The Two Timers

XIV

Breton had forgotten that days of the week existed.

Consequently he was surprised, on opening his eyes in buttery morning sunlight, to be immediately aware that the day was Saturday. He lay, between consciousness and sleep, considering the implications of his apparently a priori knowledge.

Of the four major divisions of time — day, week, month and year — week was the odd man out. All the others were based on recurring astronomical phenomena, but the week was a purely human measure, the distance between market days. An alert animal waking from sleep might be expected to know the position of the sun, the phase of the Moon, or the season — but to be aware of Saturday? Unless his subconscious had its own seven-day clock, or had picked up a variation in the pattern of traffic sounds drifting through the partially-open window…

Breton came fully awake as his mind reorientated itself. He wondered fleetingly what sort of a night John Breton had passed, then fended the thought away. Last night he had been forced by Kate to play the role of a gentle, reasonable friend of the family; but it had been a mistake not to consummate his new “marriage” right away. He was giving Kate too much time to think her own thoughts and arrive at conclusions unaffected by the dictates of passion. Words like union and congress had a special significance in this context because, once the sexual amalgamation had been achieved, Kate’s conscience — at the moment a free agent — would be obliged to justify the new state of affairs. Certain avenues of thought would be barred to her, and Breton wanted them closed as soon as possible.

He got up and opened the bedroom door. The irregular whine of a vacuum cleaner drifted up the stairs, showing that Kate was up and about. He washed, shaved and dressed as quickly as possible, and went downstairs. The sound of the cleaner had stopped but there was movement in the kitchen. Hesitating a moment to get his tactics clear in his mind, he pushed the door open and walked in.

“It’s Mr. Breton,” a small, blue-haired woman said brightly. “Good morning, Mr. Breton.”

Breton gaped at her in amazement. The strange woman was sitting at the table, having coffee with Kate. She was about sixty, wore bright red lipstick and had a crack in the right-hand lens of her spectacles.

“Mrs. Fitz came by to see how we were getting along without her,” Kate explained. “And when she saw the mess the place was in, she insisted on cleaning it up right away. I’ve been getting a lecture for neglecting you.”

“Very good of you, Mrs. Fitz,” Breton mumbled. The housekeeper! He had forgotten all about the damned housekeeper. Mrs. Fitz regarded him with frank, shiny-eyed curiosity as he edged his way around the table to a vacant chair. He gave her a wan smile.

“Mr. Breton’s lost weight.” Mrs. Fitz spoke to Kate as though he were not there. “Mr. Breton’s got thinner. That settles it — no more days off for me!”

“It has been a bit of a strain without you,” Kate said. “John doesn’t care much for my cooking.”

“Nonsense.” Breton looked at her helplessly, masking his rage. “You know I love your cooking. I don’t think we ought to monopolize Mrs. Fitz’s weekend.”

“Listen to him!” Mrs. Fitz laughed, showing incredibly white dentures. “As if I had anything better to do.”

“How is your niece?” Kate asked warmly. “Has she had her baby yet?”

“Not yet.”

Mrs. Fitz got up and began to serve Breton with coffee, pancakes and syrup as she spoke. He ate silently, marveling at the way one or two words from Kate, interposed at the right places, could act as verbal catalysts for the older woman, drawing longer and longer skeins of words from her. Unable to decide if Kate was doing it on purpose, he endured the conversation for as long as possible then went and sat in the living room, pretending to read magazines.

After the breakfast things were cleaned up, the vacuum cleaner started up again and Mrs. Fitz began to go over the whole house, appearing — to Breton’s inflamed senses — to do some of the rooms several times.

Kate spent a lot of time talking to her, and came into the living room alone only once, carrying a vase of flowers.

“For God’s sake, get rid of that woman,” he said. “I’ve got to talk to you.

“I’m trying to — but Mrs. Fitz was always like this.”

Kate sounded genuinely concerned, and he tried to relax. The morning dragged past and, to his dismay, Mrs. Fitz stayed on and made lunch. After they had eaten, there was the prolonged routine of tidying up and then, incredulously, Breton heard the vacuum cleaner whine into life again. He threw his magazine aside and bulled his way upstairs, following the sound. Kate was standing at the door of a bedroom, smoking, and Mrs. Fitz was at work inside.

“What’s she doing now?” he demanded. “The floors can’t have got dirty since this morning.”

