Read Online The Trouble With Harry by Jack Trevor Story - Free Book Online Page A

didn’t get into bed because I wanted him to see my new nightie.’
    ‘Naturally,’ Sam said.
    Jennifer returned to Sam for a moment. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you all this – you a perfect stranger, too. I’m not boring you, am I?’
    ‘Not at all,’ Sam said politely.
    ‘Have some more tea?’
    ‘Soon,’ said Sam. ‘Soon.’
    ‘Where was I?’ Jennifer asked.
    ‘You were sitting by the window and there was amoon. You hadn’t got into bed because you wanted him to see your new nightie. You had worked yourself into a certain enthusiasm.’
    Jennifer laughed lightly. ‘Did I say all that?’
    ‘When does Harry come in?’ Sam asked her impatiently.
    Her face straightened and the mirth left her. ‘At last,’ she said, ‘Harry came in.’
    ‘What had he been doing all this time?’ Sam said, petulantly.
    ‘Finding a picture of Robert,’ Jennifer said.
    ‘Robert!’
    ‘Robert,’ Jennifer repeated. ‘A photograph of my dead lover. A photograph of the father of my child. A photograph of his brother.’
    ‘Why did he want that?’ Sam asked.
    ‘That’s what I wanted to know. It wasn’t even a good photograph. He said … I hardly like to tell you what he said.’
    ‘I’d like to hear it,’ Sam encouraged her.
    ‘He said,’ she said, ‘“I’m going to hang dear Robert over our bed, dear. You are bearing his child, remember. So when I make love to you, Jenny, I want you toimagine that it’s really Robert making love to you.”’
    Sam was shocked. ‘He said that?’
    She nodded soberly. ‘I was going to imagine it was Robert, anyway,’ she said, ‘but I didn’t want him to imagine that I was imagining it was Robert.’
    ‘I should think not!’
    ‘And,’ said Jennifer, ‘he didn’t as much as mention my new nightie.’
    ‘What did you do?’ Sam asked.
    ‘I left him,’ she said. ‘I went round to mother’s straight away. So I never
did
have to imagine it was Robert and now I never shall.’
    ‘What a poignant story,’ Sam said.
    Jennifer smiled sadly at him. ‘I knew you would understand – nobody else does. Even mother thought I should live with him. But I wouldn’t. He pestered me to go back, but I always refused. At last he even offered to take down the photograph over the bed, but it was too late.’
    ‘I don’t blame you,’ Sam said.
    ‘Abie was born,’ Jennifer said, ‘and as soon as I could I moved away to where I thought Harry would never find me. I changed my name—’
    ‘But he did find you?’
    ‘Yes. Today.’
    ‘Yesterday?’
    ‘No. Today. This morning. There was a knock on the door and there he was. Harry.’
    ‘What did he want?’
    ‘At last,’ Jennifer said, ‘he wanted me. Not on his brother’s account, either, but on his own account. He had suddenly felt a basic urge, he said. He wanted me because I was his wife.’
    ‘How did you feel about it?’ Sam asked.
    ‘I felt sick,’ said the young woman. ‘Did you see his moustache and his wavy hair?’
    Sam agreed with her. ‘But when
I
saw him,’ he said, ‘he was dead.’
    Jennifer shrugged. ‘He looked exactly the same when he was alive, except that he was vertical.’
    ‘What did you say to him?’ Sam asked.
    ‘Nothing,’ Jennifer said. ‘I hit him on the head with a milk bottle and knocked him silly.’
    ‘How do you mean “silly”?’
    ‘Silly-dilly,’ she said. ‘Bats. He went staggering up towards the heath saying he was going to find his wife.’
    ‘So he turned human at the last?’ Sam asked.
    ‘He did,’ she said. ‘But he was too late as far as I was concerned.’
    ‘I’ll have another cup of tea,’ Sam said.
    While she was preparing it for him he sat back and thought.

MIRAGE
    ‘The Ship’ was a thing of stucco breeze blocks and cheap Canadian timber. It lay at anchor in its little garden amongst the trees. It lay in the heat of the summer afternoon, looking not merely becalmed but derelict. The portholes were dusty, being draped with a grey