The Death of Ruth (3 page)

He turned his back on the bed. He could not bear the sight of blood. I knew that, but neither could I, nevertheless I gathered together the remnants of my strength and when I had completed that which I had to do, Ruth's entire head was covered from view, her face no longer seen.

As we carried our grotesque bundle through the house, moving towards the back door, sweat ran down Ralph's face and the material of my blouse clung damply to my back.

‘Faster, move faster,' pleaded Ralph and in trying to obey, I came down heavily on my injured ankle, and a vicious spasm of pain caused me to scream, to let go my part of the burden and point to my ankle. It had swollen to a frightening degree. ‘I can't walk on it.' I cried. ‘You'll have to manage alone.'

‘All right,' he panted, ‘All right, all right.' He continued on alone dragging the heavy body across the kitchen floor with his words coming in bursts, saying, ‘Molly,
you
bring the case! Bring anything else you see! Her wristwatch! It will be on the shelf over the kitchen sink! Her handbag?
Find her handbag!
She would never go off without that …'

‘I can't find it,' I sobbed, ‘I searched, I searched and searched.'

‘You
must
find it.'

‘I have already looked everywhere.' I ceased speaking because Ralph was already out of the house.

Painfully, I limped back towards the bedroom and there, not hidden, but hanging on the handle of the bedroom
door was Ruth's brown handbag. I limped on into the bedroom carrying the handbag, intending to pick up and carry the travelling case over to my home, but instead of doing that I sat on the edge of the bed and my mind went blank—quite blank.

‘Molly! Molly!' Ralph's voice brought me back to reality and once more I saw him standing in the doorway, dishevelled and showing signs of exhaustion. He was holding Ruth's wristwatch and her half-filled medicine bottle.

‘For God's sake,' he said, ‘
Get up!
You must be brave.'

‘I can't move, Ralph!' I whispered, ‘I am too frightened, too scared.'

‘I know—I know,' he said, ‘I understand, I'm frightened too. I am very frightened.'

He sat beside me on the old-fashioned, very high bed and neither of us being tall, our feet dangled not quite touching the floor.

‘Ralph,' I asked, pleadingly, ‘Is this a nightmare? Tell me that it is. This can't be true …'

He shook his head, whispering, ‘It is true. We are both here—and awake. No nightmare could be as dreadful as all this.'

Noticing the handbag I was still clutching, he took it from me. He opened it and taking out a bulging red plastic wallet he whispered, miserably, ‘Just look! All this money. Poor unhappy woman, how she scrimped and saved.' He let the wallet fall to the floor, then, thrusting the medicine bottle and the wristwatch into the bulky, shabby handbag, he snapped it shut. Standing, he picked up the suitcase and left the room saying, urgently, ‘Molly, for Christ's sake, pull yourself together.
Come and help me
.'

I could not help him. This time I stretched out on the bed, and I must have lost consciousness because I remember opening my eyes and feeling as though I had been asleep for some time. My breathing was shallow. I recalled,
dreamily, of having once read in a magazine that if one breathed in deeply and slowly one would become relaxed, refreshed. I began to breathe deeply, slowly.

It worked, but oh how far away and high up it made the ceiling appear. The shabby ceiling was painted a bright blue. Ruth had been furious with Ralph when he had painted it. I remembered his gentle apology, of, ‘I'm sorry, Ruthie, I thought that you would like it! Thought that it would be like sleeping beneath the sky.'

Beneath the sky? John's garden out there beneath the sky! I remembered that gaping black hole, waiting out in the garden to be filled in and the urgency of filling in the hole took complete possession of my mind. The hole was no longer a grave …

Tonight, when it became dark, Ralph would take Ruth's body away somewhere. Perhaps he would hide it on the vacant allotment? Perhaps …?

No matter what happened, that deep trench would give rise to leading questions from John, Jodie, Rob and from the police and from Ralph too.

Yes,
Ralph!
How was I to explain that monstrous hole to Ralph Moyston? He must never know that I had made such vile plans. I would prefer to die rather than to have Ralph, have anyone, know that I could have harboured such criminal intentions. My future would become unbearable. My future?

