The Love of a Good Woman

though. There was a small window on the landing where nobody ever halted or looked out, A net curtain over it, so that you were not likely to be seen.
    She was quick enough to see Derek stepping across the lawn, going through the gap in the hedge. Long, eager, stealthy strides. He would be in time to bend and open the car door, to open it with a flourish and help Rosemary out. Karin had never seen him do that, but she knew he meant to do it now.
    Ann was still in the bathroom—Karin could hear the shower. There would be a few minutes for her to watch undisturbed.
    And now she heard the car door shut. But she did not hear their voices. She couldn’t, with the music pouring through the house. And they hadn’t come into sight in the gap in the hedge. Not yet. And not yet. And not yet.
    O NCE after Rosemary left Ted she came back. Not to the house—she was not supposed to come to the house. Ted delivered Karin to a restaurant and there Rosemary was. The two of them had lunch in the restaurant. Karin had a Shirley Temple and chips. Rosemary told her that she was going to Toronto, that she had a job there with a publisher. Karin did not know what a publisher was.
    • • •
    H ERE they come. Pressing together through the gap in the hedge, where they should have gone single file. Rosemary is wearing her harem pants, made of thin, soft, raspberry-colored cotton. Her shadowy legs show through. Her top is of heavier cotton covered with embroidery and some tiny, sewn-on mirrors. She seems to be concerned about her piled-up hair—her hands fly up, in a gesture of charming nervousness, to loosen some more little wisps and curls that can flutter and dangle around her face. (Something the way those ladies’ curls dangle over their ears, on the cover of
Ancient Airs and Dances.)
Her fingernails are painted to match her pants.
    Derek is not putting his hands on Rosemary anywhere but looks as if he is always just about to do so.
    “Y ES , but will you
live
there?” said Karin in the restaurant.
    T ALL Derek bends close to Rosemary’s wild pretty hair, as if that is a nest he is all but ready to drop into. He is so intent. Whether he touches her or not, whether he speaks to her or not. He is pulling her to him, studiously attending to the job. But being pulled himself, being tempted to delight. Karin can just recognize that lovely flirting feeling when you’re saying, No, I’m not sleepy, no, I’m still awake—
    Rosemary at this moment doesn’t know what to do, but thinks she doesn’t yet have to do anything. Look at her spinning around in her cage of rosy colors. Her cage of spun sugar. Look at Rosemary twittering and beguiling.
    Rich as stink
, he said.
    Ann comes out of the bathroom, her gray hair dark and damp, pushed flat to her head, her face glowing from the shower. “Karin. What are you doing here?”
    “Watching.”
    “Watching what?”
    “A pair of lover-dovers.”
    “Oh now Karin,” says Ann, going on down the stairs.
    And soon come happy cries from the front door (special occasion) and from the hallway, “What is that marvellous smell?” (Rosemary). “Just some old bones Ann’s simmering” (Derek).
    “And that—it’s beautiful,” says Rosemary as the sociable flurry moves into the living room. Speaking of the bunch of green leaves and June grass and early orange lilies Ann has stuck in the cream jug by the living-room door.
    “Just some old weeds Ann hauled in,” says Derek, and Ann says, “Oh well, I thought they looked nice,” and Rosemary says again, “Beautiful.”
    R OSEMARY said after lunch that she wanted to get Karin a present. Not for a birthday and not for Christmas—just a wonderful present.
    They went to a department store. Every time Karin slowed down to look at something, Rosemary showed immediate enthusiasm and willingness to buy it. She would have bought a velvet coat with a fur collar and cuffs, an antique-style painted rocking horse, a pink plush elephant that looked about a quarter life-size. To put an end to this miserable wandering, Karin picked out a cheap ornament—the figure of a ballerina poised on a mirror. The ballerina did not twirl around, there was no music played for her—nothing that could justify the choice. You would think that Rosemary would understand that. She should have understoodwhat such a choice said—that Karin was not to be made happy, amends were not possible, forgiveness was out of the question. But she didn’t see that. Or she chose not