The Time Remaining

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57 8 Gilchrist knows it is Ruby. Even though the horse and rider are more than fifty yards away, he can see clearly that the woman in the saddle has blonde hair and that the horse is the color of cordovan—Ruby’s favorite bay. As the bay canters across the pasture and up the bridle path to Gilchrist’s cottage, Gilchrist imagines that he is watching both horse and rider in a void or in a slow-motion film without a soundtrack. He cannot hear the hooves hitting ground. When he finally does, the sound is a minisecond behind the sight of them, hitting. The old law about the speed of light outdistancing the speed of sound converts itself in the film of Gilchrist’s imagination into a scene in which the sound is not quite synchronized with the movement he is observing. The entire instant of the experience mesmerizes him until Ruby rears the sweating bay less than ten yards in front of him and asks, “When did you get here? And why didn’t you call me?” “I had a lot of work to do, Ruby, and I’m still not done.” “Everybody has work to do, Gil. But there are telephones. Have you been introduced to telephones? You just pick up the receiver and dial. It’s really very simple. People do it all the time.” “From the tone of that statement, I have the feeling that you’ve been rehearsing that line all the way up here.” “Don’t play the bastard. When I’m hurt or disappointed, I get bitchy. And when I found out that you were here and didn’t even call me, I was hurt and disappointed.” Gilchrist hears the screen door of his cottage being opened and closed behind him. Turning, he sees Raya on the porch. She glances at him and then at Ruby, realizes that she has interrupted something, and quickly reenters the cottage. When Gilchrist again faces Ruby, he feels the fusillade of her stare. 58 | The Time Remaining “Is that one part of the work you are doing?” “She’s my secretary.” “Does she have the skills for that, or does it matter?” “She qualifies, if that’s what you mean.” “I’m sure,” says Ruby and smirks. She canters the bay in a small circle around Gilchrist as if she is coiling him to the spot. Gilchrist picks up the acrid order of horse as the bay brushes against him. “Is your secretary . . . ,” Ruby begins. Her tone has changed so that she no longer sounds combative. “Is she staying long, Gil?” “It depends. We still have a few more things to finish.” “This is the first time in all the years we’ve known one another that you’ve come to Saranac and haven’t called me.” The combative tone is back. “Do you realize that?” “I was busy, Ruby. There was nothing personal in my not calling you.” Even as he finishes the sentence, Gilchrist feels the uneasiness of untruth in his words. He wonders in passing what it is that is beginning to change him without his willing or rather despite his willing it one way or another. “We’ve missed a whole week, Gil. That’s one whole week we’ll never have again.” Ruby smiles and sweeps her blonde hair out of her eyes as she rises in the stirrups and then eases herself slowly back on the saddle. “Right now I’d like to be settling down on something better than this saddle, something a lot more interesting and better for both of us.” She smiles again. “Think about that, Gil, while you bury yourself in your, how shall I say it, work.” She reins the bay’s head abruptly to the right and, with a quick flex of her legs against the flanks of the horse, gallops off down the path in a clatter of hooves on the small stones. Gilchrist watches until both horse and rider vanish behind a clump of spruce and birch. Ruby’s last words remain with him for just a few seconds. Four months earlier he would have found them provocative, even enticing . Now they seem somewhat off-color and brash, and, to his surprise, he finds them embarrassing. ...