“I think it’ll be a row of milestone things,” Gin said. “We can tell better when we hear them talk. Blake, you wink at me when you hear someone say ‘Carramba!’ and we’ll know that we’ve arrived.”
They screamed with laughter. Teddy stared at the road and frowned. Come seven, come eleven. What was it? Something was wrong: he had forgotten something.
“I’m off to my love with a boxing glove,” sang Blake. “Whoops!”
His voice irritated Teddy. It was too shrill, too young, too joyous. And Gin too: Gin was a sentimental fool. Why need they talk? Couldn’t they ever be quiet? What was that thing he had forgotten? It was important, too; very important. What was it, and what had it to do with a prize-fight? He shook his head violently, trying to jog it.
They had lunch in a little fly-swarmed town. He worked his way through two pieces of leathery pie, trying to eat himself back to good humour. They teased him about his appetite and his irritation almost broke through. On the way to the car Blake swung himself over the door and it was all Teddy could do to keep from striking him in the face.
He was tired of the car and the kids; he didn’t want to sleep out of doors any more; he was worried about what they would do in Mexico. And there was something he had forgotten.
He was driving. All of a sudden it happened. For the first time in his life, something came over him that was so powerful, so cleanly sweeping, that he was utterly without strength before it: he was wax.
He remembered.
September seventh, September eleventh. Mrs. Saville-Sanders. The bridge party. It was September seventh today, and on the eleventh Mrs. Saville-Sanders was having a bridge party, and she had asked him to come and help.
He squeezed his eyes together and looked at Blake, sitting next to him, and then he turned around wonderingly and peered at Gin in the back seat. All three of them were dusty tramps, sitting in a dusty car a few miles from El Paso, miles from Santa Fé. How perfectly appalling. How had it happened? It was a bad dream and he couldn’t wake up. Seven from eleven left four—four days to get back. Four days to climb out of this pit.