Walkers (26 page)

Jennifer said, ‘Oh,’ and looked at
the lamb. ‘But if you have no fiancée, that means your fiancée’s parents aren’t
coming to dinner.’

‘That’s right,’ Bernard admitted.

‘But if your non-existent fiancée’s
non-existent parents aren’t coming to dinner, then who is?’’ I was hoping that
I was, with you.’

Jennifer stared at Bernard open
mouthed. ‘You were hoping that... You mean you -

I don’t
believe
it! You picked me up in that supermarket and got me to
invite you home to dinner! You even got me to cook it! I just don’t believe
it!’

‘I told you that you were beautiful.
At least I was honest about that.’

Jennifer shook her head. ‘I really
can’t believe it. I thought I was hearing things, when you said that. I
couldn’t believe that a total stranger – I
still
can’t believe it! I need a drink! Pour me another glass of wine, before I
pass out!’

Bernard hurriedly splashed out
another glass of Chablis, and handed it to her, ‘I’m real sorry,’ he said. ‘I
didn’t know how else I was going to approach you. You can throw me out of here
if you like. You can even keep the lamb. I’ m sorry. You just attracted me, I
thought you were so fantastic looking, and I didn’t know what else to do.’

Jennifer perched herself on the edge
of one of the kitchen stools, still shaking her head. ‘I have to admit that you
succeeded . What a line! But how did you know that I was going to be able to
invite you home? I guess you must realise that I’m married.’

‘Oh, sure,’ said Bernard. ‘I was in
the drugstore yesterday, you know the drugstore on Sunset, and I saw you
talking to a friend. I came up close and I heard you saying that your husband
was away until Saturday. That decided me, I guess. I only had one day, and I
had to think of something pretty darn fast. So that’s what I thought of.’

‘Well, now,’ Jennifer told him,
‘what are we going to do? Morally, I guess I should take you upon your offer
and throw you out. Immorally, of course, I should say to hell with everything
and since I’ve spent all afternoon preparing this damn lamb, I may as well cook
it and invite you to share it with me, which is not as generous as it sounds
because you bought it in the first place. On the other hand, what will the
neighbours think? Those feeders on gossip and Stouffer’s candies? On the other
hand again, who gives a damn what they think?’

‘It’s your choice,’ said Bernard, a
little sadly.

Jennifer said, ‘You’ve thrown me.
You’ve really thrown me. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before in my
whole life. Listen, stay. Let’s cook the lamb, let’s have some more wine, let’s
talk a whole lot more, I haven’t talked so much in three years.

There’s only one thing I’ll ask you
to do, if you don’t mind doing it, and that is to drive your car away from here
and maybe park it in Orchid Avenue, you know where that is? At least then the
gossip will be kept to a reasonable minimum.’

Bernard said, ‘You’re some lady. I
mean that. I knew when I very first saw you that I wasn’t going to be
disappointed.’

They ate dinner in the dining-room,
with a fresh white linen tablecloth embroidered at the edges with columbine.
The lamb was far too much for the two of them, but Jennifer assured Bernard
that her husband would be quite happy with curried lamb next week.

‘Three nights running?’ asked
Bernard.

Afterwards, they sat on the curved
custom-built sofa in the living-room, which overlooked the pool patio, and
Jennifer played Frank Sinatra records and offered Bernard a glass of Paul’s
Courvoisier brandy. She sat on the floor quite close to Bernard, humming along
with
My Way.
Bernard sipped his
brandy, and told her about his business studies.

‘You have to grow, when you’re in
business. You know what Roger Falk said.’

‘No,’ smiled Jennifer. ‘What did
Roger Falk say?’

‘Roger Falk said that many
executives think they have ten years’ experience, whereas in fact they simply
have one year’s experience ten times over.’

‘Well, I think that’s true,’ said
Jennifer. ‘I mean, take Paul, for instance.’

‘Do we have to talk about Paul?’

