Chapter 17
Gwen slept a little, wakened, slept again, listening all through the night for the sounds that would mean Pete had returned. She heard nothing.
Morning found her unrefreshed, tired, yet unable to rest. She finally got up, took a long lukewarm bath, and then padded downstairs in, her housecoat to make coffee.
Her head throbbed in a headache that came and went and came again. She rubbed fretfully at the back of her neck, and kneaded the taut hard knobs that seemed to control the nerves.
The huge Sunday paper arrived with thump at the front door. She spread it out and read pages of it, without knowing what she read. Finally she blinked heavily with lack of sleep. Finally she pushed the papers off the couch, curled up in a ball and went to sleep again.
She slept and wakened, drank coffee, waited, through a lazy, hot July Sunday. Nothing in the neighborhood seemed to move or be abve. Several times she gazed at the Marshall house next door. She thought she saw movements of someone in the living room. Floyd, probably, she thought, waiting for Karen to come home.
Floyd had said they would come back. How did he know? she wondered. Was it what Larry had said? That Karen and Pete would come back as soon as then money ran out?
Gwen's nose wrinkled with distaste.
It all seemed so sordid, so animalistic. She thought about that. She had called Pete an animal for the way he went after her. Was it she who didn't understand a man and his needs? A man must have strong physical desires, thought Gwen, that made him give up his freedom for marriage, in order to be able to satisfy these terrible hungers.
And Pete had acted strangely ever since she had admitted lesbian relations with Isobel. Had that driven him to Karen?
Gwen's eyes widened with the shock of that thought. Pete had been disgusted with her. And jealous! That had driven him away!
"Oh, no! No!" she muttered. And yet yet I understand, she thought. Oh, I understand now. So much is clearer now!
She felt years older as she sat there. All the episodes that had puzzled her began to fall into place and be recognizable.
"Now I know how to make love with Pete," she murmured. "Now I know what to say-and what not to say! Oh, if Pete would only come back to me now!"
Somehow she felt more calm and confident, now that she had straightened out the confusion of her mind. She went upstairs and dressed, then began packing linens and clothes.
When Pete came back, they would move. Gwen would never risk staying here, she vowed. Not with the menace of Isobel and the meaning of Gwen's relations with her.
"I'm sorry for her, but she's not going to drag me down to her level," Gwen said to herself as she worked busily. "She won't make me lose Pete!"
Evening came. Gwen stopped, and fixed supper of bacon and eggs. She ate with real appetite. She planned the next day's activities.
"If Pete isn't back, I'll call the dealer myself." She smiled with a little grimace as she talked aloud to herself. "I'll tell him to go ahead and arrange the deal. Pete can sign the papers when he returns. And we will move."
As though Gwen's calm resolution had power of its own, Pete and Karen returned about an hour later. Gwen heard the car drive up noisily.
She went to the window and stood behind the curtain to watch, dry-eyed. Pete took his suitcase out of the car and slammed the door. He did not seem to look at Karen as he walked slowly away from her. She drove on the few feet to her front walk, and parked.
Karen got out, took her suitcase from the back, and swaggered up the walk toward her house.
Gwen went to the door to open it for Pete. He glanced up, saw her. A defiant, uneasy expression crossed his face. His mouth seemed hard. His face was reddish, his eyes red-rimmed as from lack of sleep.
"Well, here I am," he growled, coming in. He thumped down the kit-bag as though to defy her to throw him out.
"Have you had supper?" Gwen asked mildly.
He glared at her. "Huh?"
She turned to walk to the kitchen. Her knees felt weak, and she had to walk stiff-legged so she wouldn't fall.
"Would you like bacon and eggs?" she called back over her shoulder.
"Huh? Well yeah I guess. Got any coffee?"
"I'll make some fresh. I drank most of this."
She poured out the dregs, rinsed the pot and refilled it with water. She was proud of her steady hands.
Pete sank down on a kitchen chair and propped his head on his hands.
"The dealer showed me a lovely house yesterday," Gwen said. She broke an egg with care over the sizzling skillet, then picked up the spatula to turn the bacon. "It was a brick two-story. A garage. Space for your tools."
"Look Gwen!" Pete's voice was harsh. He raised his head. "I can't decide on-"
A scream bit into his words. A loud piercing feminine scream.
