“I’ll ask for a jury trial.”
“Naturally. But in my instructions to the jury I always have the last word.” Bowridge rose unsteadily, hanging on to the ledge of the counter, and addressed the rows of glasses behind George’s head. “Ladies and gentlemen, you have heard the evidence. This niggardly fellow, Anderson, is—”
“You’d better sit down before you fall down.”
“Very well. I always address the jury in that position anyway.” He sat down with cautious dignity, but he looked suddenly very tired, as if the act of rising, or the change of emotional atmosphere in the room, had exhausted him. He tried to revitalize himself by humming, “Chewy Chewy,” but he couldn’t remember the tune, and the sound that came from his throat was a sad sighing which had no connection with music.
“A fine melody, that,” he said, pretending that he could sing it perfectly if he chose to. “Foster sang high and I sang low, but Foster couldn’t hold his liquor and finally I had to go it alone. That’s life for you — one ends up going it alone. Lacrimae rerum. You know what that means, Anderson?”
“I guess it’s Latin.”
“It means the tears of things, the sorrows of the world.”
“Sure, sure. Just don’t start on a crying jag in here.”
“Preposterous remark,” Bowridge said. The truth was, he did want to cry a little and then go to sleep. Simple, human desires; there was no real reason why he shouldn’t gratify them. A few tears, a little sleep, and one would wake up, refreshed, forgetting the long night.
Though his eyes felt moist he could not cry and when he folded his arms on the counter and buried his head between them like a scrawny sparrow hiding from the cold and desolate winter, he could not sleep. The spinning of his heart and the ticking of his mind kept him awake. It seemed to him that he was a freak, that the simple and commonplace gratifications were always just beyond his grasp, or around the corner, or in the middle of next week.
“Your cab’s here,” George said.
13
Ruth came home at noon, her cheeks pink from the walk and from excitement. Dr. Foster had stayed out all night, and never in all her born days had such a thing happened to someone who was as close to her as Elaine was. It was dreadful, it was scandalous, but the excitement kept flooding through her in waves. She greeted Wendy with almost hysterical fondness and the dog responded, leaping up at her, turning in circles, barking in ferocious delight.
“Quiet,” she said. “Be quiet. Down, down, Wendy. Quiet.” But the dog was positive she didn’t mean it and kept leaping up at her and nibbling affectionately at her clothes with its tiny front teeth. “Ah there, there. Yes, I’m home. Now that’s enough. Yes, yes, of course you’re glad to see me, oh my, yes, you are!” Dr. Foster didn’t come home! “She’s always glad to see her mother, yes, she is. Now get down, Wendy.” Dr. Foster ran away! “That’s a good girl, you get down. You get down like your mother’s good girl.” And I am the king of the castle.
She was not consciously aware of the children’s chant running through her head, but the derisive notes picked their way out of her memory and she thought of Manuel who climbed the pepper tree, and Margaret and the pennies she hoarded in her desk. Where were they now, all the children? Carrying the dog she went to the window and looked out at the playground across the street. The dust was rolling across it like a wall of yellow fog pushed by the wind.
She thought, some day soon I will go back. I feel much better. I feel very strong, actually.
The dog squirmed out of her arms and headed for the kitchen. She turned from the window, laughing, filled with a sense of power because Dr. Foster had run away from his wife. In contrast to Elaine, she had very little, only a dog instead of children and a husband, but the dog was all hers. It would never run off and stay out all night and get drunk.
“There,” she said, “did someone forget to give my girl her breakfast? We’ll fix that.”
Josephine was in the kitchen, sipping a glass of milk and gazing placidly into space. Sometimes she could sit for hours without thinking of anything, only seeing a lot of warm rich color in her mind.
“Nobody had any breakfast,” she said in a vaguely surprised voice, “except me and Harold. I was wondering if I should do the dishes but there’s hardly enough to bother about.”
“I had breakfast at Mrs. Foster’s house. She asked me to stay there all night.”
With her mind swathed in the warm rich colors, Josephine was incurious. “Harold went out to look at an apartment. The ad was in the paper this morning, three rooms, it said, and no pets and no children allowed. Harold said I’d better stay home on account of someone might suspect my condition.”
“Mrs. Foster,” Ruth said, rather annoyed at Josephine’s obtuseness, “didn’t want to stay alone with the children.”
“Is she scared of the dark? I am, once in a while. I know very well it’s the same room in the dark as it is in the light, but I can’t be positively sure unless I turn the light on again for a minute.”
“Of course she’s not afraid of the dark. She was upset because he didn’t come home. He took the car and ran off last night, and this morning he phoned. She told me every word he said. He’s not coming back, he said, he doesn’t want to live with her any more and she’s to get a divorce.”
“My goodness.” Josephine was shocked. “I thought they were a very happy couple.”
“So did I. You can’t tell from appearances. He said no matter what grounds she gets a divorce on, he promises to give her reasonable alimony and not to ask custody of any of the children. That’s not all, either. There’s a girl mixed up in it. Mrs. Foster thinks they’ve been living in sin together. She’s not sure, but that’s what she thinks. Quite a young girl too. It doesn’t put him in a very good light, I must say.”
“I don’t believe it. No man would leave his kids like that.” The warm colors were gone, the scene was gray. She was having her baby and Harold was leaving her. The baby cried pitifully, and she herself held out her arms, pleading, but Harold turned away. A very slim, pretty girl was smiling at him. “Not a decent man like — like Harold.”
“Who can tell who’s decent nowadays? Look at Dr. Foster. There wasn’t a person in town who didn’t think he was the soul of honor. He fooled everybody, even Hazel.”
“What if he never comes back? Hazel won’t have a job.”
“I never thought of that.”
“It seems a shame,” Josephine said. “Just when she was all settled and getting the yard fixed up and everything.”
Ruth flung back her head as if she’d been challenged. “Well, at least that’s the end of the Mexican anyway. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say.”
She walked decisively to the sink and began to rinse off the dishes under the tap, but she felt such a sudden sharp pain in her chest that she had to stop. She leaned over the sink, pressing her dripping hands against her bosom. It’s nothing, she thought. I feel very strong, actually. It’s one of those silly meaningless pains that everybody gets now and then. I’m really quite strong.
“Do you feel all right?” Josephine asked.
“Yes — dizzy spell — it’s over now.”
“It’s from that walking. If you walked all the way from Fosters’ house at your age — not that you’re old, my goodness, but it’s the way you walk, so fast no one can keep up with you. You’d think someone was chasing you.”
The pain was gone. She wiped her hands and dabbed at the water on the front of her dress, the damp imprint of two hands, one over each breast.