The future? The future could take care of itself. The enormity of the present flooded into my mind, striking hard, as cold sanity returned and with it such remorse, such guilt, that I cried out, ‘God Almighty—what have I done? What am I allowing poor Ralph to do?'

It was not too late! We would bring Ruth back inside. Unpack her things. Call the police, explain to the police. I would be shamefully involved, but not accused of murder for I had righteously protected myself. Self-defence! It had been self-defence.

I crawled across the Moystons' backyard. Crawling was less painful than limping on my swollen ankle, and when I reached the low dividing fence, I stood up and leaned on it to see that Ralph was stamping the earth flat about the roots of John's precious, replanted camellia bushes. He, Ralph, had filled in the hideous hole and he waved a distracted hand toward me as without ceasing the wild stamping movements, he called, urgently, ‘Molly, come and help me. You must help. Hose the grass. Get rid of this soil, this rubble.' He gestured wildly, hopelessly.

Slumped against the fence, I was unable to move or speak but I was able to think and my thoughts burnt and scalded and left scars which in turn burnt and scalded.

What had he done with Ruth's body? ‘Into your house!' he had said. ‘We'll hide her in your house!' he had said.

‘Ralph,' I called, ‘Ralph?' But he ignored me and worked on and he worked with the same unnatural energy that I had dug with earlier on.

As he worked he called, ‘I've buried it as you intended doing.'

‘No, no, no!' I cried, ‘No, no, no.'

Continuing his stamping movements, he called, shouting loudly, ‘Don't lie! Molly, you were going to do what I have done. You were not intending to call the police.'

‘I was, I was …' My voice was high, shrill, ‘Ralph, I
was
going to call them.'

He ran towards me, he fell, arose and ran again. He caught my hands, crushing them against his soiled shirt front and fear seemed to bleed from his eyes as he whispered, harshly, ‘Where is she? Tell me, you must tell me. Now, at once!'

‘What? I stammered. ‘But you …' wrenching one hand free from his grip I gestured towards the chaos of John's garden where Ruth lay buried.

Ralph, ignoring my gesture, caught and captured my
hand again, whispering, ‘Where
is
she? I must talk with her. I must …'

Oh, God, I thought, he has lost his reason.

His voice ground out, ‘Tell me! She,
Jodie
, where is she? She killed Ruth! She killed her mother. I knew it all along. I—'

‘No,' I said. ‘No, you are wrong.'

‘You lie! Don't lie! You are lying.'

‘I am not lying. It was as I told you. I pushed her, she fell.' I struggled to free my hands but he clung even more and I saw that he was realizing his mistake.

‘Jesus—Jesus!' Letting go of my hands Ralph burst into a paroxysm of wild weeping and I realized that he must have fully believed that his adored daugther had killed her mother and that if he had not thought so he would not have acted as he had.

‘Ralph,' I spoke despairingly, ‘So now we must act quickly. We must get Ruth back into your house. It will be awful, shocking, but we must and then we'll call the police. I shall call them. I came to tell you that. I'm sane now, Ralph. I came out to tell you. I'm sane now, Ralph.'

‘Impossible. Impossible! We have gone too far. God help me, I am now as involved as you, and …'

‘No,' I said, ‘It needn't be like that.' I shook his arm roughly, ‘Ralph, I shall tell the truth. Exactly as it happened. All but about the hole, and …'

‘It's too late, Molly.' He was now weeping quietly, unashamedly, ‘It's too late. By the time we dug her up, cleaned her up, and,' he began to shiver violently, ‘Molly, Jodie and Rob could walk in on us in the middle of everything.'

‘I know,' I interrupted, ‘I know that but we must risk it. Ralph …'

I called to him in panic, for he was walking, shoulders bent, towards my back door. With great difficulty and in
pain I struggled over the low fence and stumbled my way into the house behind him. Ralph sat slumped in a chair, beside the kitchen table, with his face buried in his soil-covered hands.

‘Ralph,' I began frantically, ‘I repeat, I have been out of my mind, all day. Insane from fear. I admit my insanity, my cowardice, my
fear.'

I might just as well have spoken to the chair. He was not listening at all and I realized that Ralph was at the end of his tether. With all my heart I wished that he had not returned home, not walked in to become so shockingly involved.

