Black Diamond (32 page)

Five minutes before she was due to go to lunch, she scooted around to the back of the building, took the janitor’s elevator and went out one of the emergency doors. The only difficulty left was the open stretch between the front of the building and the main road. If she hurried, she could walk all around the block and try to approach the shops from the far side. Of course she didn’t need to buy herself any lunch at all. There was a coffee and sandwich machine down the hall from her office. There were lots of them, all through the building. But if she stayed at her desk, Bert would probably come in and make some big outburst – or, at the least, a loud complaint – right there.

As soon as she’d crossed the double main road, she thought that she was in the clear. Everything was going to be fine. She slowed down and looked around: another nice day. She wondered where he’d take her tonight. Perhaps nothing would happen. But if it did? And maybe the dark blue taffeta wasn’t right. She’d have to iron the grey dress.

As she turned in to the alleyway between the row of shops where the hairdresser was and the arcade that she was headed for, Bert grabbed her elbow. He said, ‘Look, we’ve got to talk about this. You can’t just start going out with somebody else. What am I supposed to do?’

She pulled her arm back. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘That’s up to you. I told you yesterday: there’s nothing to talk about. No fuss, no bother, no more Sandra. I should have done it a long time
ago, but I was under the impression that we were engaged. I can’t believe it now.’

‘But we are. I mean, we’re going to get married, aren’t we?’

‘You’ve never mentioned it. And the only time I ever tried to get you to say something about it, you told me we shouldn’t rush things.’

‘Well, I always sort of assumed that it was going to happen. I mean, we love each other and everything.’

‘Bert, you don’t even like me.’

‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

‘No. You want to go out with your friends and have a good time. And somebody like your mother will be back at home, waiting to clean the mud off your hiking boots. It isn’t just that we’ve got different interests.’

‘You could come along whenever you like. Why don’t you?’

‘I guess I would have if you’d ever asked me. You’ve always made me feel that I’d spoil things if I went along and slowed you down. Maybe I would have. But we could have done other things. We could just have taken a walk together every once in a while.’

‘Where are you going? It’s this way. I made a reservation at Francesco’s.’

‘I’m just going to have a sandwich someplace.’

‘You can fit in a plate of spaghetti. Come on. I’m hungry.’

‘Well, I’m not. I’m out to dinner tonight, with lots of food and wine. I don’t want a hot lunch.’

‘You’re going out to some big candlelit seduction scene? Jesus, Sandra. What are you trying to do to me?’

‘I’m saying goodbye. Why can’t you admit that you don’t really mind?’

‘That’s not true.’

‘You mind that I’ve done it first, that’s all.’

He started to wave his arms and talk about how she’d never given him any sign – not one, not a hint – that she’d been unhappy with the way things were. And this just wasn’t fair.

She’d tried, she said, she honestly had. Every time she’d opened her mouth to tell him, he was in the middle of watching a
football game, or ice hockey or baseball or basketball. All she’d ever been able to get out of him was uh-huh and uh-uh. And now her lunch hour was nearly over and she was starving.

She turned right around and ran. As fast as she could, she raced down the alleyway, out to the sidewalk, across the street, along the arcade and into the little sandwich shop where she sometimes went with Maureen. She sat down at the first empty table she could see. A waitress came up to her straight away. Sandra said, ‘A tunafish sandwich on rye, please.’

‘With lettuce?’

Over the girl’s shoulder Sandra saw Bert come bolting in through the door. ‘With lettuce,’ she said, ‘but I think maybe I’d better make that an order to go.’

‘We don’t do food to go.’

‘Okay. In that case, could you make it fast, please?’

Bert yanked away one of the empty chairs and sat down next to her. ‘I’m not leaving it like this,’ he announced. Three people turned to look.

‘Are you together?’ the waitress asked.

‘No,’ Sandra answered.

Bert said yes.

‘What can I get you?’

‘Roast beef, rare. Sliced thin. White bread. Mustard, pickles.’

‘You want that with potato chips?’

‘Sure.’

Sandra started to slide out of her chair. If she made a dash for it, she might be able to get out on to the street before he’d understood her actions.

