io8
The proprietor's young nephew brought the bottles and ice and a glass from the bar and said, "Monsieur had no breakfast."
"I worked too long."
"C'est dommage," the boy said. "Can I bring anything? A sandwich?"
"In our storeroom you will find a tin of Maquereau Vin Blanc Capitaine Cook. Open it up and bring me two on a plate."
"They won't be cold."
"It makes no difference. Bring them."
He sat and ate the maquereau yin blanc and drank the whiskey and mineral water. It did make a difference that they were not cold. He read the morning paper while he ate.
We always ate fresh fish at le Grau du Roi, he thought, but that was a long time ago. He started to remember Grau du Roi and then he heard the car coming up the hill.
"Take this away," he said to the boy and he stood up and walked into the bar and poured himself a whiskey, put ice in it and filled the glass with Perrier. The taste of the wine-spiced fish was in his mouth and he picked up the bottle of mineral water and drank from it.
He heard their voices and then they came in the door as happy and gay as yesterday. He saw Catherine's birch bright head and her dark face loving and excited and the other girl dark, the wind still in her hair, her eyes very bright and then suddenly shy again as she came closer.
"VVe didn't stop when we saw you weren't at the cafe," Catherine said.
"I worked late. How are you, Devil?"
"I'm very well. Don't ask me how this one is.
"Did you work well, David?" the girl asked.
'That's being a good wife," Catherine said. "I forgot to ask."
'What did you do in Nice?"
"Can we have a drink and then tell?"
They were close to him on each side and he felt them both.
"Did you work well, David?" she asked again.
"Of course he did," Catherine said. "That's the only way he ever works, stupid."
"Did you, David?"
"Yes," he said and rumpled her head. "Thanks."
"Don't we get a drink?" Catherine asked. "We didn't work at all. We just bought things and ordered things and made scandal."
"We didn't make any real scandal."
"I don't know," Catherine said. "I don't care either."
"What was the scandal?" David asked.
"It wasn't anything," the girl said.
"I didn't mind it," Catherine said. "I liked it."
"Someone said something about her slacks in Nice."
"That's not a scandal," David said. "It's a big town. You had to expect that if you went there."
"Do I look any different?" Catherine asked. "I wish they'd brought the mirror. Do I look any different to you?"
"No." David looked at her. She looked very blond and disheveled and darker than ever and very excited and defiant.
"That's good," she said. "Because I tried it."
"You didn't do anything," the girl said.
"I did and I liked it and I want another drink."
"She didn't do anything, David," the girl said.
"This morning I stopped the car on the long clear stretch and kissed her and she kissed me and on the way back from Nice too and when we got out of the car just now." Catherine looked at him lovingly but rebelliously and then said, "It was fun and I liked it. You kiss her too. The boy's not here."
David turned to the girl and she clung to him suddenly and they kissed. He had not meant to kiss her and he had not known it would be like this when he did it.
"That's enough," Catherine said.
"How are you?" David said to the girl. She was shy and happy again.
"I'm happy the way you said to be," the girl told him.
"Everybody is happy now," Catherine said. "We've shared all the guilt."
They had a very good lunch and drank cold Tavel through the hors d'oeuvres, the poulet and the ratatouille, the salad and the fruit and cheese. They were all hungry and they made jokes and no one was solemn.
"There's a terrific surprise for dinner or before," Catherine said. "She spends money like a drunken oil-lease Indian, David."
"Are they nice?" the girl asked. "Or are they like Maharajas?"
"David will tell you about them. He comes from Oklahoma."
"I thought he came from East Africa."
"No. Some of his ancestors escaped from Oklahoma and took him to East Africa when he was very young.
"It must have been very exciting."
"He wrote a novel about being in East Africa when he was a boy."
"I know."
"You read it?" David asked her.
"I did," she said. "Do you want to ask me about it?"
"No," he said. "I'm familiar with it."
"It made me cry," the girl said. "Was that your father in it?"
"Some ways.
"You must have loved him very much."
"I did."
"You never talked to me about him," Catherine said.
"You never asked me." "Would you have?" "No," he said.
"I loved the book," the girl said. "Don't overreach," Catherine said.
"I wasn't."
"When you kissed him—"
"You asked me to."
"What I wanted to say when you interrupted," Catherine said, "was did you think of him as a writer when you kissed him and liked it so much?"
David poured a glass of Tavel and drank some of it.
"I don't know," the girl said. "I didn't think."
"I'm glad," Catherine said. "I was afraid it was going to be like the clippings."
The girl looked really mystified and Catherine explained, "The press cuttings about the second book. He's written two you
know."
"I only read The Rift."
"The second one is about flying. In the war. It's the only good thing anyone ever wrote about flying."
"Balls," David said.
"Wait until you read it," Catherine said. "It's a book you had to die to write and you had to be completely destroyed. Don't ever think I don't know about his books just because I don't think he's a vvriter when I kiss him."
"I think we ought to take a siesta," David said. "You ought to take a nap, Devil. You're tired."
"I talked too much," Catherine said. "It was a nice lunch and I'm sorry if I talked too much and boasted."
"I loved you when you talked about the books," the girl said. "You were admirable."
"I don't feel admirable. I am tired," Catherine said. "Have you plenty to read, Marita?"
"I have two books still," the girl said. "Later I'll borrow some if I may.
