Away from Her

Marian speaking. I guess I already said that. Okay, then. Good-bye.”
    Her voice on the machine was different from the voice he’d heard a short time ago in her house. Just a little different in the first message, more so in the second. A tremor of nerves there, an affected nonchalance, a hurry to get through and a reluctance to let go.
    Something had happened to her. But when had it happened? If it had been immediate, she had concealed it very successfully all the time he was with her. More likely it came on her gradually, maybeafter he’d gone away. Not necessarily as a blow of attraction. Just the realization that he was a possibility, a man on his own. More or less on his own. A possibility that she might as well try to follow up.
    But she’d had the jitters when she made the first move. She had put herself at risk. How much of herself, he could not yet tell. Generally a woman’s vulnerability increased as time went on, as things progressed. All you could tell at the start was that if there was an edge of it now, there’d be more later.
    It gave him a satisfaction—why deny it?—to have brought that out in her. To have roused something like a shimmer, a blurring, on the surface of her personality. To have heard in her testy, broad vowels this faint plea.
    He set out the eggs and mushrooms to make himself an omelette. Then he thought he might as well pour a drink.
    Anything was possible. Was that true—was anything possible? For instance, if he wanted to, would he be able to break her down, get her to the point where she might listen to him about taking Aubrey back to Fiona? And not just for visits, but for the rest of Aubrey’s life. Where could that tremor lead them? To an upset, to the end of her self-preservation? To Fiona’s happiness?
    It would be a challenge. A challenge and a creditablefeat. Also a joke that could never be confided to anybody—to think that by his bad behavior he’d be doing good for Fiona.
    But he was not really capable of thinking about it. If he did think about it, he’d have to figure out what would become of him and Marian, after he’d delivered Aubrey to Fiona. It would not work—unless he could get more satisfaction than he foresaw, finding the stone of blameless self-interest inside her robust pulp.
    You never quite knew how such things would turn out. You almost knew, but you could never be sure.
    She would be sitting in her house now, waiting for him to call. Or probably not sitting. Doing things to keep herself busy. She seemed to be a woman who would keep busy. Her house had certainly shown the benefits of nonstop attention. And there was Aubrey—care of him had to continue as usual. She might have given him an early supper—fitting his meals to a Meadowlake timetable in order to get him settled for the night earlier and free herself of his routine for the day. (What would she do about him when she went to the dance? Could he be left alone or would she get a sitter? Would she tell him where she was going, introduce her escort? Would her escort pay the sitter?)
    She might have fed Aubrey while Grant was buying the mushrooms and driving home. She might now be preparing him for bed. But all the time she would be conscious of the phone, of the silence of the phone. Maybe she would have calculated how long it would take Grant to drive home. His address in the phone book would have given her a rough idea of where he lived. She would calculate how long, then add to that time for possible shopping for supper (figuring that a man alone would shop every day). Then a certain amount of time for him to get around to listening to his messages. And as the silence persisted she would think of other things. Other errands he might have had to do before he got home. Or perhaps a dinner out, a meeting that meant he would not get home at suppertime at all.
    She would stay up late, cleaning her kitchen cupboards, watching television, arguing with herself about whether there was still a chance.
    What conceit on his part. She was above all things a sensible woman. She would go to bed at her regular time thinking that he didn’t look as if he’d be a decent dancer anyway. Too stiff, too professorial.
    He stayed near the phone, looking at magazines, but he didn’t pick it up when it rang again.
    “Grant. This is Marian. I was down in the basement putting the wash in the dryer and I heard thephone and when I got upstairs whoever it was had hung up. So I just thought I ought to say I