On the Loose (4 page)

"Claudia MacLeod wants you to call her. I
thought you two broke up again."

"Did I tell you that?"

"You didn't have to. She's a good woman, Jim,
not like some of those tootsies you've played
around with."

His past relationships with a couple of highstrung women from the Heights had distressed
her, but his association with Claudia MacLeod, a
shaky romance at best, on-again, off-again, pleased
her. Claudia was a townie.

"Have I ever told you to mind your own business?"

"Many times. Think about something, Jim. With
her you know what you're getting."

Claudia Perrault, her name back then, had been
his eighth-grade girlfriend. They had walked handin-hand in the woods girding Paget's Pond. Their
initials, carved into the juicy skin of a sugar maple,
had long ago been sucked into the heartwood.

Meg gentled her tone. "You've both had your
tragedies."

Claudia had married young and followed her
soldier husband to Georgia, where she waited for
him after he was sent to Vietnam. He was killed in
a final round of fighting. She returned to Bensing ton with his partial remains, buried them in Burnham Road Cemetery, and moved in with her widowed mother, a household that now included her
two aunts.

Meg said, "You could be more understanding."

'Everybody could be that, Meg. Everybody in
the world."

"But we're talking about you. You're not getting
any younger. None of us are."

He was in his forties, and Meg, who had never
married, was past fifty. Her concerns were him,
her job, and her cats. She had no living relatives.
Her closest brush with romance was in a doctor's
office when she was a young woman. A professional hand searching for her pain momentarily
turned affectionate, a horror to her then, not altogether a bad memory now.

Morgan unzipped his parka. "Is she home?"

"She's at work."

He entered an office not quite small enough to
cramp him and, bulky in his open parka, sat at his
desk. A photograph of his wife stood beside his
calendar pad and telephone. He rang up Claudia at
the regional high school, where she was a guidance
counselor. They talked for several minutes, quietly,
businesslike, the subject surprising to him. Meg
crept in with a mug of coffee for him and tiptoed
out. In a low voice, he said, "I don't understand.
You could move in with me."

Claudia's voice was lower. "I need to have my
own place. My own life."

The conversation ended a few moments later. He wrapped his hands around the coffee mug,
which had a blue-and-gold pattern and was the
sole survivor of a set given him ten years ago when
he was appointed chief. Meg looked in on him.

He said, "She wants to buy the Bullard house."

During the afternoon the temperature plunged,
and by nightfall the cold was bitter. Returning
home, Chief Morgan raised the heat and heard the
furnace kick in under his feet. He disliked the dark
and soon had light pouring through every downstairs room. Wind rattled windows. The house, old
and ill-insulated, had belonged to his parents. He
and his wife had planned to rejuvenate it, add on a
room. In the framework of the future, the house
had seemed tiny. Now it echoed.

Claudia MacLeod arrived at seven with take-out
from the Blue Bonnet and an overnight bag.
Chicken wings, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry
sauce, and rolls were in the take-out. Among other
things, flannel pajamas jammed the overnight bag.

"I didn't think you'd come," he said, for she was
an infrequent visitor and seldom stayed the night.

"Are you glad?"

"I'm grateful," he said nakedly. Women were important to him. Female presence was a weapon
against the void in a way that male companionship
never could be. "What about your mother?"

"I'm a big girl, James."

Setting plates on the kitchen table, he watched
her open hot containers and sniff aromas. Her
hair, light brown, free of gray, was parted in the middle. Her eyes were wistful and inquiring behind sober spectacles and often ambiguous about
what they wanted. Dowdy in clothes, purposely so,
she was the opposite otherwise.

"What if your mother needs you?"

"Don't push it, James."

He placed salt and pepper on the table. "Sorry."

Her mother and her aunts, a sore subject between
them, didn't want him taking her away from them.
They competed with him and each other for her time
and attention. In an airless world of their own making, they depended on her to attend to their wants,
referee their squabbles, and run their errands.

"Milk?"

"Please," she said.

They ate quietly, at ease with each other, her
company a wave of warmth for him. Chewing, she
caught him staring.

