The only problem she had were minor ones. Danny was a bit touchy at times, a slight bit irritable for a few minutes every once in a while. It was nothing to worry about but she found herself increasingly annoyed at his outbursts.
One evening, for example, they went to dinner at an expensive restaurant a few miles outside of town near the airport. The food was delicious, the music danceably pleasant, and the prices rather steep. Carla let him pay the check, but on the way home she offered to pay him back.
“Don’t be silly,” he snapped.
“Why not? It was expensive and—”
“I pay my own way, Carla.”
“That’s silly,” she said. “I can afford it and you can’t, so why don’t you let me take care of it? You have to save up for the station, and—”
“Dammit,” he cut in, “can’t you understand that I don’t want to be a stinking gigolo? I know you can afford to keep me but I sure as hell don’t feel like being kept!”
After that she didn’t offer to pick up a tab again. Instead, she tried to keep him from taking her to the more expensive places. And he seemed to resent this, too, as if he wanted to prove that the fact that he was not rich didn’t make any difference. He brought her presents which she knew he couldn’t afford, yet refused to accept gifts from her. He seemed to brag how little money he had, and when she made the mistake of offering a loan, he blew up in her face.
“No!” he had shouted. His face was taut with anger and she saw the muscle in his left cheek throb. “Get this through your pretty little head, Carla: I don’t want your money.”
But the irritations were minor ones, and she decided that it was only a question of adjustment. Right now Danny felt guilty about his lack of money and thus inadequate to be her lover. But he would grow out of that stage in time. He would adjust to the situation and she would be more able to know how to avoid offending him, and all the wrinkles would smooth out before long.
Otherwise everything was as good as she could possibly have wished it to be. As she had suspected, the physical side of their relationship improved continually to unbelievable perfection. Danny made her feel like a combination of Greek goddess and alley-cat, and it was a pleasant feeling. His passion was equal to hers and their bodies were completely attuned to one another.
For awhile she worried that his landlady might bother them, but this didn’t prove to be the case. Mrs. Smithers, Danny told her, was an old hag who guzzled sherry every afternoon and didn’t care if the house burned down around her as long as there was a bottle of wine on the table. The other tenants minded their own business and the pair had as much privacy as they could want.
Strangely enough, her relationship with Ronald was much better than it had ever been before. Now that she did not feel that she was cheating him or pulling the wool over his eyes, she felt much closer to him. He was working hard every day on the case, and she could see in his eyes he came home tired and not wanting to talk; other times he would be brimming, over with news and anxious to share it with her.
She listened to him carefully, happy when he was happy and sad when his spirits lagged. The emotions were not forced on her part either. She wanted him to win the case, wanted him to have the pleasure that victory would bring him.
“It’s funny,” he said one evening. “You share my joys and sorrows even if you don’t share my bed.”
The words brought a lump to her throat and she walked quickly around the table. She kissed him gently on the forehead, thinking what a kind and wonderful man she had married.
Danny sat up on the bed and began dressing. “I hate this place,” he said. “I didn’t mind it so much before, but now every day I hate it a little bit more.”
Carla hadn’t moved. She was still lying face down on the bed, her eyes closed and all the muscles in her body pleasantly relaxed. “I don’t see why,” she said. “I’m beginning to get quite fond of it.”
“Really?”
“Of course. I like what goes on here.”
“So do I,” he said. “But that’s not what I mean. I hate this room.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s cheap. Because it’s cheap and crummy, and I don’t want to make love to you in a place like this. Before it was different. Hell, I don’t mind sleeping in a doorway if I have to — but you deserve more than this.”
“I don’t mind.”
He stooped over to tie his shoelaces. “It will be different,” he promised. “We’ll take a little place out in the suburbs, maybe near the station. I can swing a GI loan for the downpayment and—”
“A house?”
He laughed. “Of course a house. You don’t want to bring up kids in a flat, do you? And sure as hell not in this room!”
She realized abruptly that he still thought she was going to marry him. But what was the point of that? Their relationship was perfectly satisfactory as it stood, and marriage would mean the end of the house on Nottingham Terrace and the MG and everything else she had. And children — she had always wanted children, but in a vague and unreal sort of a way. The thought of walking around with her belly sticking out and getting up in the middle of the night to change diapers or give a baby his bottle was not at all attractive.
How could she tell him that she had no intention of marrying him? He would have to find out eventually, but she couldn’t just say “You jerk, I don’t want to marry you.”
“That’s right,” she said finally. “We’ll have to have a house, but not for awhile.”
“I guess not,” he said. “Christ, I wish that case of his would end already!”
“Those things take a long time.”
He nodded. Then he turned around, resting his weight on one arm, and looked down at her thoughtfully.
“Carla,” he said slowly, “don’t you want to marry me?”
She was so startled by his question that she almost blurted out the truth. Then she collected herself and said, “Of course I do, darling. What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “You don’t seem to care much one way or the other, that’s all. Whenever I talk about it or start making plans you act as though nothing could interest you less. You never talk about children or a house or what kind of wedding we’ll have or anything. I just don’t understand it.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He waited for her to go on.
“Danny,” she said, “it’s hard for me. You’re not married and you never have been married, so you don’t know exactly what it’s like. Being married to Ronald and talking about marrying you — well, it’s hard for me to do it. I want to marry you. You know that, Danny. But I don’t want to talk about it until we can do it, without worrying about the case or anything else. Do you see what I mean?”
She waited, hoping he would accept her explanation without question.
“Sure,” he said after a minute. “Sure, I get it, honey. I guess I’ve been pressing you too hard, huh? I’m so anxious to marry you that I can’t get it off my mind. But I’ll try not to bother you too much.”
She let out a breath, realizing that she had been holding it for a long time. “Okay,” she said, grinning. “Now why don’t you show me how much you love me.
“Show you?”
She nodded.
“Hell, I just finished showing you.”
“Show me again.”
“You sure want a lot of showing, honey.”
She giggled.
“We-ell,” he drawled, “I guess I can force myself.”
He kicked off his shoes without bothering to untie them and removed the rest of his clothing. He turned to her and took her in his arms, and she emptied her mind of all thoughts and concentrated solely on him, on his touch and his kisses and the small private things he whispered in her ear.