The Peter & Charlie Trilogy

by Gordon Merrick

  The tables in front of Lambraiki’s were full. As they approached, he spotted the Varnums and Sid Coleman and his girl and Joe and Lena sitting together. At a table near them, Mike was sitting with the Italian painter, Roberto, and Paul, his Dutch friend. He wondered where Mike had picked them up. He turned away quickly as he caught a glimpse of Pavlo a few tables from them.

  Mike waved. “We’ve saved chairs for you,” he said as they approached. The three men stood for Sarah.

  George remained standing for a moment, exchanging remarks with the group at the next table. He was sorry the Mills-Martins weren’t here. Charlie was always an impressive presence to display to visitors. He was aware of a recently arrived French contingent whom he hadn’t met looking at him and nudging each other. He had been successfully translated into French. A big frog in this little pond. He sat down carefully and braced himself to make small talk with the others. Only a few more hours. Mike would be gone tomorrow. Roberto and Paul immediately began asking questions about Costa. It was apparently the latest sensation, for lack of any more scandalous gossip. Roberto and Paul were inclined to be indignant about his being held.

  “How can they lock him up when they have no evidence?” Paul demanded.

  “They do pretty much what they want to do,” George said indifferently. He wanted a drink. He clapped his hands and ordered for Sarah too when a Lambraiki boy came running.

  “I hear he offered to give Joe’s money back.”

  “Yes. Perhaps that’s the way it’ll be settled. We’ll know in the morning.”

  “Even if he does, can you imagine the police letting him go?” Roberto insisted. “Because he’s had trouble before, they’ll keep him for years. I heard about a case like this in Athens. It was four years while he languished in prison.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about all this?” Mike inquired. “You said you were just going to interpret for an American. I understand you’ve been robbed of seventy thousand drachmas.”

  “By tomorrow, it’ll be a hundred thousand.”

  “What is all this?” Sarah chimed in belatedly. “Costa’s been arrested?”

  George was muddled. Hadn’t he discussed it with Sarah? How had Mike found out about it? Not wanting to be reminded of it, he stated the bare facts to the table in general, not mentioning Jeff. “Joe is certain about Costa,” he concluded. “Otherwise his name wouldn’t have come into it.”

  “Yes, but the police!” Roberto and Paul wouldn’t let it go.

  “It’s not unusual for the police to be called in when there’s been a robbery.”

  “George is a cynic,” Mike said lightly. “If the police abuse their power here you must grin and bear it.”

  “You don’t really know anything about it, Mike,” Sarah said, giving, George thought with a burst of hatred, her usual performance of unshakeable loyalty. “Roberto and Paul are upset because we all like Costa. He hasn’t anything to worry about if he’s innocent.”

  George didn’t want her as an ally. He didn’t want anybody as an ally. He had always been recognized as the final authority on island affairs; he was unused to the criticism implied in Roberto and Paul’s comments. He must set them straight. What about? The drink was beginning to hit him. A moment of concentration. Now then: “That’s not quite true. Ordinarily, he might just be taken off and forgotten about. I won’t let that happen. I’ll see that he’s treated fairly.”

  “Of course, that makes a difference. They’ll pay attention to you,” Paul agreed. George shot him a grateful glance. Drinks arrived and he took a long swallow of his.

  “Big man on island,” Mike said. “I’m amazed they haven’t made you mayor.”

  George wondered if he’d been drinking too. The sneer was undisguised. Well, if that was the way he wanted it. “We can’t all be chums with the President,” he said with a warning edge.

  Roberto and Paul seized on the reference and began questioning Mike about the White House. George finished his drink quickly and ordered another. He was aware that Sarah was trying to catch his eye and he pretended to be following the conversation. A pressure was building up in him that shook him physically. He had to drink it into submission or he would explode with it. Pavlo was sitting only two tables away. Sarah was performing with sickening credibility; it made everything about her false, an affront to all they had ever been to each other. Mike was parading his important connections with graceful modesty and Roberto and Paul were drinking it in. How much more of this was he supposed to take? He looked over heads across the port. The light on the white houses had deepened to a rich copper and seemed to come from within. As he watched, it faded rapidly and the air itself turned gray. He drank.

