An Air That Kills (20 page)

At the Bank of Commerce, on the corner of King and Yonge, she withdrew from her checking account two hundred dollars in twenty-dollar bills, sealed them in an envelope and addressed it to Thelma. It was not an act of kindness or of pity, but one of compulsion, and the emotions behind it were deeper and stronger than kindness or pity.

Whatever the reasons, it was, for Esther, the first step back into the flow of life. Others followed, as spring passed into summer. She met friends for lunch at the King Edward or the Royal York or the Plaza. She and Nancy took their combined brood of six to Sunnyside for a day of rides. She wrote to Harry, cheerful, impersonal letters which he answered in the same vein. She went to dinner at the Winslows' house and to several outdoor concerts with Joe Hepburn, who was tone-deaf but liked fresh air and crowds. The first week in July she drove the two boys and Annie up to the lodge near Wiarton, and promised them a return trip before school started again in September.

Aside from sending the money to Thelma once a month she had no contact with her, but she heard from Turee that Thelma was having a difficult time during her pregnancy. She had rented her house in
Weston and taken a small apart­ment in town to be nearer her doctor in case of emergency. Esther wrote down Thelma's new address in her address book, and the following day, a stifling morning in early August, she drove slowly past the apartment house on Spadina, trying to find enough courage to stop and ring the bell. But the car kept right on going as if of its own volition, and Esther thought,
There was no parking space anyway. And it's so hot. And early—she might not even be up. Besides, I have nothing special to say to her, no comfort to offer her, no special formula, no guarantee.

Throughout the summer she had been making similar ex­cuses to herself, and while they oiled the surface of her mind, they did not seep down and touch the grit and gravel underneath. She was stoned by dreams of identification in which she became Thelma, harassed and trying to defend herself, accused and trying to justify herself, continually at the mercy of some cold-eyed stranger or some false friend. The accusing figures in the dreams varied—Birmingham, Turee, an un­known policeman who resembled her father, a schoolteacher she had once hated—but the accused was always the same, Thelma-Esther, like a double exposure, one image super­imposed on the other.

She took the two boys back up to the lodge again for the final week in August, and on returning she began outfitting them for the school year ahead.

The meeting which she had both anticipated and dreaded for a long time took place in Eaton's College Street. She had just started up the escalator to the children's wear department when some woman stumbled getting off at the top. There was a little flurry of excitement by the time Esther reached the scene—the escalator attendant had propelled the woman to a chair, a floorwalker was waving his hand­kerchief in front of her face in the vague hope of whipping up more oxygen, and a clerk had been sent for some water.

The woman, heavy with child, seemed embarrassed at all the fuss, and when the clerk returned with a paper cup full of water she refused it. Instead, she rose with awkward dignity, made her way to the nearest counter and stood there a moment to steady herself.

Esther approached the counter and said, “Thelma?” and the woman turned, squinting, as if she'd been summoned from some dark world into sunlight.

“Are you all right, Thelma?”

“Yes. I'm fine.” Her face was puffy, like rising dough, and her legs distorted by swelling. Her maternity dress, soiled around the collar, clung in wet patches between her shoulder blades and under her arms. Perspiration and oil had seeped through her make-up and stood out in droplets along her forehead.

“It's good to see you,” Esther said. “I've thought of you so often.”

“Have you?” Thelma smiled dryly. “Thanks.”

“I—look, couldn't we go some place for a cup of tea? We can't talk here.”

“I have nothing to say. Besides, my intake of fluids is very limited. Thanks all the same.”

“I'll admit I felt bitter toward you at first, but not any more. I wish we could be friends.”

“Do you?” Thelma turned back to the counter which was filled with infants' toys, rattles and teethers and rubber dolls and stuffed animals. “I've gone this far alone. I think I can manage the rest of the way.”

“How much longer do you have to wait?”

“Why all the sudden interest?”

“It's not sudden. Listen, we could go over to the Honey Dew for some toasted scones. Or some butter cakes at Child's.”

“I'm on a diet.”

“All right then, a leaf of lettuce and a dab of cottage cheese.”

“Why are you being so persistent?”

“I want to talk to you,” Esther said truthfully. “I've wanted to all summer, actually, but didn't have the nerve.”

“Nerve?”

“Well, whatever you want to call it. I
was—embarrassed, I guess.”

“That's a word I'm beginning to understand quite well.”

“Have things—has it been hard for you?”

Tears appeared in Thelma's eyes. She blinked them away, obstinately. “Why should you care?”

“I don't know why, exactly, but I do.”

“It's been hell.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't,
don't
be sympathetic. It's the one thing I can't stand. Oh, for God's sake, let's get out of here, people are staring, I think I'm
going to cry.”

