AT EIGHT FORTY-FIVE the following morning, which was Wednesday morning and the beginning of the second day of interviewing in The Briars, Paul Radford sat at the table in the conference room of the Association building and sorted questionnaires. Through the open window, he could see the top of the post office, and above it, the sky leaden and overcast. There was the slightest breeze in the air, nipping and teasing the limp flag across the way.
When the door opened, Paul looked up hopefully, expecting Dr. Chapman. It was Cass.
"Hi-di-ho," Cass called out cheerfully, going directly to his papers. "Earthquake weather, according to the gasoline station attendant."
"Ignore false prophets," said Paul. He peered through the window. "It's not humid enough."
"How do you know?"
"I was around here for a year during the war. We had two quakes. It was always humid."
Cass began separating his papers. "Were the quakes bad?”
“The effect of two stiff vodkas. In the first one, a lot of crockery was displaced. In the second, we got a shimmy, but some village just over the border in Mexico fell down.”
“Always Mexico," said Cass. "Where's the third musketeer?”
“Horace? In bed. He's sick. But he'll survive."
Cass was surprised. "I thought germs were afraid of him.”
“Maybe they are. This was demon rum."
"I don't believe it."
"I know, but that's it. I hit the sack at one, and the next thing I knew, someone was bumping over the furniture. He smelled like a distillery. I got him to bed, but he threw up twice during the night. I finally settled him down with a sleeping pill. This morning, his face still looked off-center, like a Picasso, so I let him be."
"What happened to our cub scout?"
"Haven't the faintest idea. Don't mention it to Dr. Chapman."
"Are you kidding?"
Paul stood up and moved to the open window, searching the empty street. "I couldn't find Dr. Chapman this morning. He'll have to spell Horace."
Impatiently, Paul crossed to the door and poked his head into the corridor. He saw Dr. Chapman at Benita's desk going over the ledger with her. With relief, Paul went to join them.
"Doctor—"
Dr. Chapman lifted a hand and waved two fingers in greeting. Paul had seen several Popes, in newsreels and on television, make the same gesture of acknowledgment. "Morning, Paul. Did you work last night?"
Paul nodded. "Half done . . . I'm afraid you'll have to pinch-hit for Horace today. He's under the weather."
Dr. Chapman's concern was immediate. "What's the matter?"
"A virus, I'm sure. Twenty-four-hour variety."
"Did you call in someone?"
"I had the corner pharmacy send pills. I read it's all over the city. He'll be on his feet tomorrow."
Dr. Chapman shook his head. "I hope so. . . . All right. I'd better get ready."
He hurried off to the conference room. Paul lingered behind, then faced Benita. "Honey, call Horace, first chance. Tell him the word for today is virus, and he can take it easy. Say that Dr. Chapman's taking his place."
"Will do." Benita smiled her pale smile. "You forget my room's next to yours."
"Then you know."
"It's so unlike him. What happened?"
"He said he was going to the movies. I guess they spiked the popcorn. . . . Here come the girls. On your toes."
At ten minutes to eleven, Dr. Chapman had been on his second interview of the morning for twenty minutes. His elbow on the card table, his chin propped on a fist, he continued to ask his questions in a dry monotone and record the answers with automatic precision. Usually he enjoyed these sessions, this fruitful adding to the storehouse of knowledge, but this morning, his mind was on Dr. Victor Jonas. Only half his mind received what he must inscribe. The other half wrote and rewrote the remarkable paper that would render his enemy impotent.
He had just finished jotting down a Solresol answer and was preparing to pose another question—he would not deign to ennoble all of Jonas' ridiculous charges by refuting each, he finally decided, but would take the offensive from the start —when the woman's voice on the other side of the screen interrupted him.
"May I ask a question?" inquired Teresa Harnish.
"Why, of course. If there's something you don't understand—"
"No, it's not that. I may be all wrong, but I think I recognize your voice. May I ask—am I being interviewed by Dr. George G. Chapman?"
"Yes indeed."
"I'm deeply honored. I simply had to know. My husband and I read your first two books, and we look forward to this one. We venerate your work. I wanted to be sure it was you. Had I gone to an analyst in Vienna at the turn of the century, I would have wanted to know if he were Sigmund Freud. I hope you understand?"