  “Come on, everybody. Time for another round,” Mike said. “This party is on me.”

  “We must go. We have a date,” Roberto said. Paul finished his drink and the pair rose together. They thanked Mike and drifted off. George wondered who would take their places. There was usually a rush for any empty chairs at his table.

  “I like those two,” Mike said. “Your friend Peter Mills-Martin’s not among us this evening?”

  “I saw him a little while ago. He’ll probably be along.”

  “Roberto and Paul are very nice,” Sarah said. “I feel terribly sorry for them.”

  “Really? They struck me as being quite pleased with themselves.

  “She means because they’re queer,” George said, and then told himself to stay out of it. It was too much like actually speaking to her. Dangerous.

  Mike laughed. “Women can’t stand seeing any man escape their clutches.”

  “Is that all you see in it?” Sarah objected. “I mind for their sakes. They have so much love in them. If it had been channeled in a normal direction, their lives would be so much more complete.”

  “You mean they could have wives and babies?” Mike was laughing at her.

  “Yes, that. And more. All that can exist between a man and a woman that goes beyond just physical coupling.”

  “How do you know it can’t exist between a man and a man?”

  “How can it? There’s none of the natural duality of male and female. It’s all on one note. Can you imagine a whole community of homosexuals?”

  “Certainly. Hollywood. Everybody’s as queer as a toad. Lovely people.”

  “I suppose it’s possible you don’t really know what I’m talking about,” Sarah said, brushing aside his flippancy. “You obviously didn’t find it in your marriages.”

  “You can say that again.”

  George found his hands clenched into fists beneath the table. Physical coupling! There she sat, looking so clean and fastidious, an almost spiritual light shining from her great lovely eyes, talking about the beauty of marriage. He wanted to smash her into the ground, kick her, stamp on her. And Mike too. Smug, flippant, arrogant. He didn’t give a damn about people. That was it—he’d felt it all along but hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself. Total self-absorption.

  “Perhaps we’re talking at cross purposes,” Sarah was saying with the disinterested air of one who seeks enlightenment. “Perhaps you’re trying to tell me that you’re a homosexual, too.”

  Mike laughed comfortably. “My wives would be astonished to hear it. But I like queers. They’re generally fun to be with.”

  “Considering your exalted position,” George broke in, “I should think that might be rather dangerous.”

  “You mean, what will people think? You really are out of touch, Cosmo.” He snapped his fingers at the passing boy and gestured for more drinks. “They’re all over the place these days. I could name you some names that would amaze you. Everybody knows it’s just one maladjustment among others. It’s something for the head shrinkers to work out.”

  “Head shrinkers! Tolerance in the U.S.A. We’re just smearing—smoothing over all distinctions between right and wrong.”

  “You tolerate Roberto and Paul.”

  George took a swallow of his drink. It dribbled over the side an
d he brushed at his chin as he steadied himself against the table. “Not tolerate. I accept Roberto and Paul because they’re two people living decently for each other. I don’t accept the predatory strays who corrupt the locals and consider anybody fair game, including my children.”

  A look of sharpened interest came into Mike’s eyes. He had learned a lot about the Leightons since his swim. George’s drinking was confirming his suspicion that his earlier air of assurance and well-being was an heroic but fragile pretense. “And what about the predatory heterosexuals?” he asked.

  George lurched forward against the table, spilling drinks. “What in hell do you mean by that?” he demanded.

  “Just that.” He was playing his cards with the watchful concentration of a dedicated gambler. “Observation has led me to suspect that marriage doesn’t represent perfection in human relationships. Surely there’s as much hanky-panky going on here as anywhere else.”

