Her Name Will Be Faith

by Christopher Nicole

  So perhaps Richard had grown tired of waiting; Mark would have gone back to Florida by now.

  “Josephine Donnelly.”

  “Washington here, Mrs Donnelly. There’s a…” Washington hesitated. “Gentleman down here to see you.”

  “Gentleman?”

  “Says his name is Stuart Alloan. Says you and he are old friends.”

  “Stuart Alloan? I’ve never heard of him. Oh, well, you’d better send him up.” She was preoccupied, at once with thoughts of Richard and with researching her next assignment, Nino Fabretti, the famous guitarist, who was going to be in New York the following week. Stuart Alloan? She looked at her watch; it was half past three, and Florence and the children had not yet got home from school.

  The doorbell rang, and she looked through the peephole, while releasing the locks. All she saw was a face, which was certainly familiar… then the door was pushed in with a violence that all but knocked her over. “What on earth…” She gazed at the young man in the dirty sweatshirt and jeans, and the cowboy hat.

  “Hope I didn’t hurt you, ma’am,” he said. “You remember me? Name’s Stuart Alloan.”

  Jo drew a sharp breath. “Yes. I remember you, Mr Alloan. How did you know where I lived?”

  “You told me your name and the magazine you worked for, ma’am. They gave me your address.”

  That stupid girl, Jo thought; am I going to have a word with her. But first, this lout had to be removed. “What do you want?”

  He looked her up and down. Working at home, she wore only a housecoat, as he could certainly tell, however tightly she had retied the cord before answering the door. “Well,” he said. “I thought you might have a copy of that article you were gonna do on me.”

  “Not on you, Mr Alloan. On hurricanes. But the magazine only comes out once a month, and the article is in July’s issue. Sorry. So if you’d like to leave…”

  He had closed the door behind him, and now looked around the lounge. “Say, some place you got here, doll. Must be money in writing for magazines, eh?”

  Jo discovered her heart was pounding quite painfully, and she was feeling a little sick. The nearest telephone was in the study — on the far side of the intruder. And Nana was in the kitchen, asleep; she would be awakened by a call, but the kitchen door was shut, again behind the intruder. How on earth had she been so careless? Simply because her brain had been entirely filled with thoughts of Richard. But there was no use in losing her head. “The apartment belongs to my husband,” she said. “Who will be home any minute.”

  “Is that a fact?” he asked. “You know that’s what they all say?”

  “They all?” She licked her lips, slowly backing across the room towards the brass-edged glass table. It was used to display ornaments, one of which was a tall, slim statuette, cast in bronze, on a marble pedestal. It could be a serviceable weapon. “You mean you make a habit of calling on women in the middle of the afternoon?”

  He pointed at her. “Don’t gimme any sauce, lady. I kinda like you. All of you. I really came up to see if you was ready to show me those tits.”

  Jo reached the statue, and wrapped her fingers round it, breathing a sigh of relief as she lifted it from the table. “If you don’t leave right now,” she said, “I am going to brain you, and then hand you over to the police.”

  His finger was still extended. “Now that’s fighting talk, doll. You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna take that thing and stuff it right up your ass. You’ll like that, eh?”

  He came round the sofa, and Jo inhaled. She hadn’t expected to be challenged. But then she hadn’t expected anything like this to happen at all. Not in her own apartment, guarded by Washington… but she had told Washington to send Alloan up without checking further– Washington had all but told her, without actually being rude to a possible friend of hers, that he didn’t like the look of the fellow. “I mean it,” she warned. “I…”

  Alloan moved far more quickly than she had anticipated. She swung the statue, but he easily evaded it, and then caught her arm with a strength that surprised her, twisting it so that she yelped with pain and dropped the ornament to the floor with a thud. Then his other arm went round her, clutching her against him, and his fingers were tugging at her housecoat, tearing it open to fumble inside, digging into the flesh of her breasts and buttocks. She gasped and twisted and used her elbows and kicked at him, and managed to get away, although leaving the gown in his hands as she stumbled forward and fell across the back of the sofa.

  Before she could recover he had seized her shoulder to hold her there, head down, legs flaying. While he also picked up the statuette. “Now,” he said. “Just let’s part these pretty little cheeks…”

  “No!” she screamed, hating herself for being so terrified. “No, please…”

  The front door opened and Florence and the children stared at the scene in front of them.

  “Florence?” Jo shrieked. “Call Washington. Call the police. Call…” She realized the hand had left her shoulder as Alloan straightened, and she turned, kicking as hard as she could for his crotch. Momentarily distracted by the intruders, Alloan did not defend himself and gasped with pain.

  “Nice work, Mom,” Owen Michael shouted, running into the room, seizing a large Chinese vase, and smashing it over the man’s head.

  Alloan was still bent double; clutching his genitals… and he had dropped the statue. Jo grabbed it again in both hands, swung and hit him on the head with all her strength.

  Park Avenue — 5 pm.

  “May I ask just what the shitting hell has been going on?” Michael Donnelly stood in the center of his lounge and looked around him.

  “Oh it was terrible, Mr Donnelly,” Florence said.

