Moving his eyes right, he saw Avery Lawes lift his glass and drain it and stand up abruptly. Turning, Avery walked carefully toward the rack where he’d left his coat and hat. His slim body was erect and graceful in its motion. If there had been a chalk line on the carpet, he would have been on it every step. When he was abreast, Emerson stepped forward and intercepted him.
“Leaving, Avery?”
“Yes. Going home. Red brick house on High Street. View of the river and everything. Money street. Class street. Home of the Laweses, the God-damn Laweses.”
“You sure you’re all right?”
“Perfectly. Perfectly sober. A Lawes never gets drunk. In public, that is. It’s against the creed.”
“I don’t know. The streets are getting bad. Looks like the forecasters hit this one.”
“Really? Unusual. Never would have believed it. Fellows are usually unreliable.”
“Maybe I ought to call a taxi for you. I’d be glad to run the Caddy out to your home in the morning.”
“Thanks, Em. Damn gracious for you to be concerned. Won’t do, though. Leaving for Miami in the morning. Early. Remember I told you?” He stopped and looked at Emerson as if he were trying to make a decision about something. “Wouldn’t want to smash up the Caddy tonight, though. Spoil everything. Delay my leaving. Wonder if you’d mind running me out now. Damn gutty of me to ask. Appreciate it, however. Consider it a great favor. Get a cab out there to get you back.”
Emerson didn’t want to do it. He had Ed on his mind, and he wanted to get up to her right away, but he didn’t know how to refuse Avery. He had a feeling, moreover, that Avery had no real doubt about his own ability to handle the Caddy in the snow. His request was based more on an urgent desire to prolong companionship, on a deep dread, perhaps, of returning alone in the cold, dark night to the old house on High Street above the river.
“All right,” he said reluctantly. “But first I think I’d better tell Ed where I’m going. Besides, I’ll have to get a hat and overcoat. Tell you what. You wait for me here, and I’ll be as quick as I can. Okay?”
“Sure. I’ll just have another Scotch while I’m waiting.” Exercising the control which the Scotch made consciously deliberate but did not destroy, he walked back to the stool at the bar and got on. Emerson followed and went around behind. Roscoe was busy at the far end, so Emerson poured Avery’s Scotch and mixed the shaker of martinis to carry up to Ed. With him gone, she would not want to come downstairs, and she would probably like to have the martinis while she was waiting for him to return. Cursing his bad luck and regretting his role of Samaritan, he carried the frosty shaker out through the dining room into the kitchen and upstairs from the kitchen to the second floor. Opening the door to the living room of the apartment, he saw that he had been right. Ed was asleep in her chair.
He closed the door quietly behind him and put the shaker on a coffee table and stood watching her, his heart swelling and aching, and he wondered how it was that a man could love someone so long and so hard without becoming worn out from it. She hadn’t changed much since the day she’d come to work for him in the direr beside the bowling alley, except that she was a litle sleeker, a little more finished and polished by the things that money brought, and now her dark hair was not long, as it had been then, but very short in the Italian style. In the chair under the light, her knees were drawn up against her breasts, the red velvet stretched tight as second skin over the flank of the leg on his side, and her head had fallen forward until her forehead lacked only a little of touching her knees. Her lips were slightly parted and quivered with the passage of her breath. Her book was on the floor. It was, he noticed, The Magic Mountain.
Walking over to her silently, he leaned down and pit his right hand on her hip and kissed her as near the mouth as he could reach. She sighed and turned her face up in her sleep, and he kissed her again, now directly on the mouth, and kept kissing her until her eyes opened and her arms came up to lock around his neck.
“Em,” she whispered, arching up against him. “Darling, I’ve been wishing you’d come.”
He laughed. “Like hell you have. You’ve been asleep.”
“Before that. Before I went to sleep I was wishing.”
“I’ve been thinking about you. I’ve been thinking about you and wanting to come back ever since I left.”
“Really? Isn’t it wonderful how we always wish that at the same time? Do you suppose it’s like that with all the others?”
“Not like with us. We’re altogether unique. We never happened before and won’t ever again.”
“You’re a seducer, that’s what you are. You always know just what to say to make a wife fall apart. Especially a dissolute wife like me who seduces easily. Darling, I’m sorry I went off to sleep. I was coming down to have a drink with you.”
“I thought you might come. It doesn’t matter, though, I brought up a shaker of martinis.”
“Oh, you’re perfect. Let me up, darling. I’ll get glasses.”
“No. Wait, Ed. Listen to me. I’ve got something else I have to do first.”
“Something else? What?”
“Well, Avery Lawes is downstairs in the bar, and he’s pretty drunk.”
“Drunk! Avery? I don’t believe it.”
“He is, though. You’d never know it just to see him, and I don’t suppose anyone’s even aware of it, except Roscoe and me, but the streets are pretty bad with the snow and all, and, well, Avery asked me to drive him home, and I didn’t know how to say no.”
“Really, Em! And your lovely wife simply panting!”
“Damn it, Ed, don’t rub it in. I hate it enough already. Say the word, I’ll go tell him to get home any damn way he can.”
“No. Of course not. It’s not much to do for a man, I guess. But it does seem a little odd. His asking, that is. I didn’t know you and Avery were such friends.”
“We’re not. I’ve known him from when we were kids, that’s all. Tonight, like I said, he’s pretty drunk, and he just got talking. You know how it is sometimes when a guy’s had too much. Funny thing about him, Ed. He’s a very lonely guy.”
“Sure. It’s the penalty he pays for having all that money.”
“It’s true, Ed. He’s very lonely.”
“All right. So he’s very lonely. Go drive him home and let your wife be lonely.”
“Damn it, I won’t go. I’ll stay right here.”
“Don’t be a dope, darling. I was only joking. I’ll wait here and think about you until you get back.”
“You sure it’s all right?”
“Yes. Hurry, though.”
“You can certainly count on that.”
“I’ll wait in bed,” she said, “and drink martinis.”
Section 3
On the ascent to High Street, the rear wheels spun and whined in the wet snow. The big Caddy crept up at a fraction of the speed registered on the panel, lurching as it gained the crest, rear end skidding in the turn left. Down the street a half block, Emerson nursed it into the circular drive to Avery’s house and stopped it under a portico.
“Well,” he said, “here we are.”
Avery was sitting slumped in the seat beside him, his chin on his chest and his eyes closed. At the sound of Emerson’s voice, he opened his eyes and sat up straight and closed his eyes again and knuckled them like a child waking in the morning.
“Already?” he said. “Must’ve napped. Can’t tell you how much I appreciate this. Come on in. Call a cab for you. Have a drink while we’re waiting.”