Jennifer turned and looked up at
him. ‘What does that mean?’ she asked him. The lamp-light was shining in her
eyes and she knew that she was looking attractive.

Bernard shrugged. ‘It means that I
don’t particularly want to talk about Paul, that’s all.’

Jennifer laid her hand on his knee.
‘Paul is a long way away,’ she said.

Bernard laid his hand on top of
hers. But quite unexpectedly, he said, ‘It’s late, anyway. I’d better be
going.’

Jennifer said, in undisguised
bewilderment, ‘It’s only eleven o’clock.’

‘Sure, but I have to get all the way
back to Venice.’

‘Bernard,’ Jennifer protested.
‘Eleven o’clock is
early.’

‘Well, I know, but I have an early
class tomorrow, and you know how it is.’

‘No, I
don’t
know how it is. You’ve gone to all the trouble of tricking
your way into having dinner with me; we’re alone together; there’s music, and
wine; my husband isn’t due home until tomorrow; and you’re
leaving?’

Bernard finished his brandy, and set
the glass down on the table beside the sofa. ‘I’m sorry. I enjoyed every minute
of it. But I really have to go.’

Jennifer turned around, so that she
was kneeling, clutching his hand. ‘What are you trying to do?’ she demanded.
‘Are you trying to get me to
beg
you
to stay?’

Bernard slowly shook his head. ‘I
have to go, and that’s it. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

Jennifer took in a long, deep,
steadying breath. Then she said, ‘You haven’t upset me. As a matter of fact,
you haven’t upset me at all. Go on, you’d better go. And don’t forget to put on
your sneakers. I’d hate any of the neighbours to see you leaving the house with
your shoes in your hand. Then they would definitely get the wrong idea.’

She stood up, flustered. She had to
face up to the fact now that Bernard had aroused her to the point where she was
quite ready to go to bed with him; that she had been mentally and physically
prepared for adultery. She felt guilty and cheated and unutterably relieved,
all at once.

Bernard hopped around on one foot,
trying to lace up his sneakers. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve made you angry and
I didn’t mean to.’

‘You haven’t made me angry at all,’
Jennifer told him, tightly.

‘You’re married,’ he said. ‘I didn’t
expect...’

‘I don’t care what you didn’t expect
or what you did expect. Just go. You can take that lamb with you if you want.
I’ll get you a doggie bag out of the kitchen.’

At the back door, with his doggie
bag clutched in his hand, Bernard turned around and said, ‘I guess I’m not very
good when it comes to seduction.’

‘No,’ said Jennifer, ‘you’re not.’

‘I’ll go, then. Thanks for
everything. Thanks for the dinner.’

Jennifer began to feel less
frustrated, less punitive. She had at least spent a cheerful and talkative
afternoon with Bernard. For the first time in years, she had been able to think
about something else apart from her own isolation and her own boredom. She
should be grateful to him for that.

‘Goodbye, Bernard,’ she said,
softly, and kissed his cheek. ‘And – you know, don’t be a stranger.’

‘I won’t,’ he told her, and kissed
her back. Then, without even a wave, he was gone, and she heard the
wrought-iron gate at the side of the house clanging shut behind him.

She closed the door, and locked it,
and put on the security chain. Frank Sinatra was still singing in the
living-room. She cleared away the dishes with a lump in her throat, then switched
off all the lights, and went through to the bedroom with a large glass, and
what was left of the wine. The bedroom was white, with a white fluffy carpet
and a white frilly bed-cover and white seersucker drapes. She switched on the
television, and then went across to her dressing-table, where a white poodle
with a red felt tongue and a zipper in its belly was jealously guarding her
nightdress.

She undressed, watching herself in
the mirror. How many business wives are doing the same, she thought to herself.
All over Hollywood, all through the canyons, all across the Valley, a hundred
thousand women stepping tired and lonely out of their clothes, and watching
themselves in their mirrors as they did so.

