In the Name of Love by Patrick Smith Page B

she touched him, straddled him, made love with a wild abandon, letting her breath come fast and jagged. Afterwards she was exhausted. She lay on top of him still panting, a film of perspiration on her body. When she rolled off she gripped his hand hard. They fell asleep like that and found, when they woke side by side to bright sunshine a few hours later, that they still held hands. ‘Fuck that business of not owning anyone,’ Connie said fiercely. ‘You’re mine. Mine! Do you hear? And anyone who tries to interfere had better watch out for her eyes.’
    Yet another memory, an evening when he had cooked a special dinner to celebrate the anniversary of their very first meal together years before in a London pub. She got home so late that Carlos and he had long since left the table. When she came in he sat with her in the kitchen while she ate. She seemed empty, exhausted. He said nothing about the significance of the date.
    Later, when they went into the living room, she switched on the television at once. He understood that she needed the distraction although, when he raised his eyes from his book, she was staring at the wall to one side rather than at the screen. After a while she snapped off the programme, got to her feet and went to the bathroom. When she came out a long time later she went straight into the bedroom. He heard her close the door as he sat with his now unreadable book. They normally said something, like ‘Bedtime for me,’ or ‘Coming to bed?’ Routine marital phrases whose varying tonality could easily be given meaning. He waited a long time to let her fall asleep but when he went in she was lying with her face swollen and her eyes red. She held out her arms to him. When he embraced her she began to cry again. ‘My poor darling,’ was, at first, all he could think to say. Then he told her, ‘I love you, Connie. I love you very, very much.’ The strength of her small body pulled him so tight he had difficulty breathing. He put his hand down to lift her nightdress and stroke her buttocks. ‘Come in me, Dan,’ she whispered. ‘Please, please come in me.’ Afterwards, lying with their arms about each other, he said, ‘You know, when first we met and I fell in love with you I thought it was with my whole being. But it can’t have been because I love you more than ever every day. It’s true, I swear.’
    All the following week she came home early, prepared favourite meals for what she called ‘The two men in my life,’ once telling them ‘I don’t deserve either of you, but I have you anyway, so maybe there’s a God after all.’ ‘Hey,’ Carlos said, ‘let’s not go over the top with the religious stuff. And next week it’s my turn to cook.’ She smiled and said ‘Great!’ Now Dan felt sure that if he looked again at the diary for 1981 he would see the nameless entries repeated week after week until the abrupt halt sometime that autumn when Eleonora Roos stopped ringing and shortly after disappeared without saying goodbye.
    On the way home from the graveyard he collected his post in the lane. In addition to work it included a scalloped card saying Lock in this date! in bright red letters. It took him a moment to place the name. A young ad agency he’d done a translation job for. Their second anniversary. At home he dropped the card in the wastepaper basket. The air around him stood very still. Forgotten plants in their pots wilted on the window ledge. Aloud he told himself: ‘Be patient.’
    At eight o’clock next morning Gabriel Rabban knocked on the door. Dan showed him upstairs where the walls and ceil­ings of the two bedrooms and the bathroom needed to be plastered and painted. He was tempted to ask how long it would take, simply to test Gabriel’s ability to assess the work, but it seemed a small-minded thing to do and he said nothing more.
    Apart from that simple exchange, no talk occurred between them for the rest of the day. Gabriel worked until one, when a single honk