She took a quick step forward. He shot to his feet and grabbed her around the waist. ‘You stay right there,’ he ordered. Everyone was looking now.

He pushed her back down into her chair. ‘And two black coffees,’ he told the waitress.

‘I’ll have some milk in mine,’ Sandra muttered.

‘Oh yeah, I forgot.’

Her eyes moistened with anger and affection: he still couldn’t remember anything about her – what she liked or didn’t like,
where her parents went in the summer, what her sister’s name was. But he was sweet; insensitive, but straightforward. And he was willing to follow her into a strange, small place and make an embarrassing show of himself in order to stop her from leaving him. If she’d crawled under one of the tables, he’d have gone after her. Of course she was still fond of him. That was undeniable. She wasn’t going to forget him. But she wouldn’t be able to stand living with him for the rest of her life.

She put her hand on his arm, and said, ‘I don’t want to argue. I’ve got somebody else, that’s all.’ She looked at him steadily.

He said, ‘But it isn’t serious. It can’t be.’

She nodded. She took away her hand.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Well.’

They sat there in silence for a few moments. She’d lost her appetite. She wanted to get out.

The waitress came with their food. Bert lifted his sandwich. He said, ‘Maybe you need some time to think about things.’

‘Bert, I have thought.’

‘Get it out of your system, sort of. That kind of idea. I guess I took a lot of things for granted.’

‘You want me to try it out with somebody else and then come back if it doesn’t work?’

‘Well, I don’t like it. But if it’s what you need? You’ll find out: he doesn’t love you.’

‘You don’t know anything about it.’

‘I’m the one who loves you.’

‘Bert –’

‘Have a potato chip?’

She shut her eyes. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

He took out his handkerchief and started to wipe it over her face. ‘Eat up,’ he told her. ‘You’ll need your strength. Remember: you’ve got a big seduction ahead of you.’

‘Don’t.’

‘Why not?’

She pushed her plate away and threw her crumpled napkin beside it. She shoved her chair back. He put his hand over her wrist. ‘Stay a little while,’ he said. ‘I’ve missed you.’

She shook her head; she was going to get to the door if she had to drag him after her. She tottered to her feet. He took away his hand and let her go. I’ll be in touch,’ he said.

*

As before, he rang the bell when the clock showed the precise moment they had named. This time he brought her some flowers. She asked him in and took his coat. She apologized for the state of the room, which was neater than it had been at any time since she’d started going out with Bert.

He followed her in to the tiny kitchen. She reached up to the cupboard where she kept the vases: one big, the other small with a chip at the base. She brought down the large one and started to spread the flowers out on the counter.

‘I think my son is in love with you,’ he said.

‘He’s too young for that kind of thing.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Anyway, he can’t stop talking about you.’

‘Well, I hope he’s saying nice things.’

‘Sure. But that wasn’t what struck me so much. It’s that he’s obsessive. Can’t stop. Just like me.’

She laughed, but the mention of Eric brought him unpleasantly into her mind. She remembered the strange dream she’d had that night when she’d stayed at her aunt’s house. ‘Do you dream a lot?’ she asked.

‘Not a lot. Sometimes. I dreamt about you the night I met you.’

‘You did? That’s amazing. I dreamt about you, too.’

‘What was your dream?’

‘You first.’

‘Oh, I just dreamt it the way I wanted it. I rang the doorbell, but when you answered it you were wearing one of those nightgowns you can see through. Filmy. You opened the door, you invited me in and then you took off the nightgown and we got down to business for hours and hours. It was a wonderful dream. What was yours like?’

‘Part of it was mixed up with a book I’d been reading. But there was a scene in it that was more or less like yours.’

‘All that sex? Really?’

‘Except that we weren’t in the same house.’ And it hadn’t gone on forever, without changing; but she didn’t want to tell the rest of the dream.

He said, ‘I used to have a repeating dream when I was a child. A nightmare. That’s what I think is going on with Ricky. He has these fears, but he doesn’t restrict them to the hours when he’s asleep. He tries to get into them consciously and change them around.’