Kate dropped her cigarette into a cut-glass ashtray she had carried with her. “The drapes. Mrs. Fitz likes to do the drapes on Saturdays.”

Breton started to turn away; but then he realized that Kate — mature and experienced skirmisher that she had become — was calmly manipulating him, practicing a kind of super-judo which turned his strength into weakness. And he had been tamely knuckling under, in spite of the fact that the only lever she had was the knowledge he had given her. But, as far as she knew, the knowledge was useless. She could not go to Mrs. Fitz, or anyone else, and tell them the man she was living with was not really her husband, but only a duplicate who had emerged from another time-stream. Not unless she wanted to have her sanity put in doubt.

“Mrs. Fitz.” Breton walked past Kate into the bedroom. “Go home now.”

“Bless you, I’m in no hurry to go back there.”

She gave him a bright smile which conveyed the message that she was a widow gamely carrying on with life’s battle. Breton pulled the cord of the cleaner from the socket and handed it to her.

“But I insist.” He smiled as he led her to the door. “I want you to rest up over the weekend and report for duty good and early on Monday morning. And here’s a ten-dollar bonus for being so conscientious, how’s that?”

Breton gave her one of the bills he had taken from John, then he escorted Mrs. Fitz all the way down the stairs, helped her with her coat and showed her to the door. Her over-red lips worked in silent surprise and she kept glancing back at Kate, but she went — with one final, startled look through the kitchen window as she passed. Breton waved at her.

“That was unforgivable,” Kate said. She had come downstairs behind him.

“I’ll be extra nice to her next time,” he replied, going to her. He put his hands on Kate’s waist and drew her to him. She came unresistingly and he kissed her. The touch of her lips was light, but enough to restore him, to sweep away the spiderwebs of doubt that had begun to cling around his thoughts since the previous day. He closed his eyes, savoring the heady wine of… justification.

“I’m worried about John,” Kate said.

“I don’t see why.” Breton kept his eyes shut. “He was happy to walk out on you. Why should you worry about him?”

“Because it was so unlike him, just to vanish like that. He wasn’t reacting normally.”

Breton opened his eyes reluctantly. “He was tired of his marriage, and he quit. Lots of people would call that a perfectly normal reaction.”

Kate’s eyes leveled with his own. “It was completely unbalanced.”

“How do you figure that?”

“John wouldn’t have run off and left everything up in the air — not normally.”

“Well, he did.”

“That’s why I’m saying it was a completely unbalanced reaction.”

The repetition of the phrase needled Breton with its inference that there was something wrong with his own mind. “Don’t keep saying that, Kate. It doesn’t prove anything.”

She broke away from his arms. “How about money?”

“Money? You mean for John? I imagine he took plenty.”

“How? Not from our personal account — he didn’t ask me to co-sign any checks. And he didn’t have enough time to organize a big withdrawal from the business account.”

“You weren’t always such a financial wizard,” Breton said, aware that he sounded like a petulant brat, but unable to hold the words back.

“I lace my own shoes now, too.” Kate spoke with a kind of practiced savagery which filled Breton with dismay. Nine years, he suddenly realized, is a long time.

“John will be able to get all the money he wants, just by going to any bank. We’ll probably get a letter from him within a few days.”

“A begging letter?”

Breton was not sure when the nightmare had begun, but it had surrounded him just the same. Kate, he pleaded silently, why can you not be what I want you to be?

She moved restlessly from room to room, picking up small objects and throwing them down again noisily. For a time, Breton followed her in the hope that the mood of their single Venetian-tinted afternoon would miraculously be restored to them. But Kate refused to discuss anything other than John’s motives for leaving so abruptly, his possible whereabouts, his future plans. Breton felt helpless. He felt that he ought to be able to confront Kate and draw her to him by the sheer force and intensity of his love, just as he had seemed to do on the night of his arrival — but perhaps his success then had depended on catching a bored, lonely and imaginative woman off guard.

Breton left the house and walked into the gardens. He was astonished to find that the sun was on the horizon — each minute of the day had been insufferably long, but the hours had passed quickly. The air was turning cool, the slow-spreading dyes of night were seeping through the eastern sky, and there already the meteors were beginning to scurry and die like lemmings. As before, the sight of them triggered off vague feelings of alarm. The thought of spending another night alone under a diseased sky was more than Breton could bear.

He walked quickly into the house and slammed the door behind him. Kate was standing in the living room’s bow window, in near-darkness, gazing out at October-colored trees. She did not turn around as he entered the room. He went to her, gripped her shoulders hard and buried his face in her hair.

