The Green Eagle Score

3

Stan took pictures of the office,” Ellen said.

“Oh?” Dr Godden’s voice expressed polite interest. “Why did he do that?”

“I don’t know. That man Parker wanted him to. All kinds of pictures, not just of the office.”

“What else?”

“Oh, the gate, and the outside of the building where he works, and some trucks and buses and things.”

“Well, well” said Dr Godden. “It does sound as though they’re serious, doesn’t it?”

“I knew they were.”

“It seems you were right,” said Dr Godden. “Are they hiding their plans from you?”

“No, How could they, they’re using my house! As though I wanted to know what they were doing.”

“Don’t you?”

“I do not,” she told the carpet. “When they start talking, I leave the room right away.”

“Why is that?”

“I hate it!” she burst out, glaring at the patterns in the carpet. “I hate the thought of it, I hate everything they’re doing.”

“Is it only because you’re afraid they’ll be caught, or that Stan will want to keep doing it until he does get caught?”

“I don’t know. How do I know?” She knew she was getting agitated, but she couldn’t help it. “I just hate them being here, doing all that—all that.”

“Well, let’s think about it,” he said. “You say you hate them being there, making their preparations in your house. Is that the point? That it’s your house?”

“I don’t know. I suppose it could be.”

“Do you feel they are violating your hospitality? Or that Stan is betraying you somehow, entering into a plan with your ex-husband?”

“I don’t think so,” she said, frowning at the carpet, trying to think, trying to see if anything Dr Godden was saying found a response inside her. He did that sometimes, offered one reason for a thing after another until they found the one she responded to, and that was usually it. Even if the response was strongly negative. In fact, if she were to say definitely no to something, nine times out of ten that would turn out to be what the reason was after all.

“Do you object,” he asked her now, “to your husband using your home? Or is this planning just reminiscent of the times when you were married to him, particularly the time when he did get caught?”

“Yes,” she said. She looked briefly directly at him, at those intelligent sympathetic eyes, and then away again.

“That’s it,” she said, knowing it was. “It makes me nervous, them all in the living-room, just the way it used to be. I feel, I feel trapped, as though nothing was changed, I’m not really free of Marty after all.”

“Of course,” he agreed. “The reminiscence is there, the similarity with the past. But there are differences, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“You are free of your ex-husband. He is there only on your sufferance. That’s a big difference, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes I think I ought to tell them to go someplace else.”

“No!”

He said it so forcefully she was surprised into looking at him again. For just a second his expression seemed to be startled, but then it smoothed again and he said, “Ellen, you can’t run away from things. We’ve talked about that before.

“Yes,” she said, and faced front again. “I know. You’re right.”

”You should let them stay,” he said. “You should face the problem squarely, understand it, conquer it.”

“I know.”

“In fact,” he said, “you shouldn’t run away from their meetings. You should be present as much as they permit. You should listen to everything they say, you should know just as much of their plans as they do.” He paused, and said, “Do you know why?”

“To help me understand why I’m afraid?”

“That too, of course. But even more than that, you should know precisely what they plan to do, because if the plan is a good one you’ll be spared a great deal of unnecessary worry. Who knows, if you listened to what they have in mind you might find out it’s really a very good and safe plan, and then you’d have one less problem to worry about. Wouldn’t you?”

She smiled at the carpet. “I guess I would.”

“You can talk their plans over with me,” he told her. “Together we’ll try and decide if they can get away with what they intend to do.”

“What if we don’t think they can?” she asked.

“Then we’ll decide why,” he said. “We’ll discuss their ideas, and if we see things that look like flaws you can show them to Stan, either so they’ll make their plan better or so he’ll decide not to go ahead with it.”

“I don’t dare tell Stan,” she said, “that I’ve been talking about all this with you.”

“That’s understandable.”

“He wouldn’t believe I’m perfectly safe telling you anything,” she said. She looked at him, actually held his eyes this time. “Anything at all,” she said.

His smile was gentle, sympathetic. “I’m pleased you have confidence in me,” he said.