‘I’m fine now,’ I said, moving away from her because I didn’t trust myself that close to her. It was an experience I had never known before — to back away from a girl, and it shook me. ‘I don’t know what got hold of me.’ I looked across at the deep-freeze cabinet again. ‘Sounds as if the motor’s off.’
‘Shouldn’t it be? I turned it off.’
I passed my tongue over my dry lips.
‘When did you do that?’
‘Oh, about twenty minutes ago. Mrs. Dester said it was empty. It seemed odd to me to leave the motor running. I’m like that, I hate waste.’ She smiled. ‘So I turned it off.’
I crossed the room and flicked down the switch.
‘Maybe you’ve never seen the inside of one of these things,’ I said. ‘After they’ve been in use some time they get a heavy coating of frost. If you turn off the motor, the frost thaws and the cabinet gets a lining of water. That’s not good for it. So we keep the motor running because we never know when we’re going to put something in the freezer.’
My voice sounded strange to my ears, but the story seemed to go down all right.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I won’t touch it again.’
‘No harm done. The frost stays as it is for four hours or so after the motor’s turned off.’ I started for the door. ‘Well, I’ve got to be moving along. I’ll see you tonight. You won’t forget?’
She said she wouldn’t forget.
It took me most of the day to get over the shock, but I got over it, and I didn’t tell Helen.
We went to the movie that night. We went dancing on Wednesday night. On Thursday night I arranged to take her to the Foothills Club.
While all the evening activity between Marian and me was going on, Helen and I were working on the plan during the day. She would give Marian some task to keep her busy, and then slip across to the garage apartment and we’d get down to the details of the plan. There was a lot to work out: we had to have our stories pat. I found she was every bit as good at inventing as I was.
On this Thursday evening, she had been with me since three o’clock. We had nearly got the background of the plan worked out. It was now getting on for twenty minutes to seven, and I had promised to meet Marian at the gates at seven. Helen showed no signs of going and I was getting restless.
‘Well, okay, we needn’t drive it into the ground,’ I said. ‘We’ve got nearly everything lined up and we’ve still got until Sunday. I’m going to change now. I’m going out.’
She sat in a lounging chair, watching me, a jeering expression in her eyes.
‘I thought tonight we might go out together, Glyn,’ she said. ‘I’ve been neglecting you.’
I looked at her and it gave me a shock to realize how my feelings towards her had changed. At one time, just to look at that beautiful lush body and into those hard, glittering eyes, would have turned me into a pot of mush, but not now. I could see beyond the beauty. I knew what that cold, lovely mask of her face hid. I had learned better.
‘It’s not safe for us to be seen together, Helen. You know that.’
‘All right. Then let’s make a night of it here. I’m in the mood tonight.’
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a date.’
She crossed one shapely leg over the other and smiled at me. ‘May I ask who with?’
‘That’s my affair.’
‘I hope it’s not with Marian, because she’s doing a job for me that’ll keep her busy until her bedtime.’
I looked at her, feeling the blood rise to my face.
‘She’s coming out with me tonight.’
‘I’ve already told her she is not to go out. After all, Glyn, I engaged her. She is my servant and she takes her orders from me.’ She got slowly to her feet. ‘You mustn’t forget you’re only the hired help yourself: the unofficial nursemaid to a dead man. Don’t forget that, Glyn.’
‘Marian and I are going out tonight,’ I said evenly. ‘Tell her you don’t want her. Do you hear?’
She laughed. ‘Don’t be a fool. A girl like that is no use to you, and you are no use to her. You’d better stop this before it goes too far. You and I are linked together: not you and she.’
‘She’s going out with me tonight.’
‘All right, if you want to make a fool of yourself, go and tell her. She won’t go with you, and she’ll wonder why the hired help thinks he can countermand an order from me.’
She had me.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Then get out of here.’
She stared at me, lifting her beautiful eyebrows.
‘I said I was in the mood, Glyn.’
‘Get the hell out of here!’ I said, glaring at her. ‘I don’t give a damn what mood you’re in.’
‘So you are in love with her, you poor fool,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t have believed it.’
She turned and went out of the room and down the stairs, leaving me hating her as I had never hated any other woman before.
I spent the rest of the evening sitting in an armchair, a bottle of Scotch within reach, while I thought of what I could have been doing if Helen hadn’t shoved in her oar, and cursing her.
I wondered how Marian was feeling about it, and I had an idea that although she would be disappointed, she wouldn’t be surprised. Each night she had gone out with me, she seemed to wonder why Helen didn’t want her.
Around ten-thirty I got fed up with my own company. I got to my feet, turned off the light and went over to the house. The lights were on in the lounge. I didn’t go in, but moved around the path until I could see through the window.
Helen was reading and smoking. Marian was sitting away from her, busily sewing some white silk thing that probably Helen had given her. The gramophone was playing. I stood out in the darkness watching Marian, listening to the music until the record finished, then as she got up to turn off the gramophone, I walked back to my apartment, undressed and got into bed. I lit a cigarette and lay on my back, staring up at the ceiling.
I knew now that I was in love with Marian. I knew too that I wanted to marry her. This was the first time I had ever wanted to marry a girl, and the thought gave me a queer feeling of excitement. She and I, I told myself, could go to Rome together. She could go on with her studies, and I’d be around to love her, to listen to her talk, to see the things with her that she wanted to see in Rome.
I wondered then if I should go ahead with this plan of mine to get hold of the insurance money. Suppose Marian found out what I was planning to do? I didn’t have to wonder how she would react. It would be the finish between us. But if I didn’t go ahead where was the money to come from to marry her and take her to Rome?
I lay thinking and smoking until well past two getting nowhere. I was half inclined now to chuck the plan, but I kept thinking of the dollars. This was my one chance of laying my hands on real money. If I didn’t go ahead, I would have to start working again and I knew what that meant. Thirty bucks a week, liquor, talk, and plodding from office to office; that wasn’t the kind of life I would want to share with Marian.
Sick of my thoughts, I swung my legs off the bed and got up. I decided to take a bath in the hope I’d go to sleep when I returned to my bed, and as I moved over to the bathroom, I happened to look out of the window that overlooked the west side of the house. I stopped, standing motionless, feeling my heart skip a beat. I could see the kitchen window with the moonlight reflecting on the glass. I saw a flicker of a light from behind the window as if someone had turned on a flashlight for a moment and then turned it off.