and looked at me with that odd stillness in her face. “Why?”
“Because your hair is beautiful.” I could feel the silence tightening up around us again and knew I shouldn’t have said it. But hell, I thought, a girl isn’t that touchy unless she’s afraid. And it isn’t me she’s afraid of—it’s herself.
“Beautiful!” she said bitterly.
“It is.”
She said nothing.
I took the other towel and spread it on the bedroll. “Sit down here,” I said. “The coffee will be hot in a minute.”
“But my suit will get your blankets wet.”
“No. Not with the towel. Please do. It’s more comfortable.”
She sat down with her legs doubled under her and I handed her a cigarette. The coffee began to sizzle around the sides of the bucket, making a comforting sound in the night. I poured two cups and handed her one. “Do you like cream and sugar in it? I have some canned milk.”
“No. Black, please.”
I sat down across from her, on the ground. “What’s your name besides Mrs. Shevlin?”
“Doris.”
“You know,” I said, “you shouldn’t swim in that swamp at night. It’s dangerous.”
“It’s all right. I know all the water and it’s safe enough. I’m a good swimmer.”
“Doesn’t your husband ever swim with you?”
“No. He doesn’t care for it.”
“I can’t understand his letting you do it,” I said, and again I was conscious of walking on ground where I didn’t belong. “I mean,” I went on hurriedly, “I realize it’s not my business, but doesn’t he worry about you?”
“No—” she said, cutting it off as if she had started to say more and then had changed her mind.
“Do you go to town very often?” I asked.
“No. I’ve never been to town since we came up here.”
“Not in a whole year?” I asked in amazement. “Doesn’t your husband take you at all?”
“He doesn’t go either. He goes down to the store at the foot of the lake twice a week, and that’s all.”
“What days does he go?” I asked, and after the words were out I knew why I had asked, and wondered if she did. She probably had noticed that I’d waited three whole days to go back after the pliers.
She knew, all right. She looked at me with that intense stillness and made no reply. It occurred to me then that I knew anyway, for he had gone first on Tuesday and this was Friday.
“No certain days,” she said, and then I knew she had realized the same thing and that she wasn’t telling the truth. “Just whenever they ask him to bring some fish.”
I began to understand a little about her then—a little, and, as I found out later, I hadn’t even begun. Loneliness was driving her mad. She wanted to talk to me or to somebody, but she was afraid to. She didn’t know, if she started something like that, whether it would get out of control. But, as I say, I didn’t know half of it then.
“Look,” I said, “I come up here fishing quite often. Would you like me to bring you some magazines? I’d be glad to do it.”
She shook her head and smiled a little. It was the first time I had ever seen her smile, and it made her look even younger and prettier. I felt again that powerful desire I had this afternoon to pick her up in my arms. “No,” she said. “Thank you. But he brings me things to read from the store. It was nice of you to offer, though.”
‘It wasn’t as nice as you think it was,” I said, leaning forward a little. “It was partly because I wanted an excuse to come and see you again.”
“You know you can’t do that, don’t you?” she asked quietly.
“No,” I said.
“You can’t. Is it because I stopped here? Did that give you the idea—”
“Nothing gave me any idea. I wanted to see you again.”
She stared at the ground. “Don’t say that!”
“Why not?”
“I’ll have to leave if you’re going to talk like that.”
“All right. I won’t say it. But there’s no way you can stop me from thinking it.”
“You can’t. I shouldn’t have come here. It’s crazy.”
“Of course it’s crazy,” I said. “Does that change it?”
She put down the coffee cup, still looking at the ground, and made that same desperate gesture, that utterly hopeless quick movement of the hand across the side of her head and down her neck, that she had made the other day—only now it wasn’t through her hair, because she still had on the rubber cap.