She tied up her hair in a pink
chiffon scarf, and walked through to the en-suite bathroom. She showered,
standing in the steam thinking at first of nothing at all. But when she washed
herself between her legs, she held her hand there for an extra moment, and
closed her eyes, and thought of Bernard. She should have known when she first
saw him that he wasn’t dashing enough to make her a new lover.

She dried herself, and went back to
the bedroom. She disembowelled the white poodle, taking out the pink
transparent baby-doll nightie that Paul liked most of all.

Her nipples showed through the nylon
like cherries on top of two white ice-cream sundaes. There were matching briefs
with the nightie but she very rarely wore them.

She climbed into bed, and reached
into the bedside table for a
magazine.
She
flicked through
Western Living
and
Los Angeles
and
Cosmopolitan,
her spectacles perched on the end of her nose; then
she tossed them aside and watched television for a while. It was almost
midnight. They were showing
See Here,
Private Hargrove
on 11; and
Horror
Hospital
on 9. She watched both movies for five or ten minutes, flicking
with her remote control from one to the other; then she changed over to the
news.

She wasn’t quite sure when she fell
asleep, or even if she had. She felt herself dozing, felt her head sliding sideways
on the pillow, then she recovered and blinked and tried to focus on the
television screen. A newsman was saying,’... given the rich diversity of Asian
immigrants’ backgrounds, it is impossible to generalise about their experiences
in becoming Americans . . .’

She drank a little more wine, but it
tasted vinegary. She listened to the news a little longer, then her head began
to slide again. She slept, but she wasn’t sure for how long. She dreamed that
she was crossing a wide polished floor, and that she could hear her footsteps
echoing all around her. On all sides, tiers of balconies rose up around her,
balconies draped with gaily coloured blankets and bedding, and hanging plants.
She heard music, Italian music like her father used to play when she was a
child.

She reached the end of the polished
floor, and opened a door. Inside, her family was sitting down to lunch. She
looked around the room and realised that she had never been away, that she had
always been a child, and that she had never grown up and left the Astoria
neighbourhood, had never moved West and married. Her father was sitting where
he always used to sit, with his back to the door, his shirt bunching out of the
triangles made by his criss-cross suspenders, his bald patch shining because it
was hot. On the dresser, the same yellow-and-blue plates were propped up, and
the porcelain Madonna stood where she had always stood, her holy baby in her
arms.

Her sister Grace and her brother
Michael were there, too, waiting at their places.

Only Momma was missing. Jennifer
moved through the room, and heard herself saying, ‘Where’s Momma? Isn’t Momma
here? It’s lunchtime.’

She looked down at their plates.
They were all empty, cold, and the vegetable tureens were empty, too. ‘Where’s
the food?’ she asked. Her father raised his head and told her in a
reverberating voice, ‘It’s lamb.’

She thought to herself, ‘My God,
he’s sick, I can hear the sickness in his throat.

Doesn’t he realise that he has to
eat, or else he’s going to die?’

She ran to the door. Her black dress
rose up and down with every step, making a slow thundering sound. She snatched
at the door-handle, and the door swung wide.

She found herself running along a
narrow tunnel, her shoes splashing through ice-cold puddles, her footsteps
echoing and echoing. She was panicking now, there was somebody after her. She
could hear them close behind, but she didn’t dare to turn around in case they
were really there, closer than she had feared.

She reached the end of the tunnel.
Her eyes were blinded by a sudden dazzling whiteness, and she had to press her
hands over them to protect them. She slid backwards, stumbling over something
white and furry, like the body of a Polar bear.

She opened her eyes, and she was
lying in her own bed, in her own bedroom, but she was sure that she was still
dreaming, for outside the window the landscape was blood red. Blood-red sky,
blood-red garden, blood-red palm trees. Even the swimming-pool was blood red.

Someone’s been killed, she thought.
Someone’s been killed, and their blood has splashed everywhere, over the sky,
over the houses, over the ocean, too. Someone has died and their death has
coloured the world red.