Out on the edge of thought. And had he wanted it all along as well? And was that what the book was about? Had he written into it yearnings for her that he had not known he possessed?
God.
She said, “I’m going to have some coffee. Do you want some?”
“Coffee?”
“Don’t you want any?”
“All right.”
While she made the coffee he did not move from the chair. He thought of putting his clothes on but it did not seem worth the effort.
She had wanted him and he had wanted her. He could try to blame the liquor, the marijuana, the mad exhilaration of the mood they had shared. He could blame all these things, but none of them could alter the simple fact that both of them had wanted this to happen. She brought two cups of coffee. They sat in separate chairs and drank it.
“Can I say something?”
He nodded.
“Look, it happened. But what did we do? I mean it, what did we do? We love each other, and we made love. We didn’t hurt anybody. We didn’t do anything to anybody. We just made love.”
He tried a smile. “It’s supposed to be a sin.”
“Why?”
“Sins don’t have reasons. I don’t know why it’s a sin. I know I’m ashamed of myself.”
“I’m not.”
“There’s no reason for you to be. But I—”
“You keep acting as though you’re the one who did it. We both did it, and I was the one who—”
“I was the one who should have been able not to do it, kitten.”
She thought it over, shrugged. “Well, the thing is, I don’t think we have to put out our eyes and break our legs or anything.”
“‘Put out our—’ Oh, Oedipus. It was ankles, not legs.”
“Whatever it was. It happened. That’s all.”
He looked at her sharply. “Are you still—”
“Taking the pill? Is that what you were going to ask? Yes, I am.” She walked across the room and stood in front of him. “And do you want to know something? Do you really want to know something? I wish I stopped taking the pills. I really wish that. I wish I was pregnant, that’s how I feel about what we did.”
He drew her down to him. She sat in his lap with her arms around his neck and she wept, and he held her as he had held her before and stroked her hair and told her that it was all right, that everything was going to be all right. They both were still naked, and she was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life, but he held her now with no passion whatsoever. He laughed, and she asked why.
“The glass in the fireplace. I was just looking at it. Once again Mrs. Kleinschmidt wouldn’t approve.”
“Screw Mrs. Kleinschmidt.”
He held her close as they laughed together, held her now with no passion at all, but with all the love he had in the world.
There had been passion, but there would not be passion between them again. Mrs. Kleinschmidt would not approve, but Mrs. Kleinschmidt would not know, nor would anyone else. He did not have to put out his eyes.
Thirty
On the ninth day following his admission, Clement McIntyre was discharged from Doylestown General. Olive wrote a check while he sat in a wheelchair grumbling that he could walk as well as the next man.
“It’s a regulation,” the nurse’s aide said.
“Silly damned regulation,” he said. “She was a patient, too. Paid full rates for the privilege of lying in one of your lumpy beds and listening to me use a bedpan. Doesn’t she rate a wheelchair ride?”
“Don’t mind him,” Olive advised. “He doesn’t mean anything by it. He’s sad to be leaving and this is his way of masking his sentiment.”
“Who would have guessed years ago that you’d turn out to be such a sarcastic bitch?”
“You see? That’s his way of telling me he loves me. You sit back and enjoy your ride, Clem. Enjoy the luxury. You won’t be pampered this way at home.”
She drove home and parked the car in the driveway. He got out unassisted and walked into the house and up the stairs without her help. He was short of breath by the time he reached their bedroom, and his face was pale.
“Sit down,” she said. “You’ll be more comfortable in bed, darling. Do you want help with your clothes?”
“Don’t need it.”
“I’ll get your pajamas.”
He sat up in bed, propped up with three pillows. He said, “It’s a hell of a thing. A man’s a man all his life and then he’s barely got enough of himself to walk a flight of stairs.”
“Climbing is hard exercise. I understand it’s more tiring than sawing wood.”
“What a mine of information you are.”
“Remarkable, isn’t it?”
“It truly is. But what I was saying. It’s a hell of a life when a man can’t live the way he’s used to living. You hear about these people they keep alive in hospitals for months or years, machines hooked up to them and tubes running in and out of them. Can’t make ’em better and won’t let ’em die, and what sense is there in that?”
“Some people just want to go on.”
“Some people don’t.”
She walked to the window. “It’s so close in here,” she said. “I should have told the Robshaw girl to open a window while she was here. It feels like rain, doesn’t it? We could use a little rain. This summer I never thought I’d hear myself say that again. The silver maple’s starting to turn. It’s early this year. Does that mean a hard winter or a mild one?”
“I can never remember. I think it means an early winter, doesn’t it?”
“That sounds right.”
“Never did like winter. Didn’t mind the cold. Always the damned inconvenience of it. Slopping around through snow and slush, shoveling cars loose, skidding around on the roads. Cold never bothered me because I always had enough antifreeze in my radiator. A man would sure feel the cold without it.”
“Can I get you anything, Clem?”
“Well, that depends. Do we put on an act for each other or don’t we?”
“It’s a little late in life for that.”
“Yes, it’s late in life, and I never did like winter. You know what I want, Olive.”
She went downstairs. There were blank spots on some of the walls. She looked at each spot and remembered immediately the picture that had hung there.
She came upstairs with a bottle and a glass. He filled the glass to the brim and held it to the light, admiring its color. “All due success to temperance,” he pronounced.
“I wonder how long you’ve been saying that.”
“Seems as good a toast as any.” He drained the glass in two long swallows. “Well, I needed that,” he said. “They can poke all the needles in the world into you and it’s not the same thing. By God I needed that. I was cold sober for over a week and I can’t remember the last time I could have made that statement. You rarely saw me drunk but did you ever see me sober? Well, once or twice, I suppose.”
“Nobody’s perfect.”
He poured another drink but sipped this one. “You know, I’ve got to be the luckiest son of a bitch who ever drew breath. Never been much good at or for anything—”
“I could dispute that.”
“Oh, maybe I was all right at that, but not much else. But what did I ever do to deserve you? All the hours I’ve spent sitting around and wondering about that.”
“If I have to listen to much more of this I’ll have to start drinking myself.”
“It’s nothing but true.”
“Try to make me out a saint and I’ll take your bottle away,” she said. “Understand?”