The Glass Inferno

CHAPTER 60

Thelma had instinctively clutched at Jenny at the sound of the explosion and the clatter of the cables as they fell on the roof of the cage. Then she abruptly loosened her grip, fearful that Jenny could feel her own trembling.

The situation was bad enough as it was; there was no sense in communicating to Jenny her.own fright. She wondered briefly how it would feel if the last cables snapped and they plummeted to,the ground.

What would she think about, and then the crash on the plaza below.

. .

. .

She couldn’t, she wouldn’t think about that. instead she concentrated on her husband’s voice roaring above the hubbub in the cage: “We’re perfectly safe! As long as even one cable holds, we’re safe!” Jenny was on the verge of hysterics and had started to cry.

Thelma reached over and touched her shoulder gently, as she might to reassure a child. “Don’t be afraid -Wyn knows what he’s talking about.” She believed Wyn, she believed him implicitly, and at the moment she was proud of him. He was the steadying influence in the darkened cage, the voice of sanity and courage that kept the rest of the passengers from panicking. Twice now the, emergency brakes had slipped briefly and Wyn had calmed the fear . s of those in the cage each time. She knew that Wyn was actually as confident as he sounded-and fortunately he could communicate that to those around him.

Funny, she thought. In a situation like this, he could be so brave.

What worried her was how he would react in the months to come, when the challenges were of a different -sort.

Jenny had huddled closer to her in the darkness, partly for warmth and partly for the sense of security that Thelma knew she radiated. A sense of false security, Thelma thought to herself. But the mere effort of trying to remain calm for Jenny’s sake was helping herself as well.

“You’re very close to him, aren’t you, Thelma?”

“Close?” She thought about that for a moment. “I suppose so.

You might say that Wyn and I depend on each other.”

“You’re actually content to let him have his outside interests?”

There was a slight jiggling to the cage now; the wind was catching at it, Thelma thought. She forced her mind back to the question. “You mean his having a mistress?

Tolerate would be more accurate, I suppose. But what can I do?

Nag?

Issue an ultimatum? It might be effective for a while, but eventually he would look for considerably more than he does now. And .

. . I don’t think it would do me any credit. Besides, if I …

pushed it, I might lose Wyn. And I don’t want to lose him.”

“If it were Craig I would have to tell him to get out.”

“That’s confidence without considering the consequences, Jenny.

And I think it shows you want to own him.” Thelma was surprised at her own obtuseness. Another time, another place, and she would be considerably more diplomatic. But their own immediate situation hardly invited diplomacy. “I don’t want to own Wyn; I don’t think I could stand to live every moment of his life along with him. Much of his life has no appeal to me and there would be no point in pretending that it does.

He gives me a great deal of himself. I need him-and he needs me.

“He’ll need you more than ever after this is over,” Jenny said.

That was very true, Thelma realized. There would be inquiries into the fire, attacks in the newspapers, all sorts of innuendoes. Now, more than ever in his life, Wyn would need her. For a moment she had a strange feeling of satisfaction, then dismissed it as being unworthy of her.

“Jenny, I said I depended on Wyn but you can’t carry that too far.

There’s a difference between love and dependency.

I think if a person does not live their own life that they eventually end up with no internal strength at all; and without that, a couple would have nothing to give each other. A man and a woman live their own lives and I$ their gift to each other is the sharing thereof.

I think . ‘ .

At that moment the cage shuddered and the air was filled with the screeching of the emergency brakes on the outside rails. People began to scream and once again Thelma threw her arms about Jenny, half to comfort her and half to comfort herself.

The cage began to sway like a pendulum, dropping as it did so.

Some’of the passengers were thrown to the floor and Thelma winced as somebody fell heavily across the lower part of her legs. But there was no time to cry out at the pain. The brakes, she thought. The cage must have gradually slipped to the point where the guide rails had been spread and the emergency brakes had now released their saving grip.

She realized with horror that they had started the long drop toward the street below.

Then, suddenly, the cage jerked short. For a moment it was completely quiet, except for a faint, swaying motion.

The cables had held, she thought, slowly releasing her breath.

But the cage was no longer braced against the side rails. They were now dangling in midair, held only by the four remaining cables.