She didn't cry, though. By the time they reached the nearest Child's she seemed to have herself under good control. The coffee-break crowd had left and the early lunchers
hadn't arrived, so the place was nearly deserted. They chose a table in the corner farthest from the windows, and Esther ordered butter cakes and black tea, and Thelma a chicken salad which she looked at ravenously but barely touched, as if she knew too well the penalties of such a splurge.

“My blood pressure's up,” she explained. “The doctor's afraid of eclampsia. I have to count every ounce of fluid, every grain of salt.”

“Does Harry know?”

“Know what?”

“That you're not well.”

“I
am
well,” she said stubbornly. “I have to be careful, that's all. Harry.” She repeated the name, frowning, as if she had trouble identifying him. “No, Harry doesn't know. I haven't written to him since June.”

“He's been writing to you, though?”

“Oh yes. He sends me money twice a month, more than he can afford, actually—a money order from Kansas City and two hundred dollars from here—I guess he arranges the two hundred through the local office. I don't know why, it seems an odd way of doing things, but I'm grateful for the money. He must have been given a raise in pay.”

Esther didn't even blink. “That's very likely. Wages are higher over there.”

“His letters have changed recently. Oh, nothing definite you can put your finger on, he still misses me and so on, but I have the feeling—well, that it's only words, that he's doing quite nicely by himself. Or
not
by himself.”

“What does that mean?”

“Maybe he's found somebody else,” Thelma said in a low voice. “Oh, I don't blame him. I
wanted
it to happen.”

“Are you sure it has?”

“No. But I have this intuition. And I know Harry. If some woman ogles him at an office picnic he's not going to run away, he'll stand there and be ogled and love every minute of it.”

“I grant you there may be something in intuition, but carrying it as far as an office picnic and an ogling woman . . .”

“There actually was an office picnic. He mentioned it in his last letter. He said he'd had a very good time. Oh, not that I care. I want him to have a good time, to be happy. He deserves it. Only . . .”

“Only what?”

“I wish he wouldn't tell me about it. I'm so miserable. I'm so miserable.” She dabbed at her eyes with a piece of Kleenex. “Office
picnic. To
hell
with him.”

“Now don't cry.”

“I can't help it.”

“Think of the future, the baby. How much longer do you have to wait?”

“Nearly three weeks.”

“That's not very long.”

“It seems—it feels like an eternity.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No. No, thanks.” She took another bite of the chicken salad, then pushed the dish away from her. “The next letter I get from him, I'm not going to read. I won't even open it.”

“Aren't you being a little unreasonable?”

“Just as unreasonable as I can get, I know that. I'm a dog in the manger. I don't want Harry back, I could never live with him again. It's just—well, the thought of him carousing around with other women, going to all kinds of parties. . .”

“One office picnic.”

“That's all he mentioned. There are probably dozens of occasions he didn't mention.” She dabbed at her eyes again. “It's not that I begrudge him anything. I want him to be happy. I'll give him a divorce so he can marry her.”

“By her, you mean the woman who ogled him at the picnic and pursued him relentlessly through a round of wild parties?”

“You needn't laugh at me,” Thelma said sulkily. “I can read between the lines.”

“Some people become so expert at reading between the lines they don't read the lines. You're letting your imagina­tion run riot. You've taken an office picnic and blown it up into a series of orgies.”

“No. Harry wouldn't enjoy orgies. He's not like that. He's just the kind of man who should be married.”

“He already is.”

“No, not any more.”

“Someday, perhaps, the two of you will get together again . . .”

“No. Never.”

“How can you be positive?”

“Because I was never in love with him. I was over thirty when we met—I'd never had a real proposal before and I knew it was my last chance to—well, to have a full life, a baby—my God, how I wanted a baby.” She looked down at her distended abdomen pressing against the table, and smiled, very faintly. “I didn't dream it would be so difficult.”

TWENTY

Thelma's baby was born at the Women's College Hospital on a cold rainy morning during the last week of September. She'd gone to the hospital alone by taxi in the middle of the night without notifying any of her friends or neighbors.

Ralph Turee was the first person outside the hospital to hear of the birth. Thelma's doctor called him just before he left for a nine o'clock class, and told him that Thelma had been delivered of a fine, healthy eight-pound boy. Thelma's condition was “only fair” after two blood transfusions, and she was allowed no visitors for the present, but the baby could be seen through the glass walls of the nursery.

Feeling that something in the nature of a celebration was in order, Turee called a meeting of the remaining fellows for lunch at the Plaza. Over martinis and steak pie, Turee broached the subject of relaying the news to Harry.

“I think we should send him a telegram.”

“Why?” Joe Hepburn asked. “To
congratulate
him?”

“Well, no. But he ought to be told Thelma and the baby are all right.”

