Earthbound

by Richard Matheson

  As he angled toward the water, he lay back his head and stared at the overcast sky. Sure as hell looks like rain, he thought; but then, it had looked like rain yesterday too. That was California adaptation again. As an ex-resident of New York City, his remembrance of eastern rain had, no doubt, been distorted by the fact that rainfall in Los Angeles was so limited. Obviously, it didn’t rain here every time a cloud appeared; he’d just brainwashed himself into recalling that it did. Lowering his gaze, he looked across the choppy, blue-grey surface of the Sound, then at the desolate strand of beach ahead, thinking: What could be more barren than a summer colony in the winter?

  He was near the bluff now and he looked up at the house on top of it. Who did live there? he wondered. It was an imposing structure; and what an overwhelming view it must afford. Writers really should inhabit houses like that he thought; puttering around in smoking jackets, puffing learnedly at pipes and pondering on major novels all of which are destined for morocco bindings. There was something inappropriately arid about his neat, clean, modern house in Sherman Oaks; something alien to creativity.

  He shook himself, grimacing to frighten off disheartening reflections. Not today, he thought. He concentrated on the great house on the bluff, envisioning its occupants—a retired magnate with a burnished pate, vast annuities and a withered, snowy-haired spouse who tapped about the mansion with a silver-tipped cane. No, a retired diva, goddess of the Continent during Queen Victoria’s reign, now alone with faded gowns and memories and aged Babette, her loyal if disintegrating French retainer. Horse shit David thought; he’d been dealing in cliches too long. Probably, the owner of a hardware store lived up—

  His thought broke off abruptly as he saw the figure of a woman standing near the edge of the bluff, close by the top of a wooden step construction which led down to the beach. He hadn’t noticed her sooner because she stood beneath the shading of a pine tree. Walking steadily, David stared at her. Was it Marianna? He couldn’t tell but the impression he received was that of an older woman; he noted the erratic flutter of a wind-whipped scarf at her neck.

  He frowned at himself. It could hardly be Marianna. She’d told him she lived down the beach around the bluff. He kept staring at the woman as he walked. Was she watching him? Again, he couldn’t tell. Perhaps she was; what difference did it make? Things were probably so slow around here that the sight of a new man moving on the beach might have made her day. David smiled and shook his head, lowering his gaze.

  The tide was out and, as he rounded the base of the almost vertical bluff, threading a path between mussel-scabbed boulders, he caught sight of a cottage about half a mile down the beach. She really does live here, the thought appeared, unbidden, startling him. He hadn’t been aware of doubting it and yet he must have. Why? he wondered. Had he felt, subconsciously, that she’d lied to him in order not to see him again?

  Reaching hard-packed sand, he started walking faster, trying, in vain, to ignore the obvious acceleration of his heartbeat. Ambivalent emotions tore at him. On one hand, he decried his adolescent eagerness to see Marianna again. At the same time, the very existence of this eagerness was gratifying to him. He was forty-six years old, by God, and had given up the hope of ever feeling this particular zeal again.

  He thrust aside the undesired notion by inventing a scene between Marianna and himself as she opened the door to his knock. He held up the locket, smiling. She said, “Well, hello,” delightedly. She was alone, of course. Resourceful fancy would allow no other odds—unless it might permit the presence of a bed-ridden granny in the attic, a night-working father insensibly asleep. Hell, no, he re-evaluated, she’s alone. Her entire family died in a hurricane. And she made wonderful coffee.

  So engrossed was he in quixotic images that he’d almost reached the cottage before noticing that its shutters were closed, that it had, about it, a patina of long disuse. Frowning puzzledly, he increased his pace, walking as fast as caution would allow; after all, she might be there and notice his approach. It took no more than moments, though, to realize that the cottage could not have been occupied for years—or, if it had, its occupant had no regard whatever for appearances. That hardly tallied with his image of Marianna.

