The Postman Always Rings Twice - James M. Cain [40]
She took a long time before she answered that. "No. I love you, Frank. I think you know that. But maybe, if it hadn't been for this, I would have gone to see him. Just _because_ I love you."
"She didn't mean anything to me, Cora. I told you why I did it. I was running away."
"I know that. I knew it all along. I knew why you wanted to take me away, and what I said about you being a bum, I didn't believe that. I believed it, but it wasn't why you wanted to go. You being a bum, I love you for it. And I hated her for the way she turned on you just for not telling her about something that wasn't any of her business. And yet, I wanted to ruin you for it."
"Well?"
"I'm trying to say it, Frank. This is what I'm trying to say. I wanted to ruin you, and yet I couldn't go to see Sackett. It wasn't because you kept watching me. I could have run out of the house and got to him. It was because, like I told you. Well then, I'm rid of the devil, Frank. I know I'll never call up Sackett, because I had my chance, and I had my reason, and I didn't do it. So the devil has left me. But has he left you?"
"If he's left you, then what more have I got to do with him?"
"We wouldn't be sure. We couldn't ever be sure unless you had your chance. The same chance I had."
"I tell you, he's gone."
"While you were thinking about a way to kill me, Frank, I was thinking the same thing. Of a way you could kill me. You can kill me swimming. We'll go way out, the way we did last time, and if you don't want me to come back, you don't have to let me. Nobody'll ever know. It'll be just one of those things that happen at the beach. Tomorrow morning we'll go."
"Tomorrow morning, what we do is get married."
"We can get married if you want, but before we come back we go swimming."
"To hell with swimming. Come on with that kiss."
"Tomorrow night, if I come back, there'll be kisses. Lovely ones, Frank. Not drunken kisses. Kisses with dreams in them. Kisses that come from life, not death."
"It's a date."
We got married at the City Hall, and then we went to the beach. She looked so pretty I just wanted to play in the sand with her, but she had this little smile on her face, and after a while she got up and went down to the surf.
"I'm going out."
She went ahead, and I swam after her. She kept on going, and went a lot further out than she had before. Then she stopped, and I caught up with her. She swung up beside me, and took hold of my hand, and we looked at each other. She knew, then, that the devil was gone, that I loved her.
"Did I ever tell you why I like my feet to the swells?"
"It's so they'll lift them.''
A big one raised us up, and she put her hand to her breasts, to show how it lifted them. "I love it. Are they big, Frank?"
"I'll tell you tonight."
"They feel big. I didn't tell you about that. It's not oniy knowing you're going to make another life. It's what it does to you. My breasts feel so big, and I want you to kiss them. Pretty soon my belly is going to get big, and I'll love that, and want everybody to see it. It's life. I can feel it in me. It's a new life for us both, Frank."
We started back, and on the way in I swam down. I went down nine feet. I could tell it was nine feet, by the pressure. Most of these pools are nine feet, and it was that deep. I whipped my legs together and shot down further. It drove in on my ears so I thought they would pop. But I didn't have to come up. The pressure on your lungs drives the oxygen in your blood, so for a few seconds you don't think about breath. I looked at the green water. And with my ears ringing and that weight on my back and chest, it seemed to me that all the devilment, and meanness, and shiftlessness, and no-account stuff in my life had been pressed out and washed off, and I was all ready to start out with her again clean, and do like she said, have a new life.
When I came up she was coughing. "Just one of those sick spells, like you have."
"Are you all right?"
"I think so. It comes over you, and then it goes."
"Did you swallow any water?"