Seed on the Wind

She clung to these because she was afraid of what was trying to replace them. Her mind kept trying to escape, and fiercely she forced it back. What had flashed into it when she had opened the door and saw Pete there on the threshold, was now perfectly plain, and that was what she was desperately determined to conquer and suppress, at least until he had gone and she could consider it calmly, could shut herself up with it alone in her room and have it out. The urgency of it amazed her and filled her with panic; with him sitting there in the chair next to her, so close she could have reached out and touched him, she knew she dared not trust her thoughts for a single instant. She must touch him — heaven help her, father, the ghost of her father, and mother with a bald and gentle husband... She must let him know that she wanted to feel him... dead now, and always had been dead, and mother wouldn’t let them pry her mouth open, he had said, and he had said why not five, he wanted to know about the baby he had put in her... He had put in her, god think of that, there he was, and all those nights, he was the one who knew how to do that... right now, right this instant... but she couldn’t talk about that, she had told him so, she would not talk about that time when she had without any doubt been ready to get her father’s revolver from the bedroom and shoot him with it and now he had shot himself... No use pretending about it, what she wanted, look at his legs stretched out like that, and the cuffs of his shirt were dirty, they always were, if he put on a clean shirt when he got up the cuffs would be soiled by the time he got his hair combed, if you could call it combing... she could comb his hair all right, all his hair, and she would, his head first, it was more exciting to lead up to it... but not now, refinements could come later... not now... for now, oh, now...

She sighed sharply and deeply and jerked herself up in her chair. Pete glanced at her. She could not have told what he had been saying. She looked at her watch and said brusquely:

“You’d better go or you’ll miss the train.”

“What?” he demanded. “Already?”

“You have only fifteen minutes.”

“I hate to leave this fire. And this chair. And you.”

“I’m afraid there’s no help for it.”

“The hell there ain’t.” He grinned at her. “You haven’t got a bed for me?”

“Of course not. Don’t be silly.”

“Well, here I go.” He didn’t move. “Isn’t there a later train? There must be. God, I hate trains. And the subway; if I knew how to make a bomb I’d blow it up. Particularly do I hate trains at night. You know that. Now if I could sleep here, on that couch for instance, and get up to a good breakfast of eggs and thick bacon, and take a train in the daylight, when you can at least see where you’re going—”

She had got up from her chair. She interrupted decisively, “Come. Really. You’ll miss it.”

He didn’t move. Without lifting his head his eyes went swiftly up her body and down again, and though she didn’t see it she was aware of it. “I’ve another idea,” he said. “Come and sit on my knee — straddle, you know — and I’ll tell you the story about the princess who couldn’t remember what to do with her fingers.”

Lora stood perfectly still, but she knew she couldn’t stay that way; if she stood a moment longer she would begin to tremble and he would see it. Besides, standing there in front of him it would be too easy... just a step, two steps, to him... She sat down in her own chair again, upright, with her backbone stiff...

“I don’t like stories anymore,” she said.

“Don’t tell me.” He grinned at her. “That was the first thing that struck me when I saw you. Not tonight, a month ago it was, when I came out to make sure it was you. I walked out from the village and found a convenient hole in the hedge to look through. Your eldest boy came along and gave me a start — as sure as I live, I thought, there’s one of my cells running around on its own legs. That was before details and dates had been collected; I discovered my mistake later. Then I saw the girl and another boy or two in the back yard, around the corner of the house, and I said to myself, there can no longer be any doubt of it, I’ve absolutely been cuckolded. Then suddenly you appeared around the other corner of the house and there you were, on the terrace, with your hair blowing into your eyes. You had some shears and a basket in your hand and you came across the yard and stopped not far from my hole and began cutting flowers. I almost called to you, but remembered the ethics of my profession just in time. Furthermore, it wasn’t you — that is, it wasn’t the veteran mother of countless children by countless fathers — it was instead a charming and appetizing little girl whose neck I had wanted to wring for twelve years because I had once been ass enough to give her a wristwatch. By the way, it appeared to me that day, from a distance of fifteen feet, that you were wearing it.”

“No.”

“It wasn’t the one you have on.”

“No.”