‘That how it sounds to you, a prosecution?’
The lightness was going, as he’d feared it would. ‘No, that’s not how it sounds at all. I’m sorry and I’m wrong and I have put work before anything else, before you, and that’s badly wrong, too.’ It was at Rebecca’s urging that he’d imposed a permanent Sunday-off edict and a seven-at-night finish, despite which people still often remained later at their benches, Parnell the latest stayer of all.
Silence encompassed them in a restaurant that was no more than a bare, trestle-tabled shack with a pier that thrust out into the bay and in which they sat with hands and faces tightening with the glue of the flavouring salt. They laughed, unprompted but simultaneously, reached out sticky fingers and Parnell said: ‘How the hell did that build up!’
Rebecca said: ‘I planned it. Angry at me?’
‘No.’
‘You’ve got to go on now. I don’t have any words.’
Parnell wasn’t sure he had, either. ‘Are we talking marriage…?’
‘No!’ The quickness – and vehemence – of the rejection visibly startled him and Rebecca said: ‘This really isn’t the place to have this sort of conversation.’
Parnell wasn’t sure what sort of conversation they were having. ‘Your choice. You take it.’
Rebecca slid her hand away from his, holding both of hers tightly before her, staring down at them as if they held some message. ‘Yes. It is my choice.’
Aware of her tension, he said: ‘I don’t want to go on with this, not here, not now. Not if you don’t want to.’
She said: ‘This was supposed to be a day out! How the fuck did it get to this?’
‘Let’s stop,’ he said.
‘No!’ Rebecca refused again, still vehement, but just as abruptly stopped.
Parnell waited.
‘You want to go on: us, I mean?’ she said finally.
‘Yes.’
‘You can’t decide that yet.’
Parnell saw that Rebecca’s knuckles were whitening, so hard was she gripping one hand against the other, and there were shudders rippling through her. ‘Don’t, darling. Whatever it is, don’t.’
Rebecca’s words came out in spurts. ‘I have to. Everything has to be clear, out in the open. I had a relationship. Two years ago. Got pregnant. He wasn’t sure, so I had a termination. That’s why I have to be sure now. I’ve done all the pushing and I wish I hadn’t now and today is a total fucking mess and I’m sorry I ever started it and I…’
‘… wish you’d shut up,’ interrupted Parnell.
Rebecca did.
He stretched across the table and took her clenched hands once more, prising them open, stroking them. ‘Don’t be frightened.’
‘I wanted you to know.’
‘Now I do.’
‘And?’
‘And nothing.’ Now he was talking child-talk.
‘Say something! Anything!’
‘I’ve been selfish about us. I’m sorry. There’s life beyond – far beyond – Dubette. I’m angry at myself for getting ensnared in their system.’
‘It’s insidious.’
‘I was the guy determined not to get caught up in the spider’s web, remember?’
‘So you forgot for a moment.’
‘Do I get out of the stockade every weekend?’
‘You haven’t said anything about…?’ she started but trailed off, unable to finish.
‘I’m sorry to say it if you loved him, but I think he was an idiot. But I’m glad because I met you.’
‘You sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
Parnell did his best to fill the silences on the drive back to Washington, falling back upon exaggerated anecdotes from Cambridge and England, intentionally avoiding any references to Dubette but recognizing as he did so how blinkered he had become in his total absorption with work. They finally washed away the salt residue at his apartment and decided they didn’t want to eat again. Parnell suggested a movie but Rebecca said she didn’t feel like it, and when Parnell asked if she was staying, looked down at her stained shirt and said she hadn’t brought a change of clothes for the morning.
‘As it seems to have been a day for decisions, perhaps another one should be where we’re going to live,’ he declared.
She remained looking at him unspeaking for what seemed a long time. Then, almost in a whisper, she said: ‘You asking me to move in?’
Parnell supposed he was, although he hadn’t intended the words to come out quite as they had. ‘They say you don’t properly get to know a person until you live with them.’
‘Bethesda’s bigger than here. And there’s the garden. The commute’s about the same.’
Parnell wasn’t sure he wanted to move away from the convenience of the city. ‘Why don’t we try both places, see which we prefer?’
‘Starting when?’
‘Whenever.’
‘OK,’ she agreed. ‘Here first? Maybe Bethesda at the weekends, to keep the place lived in.’
‘Fine.’
‘Help me move my stuff in tomorrow, right after work? With two cars we could probably manage it in one trip.’
He really had made a commitment, Parnell realized. ‘Let’s do that.’
Rebecca left Washington Circle promising to start packing that night, and Parnell was glad to be alone, wanting to think, although he didn’t exactly know about what. At last he told himself to stop being stupid, because he knew exactly what it was. It was being permanently with, living with, sharing with, Rebecca. Which came down, quite simply and logically, to loving her. So, did he? He didn’t know. Or wasn’t sure. That was better. He wasn’t sure. He enjoyed being with her and wasn’t attracted to anyone else, and he actually liked the idea of their living together. But did that amount to being in love: was it sufficient for them to be together? It was a commitment. But it wasn’t irrevocable. In fact, what they were doing was probably the best thing, the sensible thing. It would give them both the time and the opportunity properly to decide if there was enough between them to make it permanent. To marry. Perhaps he should change the way he was thinking, selfishly rather than objectively. What about how Rebecca felt? Or would feel? Among a lot of other things today, there had been some long overdue self-awareness.
If he hadn’t already become a work-obsessed bore, he was certainly running the risk of doing so. Rebecca might easily tire of him. He had adjustments to make, Parnell accepted: positive changes, even. Starting the following day by leaving McLean at a sensible time to help Rebecca ferry her stuff into the apartment. Not just a sensible time, he determined – early, so that after she’d moved in they could go to Giorgio’s restaurant, to celebrate.
With everything firmly planned in his mind – assuring himself it wasn’t work-obsession to compensate for leaving early – Parnell got to work before seven the following morning and had been at his bench for four hours when the secretary at Rebecca’s section came hesitantly into the pharmacogenomics department.
‘Burt Showcross says can you come,’ the girl said.
Eleven
Richard Parnell was the last to arrive at the outer-ring section, and Burt Showcross’s personal office was already overcrowded. Showcross had surrendered his desk to Dwight Newton, who sat at it white-faced, gazing unseeing at its empty top. Showcross, a haphazardly haired man with a distracted manner, was supportively at the vice president’s shoulder, although appearing more distracted than normal. There were two uniform-identified officers from Metro DC police department, a man who introduced himself as Peter Bellamy and a woman whose ID named her as Helen Montgomery. The fifth person was the logo-labelled Harry Johnson, head of Dubette security, a balding, bespectacled man whose expansive stomach melted over a too tightly drawn belt, from which hung a variety of law-enforcement weaponry – the most obvious a pistol – and equipment.
It was Johnson, whom Parnell had never properly met but whom Rebecca had pointed out to him weeks before, who encouraged Parnell further into the cramped office. Johnson said: ‘Hope you may be able to help us a little here, Dick.’