OCR Text |
Show 45 Thirteen When he discovers the plane ticket lying on the desk in her little room, Robeck cannot believe it: he had assumed somehow that she had changed her mind, and abandoned the plan. She had not mentioned the trip again, and now that he was spending less time in his office, they had been going for drives, for strolls in the country, drinking tea in the afternoons of roadside cafes. Annis had suggested that they walk along the ocean; they had picked their way among the rocks at the water's edge, and watched the surf swirl in to catch itself in caverns, then leave itself behind in tranquil pools. They had bent together to study the anemones spread out in alluring polyps beneath the surface of the water. They had sat on rocks which (as nearly as they could remember, they confided to each other) they had each sat on fifty years before, before they had met, or married, or had their children. "I'd do it all again, John," Annis had said happily, and they had sat among the rocks arousing in their memories the intense, eager moments of their earlier lives. "How did we get so old?" he had said once, genuinely puzzled, but it was only a momentary complaint, and they had moved arm in arm along the beach, to rediscover other times. But later, after they had returned home and Annis had settled into a bath, he had happened to catch sight of the ticket. He had not meant to enter her room, but somehow he had found himself in there, as if teaching himself in small bits at a time to accept its unaccustomed bareness, the new austerity |