“I don't know, it strikes me a telegram would be in bad taste under the circumstances.”

“Harry wouldn't know the difference and it wouldn't matter to him if he did. The only thing that concerns him is Thelma. The poor guy's probably sitting around biting his fingernails.”

Bill Winslow spoke for the first time. The combination of the weather, the martinis, and a breakfast quarrel with his wife had put him in a sullen mood. “The hell he's sitting around biting his nails. Poor guy, my eye.”

“What does that mean?”

“Never mind.”

“I do
mind,” Turee said sharply. “Come on, what's the big secret? What do you know?”

“Plenty.”

“Such as?”

“Such as Harry's not sitting around biting his nails over Thelma. He's not sitting around, period.”

“You seem pretty positive.”

“Why shouldn't I be? I had a letter from him yesterday. We haven't been corresponding much, I don't know why he picked me to confide in instead of one of you.”

“Well, what did he say?”

“Read it yourself. I've got it here somewhere, been carrying it around. Kind of a shock.”

The letter was passed across the table and Hepburn and Turee read it simultaneously. Its contents were simple enough: Harry had met a girl, a perfectly wonderful, marvelous girl named Anne Farmer. She was divorced, through no fault of her own; her husband had been a brute, a real cad and so on, but through it all Anne had remained faithful, sweet, kind, and so on. He intended to get a divorce and marry this paragon of virtue as soon as possible, and he hoped that the fellows would wish him luck. Not that he needed it, because Anne was so wonderful, so understanding, et cetera. All the best, Harry.

“Je—
sus,
” Turee said and flung the letter down on the table.

Winslow picked it up and replaced it in his pocket. “Nice timing, eh?”

“I just can't believe it.”

“Try a little harder.”

“In all his letters to me, he's never mentioned another woman. I was led to believe he spent all his time working.”

“Does that sound like Harry? Not to me.”

“Hooked,” Hepburn said gloomily. “Hooked again, and we're not there to protect him. Her husband was a brute. Naturally. All ex-husbands are brutes. All future husbands are angels.
Then
comes the switch.”

“Shut up,” Turee said. “I'm trying to think.”

“The time for thinking is past.”

“Listen. We'd better send that telegram to Harry after all. Suppose he suddenly decides to write Thelma a letter like this. The shock might kill her. The doctor said her condition was only fair. That's hospital jargon for anything-can-happen. We've got to warn Harry.”

The telegram was drafted by all three men and Turee tele­phoned it in when he returned to his office:
Thelma delivered of healthy son. Her condition fairly serious. Imperative that you do nothing to upset her. Wait for letter. Ralph.

Later the same afternoon Nancy took a dozen roses to the hospital for Thelma and stopped at the nursery to see the baby. A masked nurse wheeled the bassinet to the glass wall and pulled the coverlet part way down to reveal the baby's face. He was quiet, but not asleep, a beautiful child with a shock of black hair and brilliant blue eyes.

Nancy tapped against the glass, smiling and cooing. She was unaware that she herself was being observed until a voice spoke suddenly beside her, “Hello, Nancy.”

Nancy turned with a little jump of surprise. “Why—why, Esther.”

“I came, too. I had to see for myself.” Her yellow raincoat and hat were still dripping with rain. “I guess I'm making a mess on the floor.”

“You can't help it, in this weather.”

“I—he's a lovely baby, isn't he?”

“Yes, very.”

“He looks like his father. Don't you agree? He looks like Ron?”

Nancy agreed but said nothing.

“Well, I had to see for myself,” Esther repeated, and with one more brief glance through the glass wall she turned and walked briskly down the corridor, her raincoat rustling around her legs like dead leaves.

It was two weeks before Thelma was released from the hospital. She left as she had entered, by taxi, but this time she wasn't alone. She held her son in her arms, with a pride and joy she had never known before, or believed possible.

She moved back into the house in Weston. Her neighbors all knew or suspected the truth by this time, but they were kindly people, especially Mrs. Malverson next door who threw herself immediately into the role of grandmother. She helped Thelma with the shopping, the washing, the cleaning, she clucked and cooed over the baby and took him for long walks in his pram, she measured out the ingredients of his formula with the severe precision of a pharmacist.

Mrs. Malverson believed herself to be Thelma's closest friend and confidante. She was, therefore, extremely surprised when she went over to Thelma's house one afternoon in late October and noticed a For Sale sign posted on the front lawn. She found Thelma upstairs sorting through the contents of an old trunk while the baby slept beside her in his bassinet.

“I saw the sign,” Mrs. Malverson said flatly.

“Oh, is it up already? Good. I asked the realtor to hurry.”

“You've been crying.”

“Not much. Looking over old things always gives me the blues—I don't know why, I'm happier now than I ever have been.”