"Like an old married couple, aren't we?" she said.

"Not exactly."

She frowned slightly. "Do you understand why I
want to buy the Bullard place?"

He understood that her mother's house, only a
little larger than his, had the closeness of a sickroom and the telltale odor of shut-ins. Her aunts,
who vied over whose grief from widowhood was
greater, never went out unless she packed them in
her Dodge Colt and drove them. Her mother lived
with the constant fear of chills.

"I know the obvious reasons," he said. "Maybe
there are some I don't know. Or don't want to
know"

"I'm living in the past, James. I can't go on doing that." She buttered a roll and handed it to
him. "Sometimes I think I'm regressing. I don't
want to take care of my mother. I want her to take
care of me."

"More gravy?"

"No, you finish it," she said. "Everything OK?"

"Everything's fine."

"When I was a child I loved wetting my pants. It
was wicked but felt good. And someone was always there to scold me, lovingly of course."
Abruptly she laughed, her glasses refracting light.
"I can't believe I told you that."

"But you did."

She wiped her mouth. "I'm a dunce."

He had a dishwasher, but it was broken. He did
the dishes in the sink, and she dried them. Reaching into a cupboard to put away her milk glass, she
glimpsed a June bug reduced to its shell. Telephone numbers were penciled on the inside of the
cupboard door, hers among them. Below, near the
toaster, the paper toweling was down to its cylinder, which bore shreds of the last sheet.

"You need someone to look after you, James?"

"Want the job?"

"I have a small life, room only for me."

Later, in another room, magazines and newspapers strewn about, they watched television from
separate cushioned chairs. She sat with her legs
curled under her, her cardigan pulled tight. Her
eyes were more on him than the screen. His had
closed.

"Do you want to share your thoughts," she
asked, "or do you prefer to think alone?"

"I thought you were watching the program."

"No more than you are." When his eyes opened,
she said, "In some ways you remind me of my father. That disturbs me."

"I remember he was a nice fellow. So it
shouldn't disturb you."

"A week after he died my mother washed his
underwear and socks, folded them how she always
did, and placed them neatly in his dresser drawer
as if he were coming back."

Morgan gripped the armrests of his chair. "I'm
not interested in television, are you?"

"No," she said.

They climbed the stairs. In his bedroom he
closed the door behind them and partly raised a
window which let in the cold and the howl of the
wind. He watched her hurry into a pajama top.
She had a fine bottom, two perfect bowls. His
sleepwear was a gray sweatshirt. Before getting
into bed, he threw an extra blanket over the bed.
In the growing warmth under the covers they lay
close together.

"My father whistled his own tune," she said,
"never anybody else's."

"I do the same, though off-key."

"I've noticed."

Deep under the covers they made love. He loved
the business of it. Two humid bodies impacting,
his driving home messages and hers wallowing in
the words. Vainly he tried to make it last. When he started to withdraw, she rose under him, gripped
him with arms and legs, and held him fixed.

Later, when he thought she was drifting off to
sleep, he said, "I know you love me."

"But if I don't have you, I can't lose you."

"You'd never lose me, Claudia," he said and in
the dark sensed her turning her face away.

"I don't trust you, James. You might leave me."

"No."

"Yes," she said. "You might die."

Trish Becker, who despised winter, wanted the
warmth of the Caribbean. "Let's take a cruise on a
gambling ship, Harry. I love the slots. I love blackjack, don't you?"

Harry Sawhill shook his head. He enjoyed winning of course, he said, but losing was a silly way
to part with money.

"But there's a thrill to the game," she said.

"French kissing gives me a thrill, gambling
doesn't."

"You could lick the chips."

Harry glared. They were dinner guests of his
brother and sister-in-law, the four of them seated
in ameliorating candlelight. Belle Sawhill, who had
soft engaging features and a richly intimate voice,
said, "It's a joke, Harry."

Trish was seated beside Ben Sawhill, which
pleased her. She liked Ben's clipped correctness,
admired his successes, and envied his wife. He
wore a Rolex with the face under his wrist, which reminded her of a gunfighter sporting his sixshooter with the handle pointed out.

