15

He heard the Bugatti start and the noise came as a surprise and an intrusion because there was no motor noise in the country where he was living. He was completely detached from everything except the story he was writing and he was living in it as he built it. The difficult parts he had dreaded he now faced one after another and as he did the people, the country, the days and the nights, and the weather were all there as he wrote. He went on working and he felt as tired as if he had spent the night crossing the broken volcanic desert and the sun had caught him and the others with the dry gray lakes still ahead. He could feel the weight of the heavy double-barreled rifle carried over his shoulder, his hand on the muzzle, and he tasted the pebble in his mouth. Across the shimmer of the dry lakes he could see the distant blue of the escarpment. Ahead of him there was no one, and behind was the long line of porters who knew that they had reached this point three hours too late.

It was not him, of course, who had stood there that morning; nor had he even worn the patched corduroy jacket faded almost white now, the armpits rotted through by sweat, that he took off then and handed to his Kamba servant and brother who shared with him the guilt and knowledge of the delay, watching him smell the sour, vinegary smell and shake his head in disgust and then grin as he swung the jacket over his black shoulder holding it by the sleeves as they started off across the dry-baked gray, the gun muzzles in their right hands, the barrels balanced on their shoulders, the heavy stocks pointing back toward the line of porters.

It was not him, but as he wrote it was and when someone read it, finally, it would be whoever read it and what they found when they should reach the escarpment, if they reached it, and he would make them reach its base by noon of that day; then whoever read it would find what there was there and have it always.

All your father found he found for you too, he thought, the good, the wonderful, the bad, the very bad, the really very bad, the truly bad and then the much worse. It was a shame a man with such a talent for disaster and for delight should have gone the way he went, he thought. It always made him happy to remember his father and he knew his father would have liked this story.

It was nearly noon when he came out of the room and walked barefoot on the stones of the patio to the entrance of the hotel. In the big room workmen were putting up a mirror on the wall behind the bar. Monsieur Aurol and the young waiter were with them and he spoke to them and went out in the kitchen where he found Madame.

“Have you any beer, Madame?” he asked her.

“Mais certainement, Monsieur Bourne,”she said and brought a cold bottle from the ice chest.

“I’ll drink it from the bottle,” he said.

“As Monsieur wishes,” she said. “The ladies drove to Nice I believe. Monsieur worked well?”

“Very well.”

“Monsieur works too hard. It’s not good not to take breakfast.”

“Is there any of that caviar left in the tin?”

“I’m sure there is.”

“I’ll take a couple of spoonsful.”

“Monsieur is odd,” Madame said. “Yesterday you ate it with champagne. Today with beer.”

“I’m alone today,” David said. “Do you know if my bicyclette is still in theremise ?”

“It should be,” Madame said.

David took a spoonful of the caviar and offered the tin to Madame. “Have some, Madame. It’s very good.”

“I shouldn’t,” she said.

“Don’t be silly,” he told her. “Take some. There’s some toast. Take a glass of champagne. There’s some in the ice box.”

Madame took a spoonful of caviar and put it on a piece of toast left from breakfast and poured herself a glass of rosé.

“It is excellent,” she said. “Now we must put it away.”

“Do you feel any good effect?” David asked. “I’m going to have one more spoon.”

“Ah, Monsieur. You mustn’t joke like that.”

“Why not?” David said. “My joking partners are away. If those two beautiful women come back tell them I went for a swim will you?”

“Certainly. The little one is a beauty. Not as beautiful as Madame of course.”

“I find her not too ugly,” David said.

“She’s a beauty, Monsieur, and very charming.”

“She’ll do until something else comes along,” David said. “If you think she’s pretty.”

“Monsieur,” she said in deepest reproof.

“What are all the architectural reforms?” David asked.

“The newmiroir for the bar? It’s such a charming gift to the maison.”

“Everyone’s full of charm,” David said. “Charm and sturgeon eggs. Ask the boy to look at my tires while I put something on my feet and find a cap, will you please?”

“Monsieur likes to go barefoot. Me too in summer.”

“We’ll go barefoot together sometime.”

“Monsieur,” she said giving it everything.

“Is Aurol jealous?”

“Sans blague,”she said. “I’ll tell the two beautiful ladies you’ve gone swimming.”

“Keep the caviar away from Aurol,” David said.“À bientôt, chère Madame.”

“À tout à l’heure, Monsieur.”

