The Night Guest: A Novel Part 17

"I don't know what all this fuss is for," said Frida, which Ruth considered cruel, and when she cried harder-her chest rose and sucked and fell-Frida swatted at her face, without touching her. "Oh, shut up, Ruthie. You've taken your pills. You'll be all right. You want me to go, and Jeffrey's coming on Friday." Frida settled Ruth into bed, looked once about the room, and left it, closing the door behind her. Ruth's cries became deep breaths. She was aware of falling asleep because the childhood feeling of doing so with tears on her face was familiar, but she didn't believe it would ever happen.

Ruth woke in the night, hungry. When she looked at her clock, it was only eleven. She called out for Frida, but there was no response, and because her stomach was making eager sounds, she sat up and stood up and was out of bed. Her back was calm. It hadn't felt so soft in months. She saw herself in her dressing-room mirror and gave a small wave-in the dark, she was only a blur of greyish white. Her hair felt damp at the back but otherwise dry. She wasn't afraid to walk into the hallway. The house was cool and quiet. Frida had left a plate of grilled lamb chops in the fridge, and the fruit bowl was filled with dimpled apples that reminded Ruth of the green-skinned mandarins she had eaten as a child. She stood at the kitchen counter eating the cold, greasy chops with her fingers and looking across the bay through a gap in the shutters. There were no lights in the town; there was not a lamp on for miles. No s.h.i.+ps out at sea, either, and no moon. The foil that covered the lamb was the brightest thing in the world, and the loudest. The cats didn't come into the kitchen, not even with the smell of meat. Ruth felt as she had, younger, when her feet were more steadily planted on the floor, and her children and husband slept; that feeling was like an address she'd returned to, wondering why she'd been away so long. Even the taste of food was younger. The back door was closed, the house was cool, and the tiger was dead. Her head felt rinsed of everything.

"What a tantrum," she said, scolding herself.

Ruth knew Frida's bedroom would be empty, but she looked all the same, just to confirm her own instincts. She was surprised, nevertheless, to see it arranged as it had been before Frida moved in: as if Phillip, seventeen, had just walked out and left it for some n.o.bler destiny. Frida had changed the sheets and swept up the crushed pills. She'd removed her mirror and all her grooming equipment, and Halley's Comet had returned to the sky of the mirrorless wall.

Ruth looked through the rest of the house for signs of Frida, but she could find none beyond those that were her enduring legacy: the twilight gleam of the floors, for example, and the new order of the books on the shelf above the television. Otherwise she might never have come. The clocks ticked louder. The furniture was lifeless without the tiger or the birds or Frida, and so it reverted to its previous function, which was to provide comfortable familiarity. The lace was lit grey at the windows, and Ruth crossed to it and looked out at the front garden. An unexpected shape occupied the front step: it was Frida. She sat completely still, but intent. She was stone that had been carved into life. She had her suitcase, and she was waiting for someone. It must be George; whom else did she ever wait for? But George had stolen her money and the house her mother died in. Why wait for George?

Ruth was calm. She felt no desire to cry out, to rap the window, or to open the front door. She knew Frida was leaving her, and not because she had demanded it; after all, she had ordered Frida to leave before, with no results. Frida only ever did what she wanted. Ruth knew that, just as she knew that Frida was not honest and had fooled her in some important way. The clocks ticked louder. Ruth went to her bedroom, where she didn't bother to check for her shape in the mirror. There was no one in the mirror: not Frida, not Harry, not even Richard. The cats followed on their springy feet, and they slept the rest of the night the way she did: motionless, undreaming, and without making any sound. In the morning, when she woke, Ruth returned to the lounge room and looked out the window. Frida was still sitting on the doorstep.

18.

That morning was spare and bright. The sun had risen clear, the whole sea was visible and without s.h.i.+ne, and there was no wind in the gra.s.s. It was springtime still; it was only November. Ruth knocked at the window, moved the lace curtain, and continued knocking until Frida turned to face her. Frida looked very young, sitting on the doorstep and staring up at Ruth, as if staying out all night had wiped her face clear of everything she had collected on it, and now she was only tired and childish. She was smooth, like delivered milk. Then she turned away, and although Ruth knocked again, and called "Frida!" through the gla.s.s, loudly, with her hands cupped at her round mouth as if that might help the sound travel, Frida remained on the step for another twenty minutes; then she came in.