Dr. Chapman's full mind was turned toward the screen and the remarkably intelligent woman, with the well-bred accent, behind it. "You're very kind," he said.
"This is a memorable moment for me."
"Most generous. Actually, Mrs. —" he sought her name on the appointment card, and found it— "Harnish, Mrs. Harnish, I handle my interviews no differently from my associates."
"Forgive me my prejudice, but I feel I know you, and I simply feel you have more understanding."
"I try my best." He was pleased. Yes, remarkable young lady. He examined the sheet. Thirty-six. Vassar. Kansas City. Christian Science. ("All reality is in God and His creation, harmonious and eternal," Dr. Chapman remembered. "That which He creates is good, and He makes all that is made. Therefore the only reality of sin, sickness or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise. They are not true, because they are not of God." It seemed odd now that he had once read Mrs. Eddy. It was shortly after Lucy's death, he remembered.Well ...) Irregular churchgoer. Married. First husband. Ten years. Art dealer. Part-time assistant to husband. "Shall we proceed?" he asked.
"Please, Dr. Chapman."
"To return to the series of questions on premarital lovemaking. You stated that you had one partner before you married at twenty-six."
"Yes. But two if you wish to count my husband. After we were engaged, the marriage was delayed a year, due to family circumstances. His mother was ill, and it took all of Geoffrey's money and time. But, of course, we were adult about our relationship. Sexual union seemed quite proper. Shortly after Geoffrey's mother passed away, and he had money to open the shop, we had our wedding in Kansas City. It was quite the social event of the season, but the difficult part was, all that trying week, pretending to play the blushing bride. My parents are very rigid and formal about these matters. About Geoffrey and me—before we were married—do you wish the details?"
Dr. Chapman wet his lips. The caution sign went up in his head. Mrs. Harnish was being too easy, too liberated, too knowing. From long experience, Dr. Chapman knew that female frankness must be automatically met with wariness and a degree of distrust. Frankness was unnatural under the circumstances, he always found. It was the quick disguise that disarmed and deceived laymen.
"You mentioned two partners," he said. "Let's talk about the first."
"I'd rather draw a veil over that," she said lightly. "You mean literally?"
"Of course not, Dr. Chapman. I'm joking. I was just out of Vassar and considering going into the theater—as a scenic designer, of course. But to my mind, Broadway is so overrated. The theaters are dreary, and those grubby, over-aged actors, and all the mutual admiration and to-do about mediocrity. I simply wasn't going to tramp those alleys. But during that dark age, I met an older man, a poet. He had been published, and he really did know everyone. I was impressed. The whole Greenwich Village thing was new to me, and I decided to marry him and have a salon. So when the time came, I allowed him to make love to me."
"You allowed him?"
Quickly, Teresa rephrased it "I wanted him to. We made love together."
"How often on the average—each week?"
"Once a week, for two months."
"Where did this take place?"
"In his walk-up. I considered it very romantic then.”
“Did you achieve satisfaction?"
There was a brief silence. At last, her voice filtered through the screen. "I don't think so. He always drank before, and—well, it wasn't actually much fun. I finally left him because I learned he never bathed, and he had paid for the publication of his own verse."
Dr. Chapman pressed on. He shortened his questions, to save time, but conversely her answers became longer. To keep within the allotted schedule, he combined questions. Her answers grew even longer. This was not unfamiliar to Dr. Chapman. A great number of women, not ordinarily verbose, became so in the interviews—as defense against their habits, as camouflage for their embarrassment and shyness.
Questions and answers emerged from premarital intimacy into marital coitus. Mrs. Harnish's replies were more thoughtful now, and gradually more concise. Mrs. Harnish still offered herself to cohabitation twice a week. Petting and play were disposed of in a minute or two. The position favored, as in a quarter of all cases, was side by side. Mr. Harnish was valuable to Mrs. Harnish for never more than three minutes, but he gallantly accommodated her afterward. Mrs. Hamish insisted that she found relations with Mr. Harnish pleasurable, although Dr. Chapman perceived that a better word may have been endurable.
"Mrs. Harnish, when you make love with your husband, are you partially clothed or in the nude?"
"Well, not all nude."
