Brian Freemantle: Betrayals

“That was before I found someone to talk to, of course.”

“Me, too,” she said again. Janet assured herself that this wasn’t flirtation or anything like the sort of conversational foreplay going on everywhere else: it was simply nice-relaxing like she had already decided-just to talk and come back to some sort of social normalcy she had for so long denied herself.

With noise battling noise all around there was a moment of silence between them. He said: “So as we’re talking I could stay.”

“I don’t want to keep you,” she said, immediately retreating into the pit where she felt at home.

“OK,” he said at once, going backwards himself.

“I’ll probably leave as well,” she said.

“Why don’t we leave together?” He shrugged a no-big-deal shrug.

“Why not?” she said, answering the shrug as well as the question.

“My name’s John,” he said. “John Sheridan.”

“Janet,” she responded. “Janet Stone.”

Dumbarton was jammed, as it nearly always was, cars tight against each other: some were even pulled in off the road, between the trees and parked halfway into driveways, completely blocking the pavement. The thunderclaps of party noise came out above them through the open balcony windows.

Sheridan said: “Being a neighbor of Harriet Andrew could seriously damage your peace of mind.”

“She’s a very good person,” said Janet, defensively.

“I’m sure,” he said. “You friends from England?”

“You’re very observant.”

“The accent is pretty obvious,” said Sheridan.

“Yes,” said Janet, answering the question. “We read at Oxford together.” She hesitated, feeling as uncomfortable as she had back at the house. “I came by cab: there’s a rank on Wisconsin.”

“My car’s that way,” he said, falling into step beside her.

They had to maneuver around several obstructing vehicles. Always he politely stood back, deferring for her to go first, and never once reached for her hand or her arm on the pretense of helping her, not even when they had to go over a cross street. Wisconsin Avenue was brightly lit compared to the side roads and very busy, cars and people ebbing and flowing in both directions and with shops and bars and cafes open on either side. Sheridan turned towards M Street and announced: “No cabs.”

Jane looked towards the deserted rank and said: “They’re along here all the time.”

She started down towards the intersection and again he went with her. At the junction they looked both ways along M Street: there wasn’t anywhere a taxi showing a for hire light.

“Not really your night,” he said.

“It won’t take long, really.”

“Would you like a drink?”

Janet had been expecting such an approach from the moment he began walking with her and had the polite refusal already rehearsed, work she had to do at home, which wasn’t actually a lie because Monday’s lecture-the slide of the Lebanon into utter anarchy-was still only half written. She saw from the clock in the bank window behind him that it wasn’t yet eight. She said: “Thank you,” not knowing why she’d accepted.

“I don’t know Georgetown particularly well,” he said.

“There’s Nathan’s,” she said, nodding across the road.

He stood away from her while they waited for the lights and made no move to cup her arm when they went over. As he held back for her to enter the bar Janet saw three cabs in convoy coming from the city, their flags lit. Nathan’s was crowded, but as they entered two people got up from a table near the door, so they were seated immediately. She asked for scotch and he said he’d have the same. When he came back with the drinks he said: “Cheers.” Janet said “Cheers” back, unsure what would happen next.

“Where’s your husband?” he asked, abruptly.

“How…?” she began and then stopped, following his look towards her hand. Janet steeled herself to utter the word. Gazing directly across the table she blurted: “Dead.” She paused and then said: “He’s dead.” She’d confronted it before, of course: to herself at first, staring into mirrors in their empty apartment, needing to convince herself it was true and not a bad dream, saying: “Dead, dead, dead… Hank’s dead,” but this was the first time to a complete stranger. Something else that did not hurt as much as she’d expected.

Janet waited for an insincere “I’m sorry,” but instead he said: “How long?”

This was going beyond anything for which Janet had prepared herself. Clip-voiced, gazing down into her untouched drink, she said: “Ten months… ten months and two weeks…” There was another pause. “… And four days. It was a Friday.”

“How did he die?”

Janet swallowed, deeply, and said: “I don’t think I want to talk about it.”

“Why not?”

She shrugged, lost. She said: “I just don’t.”

“You should,” he said.

Suddenly angry, Janet said: “Don’t give me any of that ‘you’ll feel better if you talk about it’ amateur psychology…” She leveled her hand beneath her chin. “I’ve had that sort of crap up to here!”

“I wasn’t going to give you any sort of amateur psychology crap.”

Deflated, Janet demanded: “What then?”

Now he shrugged. “It just seems odd that if you loved a guy that much you want to lock everything away. You might as well take the rings off and pretend it never happened.”

“It’s not like that at all!” she said, still angry.

“If you say so.”

“What sort of remark is that!”

“A backing-off sort of remark,” he said. “I was out of order and now I’m embarrassed. Would you like another drink?”

“No!” she said. Then, quickly, “No, thank you.”

“You want me to say I’m sorry?”

“That’s up to you.”

“I’m sorry.”

It sounded as if he meant it. She said: “What about you? Wife, I mean?”

“There isn’t one.”

“Why not?” Janet said, trying to hit back with the unsettling sort of directness that he had shown earlier.

The shoulders rose and fell once more. “Never the right person in the right place at the right time.”

“For the moment I can’t remember the movie that line came from,” said Janet.

Sheridan lowered and raised his head in acknowledgment. He said: “It just never happened, I guess. You sure about that drink?”

On the street outside the For Hire lights bobbed and dipped like leaves in a stream. Janet said: “Just one more.”

Janet watched as Sheridan made his way to the bar, properly studying him for the first time, deciding he was a difficult person about whom to form an instant impression. He was inconspicuous in stature and in demeanour and in the way he dressed-abruptly she realized he was wearing a collar and a tie and a muted suit while everyone else at the party had been laid-back casual-but he appeared in no way nervous or uncertain. Rather, the reverse. People parted at the bar and he was served almost at once, despite louder shouted demands, and people parted again for him when he turned away. Janet stayed intent upon him as he returned, concentrating upon detail now. He was a lean man, the skin almost taut over high cheekbones and a sharp, aquiline nose and there was some hint of discoloration to his face, as if he had spent a lot of time in the sun. She could not discern any beardline and wondered if he’d shaved a second time before going to the party. There was a slight sag of puffiness beneath his eyes, which had no positive color but seemed to her like a tweed, a mixture of browns and greens, and his brown hair was just lightening into gray at the sides and oddly at just one temple, the left. On the small finger of his left hand-the hand with which he proffered her drink-he wore a ruby-stoned ring and because his arm was extended she could see a thick, heavily calibrated Rolex watch. He repeated: “Cheers,” and she raised her glass back to him in response.