"I just need to make a phone call," she said heavily, and she walked heavily to the kitchen, where she eyed the phone as if it were a disguised enemy. She said, "Aren't I allowed one call, Officer?"-and then she laughed.

Ruth stayed in the lounge room and looked out at the doorstep again. Frida's suitcase still sat in the sandy gra.s.s. It could convincingly have grown from a stalk into a grey-white fruit.

"Your suitcase, Frida!" called Ruth, but Frida didn't respond. She was pacing in the kitchen, cradling the phone, and she wrapped the cord around and around her arm until she could no longer pace and had wound herself to the wall. She was waiting and listening. Then she hung up and tried another number; then another. Only once did a voice respond at the other end of the line, but even at this distance-Ruth hovered at the end of the dining table, leaning on it for support-the voice was obviously recorded. Ruth went into the kitchen. Frida took a deep breath, replaced the receiver, and pressed her head gently against the wall.

Then she turned and looked at Ruth. "George is gone," she said.

"I know," said Ruth.

"No, I mean, this time he really is. This time it's real. And he's taken all my money. Which means he's taken your money, too, my darling. He's taken everything."

How could this mean anything? It meant very little.

"He's done it now," said Frida. She leaned against the windowsill. She was so amazed that her face looked slightly happy. "He's actually gone and done it."

It began to mean something. Frida was no longer in control; Frida was frightened. She had fought the tiger, but now she was leaning, pale in the face, against the windowsill because she couldn't trust her legs to hold her.

How could he have taken everything? Everything was still here: the house, the cats, the sea, Ruth, Frida.

"He's taken us both for a b.l.o.o.d.y ride," said Frida, still with that note of wonder in her voice. "A b.l.o.o.d.y joyride." Now her voice rose. "That b.a.s.t.a.r.d has ruined everything, and I have worked so hard. Look at this!" She flung one arm out. "I've washed these floors a thousand times or more, I've cooked and cleaned, I've lived here because he said we could save on rent, we could get more done, he said, we could worm our way in-I've lived and breathed this house and you, Ruthie, you! For months! All he did was say, 'You've earned it, just you wait, you deserve it,' and drive around in that b.l.o.o.d.y taxi, and now he's taken everything."

Frida looked at Ruth as if she might be in a position to right things; as if she might be in a position, at least, to acknowledge Frida's misfortune. Ruth gave her a small smile. She wanted to say it would be all right, but she seemed to be having trouble breathing; some part of her, she thought, was furious; but which part? She was supposed to be angry at George, and so she was.

"I told him we needed to wait for a man!" raged Frida. She stood now. "There's no use with a woman. I told him how much harder it would be. People always fuss over a woman. A woman with sons! Sons always fuss. But oh, no, not a minute to lose, this is the one, Frida, this is it. What I should have done"-she spun to look at the telephone, as if it connected her to George in some mystical way-"what I should have done is make him come along and do it all. I could be the one running off into the sunset, and then where would he be?"

"Oh, Frida, I couldn't have had a man in the house," said Ruth. "What would people think?"

"Exactly!" cried Frida. "The two of you would be married by now, my love. Oh, yes, you would. Don't look at me like that, so innocent! And George would have driven Richard off with a stick."

"I don't even know George," objected Ruth.

"But I do," said Frida. "Jesus, do I know George. He'd screw a goldfish if he thought it had any money." She stood at the window and beat it with one flat hand, so that the gla.s.s and the sea all shook, and she stamped one foot as if it were chained to the table. There was a quiet minute in which Ruth tried to determine whether Frida was weeping. Then Frida turned suddenly and cried, "What now, what now?" and there were no tears, but her face was so fierce and so abandoned; suddenly she doubled over as if in pain. Her buried head said, softer, "What do I do now?"

"Stand up," said Ruth. "I can't bend." She tried, anyway, to bend, and Frida held out one hand to stop her.

