The lights had come on as we entered the house. She looked around her, then turned and threw her arms around my neck. "Oh, darling, darling! I can't see-my eyes are all blurry."
Mine were blurry, too, so we took time out for mutual treatment. Then she started wandering around, touching things. "Sam, if I had planned it all myself, it would have been just this way."
"It hasn't but one bathroom," I apologized. "We'll have to rough it a bit."
"I don't mind. In fact I'm glad; now I know you didn't bring any of those women of yours up here."
"What women?"
"You know darn well what women. If you had been planning this as a nest, you would have included a woman's bathroom."
"You know too much."
She did not answer but wandered on out into the kitchen. I heard her squeal. "What's the matter?" I asked, following her out.
"I never expected to find a real kitchen in a bachelor's lodge."
"I'm not a bad cook myself. I wanted a kitchen so I bought one."
"I'm so glad. Now I will cook you dinner."
"It's your kitchen; suit yourself. But don't you want to wash up? You can have first crack at the shower if you want it. And tomorrow we'll get a catalog and you can pick out a bathroom of your own. We'll have it flown in."
"No hurry," she said. "You take the first shower. I want to start dinner."
So I did. I guess she did not have any trouble figuring out the controls and filing system in the kitchen, for about fifteen minutes later while I was whistling away in the shower, letting the hot water soak in, I heard a tap on the shower door. I looked through the translucent panel and saw Mary silhouetted there.
"May I come in?" she called out.
"Sure, sure!" I said, "Plenty of room." I opened the door and looked at her. She looked good. For a moment she stood there, letting me look but with a sweet shyness on her face that I had never seen before.
I put on an expression of utter surprise and said, "Honey! What's the matter? Are you sick?"
She looked startled out of her wits and said, "Me? What do you mean?"
"There's not a gun on you anywhere."
She giggled and came at me. "Idiot!" she squealed and started to tickle me. I got her left arm in a bonebreaker but she countered with one of the nastiest judo tricks that ever came out of Japan. Fortunately I knew the answer to it and then we were both on the bottom of the shower and she was yelling, "Let me up! You're getting my hair all wet."
"Does it matter?" I asked, not moving. I liked it there.
"I guess not," she answered softly and kissed me. So I let her up and we rubbed each other's bruises and giggled. It was quite the nicest shower I have ever had.
Mary and I slipped into domesticity as if we had been married for twenty years. Oh, not that our honeymoon was humdrum, far from it, nor that there weren't a thousand things we still had to learn about each other-the point was that we already seemed to know the necessary things about each other that made us married. Especially Mary.
I don't remember those days too clearly, yet I remember every second of them. I went around feeling gay and a bit confused. My Uncle Egbert used to achieve much the same effect with a jug of corn liquor, but we did not even take tempus pills, not then. I was happy; I had forgotten what it was like to be happy, had not known that I was not happy. Interested, I used to be-yes. Diverted, entertained, amused-but not happy.
We did not turn on a stereo, we did not read a book-except that Mary read aloud some Oz books that I had. Priceless items, they were, left to me by my great-grandfather; she had never seen any. But that did not take us back into the world; it took us farther out.
The second day we did go down to the village; I wanted to show Mary off. Down there they think I am a writer and I encourage the notion, so I stopped to buy a couple of tubes and a condenser for my typer and a roll of copy tape, though I certainly had no intention of doing any writing, not this trip. I got to talking with the storekeeper about the slugs and Schedule Bare Back-sticking to my public persona of course. There had been a local false alarm and a native in the next town had been shot by a trigger-happy constable for absent-mindedly showing up in public in a shirt. The storekeeper was indignant. I suggested that it was his own fault; these were war conditions.
He shook his head. "The way I see it we would have had no trouble at all if we had tended to our own business. The Lord never intended men to go out into space. We should junk the space stations and stay home; then we would be all right."
I pointed out that the slugs came here in their own ships; we did not go after them-and got a warning signal from Mary not to talk too much.
The storekeeper placed both hands on the counter and leaned toward me. "We had no trouble before space travel; you'll grant that?"
I conceded the point. "Well?" he said triumphantly.
I shut up. How can you argue?
We did not go into town after that and saw no one and spoke to no one. On the way home (we were on foot) we passed close to the shack of John the Goat, our local hermit. Some say that John used to keep goats; I know he smelled like one. He did what little caretaking I required and we respected each other, that is, we saw each other only when strictly necessary and then as briefly as possible. But, seeing him, I waved.
He waved back. He was dressed as usual, stocking cap, an old army blouse, shorts, and sandals. I thought of warning him that a man had been shot nearby for not complying with the bare-to-the-waist order, but decided against it. John was the perfect anarchist; advice would have made him only more stubborn. Instead I cupped my hands and shouted, "Send up the Pirate!" He waved again and we went on without coming within two hundred feet of him, which was about right unless he was downwind.
"Who's the Pirate, darling?" Mary asked.
"You'll see."
Which she did; as soon as we got back the Pirate came in, for I had his little door keyed to his own meow so that he could let himself in and out-the Pirate being a large and rakish torn cat, half red Persian and half travelling salesman. He came in strutting, told me what he thought of people who stayed away so long, then headbumped my ankle in forgiveness. I reached down and roughed him up, then he inspected Mary.
I was watching Mary. She had dropped to her knees and was making the sounds used by people who understand cat protocol, but the Pirate was looking her over suspiciously. Suddenly he jumped into her arms and commenced to buzz like a faulty fuel meter, while bumping her under the chin.
I sighed loudly. "That's a relief," I announced. "For a moment I didn't think I was going to be allowed to keep you."
Mary looked up and smiled. "You need not have worried; I get along with cats. I'm two-thirds cat myself."
"What's the other third?"
She made a face at me. "You'll find out." She was scratching the Pirate under the chin; he was stretching his neck and accepting it, with an expression of indecent and lascivious pleasure. I noticed that her hair just matched his fur.
"Old John takes care of him while I'm away," I explained, "but the Pirate belongs to me-or vice versa."
"I figured that out," Mary answered, "and now I belong to the Pirate, too; don't I, Pirate?"
The cat did not answer but continued his shameless lallygagging-but it was clear that she was right. Truthfully I was relieved; aelurophobes cannot understand why cats matter to aelurophiles, but if Mary had turned out not to be one of the lodge it would have fretted me.
From then on the cat was with us-or with Mary-almost all the time, except when I shut him out of our bedroom. That I would not stand for, though both Mary and the Pirate thought it small of me. We even took him with us when we went down the canyon for target practice. I suggested to Mary that it was safer to leave him behind but she said, "See to it that you don't shoot him. I won't."