At nine-thirty the pounding stopped. He made a choking noise, an inarticulate sound of rage and despair, and the footsteps limped away down the hall. Urgently, almost running. She smiled and swirled some of the water over her stomach. She keeps her figure remarkably well.
The footsteps went down two or three stairs; then there was a crash and a thumping sound and a wail of pain that faded into silence. I could hear other doors being opened.
She made a movement to get out of the bathtub but I told her to stay where she was. She lay in the bathtub, staring at her pink toes floating on the surface of the water, while I listened. I knew the bathroom door was securely locked.
For the time being I have won.
The Man from Mars
A long time ago Christine was walking through the park. She was still wearing her tennis dress; she hadn’t had time to shower and change, and her hair was held back with an elastic band. Her chunky reddish face, exposed with no softening fringe, looked like a Russian peasant’s, but without the elastic band the hair got in her eyes. The afternoon was too hot for April; the indoor courts had been steaming, her skin felt poached.
The sun had brought the old men out from wherever they spent the winter: she had read a story recently about one who lived for three years in a manhole. They sat weedishly on the benches or lay on the grass with their heads on squares of used newspaper. As she passed, their wrinkled toadstool faces drifted towards her, drawn by the movement of her body, then floated away again, uninterested.
The squirrels were out, too, foraging; two or three of them moved towards her in darts and pauses, eyes fixed on her expectantly, mouths with the ratlike receding chins open to show the yellowed front teeth. Christine walked faster, she had nothing to give them. People shouldn’t feed them, she thought; it makes them anxious and they get mangy.