"No," Frida said, and righted herself, but as she did so she gathered Ruth in her arms and lifted her a little way off the floor. Frida's face was softly creased. Her body vibrated. "He's left me, Ruthie," she said. "I've got nothing. What do I do?"

"Put me down," said Ruth, although she wasn't sure if that was what she wanted, and Frida set her back on her feet.

"I had this dream that the sea came right up to meet us, up here on our hill." Frida was looking out the window at the water, and the wondering expression had returned to her reddening face. "And there were all these boats on the waves-old-time boats, you know, like they have on TV, some with sails, some with clouds of steam and huge chimneys. They were heading straight for us up on the hill, and the people in all of them were waving like crazy. I couldn't tell if they were waving h.e.l.lo or telling us to get out of the way."

"What did you do?" asked Ruth. It seemed like a comforting vision; it would be like the boats on the water at Suva, and in one of the boats would be the Queen. The Queen had sailed away in a boat with Richard, all the way to Sydney.

"I woke up," said Frida.

"I suppose that's best," said Ruth, disappointed.

Now Frida walked to the back door. She wore her sandshoes and coat, but under the coat, Ruth noticed, were brown trousers. Ruth had never seen Frida in brown. She must have changed clothes in the night.

"What should we do, Ruthie?" Frida asked in a considering voice. "Because this is the thing-we can do anything. You know that? Should we go out in the garden? Should we go down to the beach? No, not yet. There's things to do first. What things? What things?" Frida was talking to herself. She backed into the kitchen. "What's today?" she asked herself. "Thursday? Thursday! Do you understand, Ruthie, that George has left me and stolen all our money?" And she went out of the kitchen and down the hallway towards the front door.

So George had taken everybody's money. Ruth clapped her hands once, twice. It was what she did when the cats were brawling, or her children misbehaved. The sharp sound appeased her. Her back didn't hurt; it was perfect. But still: all our money! She remembered her empty purse in the butcher's, and the patient, pompous look on the Sausage King's face, and she wondered exactly when George had done it. They were so worried about the tiger, and all along the real danger was George. Ruth felt most sorry for Harry, because he was proud and careful and wouldn't, for example, have let her keep the door open at night. It was an embarra.s.sment for Harry and would hurt him if he were here. Where was he? All our money! Frida came back with her suitcase.

"I want you to know that if it came to choosing-you or George-I'd always choose you. I want you to know that." Frida was very serious. She had her suitcase on the dining table, unlocked, and was removing things from it; things made of gla.s.s and silver and gold, which Ruth thought she recognized. "If I'd known how everything would work out, is what I'm saying," said Frida, still explaining. "If I'd known what a b.a.s.t.a.r.d he was."

Ruth peered at the objects on the table.

"Look at me," said Frida, and Ruth looked, and then back at the table, and then at Frida again, because Frida took her chin and made her. "Tell me you know I would choose you." What was clear on Frida's face was neither love nor hate but conviction.

"What's all this?" asked Ruth, pulling her head away.

"Presents."

"For me?"

"They were for me," said Frida. "But you can have them, now. May as well."

One of them looked like Ruth's mother's engagement ring. Ruth stretched her hand out, and Frida pa.s.sed her the ring. It was gold with a nest of diamonds; it was her mother's ring.

"It's beautiful, isn't it," said Frida, who had never said the word beautiful in Ruth's hearing, and so Ruth was filled with pride. She put the ring on her finger, where it spun above her other well-fitted rings. Frida gave a small humph and said, "Too big." Then she took Ruth's hand, tapped Ruth's own engagement and wedding rings, and said, "I told him I wasn't going to take those. They're yours forever."

Ruth made a fist with her hand. "They are mine. Harry gave them to me."

"That's what I told him. Now there's something I need to show you."

"Can you spare the time?" asked Ruth.

"It's only Thursday."

Frida went to look for something in the study; when she returned, she held a letter on thin blue paper and shook it in the air like a thin blue flag. "You may as well see this now," she said. "What difference does it make?" She pa.s.sed the paper to Ruth with delicate fingers.

The letter was from Richard.

