— It’s all in a drawer in the dressing table, Jack I called the school this morning and told them not to expect you and it’s too late to go out there now, I’m going in to fix some coffee please just sit down, I brought you the paper…
— No but I, I can’t stay here… he turned, — Amy…? stood there for a moment and then sat down to reach for the paper. When she came in with a tray he was holding up the dry cleaner’s bag he’d found under it.
— I’m afraid it will be quite tight on you, she said putting the tray down, sitting beside him — but I thought it might do to…
— But whose where did it come from, whose…
— They’ve had it since we took it in last summer and when I took yours in to be cleaned they…
— But who’s, who took it in who’s we? Whose is it?
— No one’s really now, it…
— It can’t be no one’s how can it be no one’s?
— It was just a suit of my husband’s, I’m afraid it’s just a poplin, for summer…
— Fine and he’s going to walk in and join us for breakfast?
— Don’t be silly he’s abroad, Jack you don’t have to drink all this juice I just brought it so you could…
— He just cleaned the place out and left?
— We’re not married anymore if that’s what you mean, there was nothing of mine here, I brought this juice so you could take these.
He sank back, pulled the ripped skirt of the raincoat over a knee and muttered — what are they, testosterone?
— Are they what? penicillin, I happened to find that prescription in a pocket of that awful suit you had on Jack I’ve honestly never, why do you carry so much trash around with you.
— Not trash it’s, where is it you throw it out too?
— No it’s all right here… he watched her back arch bending for the shelf under the coffee table, — honestly look at it, is this anything but trash? and this? and old newspaper clippings this one’s so smudged you can hardly read it.
— Yes that’s, that’s nothing yes, this behaviorist B F Skinner just intrigued the way he’s parlayed all his infantile ideas into such a successful…
She crumpled it, — and this one? about nature’s symmetry?
— Yes well that’s… he came forward, — this report on the decay process of this eta particle’s challenged the whole idea of the, you see the…
— And you want to keep it?
— This whole question of, have you got a pencil? Never mind, you see it’s both a particle and an antiparticle, it has no electric charge nothing to distinguish it as matter or antimatter, for every class of particle there should be its kind of mirror image antiparticle same mass and spin and an equal but opposite charge and this reaction they’re talking about should produce fragments of equal energy but the positive ones are coming out more energetic than the negative ones, brings up the whole question of a basic lack of symmetry in our part of the univ…
— And could you get your foot off the table Jack it hardly…
— Only find one shoe yes but you see there might even be galaxies made of antimatter to balance ones like ours that are made of matter I meant to get a copy of this report, published in the Physical Review Letters wasn’t it? I meant to…
— But Jack the date on this clipping is, it’s almost four years old it’s no use to you now is it… and it joined the crumpled heap with B F Skinner and Clocker Lawton’s Selections, — and what’s this…?
— More trash, he muttered sinking away from her on the sofa, knee still against hers where he’d crossed his shoeless foot.
— But it’s not your hand is it?
— No.
— Well who wrote it it’s quite marvelous, whose…
— It’s trash isn’t it? Will you throw it out do we have to go over every God damned…
— Oh honestly…! she stood, still looking at it.
— All right it was mine, one of mine when I still…
— I like hatless disheveled and gay it’s just sweet, and the bat, she said standing over him, — you’ve got Pascal twice here did you know? And this Taine, surely it can’t be the same one? the critic?
Close as though to look, his knee rested against hers where his hand brushed inside, rising. — Why not…? his thumb brushed sudden warmth.
— It’s certainly nothing we had in French Civiliza, Jack please don’t do that… she’d stepped abruptly away, — do you want to keep this then?
— Thought I’d start a little anthology or… he sank back, — what are there about a dozen? Write a book with twelve chapters have the epigraphs ready how’s that.
— You did tell me once about a book you…
— Write twelve books have one ready for…
— Jack please! don’t, start behaving the way you did on the train it’s just, it just isn’t…
— Isn’t what! Told you on the train all I’ve ever done my whole God damned life spent it preparing, time comes all I’ve got is seven kinds of fine God damned handwriting only God damned thing they’re good for is misquoting other people’s…
— Jack don’t be silly!
— What’s so God damned silly about…
— It’s simply unbecoming Jack I don’t like to hear you talk this way as though you could never…
— Well what about last night then! What about last night!
— Well what about last night.
— If there ever was a, spend a whole God damned lifetime preparing if there was ever a time I, the one time in my whole God damned life I…
— Don’t be silly, you’d been drinking and you were tired there’s nothing to be…
— And the wasted…
— Jack stop it! If you’d, Jack if you’ll stop holding your head and just try that suit…? she’d picked up the tray, — I thought we might go out for a walk… and she turned to the hall with it leaving him there hands drawn down his face, eyes left on the paper heaped crumpled at his knee before he reached for the dry cleaner’s bag and came half dragging it on the carpet. — Along the park, the lights should just be coming on, she called from the kitchen, — Jack? Can you see the moon from that window? where the whole corner of it’s gone? My mother used to say that’s where the fairies were spending it…
The only sound was running water, and after the door closed behind them, none, until the doorbell rang, briefly, then long, a brief burst, and darkness accumulated, pierced by the telephone, repeated, repeated, plumbing chortled somewhere beyond the carpeted hall.
— I’m really quite hungry aren’t you? Can you get the light? I thought I’d die at the look on Larry’s face when he saw you in that suit you wouldn’t think doormen noticed those things, do you like lobster Newburg Jack? It’s just a frozen kind I got it when you were in the liquor store, I’m afraid there’s not much lobster in it and Jack? No I can’t really kiss you with these bundles, will you have just one drink? before we eat? I’ll try to hurry, no please. There’s the paper. I’ll hurry… He followed her for a glass, back at the sofa undid the waist of the trousers, sitting, did it up at the sight of the tray. — Can you just move those papers, oh and we need a corkscrew don’t we…
— I’ll get it…
— No sit down… He sank back, turned as the lights went out to a flicker behind him. — It’s hardly a candle is it but it’s all I could find, she said bending to put it before them. — What is it?
— Nothing. Your throat. I was staring at your throat.
— Jack please, eat…
— Hardly see… he moved the candle end closer, little more than flame hovering over a pool of wax by the time he leaned for it with a cigarette that flared up as they touched.