  To double-check, he knocked repeatedly on both front and rear doors but would have been astounded had she answered. He walked around the cottage several times, only then allowing himself to accept the demeaning realization that she had lied to him. Clearly, she had never lived here, and there was no other house in sight except for the mansion on the bluff. Was it possible she lived there? That the woman he’d seen had really been her after all? David sighed. What did it matter where she lived? Obviously, she had no desire to see him again.

  As he trudged back toward the house, his mind kept bringing up the phrase: He felt his years. At first, it only made him smile in somber resignation, then it irritated him. Finally, he forced himself to concentrate on other things, reduced, at length, to counting boulders in order to suppress the thought. Even so, it appeared whenever he relaxed his vigil; felt his years. He felt his years. He—”Oh, shut up!” he ordered his infuriating mind. You’re here to make up with Ellen.

  Stop forgetting that, he thought.

  * * *

  The green-flecked wave curved over, hung in beetling suspension for an instant, then toppled to destruction. Shapeless fragments of it leaped into the air, its main bulk gushing up the sandy inclination, a carpet of swirling foam which stopped, held momentarily, then was suctioned back to lose identity beneath the ponderous fall of the next, incoming wave.

  David stood, statue-like, gazing at the endless ranks of whitecaps rolling in. When he heard the faint voice calling from behind, he started convulsively and turned around. Ellen was standing by the house. David raised his arm and waved, conscious of a sudden need for her. He started forward, glancing at his watch. It was ten minutes past eleven.

  “Hi,” she said as he came up to her.

  “Hi.” David kissed her on the cheek and hugged her with his right arm. “I’m glad you’re back.” He kissed a corner of her lips.

  His welcome seemed, momentarily, confusing to her; then, smiling, she took his hand and squeezed it. “Want to help me unload the car?”

  “You bet.”

  They started along the side of the house, David’s arm across her shoulders. “Cold today,” he said.

  “Yes. It’s nice though.” Ellen glanced at him. “What have you been doing?” she asked.

  “Walking mostly.”

  “Did you have a good sleep?”

  “Fine,” he said. “Did you?”

  “Yes,” she answered in a tone which indicated that she hadn’t but was trying to be pleasant about it. David considered mentioning her sleeping in the living room, then decided against it. Let it lie, he thought. The situation was resolved now; no point in touching it off again. “When did you leave?” he asked.

  “A little before nine.”

  He nodded. “Gas and electricity today?”

  “By this afternoon.”

  “Good.”

  “You must be starving.”

  He had to think about it. “Yeah; I am,” he said, amazed that he could have overlooked it. “Ravenous.”

  “I’ll make you a nice, big platter of scrambled eggs.”

  “I’ll eat it. Wait a second. How can you if the gas isn’t turned on yet?”

  “Fireplaces were invented before stoves.”

  “So they were,” he said, smiling.

  They reached the car and David pulled open the right door. He eyed the array of food in the two cardboard cartons on the front seat: eggs, bread, crackers, coffee, margarine, cheese, luncheon meat, soup. He straightened up, lifting one of the cartons. “That stuff looks good,” he said.

  Ellen patted his back. “I’ll get your breakfast right away.”

  He followed her through the front doorway. “Oh, the fire’s almost out” she said.

  “I’ll jazz it up.”

  “Not too
high.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  She held open the kitchen door for him. ‘Think you can eat six eggs?” she asked.

  “Raw.” He turned back toward the door.

  When he returned to the kitchen with the second carton of groceries, Ellen was removing, from a sack, a bottle of Extra-Dry Martini Mix. She held it up and David made a pleased expression. “The good amenities,” he said. He took the bottle from her and began to dig a nail beneath its neck wrapping. “How about you?” he asked.

  “A little later.”

  “Sure?”

  “After I cook.”

  “Okay.”

  He went into the living room with a tall glassful of martini and took sips from it as he fed and prodded the fire back to life.

  Very quickly, the gin was doing things to him. Already, the edges of his vision had blurred, the cotton padding been installed between reality and response. Who cares about Marianna? he thought. I’m here with Ellen Audrey. She’s my sweetheart.

