He eased himself out of bed and went across to draw back the drapes. She stirred and blinked at him. ‘What time is it?’
‘Five after eight. You’re not in a hurry, are you?’
‘No.’
‘I thought maybe we could have breakfast at Charlie’s. They do corned-beef hash to kill your mother for.’
‘My mother?’
‘Figure of speech. I don’t mean literally.’
‘My mother,’ she repeated, in that hoarse, smoky voice, as if she couldn’t remember that she had ever had a mother.
‘Listen, forget I mentioned it. How about a shower?’
She sat up and stretched, her back arched, her skinny arms spread stiffly behind her like wings. ‘I have so much to do today.’
‘Like what? I thought you might like to come to the office. I could introduce you to Mo and Lizzie.’
‘It’s a little too soon for that, don’t you think?’
He sat down beside her and kissed her. ‘Not at all. Mo and Lizzie are both men of the world, particularly Lizzie. But you still have time for breakfast, don’t you?’
‘No. I think I’d better go.’
‘So . . . what? I’m going to see you this evening?’
She looked into his eyes as if she were trying to penetrate the darkness inside his head. ‘It depends.’
‘On what?’
‘On this and that. On whether I’m busy.’
‘Well, OK. But why don’t you give me a number, so that I can call you?’
‘I told you before. I don’t have a number.’
‘You must at least have a cellphone.’
She shook her head.
‘Jesus, everybody on the planet has a cellphone, apart from one or two stone-deaf bushmen in the Kalahari.’
She stood up and walked naked to the bathroom. Frank followed her. She sat unselfconsciously on the toilet but she still looked at him with that odd, unfocused stare.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘How can you not have a phone number?’
‘I like to stay out of touch.’
‘Even with me?’
She flushed the toilet and went to the basin, splashing water on her face and wetting her hair. Frank came up to her and touched the drips on her eyelashes and the tip of her nose. ‘Nevile did another séance for me.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘He contacted Danny. I’m pretty sure it was Danny this time. The real Danny.’
Astrid dried her face and went through to the bedroom. She took out a comb and started to slick back her hair. Again Frank followed her.
‘Danny said that I had already met the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with. He said her name began with an A.’
‘And?’
‘Well, Astrid begins with an A, doesn’t it?’
‘Pff! You really believe this stuff? What did I tell you before? Nevile’s nothing more than a hustler. If he wasn’t running around playing psychic detective, he’d be out on the boardwalk running a shell game.’
‘I don’t think so. He knew what Danny’s teddy bear was called, and why.’
Astrid found her sapphire-blue thong under the bed and stepped into it. ‘That was his proof, was it?’
‘It was proof enough for me.’
‘Frank, I know what Danny’s teddy bear was called, too, and so does everybody else in the United States. They featured him on NBC News. “Today, a lonesome teddy bear pines for the boy who used to cuddle him.”’
‘Really? I never saw that.’
‘It was Wednesday, when you were burying him.’
She fastened her bra and put on her candy-stripe blouse. Frank did up the buttons for her. ‘All the same, I believe that Nevile got through to Danny. And Danny said that my new life started here and now, with this woman whose name begins with an A.’
Astrid slowly shook her head. ‘You think I’m part of your new life? Frank, you don’t know me at all.’
‘It’s not for want of trying, is it? But come on, Astrid. You won’t even tell me your surname, or where you live!’
She found her purse and took out her mascara. ‘Knowing a person’s name and address doesn’t mean you know them.’
‘Maybe it doesn’t, but it’s a start.’
She turned to him and kissed him, a very light but lingering kiss, the tip of her tongue touching his front teeth. ‘You were wonderful last night,’ she told him. ‘I had a fantasy that I was the Queen of Sheba and you were my slave.’
‘It felt like it, believe me. In fact I felt like several slaves.’
‘Look,’ she said, and turned him around so that he could see his back in the dressing-table mirror. His shoulders and his buttocks were criss-crossed with scarlet scratches. ‘You like me hurting you, don’t you? You know what I’m going to do to you next time? I’m going to bite you so hard that you scream.’ Her eyes widened as she kissed him again. ‘See you,’ she said. She opened the door, and then she was gone, her pink mules slip-slapping down the stairs. Frank stood in the middle of the living room, his arms by his sides, and for the first time in years he felt as if he had lost control of his life. It was like that winter three years ago when he had been driving to Portland, Oregon, and his rental car had skidded on an icy curve. He had frantically twisted the steering wheel from side to side, but he had seen the black rocks sliding toward him, and all he could do was brace himself for the impact.
He waited by the phone but Astrid didn’t call that evening, so shortly after eight o’clock he drove over to Burbank to see Margot. They were still husband and wife, after all, and he was beginning to feel guilty about leaving her to cope with her grief on her own.
Margot answered the door but Ruth was close behind her, dressed in some extraordinary hand-woven poncho with fraying edges, embroidered with a sun symbol, and baggy brown cotton pants. Margot was wearing denim dungarees and no makeup. Her face was as pale as a scrubbed potato.
‘Was there something you wanted?’ she asked him.
‘I thought we could talk.’
‘I thought you said everything you had to say when you defaced my paintings.’
‘You still believe that I did it?’
‘Do you care what I believe?’
Frank looked at Ruth and Ruth looked back at him with her usual slitty-eyed hostility. ‘Margot needs time to repair her emotional value system.’
‘Oh. I didn’t know it was broken.’
‘Of course it’s broken, Frank. Margot’s entire concept of conjugal weights and balances is in total disorder.’
Frank frowned at Margot as if he couldn’t quite remember who she was. In fact, he was trying to see in her face the reason why he had married her, and why they had conceived Danny together, and why they had stayed together for so long. But all he could see was the mole on her upper lip.
‘Is this true?’ he asked her. ‘Your entire concept of conjugal weights and balances?’
‘How can you make fun of me after what’s just happened?’
‘I’m not making fun of you, Margot. I’m making fun of a world that turns real feelings into meaningless jargon. I’m trying to tell you how sorry I am. But I’m also trying to tell you that we can’t turn the clock back. Either we’re going to share this grief together, and struggle on, and see what we can make of this marriage, or else we’re going to say that we’ve been holed below the waterline, and abandon ship, and then it’s every man for himself. Or woman,’ he added, before Rachel could say it.