  George studied him intently, trying to keep himself steady in his chair. Did he know something? At least Sarah had the good grace to keep quiet. He was conscious of the three empty chairs among them. Why didn’t people come as they always did and put an end to this impossible conversation? Now that it was started he didn’t know how to stop it. “I wonder why you really came here, Mike,” he said musingly, almost to himself.

  Mike seemed to be expecting the question and to welcome it. “That’s a good question. I could have said for old times’ sake and let it go at that, but I’m not much for reviving the dear dead past and all that. Let me see. Possibly in the back of my mind I wanted to know if you’d got hold of something that I’d missed. It’s always interesting to check your own—whatever you want to call it—progress, accomplishment against somebody you more or less started out with. Primarily, a lot of people led me to think I might be able to help you.”

  “Help me?”

  “In the ways we’ve talked about. Get your career back on a working basis. If you decided to come back, I could drop a word in the right quarters. I really do happen to have a good deal of influence. You’d find it pretty rough trying to reestablish yourself on your own. Especially in Hollywood. You’ve got to play hard-to-get before anybody really wants you. That’s where I would come in.”

  George took a long swallow of the fresh drink that had been put before him. The drinks had carried him to another stage. He felt very lucid and detached now, free of the dictates of pride or shame. “Would it make you feel your visit had been worthwhile if I asked you to lend me a thousand dollars?” He was astonished by the words as he heard himself saying them, but they seemed to make complete sense. What a splendid idea. What a simple solution to the money mess.

  Mike straightened himself in his chair as he absorbed the full extent of George’s ruin. The camouflage had fallen apart with a vengeance. Here was the drunken deadbeat he had expected to find. It was rather an anticlimax. “I thought you might be in a financial bind,” he said, all affection and kindliness in the face of George’s abject surrender. “But would a thousand really make much difference?”

  “Oh, I thought I might buy a couple of dogs. Liven the house up a bit.”

  Sarah’s hand was on his arm. “Darling, do you think this is worthwhile when he’s going to be here such a short time?”

  He pulled his arm away. “You stay out of this. We’ll get around to you in a minute.”

  “Now listen——” Mike began to protest, but George lifted his hand.

  “Let’s stick to business, Mike. Well, what do you say, yes or no?”

  “Of course. I assume you mean to come home. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for subsidizing more of—well, more of this.”

  “But we’re not——” Sarah began.

  “I told you to stay out of it,” he snapped without looking at her. “This, did you say, Mike boy? Drunkenness and adultery. Is that what you mean? You don’t have any of that over there in your antiseptic, brainwashed, air-conditioned, all-American hell? No, probably not. You probably have a pill. Anything to dull the pain so you can get on with the serious business of beating up niggers and bombing civilians and making money. Money! There’s the all purpose pill. Well, come on. Let’s get on with it. What about that money?”

  Mike looked slightly pained, but picked up where he had left off. “I’ll tell you what. If you’ll write me a letter outlining an idea for a scenario—it doesn’t matter what it is—we can make it a business deal. I’ll deduct it and you won’t have to think of it as a loan. It’ll be money earned.”

  “All right. Make it two thousand.”

  “The tax people might not go for that much unless I do something with it. Fifteen hundred. There could be more once you’re there.”

  “Deductible. You do me a favor, I do you a favor. We’re both satisfied. How about that, boy? Fifteen hundred bucks for two minutes’ work. I’m still in there fighting. Do you have your checkbook with you?”

  “I do, as a matter of fact. But don’t you want to wait till tomorrow?”

  “No, no. A deal’s a deal. Sign on the dotted line.”

  Mike studied him for a moment, wondering if even now George were playing some sort of complicated joke on him. George faced his scrutiny with a mad grin. Without taking his eyes off him, Mike reached into his pocket for checkbook and pen and then, with a slight shrug, leaned over and wrote out a check. He tore it out and handed it over. George acknowledged it with a bow. He studied it a moment as his expression set and hardened into a look of malevolent fury. He turned to Sarah and shook the check under her nose. “Do you see that? Do you know what that is?” His voice was strangled with rage.

