would know what to do.
She glanced around the kitchen, then picked up her glass and poured its contents down the sink. She would be careful, she would leave no clues. Then she picked up the telephone and dialled Duncan’s number. The phone rang and rang: no answer. She put it down. From the living room there was another flash of light, and the sound of Peter laughing. She should never have worn red. It made her a perfect target.
She edged into the bedroom. I must be sure not to forget anything, she told herself; I can’t come back. Before, she had wondered what their bedroom would look like after they were married, trying out various arrangements and colour schemes. Now she knew. It would always look exactly like this. She dug among the coats, looking for her own, and could not for a moment remember what it looked like, but at last she recognized it and slipped it on; she avoided the mirror. She had no idea what time it was. She glanced at her wrist: it was blank. Of course; she had taken her watch off and left it at home because Ainsley said it didn’t go with the total effect.
In the living room Peter was calling above the noise “Come on now, let’s get a group portrait. Everybody all together.”
She had to hurry. Now there was the living room to negotiate. She would have to become less visible. She took her coat back off and bundled it under her left arm, counting on her dress to act as a protective camouflage that would blend her with the scenery. Staying close to the wall, she made her way towards the door through the thicket of people, keeping behind the concealing trunks and bushes of backs and skirts. Peter was over at the other side of the room, trying to get them organized.
She opened the door and slid out; then, pausing only long enough to get her coat on again and to pick her overboots out from the tangle of trapped feet on the newspaper, she ran as fast as she could down the hallway towards the stairs. She could not let him catch her this time. Once he pulled the trigger she would be stopped, fixed indissolubly in that gesture, that single stance, unable to move or change.
She stopped on the sixth-floor landing to put on her boots, then continued down, holding on to the bannister for balance. Under the cloth and the metal bones and elastic her flesh felt numbed and compressed; it was difficult to walk, it took concentration… I’m probably drunk, she thought. Funny I don’t feel drunk; idiot, you know perfectly well what happens to drunk people’s capillaries when they go out into the cold. But it was even more important to get away.
She reached the empty lobby. Although there was no one following her, she thought she could hear a sound; it was the thin sound glass would make, icy as the tinkle of a chandelier, it was the high electric vibration of this glittering space…
She was outside in the snow. Running along the street, the snow squeaking under her feet, as quickly as her hampered legs would move, balancing with her eyes on the sidewalk, in winter even level surfaces were precarious, she couldn’t afford to fall down. Behind her even now Peter might be tracing, following, stalking her through the crisp empty streets as he had stalked his guests in the living room, waiting for the exact moment. That dark intent marksman with his aiming eye had been there all the time, hidden by the other layers, waiting for her at the dead centre: a homicidal maniac with a lethal weapon in his hands.
She slipped on a patch of ice and almost fell. When she had recovered her balance she looked behind. Nothing.
“Take it easy,” she said, “keep calm.” Her breath was coming in sharp gasps, crystallizing in the freezing air almost before it had left her throat. She continued on, more slowly. At first she had been running blindly; now however she knew exactly where she was going. “You’ll be all right,” she said to herself, “if only you can make it as far as the laundromat.”
28
It had not occurred to her that Duncan might not be in the laundromat. When she finally reached it and pulled open the glass door, breathless but relieved at having got that far at all, it was a shock to find it empty. She couldn’t believe it. She stood, confronted only by the long white row of machines, not knowing where to move. She hadn’t considered the time beyond that imagined encounter.
Then she saw a wisp of smoke ascending from one of the chairs at the far end. It would have to be him. She walked forward.
He was sitting slouched so far down that only the top of his head was showing over the back of the chair, his eyes fixed on the round window of the machine directly in front of him. There was nothing inside it. He didn’t look up as she sat down in the chair beside his.
“Duncan,” she said. He didn’t answer.
She took off her gloves and stretched out one of her hands, touching his wrist. He jumped.
“I’m here,” she said.
He looked at her. His eyes were even more shadowed than usual, more deeply sunk in the sockets, the skin of his face bloodless in the fluorescent light. “Oh. So you are. The Scarlet Woman herself. What time is it?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “I haven’t got my watch on.”
“What’re you doing here? You’re supposed to be at the party.”
“I couldn’t stay there any longer,” she said, “I had to come and find you.”
“Why?”
She couldn’t think of a reason that wouldn’t sound absurd. “Because I just wanted to be with you.”
He looked at her suspiciously and took another drag on his cigarette. “Now listen, you should be back there. It’s your duty, what’s-his-name needs you.”
“No, you need me more than he does.”
As soon as she had said it, it sounded true. Immediately she felt noble.
He grinned. “No I don’t. You think I need to be rescued but I don’t. Anyway I don’t like being a test case for amateur social-workers.” He shifted his eyes back to the washing machine.
Marian fidgeted with the leather fingers of one of her gloves. “But I’m not trying to rescue you,” she said. She realized he had tricked her into contradicting herself.
“Then maybe you want me to rescue you? What from? I thought you had it all worked out. And you know I’m totally inept anyway.” He sounded faintly smug about his own helplessness.
“Oh, let’s not talk about rescuing,” Marian said desperately. “Can’t we just go some place?” She wanted to get out. Even talking was impossible in this white room with its rows of glass windows and its all-pervading smell of soap and bleach.
“What’s wrong with here?” he said. “I sort of like it here.”
Marian wanted to shake him. “That isn’t what I mean,” she said.
“Oh,” he said. “Oh, that. You mean tonight’s the night, it’s now or never.” He dug out another cigarette and lit it. “Well, we can’t go to my place, you know.”
“We can’t go to mine either.” For a moment she wondered why not, she was moving out anyway. But Ainsley might turn up, or Peter…
“We could stay here, it suggests interesting possibilities. Maybe inside one of the machines, we could hang your red dress over the window to keep out the dirty old men…”
“Oh come on,” she said, standing up.
He stood up too. “Okay, I’m flexible. I guess it’s about time I found out the real truth. Where are we going?”
“I suppose,” she said, “we will have to find some sort of hotel.” She was vague about how they were going to get the thing accomplished, but tenaciously certain that it had to be done. It was the only way.
Duncan smiled wickedly. “You mean I’ll have to pretend you’re my wife?” he said. “In those earrings? They’ll never believe it. They’ll accuse you of corrupting a minor.”
“I don’t care,” she said. She reached up and began to unscrew one of the earrings.
“Oh, leave them on for now,” Duncan said. “You don’t want to spoil the effect.”
When they were outside on the street she had a sudden horrible thought. “Oh no,” she said, standing still.
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t have any money!” Of course she hadn’t thought she would need any for the party. She had only her
