Finally, he went to Pat O’Shea. The old soldier showed his teeth in a grimace that was as close as he could any longer come to a real smile. Then he sobered and said bluntly, “Milo, time was when I felt just like you do, but I knows different, now; indeed I do. If I hadn’t had my Maggie when I come home like I am from the war, God alone knows what would’ve become of me. And a man never knows whatall is going to happen to him, Milo, peace or war, day or night, one minute to the next, so I say when you got the chance to get hitched up to a good, strong woman like that, even if looks ain’t her best suit, do it afore she changes her mind. Marry her, Milo.”
After a long pause, he added, “But if you really are dead set against the institution of marriage in gen’rul and you want to get somewheres where she can’t come after you and fetch you back to the altar, let me know and I’ll have you enlisted in the Army and on a train out of Illinois in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
III
On the 12th of August, Maggie O’Shea received a telegram the receipt of which was to change the course of Milo’s life for good and all. Taking both of her daughters out of nursing school, she and they hurriedly packed and entrained for Boston, Massachusetts, and the bedside of her last living relative, a deathly ill aunt. Pat O’Shea, who studiously avoided any public appearance at which he could not hide his hideously disfigured face, stayed behind.
Irunn had been badgering Milo for weeks concerning just exactly when he would accompany her to Wisconsin to meet her family—and, he was certain, while there, be maneuvered into asking for her hand … or at least give the appearance of having so done. He had been elusive and vague at best, blaming heavy commitments in his work, which was no lie, the recent volume of Western and Central European periodicals having so increased that he now lacked the time at the library to get very much of his history and current-events reading done, spending whole days from opening to closing of the facility translating and writing out the articles in American English. With the swollen volume and a limited budget, the per-word rate had had to be halved, but still Milo was assured of a very good, well-stuffed envelope each week.
Irunn had been badgering Milo, but on the Sunday following Maggie’s abrupt departure for points east, the big woman ceased to do so, becoming again all sweetness and light and snugglings in private and caresses in passing, and Milo breathed a silent sigh of relief, the week ahead promising to be full enough, if the thick stack of assorted publications the office staff had handed over to him on Friday was any indication.
By the time the library closed on Monday afternoon, he had—even at the rate of half a cent per word— done work to the tune of more than ten dollars and made a healthy dent in the stack of papers. But this had been accomplished only by keeping his nose pressed firmly to the grindstone, staying glued to the chair, not even taking time to leave for lunch. And so when he returned to the cool dimness of Maggie O’Shea’s boardinghouse just a few minutes before Rosaleen O’Farrell called for the dinner assembly, Milo was tired, ravenously hungry and a little edgy.
To this last and to the tiredness, he ascribed his seeming foreboding of imminent doom as he hurriedly washed up and put on clean undervest and shirt. But the all-pervasive aroma of Rosaleen’s corned beef and cabbage and carrots and boiled potatoes set his salivary glands into full flow and sped his pace down the stairs toward the waiting dinner table.
He was not surprised to see most of the household already seated around the long oaken table when he entered the dining room, the cloud of steam rising from the platters and serving dishes that lined the center of that table until it rose high enough to be dispersed by the air wafted lazily by the mahogany blades of the ceiling fan.
He was, however, surprised to see Irunn presiding at the head of the table—the absent chatelaine’s normal place—and the master of the house, Pat, occupying a side chair rather than his accustomed spot at the other end, the foot of the board. Milo’s look of wonderment at Pat was answered by a chuckle and a twisted grimace-smile.
“It’s time, Milo, that you began to learn your place at table.”
Milo’s second surprise came when Irunn did not, as usual, eat hurriedly, then rush upstairs long enough to brush her teeth and hair and immediately hurry out in the direction of the hospital and her seven-to-seven night shift.
As the tall woman continued to dawdle and chat with various of the others over coffee and deep-dish dried-apple pie and an old, very strong cheddar cheese, Milo finally drew his watch from his vest pocket, opened the hunter case and remarked, “Irunn, you’re going to be late to work, you know.”
Irunn laughed throatily. “Oh, no, my love, for this week I’ll be working days, not nights. It was necessary to make some rearrangements at the hospital in the absence of Mrs. O’Shea, and so what could I do but cooperate? But I am very glad, Milo, for this week we two will have so much more time together, won’t we? And we can go, on Wednesday night, to the club meeting, too.”
Even more rested now, a bit more relaxed, his belly now pleasantly full, Milo felt the ominous presentiment return full force. Something deep within him was screaming out, “Danger! Be wary! Danger!”
Excusing himself from the usual round of chess and chat and a nip of whiskey with Pat O’Shea after dinner, Milo ascended the stairs to his room, turned on the ceiling light, spread out papers on the bed and pushed his forebodings into the back of his consciousness as he applied himself to his translating chores. And there he worked steadily until his eyes were gritty with fatigue and he caught himself in the umpteeth mistake of the night. That was when he undressed, padded down to the communal bath in dressing robe and slippers, bathed, brushed his teeth, voided his bladder, then returned to his room and Crawled under the cool, muslin sheet with a sigh of utter weariness. In seconds, he was asleep.
He never knew just how long he had slept, but he woke suddenly, with the certain knowledge that there was someone else in his room, somewhere in the stygian darkness of the cloudy, moonless, starless late-summer night.
When he stopped breathing, he could hear the respiration of the other entity somewhere between the closed door to the hall and the side of his bed. For a brief moment, there was also a soft, slithery rustling sound, then a series of slow, shuffling noises, akin to someone moving forward cautiously, unsure of the footing and endeavoring to raise no creaking from the floorboards that underlay the faded, worn carpet.
He made no sound either, lying in perfect stillness, though wound wire-taut, his body flooded with adrenaline, his eyes slitted so that to a casual glance they might look closed in slumber, yet straining through the slitted openings to discern just who or what this unannounced and unexpected visitor might be. Unable to longer go without air, he took several slow, measured breaths, striving to make them sound as regular as possible.
Something touched the side of his mattress ever so gently, he heard a sharp intake of a deep, deep breath, and then …
Irunn was upon him. She kissed blindly at his face until she finally found his mouth and glued her own wet, hot one to his. His first, instinctive effort to push the rather heavy woman off him revealed to his fingers and hands the bare fact that she was nude.
What happened after that was thoroughly instinctive, the mere course of nature. When he awakened the second time, however, in the bright light of morning, Irunn was gone from his arms, his bed, his room, and she had already left for the hospital’s day shift when he dressed and came downstairs for breakfast.
The same thing happened on Tuesday night. On Wednesday night, he locked his door, but either Pat O’Shea was in collusion with Irunn or, more likely, felt Milo, her room key worked as easily as did his own in the simple old-fashioned spring locks with which the doors were fitted. On the Thursday, he considered wedging the back of a chair under the doorknob, but then mentally shrugged and gave up trying to fight her and her amorous nighttime forrays. After all, he enjoyed sex, he had discovered, just as much as she obviously did, and to create any sort of a noisy ruckus in the O’Shea house would likely get them both expelled from it on moral grounds, for friends or no, Pat and Maggie could do nothing else were they to maintain a necessary sense of respectability for the house and the other boarders. At least that was how he rationalized his continued enjoyment of the forbidden fruit with which Irunn was so generously serving him each night.