Cul-de-Sac Read Free Page A

now and you’re going to be okay. You said on the phone that you’d fixed up a bedroom and bathroom, why don’t you show me where they are … I’ve been in that car—”
    “Annie …”
    “I’m here, I’m not leaving you.” When she put an arm softly around him Paul began crying, Annie staying close, comforting him as you would a child. “Show me that bedroom and bathroom, I’d like to take a shower.”
    “Down the hall.”
    “Good.” Annie picked up one suitcase, leaving the other for Paul, but when she got to the door he wasn’t behind her … he’d gone to the other end of the room, to the fireplace.
    Paul had his hand on the brick chimney. “Remember this chimney,” he said … a request, not a question.
    “Remember it?”
    “Yes.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Remember this chimney.”
    “Paul, I don’t—”
    “Just remember it.”
    “All right.” When she turned to the door again Paul spoke her name. He was still touching the brickwork.
    “Remember this chimney.”
    “Okay I’ll remember it.”
    “Good.” He seemed satisfied, coming over to Annie, picking up the suitcase on his way, even stretching his swollen lips in whatmight’ve passed for a smile. Annie smiled back but as soon as he went in front of her she lost that smile.
    After they were out in the hallway Paul shut the workshop door, closed the hasp, and squeezed the padlock into place. Annie asked him why he was locking it but Paul didn’t answer. He went to an electrical panel box and flipped switches, bringing on some lights, then led Annie halfway down one side of the hallway-balcony. Paul stopped and brought out a key ring, unlocking a door.
    Although not as large as the workshop-library this room also had twelve-foot ceilings, one wall dominated by four huge floor-to-ceiling windows. The only furnishings were a chair, a table with a lamp, and on the floor a mattress that was covered with a sheet.
    Annie walked to the windows thinking how dramatic they could be if they weren’t covered with old shades and rotting curtains. “Which way do these windows face?”
    “East. The bathroom’s through there,” Paul said, indicating a connecting door. He went back and locked the door to the hallway.
    “Honey why are you keeping everything locked?”
    He started to reply but changed his mind.
    “Have you had break-ins?”
    He shook his head and asked her if she wanted to take a shower or a bath.
    “Shower I guess.”
    “I’ll turn it on, takes a while for the hot water to get up here.”
    “Thanks.”
    Annie told herself everything was going to be fine, they’d each take a shower and then make love, afterwards Paul would explain what’d happened to him. She was in the middle of her cycle, the right time to get pregnant … which was part of Annie’s motivation for plotting this surprise visit.
    While Paul was in the bathroom Annie tried to make one of the window shades roll up but it was rusted tight. When she yanked really hard, the dirty shade broke out of its brackets and clattered to the floor putting up dust and half a dozen fat black flies thatbuzzed so persistently around Annie’s face she was forced to wave them off with both hands.
    Paul came running out of the bathroom looking first at his wife then at the uncovered window. “
What have you done!
”
    “I thought it would be nice to get the morning sun but—”
    “Oh Sweet Jesus,” he muttered grabbing the old linen shade and holding it to the window as if it might stick there of its own accord.
    When Annie put a hand on his shoulder he jumped like she’d struck him. “Paul, it’s all right … leave the shade off.”
    But he kept struggling to rehang it, the linen tearing in his hands, several of the flies having landed in his greasy hair.
    “Paul stop it.”
    He looked at her and finally conceded the futility of what he was attempting.
    Standing at the window Annie couldn’t see anything out there in the dark except a distant glow