Джеффри Арчер - A Quiver Full of Arrows

Michael took her hand again, hoping fervently he did not fall into that category.

“It’s been such a lovely evening. Why don’t we stroll down to the Carlyle and listen to Bobby Short?” Michael’s ABC friend had recommended the move if he felt he was still in with a chance.

“Yes, I’d enjoy that,” said Debbie.

Michael called for the bill — eighty-seven dollars. Had it been his wife sitting on the other side of the table he would have checked each item carefully, but not on this occasion. He just left five twenty-dollar bills on a side plate and didn’t wait for the change. As they stepped out onto Second Avenue, he took Debbie’s hand and together they started walking downtown. On Madison Avenue they stopped in front of shop windows and he bought her a fur coat, a Cartier watch and a Balenciaga dress. Debbie thought it was lucky that all the stores were closed.

They arrived at the Carlyle just in time for the eleven o’clock show. A waiter, flashing a pen light, guided them through the little dark room on the ground floor to a table in the corner. Michael ordered a bottle of champagne as Bobby Short struck up a chord and drawled out the words: “Georgia, Georgia, oh, my sweet...” Michael, now unable to speak to Debbie above the noise of the band, satisfied himself with holding her hand and when the entertainer sang, “This time we almost made the pieces fit, didn’t we, gal?” he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. She turned and smiled — was it faintly conspiratorial, or was this just wishful thinking? — and then she sipped her champagne. On the dot of twelve, Bobby Short shut the piano lid and said, “Goodnight, my friends, the time has come for all you good people to go to bed — and some of you naughty ones too.” Michael laughed a little too loud but was pleased that Debbie laughed as well.

They strolled down Madison Avenue to 68th Street chatting about inconsequential affairs, while Michael’s thoughts were of only one affair. When they arrived at her 68th Street apartment, she took out her latch key.

“Would you like a nightcap?” she asked without any suggestive intonation.

“No more drink, thank you, Debbie, but I would certainly appreciate a coffee.”

She led him into the living room.

“The flowers have lasted well,” she teased, and left him to make the coffee. Michael amused himself by flicking through an old copy of Time magazine, looking at the pictures, not taking in the words. She returned after a few minutes with a coffee pot and two small cups on a lacquered tray. She poured the coffee, black again, and then sat down next to Michael on the couch, drawing one leg underneath her while turning slightly toward him. Michael downed his coffee in two gulps, scalding his mouth slightly. Then, putting down his cup, he leaned over and kissed her on the mouth. She was still clutching her coffee cup. Her eyes opened briefly as she maneuvered the cup onto a side table. After another long kiss she broke away from him.

“I ought to make an early start in the morning.”

“So should I,” said Michael, “but I am more worried about not seeing you again for a long time.”

“What a nice thing to say,” Debbie replied.

“No, I just care,” he said, before kissing her again.

This time she responded; he slipped one hand onto her breast while the other one began to undo the row of little buttons down the back of her dress. She broke away again.

“Don’t let’s do anything we’ll regret.”

“I know we won’t regret it,” said Michael.

He then kissed her on the neck and shoulders, slipping her dress off as he moved deftly down her body to her breast, delighted to find she wasn’t wearing a bra.

“Shall we go upstairs, Debbie? I’m too old to make love on the sofa.”

Without speaking, she rose and led him by the hand to her bedroom, which smelled faintly and deliciously of the scent she herself was wearing.

She switched on a small bedside light and took off the rest of her clothes, letting them fall where she stood. Michael never once took his eyes off her body as he undressed clumsily on the other side of the bed. He slipped under the sheets and quickly joined her. When they had finished making love, an experience he hadn’t enjoyed as much for a long time, he lay there pondering the fact that she had succumbed at all, especially on their first date.

They lay silently in each other’s arms before making love for a second time, which was every bit as delightful as the first. Michael then fell into a deep sleep.

He woke first the next morning and stared across at the beautiful woman who lay by his side. The digital clock on the bedside table showed 7:03. He touched her forehead lightly with his lips and began to stroke her hair. She woke lazily and smiled up at him. Then they made morning love, slowly, gently, but every bit as pleasing as the night before. He didn’t speak as she slipped out of bed and ran a bath for him before going to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. Michael relaxed in the hot bath, crooning a Bobby Short number at the top of his voice. How he wished that Adrian could see him now. He dried himself and dressed before joining Debbie in the smart little kitchen where they shared breakfast together. Eggs, bacon, toast, English marmalade and steaming black coffee. Debbie then had a bath and dressed while Michael read the New York Times . When she reappeared in the living room wearing a smart coral dress, he was sorry to be leaving so soon.

“We must leave now, or you’ll miss your flight.”

Michael rose reluctantly and Debbie drove him back to his hotel, where he quickly threw his clothes into a suitcase, settled the bill for his unslept-in double bed and joined her back in the car. On the journey to the airport they chatted about the coming elections and pumpkin pie almost as if they had been married for years or were both avoiding admitting the previous night had ever happened.

Debbie dropped Michael in front of the Pan Am building and put the car in the parking lot before joining him at the check-in counter. They waited for his flight to be called.

“Pan American announces the departure of their Flight Number 006 to London Heathrow. Will all passengers please proceed with their boarding passes to Gate Number Nine.”

When they reached the “passengers-only” barrier, Michael took Debbie briefly in his arms. “Thank you for a memorable evening,” he said.

“No, it is I who must thank you, Michael,” she replied as she kissed him on the cheek.

“I must confess I hadn’t thought it would end up quite like that,” he said.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Not easy to explain,” he replied, searching for words that would flatter and not embarrass. “Let’s say I was surprised that...”

“You were surprised that we ended up in bed together on our first night? You shouldn’t be.”

“I shouldn’t?”

“No, there’s a simple enough explanation. My friends all told me when I got divorced to find myself a man and have a one-night stand. The idea sounded fun but I didn’t like the thought of the men in New York thinking I was easy.” She touched him gently on the side of his face. “So when I met you and Adrian, both safely living over three thousand miles away, I thought to myself, 'Whichever one of you comes back first'...”

“Life is a game,” said A. T. Pierson, thus immortalizing himself without actually having to do any real work: Though E. M. Forster showed more insight when he wrote “Fate is the Umpire, and Hope is the Ball, which is why I will never score a century at Lord’s.”

When I was a freshman at the university, my roommate invited me to have dinner in a sporting club to which he belonged, called Vincent’s. Such institutions do not differ greatly around the Western world. They are always brimful of outrageously fit, healthy young animals, whose sole purpose in life seems to be to challenge the opposition of some neighboring institution to ridiculous feats of physical strength. My host’s main rivals, he told me with undergraduate fervor, came from a high-thinking, plain-living establishment that had dozed the unworldly centuries away in the flat, dull, fen country of England, cartographically described on the map as Cambridge. Now the ultimate ambition of men such as my host was simple enough: In whichever sport they aspired to beat the “Tabs” the select few were rewarded with a Blue. As there is no other way of gaining this distinction at either Oxford or Cambridge, every place in the side is contested for with considerable zeal. A man may be selected and indeed play in every other match of the season for the University, even go on to represent his country, but if he does not play in the Oxford and Cambridge match, he cannot describe himself as a Blue.