Doctor's Wife (10 page)

    “You’re great, you’re fine.”

    He went into the bathroom. The bathroom light
switched on and fell like a flag across the bed in the darkened
bedroom. She lifted her left hand and looked at the wedding ring
Kevin had picked out for her at Samuels’, a gold band and a
platinum band, fused and intertwined. She examined it as though it
were someone else’s ring, then eased it a little off her finger.
There was a white circle where it had been. She slipped it back in
place.

    “Come on, lazy,” he called out. “Let’s go down. I
want to drink a lot of wine.”

    She sat up and saw herself in the dressing-table
mirror. “I should do my face.”

    “No, no, you’re fine as you are.”

    But she did her face.

    Chapter 5

    • When Miss Purdue came down late for dinner, Mr.
Balcer was sitting over a coffee, watching the new couple whom
Ahmed, the waiter, had just seated at a nearby table. Mr. Balcer
rose to draw out Miss Purdue’s chair. “Did you have a nice
day?”

    “Lovely,” Miss Purdue said. “And you?”

    “I went into Nice this afternoon,” Mr. Balcer said.
“I got two good ones.”

    “Who?” Miss Purdue sounded annoyed.

    “Willy Brandt, coming out of the Négresco and
driving off with a police motorcycle escort. And, about an hour
ago, Caroline Kennedy.”

    “Where?”

    “In the Place Masséna. I didn’t recognize her at
first. I had to ask the paparazzi who were following her.”

    Miss Purdue was dashed. She and Mr. Balcer had begun
this game about a week ago. Each day they spied out celebrities and
reported their finds to each other over dinner. Today had been a
bad day for Miss Purdue. “I went to a flick around five,” she said.
“So I wasn’t really in competition.” She accepted a menu from Ahmed
and then glanced around the restaurant.

    “New couple?”

    “Interesting,” Mr. Balcer said. “They’re residents.
Or at least she is.”

    “How do you know?”

    “See the room key sitting by her purse?”

    “Something odd about them,” Miss Purdue said, and
both she and Mr. Balcer stared, unabashed, wisely certain that the
couple’s interest was held by the trick cyclist, as he sawed back
and forth on his unicycle, inches from the quay’s edge.

    “Wedding ring,” Miss Purdue said. “Husband and
wife?”

    “He’s not her husband,” Mr. Balcer decided. “How old
would you say she is?”

    “Forty?”

    “Oh, come on. Trust a woman. I’d say
mid-thirties.”

    But Miss Purdue was listening in. “She’s Irish.”

    “Are you sure?”

    “If you lived in London, you’d be sure. Not only are
we inundated with them, we hear nothing else but their awful accent
on telly every time their bombs go off.”

    “He’s American,” Mr. Balcer said. “Or he could be
Canadian.” Mr. Balcer was Canadian.

    “One would have expected it to be the other way
around,” Miss Purdue said. “She should be the American. I mean, if
it’s a dirty weekend—which it certainly appears to be.”

    Miss Purdue picked up the menu and signaled Ahmed.
Mr. Baker continued to watch the couple, although the sight of them
made him vaguely angry. Nothing like that had ever happened to him
in all his sixty years. No one had ever stared at him with such a
loving look. He watched them holding hands under the table, heard
their laughter and their happy voices, watched them toast each
other, touching wineglasses. Mr. Balcer picked up his coffee cup.
The dregs were cold.

    •

    When they had finished eating, Mrs. Redden suggested
another stroll along the quay. He took her arm but she disengaged
it and, instead, put her arm around his waist as they moved past
the bobbing lights of the pleasure craft moored at the water’s
edge. “I was thinking,” he said. “If your husband comes on
Saturday, we have only two more days.”

    “He may not come.”

    “But if he does come?”

    “Let’s not think about that.”

    “We have to think about it.” He tossed his head back
angrily. “Christ, I hate this undercover stuff. I never was mixed
up with anyone who was married.”

    “You don’t have to be. I didn’t invite you.”

    “I’m sorry.” At once he put his arm around her. “I
am
sorry, Sheila. Listen, can I stay with you tonight? I
could creep in and leave before anyone’s up in the morning.”

    She did not answer.

    “Or you could come to my room in Les Terrasses.”

    “What if Kevin rings me up in the middle of the
night?”

    “Would he?”

    “He might. I don’t know.”

    “Look, don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ll come to
your room, but nobody will see me. I promise.”

    “All right.”