"You are either nude or not nude." Dr. Chapman tried to keep the asperity out of his tone.
"I wear a nightgown."
"Do you remove it?"
"No."
"Then you are partially clothed." Dr. Chapman filled in his Solresol symbol, then resumed. "At what time of the day do you usually make love—morning, afternoon, evening, night?"
"At bedtime."
"When is that?"
"Sometime after ten."
"That would be night."
Dr. Chapman made his note and recommenced his questioning. As they went on, he detected that Mrs. Harnish's voice was lower, her accent more uncertain, and her replies considerably curtailed. They reached the world of extramarital coitus, and there Mrs. Harnish had never visited.
"Well now, that brings us to the final question of this series. You have never engaged in an extramarital relationship. Do you feel yourself capable of doing so in the future? Please answer—yes or maybe or no."
"No."
Dr. Chapman stared at the screen. A hunter on the veldt could smell the animal, feel the danger in his bones. It was an instinct born of a thousand safaris.
He tried the question another way. "You can't conceive of committing infidelity, you say. Do you ever think about it at all—merely think about it?"
"I told you no, Doctor."
"Have you ever, while petting or performing the sex act with your husband, wished or dreamed that he was another man? I mean, either a specific man you have known or met or just another man in general?"
"I have no such wishes or dreams, Doctor."
Still the scent, the rustle in the bush, but now he lowered his rifle. The over-vigor of her replies could denote distaste and shock, as well as defensiveness. He weighed the possibilities, scanning her questionnaire as he did so, and finally concluded that this young woman, an intelligent young woman, knew her mind and would keep her matrimonial bargain.
"Very well, Mrs. Harnish. Let's go on."
It was not a day for the beach or for dispelling gloom. Teresa knew this as she raced the convertible over the Pacific Coast Highway toward Constable's Cove. Here, the inky clouds seemed to hang nearer the choppy water, and the raw wind from the ocean stung and hurt. The highway ahead and the uninviting beach to the left littered with rocks and seaweed were desolate. These were the moors on a moonless night, gale swept, and this was the journey from Wuthering Heights to Thrushcross Grange. I know you, Ellis Bell, because this morning, I am you.
The interview was to have been a conversation piece, especially once that she knew Dr. Chapman himself was her interrogator. But this moment she felt less interested in what would make a conversation piece and what would not. Even her wonderful costume party, each woman re-quested to come-as-the-person-you-would-like-to-have-been-when-Dr.-Chapman-interviewed-you, failed to excite her. Since the party was on such short notice, she had decided to invite the guests by telephone. Half the calls had been made. She planned to make the remaining calls at noon, after the interview, but here it was noon, and she was driven to—no, driving to—the beach. Why? To think. About what? I don't know. Meaning? Meaning, I don't know. What did you most often think about, Ellis Bell?
In ten minutes, she was there. She gathered together her effects. After the interview, she had stopped by the house to change into Bermuda shorts, and then change again into the brief tennis shorts she had worn in Balboa last year, and found her beige corduroy coat, blanket, and barely remembered to snatch up a book on the way out
She trod the path down to Constable's Cove, spread the blanket on the hard sand, and sat down. It was cold, and she was glad for the corduroy jacket. She had not inspected the surrounding beach yet, and now she did, and was not surprised when she saw the four of them, two against two, playing some kind of wildly athletic game of tag with a football.
For endless minutes, she held the open book in her lap, not even bothering to discover the title, and continuing frankly to observe their play or, rather, his play. And what came to mind were those irrelevant questions about love play and foreplay. Why would a man of Dr. Chapman's stature waste time on such nonessentials? That is, if they were nonessentials. She supposed that he knew best Inexplicably, it saddened her.
She looked off again. He was bigger than she had remembered. Possibly, it was because he was not now in those in-decent trunks but wearing jersey sweat pants, full length, such as she had once seen the cadets wear when she had attended a track and field meet at the Point. He was bare from the waist up, and enormous.
She waited and waited, and at last the play shifted nearer, and, like the first time, he came plowing through the sand toward her, glancing over his shoulder, with the football spiraling high in the air toward him. At once, she saw that the ball would overshoot him and descend upon her. As ball and man loomed, she screamed a warning, ducked low, covering her eyes. She heard the plop of the ball in the sand, and the skidding leather, and realized that she was still intact. She opened her eyes.
