“The cherry tree.”
“Oh.” He looked a little downcast. “Sorry.”
“You never should have done it.”
He twisted. “It’s a hard thing for another person to see. Especially a man. Especially at a time like that.”
“I told you how young I was.”
“Try to put yourself in my place! For God’s sake. Once it had gone that far—”
“You should never have done it. It was wrong.”
“I suppose so. But it doesn’t seem to have—to have stunted your growth. Has it?”
“Stunted my growth?” She smiled a little. “I guess not. No, I suppose it hasn’t. I never thought of it that way. Isn’t that what cigarettes are said to do?”
They both smiled.
“Well, let’s forget it,” Barbara said at last. “It’s off my chest, at least. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it didn’t do any lasting harm. I don’t know. It’s hard to know. So hard to tell.”
“At the time you didn’t seem to be in any pain about it. You almost enjoyed it.” He grinned.
“Yes— After the first five minutes I enjoyed it. So that’s that.”
“What’ll we think about now that we’ve settled that?”
“We can think about getting me a second dresser.” She put her hand on the piles of clothing on the bed beside her. She was still frowning a little; he could not tell exactly what about. “I think one more dresser will do it.”
“All right,” Verne said. “We’ll think about that.”
Ten
Verne stretched and yawned. “Well, let’s go get the dresser. Where is it?”
Barbara leaned back on the bed, against the wall behind her. “Easy. Not so fast, on a day like this.”
“I feel active again. Heat is strange that way. First you feel dopey. You don’t want to anything at all. Then all of a sudden you spring right up out of your chair. This is the moment for me. I’ve sprung up.”
Barbara got slowly to her feet. “All right. I think we’ll find a dresser in one of the other rooms.”
“They’ll probably be locked.”
But the room next to Barbara’s was not locked. And there was a little white dresser just like hers right next to the bed. Each of them took an end of it, and in a moment they had lugged it into Barbara’s room and set it by the other.
“That’s that,” Verne said. “Do the clothes go in any old way, or is there some ritual about it?”
“Maybe I should put the clothes away. Then I’ll know where things are.”
“All right.”
Barbara opened the top drawer of the dresser. “Damn!” she said. The drawer had razor blades and some adhesive tape and pieces of string and nails lying about on the dirty newspaper that had been used to line it.
Verne looked in the other drawers. They were all the same way.
“I’ll have to repaper it and clean it out. Maybe even scrub it. Christ.”
She went over and threw herself down on the bed. The bed sagged and groaned under her.
“Not a very strong bed,” Verne said. “Not much good for entertainment, is it?”
“Strictly a chaste bed.”
“Well, there’s always the floor.”
“Not unless it’s swept.”
Verne studied her intently. Was she kidding him, going along with the gag? Or−or something more? He tried to read her expression, but it was hopeless. A losing game, trying to read a woman’s face. Finally he shrugged. He reached into his pocket and got out his pipe and tobacco. Barbara watched him filling the pipe without speaking. Her eyes were wide.
Verne glanced up as he was clicking his lighter. “My pipe. Won’t go until I light it.”
“I know. I remember your pipe. I remember it very well. You had it that time. At Castle.”
“At Castle?”
“Yes.”
Verne sat down gingerly on the bed beside her. She said nothing. He went on sucking at his pipe, trying to get it lit. “God damn hard thing to operate,” he said between his teeth. At last the tobacco caught.
“I don’t see why you smoke when it’s so hot.”
“This isn’t for warmth. This is for comfort. It relaxes me.”
“Probably makes you feel more like a man.”
He shot her a sharp glance. “Why do you say a thing like that?”
“I don’t know. Tobacco, pipes, cigarettes, all make me think of high school kids trying to grow up.”
“You smoke, too. These days.”
“Not a pipe.”
“No.” Verne was silent, smoking and thinking to himself “Well, it might be. Freud, again.”
“What might be?”
“Let it go, if you’ve forgotten.” Verne leaned back, trying to make himself comfortable on the bed. He kicked his shoes off. The shoes fell to the floor with a loud crash.
“What’s that for?” Barbara said.
“To make myself comfortable.”
“Are you going to stay?”
Verne glanced at her. “That,” he said, “depends on you.”
Barbara reached over and picked up his shoes. She set them in his lap. “Put them back on.”
“Really? But I’m more comfortable.”
“I’m not.”
There was silence. Verne watched her with mixed amusement and embarrassment. Barbara’s face was dark and sullen. Finally she relaxed.
“All right. It doesn’t matter.” She tossed the shoes back on the floor. “Let them lie there, then.”
“I don’t think I know quite how to take this,” Verne said, still smiling at her. But his hand, gripping the pipe, was tense and pressed tighdy to the wooden bole. Barbara did not say anything. She was looking indifferently off through the open door into the hall. Verne continued to examine her face intently, watching her with an almost eager interest. He blew smoke slowly into the center of the room.
“Want me to close the door to the hall?”
Barbara turned. “What?”
“Want me to close the door? Is that what you were staring out there for?”
“My God, no. I was just thinking.”
“About what?”
“Lots of things. As one does. I was thinking about Carl, for instance. I was wondering what sort of a boy he is.”
“Seems nice,” Verne said noncommittally. “Certainly big enough. Why?”
“I don’t know. Last night I started down the hall to take a bath and there he was, standing outside the door, in the middle of the hall. Not making any kind of a sound. Just standing. It scared the hell out of me. As if he were some kind of— of ghost. A spectre. A great silent figure, watching me with that strange look he has. That look of detached contemplation. As if I were some sort of natural wonder, like a waterfall, or an insect.”
“The whole world is one vast insect for Carl. I think that about sums him up.”
“Does it? We’re going to have to spend a whole week with him. I’d like to know—But he does seem to be all right.”
“We could always push him into one of the septic tanks.”
Barbara laughed. “Anyhow, he’ll be busy exploring with his compass and map. He won’t bother us much. And I think he’s nice, Verne. I see nothing wrong with him. He leaps around and shouts a lot, but that’s natural for his age. Don’t you like him?”
“He’s your subject. You brought him up. I have nothing to say.”
“You know, it’s an odd thing. I don’t suppose I’m more than three years or so older than he is. But I feel like I’m not in his generation at all. Why? It’s not the age, I guess. The actual years. It’s more the attitude. When we were coming down he was skipping and jumping and dancing around, all ready to pull off his clothes and run naked over the hills. Then he smelled breakfast.”
“You never felt that way?”
“No. It’s too hot.”
Verne would have been glad to drop the subject. His pipe had gone out; the tobacco had been used up. He knocked it against the wall and emptied the ashes into the ashtray on the table.