    But, later, going up to her room ahead of him,
ostentatiously alone, she felt as she had when she was a child and
some other kid had got her into something. People in love have no
sense, she told herself. She went into the bedroom, put on the
light, and tidied the bed, remembering how, that first time, she
had come out naked from the bathroom. He must have thought she’d
done it dozens of times with dozens of men. And then she remembered
the diaphragm. She had tucked it away that first afternoon, under
her cardigan in the bottom drawer of the bedroom dresser. I didn’t
use it, not then, not later. Oh, God, what if I’m pregnant by him?
She opened the drawer, felt under the cardigan, and took it out in
its plastic case. The Caesarian, the two miscarriages, the awful
guilty feeling of first using it on Kevin’s advice. Once it had
seemed so sinful; now, so safe. Oh, God, how could I have forgotten
it?

    She heard him knock. “Just a moment,” she called.
Quickly she ran into the bathroom, pulled down her panty hose, and
put it in. Then, flushed and nervous, she went out to the bedroom,
unlocked the door, and admitted him.

    “Didn’t meet
anyone
,” he whispered and
hugged her. She relocked the door. Suddenly, as in a silent film,
he began to strip off his clothes at a great rate. She smiled at
him, then began to imitate him, but the wine she had drunk made her
unsteady, and when she kicked her panty hose free of her ankle, she
overbalanced and fell. She got up, saw him naked, and then he
switched the overhead light off. In the dark, the shutters drawn to
close out the Mediterranean moonlight, she moved down in the bed,
found his penis, and put it in her mouth, sucking on it until she
felt him contract his thigh muscles, his hands on her head, pushing
her away. “No, I don’t want it too soon, wait.” She felt his mouth
on her nipples, felt his hands moving over her stomach. His mouth
went down: Kevin had never done that to her; she had read about it
but now was ashamed that Tom was doing it to her, until she felt
his tongue inside her and, oh, God, she had to delay him as he had
delayed her.

    In the dark he moved away and then lifted her up in
the bed, positioning her with her back to him, his hands holding
her waist. She heard the bed, the rotten bed, grinding and jiggling
so loud there was no question the people in the rooms on either
side must hear it too. But in her joy she forgot that, she heard
nothing, and soon she had to make him wait, hold still, hold still,
and then there must have been all the noise in the world as she let
him start again inside her, driving to the climax, how many times
today, there is no past, there is this, just this.

    Later, she slept. In her dream, Kevin waited for her
in the Great Northern Railway Station, standing at the end of the
platform under signs advertising the
Daily Express
and the
Belfast Telegraph
. There was something familiar and
threatening in this waiting, something which told her it had
happened before. The station was very dirty and smelled of
cigarette smoke, and on the deserted platform lay dozens of crushed
empty cartons which had once held fish and chips. She wore black:
she was coming home from Uncle Dan’s funeral in Dublin, and as she
came up to the ticket barrier she thought she had lost her ticket
and was hunting through her purse for it. Kevin would be angry if
she had lost her ticket again. When she could not find it, the
guard at the gate smacked his chrome ticket punch irritatedly into
the palm of his hand, then motioned her aside to let other
passengers pass in front of her. She found money and paid again to
replace her lost ticket. She hoped Kevin didn’t see her pay. She
went out to him and kissed him, but Kevin, looking strange, said,
“I heard you were not coming back.” Who could have told him that?
“I heard you were off dancing in the dark in France.” “I’m home,”
she said. “Then it’s over, let’s go home,” he said. They got into
Kevin’s new Audi and drove away from the railway station. It was
raining, it was always raining. They were coming up Duncairn
Gardens and a Jock soldier stopped them, signaling to them to pull
over. The patrol was not doing a search; they were in an awful
hurry, shouting in their Scots voices. And then, as Kevin pulled
the car in to the curb, the car shook and she saw a big gray cloud
of dust or smoke up ahead. It was the Swan pub that had been
bombed: she knew the people who owned it, one of the daughters had
gone to Glenarm convent with her, years ago, Nan Gallery, a
red-haired girl, but her picture in the
Irish News
next
day was black and white. In the black and white picture she did not
look a bit like herself. PUBLICAN AND TWO DAUGHTERS KILLED IN
EXPLOSION

    It was a dream, she was dreaming it, she had dreamed
different parts of it again and again since the bomb in the Swan
and the picture in the paper. And now, in her dream, she was on a
road in a bus, all alone, no Kevin or Danny, she was coming up to a
barrier, it wasn’t a police barrier, it was the Irish border,
customs men came out and did not look at her but waved the bus on.
She had no ticket. Then there was an English soldier up ahead in
the middle of the road. The bus slowed and stopped, with an
airbrake noise. The soldier came onto the bus and pointed his rifle
at her, ordering her out. She screamed.

