That was more than he normally drank in a week, but he still wasn’t drunk; steady and bright, unblurred by liquor, was the knowledge that he must see this girl and set everything straight. Only she could absolve him from sin, release him from this rack of guilt. And if she understood and forgave him he would do anything at all for her. It wasn’t impossible that they might become friends later on. In fantasy’s sustaining warmth Norton saw a vision: in four or five years she would probably go to work in the city, and he might help her with the problems and adjustments that were part of anyone’s first job. He could tell her how to avoid the slippery ground of office politics and advise her on savings programs and pension and hospital plans. They might meet in a small bar after work and talk about these things. He saw himself in sharp kaleidoscopic patterns, striding down a street in the late fall, everyone else hurrying for trains and taxis and the cold wind pounding with excitement against the tall gray buildings. She would be waiting for him and smiling. They wouldn’t talk of the past but it would be a strong bright thread weaving itself nostalgically through their relationship.
Norton pressed both hands tightly against the sides of his head. For a sickening instant he was convinced that he was going mad; the pressure behind his eyes made him stagger and he sat down and bent forward until his head touched his knees. “God!” he murmured in a thick heavy voice. He did not want absolution and forgiveness. He didn’t want tilings as they used to be, neat and orderly. It was this knowledge that shook him to the core of his being.
Later — how much later he did not know — he found himself standing beside the telephone desk. He picked up the receiver without haste, without thinking, and dialed the number listed after the name of Frank Soltis.
She answered the phone herself and this seemed a miracle to him; behind her voice was the canned sound of radio or television laughter, and she spoke above it, saying, “Yes?” quite loudly, but drawing the word into a teasing complaint.
“Please listen to me,” he said. “Just listen. Please. You won’t hang up, will you?”
“Who’s this, for Pete’s sake?”
“Cleo, you’ve got to listen. I’m — this is the man. I... I saw you last night, remember.” He heard the sharp intake of her breath, and he cried softly: “Please listen! I’ve got to see you. I’m sorry. It was a mistake.”
“Who are you? What’s your name?”
“That doesn’t matter. I want to apologize, Cleo. I want to see you. Are... are you all right?”
“What do you mean, am I all right?”
He couldn’t interpret her mood from the tone of her voice; but she sounded more querulous than angry. “You know what I mean. I’m terribly sorry, Cleo.”
“That’s fine, that’s great. Everything is dandy now.”
“Please, please,” he said, whispering the words like prayers. “I want to see you. I swear before God I won’t bother you again. But I must see you. Are you alone?”
“My father’s here.”
“Did you tell him?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” she said, but a thread of coquettish insinuation ran through the scorn in her voice; Norton felt himself tremble with hope.
“Don’t be like that, Cleo,” he said. The hope became stronger, exultant; they were discussing it like a pair of conspirators. “Can’t you slip out for a few minutes?” he said. “Will you try?”
“I’m not supposed to go out this late.”
“Say you’re going to borrow a book or something from a girl friend. You’ll only be gone a few minutes.”
She was silent and he heard the sibilance of her breath in his ear. A dismaying thought struck him: was she having the call traced? Signaling to her father, pointing frantically at the phone, telling him with silently straining lips who was on the line. The scene was garishly illuminated by the bursts of whiteness in his mind; he saw her crouched at the phone, the father large and angry, hurrying to a neighbor’s house to call the police.
“Cleo,” he said. “Trust me. Please.”
“I’m thinking. Do you know where Raynes Park is? There’s a statue in the middle of it, and some benches.”
“Will you meet me there?”
“If I can. If I’m not there in half an hour, it’s no use. My father’s pretty strict.”
“I don’t blame him.” The sense of relief was so great that Norton almost laughed aloud; the guilt and terror were draining from him like poisons, and in their place flowed the warm restoring balm of peace. “I’ll be waiting for you.”
“Don’t stand me up now.”
At that he did laugh, giddily but silently. “Not a chance. I’ll be there.”
When he replaced the receiver Norton sat perfectly still for half a minute. He was hot all over, his shirt sticking to his body with perspiration. How would he explain going out to Janey? The dog, of course. He went quietly upstairs and opened the door of their bedroom. The light was out and Janey’s body was a soft slight mound under the covers.
“Janey?”
She stirred and murmured sleepily, “Coming to bed?”
“I’m going to take Cinder for a walk.”
“All right, dear. Put on something warm.”
He closed the door and went to his son’s room. Cinder slept at the foot of Junior’s bed. “Come on, Cinder,” Norton said in an urgent little whisper. “Want to go for a walk?” Cinder, a glossy black dachshund, squirmed and leaped off the bed, crooning with excitement.
Norton picked her up and tucked her under his arm. “That’s a good dog,” he said. A bar of light fell across his son’s face. Norton looked at the sleeping boy for an instant, and the serenity in his face, so unknowing, so vulnerable, went through him like a knife. He knew intuitively that salvation was close at that instant; in his excitement he could imagine the drumming beat of wings, the appearance of soft, miraculous lights, but deliberately and ruthlessly he turned away from all this, closing the door and running quickly down the steps with the frantically squirming puppy in his arms.
The night was black and the yellow street lamps reached up and touched the low limbs of the trees with gold. There was a small soft wind and the only sound in the breathless silence was the occasional dry creak of a branch above his head; it was how the twist and strain of rigging would sound, he thought, canvas and ropes tightening powerfully against the massive press of great quiet winds. He had never sailed in his life, but he imagined a sailing ship would be like that on a calm night.
He put Cinder in the front seat and fastened her leash to the door handle. Without lights he moved carefully away from the curb, drifting in a closed dark silence along the block. The dog was puzzled; she whimpered and worried her leash. Norton patted her head and said, “It’s all right, old girl, we’re just taking a little ride.”
At the first intersection he snapped on the headlights and stepped hard on the accelerator. The forward thrust of the engine forced him back against the cushioned seat, and he sensed the power and urgency of the leaping car infusing his whole body. He felt giddy and weightless, but enormously strong; it was as if the machine were part of him, an extension of his energies, so that he had the sensation of hurling himself forward and being hurled forward at one and the same instant, a delirious balancing of the active and passive which canceled all responsibility and left him suspended in a vacuum of reckless, irrepressible excitement.
Raynes Park had been named for a suburb of London. The small holding of land had been left to the Township of Rosedale by a descendant of one of the original South Shore settlers, chiefly for tax purposes it was rumored, but ostensibly to commemorate the birthplace of the ancestor who had established the family’s fortune in America. It covered a half-dozen acres and was attractively landscaped with yew hedges and dwarf shrubbery. Graveled walks twisted through lawns and neat columns of poplars. In the central plaza iron benches were placed about a small pond, and here, in good weather, nurses and an occasional pipe-smoking old gentleman watched children sailing boats or wading in the warm green water.