He was standing over her, grinning down at her, wheezing hard. "Sorry, lady."
The lady made her feel shamefully old, and she sat up, her chest out and corduroy jacket open. He was boyish and young, but not that young, and his square face was Slav and unshaved. Six feet four, she decided.
"That Jackie's got lotta speed but no control. We'll watch out next time."
"It's all right." She could not think of a single clever thing to say. Then she added: "I wasn't scared."
He strode off to the football and picked it up with one massive hand. He half turned. "Won't happen again."
"I don't mind," she said quickly. "It's fun watching. Is it football?"
"Touch ball. Keeps you in trim." He looked at her legs indifferently. "Ain't you cold like that?"
"A little. I thought the sun might come out."
"Naw, not today. Well—" he threw a salute—"don't take any wooden nickels."
He was about to leave. Some desperation in her reached to hold him. "Do you—are you a real football player?"
He waited. "Pro ball. Rams. Still a second-stringer, but watch my smoke this year."
"I'd like to. What name should I watch for?"
"Ed Krasowski," he said. "Right end."
She smiled. "I'll remember that." She waited to tell him her name, but he did not inquire.
"Slong, lady." He waded off through the sand, working his shoulders so that the supple muscles of his back rippled, and finally he heaved the ball toward his companions. In a moment, he had joined them. Apparently, he had said something funny, for now they all laughed.
She watched tensely. He was resuming the foreplay—dammit, no—the play; he was resuming the play. She shivered, and pulled her jacket tight, and continued to watch. After a while, the four of them tired of the sport and walked off, and it was then that Teresa got up and went home.
The clock on the wall, its long minute hand jumping for-ward with a loud tick every sixty seconds, read eleven minutes to six, and, at last, Naomi Shields began to recapture her earlier mood. She felt gay and reckless once more. She had come to the interview in the white sweater that showed off her figure so well (although, disappointingly, there was no one to appreciate her, except the thin-lipped wallflower in the hall) and the form-fitting jet black skirt, and fortified by four undiluted straight Scotches, prepared to prove to herself and the others that she was no different from any other woman in The Briars.
The silly cane and walnut screen had been an immediate annoyance. In her manic mood, which was exhibitionistic and seductive, she had wanted to be admired openly and had looked forward to observing her male interviewer's face as she shocked and excited him, and reduced him finally to sexual suppliant. These feelings in Naomi were especially heightened when she heard Paul Radford's voice, which she decided-was sexy and promising.
But his opening questions had made her thoughtful and dampened her disposition. She did not like telling him that she was already thirty-one, and that she had been brought up in strict Catholicism, against which she had revolted, and that she had not even finished high school. And then, worse, all those dreary details, distasteful even, of her pre-adolescent and adolescent years. Why was anyone ever that young? When she read biographies or long novels, or at least when she used to, she had always made it a point to skip the early sections about growing up. Now, thank God, her own early years were behind her, and the man had announced that they would discuss premarital coitus. Why coitus, after all that pompous prattle about frankness and bringing it into the open? Why not plain fucking? That's what it was, anyway. That's what it was, and she could tell them. My God, she was drunk.
She realized that an unlighted cigarette was dangling from her lips. She fumbled for a match, and then became aware of the sexy voice addressing her again. She applied the light to her cigarette, coughed, shook the match out and dropped it to the floor. She narrowed her eyes and tried to listen.
"...that period from puberty to marriage. Did you ever engage in premarital coitus?"
"I certainly did."
"How many partners did you have—one? two to ten? eleven to twenty-five? or more?"
"More."
"Can you estimate how many?"
"It's hard to remember."
"Maybe I can help. After puberty, at what age did you first engage in love-making?"
"Thirteen—no, fourteen—I was just fourteen."
"And the last time, before you were married?"
"The week before the wedding." She remembered. She had wanted satin pumps for the wedding. The shoe clerk with the Hapsburg jaw. He wouldn't take his hand off her leg. Should she explain? "I had to," she said. "My husband wouldn't until it was official."
"You were twenty-five then?"
"Just about."
"That leaves eleven premarital years—"
"About fifty," she said suddenly.