"Karen!" yelled Pete. He knocked over the chair in his haste to rise. He ran out the back door.
Gwen turned off the fires and followed him. Somehow she knew what was happening. Floyd, quiet patient Floyd, had exploded with his suppressed fury.
Even though Gwen knew, she was not prepared for the scene as she followed Pete unceremoniously into the open French windows of the house next door.
Karen was on her knees, sprawling, held up only by the clutch of Floyd's hands on her throat. The short stout man, his face red and vacant, his eyes staring in a frightening, blank way, shook her back and forth. As Pete and Gwen dashed in, Floyd knocked Karen's head against the coffee table. The thud was horrible. Karen's head sagged back. The bright orange-red hair was staining with a strange darker red that flowed from the gash on her white forehead.
"Oh God!" Gwen screamed, appalled.
Floyd didn't seem to hear. His big hands choked the thin throat, and Karen's face was purpling.
"Gwen!" Pete caught her arm. "Call the police! The phone there!"
He pushed her toward the phone, then rushed toward Floyd. The three figures swayed as Pete fought to tear the killing hands from Karen's throat.
Gwen dialed, got the police. An impersonal voice answered.
She gave the address. "Oh please hurry hurry! He's choking her please-
"We'll have men there right away," the voice assured her.
She hung up, whirled as something fell against her leg. She fought revulsion as she saw Karen's limp body at her feet, a shoulder brushing her leg.
Pete was wrestling with Floyd, slowly forcing him over to the couch. They fought with grim doggedness.
Gwen reassured herself that Pete was more than a match for the drunken man. Then she bent over Karen. As she straightened the limp body, blood gushed over her hand. The sticky warm liquid made Gwen suddenly, violently sick.
But there wasn't tune to be sick. She took a cloth from the couch, one of Karen's scarves. She bound it tightly over the gash to stop the gush of blood. Then she knelt beside the girl to fell her pulse.
"All right, miss. We'll take care of her." A brisk voice made her look up at the big blue-uniformed man beside her.
"Oh thank God-" Gwen whispered. She leaned back and wiped her trembling hands on her dress. "Her head a big gash on the forehead and in back-"
The policeman knelt on the other side of Karen.
Gwen looked around. Another policeman and Pete stood beside the couch where Floyd lay in a semi-stupor. His eyes still rolled in madness. Gwen shuddered.
The high wail of an ambulance struck her tense nerves like the whine of a power saw. More men came, some in white coats. They bent over Karen, then put her on a stretcher. Pete was talking to the policeman, who listened with stern calm.
Gwen sat still on the rug. She felt mindless and empty, as though what had happened had nothing to do with her. She was still wiping her fingers mechanically on her dress, wiping fresh red stains on the pretty blue print.
"I'll take my wife home." She heard Pete's voice clearly, through the dim fog surrounding her.
"Pete," she whispered.
He came over to her and lifted her up. She clung to him until the dizziness left her.
"Can you walk, Gwen?" His anxious face was near hers, a gentle tenderness in his tone.
She nodded. "Yes."
"You go on home, then. We'll talk to you tomorrow," said a policeman.
The policeman remained in the house as Pete led Gwen out the French windows, across the grass to their own home.
Home? No, just a house, thought Gwen. An empty, loveless house she would be glad to leave.
In the house, she seemed to find new strength. She said, with some calm, "I'll change my dress."
"I'll come up with you if you want." His face still showed the shock of the incident.
"No. I can manage," she told him gently.
She went upstairs, washed and changed. Then she came down again. Pete was sitting in the kitchen, huddled miserably at the table.
She started fresh bacon, and plugged in the coffee pot.
"I didn't think we were hurting anybody," Pete finally told her. "I really didn't think anybody cared what we did."
"I know. But we cared," said Gwen. She went to him and drew his head back to her breast. She bent over him in pity and in love, caressing his dark curly hair, soothing the misery from his face. "We cared. I care, Pete. I care terribly. I hurt all the time you were gone."
He took her hand and pressed it to his mouth. As she stroked his face with her other hand, she found his face wet with tears. She held him in silence, her heart full of pain and gratitude, that he had gone, and that he had returned.