“So you're going to move.”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“As soon as I can.”

“Where?”

“Nevada.”

“But that's in the States.”

“Yes. I have an appointment at the American Consulate for Friday morning. I'm applying for a permanent visa.”

“Well.
Well.”
Mrs. Malverson plopped down on the side of the bed. “I've got to catch my breath. This is all so
sudden.
”

“Not to me.”

“Ronnie's too young to travel that far.”

“No, the doctor said this is actually the best time, especially if we go by plane.”

“But well, there's the lawsuit coming up and every­thing . . .”

“It won't be coming up. Esther has agreed to a settlement out of court. I didn't want to take it—she's been so nice about things since that day I met her in Eaton's—but my attorney said I'd be a fool to turn it down. It's quite a lot of money.”

“And well it should be.” Mrs. Malverson was on the point of asking how much, but she desisted, in the hope that Thelma would volunteer the information.

Thelma didn't. “Anyway, it's all settled now. I signed the papers.”

“Nevada. I ask you, why Nevada? I hear it's a wicked spot. Gambling, even on the Sabbath, that's what I heard.”

“It's a good place to get a divorce,” Thelma said grimly. “Six weeks, and it's all over.”

“A divorce?”

“Yes. My husband . . .” She stumbled awkwardly over the word, and her face flushed. “Mr. Bream called me long dis­tance last night. He wants a divorce. He's in love with another woman.

“Well.
Well.
”

“Don't be so shocked. I wasn't. I've actually been expecting it for some time now. It's almost a relief to have it con­firmed.”

“You poor child. You poor . . .”

“
No.
I don't really care. I thought I might when I heard his voice again, but last night on the telephone he didn't even sound like himself, it was like talking to a stranger. Her name's Anne.”

“Her?”

“The woman.” She slammed down the lid of the trunk, but the gesture, like Pandora's, was a little too late. Too many things had already escaped. She said roughly, “All this old junk of Harry's, I might as well throw it away.”

She left the first week of November. Turee offered to drive her out to the Malton Airport but she refused. She said all her good-byes briefly and by telephone, as if she preferred not to risk any display of emotion which might make her change her mind.

She sent air-mail letters to Mrs. Malverson, the Turees and Esther, assuring them of her safe arrival in Las Vegas. The trip had been pleasant and Ronnie a perfect angel all the way, but she didn't like Las Vegas. The countryside was too desolate and the town itself full of very odd people. When her residence requirements were up she intended to move on, perhaps to Southern California. There was no mention of homesickness, loneliness, regret. Or Harry.

At Christmas time she sent large, elaborate baskets of fruit to all her friends, belts of hammered silver and Indian turquoise to the Turee children, and hand-tooled leather holsters to Esther's two boys. On the back of a Christmas card to Joe Hepburn which didn't arrive until New Year's she wrote that she had her divorce papers and she and Ronnie were staying temporarily in a motel in Pacific Palisades until she decided on a permanent place. She did not give the name of the motel, or the exact location of Pacific Palisades, which Hepburn had never heard of and couldn't find on the map.

It seemed as though the Breams, who had once lived in such close proximity, were now trying to get as far away from each other as possible. In Harry's next letter to Turee, in February, he said he had maneuvered a transfer to Florida. The Kansas City climate was proving too rigorous for Anne, who was inclined to be frail. Enclosed in the letter, almost as an afterthought, was the formal announcement of his wedding. Mr. and Mrs. Paul Davis Dugan announced the marriage of their daughter, Anne, to Mr. Harry Ellsworth Bream.

“Well, that's that,” Turee said and passed the announce­ment and the letter across the breakfast table to his wife.

“Yes. Yes, I guess it is.”

“You don't sound very happy about it. I thought you
liked
people to get married and live happily ever after and so on. What's eating you?”

“Oh, there's something so final about it, seeing it in
print like this.”

“Let's hope it's final.”

“I can't help—well, Thelma and Harry always seemed so right for each other. I kept hoping things would work out between them.”

“You're a great hoper.”

Nancy reread the letter, making little snorting noises of disapproval. “Frail. Huh. She was born and raised in Kansas City, now suddenly she's too frail. Oh, I bet Harry has picked himself a lemon. A real
lemon.
”

“Nancy, love . . .”

“What's more, I hear Florida is hotter than hell in the summer and people are always getting lost in swamps.”

The new Mrs. Bream did not get lost in a swamp. She did, however, become dissatisfied with Florida rather quickly, and once again Harry found himself on the move, this time to a new job, obtained through one of Anne's relatives, with an oil company in Bolivia. Since he knew nothing about either oil or Bolivia, he expected to be extremely busy and would not have the chance to write as frequently as in the past.

By the time another Christmas rolled around, his letters had ceased entirely.