‘No, I remember just standing up, I stood up and I said to her, “What’d you do?” and I stumbled towards her. There was a mirror. I saw the hole in my head, deep, and blood coming out. It made an Indian of me. She just stood there, my wife did. And at last she screamed three kinds of horror and dropped that hammer on the floor and ran out the door.’
‘Did you faint then?’
‘No. I didn’t faint. I got out on the street some way and I mumbled to somebody I needed a doctor. I got on a bus, mind you, a bus! And paid my fare! And said to leave me by some doctor’s house downtown. Everybody screamed, I tell you. I got sort of weak then, and next thing I knew the doctor was working on my head, had it cleaned out like a new thimble, like a bunghole in a barrel . . . ‘
He reached up and touched that spot now, fingers hovering over it as a delicate tongue hovers over the vacated area where once grew a fine tooth.
‘A neat job. The doctor kept staring at me, too, as if he ex¬pected me to fall down dead any minute.’
‘How long did you stay in the hospital?’
‘Two days. Then I was up and around, feeling no better, no worse. By that time my wife had picked up and skedaddled.’
‘Oh, my goodness, my goodness,’ said Miss Ffemwell, recover¬ing her breath. ‘My heart’s going like an eggbeater. I can hear and feel and see it all, Mr Lemon. Why, why, oh, why did she do it?’
‘I already told you, for no reason I could see. She was just took with a notion, I guess.’
‘But there must have been an argument — ?’
Blood drummed in Mr Lemon’s cheeks. He felt that place up there on his head glow like a fiery crater. ‘There wasn’t no argument. I was just sitting, peaceful as you please. I like to sit, my shoes off, my shirt unbuttoned, afternoons.’
‘Did you — did you know any other women?’
‘No, never, none!’
‘You didn’t — drink?’
‘Just a nip once in a while, you know how it is.’
‘Did you gamble?’
‘No, no, no!’
‘But a hole punched in your head like that, Mr Lemon, my land, my land! All over nothing?’
‘You women are all alike. You see something and right off you expect the worst. I tell you there was no reason. She just fancied hammers.’
‘What did she say before she hit you?’
‘Just “Wake up, Andrew”.’
‘No, before that.’
‘Nothing. Not for half an hour or an hour, anyway. Oh, she said something about wanting to go shopping for something or other, but I said it was too hot. I’d better lie down, I didn’t feel so good. She didn’t appreciate how I felt. She must have got mad and thought about it for an hour and grabbed that hammer and come in and gone kermash. I think the weather got her, too.’
Miss Fremwell sat back thoughtfully in the lattice shadow, her brows moving slowly up and then slowly down.
‘How long were you married to her?’
‘A year. I remember we got married in July and in July it was I got sick.’
‘Sick?’
‘I wasn’t a well man. I worked in a garage. Then I got these backaches so I couldn’t work and had to lie down afternoons. Elbe, she worked in the First National Bank.’
‘I see,’ said Miss Fremwell.
‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ she said.
‘I’m an easy man to get on with. I don’t talk too much. I’m easy-going and relaxed. I don’t waste money. I’m economical. Even Ellie had to admit that. I don’t argue. Why, sometimes Ellie would jaw at me and jaw at me, like bouncing a ball hard on a house, but me not bouncing back. I just sat. I took it easy. What’s the use of always stirring around and talking, right?’
Miss Fremwell looked over at Mr Lemon’s brow in the moon¬light. Her lips moved but he could not hear what she said.
Suddenly, she straightened up and took a deep breath and blinked around surprised to see the world out beyond the porch lattice. The sounds of traffic came in. to the porch now, as if they had been tuned up, they had been so quiet for a time. Miss Fremwell took a deep breath and let it out.
‘As you yourself say, Mr Lemon, nobody ever got anywhere arguing.’
‘Right!’ he said. ‘I’m easy-going, I tell you — ‘
But Miss Fremwell’s eyes were lidded now and her mouth was strange. He sensed this and tapered off.
A night wind blew fluttering her light summer dress and the sleeves of his shirt.
‘It’s late,’ said Miss Fremwell.
‘Only nine o’clock!’
‘I have to get up early tomorrow.’
‘But you haven’t answered my question yet, Miss Frem¬well.’
‘Question?’ She blinked. ‘Oh, the question. Yes.’ She rose from the wicker seat. She hunted around in the dark for the screen doorknob. ‘Oh now, Mr Lemon, let me think it over.’
‘That’s fair enough,’ he said. ‘No use arguing, is there?’
The screen door closed. He heard her find her way down the dark warm hall. He breathed shallowly, feeling of the third eye in his head, the eye that saw nothing.
He felt a vague unhappiness shift around inside his chest like an illness brought on by too much talking. And then he thought of the fresh white gift-box waiting with its lid on in his room. He quickened. Opening the screen door he walked down the silent hall and went into his room. Inside, he slipped and almost fell on a slick copy of True Romance Tales.
He switched on the light, excitedly, smiling, fumbled the box open and lifted the toupee from the tissues. He stood before the bright mirror and followed directions with the spirit gum and tapes, and tucked it here and stuck it there and shifted it again and combed it neat. Then he opened the door and walked along the hall to knock for Miss Fremwell.
‘Miss Naomi?’ he called, smiling.
The light under her door clicked out at the sound of his voice.
He stared at the dark keyhole with disbelief.
‘Oh, Miss Naomi?’ he said again, quickly.
Nothing happened in the room. It was dark. After a moment he tried the knob, experimentally. The knob rattled. He heard Miss Fremwell sigh. He heard her say something. Again, the words were lost. Her small feet tapped to the door. The light came on.
‘Yes?’ she said, behind the panel.
‘Look, Miss Naomi,’ he entreated. ‘Open the door. Look.’
The bolt of the door snapped back. She jerked the door open about an inch. One of her eyes looked at him sharply.
‘Look,’ he announced proudly, adjusting the toupee so it very definitely covered the sunken crater. He imagined he saw him¬self in her bureau mirror and was pleased. ‘Look here, Miss Fremwell!’
She opened the door a bit wider and looked. Then she slam¬med the door and locked it. From behind the thin panelling, her voice was toneless.
‘I can still see the hole, Mr Lemon,’ she said.
The end
