Islands in the Stream (39 page)

“That was the most intelligent and stupid lesson I learned. Reteach it to me a little now.”

“Do I have to?”

“No. It is only eight minutes now.”

“Will it be a nice place and will the bed be big?”

“We will have to see,” Thomas Hudson said. “Are you starting to have your old doubts already?”

“No,” she said. “I want a big, big bed. To forget all about the army.”

“There is a big bed,” he said. “Maybe not as big as the army.”

“You don’t have to be rough,” she said. “All the beautiful ones end up showing pictures of their wives. You should know the Airbornes.”

“I’m glad I don’t. We’re a little waterlogged. But we were never waterborne nor said so.”

“Can you tell me anything about it?” she asked him, her hand now soundly in his pocket.

“No.”

“You never would and I love you for it. But I get curious and people ask me and I worry.”

“Just be curious,” he said. “And never worry. Don’t you remember that curiosity killed a cat? I’ve got a cat and he’s curious enough.” He thought of Boise. Then he said, “But worry kills big businessmen right in their prime. Do I have to worry about you?”

“Only as an actress. Then not too much. Now it’s only two minutes more. It’s nice country now and I like it. Can we have lunch in bed?”

“Can we go to sleep then, too?”

“Yes. It’s not a sin, if we don’t miss the plane.”

The car climbed steeply now on the old stone-paved road with the big trees on either side.

“Have you anything to miss?”

“You,” he said.

“I mean duty.”

“Did I look as though I were on duty?”

“You might be. You’re a wonderful actor. The worst I ever saw. I love you, my dear crazy,” she said. “I’ve seen you play all your great roles. The one I loved you the best in was when you were playing the Faithful Husband and you were doing it so wonderfully and there was a big spot of natural juices showed on your trousers and every time you looked at me it was bigger. That was in the Ritz, I think.”

“That was where I played the Faithful Husband best,” he said. “Like Garrick at the Old Bailey.”

“You’re a little confused,” she said. “I think you played it best on the
Normandie
.”

“When they burned her I didn’t give a damn about anything for six days.”

“That’s not your record.”

“No,” he said.

They were stopped at the gate now and the chauffeur was unlocking it.

“Do we really live here?”

“Yes. Up the hill. I’m sorry the drive’s in such bad shape.”

The car climbed it through the mango trees and the unflowering
flamboyanes
, turned past the cattle sheds and on up the circular drive to the house. He opened the door of the car and she stepped out as though conferring a warm and generous favor to the ground.

She looked at the house and could see the open windows of the bedroom. They were big windows and in some way it reminded her of the
Normandie
.

“I’ll miss the plane,” she said. “Why can’t I be ill? All the other women are ill.”

“I know two good doctors that will swear you are.”

“Wonderful,” she said, going up the stairs. “We won’t have to ask them to dinner, will we?”

“No,” he said, opening the door, “I’ll call them up and send the chauffeur for the certificates.”

“I am ill,” she said. “I’ve decided. Let the troops entertain themselves for once.”

“You’ll go.”

“No. I’m going to entertain you. Have you been entertained properly lately?”

“No.”

“Me either, or is it neither?”

“I don’t know,” he said and held her close and looked in her eyes and then away. He opened the door to the big bedroom. “It’s neither,” he said reflectively.

The windows were open and the wind was in the room. But it was pleasant now with the sun.

“It
is
like the
Normandie.
Did you make it like the
Normandie
for me?”

“Of course, darling,” he lied. “What did you think?”

“You’re a worse liar than I am.”

“I’m not even faster.”

“Let’s not lie. Let’s pretend you made it for me.”

“I made it for you,” he said. “Only it looked like someone else.”

“Is that as hard as you can hold anyone?”

“Without breaking them.” Then he said, “Without lying down.”

“Who is against lying down?”

“Not me,” he said and picked her up and carried her to the bed.

“Let me drop the jalousie. I don’t mind your entertaining the troops. But we have a radio that entertains the kitchen. They don’t need us.”

“Now,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Now remember everything I ever taught you.”

“Aren’t I?”

“Now and then.”