  She drew back and lifted her hands, palms out, as if warding off a blow, and looked at him beseechingly with great liquid eyes. “Please,” she murmured, but it was only a feeble whisper in the storm that was breaking over her.

  “This is a one-way ticket out of here. Single. The children are provided for. You can stay and sleep with every man on the goddamn island. I’m afraid you’ll have to get paid for it. I don’t see where else you’re going to get any money. But whores should get paid. You have every right to demand it.”

  She glanced about her instinctively and then her expression closed in with something very like boredom. “You’ll be sorry for saying these things in front of Mike, let alone anybody else who wants to listen.”

  “Why should Mike care? He’s a whore too. His friends are whores. The whole world is one big goddamn brothel. And now I’m a whore.” He shook the check at her again. “I’m picking up my winnings and walking out. Out, do you understand? You can have the precious island and your pretty boys all to yourself.”

  “That’s enough, George. I’m going now.” She made a move to rise.

  “Sit down,” he roared and heads turned.

  She subsided into her chair. Her hands were trembling and tears were welling up in her eyes, but she managed a tremulous public smile. “Very well, darling. If it helps you to say these things, I’ll try to listen. But maybe Mike would enjoy doing something else.”

  “Don’t you believe it. Let me tell you about Mike. He’s come here to see what a wreck I’ve made of my life and I wouldn’t want to see him go away disappointed. We’ve played our little comedy for him, but it wouldn’t be fair to let him think it had anything to do with real life. I feel it my duty to tell him that that was the first civilized lunch we’ve had since the last time visitors came through and that by evening you’re usually too drunk to know whether there’ll be any dinner.”

  “If this is the moment of truth,” Sarah said in a voice filled with sorrow, “perhaps I ought to tell him why we drink.”

  Although George was looking at her, his rage blinded him so that he was spared any real communication with her. Mike was simply a shape beside him, as impersonal as a priest in a confessional. “Oh, I’ll tell him. It’s because I don’t give you a normal sex life. My problem is that I can’t take infidelity lightly. There’s something about touching a body that somebody else
has——” His voice wavered and broke and he bowed his head over the bottles and glasses on the table. “Oh, shit,” he said.

  “Please, darling. We can’t go on torturing ourselves for something that’s all over and done with. We’ve held onto it long enough. It’s part of the past.”

  His head jerked up and his eyes burned into her without seeing her. “You filthy lying bitch. Go away. Go start on your evening rounds. You might as well get some practice.”

  “I’m sorry, Mike,” Sarah murmured. She pressed a trembling hand to her forehead as if she felt feverish. “You see how it is.”

  “Go, goddamn you.” He kept his voice low so that it came out like the hoarse echo of a shout. “Go before I kill you.”

  As he spoke, all the lights of the port blazed on. They were lifted from intimate dusk and placed on a spotlighted stage. They all blinked.

  “You mustn’t try to order me about, George.” Her poise remained intact and she communicated a sort of bruised valiant dignity. “I wanted to go ten minutes ago, but I stayed because I thought it would help you to get this out of your system, whatever it is.” She was sure he couldn’t know about this afternoon. She may have made some blunder—could he have come back to the house after she left?—that might have aroused his suspicions, but he couldn’t know. For his sake as well as hers, she must do nothing that even hinted at guilt.

  “For the love of God, go,” he said in an agonized whisper, the muscles of his face and neck knotted in an agony of control. “Don’t you see what you’re doing to me? Do you want me to knock you out of your chair in front of everybody?”

  She wasn’t afraid of him. She knew the limits beyond which he would not go. At his most violent, he would never hit her. She finished her drink composedly and picked up her straw bag. “This certainly isn’t very enjoyable for any of us,” she said. “I’ll wait for you at home. Sorry, Mike.” She rose and left.