The Man in the Net by Patrick Quentin Page B

nightmare quality wasn’t fading; it was growing.
    Somewhere he had to make a beginning. He said, “She didn’t sound that crazy about me the other evening, did she?”
    “But you’d fought.” Vickie was watching him, frank, bewildered. “Anybody would have had a fight over something as drastic as the decision you two had to make. A fight like that doesn’t count. Besides, she’d had a drink. She admitted it. She wasn’t herself and, right away after she’d said those things, she was desperately sorry. Anyone could have seen that.” She glanced quickly at her husband. “John, please don’t think we’re not believing you. We know it’s happened if you say it’s happened. But it can’t be like that.”
    Now that the time had come, he felt, absurdly, a sense of betrayal. This would do it. When he’d finished telling them, this would be the end of Linda with the Carey set, the end of any chance they might have had to find a workable life for themselves in Stoneville. Some vestigial part of him, some ingrown loyalty, prompted: Don’t do it to her. Don’t take away what little she has got—even if she’s got it on false pretenses. But he knew there was no sense in thinking that way. They were all washed-up in Stoneville anyway, and it was all washed-up between Linda and him too. He’d not actually realized it until that moment. But he saw it clearly then. Now, after she’d done that to the pictures, whatever happened, however it explained itself away, the irrevocable break had come. He was through with her forever.
    He took a pull at the drink, not looking at either of them. Then he brought it out.
    “You don’t know Linda. Nobody knows her except me. At least I don’t think they do. I’ve done my best to see that they didn’t. You got a glimpse of her the other night. But only a glimpse. You see, the other reason I went to New York was to consult a doctor. She’s sick. She’s been sick for years.”
    He started to tell them, not everything, not the most intimate, the most sordid details, but enough. He knew, as he talked, that he was saying far less than the truth, but surely it would be coherent to them—the tale of insecurity, the compelling urge to compete, the failures, the constantly heavier drinking, the dream-world which more and more took the place of any reality. His only worry, at first, was the fear that they would think he was demanding their pity, that he was picturing himself too emphatically as the suffering one, the good-intended, loyal husband who had sacrificed so much of himself for a cause that was virtually lost from the beginning. And yet, as he talked, as they sat watching him, their faces carefully arranged, polite, with no expression, he began to realize that he wasn’t making contact.
    Was it as difficult as this then for people to grasp the infinite complexities of an alcoholic’s make-up? If they didn’t have any personal experience of one, or only knew one as the Careys knew Linda, was the elaborate front of normalcy so convincing that it seemed more real than the truth? Gradually, as he went on, he felt less and less confidence; his words stumbled over each other, and then, at the last, as he felt the gulf between them growing wider and wider, he stopped.
    Their faces were still as polite as they had been before. They were still carefully avoiding each other’s eyes, watching him with a kind, alert determination to be just. And yet, although they were trying at all costs to conceal it, he could feel their embarrassment, particularly Brad’s, and he knew they hadn’t believed him or, at best, they thought he was ignobly exaggerating, trying to get his point of view in first, because his relations with Linda had been unsatisfactory and he was scared now of what might have happened.
    It was Brad who spoke. The quality of his voice was very slightly changed. “So the other night, when she was here, you hadn’t hit her at