Doctor's Wife (25 page)

    She shook her head and looked through the glass at
the flow of traffic scooting out of the rue du Four like Dodg’em
cars in a fairground. Suddenly, inexplicably, she felt herself
tumble from the mental tightrope on which she had balanced for the
past two weeks.

    “What’s wrong, Sheila?”

    She looked at him. “Supposing you were told you
would never see
me
again. What would you do?”

    “I wouldn’t listen.”

    “But supposing I told you.”

    He stared at her. “Is this some game?”

    “It’s a question.”

    “Is it Danny? Has that changed your mind?”

    “No, I just asked what you would do.”

    “Do you mean, would I let you go?”

    “Yes, I suppose.”

    “If it’s what you want, then you have to do it. Are
you going to give me up?”

    “Oh, darling,” she said, “it’s much more likely to
be the other way around.”

    “What do you mean?”

    “Nothing. Let’s stop this awful conversation. I
started it. I’m sorry. What will we do tonight?”

    “Whatever you like.”

    “Why don’t we walk along the river, take a bus over
to the Bourse, and eat in that place we were in last Friday?”

    “The noisy place?”

    “Yes,” she said. “I feel like a noisy place.”

    Chapter 18

    • In Belfast, that Wednesday morning, Kevin Redden
rose at first light. He shaved and dressed himself as for his
wedding, picking out his best dark suit and the shirt and tie she
had chosen for him last Christmas but which he had never worn. He
tried and discarded two silk handkerchiefs for his breast pocket
before settling on a plain white linen. He stared at himself in the
mirror, then recombed his hair so that it did not lie too flat on
his head. He drank a cup of tea, packed a small bag with overnight
things, and, thinking of her, added Valium and a strong sedative.
Then he said goodbye to Mrs. Milligan and Danny (who thought he was
only going to Dublin) and by 8 a.m. was in his new Audi, driving
south. His car was stopped and searched at a British Army roadblock
near the border, but, even with this delay, he arrived at
Collinstown airport outside Dublin at ten-fifteen. He made
arrangements for parking his car overnight, and was ticketed and in
the airport lounge half an hour before the flight was due to be
called. There was low-lying fog on the Continent. Flights to Zurich
and Brussels were delayed, an announcement which produced in him an
intense feeb’ng of anxiety.

    But the Paris flight was called on time. Two hours
later, when he had landed at Orly and cleared French customs, he
went to a telephone and rang the number she had given him. It was,
as he suspected, the same hotel to which he had telephoned
previously. He took down the address and, later, on the bus going
into town, lettered it carefully on one of his prescription
pads.

                GRAND HÔTEL DES
BALCONS

                6, RUE
CASIMIR-DELAVIGNE

    This pad he showed to a driver in the taxi rank at
the Invalides, searching the man’s face to see if he understood.
When the man nodded, Redden climbed into the back seat and sat,
oblivious of the passing streets until the taxi came up toward the
Place de l’Odéon and stopped before the unprepossessing entrance to
the hotel. He paid off the driver and went into the lobby, carrying
his raincoat and overnight bag. He had rehearsed his questions as
though preparing for an oral examination and now, in his
indifferent French, he began his inquisition.

    “
Pardon, Madame. Quel numéro de chambre, Madame
Redden
?”

    The middle-aged woman at the desk looked at him,
then answered in an English as accented as his French,
“
Madame
Red-on. Fortay-eight.”

    “Is she in?”

    “No,
Monsieur
. She go out.”

    “Do you know when she will come back?”

    “No. Most days, after lunch, they come back to the
room.”

    “What time?”

    “Two, three o’clock.”

    He looked at his watch. It was one-thirty. He looked
behind him and saw a small table and two easy chairs in an alcove.
“Maybe I’ll wait a while.”

    “As you wish.”