  He turned as Ellen entered with a heavy, black skillet and fork, a cube of margarine and a bowl of egg batter. “One side, soldier,” she said.

  “Sir!” He snapped to stiff attention, saluted, British-style, and sidestepped.

  “I note that your martini has prevailed,” she said.

  “Yes, sir, it has! Thank you for asking! May I stand at ease, sir?”

  Ellen set the skillet down on top of the burning driftwood and started to unwrap the margarine. “If you can stand at all,” she said.

  “Buns to you, sir!” David sneezed explosively.

  She looked at him, surprised. “You getting a cold?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so.” Breaking off, he puckered up his face and sneezed again. “What the hell?” he said.

  Ellen glanced down. “Your shoes are wet.”

  “Are they?” David looked at them. “Well, I’ll be damned; they are.” Setting down his glass on the mantel, he lowered himself unsteadily to the raised hearth, propped the side of his right ankle on his left knee and began to untie his shoelace. His fingers felt a little numb. He dropped his shoe to the floor and, slowly, peeled off the sock. Movements, when drunk, are so beautifully protracted, he thought, so deliciously languid; or, at least, they seemed to be which was all that mattered anyway. Without impatience, one could foresee the removal of two shoes and a pair of socks as being an hour’s undertaking.

  He put down his right leg with leisurely aplomb, paused, then raised the left, depositing its ankle on the knee of his right leg. Well done, Cooper, he congratulated himself; splendidly negotiated. He untied his right shoelace with indolent carelessness and dropped it. Picking up his socks, he twisted around and wrung them out above the flames. “Hiss yourself,” he told the fire.

  “Good Lord,” Ellen said, “how did you get them so wet?”

  “I was wading.”

  Ellen grunted softly as she rocked the skillet David watched the margarine cube slide hissingly from side to side, leaving a wake of golden brown froth. He tossed aside the wet clump of socks. “His laundry done, Mister Cooper now relaxes,” he said, raising both legs in front of himself on the hearth and wrapping his arms around them. “He requests, of his devoted wife, that she discontinue melting ersatz butter long enough to return his extra-dry martini.” He took the glass from her. “His loyal wife complies,” he said. He raised the glass. “He offers a sip.”

  “I’d better do the eggs first.”

  David sighed. “Mr. Cooper contemplates the plight of the solitary drinker,” he said. “He will—hey, you know that handle’s going to get awfully hot.”

  “I know, I should have brought a pot holder.” Ellen set down the skillet carefully, balancing it on the burning driftwood.

  “I’ll get you one,” he said.

  “No, not in your bare feet.” She turned away and started for the kitchen.

  As Ellen went into the kitchen, he looked around. Impulsively, he picked up the skillet and tilted it from side to side, making soft, whistling noises as what was left of the margarine cube skidded back and forth.

  “Entertaining yourself?” she asked, when she got back.

  “We seek what we can in the way of pleasures, yes.” Abruptly, he let go of the skillet handle. “Yow!” he said, “that’s hot!”

  Ellen grabbed the skillet before it could fall. “You said it would be,” she reminded him, repressing a smile.

  “I never pay attention to myself.”

  “Getting hot in here,” Ellen said.

  He watched as she set down the skillet and took off her jacket, tossing it on top of the sofa. She poured egg batter into the skillet and began to stir with the fork. David watched her dully, all emotion in abeyance, his mind a leveled scale, waiting for the addition of weight on either side so it would tip the balance toward some specific attitude.

  Ellen’s leaning over seemed to do it. Suddenly, he found himself looking underneath her blouse at her left breast in its white brassiere cup. There was sudden traction in his groin and, as if all else had vanished, he stared at the breast examining its shape and pendency, feeling, in his mind, the weight and warmth of it its gelatinous give beneath the fingers.

  “You looking at me?” Ellen asked.

  “At your left breast.”

  She glanced at him to see if he was serious. “You really are?” she asked.

  “I really are.”

  She grunted in bemusement. “Why?”

  “Shhh. I’m looking.”

  After a while, Ellen let go of the fork and straightening up, undid the top two buttons of the blouse. “Be my guest” she said.

