child’s innate caution. He was suspicious of Barbara.
Clever boy, thought Barbara. Clever, sensitive boy.
‘Damn tire blew,’ said the woman, ‘and the jack doesn’t seem to be worth shit. Do you have one I can use?’
‘No,’ Barbara lied. ‘Mine gave out a couple of months back, and I never got around to replacing it. I tend to wait for a helpful cop when I get into trouble, or I just call Triple A.’
‘I don’t have Triple A, and I haven’t seen any cops, helpful or otherwise.’
‘Haven’t you heard? They melt in the rain.’
The woman tried to smile. She was already soaked through. ‘They may not be the only ones.’
‘Well, this is down for a while, and it’s not such a good idea for you to wait with your car,’ said Barbara. ‘There have been a lot of accidents at the bend in the road just ahead. People take it too fast, especially in bad weather. If someone hits you, you’ll have bigger worries than a flat tire.’
The woman’s shoulders sagged.
‘What do you suggest I do?’
‘I live just up the road from here. You can almost see my house from that big pine back there. Come up, get dry, and I’ll call Roy, my neighbor, when the rain stops.’ Once she had told the lie about her own jack, she could hardly offer to change the tire herself. ‘He lives to help out damsels in distress. He’ll have that tire changed in no time. In the meantime, you and your son can have a warm drink and wait in comfort. He is your son, isn’t he?’
There was an odd pause before the woman answered. ‘Oh yes, of course. That’s William. Billy to me, and to his friends.’
That pause was interesting, thought Barbara.
‘I’m Barbara,’ she said. ‘Barbara Kelly.’
‘I’m Caroline. Hi, pleased to meet you.’
The two women shook hands slightly awkwardly through the open window. Caroline gestured to the boy. ‘Come here, Billy, and say hello to the nice lady.’
Reluctantly, or so it seemed to Barbara, the boy came forward. He was not a good-looking child. His skin was very pale, and Barbara wondered if he was ailing. If this woman was really his mother, and there was already some doubt about that, then there was little of her in him. The boy seemed destined to grow into an ugly man, and something told her that he was not a child with many friends.
‘This is Barbara,’ Caroline told him. ‘She’s going to help us.’
The boy didn’t speak. He simply stared at Barbara with those dark eyes, like raisins set in the dough of his face.
‘So,’ she said, ‘hop in.’
‘You’re sure we’re not imposing?’
‘No, not at all. I’d just be worrying if you insisted on staying out here, so I’ll be happier if I know that you’re safe. You need anything from the car?’
‘Just my purse,’ said Caroline. She turned away, and left Barbara and the boy alone. With his hood up, and his windbreaker zipped, he looked older than his years. He reminded her uncomfortably of a doll come to life, or a homunculus. He regarded her balefully. Barbara did not let her smile waver. She had all kinds of medicines in her house, and she could easily put a child to sleep.
His mother too, if it came to that, for she could almost taste Caroline, and the warmth had begun a slow, insistent throbbing.
Repentance could wait.
The two women chatted as they drove to the house. It seemed that Caroline and William had been on their way to visit friends in Providence, Rhode Island, when the tire blew. Barbara tried to figure out where they might have been coming from to have found themselves in her neck of the woods. When she asked, Caroline said that she had taken a wrong turn somewhere, and Barbara did not pursue the matter further.
‘You been to Providence before?’ asked Barbara.
‘Couple of times when I was a student. I was a Lovecraft fan.’
‘Yeah? I never really got Lovecraft. He was too hysterical for my liking, too overblown.’
‘That’s not an unfair criticism, I guess,’ said Caroline. ‘But perhaps he was that way because he understood the true nature of the universe, or thought he did.’
‘You mean ancient green demons with weird stuff covering their mouths?’
‘Hah! Not like that, although who knows? No, I mean the bleakness of it, its coldness, its absence of mercy.’
The word ‘mercy’ struck at Barbara like a blade. She could almost feel the infected lymph nodes responding to the stimulus of the word, a painful counterpoint to the demands of her lower body. I’m like a walking metaphor, she thought.
‘Cheerful,’ said Barbara, and the woman beside her laughed.
‘A puncture in the rain will do that to a girl,’ she said.
Barbara signaled right, and they turned into the short drive that led to her house. The lights were on inside. It looked warm and welcoming.
‘I never asked,’ said Caroline, ‘but where were you going when you found us? We haven’t taken you away from anything urgent, I hope.’
A church, Barbara almost replied. I was going to a church.
‘No,’ said Barbara, ‘it was nothing important. It’ll wait.’
She showed them into the living room. She brought them towels with which to dry themselves, and invited them to remove their shoes. They both did so, although the boy seemed reluctant. Nevertheless, he insisted on keeping his windbreaker zipped, and the hood raised. It made him look even more like a malevolent dwarf. Barbara could see that he was overweight. Perhaps he was embarrassed by his appearance. The woman smiled at him indulgently, then followed Barbara into the hallway as she hung up her coat to dry.
‘He’s very much his own man,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I wonder who is really in charge in our home.’
Barbara glanced at the woman’s ring finger. She wore no wedding band. Caroline knew where she was looking, and waved her left hand.
‘Still free and single,’ she said.
‘The father?’
‘He’s not around anymore,’ said Caroline, and although she spoke lightly an undertone made it clear that any further questions on the subject would not be welcomed. ‘What about you? You married?’
‘Only to my job.’
‘What do you do?’
‘I’m a consultant.’ It was her standard reply to the question.
‘That sounds very vague.’
‘I advise on contracts and negotiations.’
‘You’re a lawyer?’
‘I have legal training.’
Caroline laughed. ‘I’ll let it drop,’ she said.
‘Sorry,’ said Barbara, and laughed in turn. ‘My work isn’t very interesting.’
‘Oh, I’m sure that’s not true. You seem too smart a person to end up doing a job that’s dull.’
‘Another one deceived,’ said Barbara.
‘Such modesty. So, you may be married to your job, but do you fool around on the side?’
Barbara caught a glimpse of herself in the hallway mirror, and turned away. She did not consider herself attractive. Her hair was lank and dull, her face unremarkable. She could count her sexual partners on one hand, with fingers to spare.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t fool around much at all.’
Caroline looked at her quizzically.
‘Do you prefer women to men?’
The bluntness of the question surprised Barbara.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Just a vibe. It’s not a judgment or anything.’
