Джон Макдональд - More Good Old Stuff

Matt tried to warn Patience with his eyes, but she kept on. “Oh, I thought you’d heard.” Matt saw Susan’s hand tighten on her coffee spoon. “They found her body early this evening. She drowned herself.”

Susan slumped against Matt. Roy merely said, “Now that was a stupid thing to do, wasn’t it?”

Matt carried Susan over to the leather couch by the fireplace. She was unconscious. Evan rubbed her wrists while Patience swabbed her forehead with a wet napkin.

Roy said in a low tone to Matt, “She seems a bit upset. I think I’ll run her home. I was going to get her back early anyway. Excitement, you know.”

He bent over Susan as her eyes opened. She looked up at him without recognition, and then her eyes narrowed.

“Get away from me!” she said in a low tone. Low and deadly.

It made no dent on Roy Bedford. He said, “You’re a little upset, darling. Come on. I’ll take you home.” The calm assumption of authority overcame Susan’s momentary revolt.

Roy got her coat and helped her into it. “There’s no reason to break up this little party,” he said. “All Susan needs is rest. I’ve ordered some decent brandy for after dinner. You folks stay around and we’ll be with you in spirit.”

He and Susan went down the stairs together. Evan sat down heavily, suddenly quite drunk, and said, “Come on, folks. Cheer up! This is a party. Remember? A big celebration.”

“That’s right, Evan,” Patience said.

They finished the coffee and the waiter came in with the brandy.

Patience pounded lightly on the table with her fist and said, “What has he done to her? What on earth has he done to her?”

“Acts dead,” Evan said.

“Exactly,” Matt added. “Just as though he had cut the heart right out of her. Did you see how meekly she went along?”

“She’s frightened of him,” Pat said, as though discovering a great truth.

After that they sat and talked of Roy Bedford, of Susan’s future, until the fire burned low and Evan put his head down on the table and began to snore softly.

Matt moved over beside Patience, put gentle fingers under her chin, tilted her face up and kissed her. It worked the same magic as before.

“You look different,” he said softly.

“I’ve felt different. All day. I’ve felt as though all the problems I’ve had have belonged to someone else.”

“In my own way,” Matt said, “I’m being as unfair to you as Roy is to Susan.”

“How do you mean that?”

“I came back here to get rid of a ghost with golden hair. Alicia. She’s been in my dreams for nine years. She won’t stay dead. She tries to tell me something. At last she drove me back here. I’ve got to be honest with you, Patience. You’re something very rare and very sweet. Maybe I’m in love with you. I don’t know. But Alicia has been very close to me for nine years. The only time she is really away from me is when I kiss you.”

She looked at Matt for long moments, her eyes brimming. “That’s good enough for me, Matt,” she whispered.

“Has it happened to you this quickly, too?” he asked.

“Stupid! It happened to me back in those days when I wore the filthy white shoes and the ankle socks and my legs were too thin. It happened when I took your picture away from Susan a million years ago. I knew you’d come back. I knew it!”

Suddenly they both looked at Evan and began to smile. He looked so peaceful, the lines of strain ironed out.

Matt said, “I hate to wake him up.”

“Why do it, then? They don’t close until four. It’s just a little after midnight now. We can get him over to the couch and he can get some rest. He’s got his car and after some sleep he’ll be in shape to drive. We can tell the manager.”

Evan, half awake, blundered across the room and fell on the leather couch with a sigh of relief. Matt clicked the lights out and, holding Pat’s hand tightly, walked down the stairs with her.

The manager nodded with quick understanding and said, “Certainly, sir. We’ll wake him up when we’re ready to close. He’ll be all right then, I’m sure.”

They walked out into the parking lot and he saw the mist form in shining droplets on her dark hair. The sound of the sea was a whisper in their ears. He reached for her as they stood by the small green car. She came into his arms with a small purring sound.

After a moment she said, “Don’t we know enough to get in out of the rain?”

“You drive,” he said.

She looked up into his face, her head tilted on one side. “Scared?”

“Maybe.”

“Then you drive.”

“But, Pat, it was a night just like this. The same place, the same road. Now that I’ve found you, I can’t take a chance on it happening again. Ever.”

“You drive,” she said.

“But I can’t remember what happened that night. I can’t remember what I did! For all I know, I’ve got some compulsion neurosis that made me drive it right off the road.”

“You drive,” she said.

At last he got in under the wheel. On the way down the hill it had been bad enough. This was immeasurably worse. This was nightmare. Already he had gone beyond the bounds of memory. On that night nine years before he must have walked out of the Ocean Club and driven out of the parking lot onto the wet highway that reached, dark and shining, toward the hills.

Patience sat with her hands folded in her lap. He glanced at her quickly and saw that her face was calm. Her calmness lent him strength.

A dream, he thought. I am living a dream. I sit here, tense in the midst of nightmare. Nothing will happen. I will drive up the hill and down into the city and it will all be over.

Somewhere in the back of his mind a thin silver voice was calling him: “Matthew Otis! Matthew, darling!” The thin voice echoed as in a vast, empty room where she stood frightened in darkness.

The road began to lift toward the sharp turns. His hands were tight on the wheel and his mouth was a thin, hard line. His shoulders ached from the tightness of his grasp.

“Matthew, darling,” the voice called. Thin and far away. A voice that reached over nine years.

He hit the first turn a shade too fast, braking as the car rocked. Patience said nothing. The night was dark. The mist was thick in the blue-white headlight beams. The muted lights of the dashboard were an orange glow.

On the second turn he had to shift into second. The gears made a ragged noise as, rounding the curve, he dropped back into high.

Far up the straight stretch a car was coming toward them, its twin lights shining. Some fragment of memory stirred in the back of his mind.

Another night when the rain was thick in the headlight beams. Another car coming down the straight stretch.

Suddenly it was Alicia beside him. Not Patience. The lights coming toward them were bright. The lights and the rain blinded him.

He blinked his own lights rapidly. The lights bore down on them. It was then that he remembered.

The girl beside him — and it was Alicia — screamed as the wheels on the right dropped off the road onto the wet shoulder.

Off to the right was death. It was a death he had lived through once, but he could not live through it again. On that night nine years ago the onrushing lights had forced him over the edge. Cursing, he spun the wheel violently left. A crash was preferable to death down among the wet rocks.

Alicia-Patience screamed again as the lights leaped at them.

There was a ridiculously light impact and the other car was gone. His car swerved madly. He fought the wheel. His left headlight was gone. The car headed back toward the edge and he yanked it back onto the road. At last it nudged into the mud on the far side of the road and the motor stalled.