“It’s good when you’re home, Ben,” she said.
“Uh huh,” I murmured. I took a cigarette from the box on the night table, lighted it, and blew out a stream of smoke.
“Yes, yes, it’s really good.” She drew on her cigarette, and I watched the heave of her breasts, somehow no longer terribly interested.
“I hate your job,” she said suddenly.
“Do you?”
“Yes,” she said, pouting. “It’s like a... a wall between us. When you’re gone, I sit here and just curse your job and pray that you’ll be home again soon. I hate it, Ben. I really do.”
“Well,” I said drily, “we have to eat, you know.”
“Couldn’t you get another job?” she asked. It was only about the hundredth time she’d asked that same question.
“I suppose,” I said wearily.
“Then why don’t you?” She sat up suddenly. “Why don’t you, Ben?”
“I like travelling,” I said. I was so tired of this, so damned tired of the same thing every time I was here. All I could think of now was what I had to do. I wanted to do it and get it over with.
She grinned coyly. “Do you miss me when you’re on the road?”
“Sure,” I said.
She cupped her hands behind my neck and trailed her lips across my jaw line. I felt nothing.
“Very much?”
She kissed my ear, shivered a little, and came closer to me.
“Yes, I miss you very much,” I said.
She drew away from me suddenly. “Do you like the house, Ben? I did just what you said. I moved out of the apartment as soon as I got your letter. You should have told me sooner, Ben. I had no idea you didn’t like the city.”
“The neighbors were too snoopy,” I said. “This is better. Out in the country like this.”
“But it’s so lonely. I’ve been here a week already, and I don’t know a soul yet.” She giggled. “There’s hardly a soul to know.”
“Good,” I said.
“Good?” Her face grew puzzled. “What do you mean, Ben?”
“Adele,” I told her, “you talk too much.”
I pulled her face up to mine and clamped my mouth onto hers, just to shut her up. She brought her arms up around my neck immediately, tightening them there, bringing her body close to mine. I tried to move her away from me gently, but my arms were full of her. and her lips were moist and eager. Her eyes closed tightly, and I sighed inwardly and listened to the lonely chirp of the crickets outside the window.
“Do you love me?” she asked later.
“Yes.”
“Really, Ben? Really and truly?”
“Really and truly.”
“How much do you love me?”
“A whole lot, Adele.”
“But do you... where are you going, Ben?”
“Something I want to get from my jacket.”
“Oh, all right.” She stopped talking, thinking for a moment. “Ben. if you had to do it all over again, would you marry me? Would you still choose me as your wife?”
“Of course.” I walked to the closet and opened the door. I knew just where I’d left it. In the righthand jacket pocket.
“What is it you’re getting. Ben? A present?” She sat up against the pillows again. “Is it a present for me?”
“In a way,” I said. I closed my fist around it and turned abruptly. Her eyes opened wide.
“Ben! A gun. What... what are you doing with a gun?”
I didn’t answer. I grinned, and she saw something in my eyes, and her mouth went slack.
“Ben, no!” she said.
“Yes, Adele.”
“Ben, I’m your wife. Ben, you’re joking. Tell me you’re joking.”
“No, Adele, I’m quite serious.”
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, the covers snatching at the thin material of her gown, pulling it over her thighs.
“Ben, why? Why are you... Ben, please. Please!”
She was cringing against the wall now, her eyes saucered with fear.
I raised the gun.
“Ben!”
I fired twice, and both bullets caught her over her heart. I watched the blood appear on the front of her gown, like red mud slung at a clean, white wall. She toppled forward suddenly, her eyes blank. I put the gun away, dressed, and packed my suitcase.
It took me two days to get there. I opened the screen door and walked into the kitchen. There was the smell of meat and potatoes frying, a smell I had come to dislike intensely. The radio was blaring, the way it always was when I arrived. I grimaced.
“Anybody home?” I called.
“Ben?” Her voice was surprised, anxious. “Is that you, Ben?”
“Hello, Betty,” I said tonelessly. She rushed to the front door and threw herself into my arms. Her hair was in curlers, and she smelled of frying fat.
“Ben, Ben darling, you’re back. Oh, Ben, how I missed you.”
“Did you?”
“Ben, let me look at you.” She held me away from her and then lifted her face and took my mouth hungrily. I could still smell the frying fat aroma.
I pushed her away from me gently. “Hey,” I said, “cut it out. Way you’re behaving, people would never guess we’ve been married for three years already.”
She sighed deeply. “You know, Ben,” she said, “I hate your job.”
73
A Home Away from Home
Robert Bloch
The train was late, and it must have been past nine o’clock when Natalie found herself standing, all alone, on the platform before Hightower Station.
The station itself was obviously closed for the night — it was only a way-stop, really, for there was no town here — and Natalie wasn’t quite sure what to do. She had taken it for granted that Dr. Bracegirdle would be on hand to meet her. Before leaving London, she’d sent her uncle a wire giving him the time of her arrival. But since the train had been delayed, perhaps he’d come and gone.
Natalie glanced around uncertainly, then noticed the phone booth which provided her with a solution. Dr. Bracegirdle’s last letter was in her purse, and it contained both his address and his phone number. She had fumbled through her bag and found it by the time she walked over to the booth.
Ringing him up proved a bit of a problem; there seemed to be an interminable delay before the operator made the connection, and there was a great deal of buzzing on the line. A glimpse of the hills beyond the station, through the glass wall of the booth, suggested the reason for the difficulty. After all, Natalie reminded herself, this was West Country. Conditions might be a bit primitive—
“Hello, hello!”
The woman’s voice came over the line, fairly shouting above the din. There was no buzzing noise now, and the sound in the background suggested a babble of voices all intermingled. Natalie bent forward and spoke directly and distinctly into the mouthpiece.
“This is Natalie Rivers,” she said. “Is Dr. Bracegirdle there?”
“Whom did you say was calling?”
“Natalie Rivers. I’m his niece.”
“His what, Miss?”
“Niece,” Natalie repeated. “May I speak to him, please?”
“Just a moment.”
There was a pause, during which the sound of voices in the background seemed amplified, and then Natalie heard the resonant masculine tones, so much easier to separate from the indistinct murmuring.
“Dr. Bracegirdle here. My dear Natalie, this is an unexpected pleasure!”
“Unexpected? But I sent you a ’gram from London this afternoon.” Natalie checked herself as she realized the slight edge of impatience which had crept into her voice. “Didn’t it arrive?”
“I’m afraid service is not of the best around here,” Dr. Bracegirdle told her, with an apologetic chuckle. “No, your wire didn’t arrive. But apparently you did.” He chuckled again. “Where are you, my dear?”