Bob Shaw - The Two Timers

“But I insist.” He smiled as he led her to the door. “I want you to rest up over the weekend and report for duty good and early on Monday morning. And here’s a ten-dollar bonus for being so conscientious, how’s that?”

Breton gave her one of the bills he had taken from John, then he escorted Mrs. Fitz all the way down the stairs, helped her with her coat and showed her to the door. Her over-red lips worked in silent surprise and she kept glancing back at Kate, but she went — with one final, startled look through the kitchen window as she passed. Breton waved at her.

“That was unforgivable,” Kate said. She had come downstairs behind him.

“I’ll be extra nice to her next time,” he replied, going to her. He put his hands on Kate’s waist and drew her to him. She came unresistingly and he kissed her. The touch of her lips was light, but enough to restore him, to sweep away the spiderwebs of doubt that had begun to cling around his thoughts since the previous day. He closed his eyes, savoring the heady wine of… justification.

“I’m worried about John,” Kate said.

“I don’t see why.” Breton kept his eyes shut. “He was happy to walk out on you. Why should you worry about him?”

“Because it was so unlike him, just to vanish like that. He wasn’t reacting normally.”

Breton opened his eyes reluctantly. “He was tired of his marriage, and he quit. Lots of people would call that a perfectly normal reaction.”

Kate’s eyes leveled with his own. “It was completely unbalanced.”

“How do you figure that?”

“John wouldn’t have run off and left everything up in the air — not normally.”

“Well, he did.”

“That’s why I’m saying it was a completely unbalanced reaction.”

The repetition of the phrase needled Breton with its inference that there was something wrong with his own mind. “Don’t keep saying that, Kate. It doesn’t prove anything.”

She broke away from his arms. “How about money?”

“Money? You mean for John? I imagine he took plenty.”

“How? Not from our personal account — he didn’t ask me to co-sign any checks. And he didn’t have enough time to organize a big withdrawal from the business account.”

“You weren’t always such a financial wizard,” Breton said, aware that he sounded like a petulant brat, but unable to hold the words back.

“I lace my own shoes now, too.” Kate spoke with a kind of practiced savagery which filled Breton with dismay. Nine years, he suddenly realized, is a long time.

“John will be able to get all the money he wants, just by going to any bank. We’ll probably get a letter from him within a few days.”

“A begging letter?”

Breton was not sure when the nightmare had begun, but it had surrounded him just the same. Kate, he pleaded silently, why can you not be what I want you to be?

She moved restlessly from room to room, picking up small objects and throwing them down again noisily. For a time, Breton followed her in the hope that the mood of their single Venetian-tinted afternoon would miraculously be restored to them. But Kate refused to discuss anything other than John’s motives for leaving so abruptly, his possible whereabouts, his future plans. Breton felt helpless. He felt that he ought to be able to confront Kate and draw her to him by the sheer force and intensity of his love, just as he had seemed to do on the night of his arrival — but perhaps his success then had depended on catching a bored, lonely and imaginative woman off guard.

Breton left the house and walked into the gardens. He was astonished to find that the sun was on the horizon — each minute of the day had been insufferably long, but the hours had passed quickly. The air was turning cool, the slow-spreading dyes of night were seeping through the eastern sky, and there already the meteors were beginning to scurry and die like lemmings. As before, the sight of them triggered off vague feelings of alarm. The thought of spending another night alone under a diseased sky was more than Breton could bear.

He walked quickly into the house and slammed the door behind him. Kate was standing in the living room’s bow window, in near-darkness, gazing out at October-colored trees. She did not turn around as he entered the room. He went to her, gripped her shoulders hard and buried his face in her hair.

“Kate,” he said desperately, “we’re talking too much. We need each other and all we do is talk.”

Kate’s body went rigid. “Please leave me alone.”

“But, Kate…” He turned her towards him.

“I want you to leave me alone.”

“But this is us! Remember that first afternoon…”

“This is different.” She broke away from him.

“Why?” he demanded. “Because there’s no chance of John walking in on us? Does that take the flavor out of it?”

Kate hit him across the mouth and, in almost the same instant, he struck back, feeling her teeth cut into his knuckles. The double blow rang out in the silence of the room, but was lost in the thunder inside his head.

“That does it,” Kate snapped. ‘Get out of this house.”

“You don’t understand,” he mumbled, his mind sinking through regions of cryogenic chill. “This is my house, and you are my wife.”

“I see.”

Kate spun and left the room. Breton stood absolutely still, staring at his hand in disbelief, until he heard a familiar sound filtering down through the ceiling — the slamming of drawers. He sprinted up to the bedroom above and found Kate throwing clothes into a suitcase.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m getting out of your house.”

“There’s no need for that.”

“You think not?” Kate’s face was grim.

“Of course not — we’ve both been under a strain. I don’t…”

“I’m leaving.” Kate slammed the case shut. “And don’t try to stop me.

“I won’t.” Breton’s mind was beginning to recover from its paralysis, to analyze his errors. His principal mistake had been to regard Kate as a plum which would drop into his hands as soon as he shook the marital tree. “I don’t know how to apologize for…”

“Hitting me? Don’t bother — after all, I hit you first.”

“Don’t leave me, Kate. It’ll never happen again.”

“I’ll say!” Kate had acquired a defiant jauntiness. She was almost smiling as she turned to face him. “Promise me something?”

“Anything.”

“If John gets in touch, tell him I must talk to him — I’ll be up at Pasco Lake.”

Breton’s mouth went dry. “Where? D’you mean the fishing lodge?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t go there.”

“May I ask why?”

“I… It’s too lonely up there at this time of the year.”

“There are times when I can do without people — and this seems to be one of them.”

“But…” Breton found himself floundering helplessly. “You could stay in town, at a hotel.”

“I like the lake. Please get out of my way.” Kate picked up her case.

“Kate!”

Breton raised both hands in front of her, palms turned outwards to form a barrier, while he searched for something meaningful to say. Kate advanced until his hands were almost against her, then the color drained from her cheeks. He watched in frozen fascination as she made the intuitive leap.

“The lodge,” she breathed. “John’s at the lodge.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“What have you done to him? Why do you want me not to go there?”

“Kate, believe me — you’re being silly.”

She nodded calmly, dropped the case at his feet and darted past him. Breton grabbed for her, got one of her elbows and pulled her down onto the bed. She went down kicking and clawing. As he straddled her body, his brain finally produced the one lie which could yet save the situation.