I, Richard - Elizabeth George [87]
The thought alone was like being imprisoned in concrete. But he said, “Darling Bets,” by way of answer and he trembled his voice appropriately. “Don't. Please. We can't go through this again.” And he pulled her roughly to him because he knew that was the move she desired. He buried his face in the curve of her shoulder and neck. He breathed through his mouth to avoid inhaling the day's litre of Shalimar that she'd doused herself with. He made the whimpering noises of a man in extremis. God, what he wouldn't do for King Richard.
“I was on the Internet,” she whispered, fingers caressing the back of his neck. “In the school library. All Thursday and Friday lunch, darling.”
He stopped his whimpering, sifting through this declaration for deeper meaning. “Were you?” He temporised by nibbling at her earlobe, waiting for more information. It came obliquely.
“You do love me, don't you, Malcolm dearest?”
“What do you think?”
“And you do want me, don't you?”
“That's obvious, isn't it?”
“Forever and ever?”
Whatever it takes, he thought. And he did his best to prove it to her, although his body wasn't up to a full performance.
Afterwards, while she was dressing, she said, “I was so surprised to see all the topics. You c'n look up anything on the Internet. Fancy that, Malcolm. Anything at all. Bernie's playing in chess night at the Plantagenet, dearest. Tonight, that is.”
Malcolm furrowed his brow, automatically seeking the connection between these apparently unrelated topics. She went on.
“He misses your games, Bernie does. He always wishes you'd come by on chess night and give it another go with him, darling.” She padded to the chest of drawers where she began repairing her makeup. “'Course, he doesn't play well. Just uses chess as an extra excuse to go to the pub.”
Malcolm watched her, eyes narrowed, waiting for a sign.
She gave it to him. “I worry about him, Malcolm dear. His poor heart's going to give out someday. I'm going with him tonight. Perhaps we'll see you there? Malcolm, dearest, do you love me? Do you want to be together more than anything on earth?”
He saw that she was watching him closely in the mirror even as she repaired the damage he'd done to her makeup. She was painting her lips into bee-sting bows. She was brushing her cheeks with blusher. But all the time she was observing him.
“More than life itself,” he said.
And when she smiled, he knew he'd given her the correct answer.
That night at the Plantagenet Pub, Malcolm joined the Sutton Cheney Chessmen, of whose society he'd once been a regular member. Bernie Perryman was delighted to see him. He deserted his regular opponent—seventy-year-old Angus Ferguson who used the excuse of playing chess at the Plantagenet to get as sloshed as Bernie—and pressed Malcolm into a game at a table in the smoky corner of the pub. Betsy was right, naturally: Bernie drank far more than he played, and the Black Bush served to oil the mechanism of his conversation. So he also talked incessantly.
He talked to Betsy, who was playing the role of serving wench for her husband that evening. From half past seven until half past ten, she trotted back and forth from the bar, bringing Bernie one double Black Bush after another, saying, “You're drinking too much,” and “This is the last one, Bernie,” in a monitory fashion. But he always managed to talk her into “just one more wet one, Mama girl,” and he patted her bum, winked at Malcolm and whispered loudly what he intended to do to her once he got her home. Malcolm was at the point of thinking he'd utterly misunderstood Betsy's implied message to him in bed that morning when she finally made her move.
It came at half past ten, one hour before George the Publican called for last orders. The pub was packed, and Malcolm might have missed her manoeuvre altogether had he not anticipated that something was going to happen that night. As Bernie nodded over the chessboard, contemplating his next move eternally,