“Then,” he said. “Where did we know him?”

“We met him. Don’t you remember?”

“Look, let’s not remember anything and let’s not talk and let’s not talk and let’s not talk.”

Afterwards she said, “People used to get hungry even on the
Normandie
.”

“I’ll ring for the steward.”

“But this steward doesn’t know us.”

“He will.”

“No. Let’s go out and see the house. What have you painted?”

“What all nothing.”

“Don’t you have time?”

“What do you think?”

“But couldn’t you when you’re ashore?”

“What do you mean ashore?”

“Tom,” she said. They were in the living room now in the big old chairs and she had taken her shoes off to feel the matting on the floor. She sat curled in the chair and she had brushed her hair to please him, and because of what she knew it did to him, and she sat so it swung like a heavy silken load when her head moved.

“Damn you,” he said. “Darling,” he added.

“You damned me enough,” she said.

“Let’s not talk about it.”

“Why did you marry her, Tom?”

“Because you were in love.”

“It wasn’t a very good reason.”

“Nobody ever said it was. Especially not me. But I don’t have to make my errors and repent of them and then discuss them, do I?”

“If I want you to.”

The big black and white cat had come in and he rubbed against her leg.

“He’s got us mixed up,” Thomas Hudson said. “Or maybe he’s getting good sense.”

“It couldn’t be—?”

“Sure. Of course. Boy,” he called.

The cat came over to him and jumped into his lap. It did not matter which one it was.

“We might as well both love her, Boy. Take a good look at her. You’ll never see any more womens like that.”

“Is he the one you sleep with?”

“Yes. Is there any reason why I shouldn’t?”

“None. I like him better than the man I sleep with now and he’s just about as sad.”

“Do we have to talk about him?”

“No. And you don’t have to pretend you haven’t been at sea when your eyes are burned and there are white slit marks in the corners of them and your hair is as sun-streaked as though you used something on it—”

“And I walk with a rolling gait and carry a parrot on my shoulder and hit people with my wooden leg. Look, darling, I go to sea occasionally because I am a painter of marine life for the Museum of Natural History. Not even war must interfere with our studies.”

“They are sacred,” she said. “I’ll remember that lie and stick with it. Tom, you truly don’t care for her at all?”

“Not at all.”

“You still love me?”

“Didn’t I give any signs of it?”

“It could have been a role. The one of the always faithful lover no matter what whores I find you with. Thee hasn’t been faithful to me, Cynara, in thy fashion.”

“I always told you that you were too literate for your own good. I was through with that poem when I was nineteen.”

“Yes, and I always told you that if you would paint and work at it as you should, instead of making fantasies and falling in love with other people—”

“Marrying them, you mean.”

“No. Marrying them is bad enough. But you fall in love with them and then I don’t respect you.”

“That’s that old lovely one I remember. ‘And then I don’t respect you.’ I’ll buy that one at any price you put on it and take it out of circulation.”

“I respect you. And you don’t love her, do you?”

“I love you and respect you and I don’t love her.”

“That’s wonderful. I’m so glad I’m so ill and that I missed the plane.”

“I really do respect you, you know, and I respect every damned fool thing you do or did.”

“And you treat me wonderfully and keep all your promises.”

“What was the last one?”

“I don’t know. If it was a promise you broke it.”

“Would you want to skip it, beauty?”

“I’d like to have skipped it.”

“Maybe we could. We skipped most things.”

“No. That’s untrue. There’s visible evidence on that. But you think making love to a woman is enough. You never think about her wanting to be proud of you. Nor about small tendernesses.”

“Nor about being a baby like the men you love and care for.”

“Couldn’t you be more needing and make me necessary and not be so damned give it and take it and take it away I’m not hungry.”

“What did we come out here for? Moral lectures?”

“We came out here because I love you and I want you to be worthy of yourself.”

“And of you and God and all other abstractions. I’m not even an abstract painter. You’d have asked Toulouse-Lautrec to keep away from brothels and Gauguin not to get the syphilis and Baudelaire to get home early. I’m not as good as they were but the hell with you.”

“I never was like that.”

