“Sherrill Ann” and “Mary Beth” were never resumed; as if by mutual consent, the names weren’t mentioned for some time after the Edgarsville incident. Then, abruptly, Sheila began to make allusions to the highway, the “pub crawling,” and how lonely Sherrill Ann was going to be without Mary Beth. . . .

Monica stared at her, and asked what she meant. Surely, after their narrow escape, Sheila didn’t want to go back?

“We wouldn’t return to Edgarsville, of course,” Sheila said. “There are plenty of other places. . . . Look: nothing like that would ever happen again. I can guarantee it.”

Monica said ironically, “I can guarantee it too.”

Sheila laughed; allowed the subject to drop; but, from time to time, resumed it, as if to needle Monica. She hinted that “Mary Beth” was overly timid and puritanical; and had become, of late, obsessively concerned about her professional image.

Monica said stiffly that she didn’t feel obliged to defend herself.

Sheila said that there was no need for her to defend herself—she wasn’t being attacked.

Monica said she’d lost her taste for country taverns, for bowling, for draft beer—the very smell of it would nauseate her—and, in any case, she’d only gone to keep Sheila company, to accommodate Sheila, there never had been any “Mary Beth” at all.

Speaking quickly, rather defiantly, Monica broke off in embarrassment, while Sheila regarded her with bright, black, amused eyes. “. . . There never was any ‘Mary Beth’ at all, you say?” she murmured. “Oh but I don’t quite believe that: you’ve just packed her away somewhere.”

Sheila didn’t ask Monica to accompany her again, though, from time to time—always casually—she alluded to being “lonely,” and to finding it “even a bit of a bore”—Sherrill Ann without her pal. But Monica, forewarned, refused to be drawn out. She had had all that, she thought, with a thrill of elation—that was behind her.

7

She can hear the telephone ringing as she unlocks the door, ringing, ringing, that forlorn reproachful note, sounding through the empty house. Keith murmurs something to the effect that he hopes—given the lateness of the hour: midnight—it isn’t bad news and Monica doesn’t trouble to reply, she feels her heart beating slow and hard and resolute, no her fingers are not shaking, no she is not even annoyed, when, snatching up the receiver, saying hello, repeating hello, hello, yes, hello? she discovers that there is no one on the line: that her caller has (perhaps) simply dialed her number, laid the receiver down, walked away, forgotten the entire transaction.

Lately Sheila has been calling at odd, wayward hours.

In all fairness it might be said she doesn’t know the hour: she has been working round the clock in her studio; and/or, she has been drinking.