Free We'll Always Have Paris by Ray Bradbury Page A

bottles, pellet and tablet boxes, serums, cough remedies, pads, braces and foot
    rubs, greases, salves, lotions, inhalants, aspirin, quinine, powders, decks of worn playing
    cards from a million slow games of blackjack, and books they had murmured to each other across
    the dark small room in the single faint bulb light, their voices like the motion of dim moths
    through the shadows.
    ‘Perhaps I can slip my shoes
off
,’ he said. ‘For
    one hundred and twenty seconds, before we run out again.’
    ‘Isn’t right to keep your feet boxed up all the time.’
    They both slipped off their shoes.
    ‘Elma?’
    ‘Yes?’ She looked up.
    ‘Nothing,’ he said.
    They heard the mantel clock ticking. They caught each other peering at the
    clock. Two in the afternoon. Only six hours until eight tonight.
    ‘John?’ she said.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Never mind,’ she said.
    They sat.
    ‘Why don’t we put on our woolly slippers?’
    he wondered.
    ‘I’ll get them.’
    She fetched the slippers.
    They put them on, exhaling at the cool feel of the material.
    ‘Ahhhhhh!’
    ‘Why are you still wearing your coat and vest?’
    ‘You know, new clothes
are
like a suit of armor.’
    He worked out of the coat and, a minute later, the vest.
    The chairs creaked.
    ‘Why, it’s four o’clock,’ she said, later.
    ‘Time flies. Too late to go out now, isn’t it?’
    ‘Much too late. We’ll just rest awhile. We can call a taxi to take us to
    supper.’
    ‘Elma.’ He licked his lips.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Oh, I forgot.’ He glanced away at the wall.
    ‘Why don’t I just get out of my clothes into my bathrobe?’ he suggested, five
    minutes later. ‘I can dress in a rush when we stroll off for a big filet supper on the
    town.’
    ‘Now you’re being sensible,’ she agreed. ‘John?’
    ‘Something you want to tell me?’
    She gazed at the new shoes lying on the floor. She remembered the friendly
    tweak on her instep, the slow caress on her toes.
    ‘No,’ she said.
    They listened for each other’s hearts
    beating in the room. Clothed in their bathrobes, they sat sighing.
    ‘I’m just the
least bit
tired. Not too much,
    understand,’ she said. ‘Just a
little bit
.’
    ‘Naturally. It’s been quite a day, quite a day.’
    ‘You can’t just
rush
out, can you?’
    ‘Got to take it easy. We’re not young anymore.’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘I’m slightly exhausted, too,’ he admitted casually.
    ‘Maybe.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘Maybe we should have a bite
here
tonight. We can always dine out tomorrow evening.’
    ‘A really smart suggestion,’ he said. ‘I’m not ravenous, anyway.’
    ‘Strange, neither am I.’
    ‘But, we’ll go to a picture later tonight?’
    ‘Of
course
!’
    They sat munching cheese and some stale crackers like mice in the dark.
    Seven o’clock.
    ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I’m beginning to feel just a trifle queasy?’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘Back aches.’
    ‘Why don’t I just rub it for you?’
    ‘Thanks. Elma, you’ve got fine hands. You understand how to massage; not
    hard, not soft–but just
right.
’
    ‘My feet are burning,’ she said. ‘I don’t
    think I’ll be able to make that film tonight.’
    ‘Some other night,’ he said.
    ‘I wonder if something was wrong with that cheese? Heartburn.’
    ‘Did
you
notice, too?’
    They looked at the bottles on the table.
    Seven-thirty. Seven forty-five.
    ‘Almost eight o’clock.’
    ‘John!’ ‘Elma!’
    They had both spoken at once.
    They laughed, startled.
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘You go ahead.’
    ‘No, you first!’
    They fell silent, listening and watching the clock, their hearts beating fast
    and faster. Their faces were pale.
    ‘I think I’ll take a little peppermint oil for my stomach,’ said Mr
    Alexander.
    ‘Hand me the spoon when you’re done,’ she said.
    They sat smacking their lips in the dark, with only the one small moth-bulb
    lit.
    Tickety-tickety-tick-tick-tick.
    They heard the footsteps on their sidewalk.