Part 13 (1/2)
14.
Later that day the telephone rang. The noise startled Ruth, who was dozing in her chair, half aware of Frida's cleaning the kitchen. Ruth was pulled from a dream about a trapeze and a public swimming pool; she was hoisted in the air, on the trapeze, and the water glinted below, dangerous in some indefinable, chlorinated way.
Frida answered the phone. ”Yes, Jeff,” she said. ”A little adventure, yes. She's fine, the silly duck. She probably won't remember any of it tomorrow.”
And then: ”Now, Jeff, it's not exactly-”
And finally: ”Sure, sure, here she is.”
Frida presented the phone to Ruth, then returned to scrubbing the brown kitchen. Ruth held the receiver to her ear.
”Ma? I just had a phone call from Ellen Gibson.” Jeffrey's voice came at Ruth from around a suspicious corner.
”Lovely Ellen!” said Ruth.
”I hear you went into town today. What was that for?”
”I felt like it,” said Ruth. She suspected she was in trouble, but couldn't decide how to feel about it. ”I'm allowed, aren't I?”
Jeffrey was quiet for a moment. ”I was thinking I might come out for a visit soon, see how you're getting on. What do you think of that idea?”
”That sounds nice,” said Ruth. She had not yet considered it an idea, nice or otherwise.
”You don't sound so sure.”
”There's a problem.” She was filled with sudden anxiety; but what was the problem?
”There is!” Jeffrey pounced as if he had lured her into a confidential trap.
”I know!” she cried. ”I can't get to the railway station.”
”You don't need to pick me up from the station, Ma. I'll take a cab.”
”Oh, that's marvellous! That's just as well. I've lost your father's car.”
”What do you mean, you've lost Dad's car?”
”It's not lost, of course not. It's sold.”
”You didn't tell me you were selling Dad's car.”
”I'm not selling it,” said Ruth. ”It's sold.”
”When was this?”
”Frida arranged it.”
”She did, did she?” Jeffrey used Harry's lawyerly voice-ruminating, withholding, sure of some hidden possibility that ticked over in his mathematical mind. ”Listen, how about this coming weekend? I'll have to check flights, but if I come on Friday night, how's that?”
”Yes, all right, yes,” said Ruth. Then the proximity of Friday startled her. ”This Friday? So soon?”
Frida stopped scrubbing and looked over her shoulder.
”The sooner the better,” said Jeffrey, and this seemed to decide it. Yes, the sooner the better. ”Friday, then. You don't have any more mysterious visitors coming, do you? No more boyfriends? We'll have a great time. We'll play Scrabble and look for whales.”
So Jeffrey didn't care about the trip to town; not the way Frida cared. He was her good and generous son, her forgiving son. How kind and clement he was. He was just, as his father had been-he was unyielding, but also compa.s.sionate. He was the law. Ruth called Frida over to hang up the phone. There was nothing to be afraid of.
But Frida's face was a cliff under a cloud. ”What's happening on Friday?” she asked, leaning against the wall as if she had been washed up, just like that, on the beach. There was a general look of wreckage about everything surrounding her, but the dark streaks on the kitchen wall did look cosier after their scrubbing; almost old-fas.h.i.+oned.
”Jeffrey's coming,” said Ruth.
”Why? What did you say to him?”
”Nothing,” said Ruth. She felt as if she'd been caught up in a procession of events over which she had no control; but she was calm.
”First Ellen, now Jeff. Those two stickybeaks are in it together.” Frida said Ellen with a specific spite. She walked from the table to the window and back again, and when she reached the window for a second time, she tapped it with one calculating hand. ”There are a couple of things we might not mention to good old Jeff,” she said.
”What things?”
Frida was coaxing and deferential. ”Obviously the tiger.”
”I thought you were proud of the tiger.”
Frida failed to look proud. She seemed to have failed, generally, in some important way. She gave an impression of pending collapse that she warded off only by tapping the window.
”If Jeff knew everything I do for you, he'd only worry. He'd put you in a home, and you know what that means: no more house. No more sea views. No more picking and choosing what you want for dinner. No more Frida.”
Ruth sat with this possibility. It seemed quite soothing to her, at that moment.
”And he'll never let you go to Richard-you know that, don't you? No one's going to let you do that. They'll say you're too old and he's too old, and you can't look after each other. They'll say it's not in your best interests.”
”Who'll say that?” asked Ruth, startled, not just by the thought of being stopped, but by hearing Richard's name, which had been important to her last night, or even this morning. She had, hadn't she, wanted to go to him?
”Jeff will,” said Frida.
”Jeffrey can't stop me.”
”But the law can stop you, if Jeff wants it to. The government can stop you.”
”You're the government,” said Ruth.
”Well, I quit.”
”When?”
”Right now,” said Frida. ”But I can help you, Ruthie, if you help me.”
Ruth nodded. She needed time to think; also, she was hungry. Why did her shoulders still hurt?