"This is the latest one," said Frida. "There are others. He wrote nearly every day after he left. I'll get them all for you if you want."

"Oh." Ruth felt squeezed inside, a great clenching, and then release. She looked at the letter, which began, "My dearest Ruth"-but couldn't bring herself to read any more.

"You trusted me, didn't you," said Frida. It wasn't a question.

"There are no guarantees," said Ruth. She considered it likely that she had never trusted Frida. But then she didn't trust herself.

"You said it." Frida was writing something on a piece of paper and taping it to the telephone. "This is Jeff's number, right here on the phone."

"You press star and then one to call Jeff," said Ruth.

"Forget that. I wiped that weeks ago. You need to call this number-see it on the phone? You remember how to work the phone? That's something else-sometimes I turned the ringer down low, so you wouldn't hear it."

"Why did you do that?"

"To stop you from talking to people. I couldn't stop Jeff, though. A guy like Jeff fusses. Do you love me, Ruthie?"

"Yes," said Ruth, without thinking, which meant she did love.

"I knew it," said Frida. She lifted Ruth into her arms, like a baby.

Ruth still held the letter. "Where are we going?"

"Just outside."

"Do you know what you're going to do?"

Frida shook her head. "I have no idea what I'm going to do."

Ruth didn't believe her. As they pa.s.sed out of the house, Ruth saw herself reflected in the dining-room windows: high in Frida's arms, with different hair.

Frida carried Ruth to a shady part of the garden and set her down so she stood on the uneven gra.s.s. Her back was partially propped by the bending limb of the frangipani tree.

"I'll be right back," Frida said.

Ruth watched Frida walk to the house. Something about her was different, but what? Her hair was still dark and straight, she was still tall and wide; she was still Frida. Because Ruth held Richard's letter, she looked at it again: "My dearest Ruth, Frida tells me you're beginning to feel better, which is such good news, it calls for a celebration." And lower on the page: "Will it embarra.s.s you to hear you are the best of the lovely things?" She remembered his handwriting; once, she used to h.o.a.rd every example of it she could find. She liked the long, adult forward tilt of his t's and h's and l's. He had kissed her at the ball and then in the bedroom. Would he be a good husband? Had he been a good husband? Or was that someone else? Harry was the husband-but he was missing.

"Harry?" she said into the wind. Where was he? Here in the garden, maybe. She listened for sounds of him. "Harry? Darling?"

The garden was empty. There were no cats and no plants; it was bare and scrubbed. The trees were leafless, as if someone had plucked every branch clean. There was also no sun. Only the dune, greyish, and the sky, greyish, and at some distance the white-and-black sea.

"Here I am!" cried Frida. She had come out into the garden carrying Ruth's chair; she found level ground for it near the frangipani tree. Then she came to Ruth and held her shoulders, something like the way she had when Ruth had arrived home with Ellen from town.

"Here I am," said Ruth. She looked about, still, for Harry. He was probably kneeling in some garden bed, possibly among the hydrangeas. Hydrangea flowers don't fall off. They go brown, don't they, and they stay; but really they should fall. In the past, Harry must have cut them. Maybe she could help him. There must be some worm that wanted to come and eat the flower-heads. Ruth stamped her feet to call the worms up out of the ground. The sound of her feet travelled through the dune, and other sounds joined it: the shooting of new roots, maybe, and busy crabs and insects burrowing in the sand. Frida held her tighter, to keep her still.

"Now, what's this?" said Frida, and she began to sing a low lullaby; Ruth recognized the tune, but not the words, which didn't seem quite English. Then she recognized them, without understanding. It was a Fijian song. She and Frida rocked on the dune, the words fell over and around them, and the lullaby inhabited some interior place of Ruth's, where it greeted other things-the shape of her mother's mouth and a dog she saw killed on the street in Suva. There was a reunion there, in that place. Ruth attended to it, and to the subtle movement of Frida's big body, and to the feel of the air on her arms as they moved. The nurses sang sometimes as they worked in the clinic. New mothers sang to their babies. Her mother and father sang hymns. Her father read to them in the evening while the houseboy sang in the kitchen: "Consider the lilies of the field," read her father, and Ruth considered them. "How they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin." I neither toil nor spin, thought Ruth. She leaned into Frida's belly and felt herself arrayed in glory.

What could this song be for? To send babies to sleep. Phillip slept fitfully in his crib. Isn't pleurisy a lovely word? Beside his crib: The Cat in the Hat. I Am a Bunny. Go, Dog. Go! Ruth rested and sang. It was humid in the hollow of Frida's arm, and Ruth's hair clung to her cheek. She remembered then that Harry was dead. I remember that I remember that, she thought. Thank G.o.d that fact was sticky enough; she wanted to honour it. Every future minute announced itself, broad and without Harry. And then her life, her whole past, crowded up against this minute-entirely filled this minute, it was over so quickly. It all insisted so busily on something Ruth could not identify, something that had to do with happiness. How disappointing it was not to have been happy, thought Ruth, at every moment you expected to be. Now, here, she might be happy, but it was unlikely.

Frida bent her knees to the ground and took Ruth with her. She still sang, but there were no longer any words; Frida was only a tune, and warm breath, taking Ruth towards the ground. The gra.s.s was smooth and rough, and Frida laid her out on it. Frida kissed Ruth's forehead; she lifted her free hand to keep the sun from Ruth's eyes. She still sang, but she paused to say, "This won't do," and she moved Ruth a little farther into the shade, or what shade there was under the thick grey lace of the frangipani, with no flowers on it yet, and few leaves, so early in November. A gull sat at the top of the tree, not watching, not sleeping, not anything but a gull.

"How's that?" asked Frida, and she lifted Ruth's head and laid it on something soft.

"My back doesn't hurt," said Ruth, as if delivering a weather report. "It's very fine."

"That's the way," said Frida. She stood over Ruth and was no longer wearing her coat. She held a gla.s.s of water, which she gave to Ruth, and a blue pill, and another, and then-hesitating a moment-another. Frida helped Ruth swallow each one. "Now you'll be comfy. You just rest there for a little while, and when you're ready, I want you to call Jeff and tell him right away about George. All right? You promise me?"

"I promise," said Ruth. The ground was more elastic than she remembered.

"What will you tell him about George?"

"Young Livery."

"That's right, that's his taxi," said Frida, patient. "But what has he done? What bad thing has George done?"

"George has run off with everyone's money."

"Good. Tell Jeff I've left papers on the table for him to give to the police. All right?"

"Frida," said Ruth, smiling, "I can't call Jeff from out here."

"I know. You'll need to get yourself inside-just like that day when you were out here on your own and you got back in all by yourself. But this time your back won't hurt you, because of the pills, and also I put your chair out here to help you get up. You just hold on to your chair, and it'll be easy. I'm going in a minute, and then, when you're ready, you start heading for the phone. Call Jeff as soon as you can. All you need to do is give me some time. Got it?"

"What do you need time for?"

"I don't know yet."

Ruth still smiled. Frida was kneeling beside her now, wearing a pink T-s.h.i.+rt. Pink! Her whole face was lit with the colour.

"The back door is open," said Frida, stroking Ruth's face, "and the cats are in your bedroom with food and water. You just go in there when you want to find them. Nothing to worry about, all right?"

"All right," Ruth said. Frida stayed still, looking at her. "All right," Ruth said again, and she squeezed Frida's hand, which she noticed was holding hers. The squeezing produced little effect-Ruth couldn't feel her hand tightening, and she didn't know if Frida squeezed back. Harry always squeezed back. One, two, three squeezes meant "I love you." In her other hand, Ruth held Richard's letter.

"I'm going now," said Frida, but she still didn't move. She had a terrible look on her face, calm but terrible; it was resolved, and patient. The sand and gra.s.s would ruin her pretty trousers.

"You should wear pink more often," said Ruth, and Frida let go of Ruth's hand and stood. Now her face was gone completely. She stood there for a moment-Ruth could see her legs, and her trousers were a little crushed from the kneeling, but not stained; she had a rim of hair at her ankle, and a small mole. Frida turned and walked into the house. The gull still sat in the frangipani.

19.