Free The Evening Star by Larry McMurtry Page A

think you’re doing? You behave, Pascal.”
    To his horror he saw Melanie standing at his elbow, holding a silver soup tureen.
    He immediately took his hands off Aurora’s throat.
    “Oh, mademoiselle, thank God you came,” he said. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”
    “You certainly did know what you were doing—you meant to strangle me,” Aurora said, rubbing her neck. On the whole she felt rather pleased with how things had gone. She lifted her eyebrows and grinned at Melanie.
    “Oh, no, no, it was just a fit,” Pascal said meekly. “It was amour fou.”
    “You needn’t explain to my granddaughter,” Aurora said. “She knows what brutes men are—she was just cruelly beaten by one herself, scarcely an hour ago.”
    “Oh, Granny,” Melanie said, “I wasn’t cruelly beaten, I was just shoved over a chair. What did you do to make Pascal so mad?”

    “The same thing she always does!” Pascal exclaimed. “Taunts—she only taunts me. She doesn’t mean a word. I love her, but so what, as you kids say.”
    “It’s just that my demon got loose and decided to make a snack of this unwary Frenchman,” Aurora said. “Pascal, that’s excellent cake—I think we might just table the passion question for a bit. I suggest you go to the bathroom and run a little cold water over that tie you just soaked in wine. If you want to soak your head at the same time, that’s no business of mine, but in my view it wouldn’t hurt you. Then come back and eat your cake.”
    Too embarrassed to argue, Pascal trundled off.
    “My God, Granny, what was that all about?” Melanie asked. She knew life was full of surprises, but she had never expected to come downstairs and find her grandmother being strangled in the study.
    “Just a contretemps, a very small one,” Aurora said. She reached across the table and took what was left of Pascal’s wine. “I was just trying to get him to make love to me on the couch. In my heyday I was made love to a great many times on couches, and I suppose I had in mind to try it once more. Unfortunately, Pascal chose to strangle me instead.”
    She took a sip of wine. Now that her anger had passed she was feeling a little discouraged.
    “It’s a lesson you should take to heart,” she said, looking at her chubby granddaughter.
    “What lesson?” Melanie asked. She was stunned by the thought that her grandmother had apparently been willing to fuck Pascal on the couch in her study. She knew her granny was eccentric, but she had never supposed she would do anything that eccentric.
    “Given the option, men will frequently try to murder you rather than make love,” Aurora said. “There are exceptions, but not too many.”
    “Granny!” Melanie said, again. “You were going to do it on that couch, with Pascal? What if the General had come downstairs and caught you?”
    “I would have been very angry,” Aurora said. “Hector knows me well enough to realize that there are times whenhe should leave me well enough alone. It points to another lesson, which is that it’s unwise to incarcerate yourself with a man nearly fifteen years your senior. I’ve done it and now I’ll have to make the best of it—for all I know Pascal may be the best of it, too.
    “Chew on that for a while,” she said in a lighter tone. She noticed that her granddaughter was struggling to assimilate some rather shocking information.
    “I’ll chew on it for years,” Melanie said, as Pascal came back into the room. He looked disconsolate, and his tie was dripping wet.
    “I can’t believe it,” Aurora said. “When I directed you to run cold water on your tie I naturally assumed you’d take it off first. I thought you French were supposed to have savoir faire. What happened to yours, dear?”
    “It has been a strange evening,” Pascal said. “At this moment I am not myself.”
    He sat down and began to apply himself to his walnut cake.
    Melanie took the soup tureen to the kitchen. She came back to the study