When could she, in good conscience, make an end of it? And what did it mean to end with Thomas? End what? Was there anything to end? Everything was mixed signals, confusion, ambiguity. On one hand he seemed to assume they were sweethearts, yet he had never so much as kissed her. His behaviour towards her was always scrupulously proper, almost brotherly. The most he permitted himself was to hold her hand while he walked her to and from the Dodge. But on other occasions his talk became suggestive, even smutty. In particular, what Thomas had said about Mr. Buckle had left her feeling uneasy – not about Mr. Buckle but about Thomas. She wasn’t sure she believed his story.
“You watch yourself when you’re alone with Mr. Buckle,” he said one golden Sunday afternoon as the Dodge whirled through a shower of autumn leaves.
Vera hadn’t really been paying attention. “What’s that?” she asked.
“I said,” repeated Thomas with emphasis, “watch yourself when you’re alone with Mr. Buckle.” “I’m never alone with him.”
“You will be,” said Thomas, oracularly. “All the female employees are, sooner or later. It’s when he gets you in his office, alone, that you’ve got to be on your guard.”
The thought of Mr. Buckle pursuing her around his desk like some figure in a bad cartoon amused Vera. “Buckle chasing a woman would be like a dog chasing a car. Neither would know what to do with it if it caught it.”
“He doesn’t chase anybody. He just sits behind his desk. Ask Doris and Amelia if he ever gets out from behind his desk when he scolds them.”
The significance of this was lost on her. “So he sits behind his desk. What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Maybe more goes on than meets the eye.”
“Thomas, if you’ve got something to say, spit it out.” Vera was getting mightily annoyed by these riddles.
“I don’t think I should say.”
“Fine,” said Vera. “Good. If you can’t say, you can’t say. The subject is closed.”
It was obvious Thomas didn’t want it closed. He licked his lips before proceeding. “Well, I came into his office right after he had Doris and Amelia in there about them not watching the kids stealing gum and candy and like that. When I came in he was tucking something away – if you get my drift. It seems he likes to give something an airing when he gives you women hell. Under his desk, I mean.”
Vera stared.
“You get my meaning? He exhibits himself sort of. Under the desk, that’s how.”
“I see,” said Vera. She turned her face away. A horse was standing alone in a field behind a snake fence.
“Would you say that’s sick? That’s pretty sick, isn’t it?”
Vera didn’t answer him.
“So if he ever pulls any of those tricks with you, just let me know. I’ll make him sorry he was ever born. You can count on it.”
It was this story and the queer sensation it left her with that prompted Vera to concoct one of her own stories. This one involved an elderly female relative whom it was necessary to visit every other Sunday. It was the first step in a plan to wean Thomas from her company. On the Sundays she supposedly spent with her female relative the phone in the rooms she had rented after leaving Mrs. Konwicki’s rang all afternoon, at intervals of an hour.
Vera’s feeling of uneasiness about Thomas began to grow. Nothing he had done so far was extraordinarily peculiar, but many things were slightly off, unfocussed, like a blurry film which had you wiping at your eyes as you watched it. The gifts he was constantly presenting her with were a case in point. These were small, inexpensive presents which he rather ceremoniously gave her before they embarked on their Sunday rides. His tributes, however, were strange ones, the sort of gifts given to people in hospital but not to your best girclass="underline" a bag of plums, magazines, a package of cigarettes. Never flowers, chocolates, or perfume. Not, of course, that Vera hoped for anything intimately associated with an avowal of love. Far from it. Still, his gifts were so eccentric that Vera sometimes wondered if she wasn’t the butt of a subtle and devious practical joke. Were these offerings an elaborate form of sarcasm? What did he mean to say with a bag of plums?
Then on the last Sunday in October, at a time when Vera’s exasperation with Thomas and his antics had reached the breaking point, she saw an opportunity to clear the air. Mixed in among five or six screen magazines he had presented her with (a case of carrying coals to Newcastle if she had ever seen one) she discovered an issue of Vogue devoted to bridal gowns.
What was the meaning of this? she demanded, flourishing the magazine.
“I wondered when you’d get around to it,” said Thomas. He was sitting on Vera’s davenport and the light coming in the window made him resemble a self-satisfied cat basking in sunshine.
“Get around to what?”
“What’s on every girl’s mind. Marriage. I thought I’d make it easier for you to bring it up.”
“Excuse me,” said Vera. She strode to the bathroom, bolted the door, and sat on the toilet. Think, she urged herself. Think. Think. But she couldn’t. For five minutes, for ten minutes, she crouched on the toilet seat, her heart drumming every solution to her predicament out of her head. All she could be certain of was that she had handled all this very wrong, wrong from the start.
After twenty minutes she heard fingernails politely scratching on the door. The cat wanting to be petted, or given a saucer of cream. “Vera, are you all right?” he said forlornly.
“Yes, but I’d appreciate a little privacy all the same.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
Minutes later he was back. “Please come out, Vera,” he said. “I know you feel embarrassed but there’s no need to be. I want exactly what you do. It’s natural for people our age to want to get married. You needn’t hide. We both want the same thing.”
“Like hell we do!” shouted Vera. No, that was not the way to handle the situation. She must control herself. Vera took a deep, calming breath and spoke very carefully. “You’re wrong, Thomas. A terrible mistake has been made. You’ve not understood me from the beginning. I don’t want to marry you, Thomas. I didn’t even want to spend Sundays riding in your car. But I did and that was my mistake. But I’m not going to let this go on any longer. Do you understand? It would be easier on us and better if you left now. I’m sorry for everything. I really am.”
There was a moment of terrible, hushed silence and then Thomas began to shake the bathroom door.
“I blame myself, too,” said Vera, stumbling to offer an apology as the door rattled and jumped in the frame. “I ought not to have encouraged you with these Sunday rides. But I felt bad that you had bought the car. I didn’t mean for you to waste your savings like that. And I wasn’t sure exactly what it meant or what you were after. I kept thinking that maybe you just thought of me as a good friend, a pal. After all… what I mean to say, you never got overly friendly or anything, did you now?”
“I respected you, Vera.”
“And I’m glad you did. I appreciate how you’ve always behaved as the perfect gentleman. And still will now, won’t you, Thomas?”
He ceased rattling the door. All was still. Vera laid her ear to the door and listened intently. There was nothing to hear but she could feel Thomas on the other side. Then he spoke. “Who’s your other Sunday man? The one you see when you won’t see me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Thomas. There is no other Sunday man. Or Monday or Tuesday man for that matter.”
“Who is he?”
“I’m not talking about this. There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Who’s your other Sunday man?” Thomas demanded, his voice rising dangerously.
“If you continue with this nonsense it’s the end of our conversation. Do you understand?”
“Who is he!” The cry was sudden, so piercing that Vera sprang back from the door, startled. Thomas resumed his attack. The door wobbled, creaked, bulged as he flung his weight against it. Vera jerked open a drawer beneath the sink, seized a pair of scissors and retreated from the door as far as possible. This meant climbing into the bathtub. There she stood with the scissors clutched in both hands, extended at arm’s length from her body and pointed at the heaving door.