“He didn’t stomp very far,” Dave said dryly. “I saw him outside helping the gardener this morning. Look, Jessie, married people often say things to each other that they don’t mean. Your mother and I do it sometimes, although we shouldn’t. So do you and Mike, for that matter. You get mad at each other or your feelings are hurt and you start making threats. You both know very well they won’t be carried out.”
“Howard meant it.”
“Perhaps he did at the time. But he obviously changed his mind.”
“He could change it back again, couldn’t he?”
“It’s possible.” He stared down at her but he could tell nothing from her face. She had averted it from the shaft of light coming from the hall. “You sound almost as if you wanted Howard to leave, Jessie.”
“I don’t care.”
“The Arlingtons have always been very nice to you, haven’t they?”
“I guess so. Only it would be more fun if somebody else lived next door, a family with children of their own.”
“What makes you think the Arlingtons are going to sell their house?”
“If Howard leaves, Virginia will have to because she’ll be without money like Mrs. Oakley.”
He stood up straight and crossed his arms on his chest in a gesture of suppressed anger. “I’m getting pretty damned tired of the Oakleys. Best friend or no best friend, I may have to insist that you see less of Mary Martha if you’re going to let her situation dominate your thinking.”
She sensed that his anger was directed not against the Oakleys, whom he didn’t even know except for Mary Martha, but against the Arlingtons and perhaps even Ellen and himself. One night she had overheard him telling Ellen he wanted to move back to San Francisco and Ellen had appeared at breakfast the next morning with her eyes swollen. Nobody questioned her story about an eye allergy but nobody believed it either. For a whole week afterward Dave had acted very quiet and allowed Mike and Jessie to get away with being late for meals and fighting over television programs.
“Did you hear me, Jessie?”
“Yes. But I’m getting sleepy.”
“Well, it’s about time,” Dave said and went out and shut the door very quickly as if he were afraid she might start getting unsleepy again.
Left alone, Jessie closed her eyes because there was nothing to see anyway. But her ears wouldn’t close. She heard the Arlingtons arriving home in Howard’s car — it was noisier than Virginia’s — the barking of their dog Chap, the squawk of the garage door, the quick, impatient rhythm of Howard’s step, the slow one of Virginia’s that sounded as if she were being dragged some place she didn’t want to go.
“The Brants’ lights are still on,” Virginia said, her voice slurred and softened by fog. “I think I’ll drop over for a minute and say good night.”
“No you won’t,” Howard said.
“Are you telling me I can’t?”
“Try it and see.”
“What would you do, Howard? Embarrass me in front of the Brants? That’s old stuff, and I don’t embarrass so easily any more. Or perhaps you’d try and bring Jessie into the act. It’s funny you can’t solve your problems without dragging in the neighbors. You’re such a big, clever man. Can’t you handle one wife all by yourself?”
“I could handle a wife. I can’t handle an enemy.”
Jessie tiptoed over to the window and looked out through the slats of the Venetian blind. The floodlight was turned on in the Arlingtons’ yard and she could see Howard bending over unlocking the back door. Virginia stood behind him holding her purse high against her shoulder as if she intended to bring it down on the back of Howard’s neck. For a moment everything seemed reversed to Jessie: Howard was the smaller, weaker of the two and Virginia was the powerful one, the boss. Then Howard stood up straight and things seemed normal again.
Howard opened the door and said, “Get inside,” and Virginia walked in quickly, her head bowed.
The floodlight went off, leaving the yard to the fog and the darkness, and the only sound Jessie heard was the dripping of moisture among the loquat leaves.
(14)
The following morning Ralph MacPherson rose, as usual, at 5:30. Since his wife had died he found it possible to fill his days, but the nights were unbearably lonely. He minimized them by getting up very early and going to bed when many lawyers were just finishing dinner. His matchmaking friends disapproved of this routine but Mac thrived on it. It was a healthy life.
Before breakfast he took his two dogs for a run, worked in the garden and put out food and water for the wild birds and mammals. After breakfast he read at the dining-room window, raising his head from time to time to watch the birds swooping down from the oaks and pines, the bush bunnies darting out of poison oak thickets at the bottom of the canyon and the chipmunks scampering up the lemon tree after the peanuts he’d placed in an empty coconut shell. Helping the wild creatures survive made him feel good, like a secret conspirator against the depredations and greed of man.
He reached his office at 8:30. Miss Edgeworth was already at her desk, looking fresh and crisp in a beige silk suit. Although he’d never accused her of it — Miss Edgeworth didn’t encourage personal conversation — Mac sometimes had the notion that she was making a game out of beating him to the office, no matter how early he arrived, and that winning this game was important to her; it reinforced her low opinion of the practicality and efficiency of men.
There was always a note of triumph in her “Good morning, Mr. MacPherson.”
“Good morning, Miss Edgeworth.”
Her name was Alethea and she had worked for him long enough to be on a first-name basis. But it seemed to him that “Good morning, Alethea” was even more formal than “Good morning, Miss Edgeworth.” He was afraid the day would come when he would accidentally call her what the girls in the office called her behind her back — Edgy.
He said, “Any calls for me?”
“Lieutenant Gallantyne wants you to contact him at police headquarters. It’s about a car. Shall I get him for you?”
“No. I’ll do it.”
“Mrs. Oakley also—”
“That can wait.”
He went into his office, closed the door and dialed police headquarters.
“Gallantyne? MacPherson here.”
“Hope I didn’t wake you up,” Gallantyne said in a tone that hoped the opposite. “You lawyers nowadays keep bankers’ hours.”
“Do we. Any line on the green coupé?”
“One of the traffic boys spotted it an hour ago. It’s standing in Jim Baker’s used-car lot on lower Bojeta Street near the wharf.”
“How long has it been there?”
“Garcia didn’t ask any questions. He wasn’t instructed to.”
“I see. Well, thanks a lot, Gallantyne. I’ll check it out myself.”
He hung up, leaned back in the swivel chair and frowned at the ceiling. The fact that the green car had been sold made it more likely that Kate was right in claiming that the man behind the wheel had been Sheridan. Ordinarily Mac took her accusations against Sheridan with a grain of salt. A number of them were real, a number were fantasy, but most of them fell somewhere in the middle. If she walked across a room and stubbed her toe she would blame Sheridan even if he happened to be several hundred miles away. On the other hand, Sheridan had pulled some pretty wild stuff. It was quite possible that he’d tried to frighten her into coming to terms over the divorce and had ended up being frightened himself when she pursued him with her car.
Mac thought, as he had a hundred times in the past, that they were people caught like animals in a death grip. Neither was strong enough to win and neither would let go. The grip had continued for so long that it was now a way of life. It was not the sun that brightened Kate’s mornings or the sea air that freshened Sheridan’s. It was the anticipation, for each of them, of a victory over the other. They could no longer live without the excitement of battle. Mac remembered two lines from the children’s poem about a gingham dog and a calico cat who had disappeared simultaneously: