well what it meant. He was alone in an enormous house with the demented wife of America's richest and most powerful publisher and she was proposing that they should run away together. And if he didn't she would almost certainly tell Hutchmeyer the true story of Pause or invent some equally frightful tale about how he had tried to seduce her. And finally there was the gun. It lay on the bed where she had dropped it. Piper glanced at the thing and as he did so Baby took a step forward, the tears that had gathered in her eyes ran down her cheeks and carried with them a contact lens. She fumbled for it on the counterpane and encountered the gun. Piper hesitated no longer. He grabbed the suitcase and plumped it on the bed and the next moment was packing it hastily with his shirts and pants. He didn't stop until everything was in, his ledgers and pens and his bottle of Waterman's Midnight Black. Finally he sat on it and fastened the catches. Only then did he turn towards her. Baby was still groping on the bed.
'I can't find it,' she said, 'I can't find it.'
'Leave it, we don't need a thing like that,' said Piper anxious to avoid any further acquaintance with firearms.
'I must have it,' said Baby, 'I can't get along without it.'
Piper humped the suitcase off the bed and Baby found the contact lens. And the gun. Clutching the one while trying to reinsert the other she followed Piper into the corridor. 'Take your bag down and come back for mine,' she told him and went into her own bedroom. Piper went downstairs, encountered the glowering portrait of Hutchmeyer and came back again. Baby was standing by the great water-bed wearing a mink. Beside her were six large travel bags.
'Look,' said Piper, 'are you sure you really want.,
'Yes, oh yes,' said Baby. 'It's what I've always dreamt of doing. Leaving all this...this falsehood and starting afresh.'
'But don't you think...' Piper began again but Baby was not thinking. With a grand final gesture she picked up the gun and fired it repeatedly into the waterbed. Little spurts of water leapt into the air and the room echoed deafeningly with the shots.
'That's symbolic,' she cried and tossed the gun across the room. But Piper didn't hear her. Grabbing three travel bags in each hand he staggered out of the bedroom and dragged them along the corridor, his ears ringing with the sound of gunfire. He knew now that she was definitely out of her mind and the sight of the expiring waterbed had been another awful reminder of his own mortality. By the time he reached the bottom of the stairs he was panting and puffing. Baby followed him, a wraith in mink.
'Now what?' he asked.
'We'll take the cruiser,' she said.
'The cruiser?'
Baby nodded, her imagination once more inflamed with images from novels. The night flight across the water was essential.
'But won't they...' Piper began.
'That way they'll never know where we've gone,' said Baby. 'We'll land down the coast and buy a car.'
'Buy a car?' said Piper. 'But I haven't any money.'
'I have,' said Baby and with Piper lugging the travel bags behind her they went through the lounge and down the path to the jetty. The wind had fallen but still the water was choppy and slapped against the wooden piles and the rocks so that drifts of spray sprang up wetly against Piper's face.
'Put the bags aboard,' said Baby, 'I've got to go back for something.'
Piper hesitated for a moment and stared with mixed feelings out across the bay. He wasn't sure whether he wanted Sonia and Hutchmeyer to heave in sight now or not. But there was no sign of them. In the end he dropped the bags down into the cruiser and waited. Baby returned with a