  “A man was here,” Tamsin shouted.

  “Assaulting Mommy,” Owen Michael declared.

  “Mommy was all bare,” Tamsin informed him.

  “But Mommy bopped him one with the statue,” Owen Michael assured him, proudly.

  “And Owen Michael hit him with the big vase,” Tamsin added.

  “Blood everywhere,” Florence managed to get a word in.

  “You were all bare?” Michael echoed, looking at Jo who was now fully dressed.

  “Washington came, and the police, and took the man away,” Tamsin said.

  “The sergeant said Mommy had been awful brave,” Owen Michael went on.

  “And he said Owen Michael had been brave too,” Tamsin added loyally.

  Nana barked and attempted to frisk; even if she had missed the actual combat, she hadn’t had such an exciting afternoon in years.

  Michael continued to glare at Jo. “I think you kids had better go do your homework,” he said. “Your mother and I would like to have a little chat.”

  “Yes,” Jo agreed, understanding that her ordeal was not yet over. “Run along, children. Thank you so much, Florence. I think you saved my life, literally.”

  Michael waited until they had all left the room, taking Nana with them. Then he said, “Perhaps you’d like to explain.” His voice was deceptively quiet.

  “Well… there’s not a lot to explain, Michael.” She sat down. “This druggie broke in here and tried to assault me…”

  “In the altogether?”

  “He pulled off my housecoat,” Jo said, refusing to lose her temper.

  “Is that a fact. Druggie? Broke in here? How the hell did he do that? This is supposed to be a burglarproof building. What the hell do we pay round-the-clock porters for?”

  “Well, I suppose the fault was mine. Washington called to say there was this man to see me, who said he was an old friend, and without thinking I said to send him up. I was working, and just never thought, I guess.”

  Michael went to the bar and poured himself a drink. “You expect me to believe that? Jesus Christ, entertaining hashed up dropouts in my apartment in the middle of the afternoon…”

  “I ought to kill you for saying that,” Jo said.

  He half turned, and flushed. �
��You going to pretend you didn’t know the guy? How did he know to come to this apartment and, no other?”

  “Sure I knew him,” Jo snapped. “He was one of the people I interviewed for my hurricane article. Nothing more than that.”

  “How’d he know your name?”

  “I told him my name,” she shouted.

  “A street side lay about?”

  “An interviewee. I always tell them my name, and who I work for.”

  “Who you work for.” His momentary embarrassment had disappeared now he had discovered another handle to twist. “That goddamned stupid job. Do you realize it could’ve got you raped? The kids hurt. And Jesus…” He looked at the empty pedestal. “Do you have any idea how much that shitting vase cost? I demand you give it up. Now.”

  She stared at him. But she had been frightened; she could almost be tempted. If he would co-operate. “And if I do, will you come to Eleuthera next month?”

  “You have got to be joking.” He pointed. “You have nothing with which to hit me, sweetheart. You’re the one out of line on this one. And I’m the poor bastard whose wife’s name is going to be splashed all over the newspapers. I suppose you have to give evidence at the trial?”

  “Of course I do. Don’t worry, they tell me it won’t be until after the yacht racing season.”

  “Bitch,” he commented. “But you are giving up that job. Now.”

  “Go to hell,” Jo told him, and went into the bedroom. She had had just about all she could stand.

  THURSDAY 22 JUNE

  East 57th Street

  The concept of what had happened had set Michael going, in an almost obscene way, Jo thought. That the idea his wife had been wrestling naked with a strange man should start the vibes was horrible… but that night he wanted to return to her — she had slept in the spare room since their quarrel — and when she refused to let him they had another flaming row.

  Yet what had happened had set her going too. It had been the unacceptable face of sex, but so were her relations with her husband. She wanted to lie naked in a man’s arms, feel them about her and him against her — but the arms had to be loving rather than angry or hating or claiming a right.

  And in any event, having read the morning paper, she knew she had to contact Richard. But in fact he contacted her, at the office, just after she had finished enduring the comments and sympathies of Ed and the staff, and the apologies of Jeannie Ryan for having divulged her address to a total stranger.

  “Jo?” Richard’s voice was fraught. “I’ve just seen the paper. My God…”

  “Nothing happened,” she assured him. “The guy was just hashed up.”

  “But… the papers say he broke in and assaulted you. That he’s being charged with…”

  “Attempted rape. He didn’t get very far.”

  “It says you knocked him out.”

  “With a little help from my friends.”

  “Oh, Jo…”

  “I’ll tell you all about it when we meet.”

  “When?”

  “I could make Thursday.”

  There was a moment’s pause, and she could hear him riffling the pages of his diary. “You got it. Ah… I could arrange some time off.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I would like that.”

  So here she was, Jo thought; Josephine Donnelly, would-be adulteress. It was the oddest feeling of her life, to be sitting across this now so familiar table, gazing into those now so familiar eyes, knowing that they were both doing nothing more than going through the formalities. But she had been doing this all week, existing on a cloud much higher than seven, hardly aware of what she was doing as she had been waiting for this moment. Fortunately, Ed had put her preoccupation down to her ‘ordeal’, as he called it. So did most other people. Neal and Meg had called to say goodbye, as they were off to Eleuthera. They had looked forward to seeing her there in a couple of weeks. “A good lie in the sun will put that horrible experience behind you,” Meg had trilled, every word redolent with outrage. Eleuthera? Eleuthera was a million miles away right this minute.

