“That’s okay,” I said, and it sounded as if I had a plum in my mouth. “I won’t look.”
She laughed.
“I hope you won’t.”
She put her hands on each side of the trap, then swung herself nimbly up into the attic.
Her pleated skirt billowed out, and the brief glimpse I got of her as I looked up set my blood racing.
She looked down at me through the trap opening. From that angle she really looked more than something with her bronze-coloured hair hanging forward, framing her face.
Her eyes searched my face with that knowledgeable, cool appraisal of a woman who knows all about men and how men will react to what she knew I had just seen.
“If you’ll give me the aerial...” she said.
I was glad of the excuse to turn away and pick up the aerial. I handed it up to her, then the tool kit and then the coil of flex.
I climbed up beside her.
In that hot, stuffy little attic we suddenly seemed to be the only two people left in the world. Up there I couldn’t hear the TV. I couldn’t hear anything except the thump-thump-thump of my heart-beats.
“I’m glad I don’t have to go out there,” she said, moving away from me to stare through the skylight at the patch of blue sky. “I haven’t any head for heights.”
“I used to feel that way, but it doesn’t bother me now. I guess one gets used to anything if you try hard enough.”
“I used to think that too, but not now. I know my husband will never get used to sitting in his chair for the rest of his days.”
I began to uncoil the flex.
“That’s different. Did he have an accident?”
“Yes.” She lifted her hair off her shoulders, letting it run through her slim-waisted lingers. “He feels it terribly. I think it’s worse for him than most men. He was the tennis coach for the Pacific Film Studios. He coached all the famous stars. It was a glamorous and very paying job. He is close on fifty. You wouldn’t think he could be a great tennis player, not at that age, but he was. He had so much fun and he loved teaching. That was really all he was ever good at. He had no other interests. Then this accident happened. He’ll never be able to walk again.”
And he’ll never be able to make love to you again either, I thought. If there was any pity in my thoughts, it was for her.
“That’s tough,” I said. “Isn’t there something he could interest himself in? He’s not planning to sit in that chair and do nothing for the rest of his days, is he?”
“Yes. He made an awful lot of money. That’s something we’re not short of.” Her red, full lips twisted into a bitter smile. “He has come out here to get away from his friends. The one thing he hates more than anything is to be pitied.”
I fixed the stripped ends of the flex to the aerial leads.
“How about you? It can’t be much fun being buried out here, can it?”
She lifted her shoulders.
“He is my husband.” She studied me for a long moment, then said, “Shall I hold it now?”
That broke up the conversation. I got out onto the roof and she passed the aerial up to me.
With her helping me, it didn’t take long to fix the aerial in place. She handed up the tools I wanted, and every time I came to the skylight and looked down at her, I became more aware of her.
“That’s it,” I said, and swung myself down through the skylight into the attic.
“It didn’t take long,” she said.
She was standing close to me.
“I’ve put up so many aerials I could put one up in my sleep.”
I was beginning to breathe fast again.
I knew she wasn’t listening. She was looking intently at me, her chin up, and there was that thing lighting up her eyes.
Suddenly she swayed towards me.
I grabbed her.
In the past I have kissed quite a few women, but this was different. This was the kind of kiss you dream about. She melted into me: it was the moment of truth — there is no other way of describing it.
We clung to each other for maybe twenty or thirty seconds, then she broke free and stepped back and put her finger on her lips, pressing them while she stared at me. Her forget-me-not blue eyes had turned cloudy and were half closed, and she was breathing as fast as I was.
“There’s lipstick on your mouth,” she said in that husky, spooky voice of hers; then, turning, she reached the trap opening, and swung herself out of my sight.
I stood there trembling, aware of the thudding of my heart while I listened to her quick-light footfalls as she went away from me.
III
I got back to my cabin around eight o’clock in the evening; my mind still full of Gilda. I sat on the verandah, lit a cigarette and did some thinking.
I kept asking myself why she had kissed me.
I said to myself: a woman as lovely as she is with her background of luxury is not going to take you seriously. That was an off-beat moment. You’ve got to get it out of your mind. It’s something that won’t happen again. Don’t try to kid yourself into believing she would leave her husband for you. What have you to offer her anyway? This lousy little cabin? You couldn’t keep her in stockings. It was an off-beat moment, and she meant nothing by it.
Then suddenly, breaking into my thoughts, the telephone bell began to ring.
I got up and went into the lounge and took up the receiver.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you, Mr Regan.”
There was only one soft, husky voice like that in the world. At the sound of it I had a rush of blood to my head.
“Why, no...”
“I wanted to see you. I suppose I couldn’t come over to your place about eleven?”
“Why... yes.
“Then at eleven,” and she hung up.
A minute or so after eleven, I saw the headlights of her car coming up the dirt track and I got to my feet.
My heart was thumping as I walked down the steps and watched the estate wagon drive up the rough drive-in.
She pulled up outside the cabin and came towards me.
“I’m sorry to be so late, Mr Regan,” she said, “but I had to wait until my husband was in bed.”
That made it a conspiracy. I was breathing fast and I was pretty worked up.
“Won’t you come up onto the verandah, Mrs Delaney?”
She moved past me and up onto the verandah.
I had turned the lights off, and the only light came from the lounge, making a rectangle of light on the floor of the verandah.
She moved across this patch of light. She had changed into her slacks and the cowboy shirt. She walked to one of the old basket chairs and sat down.
“I want to apologize for what happened this afternoon.” She seemed very calm and matter-of-fact. “You must be thinking I am one of those uncontrolled women who throw themselves at any man.”
“Of course I don’t,” I said, sitting down near her. “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have...”
“Please don’t be insincere. It’s always the woman’s fault when a thing like that happens. I just happened to lose my head for the moment.” She shifted lower in the chair. “Could I have a cigarette?”
I took out my case and offered it.
She took a cigarette. I struck a match. My hand was so unsteady, she put her fingers on my wrist so she could light the cigarette. The touch of her cool flesh on mine increased the thud of my heart-beats.
“I’m ashamed of myself,” she went on, leaning back in the chair. “It is hard sometimes for a woman in my position. After all, why make a mystery of it? But I should have controlled myself. I thought it was only fair to you to come here and explain.”
“You needn’t have... I wasn’t imagining...”
“Of course you were. I know I am attractive to men. It’s something I can’t do anything about, and when certain men find out about my husband being a cripple, they begin to pester me. Up to now I haven’t met a man attractive enough to bother me, and it has been easy to hold them off.” She paused, drawing on her cigarette. “But there’s something about you....” She broke off and lifted her hands, letting them fall back onto the arms of the chair. “Anyway, I had to come here and tell you it isn’t going to happen again. You see, Mr Regan, if I were unlucky enough to fall in love with another man, I could never leave my husband. He is a cripple. He relies on me. I have a conscience about him.”