Philip Dick - In Milton Lumky Territory

“Did I ever call you Skip?”

“No,” he said. Not that he could recall.

“I didn’t live there long,” she said.

He said, “Anyhow, I remembered you.”

“That was natural,” she said, sighing.

“This really upsets me,” he said. “Finding out that maybe you never recognized me, that time.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to—” He tried to explain it to her. “Get into the house.”

She burst out laughing. “I’m sorry. Like you did at Peg’s…you mean through a window?”

“I mean I wanted to be admitted and accepted; I used to walk along and see you all inside having tea or something.” It was hopeless to try to put across his former anguish to her.

“Not tea,” she said. “Do you want to know what that was the four of us used to drink in the afternoon, around five, especially in summer when it was hot? We used to mix ourselves Old Fashioneds, and we drank them out of cups. So if anybody—” She waggled her finger at him. “For just that reason. So if the paperboy looked in he’d say, ‘They’re drinking tea. How British. How refined.’” She continued to laugh.

At that, he could not help smiling himself.

“Criminals,” she said. “We had to be careful. That was 1949, and I was having all that trouble with the Montario school board. You could have come in; in fact you did. I remember. One month I didn’t have any change, and I told you to come in. It was winter. And you came in and sat down in the living room while I went all over the damn house searching for change. Nobody was home but me. I finally found a dollar and a half in somebody’s drawer.”

He remembered sitting there alone in the big empty living room with its piano and fireplace, while somewhere off upstairs Miss Reuben hunted for money. He had heard her cursing with exasperation, and he had felt himself to be nothing more than a nuisance. On the coffee table a book lay open…she had been reading. Interrupted by the paper boy, at seven-thirty in the evening. How can I get rid of him? Damn it, where’s some change? And, as he sat, he longed to summon up some bright conversation to use when she appeared again, some observation about the books in the bookcase. He examined them feverishly, but none of them were familiar. Just titles, seen through the perspiration and fright that kept him mute and stupid and unable to do anything when she returned but accept the money, mumble thanks and good night, and go out the door once again.

“I remember what you wore,” he said, with accusation.

“Do you? How interesting, because I don’t.”

He said, “You had on black trousers.”

“Toreador pants. Yes. Made of black velvet.”

“I had never seen anything so exciting.”

“That wasn’t exciting. I wore them around all the time. I even wore them gardening.”

“I tried to think of some way to say something interesting.”

“Why didn’t you just ask if you could sit around and talk? I would have been glad of company.” And then she said, “How old were you then?”

“Fifteen.”

“Well,” she said, “we could have talked about old times. But I’ll bet what you actually wanted to do was tear those tight black exciting toreador pants from me and assault me. Isn’t that what fifteen-year-old paperboys secretly want to do all the time? That’s just about the age when they read those paperbound books from the drugstore.”

He thought, My god. And now this woman is my wife.

Before going to bed that night, Susan filled the tub and took a bath. He accompanied her into the bathroom and sat on the clothes hamper watching her; she did not mind, and he felt a very strong desire to do so. He did not try to explain it or justify it.

The roar of water kept either of them from talking for some time. She had put bubble bath into the water, and it foamed up in massive pink layers as she waited for the tub to fill. At last there was enough water in the tub. He marveled at the amount of water she needed. And she did not want it as hot as it was; she carefully switched on the cold until a good deal of the suds had been damaged. The whole affair struck him as inefficient, but he said nothing. He sat out of her path, a spectator.

In the tub, she lay back resting her head against the porcelain side. Suds covered her.

“Like a French movie,” he said.

“Now you see, I never would have thought of that,” she said. The suds had begun to depart. She stirred them around and they departed even more quickly. “They don’t last,” she said.

“You should have gotten in while it was filling.”

“Oh really? I always wait. I’m afraid I’ll get burned.”

“Can’t you work the taps with your toes?”

“Oh my god, what a morbid idea. How bizarre. Like a monkey.”

All his adult life, while bathing, he had operated the taps with his toes, getting in as soon as there was enough water to cover him. Just enough so that he did not come in contact with the bare porcelain.

“There’s one difference between men and women,” he said.

“If that’s what you do, keep it to yourself.” Her hair had been tucked up into a plastic cap, and that, too, was different. And she scrubbed her back with a long-handled brush, and her nails with a small nylon brush. Amazing, he thought. So many differences in such a simple event as bathing.

For half an hour she remained in the tub soaking. He had never stayed in more than a few minutes. When the water got cold, he always hopped out. But she simply sat up, turned the hot water back on, and ran enough of it to rewarm the tub.

“You’re not afraid now,” he said. “Of getting burned.”

She looked at him blankly.

After she had bathed she dried herself and then wrapped herself up in a white towel the size of a rug. Stepping into woven slippers, which she had brought back from Mexico City, she walked from the bathroom to the bedroom, where she had left all her clothes neatly arranged on the bed.

“Maybe I won’t dress,” she said. “We’re about ready to go to bed anyhow, aren’t we?” She had him go into the kitchen and see what time it was; the clock in the bedroom had stopped. The time was eleven-thirty, and he reported that to her.

“It’s up to you,” he said. The trip from Reno had not tired him, much; after making the drive so often he had no complaints about air travel.

“I’m emotionally exhausted,” she said, standing in her white robe, still damp from the tub. “But I feel like doing something crazy.” She tugged aside the window shade. “It’s a dark night. I feel like running out in the backyard with nothing on.”

“There’s not much in that,” he said. “Especially after a bath. And you’d get your Asian Flu back.”

“True,” she said. “But I do want something. Is there anything to eat? Let’s eat something. Can you cook?”

“No,” he said.

“I hate to cook. I’m no good at it at all. Fix something to eat,” she said coaxingly, but with overtones of firmness.

Finally he went into the kitchen and inspected the canned and frozen food. “How about some shrimp dipped in beer batter?” They still had a can of beer from those he had brought that first day.

“Swell,” she said, seating herself at the kitchen table in her robe, her hands folded expectantly. “I’ll let you fix it; I’ll enjoy the luxury of having someone to do things for me.”

So he fried the shrimps in the batter and served them to her, and to himself.

“Bruce,” she said, as they ate, “I’m frankly not certain what your legal relationship to the office is. It was mine—I mean, my share of it was mine—before we got married.”

“It’s still yours,” he said, aware of that and having no desire to dispute it.