  There were no banalities, about ‘how’re you doing?’ or ‘I wondered if you were going to call’. They were two people who were thinking with a single mind.

  He paid the check and they walked along the sidewalk together. Their hands brushed, and once or twice they exchanged a quick squeeze of the fingers. Nobody appeared to notice, although they both had the feeling that anyone could look at them and tell they were on their way to bed.

  In the elevator, he said, “I’m afraid I’ve started stripping the wallpaper.”

  “Good for you. What color have you chosen?”

  “It’s an off-white, really.”

  “Sensible.”

  She waited while he unlocked the door, trying to control the pounding of her heart. She had not felt like this since the first night of her honeymoon. But then, she hadn’t felt like this then, either.

  “Voila! It really is a mess.”

  She gazed at the half bare walls, the piles of loose paper, the layer of dust…

  He closed the door, slipped the chain into place. “I’ll get it straight, eventually. And the bedroom’s clean as a whistle.”

  She turned, and was in his arms, pressing herself against him as they kissed: “My darling girl,” he said. “I’m going to say something stupid.”

  “Then don’t say it. Don’t say anything at all.” She released him, opened the bedroom door, and went in, terribly conscious that she was leading here where she should perhaps have waited to be led. But it was her nature, and she couldn’t risk any weakening of her resolve.

  The door closed again, and he was in the room with her. Facing away from him, and carefully avoiding looking in the mirror, she reached behind her and unzipped her dress. She wore no slip in the summer, but for that reason always a bra. She shrugged her shoulders and the dress slid down to her thighs. She stepped out of it, reached behind her again, and touched his hands. “May I?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she told him, and waited, as the clip was released, and he carried the brassiere forward with his hands as they moved round, under her armpits, to hold and caress her breasts. She gave a little shiver, but it was pure ecstasy at the gentle loving of his touch — the last two pairs of hands to touch her there had been vicious.

  She let him hold her for several seconds; then reached down to slide her pants past her hips. He let her go, and she stepped out of them, drew a long breath, and turned to face him. If the family habitually skinny-dipped when in Eleuthera, it was a very long time since any man other than her husband had looked at her naked — in a bedroom. Suddenly she was afraid he would be disappointed in this slightly overweight wife and mother. But his eyes told her she had nothing to worry about.

  He was undressing himself, and he was perfection, the hard muscles gleaned from years on the grid only slightly softened by age, the glowing desire at once beautiful and reassuring. Then it was natural to be taken in his arms and held close, to feel his fingers sliding over her buttocks, to reach down herself to hold and caress, and then to lie beneath him, feeling him from her mouth to her toes. She had no thought of orgasm, just an immense contentment as she felt him questing.

  Second later he was filling her, and her senses were soaring. She loved, and was loved. And she was in love, she realized… for the second time in her life.

  THURSDAY 29 JUNE

  The Cape Verde Islands

  “There.” Eisener had assumed his favorite position, on the flight deck between the two pilots, and now he pointed.

  Mark followed the direction of his finger and gave a low whistle. The big bird was flying through empty skies, as usual, and over a calm ocean, but she was a very long way away from home; Mark had already called Pedra Luma in the Cape Verdes, the group of islands that lie six hundred miles off the westernmost bulge of Africa and which were now less than a hundred miles east of the aircraft, and asked for permission to land for the night and refuel, before returning to Key We
st.

  The reason for the extended flight had been an unusual phenomenon which had manifested itself over the past week; the pressure over the Cape Verde Islands had dropped much lower than usual for the time of year, and the result had been a much greater accumulation of cloud than usual. This had first shown up on satellite, and Eisener had determined to take a closer look. Now they gazed at an apparently unbroken carpet of white, lying right over the horizon even at 20,000 feet.

  “That thing must stretch clear back to Africa,” remarked Bob Landry, the co-pilot.

  “Yeah,” Eisener said. “Where are we, Mark?”

  “Eighty miles due west of Praia, capital of the Cape Verdes. They’re expecting us, but all the islands are under that lot.”

  “It’s big,” Eisener agreed. “What do you make of it?”

  Mark didn’t know what to reply. He had never seen anything like it in his life. He had called New York just before leaving Key West, to discuss the satellite picture with Richard… but Richard had been in no mood to talk about hurricanes. Even Richard. Because the clown had gone and fallen in love, with that married chick he’d been trying to seduce in his apartment when he’d been interrupted. Fooling around with married women caused nothing but trouble, in Mark’s opinion.

  While here could be what they had all been waiting for, all of their lives. “There’s no trace of any circulation,” Landry remarked.

  “No,” Eisener said. “But by golly, if that mass should start to circulate…”

  “Yeah,” Mark muttered. “Jesus Christ, if…”

  “Let’s take a closer look,” Eisener decided.

  JULY: The Second Week

  TUESDAY 11 JULY

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