    He crossed the lobby and sat in one of the chairs.
Most days, after lunch, they come back to the room. He thought of
his honeymoon, long ago, in Villefranche. We used to do it then,
after lunch, with the wine in us. Well, she won’t get any fucking
done today. He did not go beyond that thought. He sat in his best
dark suit in a hotel lobby in a foreign city, waiting for his wife
to come in with her lover. All at once he felt like a man knocked
down in an accident and brought into the emergency ward of a
hospital. He knew where he was, and what had happened. He did not
know what would happen next.

    But when he had been sitting there for half an hour
a new anxiety took him. What if she came in, saw him, and ran out
again, forcing him to chase after her? He got up, smiled at the
woman behind the desk, who did not notice him, then went outside
and looked up and down the narrow street. He crossed the street and
stood in the doorway of a neglected shop which seemed to sell
orthopedic shoes. He pretended to examine the plaster foot casts in
the window, but kept an eye on the hotel entrance. The important
thing was to let them go upstairs, then knock on the door and
confront them. He would tell the Yank he had to talk to his wife
alone and then stay with her in the room. That way, he would have
her some place where she could not walk away from him. At home she
always broke up rows by running upstairs and going to her sewing
room.

    The sky darkened. It began to rain. He buttoned up
his raincoat and shifted restlessly in the doorway, looking up and
down the street. He realized that, suddenly, he was shaking. It was
as though, unknown to himself, he had worked into a rage.
You
mustn’t lose your temper
. Yet as he tapped out this warning,
it became a code, not understood by his other self, that stranger
who trembled and wet his dry lips, who stared up and down the
street like a criminal awaiting his prey.

    •

    Shortly after two o’clock, a sudden thunderclap
sounded its warning in the Luxembourg Gardens, where, arm-inarm
among a small group of spectators, Mrs. Redden and Tom Lowry
watched an Algerian, a Ghanaian, and an Indian who squatted on the
steps of a deserted
belle époque
military band shell,
playing two flutes and a sitar for their own pleasure. Lightning
blazed above the trees, leaving the sky darker for its passing.
Almost at once, rain sheeted down, bringing the music to a stop as
performers and audience hurried up the steps of the band shell to
shelter under its hexagonal roof. There, looking out at the
downpour, Mrs. Redden thought of Ireland, of holidays long ago,
when rain, implacable, inevitable, would end the picnic, the game
of tennis, the afternoon on the strand, banishing the holidaymakers
to the prison of a seaside boardinghouse lounge. She shivered and
tightened her hold on Tom’s waist. On the last morning of those
summer holidays, she and the other children would wake to see their
father already loading the car and know they would sleep that same
night in their own beds at home. Inevitable, implacable, the
rainstorm wept itself out. She saw Tom look at his watch.

    “What time is it?”

    “Twenty past two. Want to go back to the hotel for a
while?”

    “All right.”

    They walked out of the gardens and down the rue de
Vaugirard. This holiday, unlike those holidays long ago, would not
end with her sleeping at home. Two nights from now I will be high
over the Atlantic Ocean and on Saturday I will be walking around in
the Other Place. I am going to America. I am starting my life over
again. But as she said these words to herself, she found it hard to
imagine what the new life would be like. And, again, she was
afraid.

    As they came through the Place de l’Odéon and into
the rue Casimir-Delavigne, she stopped and looked at him. “Tom,
supposing you go on to New York alone this week?”

    “What do you mean?”

    “Wait. Supposing I follow you, say two weeks from
today? That would give you time to think about things. And if you
still want me to join you then, I promise I’ll come.”

    “Do you know what that plan is?” he said.

    “What?”

    “It’s fear of flying,” he said, and laughed. “You’re
afraid of flying, that’s it, isn’t it?”

    “No, no.”

    “Oh yes, it is,” he said and laughed, and looking at
him, she did not want to leave him, she did not want to spoil
things now, so she laughed, too.

    “Maybe so,” she said.

    He took her hand and they went into the hotel.