"What?"
"About fifty men. Mostly after I was twenty-one." She smiled, trying to picture his face behind the screen, and blew a smoke ring and felt superior.
There was a momentary silence. Then Paul spoke again. "In these affairs—I must ask this—did you accept favors?”
“What does that mean?" she asked.
"Well, cash gifts—"
"Hey now! Wait a minute, mister. If you're inferring that I was a prostitute—"
"I'm inferring nothing. I'm merely inquiring for the record."
"Well, you put this in your little black book. And get it right. Nobody ever touched me unless I wanted it, and I did it for love—do you understand?—because I wanted to, and no other reason."
"Of course. Please don't misunderstand—"
"See that you don't misunderstand."
"Shall we go on?"
She felt angry and dizzy, and glared at the screen. The nerve of the man.
"Where did these affairs usually take place?" Paul asked.
"Everywhere. Who remembers?"
"But most often?"
"Wherever I lived. I've been on my own since I was a kid.”
“Did you achieve satisfaction on any of these occasions?”
“What's your guess?"
His guess was negative, but her answer was an insistent affirmative. Her capabilities, Naomi argued indignantly, were the match of any man alive.
There were several more questions, and then Paul stated that they would next cover the marital relationship. With trembling hand, Naomi lighted a fresh cigarette off the stub of the old, and waited.
"You were married only once?"
"Thank God."
"For how long?"
"Six years."
"Are you divorced?"
"Almost three years ago."
"Have you had any relations with your former husband since?"
"I haven't even seen him."
Paul began to probe her life with her husband. Her replies to his inquiries were alternatingly flippant and hostile.
Once, having made some slighting remark about her husband, she seemed to regret it and was anxious to amend her pronouncement. "Don't get me wrong," she said, remembering the better times and hating to be harsh and spoil her best memories. "He was sweet. He wasn't so bad as I've made out. We had our moments."
Naomi's humor returned gradually in the next ten minutes, as Paul continued to examine her married life. By the time he reached the subject of extramarital relationships, she was in the best of spirits. The dizziness had departed, and she was beginning to feel at ease, except for the lack of a drink.
"You were married six years," said Paul "Did you ever engage in extramarital petting—petting only?"
"Most women do. I'm no different."
"Can you recount—"
She did so, lustily.
When she was finished, Paul inquired about her actual affairs. "Did you have any with male partners other than your husband?"
This had been the beginning of the trouble. "Look," she said suddenly, "maybe I can save us both time. I'll tell you straight out, and we can get it over with. He was a great guy. I mean it. But he couldn't satisfy me. I just wasn't happy. Maybe I never will be. I meant to be faithful, and I tried—I really tried. But you're not a woman. You don't know what it's like to need love and not have it, at least not have what you need. So I cheated. Not at all the first year. But I got nervous as a cat, and I was afraid I'd come apart. So I knew I had to do what I did. But I was careful I didn't want to spoil what we had. I really wanted him but I wanted everyone else, too. Do you understand?"
"I think so."
"I was discreet. I'd go downtown and find someone in the movie or in a bar or go shopping in the next city. I know you like statistics. I'll try to give you a few. For five years, after the first year, there was a man every—no, let me put it right —the first few years, I wouldn't do it more than once a month."
"With the same partner or different partners?"
