The Death of Ruth by Elizabeth Kata Read Free Book Online

rather sorry spectacle. Weeds choke the garden beds and the grass grows tall, neglected and scraggy. Paint is needed on the house and the front steps are cracked, a hinge is missing on the gate.
    Molly, although extremely reticent, had always responded tentatively, but warmly, to my love-making. Naturally, when she was in pain from her injured ankle I made no advances and then when she complained, saying that she was suffering from insomnia, out of consideration for her I moved myself and my belongings into the spare bedroom. The room that we had shyly and hopefully alluded to as ‘the nursery’ during the first five or six years of our marriage.
    Along with the years it has become known as the spareroom and in that room I spend many sleepless hours, worrying about the unhappy changes in our home and in our lives. However I am rather relieved to be on my own. Being near Molly distresses me, for I cannot understand her and things that I don’t understand upset me.
    Several times, no, more than several times, during the night, I have heard Molly crying. The first time, I hurried to her and attempted to comfort her, whispering that I loved and desired her, but she pushed me away just as she pushes me away from every moment in her life.
    I knew that my wife needed professional care. I knew that I should do something about it, but I kept putting it off and away from my thoughts, always hoping, always expecting that every evening, when I returned home, I would be greeted by the placid, happy wife I had so respected and admired.
    There were times when I quite envied Ralph Moyston his freedom. However, he seemed to spend much of his time searching the city, looking for Ruth. He would return home on Saturdays and Sundays, full of his explorations, and he would come to our home to talk, for Jodie and Rob were usually out on dates.
    I was quite pleased to have him call in and I would put down my novel or newspaper, glad of the interruption, ‘No luck, Ralph?’ I would ask, politely.
    Molly would merely glance up from her beloved seed catalogues, then lose herself in them again.
    It was as always—no luck—and after allowing me time to ‘tut tut’ and be sympathetic, Ralph would tell me of the places in the city that he had visited that day. He went everywhere, he told me. He went to the zoo, to the botanic gardens, to the museum, to the art galleries, to cinemas—always looking for Ruth.
    He frequented small coffee shops, and he got to know the girls who served him and he would tell me stories of these girls’ lives, and stories about countless other people that hesat beside in parks, on bus seats, everywhere and anywhere.
    He showed people Ruth’s photograph. He carried her photograph in his wallet. ‘One day,’ Ralph said with quiet confidence, ‘One day, John, I just know that someone is going to say they have seen Ruth. That they know where she is.’
    The fact that Ruth might have gone off to a distant country town, or even abroad, never seemed to enter his mind, and the thought that perhaps Ruth was dead and gone, I felt sure, never entered his mind either.
    Truthfully speaking, I seldom thought of Ruth Moyston. I had never liked her, and although I was as mystified as anyone by her disappearance and certainly hoped that she was alive and well, I rather hoped that she would never turn up, for one difficult woman in such close proximity was quite enough for any man.
    I settled down to the routine of day following day, believing that the sameness would continue; which it did, until the real estate speculator who owned the adjoining vacant lot, came to call.
    At last, he said, he saw his way clear for his company to begin construction of a high-rise apartment building and he wanted to purchase my property and the Moystons’ as well.
    The price he offered was excellent. New vistas opened up. I would now be able to care properly for Molly, have a really excellent doctor