nice. I don’t have any. It’s mine now. Finders keepers.
Had it been that simple and childish? He knew in his heart that it had not, that she had taken the money not at the first opportunity, when she was left alone in the car, but at the second, when she had run out of the house; and she had taken it not like an amoral child, but like a woman, desperate to get away.
For a full minute he sat there staring into the night and seeing in its deformed shadows a mocking image of the truth. Then he started the car and turned it around and headed back toward the sea. He had no destination but it seemed easier to follow the descent of the road.
Six blocks down he caught up with the bus. As it pulled into a curb the interior lights switched on like stage lights suddenly revealing a new set and cast of characters. The set was almost empty. Two women in nurses’ uniforms were at the front of the bus talking to the driver, and behind them, oblivious to their chatter, an old man slept, knees up and chin on chest, in a return to infancy. At the back of the bus a girl sat with her forehead pressed against the window pane, her hands shielding her eyes from the interior lights as if she was trying to see into the darkness outside. She was very young and did not look like a thief.
“Ruby!”
He stopped his car alongside the bus and pressed the horn once and then again.
The old man did not awaken. The young girl turned away from the window and closed her eyes. The bus lights went out.
9
Elaine called from the bedroom, “Is that you, Gordon?”
“Yes.”
“Where on earth have you been?”
He heard her sharp footsteps approaching the head of the stairs, and in the background the sounds of the children quarreling: Gimme it, it’s mine, gimme it.
Elaine came down the steps with quick, exasperated movements. She wore her old housecoat, but her face was made up and her hair was swirled on top of her head, pinned with a large Spanish comb.
“You know we were going to the party at the club tonight, Gordon. Where have you been?”
“I took a drive.”
“All this time? I even phoned Hazel to see if you had an emergency appointment or something. She said no, she left the office at twelve noon and so did you.”
“I forgot about the party.”
“I kept your dinner hot for a full hour.”
“Well, I’m sorry, Elaine.”
“You’re sorry, well, that’s just fine,” she said with a bitter little smile. “You go off for eight hours without letting me know and then you say you’re sorry.”
Gordon said dryly, “I keep getting sorrier and sorrier, if that’s any consolation to you.”
“And now you’ve got the nerve to turn around and be sarcastic about it! I suppose you expect me to believe that, about your going for a drive.”
“I went for a drive, you don’t have to believe it.”
“I wonder.”
“I can’t stop you wondering. I still went for a drive.”
At the top of the stairs there was a faint rustle, a flutter of white. Gordon looked up and saw Judith and Paul standing there listening. They were in their pajamas, Paul delicate and nervous, and Judith round as a ball. She had a candy stored in her mouth and one cheek was distended.
“Hello, Judith,” Gordon said with forced cheerfulness. “Hello, Paul.”
The boy lowered his head and took a step back. Judith said, “Hello.”
“Well. And what have you two been doing all day?”
“We went for a drive.” She began to giggle. “We went for a drive. Didn’t we, Paul? Didn’t we went for a drive?”
The boy began to giggle too, and the giggles grew into long shuddering sobs of laughter. “We went for a drive, we went for a drive!”