'Not what?'
'Not that nasty shit you got in your voice then. I don't know where you learnt it, but I won't pay money unless you stop it.'
On the telephone she had been tearful and full of remorse. Now she sounded as if she'd consulted a lawyer. She was hostile, wary.
'Bettina, Bettina,' the Good Bloke said and held out his hand. Her hand was damp. 'Bettina, it's O.K.'
Her chin wobbled uncertainly and then firmed. She took her hand back.
'I am going to do a deal.'
'Sure,' he said, but now it was his turn to be wary. She had said nothing about any deal on the phone.
'I want to do ads,' she said. He held her chin up.
He rolled his eyes.
'I'm not joking.'
'O.K.,' he said, 'do ads.'
Advertising seemed to him completely alien. He had seen advertisements while he was in hospital and he had found it astonishing that he had once thought they were important. Now all he could think of was the rain on the roof, Bog Onion Road, Honey Barbara, wholemeal bread. He wanted to be safe. He did not care about his house, his business, his car.
'O.K.,' he said again, 'I agree. I accept. You do ads.' He was impatient. Honey Barbara was waiting behind the kitchen with her bundle.
'And you sell them for me.'
She was smiling. He stared at her with his mouth open.
'If you don't come back to the business I won't give you the money.'
'You didn't say anything about this on the phone.'
'I'm sorry.'
'I can't. I've made a promise. It's not on.'
'I'm sorry Harry. But that's the deal.'
'Fuck you,' he snarled. He clenched his fist and curled his lip. 'Fuck you.'
'You want me to leave?' She stood up.
'No, no, sit down. Bettina,' the Good Bloke said, 'what's got into you?'
'It was always
'It's because of the girl. You're pissed off at that.'
'No.'
'Well what the fuck is it?' he shouted and she looked with amazement at his twisted face.
'You're good at selling ads,' she said, 'and I'm good at making them.'
'You've never done an ad in your life.'
'You don't know what I've done,' she said. 'Now that's the deal. It's the only deal. And if you start going crazy again I'll get you locked up for a long time.'
'Christ Almighty,' he said to his wife.
'Come on, Harry.' Now it was her turn to hold out a hand to him. There was a glitter of excitement in her poker player's eyes. 'We'll kill them, Harry. We'll clean up.'
She felt she was back at the place when their hands had first touched, ready to be washed with vodka. She was going to be a hot-shot.
She took the bundle from Honey Barbara. It was wrapped in yellow crushed velvet and tied up with a burgundy-coloured strap. She threw it on to the front passenger seat of the Jag and thus, in one casual move, eliminated any indecision about who was to sit where.
She was not unkind to the girl. She had smiled at her and shaken her hand. She had found out everything she needed to know on the phone.
'Do you love her?' she had asked.
'Yes,' he had said. He did not even pause. Just: 'Yes.'
Something happened then, something she had been almost planning, and by now everything was O.K. and she had it all worked out, she did not think it unreasonable that Harry should have fallen in love. But there was a deal about that one, too. The deal was that it was not unreasonable for Harry to do what he had done as long as it was not unreasonable for her to have Harry (Good Bloke) committed. She was not unreason-able. She was not bad. She had thought a lot about whether she was bad or not and most of the time, sober, early in the morning, she knew she wasn't bad.
So the girl was all right. She had, at least, some style: a funny, not particularly acceptable, sort of style, but it was style (California, 1968) at least and even if she
Bettina gave her eight out of ten.
Honey Barbara had never been in a Jaguar before and she was not ready for it. She didn't understand what was going on. She tried to ask Harry questions with her eyes. They sat together in the back seat and held hands. There was something strange going on. There was something she could only describe as 'off'.
'I've hijacked you,' Bettina said to Harry and laughed into the rear-view mirror. 'After all these years, I've shanghaied you.'
A game was being played. Honey Barbara didn't understand it. She was simply shocked at how old and unhealthy Harry's wife was. She was laughing. Honey Barbara couldn't imagine why. She should go on a fast.
'Barbara,' Bettina said, 'I have finally shanghaied my hus-band so that I can work with him. I had to buy him back to work with me.' She turned her head to smile and Barbara wondered if her thyroid might be slightly overdeveloped.
'Oh,' she said. 'What work?'
'To do ads.'
Honey Barbara looked blankly at Harry who was chewing his moustache.
'Advertisements,' he said. Everything felt horrible. There was shit in the air.
'He never let me do ads,' Bettina explained. 'But while he's been in hospital I've been doing them, and now he's going to sell them for me.'
'I'm sorry,' Honey Barbara said, and leaned forward in her seat, 'but you've lost me.'
She smiled, to show she meant no harm.
'I did a deal with his highness. I do the ads. He sells them.'
'That was the deal,' Harry said and squeezed her hand. She could feel how guilty he was. 'I'm sorry but it was the only way we could get the money.'
'What was what deal?' Honey Barbara's voice was rising. She looked from one to the other. 'I don't know what you're talking about. I can't even understand your language. I don't even know what your words mean.'
'I'm going to work again, selling Bettina's ads to clients,' Harry said mournfully.
'You said you were coming home with me.'
'I can't. Not yet.'
'I've kidnapped him,' Bettina said. 'But you can come home too. I don't want him for anything but work.'
Honey Barbara could smell evil in the air. She had been around witches before, people who practised magic, black and white. She had felt wills like this before, wills you could not resist. She had lived amongst them. She had gone riding in the mornings and found the heads of pigs writhing with maggots. The poisons from the freeway flooded into the car. She felt the lead take up its place, the carbon monoxide do its work.
'You mean,' she said to Harry, 'you're going to stay in the city.'
He would not look at her.
'That's right, isn't it? You're not coming with me. You're staying here.'
'You can... '
'Well fuck you.'
She dragged the bundle from the front seat and jammed it tight on her knees. For a moment Harry thought she only wanted the bundle to cuddle. She held it tight and rested her weeping eyes in it. He knew she was crying. He could see the wet spots on the crushed velvet when she moved her head. She held out her hand to him without