On the shiny black road that mounted through the pines as he left the hotel he felt the pull in his arms and his shoulders and the rounding thrust of his feet against the pedals as he climbed in the hot sun with the smell of the pines and the light breeze that came from the sea. He bent his back forward and pulled lightly against his hands and felt the cadence that had been ragged as he first mounted begin to smooth out as he passed the hundred-meter stones and then the first red-topped kilometer marker and then the second. At the headland the road dipped to border the sea and he braked and dismounted and put the bicycle over his shoulder and walked down with it along the trail to the beach. He propped it against a pine tree that gave off the resin smell of the hot day and he dropped down to the rocks, stripped and put his espadrilles on his shorts, shirt and cap and he dove from the rocks into the deep clear cold sea. He came up through the varying light and when his head came out he shook it to clear his ears and then swam out to sea. He lay on his back and floated and watched the sky and the first white clouds that were coming with the breeze.

He swam back in to the cove finally and climbed up on the dark red rocks and sat there in the sun looking down into the sea. He was happy to be alone and to have finished his work for the day. Then the loneliness he always had after work started and he began to think about the girls and to miss them; not to miss the one nor the other at first, but to miss them both. Then he thought of them, not critically, not as any problem of love or fondness, nor of obligation nor of what had happened or would happen, nor of any problem of conduct now or to come, but simply of how he missed them. He was lonely for them both, alone and together, and he wanted them both.

Sitting in the sun on the rock looking down into the sea, he knew it was wrong to want them both but he did. Nothing with either of those two can end well and neither can you now, he told himself. But do not start blaming who you love nor apportioning blame. It will all be apportioned in due time and not by you.

He looked down into the sea and tried to think clearly what the situation was and it did not work out. The worst was what had happened to Catherine. The next worse was that he had begun to care for the other girl. He did not have to examine his conscience to know that he loved Catherine nor that it was wrong to love two women and that no good could ever come of it. He did not yet know how terrible it could be. He only knew that it had started. The three of you are already enmeshed like three gears that turn a wheel, he told himself and also told himself one gear had been stripped or, at least, badly damaged. He dove deep down into the clear cold water where he missed no one and then came up and shook his head and swam out further and then turned to swim back to the beach.

He dressed, still wet from the sea and put his cap in his pocket, then climbed up to the road with his bicycle and mounted, driving the machine up the short hill feeling the lack of training in his thighs as he pressed the balls of his feet on the pedals with the steady climbing thrust that carried him up the black road as though he and the racing bike were some wheeled animal. Then he coasted down, his hands fingering the brakes, taking the curves fast, dropping down the shiny dark road through the pines, to the turnoff at the back court of the hotel where the sea shone summer blue beyond the trees.

The girls were not back yet and he went into the room and took a shower, changed to a fresh shirt and shorts and came out to the bar with its new and handsome mirror. He called the boy and asked him to bring a lemon, a knife and some ice and showed him how to make a Tom Collins. Then he sat on the bar stool and looked into the mirror as he lifted the tall drink. I do not know if I’d have a drink with you or not if I’d met you four months ago, he thought. The boy brought him theÉclaireur de Nice and he read it while he waited. He had been disappointed not to find the girls returned and he missed them and began to worry.

When they came in, finally, Catherine was very gay and excited and the girl was contrite and very quiet.

“Hello darling,” Catherine said to David. “Oh look at the mirror. They did get it up. It’s a very good one too. It’s awfully critical though. I’ll go in and clean up for lunch. I’m sorry we’re late.”

“We stopped in town and had a drink,” the girl said to David. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”

“A drink?” David said.

The girl held up two fingers. She put her face up and kissed him and was gone. David went back to reading the paper.

When Catherine came out she was wearing the dark blue linen shirt that David liked and slacks and she said, “Darling I hope you’re not cross. It wasn’t really our fault. I saw Jean and I asked him to have a drink with us and he did and was so nice.”

“The coiffeur?”

“Jean. Of course. What other Jean would I know in Cannes?

“He was so nice and he asked about you. Can I have a martini, darling? I’ve only had one.”

“Lunch must be ready by now.”

“Just one, darling. They only have us for lunch.”

David made two martinis taking his time and the girl came in. She was wearing a white sharkskin dress and she looked fresh and cool. “May I have one too, David? It was a very hot day. How was it here?”

“You should have stayed home and looked after him,” Catherine said.

“I got along all right,” David said. “The sea was very good.”

“You use such interesting adjectives,” Catherine said. “They make everything so vivid.”

“Sorry,” David said.

“That’s another dandy word,” Catherine said. “Explain what dandy means to your new girl. It’s an Americanism.”

