Doctor's Wife by Brian Moore Read Free Book Online

and, when the woman ran out and saw this, her face became all
hate and she lifted her arm and struck the priest’s hat out of Mrs.
Redden’s grasp and hit Mrs. Redden in the face, shouting, “Fucking
Fenian gets!” as if Mrs. Redden and the priest and the dying old
man had set the bomb off and were not victims like herself.
        She looked up at the clock on the Palais, then at
the
flic
in dark-blue uniform directing traffic, signaling
with his white-gloved hand, then wheeling like a robot to beckon
the opposing stream of cars. What about those men you read about in
newspaper stories who walk out of their homes saying they are going
down to the corner to buy cigarettes and are never heard from
again? This is Paris. I am here. What if I never go back?
      
      
      
      
        Chapter 3
      
      
        • Her flight had been called twice and now it was
definitely the last call. There was no delaying it any longer,
there was nothing to do but say goodbye, turn her back on him, and
walk through the security check and onto the aircraft. An anxiety,
the unreasoning anxiety of departure, came into her voice as she
said, “Well, I
must
go this time.”
        He stared, his dark eyes all question, as though he
waited for her to give him some sign.
        “Goodbye, then,” she said.
        He did not speak.
        “If you ever come back to Ireland you must look us
up.”
        He moved toward her. She was sure he was going to
kiss her, but, instead, he stopped and awkwardly held out his hand.
For a moment she thought of kissing him on both cheeks in the
French manner and making a joke of it, but her courage left her,
and instead she shook his hand, then went up to the security
people. A man and his wife were ahead of her in the check line,
loaded down with cartons of gifts. She turned to look back. He was
still standing there. She waved, he smiled and waved back. And then
she entered the security checkpoint and, once through it, could no
longer see the departure lounge. When she entered the aircraft, the
seat-belt sign was already on, and as she sat down in her allotted
seat, a stewardess offered her a choice of magazines. She took the
first magazine off the pile, hurriedly, because she wanted the
stewardess to move so that she could look across the aisle at the
window facing the terminal. But saw only the terminal wall. No sign
of him. The aircraft door shut and the plane taxied out for
takeoff. She sat, staring numbly at the magazine cover.
      
                    L’EXPRESS
                    ---------
                    L’APRÈS
                    POMPIDOU
      
        There was a photograph of the deceased President
and, under it, the caption:
      
                    GEORGES
POMPIDOU
        
”L’avenir n’est interdit à personne.”
Gambetta
      
        As thé plane moved forward in the takeoff queue, the
quotation repeated itself in her head:
L’avenir n’est interdit
à personne
—the future is forbidden to no one. The engines
increased their thrust, the plane rushed down the runway and lifted
into the air. Outside the window, great canyons of cloud opened and
closed like the corridors of heaven as the plane climbed up into a
bright-blue void. The seat-belt sign went off. On the intercom, a
female voice announced that drinks would be offered and that
luncheon would be served. She remembered the fuss she had made in
the British Airways office in Belfast, two months ago, when the
clerk told her this luncheon flight was fully booked, but that
there was space on the later flight at three o’clock. She had
wait-listed herself on this flight because she didn’t want to miss
lunch. And if I hadn’t done that, at this moment I would be having
lunch with Tom Lowry in Paris. Why didn’t I change my reservations
this morning, why did I worry about the stupid old hotel? How did I
get so bogged down in