"May I come in to see you later?"
"If you want," the girl said.
David did not look at the girl and she did not look at him.
"I won't disturb you?" Catherine said.
"Nothing that I do is important," the girl said.
Catherine and David lay side by side on the bed in their room with the wind blowing its last day outside and it was not like siesta in the old days.
"Can I tell you now?"
"I'd rather skip it."
"No, let me tell. This morning when I started the car I was frightened and I tried to drive very well and I felt hollow inside. Then I could see Cannes up ahead on the hill and the road was clear all up ahead by the sea and I looked behind and it was clear and I pulled out from the road into the brush. Where it's like the sagebrush. I kissed her and she kissed me and we sat in the car and I felt very strange and then we drove into Nice and I don't know whether people could tell it or not. I didn't care by then and we went everywhere and bought everything. She loves to buy things. Someone made a rude remark but it was nothing really. Then we stopped on the way home and she said it was better if I was her girl and I said I didn't care either way and really I was glad because I am a girl now anyway and I didn't know what to do. I never felt so not knowing ever. But she's nice and she wanted to help me I think. I don't know. Anyway she was nice and I was driving and she was so pretty and happy and she was just gentle the way we are sometimes or me to you or either of us and I said I couldn't drive if she did that so we stopped. I only kissed her but I know it happened with me. So we were there for a while and then I drove straight home. I kissed her before we came in and we were happy and I liked it and I still like it."
"So now you've done it," David said carefully, "and you're through with it."
"But I'm not. I liked it and I'm going to really do it."
"No. You don't have
112 ''3
"I do and I'm going to do it until I'm through with it and I'm over it."
"Who says you'll be over it?"
"I do. But I really have to, David. I didn't know I'd ever be like this."
He did not say anything.
"I'll be back," she said. "I know I'll get over it as well as I know anything. Please trust me.
He did not say anything.
"She's waiting for me. Didn't you hear me ask her? It's like stopping in the middle of anything."
"I'm going up to Paris," David said. "You can reach me through the bank."
"No," she said. "No. You have to help me."
"I can't help you.
"You can. You can't go away. I couldn't stand it if you went away. I don't want to be with her. It's only something that I have to do. Can't you understand? Please understand. You always understand."
"Not this part."
"Please try. You always understood before. You know you did. Everything. Didn't you?"
"Yes. Before."
"It started with us and there'll only be us when I get this finished. I'm not in love with anyone else."
"Don't do it."
"I have to. Ever since I went to school all I ever had was chances to do it and people wanting to do it with me. And I never would and never did. But now I have to."
He said nothing.
"Please know how it is."
He did not say anything.
"Anyway she's in love with you and you can have her and wash everything away that way.
114
"You're talking crazy, Devil."
"I know it," she said. "I'll stop."
"Take a nap," he said. "Just lie close and quiet and we'll both go to sleep."
"I love you so," she said. "And you're my true partner the way I told her. I've told her too much about you but that's all she likes to talk about. I'm quiet now so I'm going to go."
"Yes," she said. "You wait for me. I won't be very long."
When she came back to the room David was not there and she stood a long time and looked at the bed and then went to the bathroom door and opened it and stood and looked in the long mirror. Her face had no expression and she looked at herself from her head down to her feet with no expression on her face at all. The light was nearly gone when she went into the bathroom and shut the door behind her.
Chapter Thirteen
DAVID DROVE up from Cannes in the dusk. The wind had fallen and he left the car in the usual place and walked up the path to where the light came out onto the patio and the garden. Marita came out of the doorway and walked toward him.
"Catherine feels terribly," she said. "Please be kind to her."
"The hell with both of you," David said. "With me, yes. But not with her. You mustn't, David." "Don't tell me what I must and what I mustn't." "Don't you want to take care of her?"
"Not particularly."
"I do."
"You certainly have."
"Don't be a fool," she said. "You're not a fool. I tell you this is serious."
"Where is she?"
"In there waiting for you.
David went in the door. Catherine was sitting at the empty bar.
"Hello," she said. "They didn't bring the mirror. "Hello, Devil," he said. "I'm sorry I was late." He was shocked at the dead way she looked and at her toneless voice.
"I thought you'd gone away," she said.
"Didn't you see I hadn't taken anything?"
"I didn't look. You wouldn't need to take anything to go away.
"No," David said. "I just went into town.
"Oh," she said and looked at the wall.
"The wind's dropping," he said. "It will be a good day tomorrow.
"I don't care about tomorrow.
"Sure you do."
"No I don't. Don't ask me to."
"I won't ask you to," he said. "Have you had a drink?"
"I'll make one."
"It won't do any good."
"It might. We're still us." He was making the drink and she watched him mechanically as he stirred and then poured into the glasses.
"Put in the garlic olive," she said.
He handed her one of the glasses and lifted his and touched it against hers. "Here s to us.
She poured her glass out on the bar and looked at it flow along the wood. Then she picked up the olive and put it in her mouth. "There isn't any us," she said. "Not anymore.
David took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the bar and made another drink.
"It's all shit," Catherine said. David handed her the drink and she looked at it and then poured it on the bar. David mopped it up again and wrung out his handkerchief. Then he drank his own martini and made two more.
"This one you drink," he said. "Just drink it."
"Just drink," she said. She lifted the glass and said, "Here's to you and your god damned handkerchief."
