'Salem's Lot(80)

'Margie? Honey?'

She tried to answer, couldn't, and real fear shot through him. He got up to call the doctor.

He was turning to the phone when she said, 'No . . . no.' The word was repeated between a harsh gasp for air. She had struggled up to a sitting position, and the whole sun-silent house was filled with her rasping struggle for breath.

'Pull me . . . help me . . . the sun is so hot . . . '

He went to her and picked her up, shocked by the lightness of his burden. She seemed to weigh no more than a bundle of sticks.

' . . . sofa . . . '

He laid her on it ' with her back propped against the armrest. She was out of the patch of sun that fell in a square through the front window and onto the rug, and her breath seemed to come a little easier. She closed her eyes for a moment, and again he was impressed by the smooth whiteness of her teeth in contrast to her lips. He felt an urge to kiss her.

'Let me call the doctor,' he said.

'No. I'm better. The sun was . . . burning me. Made me feel faint. Better now.' A little color had come back into her cheeks.

'Are you sure?'

'Yes. I'm okay.'

'You've been working too hard, honey.'

'Yes,' she said passively. Her eyes were listless.

He ran a hand through his hair, tugging at it. 'We've got to snap out of this, Margie. We've got to. You look . . . ' He paused, not wanting to hurt her.

'I look awful,' she said. 'I know. I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror before I went to bed last night, and I hardly seemed to be there. For a minute I . . . ' A smile touched her lips. 'I thought I could see the tub behind me. Like there was only a little of myself left and it was . . . oh, so pale . . . '

'I want Dr Reardon to look at you.'

But she seemed not to hear. 'I've had the most lovely dream the last three or four nights, Tony. So real. Danny comes to me in the dream. He says, "Mommy, Mommy,? I'm so glad to be home!" And he says . . . says . . . '

'What does he say?' he asked her gently.

'He says . . . that he's my baby again. My own son, at my breast again. And I give him to suck and . . . and then a feeling of sweetness with an undertone of bitterness, so much like it was before he was weaned but after he was beginning to get teeth and he would nip - oh, this must sound awful. Like one of those psychiatrist things.'

'No,' he said. 'No.'

He knelt beside her and she put her arms around his neck and wept weakly. Her arms were cold. 'No doctor, Tony, please. I'll rest today.'

'All right,' he said. Giving in to her made him feel uneasy.

'It's such a lovely dream, Tony,' she said, speaking against his throat. The movement of her lips, the muffled hardness of her teeth beneath them, was amazingly sen?sual. He was getting an erection. 'I wish I could have it again tonight.'

'Maybe you will,' he said, stroking her hair. 'Maybe you will at that.'

4

'My God, don't you look good,' Ben said.

Against the hospital world of solid whites and anemic greens, Susan Norton looked very good indeed. She was wearing a bright yellow blouse with black vertical stripes and a short blue denim skirt.

'You, too,' she said, and crossed the room to him.

He kissed her deeply, and his hand slid to the warm curve of her hip and rubbed.

'Hey,' she said, breaking the kiss. 'They kick you out for that.'

'Not me.'

'No, me.'

'They looked at each other.

'I love you, Ben.'

'I love you, too.'

'If I could jump in with you right now - '

'Just a second, let me pull back the spread.'

'How would I explain it to those little candy-stripers?'

'Tell them you're giving me the bedpan.'

She shook her head, smiling, and pulled up a chair. 'A lot has happened in town, Ben.'

He sobered. 'Like what?'

She hesitated. 'I hardly know how to tell you, or what I believe myself. I'm mixed up, to say the least.'

'Well, spill it and let me sort it out.'

'What's your condition, Ben?'

'Mending. Not serious. Matt's doctor, a guy named Cody - '

'No. Your mind. How much of this Count Dracula stuff do you believe?'

'Oh. That. Matt told you everything'

'Matt's here in the hospital. One floor up in Intensive Care.'

'What?' He was up on his elbows. 'What's the matter with him?'

'Heart attack.'

'Heart attack!'

'Dr Cody says his condition is stable. He's listed as serious, but that's mandatory for the first forty-eight hours. I was there when it happened.'

'Tell me everything you remember, Susan.'  

The pleasure had gone out of his face. It was watchful, intent, fine-drawn. Lost in the white room and the white sheets and the white hospital johnny, he again struck her as a man drawn to a taut, perhaps fraying edge.

'You didn't answer my question, Ben.'

'About how I took Matt's story?'

'Yes.'

'Let me answer you by saying what you think. You think the Marsten House has buggered my brain to the point where I'm seeing bats in my own belfry, to coin a phrase. Is that a fair estimate?'