She shook her head. “He wants to go off alone, away from everyone. I’m to be with him until the end; then I’ll send the body back here for burial ... but he’ll leave full instructions.”
“You mean I’m never to see either of you again? Just like that, you both go?”
“Just like this.” For the first time she displayed some warmth. “I’ve cared for you, Gene,” she said gently. “I even think that of us all you were the one most nearly right in your approach to John. I think you understood him better than he did himself. Try to hold on after we go. Try to keep it away from Paul.”
“As if I could!” I turned from her bitterly, filled with unexpected grief: I did not want to lose her presence even though I had lost her or, rather, never possessed more of her than that one bright instant years before on the California coast when we had both realized with the unexpected clarity of the lovers we were not that our lives had come to the same point at the same moment and the knowledge of this confluence was the one splendor I had known, the single hope, the unique passion of my life.
“Don’t miss me, Gene. I couldn’t bear that.” She put her hand on my arm. I walked away, not able to bear her touch. Then they came.
Paul and Stokharin were in the study. Iris gasped and stepped back when she saw them. I spun about just as Paul shouted: “It won’t work, Iris! Give it up.”
“Get out of here, Paul.” Her voice was strong. “You have no right here.”
“I have as much right as you. Now tell me whose idea was it? yours? or was it John’s? or Gene’s? since he seems to enjoy playing both sides.”
“Get out. All of you.” She moved to the old-fashioned bell cord which hung beside Cave’s massive desk.
“Don’t bother,” said Paul. “No one will come.”