“Kate,” he said desperately, “we’re talking too much. We need each other and all we do is talk.”

Kate’s body went rigid. “Please leave me alone.”

“But, Kate…” He turned her towards him.

“I want you to leave me alone.”

“But this is us! Remember that first afternoon…”

“This is different.” She broke away from him.

“Why?” he demanded. “Because there’s no chance of John walking in on us? Does that take the flavor out of it?”

Kate hit him across the mouth and, in almost the same instant, he struck back, feeling her teeth cut into his knuckles. The double blow rang out in the silence of the room, but was lost in the thunder inside his head.

“That does it,” Kate snapped. ‘Get out of this house.”

“You don’t understand,” he mumbled, his mind sinking through regions of cryogenic chill. “This is my house, and you are my wife.”

“I see.”

Kate spun and left the room. Breton stood absolutely still, staring at his hand in disbelief, until he heard a familiar sound filtering down through the ceiling — the slamming of drawers. He sprinted up to the bedroom above and found Kate throwing clothes into a suitcase.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m getting out of your house.”

“There’s no need for that.”

“You think not?” Kate’s face was grim.

“Of course not — we’ve both been under a strain. I don’t…”

“I’m leaving.” Kate slammed the case shut. “And don’t try to stop me.

“I won’t.” Breton’s mind was beginning to recover from its paralysis, to analyze his errors. His principal mistake had been to regard Kate as a plum which would drop into his hands as soon as he shook the marital tree. “I don’t know how to apologize for…”

“Hitting me? Don’t bother — after all, I hit you first.”

“Don’t leave me, Kate. It’ll never happen again.”

“I’ll say!” Kate had acquired a defiant jauntiness. She was almost smiling as she turned to face him. “Promise me something?”

“Anything.”

“If John gets in touch, tell him I must talk to him — I’ll be up at Pasco Lake.”

Breton’s mouth went dry. “Where? D’you mean the fishing lodge?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t go there.”

“May I ask why?”

“I… It’s too lonely up there at this time of the year.”

“There are times when I can do without people — and this seems to be one of them.”

“But…” Breton found himself floundering helplessly. “You could stay in town, at a hotel.”

“I like the lake. Please get out of my way.” Kate picked up her case.

“Kate!”

Breton raised both hands in front of her, palms turned outwards to form a barrier, while he searched for something meaningful to say. Kate advanced until his hands were almost against her, then the color drained from her cheeks. He watched in frozen fascination as she made the intuitive leap.

“The lodge,” she breathed. “John’s at the lodge.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“What have you done to him? Why do you want me not to go there?”

“Kate, believe me — you’re being silly.”

She nodded calmly, dropped the case at his feet and darted past him. Breton grabbed for her, got one of her elbows and pulled her down onto the bed. She went down kicking and clawing. As he straddled her body, his brain finally produced the one lie which could yet save the situation.

“All right, Kate — you win.” He fought to control the twisting of her body below him. “You win, I tell you.”

“What have you done to John?”

“Nothing. I’ve given him my chronomotor, that’s all. He’s up at the lodge learning to use it, so that he can take my place in Time A. It was his own idea, his own way of bowing out.”

“I’m going there.” Kate fought harder, almost toppling him onto the floor.

“Sorry, Kate — not until I’ve been there first to make sure John has made the crossing.”

Even in the heat of the moment, the weakness of the story appalled him — but it provided the single thread he needed. With John Breton dead and safely atomized, nobody in the world would believe the kind of story Kate would have to tell should she ever accuse him of murder. And, in time, he could allay any suspicions she might have. The pounding certainty in his destiny, nurtured over nine agonized years, surged through him again, sweeping away all the doubts of the past few days. He had created the Time B universe, he had created Kate — and still held both in the palm of his hand. It was going to take a little longer than he had anticipated, that was all…

He raised his head from the struggle with Kate and glanced around the bedroom. A closet door was open where she had been taking out clothes for her proposed trip to the lodge. He dragged Kate off the bed, pushed her into the closet and slid the doors together. As an afterthought, he took the spool of fishing line from his pocket and lapped it around the door handles, converting the closet to a miniature prison.

Breathing heavily, and dabbing the scratches on his face with his handkerchief, Breton ran downstairs and out to the car. He had one more task to perform that day.

The relatively simple one of projecting John Breton, not into Time A, but into eternity.