‘What was your nightmare?’

‘I’d dream that I was in my room, lying in my bed. The realistic detail, you see. And I’d look over at the window, where I’d suddenly notice a black shape.’

‘What kind of a shape?’

‘That’s what was so frightening. It was just like darkness. It had no … There wasn’t really any form to it. And it was coming to get me. I used to wake up screaming.’

‘How old were you?’

‘Seven. About then. That’s when they started.’

‘It was a dream about death. I used to get them around that age: being chased by fire, or about to drown, or falling.’

‘Or flying. It’s all supposed to be about sex.’

‘Not when you’re a child.’

‘Don’t be too sure. But children grow out of those dreams. And so did I. Then one afternoon – when I was in college – it came back. I must have been studying for exams or working too hard, or something. I got through college by working nights, taking all kinds of jobs. Anyway, I fell asleep for a while one afternoon. And when I woke up, it was nearly evening. I looked over at the window and – there it was, in my life again, my real life: the black shape, coming to get me. That was the worst dream I’ve ever had. It was so bad that I haven’t thought about it again till now. I didn’t want to remind myself. I was afraid that it might come back.’

‘It might not ever come back, now that you’ve talked about it.’

‘What I don’t understand is that in the dream, I set myself up. I engineered something horrible for myself: I made myself believe
that I wasn’t having a dream. I changed the setting from my childhood bedroom to a college dorm. That was meant to convince me that the threat was real. Why?’

‘I don’t know. All I can think of is that you were afraid of something again and that your dream plugged you back into the old story, but it updated your surroundings to fit with your grown-up life. Has it ever come back since then?’

‘No. But after the double whammy, I don’t know what else it can do to me. Of course that’s what I thought before, too.’

She dropped one of the flowers. He bent down to get it. She leaned over at the same time. He got the flower and kissed her while she was still off balance. ‘Are you nervous?’ he asked. ‘Maybe we should go to bed now and worry about dinner afterwards.’

‘Maybe we should finish doing the flowers.’

‘Maybe not,’ he said.

She hadn’t imagined such a quick bypassing of all the stages usually considered necessary before a first night that wouldn’t be the only one they’d spend together. But she had already established the fact that she was a nice girl; this was no longer the first date, she’d cleaned the apartment and changed the sheets and towels and she was hoping that the evening would end in the bedroom. That was what she was prepared for. So did it really matter if they skipped two or three hours?

Of course it didn’t matter. However, since she’d been keyed up to begin with, the rearrangement of all her plans and thoughts flustered her so much that she just dropped everything and let him take over. She left the flowers scattered around the kitchen and she forgot to put the chain on the hall door.

*

While they were still in bed, wondering whether they should get up and go out to dinner, or wait a while longer, the phone rang. That was another thing she’d forgotten: to unplug the bedroom extension.

She said, ‘Let it ring.’

He reached over, picked up the receiver and waited. There was a click that they both heard, and then the dial tone.

‘Wrong number?’ he asked her.

‘Wrong man,’ she said. ‘I’ve told him it’s over. I kept on telling him, but he’s checking on me. At least, I think so. I don’t know who else would be calling. Especially like that, just to see if somebody’s in.’

‘Burglars?’

‘Not around here. We’ve only ever had daytime break-ins, on the ground floor. Nothing at night.’

He didn’t seem to mind the thought that she’d recently been attached to another man. According to his son, he’d been going out with someone else himself for the past couple of weeks. Perhaps he hadn’t even broken it off yet. Or maybe Eric had been making the whole thing up.

He got up to phone the restaurant from the living room. While they were putting their clothes on, he asked her to marry him. She said, ‘You don’t think we should spend a little more time getting to know each other?’

‘Would it help?’

‘Well, otherwise – if we’re living together and if we don’t really understand each other’s moods and what you could find irritating and everything –’

‘We’d find that out as we went along. Isn’t that how it works?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know how it works.’ He did: he’d been married before. She’d have liked to know whether his first marriage had been settled with such speed and boldness.

He said, ‘Are you telling me that you don’t want me?’