When the phone rang, I struggled to get to the kitchen to answer it. I was too slow. Whoever it was had hung up. In spite of myself, I was hoping it was Nancy. Burning up I lay on my bed, thinking about her. I wanted Nancy in spite of her and Max being an item almost since they met at Minetta. Me, being a sap, it had taken me a while to figure it out. She was like white phosphorus. My uncle Jack got hit by the fall-out from a phosphorus bomb in the war. He recovered but his right eye was always screwed up, and it was on his mind a lot, the way those bombs would explode, set things alight, could be used for bombers to find their way. When fragments of white phosphorus hit your skin, they stuck to the flesh, you couldn’t get it off, and it burned you bad. It was like that with Nancy. Whatever it was, it stuck to me. It burned me, I couldn’t get it off. She took no notice. Carelessly, she strutted her stuff. Sometimes she let me sleep with her. Sometimes not. She laughed and charmed and sulked, and she got what she wanted.
