Bitter Sweet (45 page)

In the end he dialled anyway and sat waiting with the muscles in his stomach seized up like a prize-fighter’s fist.

She answered on the third ring.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello.’

Silence, while he wondered, is her heart slugging like mine? Does her throat feel like there’s a tourniquet on it?

‘Isn’t it curious,’ she said quietly, ‘I knew it would be you. ‘

‘Why?’

‘It’s
10:30
. I don’t know anybody else who’d call me this late.’

“Did I wake you?’

“No. I’ve been gathering data for my income taxes.’

‘Ah. Well, maybe I shouldn’t bother you then.’

‘No, it’s all right. I’ve been at it a long time. I needed to put all these papers away anyway.’

Silence again before he asked, ‘Are you in the kitchen?’

‘Yes.’ He pictured her there, where they’d first kissed, where they’d made love on the floor.

Another halting silence while they wondered how to proceed.

‘How have you been?’ she inquired.

‘Mixed up.’ The , too.’

“I wasn’t going to call.’

‘I halfway hoped you wouldn’t.’

‘Then today I saw a woman who reminded me of you.’

‘Oh? Is it anyone I know?’

‘No, she was a stranger. I’m at the Radisson Hotel in
Minneapolis
-Mike and I - we’re here for the sportsmen’s show. This woman walked into our booth today and she had eyes so much like yours, and your chin . . . I don’t know.’ He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

‘It’s terrible, isn’t it, how we look for traces of each other?’

‘You do the same thing?’

‘Constantly. Then berate myself for doing it.’

‘Same here. This woman . . . something strange happened when she walked in. We couldn’t have talked for more than three minutes, but I felt... I don’t know how to put it... threatened almost, as if I were on the brink of doing something unholy. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, Maggie, you’re the last person I should be telling this to.’

‘No, tell me...’

‘It was scary. I looked at her and I felt.., aw, shit, there’s no other way to say it. Carnal. I felt carnal. And I realized that if it weren’t for you and our affair, I might have struck up a conversation with her just to see where it would lead.

Maggie, I’m not that kind of man, and it scares the hell out of me. I mean, you read about male menopause, guys who’ve been devoted husbands for years, and then in their forties they just lose it and start acting like morons, chasing kids young enough to be their daughters, having one nighters with perfect strangers. I don’t want to think that’s what’s happening to me.’

‘Tell me something, Eric. Could you ever admit a thing like that to
Nancy
- about that woman, I mean?’

‘Christ, no.’

‘That’s significant, don’t you think? That you can tell me but not her?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘While we’re baring our insecurities, let me confess one of my own: that I’m a sex-starved widow, and you were my feast.’

‘Aw, Maggie,’ he said softly.

‘Well?’ she demanded, self-deprecatingly, remembering the night on her kitchen floor.

‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘But I do, because I’m not a user either.’

‘Maggie, listen, do you know why I called you tonight?’

‘To tell me about that woman you saw today.’

‘That, too, but the real reason is because I knew I couldn’t get to you, that it was safe to call you from three hundred miles away. Maggie, I miss you.’

‘I miss you, too.’

‘Next Friday makes four weeks.’

‘Yes, I know.’

When she said no more, he sighed, then they listened to the electronic hum of the telephone line. Eric broke the silence.

 
“Maggie?’

‘Yes, I’m here.’

‘What are you thinking?’

Instead of answering, she asked a question of her own.

‘Did you tell
Nancy
about us?’

‘No, but I told Mike. I had to talk to somebody. I’m sorry if I violated a confidence.’

‘No, it’s all right. If I had a sister, I’d probably have told her, too.’

‘Thanks for understanding.’

They listened to each other breathe for some time, wondering what lay ahead for them. Finally she said, ‘We’d better say goodnight now.’

‘No, Maggie, wait.’ His voice turned abject. ‘Aw, Jesus, Maggie, this is hell. I want to see you.”

‘And what then, Eric? What will come of it? An affair? A messy breakup of your marriage? I’m not sure I’m ready to face that and I don’t think you are either.’

He wanted to beg her, make promises. But what promises could he make?

‘I... I really have to go now,’ she insisted.

He thought he heard a tremor in her voice.

‘Goodnight, Eric,’ she said gently.

‘Goodnight.’

For fifteen seconds they pressed their cheeks to the receivers.

‘Hang up,’ he whispered.

‘I can’t.’ She was crying now, he could tell, though she did her best to disguise it. But her words sounded thick and quavery. Sitting on the bed, doubled forward at the waist, he felt his own eyes water.

‘Maggie, I’m so goddamned much in love with you that I hurt. Like I’ve been bruised, and I’m not sure I’ll make it through another day without seeing you again.”

‘Good-bye, darling,’ she whispered and did what he was unable to make himself do. She hung up.

He moved through the next day believing he would never see her again; her parting words had been sorrowful but final. She’d had a full, happy life with her husband. She had a daughter and a business and new goals in her life. She had financial independence. What did she need with him? And in a town the size of Fish Creek, where everybody knew everybody else’s business, she was right to be cautious about involving herself in a relationship that was certain to bring her sideways glances from a segment of the population - whether they had an affair or he left Nancy for her.

