But Richard Gordon had stopped and his head was still turned, staring.
“Don’t mind him. Don’t mind anything. Don’t you see you can’t stop now?” the woman had said in desperate urgency.
The bearded man had closed the door softly. He was smiling.
“What’s the matter, darling?” Helène Bradley had asked, now in the darkness again.
“I must go.”
“Don’t you see you can’t go?”
“That man—”
“That’s only Tommy,” Helène had said. “He knows all about these things. Don’t mind him. Come on, darling. Please do.”
“I can’t.”
“You must,” Helène had said. He could feel her shaking, and her head on his shoulder was trembling. “My God, don’t you know anything? Haven’t you any regard for a woman?”
“I have to go,” said Richard Gordon.
In the darkness he had felt the slap across his face that lighted flashes of light in his eyeballs. Then there was another slap. Across his mouth this time.
“So that’s the kind of man you are,” she had said to him. “I thought you were a man of the world. Get out of here.”
That was this afternoon. That was how it had finished at the Bradleys’.
Now his wife sat with her head forward on her hands that rested on the table and neither of them said anything. Richard Gordon could hear the clock ticking and he felt as hollow as the room was quiet. After a while his wife said without looking at him: “I’m sorry it happened. But you see it’s over, don’t you?”
“Yes, if that’s the way it’s been.”
“It hasn’t been all like that, but for a long time it’s been that way.”
“I’m sorry I slapped you.”
“Oh, that’s nothing. That hasn’t anything to do with it. That was just a way to say good-bye.”
“Don’t.”
“I’ll have to get out,” she said very tiredly. “I’ll have to take the big suitcase, I’m afraid.”
“Do it in the morning,” he said. “You can do everything in the morning.”
“I’d rather do it now, Dick, and it would be easier. But I’m so tired. It’s made me awfully tired and given me a headache.”
“You do whatever you want.”
“Oh, God,” she said. “I wish it wouldn’t have happened. But it’s happened. I’ll try to fix everything up for you. You’ll need somebody to look after you. If I hadn’t of said some of that, or if you hadn’t hit me, maybe we could have fixed it up again.”
“No, it was over before that.”
“I’m so sorry for you, Dick.”
“Don’t you be sorry for me or I’ll slap you again.”
“I guess I’d feel better if you slapped me,” she said. “I
“Go to hell.”
“I’m sorry I said it about you not being good in bed. I don’t know anything about that. I guess you’re wonderful.”
“You’re not such a star,” he said.
She began to cry again.
“That’s worse than slapping,” she said.
“Well, what did you say?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember. I was so angry and you hurt me so.”
“Well, it’s all over, so why be bitter.”
“Oh, I don’t want it to be over. But it is and there’s nothing to do now.”
“You’ll have your rummy professor.”
“Don’t,” she said. “Can’t we just shut up and not talk anymore?”
“Yes.”
“Will you?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll sleep out here.”
“No. You can have the bed. You must. I’m going out for a while.”
“Oh, don’t go out.”
“I’ve got to,” he said.
“Good-bye,” she said, and he saw her face he always loved so much, that crying never spoiled, and her curly black hair, her small firm breasts under the sweater forward against the edge of the table, and he didn’t see the rest of her that he’d loved so much and thought he had pleased, but evidently hadn’t been any good to, that was all below the table, and as he went out the door she was looking at him across the table; and her chin was on her hands; and she was crying.