Lawrence Block - Candy

Candy

Lawrence Block

Writing as Sheldon Lord

This is for

LARRY and SUE

and for Prudence as well

Chapter One

I THOUGHT SHED BE asleep by the time I got home but she wasnt. I didnt find out this intriguing fact until I was inside the door. Our apartment doesnt have a window facing out on 100th Street where the building entrance is and I hadnt taken the time to walk around to West End Avenue and have a look at our window. Even with a light on she could have been asleep anyway.

I opened the door with my key and I saw her. She was sitting in the armchair in front of the television set but the late late show was over and done with and she was staring at a test pattern. Im not sure what time it was but when its too late for the late late show it is very late indeed, from what I understand. Im just going on guesswork, as it happens, because as far as Im concerned television is just one of those conveniences of modern living which I am in the habit of asking the bartender to turn off.

But anyway, you get the picture. Its late, Im coming in quietly, and my dear wife is still up.

I said Hello because it seemed to be the most nearly logical thing to say.

She got up from the chair and turned around to look at me. Her face was perfectly composed but I could tell that the composure was about as genuine as a giveaway show. When you live with a woman for over eleven years you can tell when shes faking. There were little lines around the corners of her mouth and the redness round her eyes didnt come from peeling onions. She had been crying, and this made me feel like the first-class Grade-A bastard which I was. Shed been crying because of me, and it figured.

I smiled. I walked over to her and I took her in my arms and I kissed her. She was wearing a nylon nightgown with nothing on under it and she was soft and warm and irrepressibly and undeniably female, with soft short brown hair and velvety brown eyes.

But the kiss was a short one. At first she clutched at me desperately; then she straightened up and twisted away. I didnt attempt to hold her because I knew she didnt want me to.

It figured. When a woman lives with a man for over eleven years she can tell when hes faking. And I was faking. And she could tell. I wanted to kiss her about as much as I wanted to kiss a pig and she knew it.

How was she, Jeff?

I looked away. I didnt say anything because there wasnt much to say.

I dont like her perfume, Jeff. Did you know that you reek of her perfume? I can smell it on you. You ought to take a shower or something after you

She broke off and for a minute or two I thought she was going to start crying again. But she grabbed hold of herself and turned around so that she was facing me. Her mouth was closed and her lips formed a thin red line. When she spoke she talked slowly, carefully, as if she was afraid she wouldnt make it without breaking down unless she pronounced each word meticulously and took her time between words.

Lets sit down, she said. Weve got to talk this out, Jeff. Its no good the way it is.

Whats there to talk about?

Theres quite a bit to talk about.

I gave a half-hearted shrug and went over to her. She sat down on the sofa and I took a seat next to her. We just sat there in perfect silence for what must have been at least three or four minutes.

I suppose it happens all the time, she said softly. It always happens. You go on being a good wife day after day and finally your husband finds another girl and shes more exciting and more beautiful and more interesting, and shes new and different and all of a sudden hes sleeping with her and you sit home alone and stare at the damned television. You sit home alone rubbing your knees together like a teenager because you want him so much you could scream and all the while hes with some nameless bitch and the two of them are doing all the things you used to do and

Lucy

Dont interrupt me! Her face was drawn now and she was rummaging around with her hands the way she always did when she wanted a cigarette. I got a pack out of my shirt pocket and gave her one and took one for myself. That emptied the pack and I crumpled it up in a ball and heaved it at the wastebasket on the other side of the room. It sailed through the air, bounced off the wall and dropped into the basket.

Two points, I said.

She didnt say anything.

They tell me women live through this, she said. Her cigarette was lit and she had taken two or three deep drags on it. She was calmer now.

Women live through this, she went on. Its supposed to happen all the time. After a mans married so many years he gets hungry for something new and the wife goes around with her eyes shut and her mouth shut and waits for him to get tired of the new one and come back home to mama. Then things are all right again.

I got my cigarette going and took a long drag. It didnt taste good and I blew the smoke out in a long thin column that held together all the way to the ceiling. I stared at the damned smoke with the fascination of a catatonic staring at a blank wall.

I tried pretending, Jeff. Ive known about her for oh, I dont know how long. I half-guessed it when you began being too tired to make love and knew it when you started having to work late night after night. But I cant stand pretending. I just cant take it any more.

She took the cigarette between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand and stubbed it out in an ashtray. She put it out so viciously that she almost knocked the ashtray off the table. She hadnt smoked more than a quarter of the cigarette.

Is she that much better than I am?

I sure as hell didnt attempt to answer that one.

She couldnt be that much better, she said. Theres not that much to it. You just lie on your back and spread your legs and show some life. Maybe she knows something I dont know. Maybe thats it.

Outside it was starting to rain. The rain fell in a steady pattern and the wind was blowing it against our window. It provided a sort of background to our conversation.

Who is she, Jeff?

You wouldnt know her.

I suppose thats some consolation. Id hate it if it was somebody we both knew. I Are you in love with her, Jeff?

I dont know. It was the truth.

Are you going to go on seeing her?

I closed my eyes. I just sat there with my eyes closed and my heart beating much faster than it should and I didnt know what to say.

Jeff, cant you stop seeing her? Dont you see what youre doing to me? Cant you see?

My cigarette had burned down to a stub about an inch long. I put it out.

Lucy was saying: Jeff, dont I mean enough to you so that you can give up that little bitch? Please, Jeff. I want you. I want you so much I dont think I could go on living without you. Cant you give her up?

I cant.

Cant? Or dont want to?

Cant.

She shrugged, defeated. I dont know, she said. Weve been married eleven years and for all that time I havent stopped loving you. I love you right now and I hate you, too, and I just dont understand it. Dont you love me any more?

I dont know.

She was smiling now but it was a very sad smile. She shook her head and when she started talking it was as much to herself as it was to me. We should have had another baby, she said. When Timothy died we should have had another baby right away instead of waiting. If we had a baby maybe this whole thing wouldnt have happened.

Timothy had been born prematurely about six years ago. He lived a grand total of four hours and then gave up the ghost. The whole thing didnt hit me the way it struck Lucyhell, he didnt live long enough for me to have any real feelings about him one way or the other. It was different for her. She had carried him for over seven months, and she loved him with that instinctive mother love that they write and preach about. It broke her up so that, after the doctor said she was in danger of repeated miscarriages, we decided not to have any more kids for awhile.