“Sure you were. Along with your work. Your goddam hours of work.”

“I would have given it up.”

“Sure, I know you would. And sung in night clubs and I could be the bouncer. Do you remember when we planned that?”

“What have you heard from Tom?”

“He’s fine,” the man said and felt the strange prickling go over his skin.

“He hasn’t written me in three weeks. You’d think he’d write his mother. He always was so good about writing.”

“You know how it is with kids in a war. Or maybe they’re holding up all mail. Sometimes they do.”

“Do you remember when he couldn’t speak any English?”

“And he had his gang at Gstaad? And up in the Engadine and at Zug?”

“Do you have any new pictures of him?”

“Only that one you have.”

“Could we have a drink? What do you drink here?”

“Anything you want. I’ll go and find the boy. The wine is in the cellar.”

“Please don’t be gone long.”

“That’s a funny thing to say to each other.”

“Please don’t be gone long,” she repeated. “Did you hear it? And I never asked you to get in early. That wasn’t the trouble and you know it.”

“I know it,” he said. “And I won’t be gone long.”

“Maybe the boy could make something to eat, too.”

“Maybe he could,” Thomas Hudson said. Then to the cat, “You stay with her, Boise.”

Now, he thought. Why did I say that? Why did I lie? Why did I do that breaking it gently thing? Did I want to keep my grief for myself, as Willie said? Am I that sort of guy?

Well, you did it, he thought. How did you tell a mother that her boy is dead when you’ve just made love to her again? How do you tell yourself your boy is dead? You used to know all the answers. Answer me that.

There aren’t any answers. You should know that by now. There aren’t any answers at all.

“Tom,” her voice called. “I’m lonely and the cat isn’t you, even though he thinks he is.”

“Put him on the floor. The boy’s gone to the village and I’m getting ice.”

“I don’t care about the drink.”

“Neither do I,” he said and came back into the room walking on the tiled floor until he felt the matting. He looked at her and she was still there.

“You don’t want to talk about him,” she said.

“No.”

“Why? I think it’s better.”

“He looks too much like you.”

“That isn’t it,” she said. “Tell me. Is he dead?”

“Sure.”

“Please hold me tight. I
am
ill now.” He felt her shaking and he knelt by the chair and held her and felt her tremble. Then she said, “And poor you. Poor, poor you.”

After a time she said, “I’m sorry for everything I ever did or said.”

“Me, too.”

“Poor you and poor me.”

“Poor everybody,” he said and did not add, “Poor Tom.”

“What can you tell me?”

“Nothing. Just that.”

“I suppose we’ll learn how to take it.”

“Maybe.”

“I wish I could break down but I’m just hollow sick.”

“I know.”

“Does it happen to everybody?”

“I suppose so. Anyway it can only happen to us once.”

“And now it’s like in a house of the dead.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when I saw you.”

“That’s all right,” she said. “You always put things off. I’m not sorry.”

“I wanted you so damned much and I was selfish and stupid.”

“You weren’t selfish. We always loved each other. We only made mistakes.”

“I made the worst ones.”

“No. We both made them. Let’s not fight any more ever, though.” Something was happening to her and then finally she cried and said, “Oh, Tommy, all of a sudden I just can’t stand it.”

“I know,” he said. “My sweet good lovely beauty. I can’t stand it either.”

“We were so young and stupid and we were both beautiful and Tommy was so damned beautiful—”

“Like his mother.”

“And now there’ll never be any visible evidence.”

“My poor dearest love.”

“And what will we do?”

“You do what you’re doing and I’ll do what I’m doing.”

“Couldn’t we be together for a while?”

“Only if this wind keeps up.”

“Then let it blow. Do you think making love is wicked?”

“I don’t think Tom would disapprove.”

“No. Surely no.”

“Do you remember skiing with him on your shoulders and how we’d sing coming down through the orchard behind the inn in the dusk?”

“I remember everything.”

“So do I,” she said. “And why were we so stupid?”

“We were rivals as well as lovers.”

“I know it and we shouldn’t have been. But you don’t love anyone else, do you? Now that that’s all we have?”