"Different ones, of course—always—they never even knew my name. I couldn't risk getting involved. But it kept getting worse. Pretty soon I had nothing else on my mind. I thought I'd go insane. It became two, and then three a month. Finally, every week. Once someone—a friend's wife—saw me in another city with a man and that scared me witless, and then I was away so much—well, my husband became suspicious. No, that's not right. He trusted me. He became curious. So, for a while, I determined to stop going out. But I couldn't stay home. Just sit waiting for him. I was out of my mind. So when I got really desperate, I'd try strangers in the neighborhood. It wasn't easy. And it made me jumpy. Anyway, there was a school kid—not a kid exactly—he was twenty, and whenever I ran into him, I could see he was wild about me. Always staring at my bust. Well, I liked him a little, and he looked virile, and I began thinking that if I could get to trust him and have him when I needed him, maybe that would be enough and safer all around. One night, I knew my husband would be working—he had some hush-hush spare-time job—so I went out and found the boy and invited him over for the evening. Well, my husband went out about seven, and this boy showed up right after—he'd been watching from the street and I remember, it was one of my bad nights. I simply couldn't wait. The minute he came in, I told him that I wasn't interested in conversation or tea or necking. I wish you could have seen his face, poor baby. He was afraid to use the house, so I took him out on the back lawn, and we just lay on the grass. It was wet and mad and wonderful. He was a good boy. I came when he did, and we just stayed there like two beat animals, and then, suddenly, someone turned on the backyard lights, and it was my husband. The kid ran off, and there I was. I wanted my husband to beat me, to kill me. I was so ashamed. But he just stood there crying. That was the worst part. I tried to get him to kill me. I told him about some of the others, not all, just some. And all he did was cry. Then he walked out, and I never saw him again. So I came to California and got the divorce—my old man was living here, but his wife's a bitch, and I couldn't stay with them. I had some money from my mother, so I bought a house in The Briars. I figured here I'd meet a decent guy. I sure did, and how. I met plenty. All married. You want to know my record for the last three years? Twice a week, maybe. I'm able to keep it down to that by drinking. You'd be surprised how it helps. I mean, if you drink enough. Anyway—" she halted, breathless a moment, and squinted at the screen, wondering what he was thinking—"I don't care what you think," she said. "You want the truth. I'm not ashamed. We're all built differently. I bet you think I'm an old bag. Well, I'm not. Get rid of that lousy screen, and you'll see. Men think it shows on women, but it doesn't. Anyway, it's healthy if it's natural, and it's natural for me. Of course—" she halted again and decided that she wanted his good opinion—"I guess you'll want to know for your survey that I've reformed. I haven't done it once in three weeks. That's the truth, too. And it wasn't so hard to do, either. Like smoking. I once stopped for a month. You get withdrawal pains, sure, but if you make up your mind, you can do anything. You believe that, don't you?"
"Yes, I do." Paul's voice was low.
"I'm going to get a job. I've made up my mind. I have an appointment right after I leave here. That'll keep me busy until I get married. If I just find the right man—I mean somebody who matches me—I'll be all right; you'll see."
"I sincerely hope so."
She fell back against the chair and closed her eyes, and finally she opened them. She felt better all around. "Well, you've got to admit, I've fattened up the batting average for The Briars. . . . Any more questions?"
There was still the last of Tuesday's daylight left, and Naomi's frame of mind since departing the Association building was one of unnatural excitement. The experience had been curiously stimulating and it had, in a way she did not understand, sanctioned her past conduct. Celibacy and continence seemed the lesser virtues.
Once she arrived at the boulevard stop light and turned west, Naomi knew that she would not keep the eight-o'clock appointment with Kathleen Ballard. Filled with high resolve at noon, she had telephoned Kathleen, and after exchanging gossip about mutual friends and recounting a Dr. Chapman joke that was current, she had asked to see Kathleen. Naomi had frankly told Kathleen that she wanted a favor of her—.-that is, if Kathleen was still on good terms with J. Ronald Metzgar of Radcone. Kathleen had said that she was, and hoped that she could be of help. They agreed to meet at Kathleen's house immediately after dinner.
Naomi made one brief stop. She parked in the lot beside Dr. Schultz's Twenty-Four-Hour Pet Hospital and asked the night attendant to release Colonel, her five-year-old cocker spaniel. Naomi had acquired Colonel as a pup, because he was the only cocker she had ever seen who did not have sad eyes. Several months before, she had put him up at the pet hospital because feeding him, cleaning him, walking him, had become too much of a chore. But today she wanted him back. While the attendant went to fetch Colonel, Naomi scribbled a check. When Colonel was brought forward, tail wagging uncontrollably at the sight of her, she felt ashamed at having neglected him so long.
With Colonel on the seat beside her, lapping gratefully at her free hand, Naomi drove hastily home. She left the car in the garage, led Colonel into the house, and gave him some milk. While he was occupied, she hastened to the bathroom, freshened her make-up, returned to the kitchen, poured a double Scotch, and, not bothering with ice, she drank it down grimacing, and then felt warm and eager again.
She found the red leash, hooked it to Colonel's collar, and started for the front door with him.
