A Stir of Echoes - By Richard Matheson Page 0,21

said. "Marriage and kids and all the rest of it." His cheeks puffed out with held breath, then he expelled it noisily. "I suppose you want a baby," he said.

"Sure."

"You would." He drank a little beer.

"I take it you don't," I said.

"You take it right, buddy boy," he said bitterly. "Sometimes I'd like to kick her right in the goddamn belly just so she'd... uh-" He squeezed the glass in his hand as if he wanted to splinter it. "What good is a baby to me?" he asked. "What the hell do I want with one?"

"They're pretty nice," I said.

He fell back against the booth wall. "Sure," he said, "sure. So's a little money in the bank. So's a little security."

"They don't eat money, Frank," I said, "just a little mush and milk."

"They eat money," he said, "just like wives eat money. Just like houses and furniture and goddamn curtains."

"Man, you sound like a frustrated bachelor," I told him.

"A frustrated husband," he said. "I wish to hell I was a bachelor. Them, buddy, was the goddamn days."

"They were all right," I said, "but I'll take these."

"You can have 'em," he growled. He blew out disgusted breath again and played with his glass. "Isn't bad enough," he muttered, "I have to practically beg her for some when she's normal. Now she's got a whole goddamn bag full of tricks she uses to kick me out of bed."

I guess I laughed. "Is that what's bothering you?" I asked. I didn't feel very telepathic at that moment. It caught me by surprise.

"You bet your goddamn life it bothers me," Frank said. "She has the sex drive of a goddamn butterfly. Even when she's normal. Now..."

"Frank," I said, "believe me, pregnancy is not abnormal."

"The hell it isn't," he said. "It's a waste of flesh." He leaned forward and his face was hard and intent.

"Well, buddy boy," he said, "I'm not taking it lying down." He snickered. "To use the vernacular." He looked around in the way men do to indicate that their next remarks are going to be shattering revelations.

"There's a little redheaded job at the plant," he said.

I was surprised again.

"Oh, she knows about it," he said. "Old Lizzie knows all about it. What the hell else can she expect, though? A man needs it. That's all. And I need a lot of it. It's a matter of simple arithmetic." He went on telling me about the little "job"-redheaded, petite, tight-sweatered and sheathed with hugging slacks. She brought papers to the accounting department and dropped them off there.

"I don't get much eating done at lunchtime," Frank said, winking.
Chapter Eight
"I CAN'T STAND HIM," Anne told me as we were getting ready for bed that night. "He's loathsome. He's got that poor woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown."

I pulled off my second sock and dropped it into my shoe.

"I know," I said.

"All she wants is a baby," Anne said. "God! You'd think she was asking for the moon! She doesn't ask a thing of him; not a thing. He doesn't help her with anything! He goes out by himself whenever he damn well pleases. He begrudges her every cent she spends no matter how carefully she budgets. He yells at her and abuses her. I've seen black and blue marks on that girl- bad ones." She slung the hanger over the closet bar. "And she doesn't say a thing," she said. "All she wants is a baby.

Seven years of marriage and that's all she asks. And him..."

"Maybe that's her trouble," I said. "She lets him get away with too much."

"What can she do?" Anne asked, sitting down at her dressing table and picking up her brush.

"Leave him?" I suggested.

"Where would she go?" she asked, brushing with short, angry strokes. "She hasn't a friend in the world. Both her parents have been dead for nine years. If you and I ever broke up, I, at least, could go home to my mother and father for a while to get over it. Elizabeth hasn't a place in the world to go. That's her home over there. And that-pig is making it a hell."

I sighed. "I know," I said. I lay back on the bed. "I wonder, does she really know he's having an affair with-?"

I stopped. I could tell from the way her head had snapped around what the answer was.

"He's what?" she asked, slowly.

We looked at each other a moment. She turned away.

"That's fine," she said in that falsely calm voice a woman manages