    •

    When Kevin Redden saw his wife coming down the
street hand-in-hand with a stranger, his first instinct was to
retreat farther into the doorway of the orthopedic shop because it
would be shameful if he were seen spying on them. This shame, which
he did not understand, was counterbalanced by an insatiable,
eye-glaring curiosity about the Yank who had stolen his wife. And
so, dodging about, peering through the glass of the window, he
discerned that the stranger was much younger than he, about the
same height, and not at all the sort of caricature American his
fantasies had created. He looked like someone from home, an intern
off duty, perhaps even a med student.

    They were laughing. Oh yes, the heartless bitch
getting ready to abandon her only child was laughing! For one
disquieting moment she seemed to look across the street directly at
him, hiding in the doorway. Then, hand-in-hand, she and the man
went into the hotel. He stepped out from his place of concealment,
his breathing shallow as though he had run up the street.
I
must calm down
. He turned back to the shop window and tried to
mirror himself in its reflection, but the window was dull and the
sky gray, and all he caught of himself was that he was standing
there in his raincoat, carrying a small bag like some door-to-door
salesman. He waited for a moment, then crossed the street and went
into the hotel. The middle-age woman was still behind the desk. He
did not go direcdy to the desk but walked into the little alcove
and took off his raincoat, because he did not think he looked well
dressed in it. He put it and the overnight bag down behind one of
the easy chairs. If they were stolen, what matter: he did not want
to knock on her door and be opened to, standing there with a bag in
his hand. When he had straightened his tie and patted his
handkerchief to make sure it was in place, he went over to the
desk.

    “Is Mrs. Redden back yet?”

    “Yes, sir, she just came in.”

    “Forty-eight, you said?”

    “Yes, sir. Do you want I telephone?”

    “No, no, I’ll go on up. She’s expecting me,” he
said, and hurried to the stairs before the woman had a chance to
reply. He took the stairs two at a time. On the top step he
stumbled, catching his heel in the carpet runner. As he went down
the corridor, searching for the number, he took his second
handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped his palms, which
were clammy. When he got to the door marked 48, he knocked gently.
Two knocks.

    “
Allo, oui
,” a man’s voice said.
“
Entrez
.”

    They must be expecting a maid. He opened the door
and, as he did, saw her standing by the window, her back to him,
closing her raincoat about her. He saw why. She had already taken
her dress off, the dirty bitch. There it was, lying on the chair.
The boy friend had his coat off. She turned around. “Kevin!”

    He did not answer her. He looked at the man. “Do you
mind?” he said. “I’d like to have a word with my wife.”

    The man looked over at Sheila.

    “Tom, I wonder, would you wait for me
downstairs?”

    “Are you sure?” the man said. He was a Yank all
right, a bloody Yank with a flat, twangy American accent.

    “Yes, please,” she said. The Yank nodded, then
looked angrily at Redden. “Excuse me,” he said, making Redden give
ground in the doorway. Redden shut the door and, as he did, saw the
hotel key in the lock, a wooden ball hanging from it. He turned the
key, locking the door, then put the key in his pocket.

    “What do you think you’re doing?”

    “Making sure you don’t walk out.”

    “Give me that key.”

    “Shut up,” he said. “And sit down.”

    
You mustn’t talk like that, don’t lose your
temper
, he warned the unpredictable person who was now in
control of him, but it was too late, he
had
lost his
temper. He had already made an enemy of her. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“I didn’t mean to sound cross.”

    “You have every right to be cross,” she said. She
sat on the bed and looked at him. “Kevin, I told you not to come.
It’s no use.”

    “But it’s got to be some use,” he said. At home,
lying awake these past nights, he had planned to say this, to be
both sensible and kind, yet threatening in a quiet, professional
manner. But she was not one of his patients: she did not even seem
to be his wife any longer, and so, in his panic and anger, that
unpredictable person took over inside him, and that person, that
bloody fool, spread out his hands like a peddler and smiled, and
tried to get a bit of a laugh into his voice, as he said, “I’m
wearing my good suit. Did you notice that?”

    “Yes, I did.”

    “Do you know why I’m wearing my good suit,
Sheila?”

    She shook her head.