"I'm going to take you for a walk, poopsie," she said.
Outside, it was dark at last, and the street lights were on. Wrapping the leash around her hand, she held Colonel in restraint as she crossed the lawn to the street. There were no sidewalks in The Briars, despite the annual petitions from parents with children, and Naomi walked close to the curbing, past the hedges of her nearest neighbor, and continued down the block.
Approaching the fifth house from her own, the Agajanian house, she slowed. The plan that had formulated in her mind, during the latter portion of the interview, was that she would stroll past the Agajanian house, and that Wash Dillon would be outside and see her, or that he would see her and come out-side. And if that didn't happen on the way going, she would stop on the way back and ring the doorbell. If Wash answered, she would say that she wanted to see him after dinner. He would understand and find a way. If Mrs. Dillon answered, or more likely one of the Agajanians, she would say that she was a neighbor and that she wished Mr. Dillon to appraise the value of a rare record collection she had taken on approval.
She had arrived before the white colonial. Beyond the row of birch trees, she could see that the lights were on. Someone was at home. She looked about the front lawn. No one was in sight. Lest somebody detect her from the window, she continued her stroll with Colonel. Nearing the driveway, she heard the pat-pat-pat of a leather ball on the cement. In the illumination of the garage lights, a skinny boy was dribbling a basketball and trying to bit the hoop attached to the top of the garage.
This was Wash Dillon's son, she remembered, and his name was Johnny. She wondered what she should do, but then there seemed no choice. She must see Wash tonight. "Johnny," she called.
He turned, startled.
"It's Mrs. Shields."
He came toward her curiously, and then he recognized her. "Oh, hello."
"Is your father home?"
"Naw. He left us last night."
"What do you mean?"
"He took all his things. He had a fight with Ma and hit her. I don't think he's coming back."
"Where is he?"
"I don't know. 'Course, he's still at Jorrocks' Jollities. That's Mr. Agajanian's nightclub."
"I know.... Well, I'm sorry, Johnny."
"Makes no diff. He's never home anyway. Sa-ay, that's a nice dog."
"Yes. Good night, Johnny."
"Good night, Miss."
There was no point in going further. Naomi tugged at the leash and started back.
In the kitchen again, she pulled off her coat, threw it on a dinette chair, and opened the cupboard. There were still three cans of dog food. She opened one, emptied it into a deep dish, lured Colonel into the service porch, and then closed the kitchen door on him. He would eat and sleep. The question was—would she?
The electric clock on the oven said seven twenty-two. She wasn't hungry, except for Wash. She knew that there was still time to have something and drive over to Kathleen's. But she had no desire to see Kathleen or talk about a job. Dammit, she didn't want some dreary old job. She wanted a home with someone in it—someone.
The bottle of Scotch, half filled, was beside the sink, and there was the glass. She had to think things out. She poured three shots, until the amber liquid almost came to the top of the glass, and she drank. She leaned back against the sink and drank steadily. The fluid invaded her limbs and chest and encircled her groin. The feeling was not of warmth but of heat.
She evoked the image of Wash Dillon as she had seen him the day before yesterday, standing at the front door with the post card. It was not his shaggy hair, or death head with the face all pocked, or insolent smile, or great length of body, that she saw, but instead a towering phallus that moved at her through the mesh of door screen.
She wondered, do other women have such obscene visions? They must. Purity was the civilized Lie. Behind it, hid Desire and Lust. In his lecture, Dr. Chapman had said that there was nothing unique any woman could tell him, that most women did everything, thought everything, only never admitted it to anyone except to him, and that nothing you felt was truly unique. Was that what he had said exactly? She could not remember now.
She finished the drink and tipped the bottle toward the glass again. Her hand was unsteady and some of the liquor splashed on the sink. Holding the filled glass, she felt the searing flame across her body. The pain of the fiery torture must be quenched. For a single second, she considered trying to reach the nightclub and seek out Wash. But then the searing flame was gone, and in its wake lay a charred wasteland of agony.
She stared at the blurred glass in her hand and knew that no human being, not Wash, not anyone, could halt the agony or save what had already been devastated. There was only one course left, one measure that would end this malady that had invaded flesh and spirit. She set the glass on the sink and staggered out of the kitchen. In her passage to the bedroom, she tried to snap on the hall light but missed the switch, and finally had to return to get the light on. Blindly, she felt her way in the darkened bedroom.