“I think I know it,” the girl said. “It’s the third word in ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy.’ Don’t please be cross Catherine.”

“I’m not cross,” Catherine said. “But two days ago when you made passes at me it was simply dandy but today if I felt that way the slightest bit you had to act as though I was an I don’t know what.”

“I’m sorry, Catherine,” the girl said.

“Another sorry sorry,” Catherine said. “As though you hadn’t taught me what little I know.”

“Should we have lunch?” David said. “It’s been a hot day Devil, and you’re tired.”

“I’m tired of everybody,” Catherine said. “Please forgive me.”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” the girl said. “I’m sorry I was stuffy. I didn’t come here to be that way.” She walked over to Catherine and kissed her very gently and lightly. “Now be a good girl,” she said. “Should we go to the table?”

“Didn’t we have lunch?” Catherine asked.

“No, Devil,” David said. “We’re going to have lunch now.”

At the end of lunch Catherine who had made sense through nearly all of it except for some absentmindedness said, “Please excuse me but I think I ought to sleep.”

“Let me come with you and see you get to sleep,” the girl said.

“Actually I think I drank too much,” Catherine said.

“I’ll come in and take a nap too,” David said.

“No please David. Come in when I’m asleep if you want,” Catherine said.

In about half an hour the girl came out of the room “She’s all right,” she said. “But we must be careful and good with her and only think about her.”

In the room Catherine was awake when David came in and he went over and sat on the bed.

“I’m not a damned invalid,” she said. “I just drank too much. I know. I’m sorry I lied to you about it. How could I do that, David?”

“You didn’t remember.”

“No. I did it on purpose. Will you take me back? I’m over all the bitchiness.”

“You never were away.”

“If you take me back is all I want. I’ll be your really true girl and really truly be. Would you like that?”

He kissed her.

“Really kiss me.”

“Oh,” she said. “Please be slow.”

They swam at the cove where they had gone the first day. David had planned to send the two girls to swim and then to take the old Isotta down to Cannes to have the brakes fixed and the ignition overhauled. But Catherine had asked him to please swim with them and to do the car the next day and she seemed so happy and sound and cheerful again after her nap and Marita had said very seriously, “Will you please come?” So he had driven them to the turnout for the cove and shown them both on the way how dangerously the brakes were working.

“You’d kill yourself with this car,” he told Marita. “It’s a crime to drive it the way it is.”

“Had I ought to get a new one?” she asked.

“Christ no. Just let me fix the brakes to start with.”

“We need a larger car with room for all of us,” Catherine said.

“This is a fine car,” David said. “It just needs a hell of a lot of work done on it. But it’s too much car for you.”

“You see if they can fix it properly,” the girl said. “If they can’t we’ll get the type of car you want.”

Then they were tanning on the beach and David said lazily, “Come in and swim.”

“Pour some water on my head,” Catherine said. “I brought a sand bucket in the rucksack.”

“Oh that feels wonderful,” she said. “Could I have one more? Pour it on my face too.”

She lay on the hard beach on her white robe in the sun and David and the girl swam out to sea and around the rocks at the mouth of the cove. The girl was swimming ahead and David overhauled her. He reached out and grabbed a foot and then held her close in his arms and kissed her as they treaded water. She felt slippery and strange in the water and they seemed the same height as they treaded water with their bodies close together and kissed. Then her head went under and he leaned back and she came up laughing and shaking her head that was sleek as a seal, and she brought her lips against his again and they kissed until they both went under. They lay side by side and floated and touched and then kissed hard and happily and went under again.

“I don’t worry about anything now,” she said, when they came up again. “You mustn’t either.”

“I won’t,” he said and they swam in.

“You better go in, Devil,” he said to Catherine. “Your head will get too hot.”

“All right. Let’s go in,” she said. “Let Heiress darken now. Let me put some oil on her.”

“Not too much,” the girl said. “May I have a pail of water on my head too?”

“Your head’s as wet as it can get,” Catherine said.

“I just wanted to feel it,” the girl said.

“Wade out, David, and get a good cold one,” Catherine said. And after he had poured the clear cool sea water on Marita’s head they left her lying with her face on her arms and swam out to sea. They floated easily like sea animals and Catherine said, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I wasn’t crazy?”

“You’re not crazy.”

“Not this afternoon,” she said. “Anyway not so far. Can we swim further?”

“We’re pretty well out, Devil.”

“All right. Let’s swim back in. But the deep water’s beautiful out here.”

“Do you want to swim down once before we go in?”

“Just once,” she said. “In this very deep part.”

“We’ll swim down until we just can make it up.”