He said to her, "Winter wouldn't be so bad for
you if you skied."

"I love the lodges, Ben, not the slopes."

Harry complimented Belle for the second time
on the superb taste of the seared swordfish, which
was blackened with Cajun sauce. The wine, his
brother's choice, was an expensive Graves, Belle
said to him, "How's Bobby?"

"He's all right. He's fine."

"No, he's not," Trish said.

Harry spoke low across the table. "Not your
business."

"He's never been right," Ben said gently. "Not
since his mother died."

"I do my best."

Belle touched his arm. "We know you do."

After dessert, they retired to the library, where a
fire was going. Belle served coffee, a choice of decaf and regular. The twins, who had stayed up past
their bedtime, came in to say good night. Sammantha and Jennifer were healthy nine-year-olds, the
blood glistening through their skin. They had
Belle's black hair, dark eyes, and full mouth. Trish
gave hugs to each and said, "I still can't tell you
two apart."

Sammantha was independent, contrary, and Jen

nifer was the darling. They competed for affection from their father, who adored them both, no apparent favorite. Belle said, "Say good night to your
uncle."

"I'm Jennifer," Sammantha said.

"No, she's not," said Jennifer. "I am!"

They kissed Harry's cheek and gave smackers to
their father. Their nanny, who had been waiting in
the doorway, took them off to bed. Ben and Harry
slipped away to talk business, Harry's personal
finances, the state of his investments. Belle and
Trish remained by the fire with their coffee.

"The twins are lovely," Trish said.

"I don't know what I'd do without them."

"Didn't you want another child or two?"

"It wasn't possible."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know. Still, you're very
lucky."

"Yes, I think so."

"Is Ben a good lover?"

For an instant Belle was taken aback. "I have no
complaints."

"Harry isn't. He drinks too much, and it stunts
his performance. When he's at his best I pretend
he's Ben."

Belle looked into the fire. "I wish you hadn't told
me that."

"It's nothing serious, only fantasy. Besides, what
would Ben want with a broad like me?"

When the brothers returned, Harry was smiling,
a celebratory drink in his hand. "Guess what," he
said to Trish, "I'm richer than I thought."

In the middle of January Trish Becker had had
enough of winter. Waking early and unable to fall back to sleep, she rose from her king-sized bed,
parted window drapes, and looked out at a fierce
boreal dawn. The sun, a lump of white, looked
frozen. "To hell with this," she said aloud and
made plans. At noontime she phoned an old
friend, Gloria Eisner, who lived in Connecticut and
told her what she had in mind for the two of them.

"For how long?" Gloria asked.

"A month. How 'bout it?"

Three days later she and Gloria were sunbathing
on a Barbados beach. Gloria lay prone on a towel
with her head cradled in her arms and her eyes
gazing out over the curve of a well-oiled shoulder.
Trish, her face wrapped in sunglasses, sat in a
chaise and sipped rum punch. Ten feet away a man
with protruding eyes, like push buttons, stood
sour, sandy, touched by too much sun. He stared
intently at them before moving on. Half under her
breath, Trish said, "What are we, freaks?"

"He was looking at your breasts," Gloria said.
"They've always been a big deal."

"He was looking at my belly scars."

Best friends in high school, they had been the
sort boys orbited. Inseparable, they had frequently
slept over at each other's house. In bed they had
compared their breasts and the maturity between
their legs. Trish had the bigger bosom, Gloria the
richer pubes. Each had married right out of college. Gloria had had three husbands, Trish only
the one.

"Seeing anyone special?" Trish asked.

Gloria stretched a lengthy leg and dug her toe in the sand. "A few guys, no music in any of them.
You still seeing that same man? What's his name?"

"Harry. I'm thinking of breaking it off. No future."

"Don't you know what the future is, Trish? It's
today squeezed into tomorrow. My last husband
told me that."

Sipping her punch, Trish watched a wave flop
in. The sea was full of wrinkles and smiles. "All I
know is that as you grow older things become less
solid. Houses, relationships, dreams."