    She woke in a dark room. She did not know if she had
screamed out loud. She turned on her right side, expecting to see
the phosphorescence on Kevin’s alarm clock, but felt her body touch
a naked body. There was no clock.

    He was asleep, one arm across his chest as though he
were about to draw an invisible sword. In the predawn light coming
through the shutters she saw outlines of the dressing table and the
imitation green leather armchair. She looked at him again. Asleep,
he looked so young. If some English soldier came into the room now
with his gun pointing at us, I would throw myself across the bed to
protect him. Soon he will slip away and go to his own hotel. And
when he does, I’ll get up and wash my hair.

    But she fell asleep. When she woke it was
eight-fifteen and he was long gone. She rose, no time for hair
washing. She must hurry to get ready to meet him for breakfast.

    As usual, he was first at the table. He stood up
when she came through the bar and made as if he would kiss her. But
she saw other guests looking at them and shook her head. It was,
she knew at once, a stupid thing to have done, so when they sat
down she reached across the table and took his hand. “I’m sorry.
That was silly of me. When did you go out this morning?”

    “Six-thirty. No one saw me.”

    “Are you cross because I wouldn’t let you kiss
me?”

    “Of course not.”

    “And so, what will we do today?”

    He looked at her. “Let’s go some place you’ve never
been before.”

    “What sort of place?”

    “A beach. Somewhere we can be without you
remembering you were there with your husband.”

    “We could go to the public beach,” she said. “It’s
pretty bad, but it’s only fifteen minutes’ walk.”

    “And you weren’t there with him?”

    “Never. He wouldn’t go. He hates a stony beach.”

    “Okay.”

    •

    That afternoon, when they had picnicked and sunned,
and been several times in the water, Tom lay, blissful, on the
stony beach, his arms around her. “Isn’t this great?” he said.
“This is just what I wanted.”

    “Stones and all?”

    “Stones and all. I’m sorry I said that about you and
your husband this morning. It’s only natural, you’d talk about when
you were here before.”

    “I’m not going to do it any more. I’m going to
reform.”

    “Oh?”

    “Yes. And from now on we’re officially lovers. You
can come to my room, kiss me in public, do anything you want.”

    “You mean it?”

    “Yes.”

    “Isn’t this a nice beach? Let’s come here
tomorrow.”

    Chapter 6

    • Mr. Balcer did not care for the beach. He did not
sunbathe, neither did he swim. Still, every day of his vacation he
would walk along the quay after lunch until he reached the public
beach, where, slowing his pace, moving along the promenade
overlooking the pebbly shoreline, he would observe the sunbathers
below. Girls were the interest, and sometimes, the French being
what they were (and the Scandinavians more so), he would see a girl
in monokini, her breasts bare, or, better, a couple up to
something. Although, usually, this did not happen on the main beach
but in the rocky coves.

    In this way, on Friday, about three o’clock in the
afternoon, he rediscovered the loving twosome from the Welcome.
Miss Purdue had commented on them last evening, pointing to the
empty table, deciding they must have checked out. Mr. Balcer
disagreed: the table was set for two and still bore the same room
number. And now, when Mr. Balcer rediscovered the couple in a rocky
nook, screened from all but his eyes, he did not at first recognize
them. This was because he was not looking at their faces but at
what they were doing. In particular at what she was doing. He
advanced on them quietly, at first seeing only a man and a woman
lying side by side on a big white towel; then he stepped up on a
rock, pretending to be looking at a sailboat in the bay. They were
too busy to notice him. As he watched, the woman reached out and
touched the boy’s crotch outside his swimming trunks. Then, slowly,
she began rubbing her hand up and down. Mr. Balcer felt almost as
much agitation as though this were happening to him. He could see
the growing bulge under the boy’s white trunks. His breath became
short. He hoped they would go on doing what they were doing and not
notice him. The boy put his hand inside the bra of her blue
swim-suit, pulling it down to expose her breast. Then they turned
to face each other, and exchanged a long, open-mouthed kiss as Mr.
Balcer with all his might willed the boy to pull down her pants.
But the boy did not oblige. It was at that moment, with a shock,
that Mr. Balcer saw the woman’s face, and realized these people
were his table neighbors at the Welcome. At once he became alarmed
and, retreating to the safety of the promenade wall, climbed over
it, to regain the pavement. Flushed, he continued his walk.