It was obvious Thomas didn’t want it closed. He licked his lips before proceeding. “Well, I came into his office right after he had Doris and Amelia in there about them not watching the kids stealing gum and candy and like that. When I came in he was tucking something away – if you get my drift. It seems he likes to give something an airing when he gives you women hell. Under his desk, I mean.”
Vera stared.
“You get my meaning? He exhibits himself sort of. Under the desk, that’s how.”
“I see,” said Vera. She turned her face away. A horse was standing alone in a field behind a snake fence.
“Would you say that’s sick? That’s pretty sick, isn’t it?”
Vera didn’t answer him.
“So if he ever pulls any of those tricks with you, just let me know. I’ll make him sorry he was ever born. You can count on it.”
It was this story and the queer sensation it left her with that prompted Vera to concoct one of her own stories. This one involved an elderly female relative whom it was necessary to visit every other Sunday. It was the first step in a plan to wean Thomas from her company. On the Sundays she supposedly spent with her female relative the phone in the rooms she had rented after leaving Mrs. Konwicki’s rang all afternoon, at intervals of an hour.
Vera’s feeling of uneasiness about Thomas began to grow. Nothing he had done so far was extraordinarily peculiar, but many things were slightly off, unfocussed, like a blurry film which had you wiping at your eyes as you watched it. The gifts he was constantly presenting her with were a case in point. These were small, inexpensive presents which he rather ceremoniously gave her before they embarked on their Sunday rides. His tributes, however, were strange ones, the sort of gifts given to people in hospital but not to your best girl: a bag of plums, magazines, a package of cigarettes. Never flowers, chocolates, or perfume. Not, of course, that Vera hoped for anything intimately associated with an avowal of love. Far from it. Still, his gifts were so eccentric that Vera sometimes wondered if she wasn’t the butt of a subtle and devious practical joke. Were these offerings an elaborate form of sarcasm? What did he mean to say with a bag of plums?
Then on the last Sunday in October, at a time when Vera’s exasperation with Thomas and his antics had reached the breaking point, she saw an opportunity to clear the air. Mixed in among five or six screen magazines he had presented her with (a case of carrying coals to Newcastle if she had ever seen one) she discovered an issue of
What was the meaning of this? she demanded, flourishing the magazine.
“I wondered when you’d get around to it,” said Thomas. He was sitting on Vera’s davenport and the light coming in the window made him resemble a self-satisfied cat basking in sunshine.
“Get around to what?”
“What’s on every girl’s mind. Marriage. I thought I’d make it easier for you to bring it up.”
“Excuse me,” said Vera. She strode to the bathroom, bolted the door, and sat on the toilet. Think, she urged herself. Think. Think. But she couldn’t. For five minutes, for ten minutes, she crouched on the toilet seat, her heart drumming every solution to her predicament out of her head. All she could be certain of was that she had handled all this very wrong, wrong from the start.
After twenty minutes she heard fingernails politely scratching on the door. The cat wanting to be petted, or given a saucer of cream. “Vera, are you all right?” he said forlornly.
“Yes, but I’d appreciate a little privacy all the same.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
Minutes later he was back. “Please come out, Vera,” he said. “I know you feel embarrassed but there’s no need to be. I want exactly what you do. It’s natural for people our age to want to get married. You needn’t hide. We both want the same thing.”
“Like hell we do!” shouted Vera. No, that was not the way to handle the situation. She must control herself. Vera took a deep, calming breath and spoke very carefully. “You’re wrong, Thomas. A terrible mistake has been made. You’ve not understood me from the beginning. I don’t want to marry you, Thomas. I didn’t even want to spend Sundays riding in your car. But I did and that was my mistake. But I’m not going to let this go on any longer. Do you understand? It would be easier on us and better if you left now. I’m sorry for everything. I really am.”
There was a moment of terrible, hushed silence and then Thomas began to shake the bathroom door.
“I blame myself, too,” said Vera, stumbling to offer an apology as the door rattled and jumped in the frame. “I ought not to have encouraged you with these Sunday rides. But I felt bad that you had bought the car. I didn’t mean for you to waste your savings like that. And I wasn’t sure exactly what it meant or what you were after. I kept thinking that maybe you just thought of me as a good friend, a pal. After all… what I mean to say, you never got overly friendly or anything, did you now?”
“I respected you, Vera.”
“And I’m glad you did. I appreciate how you’ve always behaved as the perfect gentleman. And still will now, won’t you, Thomas?”
He ceased rattling the door. All was still. Vera laid her ear to the door and listened intently. There was nothing to hear but she could feel Thomas on the other side. Then he spoke. “Who’s your other Sunday man? The one you see when you won’t see me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Thomas. There is no other Sunday man. Or Monday or Tuesday man for that matter.”
“Who is he?”
“I’m not talking about this. There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Who’s your other Sunday man?” Thomas demanded, his voice rising dangerously.
“If you continue with this nonsense it’s the end of our conversation. Do you understand?”
“Who’s your other Sunday man! Who’s your other Sunday man!
“Stop it! Stop it this minute, Thomas!”
“Who?” It was his last question. He could not continue the interrogation because he had begun to sob.
“Thomas? Thomas?” Vera realized he had fled his station when she heard him trip over the loose tile in the hallway. Vera clambered out of the tub, rushed to the door, listened. The faint sounds of Thomas moving about in the kitchen penetrated to her. They were muffled and indistinct, unidentifiable except when she heard him blow his nose loudly. The dim noises shifted location, now they seemed to muddle about the living room. After a bit the apartment door slammed. It seemed Thomas had gone off. Vera proceeded cautiously nevertheless, scissors in hand. She did not rule out tricks. Perhaps he lay in waiting for her. She discovered his message in the living room where the word CUNT was written on the davenport in mustard, the letters a foot high.
Vera arrived for work Monday, hopping mad, determined to slap Thomas’s face in front of everybody. If he thought he could get off scot-free after the disgusting thing he had done to her davenport, he had another think coming. And if anybody wanted to know why she had slapped his face, she’d tell them, word and all.
But there was no face to slap. There was no Thomas. A relief projectionist was in the booth and rumours were flying. Someone had heard that Thomas had phoned Mr. Buckle at home, on Sunday, and quit his job. No, said another, he hadn’t quit, only requested sick leave because he was rundown, needed a rest. Despite the differences in the rumours all seemed to be agreed that Vera had had a hand in Thomas’s disappearance. Doris and Amelia hinted to Vera that Mr. Buckle was furious with her and held her responsible for the loss of the best projectionist he had ever had, one who didn’t smoke in the booth in the midst of highly inflammable film and didn’t show up for work drunk. When Frank spoke to Vera he did so gently and mournfully, in a doe-eyed manner appropriate in addressing the wretched in love, the heart-broken.
Vera didn’t give a tinker’s fart for what they thought as long as she was rid of that geek Thomas. It looked as if she was. But shortly after she decided that, the letters began to arrive.