  David shivered as Ellen leaned over again and the blouse hung free of both her breasts. He stared at them, imagining the feel of them as they were—the stitching of the cups against his fingertips, the taut swell of flesh beneath the lace—then, their appearance as it would be if he unhooked the brassiere and, suddenly unsupported, they fell by their own weight, the large, reddish-brown nipples exposed. Were they hardening now? Were they erect? The conjecture alone seemed of overwhelming stimulation to him. He could almost feel the fleshy hardness of them between his lips.

  He glanced up to see her smiling at him. “Before eating?” she asked.

  “Instead of eating?” he countered.

  “That’s extra-dry martini talking.”

  ‘Try me.”

  Ellen made a mock grim face. “You sound as though you mean business.”

  “I do.” It was the strangest feeling of eroticism he could recall ever experiencing; to be somehow, irritated with her, yet to want her. Always before, he’d been incapable of even considering sex unless they were getting along. This emotion was entirely removed from personality. It disturbed him. Still, he was unable—unwilling, may be—to resist it. God knew they needed sex right now.

  Abruptly, he bolted down his drink and stood. “By God, it is hot” he said, feeling a trickle of sweat across his chest. He set his glass down on the mantel and pulled off his jacket and sweater, tossing them on top of hers. “Why don’t you take off your blouse?” he said.

  Ellen looked at him appraisingly for several moments, then, without a word, put down the skillet and unbuttoned her blouse to the waist. She tugged the bottom portion from her slacks, until the last two buttons slipped it off her shoulders. David pulled it free and dropped it on the pile of clothing on the sofa. Ellen picked up the skillet again. “Better?” she asked.

  Don’t talk, he thought he almost spoke the words aloud. “Better,” he said. As though it were a separate entity, his right hand lifted to rub upward at the bottom of her right breast, then close around it, fingers flexing inward slowly. Ellen drew in sudden breath and he felt the breast swell tumidly against his palm, straining, for a moment at its lace sheath. “If you want any breakfast—” she warned.

  David didn’t answer. Letting go, he slipped behind her and cupped a hand over each of her breasts, beginning to knead and fondle them.

  “Da
vid—”

  “Quiet” Bending over, he started to kiss her at the joint of her neck and shoulder, fingers massaging her bust. Ellen made a sound of faint distress but didn’t try to stop him. He began to nibble at her neck, gently at first, then with more harshness.

  “I can’t make you proper scrambled eggs if you—”

  She broke off as David bent over and disengaged her hand from the skillet handle. Taking the pot holder from her, he lifted the skillet from the fireplace and leaned over to put it on the hearth. As he did, the locket slipped from his pocket and fell to the floor.

  “What’s that?” Ellen asked. She picked it up to look at.

  “Nothing,” he murmured, trying to take it from her.

  “No, really, what is it? she asked.

  “Just …” He shrugged. “Some girl left it here,” he told her.

  “Girl?”

  “Forget it.” He slid his arms around her again. It doesn’t matter, he thought. He tried to kiss her neck but she drew away.

  “What girl?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. He reached for her again. “She said she lives in a cottage down the beach but she doesn’t.”

  He tried to take the locket from her again but she held on to it.

  “When did you see her?” she asked. Her voice was tensing now.

  He sighed. “Last night. Come on—”

  She pulled away from him. “When?” she asked.

  “While you were out walking,” he said, trying to make it sound unimportant.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Come on.” He put his arms around her and started nuzzling her neck again. “There’s nothing to understand, Ellen Audrey. She just came in, that’s all. She used to know the artist who lived here.”

  Ellen was so still that he drew back to look at her. She stared at him, expressionless. He felt a tremor of irritation at the look but forced it away. “She saw firelight in the house and thought he was back. Now forget about her,” he said.

  “She just came in?”

  “Yes.” The irritation was in his voice now. “Will you please forget about her?”

  Immediately, he regretted his tone. Her voice trembled slightly as she said, “You seem a little anxious for me to forget about her.”