Stranger On Lesbos (21 page)

After the children were in bed and the dishes washed, she sat down again on the cot and tried to plan for tomorrow. Pa wouldn't go to work, of course. He was in the tavern at this very minute, not paying for his own drinks tonight but being treated to round after round by his friends and neighbors. At least he's not taking the food out of the children's mouths, she thought. She lit the kerosene lamp and lay down, fixing her gaze on the nimbus of soft yellow light that hovered around the thin glass chimney.

She dozed again. This time she was waked by blundering footsteps across the kitchen floor and the crashing of an overturned chair, followed by a muffled curse. Dead drunk, of course. It was what she had expected. She got to her feet.

Joe Kirby swayed in the doorless space between the living room and bedroom, clutching at the jamb for steadiness. The smell of whiskey preceded him into the room, and his eyes were bloodshot. Oh sure, Frankie thought, he wouldn't be drinking beer tonight. Bottled in bond, that's what it would be, paid for out of someone else's grocery money. There would be some husbands getting hell tomorrow.

He wavered in her direction. "Nancy, honey."

She had never seen him this far gone. Muddled, yes, and bad-tempered past reason, but not out of his head. He thinks I'm Ma, she realized. Slipped a cog somewhere. She said coldly, "Why don't you go to bed and sleep it off?"

"Nancy, you look so pretty."

She moved away, warily. The old childish fear of him held her spellbound for a moment. Then her new cold determination took over. "You're disgusting. Go to bed."

"Come on with me, then." He stood in front of her, wavering. "Come on, honey. You and me's gonna have a real good time together."

She was seized by sudden teeth-chattering panic.

He reached for her, missed, and moved in closer. Her back was to the old cot where she had slept since babyhood. The wall was behind her, the door on the opposite side of the room. There was a window at the foot of the cot, screened with cotton mosquito netting. She could squeeze through it if she had to.

But now he had grabbed her and tipped back her head, his breath hot and stinking on her cheek, and she couldn't move.

"Don't be like this, Nancy honey."

"I'm Frances. You hear me, Frances!" Her voice rose to a shriek. Never mind if the children woke. Anything was better than what she read on his face
naked lust, determined male hunger.

He pushed her back against the cot. The metal frame caught her behind the knees and she went down sprawling.

He'll kill me if I fight back, she thought wildly. An hour before she had been telling herself that she had nothing left to live for. Now all she could think was that she didn't want to die. She was filled with a wild primitive need to survive.

She lay still for a moment, trying to look into his face, trying to focus her eyes on the opposite wall. His grip slacked a little. He shifted position, peering stupidly into her face.

Now.

She brought her right knee up sharply. He howled. She pushed at him. Caught off balance by pain and surprise, he toppled to the floor and sat rocking back and forth, moaning loudly.

She went out of the house, walking past him neither slowly nor fast, and not looking at him. Outside, a cold early-winter wind blew sharply against her sweaty body. She shuddered. But she stayed out huddled against the side of the house for shelter, until she saw through the bedroom window that he had dragged himself to bed and fallen into a sodden sleep.

CHAPTER 17

I can’t beat it, she thought, turning her head from side to side as Ma had done when the pain got too bad. Men. Dirty, selfish, disgusting
violaters and savages. I'll never let a man touch me again, she thought.

Bill as bad as the rest of them, just like the rest. This was something she had heard before
she tried, frowning, to remember when and where. Kay, of course, sitting relaxed and easy on Bake's studio couch, one slender leg tucked under her, a cup of coffee in her hand, her dark-red hair catching the light.

"Every time he made love to me it was like a declaration of war. It was like being beaten, only worse." She had smiled, and Frances' heart had swelled with understanding and pity. "You'll never get any consideration from a man, anyway. There's no tenderness in them. All they think about is their own satisfaction."

Frances turned restlessly, remembering. "It takes a woman to understand another woman," Kay said, turning her coffee cup on its saucer and not looking at any of them. "She thinks about the other person, not always about herself. If you're tired, a woman will be gentle and patient
if she loves you. If you're ill she takes care of you. When you're in the mood to make love she knows how to make you feel wonderful. It's better than anything with a man."

And Bake had answered
Frances couldn't remember what, but she could hear Bake's voice hanging soft in the air of the room, agreeing; and she could remember sharply every detail of that night, after the others went home and the logs in the fireplace had burned down to ashes.

Now, she thought, I like Kay. She's wise, she understands things. I wish I could talk to her about Bake. Can't, of course, because there's Jane
the whole miserable mess revolves around Jane. She lay thinking about Jane and Kay and the probable implications of their friendship, distracted briefly from her own unhappiness. Kay's too good for her. she thought, picturing Kay's intelligent face with its high cheekbones, her sensitive mouth, her silky red-brown hair.

A double need began to grow in her. First came the need to be cherished and comforted, a yearning that nobody ever outgrows. She wanted to see Bake and confide everything that had happened, and lay her head on Bake's shoulder and cry a little. She wanted to feel Bake's hands on her body in gentleness, and Bake's cheek laid softly against hers in their own special caress. That would be enough for a while, she thought, defending herself against any suspicion of lust, since lust had so lately been her undoing.

But under this loneliness that she could acknowledge a stronger hunger began to grow, insistent and clamoring. She began to count the days since she had seen Bake. Almost a month, after two years of being together.

Bill's abrupt and brutal lovemaking, shocking as it had been, had stirred needs in her that were deeper than principle or conscious thought. She turned, throwing the blankets to the floor. Clear in her mind was the picture of Bake standing at the head of the stairs, wrapped snugly in her housecoat, watching an angry unforgiving Frances walk out. How could I do it? she asked herself. How could I be so wicked?

Bake, ivory pale in the moonlight; Bake tousle-headed over morning coffee; Bake warm and drowsy at three o'clock of a rainy summer daybreak, when lightning crashed across the sky and water streamed down the window.

Bake.

Frances got stiffly out of bed, noting that her knees ached when she stood up and that an ugly purple bruise was forming inside her right thigh. Her clothes lay in an untidy pile where Bill had thrown them, one shoe upside down on her wool skirt, her stockings curled like empty snakeskins. She stepped around them, and pulled her terry robe down from a closet hook.

The telephone waited for her, ready to come to life at her touch. Her finger slipped easily into the dial holes. She waited, scarcely breathing, until the ringing stopped and Bake's voice answered, impersonal and low.

"It's twelve o'clock, baby. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas to you, too." Frances shifted her position so that she could see the bedside clock. "I have to go home."

"Oh God, do we have to go through all that again?"

"I'm sorry. Bob's girl is coming for dinner, and some other people later." She could see the Flanagans' faces if they arrived and found her missing. She started to giggle, then stopped, warned by the tight look around Bake's mouth. "I know it sounds silly. I hate it being this way, but I have to. I can't get out of it."

"It's up to you. If you'd rather spend the day being a nice little hausfrau
"