The Last Time They Met_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [55]
—You’re kind of quiet tonight. This from Regina when the boy had left, summoned by his mother.
—Am I?
—You’re being almost rude.
—To whom?
—To Roland and Elaine, to start.
—Considering the fact that Roland just expressed deep sympathy over the fact that I’m a failed poet who needs to be supported by his wife, I don’t suppose I give a fuck.
—Thomas.
Beyond Regina, Elaine watched them intently.
—It’s the migraine, he said, searching for an explanation his wife might find acceptable. It’s made the day seem not normal.
Regina slipped a finger between the buttons of his shirt. All your days are abnormal.
Thomas understood the finger for what it was. Regina would want to make love when they got home.
—I know you’ve had the migraine, Regina said, whispering. But tonight’s the night.
Thomas felt a sinking in his chest.
—I’ve done the charts, she said, perhaps defensively.
He hesitated just a second too long, then tried to put his arm around her. But distance or mild panic had already conveyed itself to Regina, who moved inches to one side of him. Too often, it seemed to Thomas, he unintentionally hurt his wife.
—I assume you’ve heard the news. Her voice cool now, the barometer lowered, looking away from him and taking a sip of her drink, a rosy wine.
—What news? Thomas, in cautious ignorance, asked.
—They’ve arrested Ndegwa.
Thomas simply stared.
—This afternoon. Around five o’clock. Norman what’s-his-name, the one from the London paper, just told me.
She gestured in Norman what’s-his-name’s direction. Noting Thomas’s surprise. It would not be fair to say that Regina was enjoying Thomas’s distress.
—Impossible, Thomas said. For the second time that day, daunted by the impossible. I just saw the man at lunch. I had a drink with him at the Thorn Tree.
Regina, who had not known he’d had a drink at the Thorn Tree, looked sharply up at him. They arrested him at the university, she said. There are demonstrations even now.
Thomas, saturated, couldn’t absorb the news.
—He must have a tremendous following, Regina said, now as watchful as Elaine.
—Jesus, Thomas said, shaken by possibility become reality. He thought of the casual way Ndegwa had looked at African women. Of his joke about the worm.
—Big enough to be news in London anyway, Regina said.
* * *
He waited in the bedroom of the villa, the room lit only by the moon, the bluish light outlining the odd feminine bits of furniture that had been lent to them after the robbery: the dressing table with its chintz skirt; the camelbacked settee that had some age; the heavy mahogany wardrobe with the door that didn’t quite fit and in which both he and Regina kept ridiculously few clothes. He imagined the ornate wardrobe traveling from London by ship to Mombasa, brought up by horse and cart from the coast. A woman’s treasure, a piece of furniture she’d said she wouldn’t go to Africa without. And what had happened to the woman? Thomas wondered. Had she died in childbirth? Been afraid during the long nights when her husband had been on safari? Danced at the Muthaiga Club while her husband made love to her best friend in the backseat of his Bentley? Been sick with chronic malaria in this very bed? Or had she become browned and hardened like Elaine, the boredom and dust sharpening her tongue? The house was a perk from Regina’s research grant, its unexpected luxury surprising them both when they’d arrived in the country. Regina had at first balked at staying in Karen, but the bougainvillea and the Dutch door in the kitchen had seduced her before they’d even had their gin and tonics on the verandah. Now his wife adored the house, couldn’t imagine returning to the States. Couldn’t imagine living without the servants now, for that matter: the cook, the gardener, and the ayah they would hire if only Regina could bear a child.
Behind the bathroom door, he could hear the swishing of limbs in the water of the clawfooted bathtub. He knew that