With a jerky motion, she drew the drapes together. The final privacy, she thought. She moved to the foot of the bed and methodically disrobed. The clothes, she had decided, were part of the pain, and now she wanted nothing on her skin. She kicked off her shoes. She pulled the sweater upward over her head and cast it aside. She fumbled behind, managed to unhook her nylon lace brassiere, slid the straps down her arms, and dropped it. She unzippered her skirt and let it fall, and then removed the garter belt. Groping for the edge of the bed, she found it, and sat, and quickly rolled off her stockings.
Finally, she was naked, and now she knew that it had not been the clothes at all that were part of the pain, but her skin, her excruciating, blazing skin. Rising, she was not sorry she had undressed. After all, after all, she had come into the world this way, and this was fitting.
She found the bathroom, and the light switch, and the medicine chest. Bottles and small boxes spilled before her hand, until she had the white container so desperately needed. Uncapping it, she shook a heap of sleeping tablets into her palm. Her desire for Nirvana, the nothingness where hurt and sorrow and guilt and regret were banished, exceeded any desire she had ever felt for a man. By twos and threes, she threw the pills into her mouth and then remembered that she required water. The glass, the water. She swallowed, swallowed. Wash it down, Wash it, Wash.
Oh, Wash. His was a better hell, a better dying.
Instantly, she wanted life to bargain with, and trade for dying.
Not yet corpsehood.
Her arm floated to the medicine chest door. Inside it, long ago, she had pasted the chart labeled Counterdoses as the practical ally in supporting a woman's prerogative. Overdose sleeping medicines ... two tablespoons Epsom salt in two glasses of water ... emetic soap and warm water ... Epsom.. . soap... Wash, wait, please, please wait...
Once, later, she awakened. The luminous dial of the bedside clock told her it was after midnight. The hot agony had fled, and her skin was cool. She reached toward the pillow, finding the top of the spread and blanket, and tore them free. With one last effort, she climbed beneath the blanket, conscious for a moment of the softness and snugness, and then she was asleep again.
It was after midnight when Paul Radford said good night to Dr. Chapman and made his way to the room he shared with Horace Van Duesen in the Villa Neapolis.
He was surprised to find the big lamp on, and Horace in pajamas, propped up in bed, reading a paperback novel.
"I thought you'd be dead to the world by now," said Paul.
"I slept all day. I'm trying to get myself tired."
Paul pulled off his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. "Boy, I am bushed."
"Where were you?"
"There was a seminar at a place called the Wilshire Ebell, out toward the city. Some of the university people and a couple of analysts on the husband's role in modem marriage. Dr. Chapman had promised to be there a long time ago, and he wanted me along for the drive. The interviews ran late, and we had to eat on the run. What a day."
Paul laid out his pajamas and began to undress.
Horace put down the book. "Paul, I appreciate the way you covered for me today."
"Merely an investment. Expect you to do the same for me, when the time comes, and the way I feel, it will."
"I shouldn't have got so drunk."
"We've been gypsying around too long."
"How was it today?"
"Oh, the usual." He tied the cord of his pajama pants and pulled on the tops. "I can't imagine what would surprise me anymore. Though, I must admit, it's never prosaic. The last one I had today was really a dilly—an out and out nympho."
"You mean actually?"
"No question. I never saw her, but Benita said she was a doll. It was really a session. I was sorry as hell for her. Fifty partners before she was married and once a week after, besides her husband, until he caught her at it."
He clamped the clothes hanger on his trousers and hung them up.
"You mean her husband caught her with another man?" Horace asked.
"In the back yard, of all places, with some boy. The husband walked out on her cold—can't say I blame him, except that she's so obviously ill and needs help. She came to California and kept right on with it, even worse, though she's trying to get herself in hand now, but she won't."
Horace had been listening intently. Suddenly, he asked, "What was her name?"
I don't think I—wait, yes—Shields—Naomi Shields." He wondered at the strange convulsed look on Horace's face. "Do you know the lady?"
'That was no lady," said Horace quietly, "that was my wife."