"Think what?" I said.
"Oh, forget it," he said.
"Thank you," I said. I was furious. There are two things in this world at which I happen to know I excel. One is driving an automobile and the other is you-know-what. So to have him sit there and tell me I didn't know how to behave with my own wife was a monstrous piece of effrontery. It was he who didn't know, not me. Poor Samantha. What she must have had to put up with over the years.
"I'm sorry I spoke," Jerry said. He poured more whisky into our glasses. "Here's to the great switcheroo!" he said. "When do we go?"
"Today is Wednesday," I said. "How about this coming Saturday?"
"Christ," Jerry said.
"We ought to do it while everything's still fresh in our minds," I said. "There's an awful lot to remember."
Jerry walked to the window and looked down at the traffic in the street below. "Okay," he said, turning around. "Next Saturday it shall be!" Then we drove home in our separate cars.
"Jerry and I thought we'd take you and Samantha out to dinner Saturday night," I said to Mary. We were in the kitchen and she was cooking hamburgers for the children.
She turned around and faced me, frying-pan in one hand, spoon in the other. Her blue eyes looked straight into mine. "My Lord, Vic," she said. "How nice. But what are we celebrating?"
I looked straight back at her and said, "I thought it would be a change to see some new faces. We're always meeting the same old bunch of people in the same old houses."
She took a step forward and kissed me on the cheek. "What a good man you are," she said. "I love you."
"Don't forget to phone the baby-sitter."
"No, I'll do it tonight," she said.
Thursday and Friday passed very quickly, and suddenly it was Saturday. It was D Day. I woke up feeling madly excited. After breakfast, I couldn't sit still, so I decided to go out and wash the car. I was in the middle of this when Jerry came strolling through the gap in the hedge, pipe in mouth.
"Hi, sport," he said. "This is the day."
"I know that," I said. I also had a pipe in my mouth. I was forcing myself to smoke it, but I had trouble keeping it alight, and the smoke burned my tongue.
"How're you feeling?" Jerry asked.
"Terrific," I said. "How about you?"
"I'm nervous," he said.
"Don't be nervous, Jerry."
"This is one hell of a thing we're trying to do," he said. "I hope we pull it off."
I went on polishing the windshield. I had never known Jerry to be nervous of anything before. It worried me a bit.
"I'm damn glad we're not the first people ever to try it," he said. "If no one had ever done it before, I don't think I'd risk it."
"I agree," I said.
"What stops me being too nervous," he said, "is the fact that your friend found it so fantastically easy."
"My friend said it was a cinch," I said. "But for Chris-sake, Jerry, don't be nervous when the time comes. That would be disastrous."
"Don't worry," he said. "But Jesus, it's exciting, isn't it?"
"It's exciting all right," I said.
"Listen," he said. "We'd better go easy on the booze tonight."
"Good idea," I said. "See you at eight thirty."
At half past eight, Samantha, Jerry, Mary and I drove in Jerry's car to Billy's Steak House. The restaurant, despite its name, was high-class and expensive, and the girls had put on long dresses for the occasion. Samantha was wearing something green that didn't start until it was halfway down her front, and I had never seen her looking lovelier. There were candles on our table. Samantha was seated opposite me and whenever she leaned forward with her face close to the flame, I could see that tiny crest of skin at the top centre of her lower lip. "Now," she said as she accepted a menu from the waiter, "I wonder what I'm going to have tonight."
Ho-ho-ho, I thought, that's a good question.
Everything went fine in the restaurant and the girls enjoyed themselves. When we arrived back at Jerry's house, it was eleven forty-five, and Samantha said, "Come in and have a nightcap."
"Thanks," I said, "but it's a bit late. And the baby-sitter has to be driven home." So Mary and I walked across to our house, and now, I told myself as I entered the front door, from now on the count-down begins. I must keep a clear head and forget nothing.
While Mary was paying the baby-sitter, I went to the fridge and found a piece of Canadian cheddar. I took a knife from the drawer and a strip of plaster from the cupboard. I stuck the plaster around the tip of the forefinger of my right hand and waited for Mary to turn around.
"I cut myself," I said holding up the finger for her to see. "It's nothing, but it was bleeding a bit."
"I'd have thought you'd had enough to eat for the evening," was all she said. But the plaster registered on her mind and my first little job had been done.
I drove the baby-sitter home and by the time I got back up to the bedroom it was round about midnight and Mary was already half asleep with her light out. I switched out the light on my side of the bed and went into the bathroom to undress. I pottered about in there for ten minutes or so and when I came out, Mary, as I had hoped, was well and truly sleeping. There seemed no point in getting into bed beside her. So I simply pulled back the covers a bit on my side to make it easier for Jerry, then with my slippers on, I went downstairs to the kitchen and switched on the electric kettle. It was now twelve seventeen. Forty-three minutes to go.
At twelve thirty-five, I went upstairs to check on Mary and the kids. Everyone was sound alseep.
At twelve fifty-five, five minutes before zero hour, I went up again for a final check. I went right up close to Mary's bed and whispered her name. There was no answer. Good. That's it! Let's go!
I put a brown raincoat over my pyjamas. I switched off the kitchen light so that the whole house was in darkness. I put the front door lock on the latch. And then, feeling an enormous sense of exhilaration, I stepped silently out into the night.
There were no lamps on our street to lighten the darkness. There was no moon or even a star to be seen. It was a black black night, but the air was warm and there was a little breeze blowing from somewhere.
I headed for the gap in the hedge. When I got very close, I was able to make out the hedge itself and find the gap. I stopped there, waiting. Then I heard Jerry's footsteps coming towards me.
"Hi, sport," he whispered. "Everything okay?"
"All ready for you," I whispered back.
He moved on. I heard his slippered feet padding softly over the grass as he went towards my house. I went towards his.
I opened Jerry's front door. It was even darker inside than out. I closed the door carefully. I took off my raincoat and hung it on the door knob. I removed my slippers and placed them against the wall by the door. I literally could not see my hands before my face. Everything had to be done by touch.
My goodness, I was glad Jerry had made me practise blindfold for so long. It wasn't my feet that guided me now but my fingers. The fingers of one hand or another were never for a moment out of contact with something, a wall, the banister, a piece of furniture, a window-curtain. And I knew or thought I knew exactly where I was all the time. But it was an awesome eerie feeling trespassing on tiptoe through someone else's house in the middle of the night. As I fingered my way up the stairs, I found myself thinking of the burglars who had broken into our front room last winter and stolen the television set. When the police came next morning, I pointed out to them an enormous turd lying in the snow outside the garage. "They nearly always do that," one of the cops told me. "They can't help it. They're scared."
I reached the top of the stairs. I crossed the landing with my right fingertips touching the wall all the time. I started down the corridor, but paused when my hand found the door of the first children's room. The door was slightly open. I listened. I could hear young Robert Rainbow, aged eight, breathing evenly inside. I moved on. I found the door to the second children's bedroom. This one belonged to Billy, aged six and Amanda, three. I stood listening. All was well.