The Whore's Child Read Online Free PDF Page B

be at seven-thirty, which either registered or not with Beth, who didn’t look up from the trail map she was studying. She’d changed into hiking clothes in their room.
    Martin was about to remark that it was Beth herself whom the cook wasn’t fond of when it occurred to him that she’d been referring to Joyce.
    â€œShe was Laura’s sister,” he said, as if it was common knowledge that all sisters despised their brothers-in-law by natural decree.
    â€œDid you fuck her?” Beth asked around a bite of blackened chicken breast.
    â€œJoyce?” Martin snorted.
    â€œWell, I assume you were fucking your wife,” Beth pointed out, not unreasonably. Martin might have corrected her, but did not. “Besides, men have been known—”
    â€œI’ll try to forgive that unkind and entirely unwarranted suspicion,” he said, blowing on his chowder, the first spoon of which had burned his tongue.
    â€œThis is an excellent Caesar salad,” Beth said.
    â€œGood,” he told her. “I’m glad.”
    â€œNow you’re mad at me.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œTell me,” she said, leaving him to wonder for a full beat whether she intended to change the subject or forge ahead. Change it, was Martin’s guess, and he was right. “What will you be doing while I’m climbing the island’s dangerous cliffs, which this publication warns me not to do alone?”
    He decided not to take this particular bait. “I thought I’d take some pictures, maybe visit a gallery or two. See if I can locate a bottle of wine for dinner.” The hotel, they’d been informed upon checking in, had no liquor license.
    â€œOne dinner without wine wouldn’t kill us, actually,” Beth said.
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œWell, it’s true I’m only guessing.”
    Martin studied her until she pushed her plate away. As usual, about half her food was untouched. In all of the time they’d been together, nearly a year now, Martin had never known her to finish a serving of anything. In restaurants known for small portions, Beth would order twice as much food and still leave half. Laura, he recalled, had eaten like a man, with appetite and appreciation.
    Then a thought struck him. “When have I ever been unable to answer the bell?” he asked. “Any bell.”
    Beth gave him a small smile, which meant that their argument, if that’s what this was, was over. “I’m not overly fond of boxing metaphors applied to sex,” she said, taking one of his thumbs and pulling on it. “It’s not war.”
    Like hell, Martin thought.
    â€œBut yes,” she conceded, “you
do
answer every bell, old man.”
    â€œThank you,” Martin said, meaning it. The question he’d asked had been risky, he realized, and he was glad the danger had passed.
    â€œI’m going back to the room for some sunscreen,” she said, pushing her chair back. “I’ll be taking the ‘A’ Trail—”
    Martin whistled a few bars of “Take the ‘A’ Train.”
    â€œâ€”in case I need rescuing.”
    Watching her cross the room, he had a pretty good idea what the sunscreen was for. She’d sunbathe on a rock, topless, in some secluded spot, while the young fellow from the ferry scrutinized her through binoculars from an adjacent bluff.
You could go with her,
he said to himself.
There’s nothing preventing you.
    But there was.
    From what he’d read in the brochure, roughly a third of the houses on the island had to be artists’ studios, though to the casual eye they looked no different from the other houses inhabited, presumably, by lobstermen and the owners of the island’s few seasonal businesses. All of the buildings were sided with the same weathered gray shingles, as if subjected, decades ago, to a dress code. He’d half expected to discover that Joyce had lied to him,