The Rendezvous by Evelyn Anthony Page B

like someone trying not to pull a knife out of their pocket and stab to the heart. Perhaps she was jealous of Joe. He had a famous practice and he was on the staff of Belleview as a leading consultant psychiatrist. There were so many neurotics beating on his door that he couldn’t possibly treat them all. And he wouldn’t treat the bogus rich sick, as he called them. ‘There’s nothing the matter with these damned women that a day’s washing and six kids wouldn’t cure!’ He was ruthless with them; Terese had known one or two women and the odd man who had come out of Joe’s rooms quicker than they went in. But he was wonderful with people who were really ill. He had been so wonderful with her. He wasn’t just her doctor, he had always been Bob’s friend and he was her friend too; perhaps the only one she had. It hadn’t been easy, meeting Bob’s family when they came back to America from France. His mother had been alive then, and she was an older, more terrifying, version of Ruth. The old Mrs. Bradford had been kind, but it was like being received by royalty, however graciously, and Terese had been at a permanent disadvantage. They all knew she had been hurt in the war – it was generally accepted that it was during an air raid, so nobody could ask her questions about herself, and she had sensed how inhibiting this was to her mother-in-law. Mrs. James Bradford II was a terrible snob because she could trace her own ancestry back to an early English settler in the late 1700s, and she was dying to ask her son’s little French wife all about herself. If she ever attempted a reference to Terese’s family, her son turned the subject on to something else. She had dominated his father and even Ruth, though with some difficulty. But where Terese was concerned she found that she had no authority over her son at all.
    Ruth had been kind too; they were all kind when she first arrived, all Bob’s relatives and his friends, but she could see them looking at her awkwardly; she sensed that she made them uncomfortable, and in return she clung to him more and more. She had said to herself that Joe was her friend and this was true. Her only friend was truer still. She had a lot of acquaintances, married couples she and Bob mixed with socially, women she lunched with and worked on an odd charity committee with because it was expected of her, but no intimates. No real friends. Only her husband, and Joe Kaplan. It was time to ask the Kaplans to dinner; it didn’t matter about Vera. She was a bitch to everyone, and everyone disliked her. She could ask that Swiss she met at Ruth’s party. He was nice. Perhaps it was because he was a European that she had found him so easy to talk to; he was a very good-looking man. Ruth said he was Julia Adams’ lover; Ruth had thought him attractive too. Terese had met Julia once or twice but she couldn’t remember much about her except that she was beautiful and very smartly dressed. She would have to ask Julia with the Swiss. It might make a pleasant combination, especially with Joe, who knew a lot about modern architecture. She had finished her coffee and the mood of restlessness had passed. When she got into bed Terese knew that he was awake. He stretched out his hand, feeling for hers.
    â€˜Where have you been?’
    â€˜Drinking coffee, darling. I couldn’t sleep. Would you like me to make you some?’
    â€˜No, thanks. Come here, darling, close to me.’
    She went into his arms and kissed him. ‘I love you, Robert. Sometimes I forget to tell you how much. Did I make you happy tonight?’
    â€˜Very happy,’ he said. ‘You always do, my sweetheart. I’m such a lucky guy I can’t believe it. You know, I looked round those people tonight at Ruth’s party, and I thought, There’s only one woman in the place, and she’s mine. Only one really feminine, beautiful woman among the lot of