that seemed to suggest that an ape like Hamilton Davenport could not be expected to understand the higher morality of the abortion issue, and they both knew it.
Ralph would think of those two expressions and the distance between the men who wore them, and after awhile his dismayed eyes would wander back to the news photo. Two men stood close behind Dalton, both carrying pro-life signs and watching the confrontation intently. Ralph didn't recognize the skinny man with the hornrimmed glasses and the cloud of receding gray hair, but he knew the man beside him. It was Ed Deepneau. Yet in this context, Ed seemed almost not to matter. What drew Ralph-and frightened him-were the faces of the two men who had done business next door to each other on Lower Witcham Street for years-Davenport with his cavernan's snarl and clenched fist, Dalton with his dazed eyes and bloody nose.
He thought, If you're not careful with your passions, this is where they get you. But this is where things had better stop, because"Because if those two had had guns, they'd've shot each other," he muttered, and at that moment the doorbell rang-the one down on the front porch. Ralph got up, looked at the picture again, and felt a kind of vertigo sweep through him. With it came an odd, dismal surety: it was Ed down there, and God knew what he might want.
Don't answer it then, Ralph!
He stood by the kitchen table for a long undecided moment, wishing bitterly that he could cut through the fog that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in his head this year. Then the doorbell chimed again and he found he had decided. It didn't matter if that was Saddam Hussein down there; this was his place, and he wasn't going to cower in it like a whipped cur.
Ralph crossed the living room, opened the door to the hall, and went down the shadowy front stairs.
Halfway down he relaxed a little. The top half of the door which gave on the front porch was composed of heavy glass panes. They distorted the view, but not so much that Ralph could not see that his two visitors were both women. He guessed at once who one of them must be and hurried the rest of the way down, running one hand lightly over the bannister. He threw the door open and there was Helen Deepneau with a tote-bag (BABY FIRST-AID STATION was printed on the side) slung over one shoulder and Natalie peering over the other, her eyes as bright as the eyes of a cartoon mouse.
Helen was smiling hopefully and a little nervously.
Natalie's face suddenly lit up and she began to bounce up and down in the Papoose carrier Helen was wearing, waving her arms excitedly in Ralph's direction.
She remembers me, Ralph thought. How about that. And as he reached out and let one of the waving hands grasp his right index finger, his eyes flooded with tears.
"Ralph?" Helen asked. "Are you okay?"
He smiled, nodded, stepped forward, and hugged her. He felt Helen lock her own arms around his neck. For a moment he was dizzy with the smell of her perfume, mingled with the milky smell of healthy baby, and then she gave his ear a dazzling smack and let him go.
"You are okay, aren't you?" she asked. There were tears in her eyes, too, but Ralph barely noticed them; he was too busy taking inventory, wanting to make sure that no signs of the beating remained.
So far as he could see, none did. She looked flawless.
"Better right now than in weeks," he said. "You are such a sight for sore eyes. You too, Nat." He kissed the small, chubby hand that was still wrapped around his finger, and was not entirely surprised to see the ghostly gray-blue lip-print his mouth left behind. It faded almost as soon as he had noted it and he hugged Helen again, mostly to make sure that she was really there.
"Dear Ralph," she murmured in his ear. "Dear, sweet Ralph."
He felt a stirring in his groin, apparently brought on by the combination of her light perfume and the gentle puffs her words made against the cup of his ear... and then he remembered another voice in his ear. Ed's voice. I called about your mouth, Ralph. It's trying to get you in trouble.
Ralph let her go and held her at arm's length, still smiling.
"You're a sight for sore eyes, Helen. I'll be damned if you're