pleasure and the force of life. Aaahhi-oooo-uuuu.”
He could feel her nipple, huge and erect, and his body was responding despite the revolting prospect of the two of them…himself and Rita Yarkin…this whale in a turban of scarlet and pink…this mass of fat with fi ngers that slid up his arm, cast a blessing on his face, and began a suggestive descent down his chest…
He pulled his hand away. Her eyes popped open. They seemed dazed and unfocussed, but a shake of her head cleared them. She studied his face and seemed to read what he couldn’t hide. She chuckled, then guffawed, then leaned against the kitchen work top and howled.
“You thought…You thought…Me and you…” Between the words, more laughter spewed forth. Tears formed in the creases near her eyes. When she finally controlled herself, she said, “I told you, Mr. C. Shepherd. When I want it from a man, I get it from a bull.” She blew her nose on a grimy-looking tea towel and held out her hand. “C’mere. Give it. No more prayers to get your poor little bowels in an uproar.”
“I’ve got to go.”
“Don’t you, though.” She snapped her fi ngers for his hand. She was still blocking egress, so he offered it to her. He made certain his expression telegraphed how little to his liking this game-playing was.
She pulled him to the sink where the light was better. “Good lines,” she said. “Nice indication of birth and marriage. Love is—” She hesitated, frowning, absently pulling at one of her eyebrows. “Get behind me,” she said.
“What?”
“Do it. Slip your hand beneath my arm so I can get a better look at this right side up.” When he hesitated, she snapped, “I don’t mean no funny business. Just do it. Now.”
He did so. Because of her girth, he couldn’t see what she was doing, but he could feel her fingernails tracing his palm. Finally, she balled up his hand and released it.
“So,” she said briskly. “Not much to see, after all your grumbling. Just the regular bit. Nothing of importance. Nothing to worry you.” She turned on the tap in the sink and made a project out of rinsing out three glasses on which a residue of milk had formed a skin.
“You’re keeping your part of the bargain, aren’t you?” Colin asked.
“Wha’s that, pretty face?”
“Your mug’s shut tight.”
“’S nothing, is it? You don’t believe in it anyways.”
“But you do, Rita.”
“I believe in lots of things. Don’t mean they’re real.”
“Given. So tell me. I’ll be the judge.”
“I thought you had important stuff to do, Mr. Constable. Wasn’t that you in a rush to be gone?”
“You’re avoiding the answer.”
She shrugged.
“I want it.”
“You can’t have everything you want, sugar pie, much as you’ve been currently getting it.” She held the glass up to the light of the window. It was nearly as dirty as when she began. She reached for some liquid detergent and poured a few drops in. She returned to the water and used a sponge, exerting some rather serious pressure.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t ask ninny questions. You’re a clever enough bloke. You figure it out.”
“That’s the reading? Convenient for you, the phrasing of it, Rita. Is that the sort of thing you tell the twits who pay you for their fortunes in Blackpool?”
“Steady on,” she said.
“It all follows the same pattern, this mumbo-jumbo that you and Polly play at. Stones, palms, and tarot cards. None of it’s anything more than a game. You look for a weakness and use it to benefit yourselves with money.”
“Your ignorance a’nt worth the effort of response.”
“And that’s a manoeuvre as well, isn’t it? Turn the other cheek but still score a hit. Is that what the Craft’s all about? Dried-up women with nothing to live for but the thought of damaging others’ lives? A spell here, a curse there, and what does it matter because if someone gets hurt only another member of the Craft will know. And you all hold your tongues, don’t you, Rita? Isn’t that the blessing of a coven?”
She continued washing one glass after another. She’d chipped one nail. The polish was scarred on another. “Love and death,” she said. “Love and death. Three times.”
“What?”
“Your palm. A single marriage. But love and death three times. Death. Everywhere. You belong to the priesthood of death, Mr. Constable.”
“Oh, quite.”
She turned her head from the sink, but her hands went on washing. “It’s on your palm, my boy. And the lines don’t lie.”
ST. JAMES HAD BEEN AT A LOSS the previous night. Lying in bed and gazing through the skylight at the stars, he thought about the maddening futility of marriage. He knew that the slow-motion, running-towards-each- other-along-thebeach-for-the-passionate-embrace-before-fadeout celluloid depiction of relationships led the romantic in everyone to anticipate a lifetime of happily-ever-after. He also knew that the reality taught, inch by merciless inch, that if there was a happily of any kind, it never came for an extended stay, and when one opened the door to its ostensible knock, one faced the possibility of admitting instead grumpily, angrily, or a host of others all clamouring for attention. It was sometimes extremely disheartening to have to contend with the messiness of life. He’d been at the point of deciding that the only reasonable way to deal with a woman was not at all when Deborah moved towards him from across the bed.
“I’m sorry,” she had whispered and slipped her arm across his chest. “You’re my number-one bloke.”
He turned to her. She buried her forehead against his shoulder. He put his hand on the back of her neck, feeling the heavy weight of her hair as well as the childlike softness of her skin.
“I’m glad of it,” he whispered in return. “Because you’re my number-one bit of fl uff. Always have been, you know. Always will be.”
He could feel her yawn. “It’s hard for me,” she murmured. “The path’s there, isn’t it, but it’s the first step that’s difficult. It keeps messing me up.”
“That’s the way of things. I suppose it’s how we learn.” He cradled her. He felt the sleep start to take her. He wanted to call her back from it, but he kissed her head and let her go.
Over breakfast, he’d still maintained caution, however, telling himself that while she was his Deborah, she was also a woman, more mercurial than most. Part of what he savoured about life with her was the unexpected. A newspaper editorial alluding to the possibility of the police manufacturing a case against an IRA suspect was enough to send her into a fury out of which she might decide to organise a photographic odyssey to Belfast or Derry to “find out what’s what for myself, by God.” A report about cruelty to animals took her to the streets to join in a protest. Discrimination against sufferers from AIDS dispatched her to the first hospice she could fi nd which accepted volunteers to read to patients, to talk, and to be a friend. Because of this, from one day to the next, he was never quite certain what sort of mood he might find her in when he descended the stairs from his lab to join her for lunch or for dinner. The only certainty about life with Deborah was that nothing was particularly certain at all.
He generally revelled in her passionate nature. She was more alive than anyone he knew. But living completely demanded that she feel completely as well, so while her highs were delirious, infused with excitement, her lows were correspondingly empty of hope. And it was the lows that worried him, making him want to advise her to rein herself in.