Already she’d suffered the censure of her own daughter and mother. No, their affair was over.

He had a miserable day. Walked around feeling like someone had stuffed a wad of rags down his chest cavity and he’d never draw another unrestricted breath. He wished he hadn’t called her. It was worse since he’d heard her voice.

Worse knowing she lived through the same four weeks as miserable as he. Worse knowing there would be no solace for either of them.

He went to bed that night and lay awake, listening to the sound of traffic on

His watch had an illuminable face. He pressed the stem and checked it:
11:27
.

Is this what articles mean when they talk about stress?

Don’t men my age have heart attacks when they get into a situation like this? Worried, undecided, unhappy, not sleeping or eating properly? On a sexual tightrope?

The phone rang and he jumped so hard he skinned his knuckles on the headboard. He rolled up on one elbow and found the receiver in the dark.

‘Hello?’

Her voice was soft and held a touch of penitence. She spoke without preamble. ‘I’d very much like to make dinner for you on Monday night.’

He sank back on the pillows, his heart drumming hard, the knot of yearning exploding into a thousand smaller knots that bound him in the unlikeliest of places - temples, fingers, shoulder blades. ‘Maggie, oh, Jesus, Maggie, do you mean it?’

‘I never meant anything more.’

So what’s it to be- an affair or marriage? It wasn’t the time to ask, of course, and for now it was enough to know he’d see her again.

‘How did you find me?’

‘You said the Radisson in
Minneapolis
. There are four of them, I discovered, but I finally got the right one.’

‘Maggie...’

‘Monday night at six,’ she whispered.

‘I’ll bring Chardonnay,’ he answered simply.

When he’d hung up he felt as if he’d been dragged free of a mudslide and flung up on solid ground, realizing he’d live after all.

On Monday night at six when he reached the top of her sidewalk, she stepped onto the back verandah and called, ‘Put your truck in the garage.”

He did. And closed the doors .before heading to the house.

He forced himself to walk, to descend the sidewalk at a casual pace, to climb the porch steps slowly, to keep his hams at his sides while she stood before him with her arms crossed, shivering, the. light pouring from behind her and turning her into a celestial being with a halo.

They stood watching each other’s breath puff out like white streamers in the chill February air, until he finally thought to say, ‘Hello, again.’

She tipped her lips up and gave a timorous laugh. ‘Hello. Come in.’

He followed her inside and stood uncertainly on the rug before the door. She had dressed in pink silk – a lissome raiment that seemed to move without prompting- and had hung a cord of pearls upon her deep, naked throat. When she turned back to face him the beads, the dress, and she seemed to tremble. But by some unspoken compact this greeting was to be the antithesis of the last. She accepted his green-glass offering and they tended to conventions.

‘Chardonnay ... lovely.’ This as she examined the bottle.

‘Chilled.’ This as he removed his storm coat.

‘I have the perfect glasses.’

‘I’m sure you do.’

She stowed the wine in the refrigerator and he let his eyes drop to her legs. She was wearing high heels the exact shade of her dress. In the bright light of the kitchen they glistened.

She closed the refrigerator door and turned to face him, remaining across the room.

‘You look elegant,’ he told her.

‘So do you.’ He had chosen a smoke-blue suit, pale-peach shirt and a striped tie combining the two colours. Her eyes scanned it and returned to his face. This, too, by unspoken agreement: lovers in finest feather, each seeking to please the other.

‘We dressed,’ she said with a fey smile.

He offered a grin. ‘So we did.’

‘I thought a little candlelight would be nice.’ She led him into the dining room which was lit by only six candles, smelled of roses and had places set for two - the two at the near end, facing each other, at a table that would have held a dozen.

‘You’ve finished the room. It’s beautiful.’ He glanced around - ivory wallpaper, swags above the window, china in a built-in glass-doored cabinet, the gleaming cherrywood table.

‘Thank you. Sit here. Do you like salmon or do you only fish for it?’

He laughed, and they continued appraising one another, playing the game of restraint as he took the chair she indicated.

“I like it.’

‘I guess I should have asked you. Would you like your wine now or later?’

‘Now, I think, but let me get it, Maggie.’

He began to rise, but she touched his shoulder. ‘No, I will.’

He watched her leave the room and return in the shimmering dress that caught the candlelight and sent it radiating along her curves. She poured the wine, and took her place across from him, beyond a white-lace runner and a low crystal basket holding an arrangement of fragrant coral roses. She had arranged them all at their end of the table, as if the remaining length did not exist, and had placed the candelabrum carefully to one side.

‘So, tell me about
Minneapolis
,’ she said.

He told her while they drank their wine and studied one another in the candlelight. While they lingered over tart endive salad and French bread so crusty the crumbs flew when they broke it. Once she wet a fingertip with her tongue, touched two crumbs, and carried them to her mouth while he watched in fascination.

‘When will you open Harding House to the public?’

She told him while he refilled their glasses, then buttered another hunk of bread, ate it with great relish, and wiped his mouth on a flowered napkin, which her eyes followed.

In time she served him blushing salmon in apple-cider sauce; cheesy potatoes tubed into a garland of rosettes, browned on the tips; and spears of asparagus arranged like the stems of scarlet roses which she’d somehow carved of beets.