Why had he returned home from work? ‘Ralph,' I questioned, ‘Why did you return home? Ralph?
Ralph
?'

I repeated my question. At last he answered, saying, ‘Last night, and this morning too, Ruth behaved like a mad woman. Lately she has been more upset, more violent than ever. Haven't you noticed?'

‘Yes. Yes, I have!' I said. ‘Lately there has been nothing but noise, beatings, punishments, in that home of yours.'

‘Yes, it has been cruel, disgusting, so much so that I felt that we couldn't take it any more, and this morning as Ruth ranted on I told her that I had come to the end of my tether. Told her to stop making such a hellhole of our home, or else to pack up and get out. She screamed back that it would suit her down to the ground to clear out, go away, make a life for herself …'

‘But she's always saying that. She has always said that.'

‘I know, I
know
, but this morning
I
said it, and after I got to work I became upset, very upset, knowing that she would take it out on the kids. I telephoned several times but the phone just rang and rang. Somehow, I had an intuitive feeling that an awful thing had happened. I couldn't stand it. I came home.'

‘Awful?' I said dully, ‘Like …?'

‘Like Rob or Jodie retaliating, especially Jodie, for recently she has been standing up to Ruth, and …' He sighed,
tremulously, as an exhausted child sighs, and again he buried his face in his hands.

I sat opposite him on John's chair, in the nice yellow and white kitchen that John and I sat in every morning as we ate breakfast, read the morning paper and chatted about anything that came into our minds. I glanced at the electric clock on the wall. It was already a quarter past three!

‘Ralph …' I spoke slowly and succinctly, ‘Ralph, when everything that has happened is discovered. When that happens, Ralph …'

Ralph gazed at me, his eyes red and swollen. ‘I mean,' I explained, ‘Will you be able to cover up the fact that you left work, came home?'

He continued to stare at me uncomprehendingly but I spoke on, very carefully, very clearly, saying, ‘Ralph, it will be best all around—for Jodie and Rob—that you are not involved in any way. You must not be involved. You must go home now, shower, change your clothes, return to the city, come home this evening just as though it had been a normal day.'

I continued to talk on and on until finally, but with no energy, no spirit, with no hope, Ralph went back to his own house.

After he had left, I sat awhile shivering and trembling, then I went out into John's garden and the world about me was radiant, the sky brilliantly blue. I limped over to the camellia hillock. Had I really uprooted John's camellia bushes?

Yes. The grass was dark with damp soil, littered with stones, debris. John took such pride in those camellia bushes. Soon, I realized, they would be uprooted again. But not by me. I was finished. Let the police do it. Meanwhile I would hose and rake the lawn.

I did all that, then I limped once more into the Moystons' house. Ralph was not there. I went into the front bedroom. I smoothed the bed cover, plumped up the pillows. I made a
neat pile of the books, putting them out of the way, beside the wardrobe. I went to the kitchen to clear up the broken drinking glass but Ralph had already done that, just as he had cleaned up the blood-stained tiles.

I went into the Moystons' bathroom. I saw that Ralph had used the shower and that he had carelessly left his earth-soiled shirt lying on the floor. I made the bathroom presentable and taking his soiled garment with me I left the Moystons' house.

Locking the kitchen door and placing the key in Ruth's usual hiding place, I went home.

I fixed things in my own house, then—I broke down. It was a short-lived, concentrated breakdown and during that period I seemed to stand apart, looking at myself, seeing myself as the pitiful creature that fear had turned me into.

I accepted the fact that life as I had known it was over. Shamefully, I knew that I was not courageous enough to admit to what I had done until circumstances forced me to do so.

I hoped fervently that everything would be over and done with before John returned home. And most of all I hoped that I would be given strength to go through the coming ordeal with at least a show of dignity.

Later on, when Jodie came over to ask me if I knew where her mother was, I was bathed and dressed, my hair was neat and I had used lipstick. My injured ankle was bandaged, resting on a stool.

‘Hello, Jodie,' I said, ‘I suppose Ruth has sent you to collect the bread,' and I looked at the girl, stretching my lips, showing my teeth, Jodie, I suppose, had thought that I was smiling at her.