Free After the Fire by Jane Rule Page A

didn’t long for death she didn’t know. Even the taste of this very good fish and chips, which Karen had delivered like a bowling ball, could cheer Milly until she defined such pleasure as living for her food.
    “Why’s a good-looking girl like you sitting all by herself on a Saturday night?”
    He was Chas Kidder, a classmate of Forbes, who had bought a place here not long after they had.
    “Not waiting for my prince to come, I can assure you,” Milly said wryly.
    “Well then, maybe I’ll do. May I join you?”
    Milly nodded. “What brings you here so early in the year?”
    “Better than staying home and fighting with my wife,” he answered flippantly. “How are you, Milly? I mean, really, how are you?”
    She knew better than to think Chas was genuinely concerned. That tone, that emphasis, that eye contact all came from a middle-management course on how to fire people without pain.
    “Just as you can see,” she replied, knowing she’d been skillful with her rouge as well as her eye make-up.
    “Never better, eh? I saw your ex the other day, and I can’t say the same for him. A girl that young isn’t becoming to a man his age, makes him look old and foolish. ‘You know you’ve traded down, don’t you?’ I said to him.”
    “And he knew you were jealous,” Milly said.
    “No, Milly, I’m not. All he’s asking for are bills and back trouble.”
    He signaled Karen and put a possessive hand on her arm as he ordered. Chas was the kind of man to make a clear distinction between responsibility and appetite.
    “She’s a waste of your time,” Milly said when Karen had left the table.
    “I’m sure of it,” Chas said good-naturedly.
    “She’s not interested in men.”
    “I never believe that about a woman unless I get it firsthand,” Chas said and laughed.
    Milly had never realized just how humiliating it was to have the man you were with try to fondle a waitress. She wanted to get up and leave, but she couldn’t sacrifice half a carafe of wine and be more of an embarrassment to herself than to Chas.
    “How’s your wife?” Milly asked.
    “Oh, tired of me, Milly. I’ll have to work myself into the grave. If I ever retired, she’d throw me out of the house.”
    “That’s a long way off in any case,” Milly said in a kindlier tone.
    “Fifteen years,” Chas said.
    He was, like Forbes, five years older than herself, and he was seeing more realistically into the future now that the children were gone and not blocking his view.
    “She said a funny thing to me the other day. She said in a way she envied you because you were young enough still to make a life for yourself.”
    “What’s a life for yourself?” Milly asked wryly. “Well, I’ll never have to cook brussels sprouts again. There’s that.”
    “You know, I like my wife,” Chas said. “I don’t really think she likes me. Men don’t seem to wear as well somehow, I can’t imagine living with one. How do women manage?”
    “Don’t ask me,” Milly said.
    “Don’t you really think you’re better off?”
    “Better off?” Milly asked, incredulous, “in my ’sixty-nine VW, in a house not meant to be lived in in winter, twenty years away from the old age pension?”
    “You’d rather marry again?”
    “Certainly not!” Milly said. “I’m not that hard up.”
    When they had finished dinner and their wine, someone began to play the piano, and two guitars were being taken out of their cases.
    “I’m not old enough for the sing-along,” Milly said, getting ready to go.
    Chas reached over and took her check.
    “Thank you,” she said.
    “My pleasure, Milly,” he said and made an effort to rise to his feet.
    She supposed he would drink until closing time and then try his luck. Milly was certain Karen would not disappoint her, nor would she disappoint Chas all that much. He was the sort of man to marry, and Milly couldn’t abide him.

Chapter VI
    C HAS KIDDER WAS DRUNK at the end of the evening and clumsily direct in his