“Suffering snakes!” he exclaimed. “You’ve half killed him,” and he burst out laughing.
“Throw him out,” Eve said viciously.
“I’ll throw him out,” Barrow grinned, folding his fist in my shirt front. He jerked me towards him. “Remember me?” he demanded, his coarse face close to mine. “I haven’t forgotten you. Come on, you’re going for a little walk.”
He shoved me into the passage. At the front door, I tried to break away, but he was too strong. We struggled for a moment, then as he forced me out of the house, I glanced back at Eve. She stood in the lighted doorway and stared fixedly at me. I can see her now. She had pulled her blue dressing gown tightly round her and her arms were folded across her flat breasts. Her face was wooden. Her eyes were wide and glittering and her mouth was set in a hard thin line. As our eyes met she tossed up her head in an arrogant gesture of triumph. Then Barrow shoved me into the street and that was the last I ever saw of her.
“Now, you masher,” Barrow said, showing his short yellow teeth. “Maybe you’ll leave her alone.” He drew back his fist and hit me in the face.
I sprawled in the gutter and lay there.
He bent over me. “I owe you that,” he said, “and I owe you something else.” He dropped a hundred dollar bill and a ten dollar bill in the gutter beside me.
I watched him walk down the path and into the house. Then the front door slammed behind him.
As I reached for the notes, John Coulson burst out laughing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A STORY never ends.
You throw a stone into a pond and in a few seconds it has disappeared. But that is not the end of it. Your action affects the surface of the pond and circular ripples begin to form at the point where the stone has hit the water. These ripples gradually widen until the whole surface of the pond is in gentle motion. It takes a long time for the pond to become still again.
I sit at my typewriter in my shabby room and look out of my window at the water-front of this small Pacific coast town. Russell is waiting patiently for me to begin the day’s work, but today, I am in no hurry to join him.
We have a boat and for the past year we have taken hundreds of tourists to the chain of small islands that skirt this Pacific coast-line. I run the boat and Russell sits in the bows and tells the tourists stories of gun runners and Chink smugglers who used these islands many years ago. The tourists seem to like Russell and he, in his turn, seems to like them. Personally I hate their stupid sheep-like faces and the sound of their strident voices, but as I remain on the bridge during the trips I do not have any contract with them.
We do not make a great deal of money, but we get along all right. Russell is very thrifty and has already put enough by to see us through the slack season.
No one has ever heard of me in this town. My name means nothing to the tourists, but perhaps if this book is ever published, I will see my name in print again. Oddly enough I do not mind being a nobody. I did at first, but as time passed I realized that I would not have to worry about writing a new novel or a play. I would have no bills to pay and I would not have to entertain and do the hundred and one things that a celebrity has to do. I was now free of all that and, although I missed some of the trappings of fame, I decided that I was happier as a nobody.
I don’t know what I should have done without Russell. I owe everything to him. It was he who found me, half-crazed, lying in the gutter outside Eve’s house. I was lost and if he had not come along at that crucial moment I believe that I would have taken my life.
It was Russell who had bought the boat. It was a fine thirty- foot job fitted with a hundred horse Kermath. He bought it with his savings. I did not like his buying it, but it either meant that or starving. So I let him buy it.
At first, I thought it was a crazy idea, but Russell had it all worked out. He said that an out-door life would put me on my feet again, and besides, he liked an out-door life himself.
At that time I did not care what happened to me, but I felt I had to point out that he was sinking his money in a forlorn hope, but he just let his eyebrows crawl up his forehead which was as good as saying, “wait and see’.
I was much more enthusiastic, however, when we went down to the harbour and inspected the boat. Although Russell had paid for it out of his own pocket, he managed to make me feel that I had as big a share in it as he had. Although we were now no longer master and servant, it seemed only right that I should be the captain and he should be the mate.
We had only one awkward moment before we settled down to our new roles. It happened when we decided to re-name the boat. I said right away that we should call it “Eve’. I pointed out that the tourists would remember a name like that and since it did have rather a wicked flavour they would even gain some harmless amusement from it. Anyway that’s how I put it to him.
But Russell would not hear of it. I had never known him to be obstinate before and after trying to persuade him for some time, I finally lost my temper and told him he could call the boat anything he damn well pleased.
When I went down to the harbour the next morning, I found a sign writer had put Carol’s name on the stern of the boat in red, two-inch high letters. I stood looking at her name for several seconds and then I went to the end of the deserted jetty and sat with my back to the waterfront and looked out at the Pacific.
It was nearly an hour later when Russell joined me. I told him that he was right about naming the boat after Carol. He didn’t say anything but from that moment we got along fine together.
Well, that’s how it is with me. I don’t know how long it’ll last. I don’t know if this book is going to be a success or not. If it is, I might go back to Hollywood. Without Carol I know Hollywood would be an unfriendly place. I don’t know whether I could face it again. Carol’s death has strangely affected me. It is only now that I realize how much she really meant to me. It is so often the case that the thing you value most in life is not appreciated until you lose it. By losing Carol I found myself and I feel that I can face up to my future with confidence, knowing that Carol’s influence will always be with me.
Although it is now two years since I last saw Eve, I still think of her. Not long ago I had a sudden desire to find out what had happened to her. I had no intentions of renewing our acquaintanceship, but I did want to satisfy my curiosity and to discover, if I could, how she had fared during the past two years.
I found the little house on Laurel Canyon Drive empty. The windows were uncurtained and the garden was a wilderness; that furniture that I had come so used to seeing had vanished.
The people next door could not tell me where Eve had gone. The woman who came to the door smiled in a superior, secretive way. “A midnight .flit,” she explained, “and about time too. No, I don’t know where she’s gone. I don’t care. Good riddance, I say. I shouldn’t be surprised if the police weren’t looking for her. Anyway she’s gone. We don’t want her sort in this road, thank you.”
I have no means now of finding Eve. It is a pity. I would like to keep in touch with her, without her knowing, of course, since I couldn’t imagine what her end will be. Will she give up her profession? Will she go back to Charlie Gibbs? Or will she hang on until she becomes just another worn out, drink sodden hag hopelessly plying for hire on the streets? I don’t know.
Perhaps one day we will meet again; although I feel that it is not likely. If she is in trouble with the police she will change her name and vanish from her usual haunts.
It was only recently I picked up a copy of Voltaire’s Candide and found in it some lines that seemed appropriate not only to Eve’s future but to the future of that regiment of women who follow a profession which occupies a definite place in our present society.
I was obliged to continue that abominable trade which you men think so pleasing, but which to us unhappy creatures, is the most dreadful of all sufferings. Ah, sir, did you but know what it is to be obliged to lie with every fellow; with old tradesmen with cou
nsellors, with monks, watermen, and abbes; to be exposed to all their insolence and abuse; to be robbed by one gallant of what we get from another; to be subject to the extortions of civil magistrates; and to have for ever before one’s eyes the prospect of old age, an hospital, or a dunghill, you would conclude that I am one of the most unhappy wretches breathing.
As I say, I don’t know. I feel that Eve’s destiny is largely in her own hands. She is not a weak woman and I feel hopeful that a time will come when she will face up to her future as I am facing up to mine. I should not like to be far away when that happens.
I have often wondered why I did not succeed in gaining her confidence. I now realize that it was too much to expect that I would ever gain her affection, but I should at least have gained her confidence. I have always believed in the theory that a woman’s emotions can hold out only for so long against the impact of a man’s mind. But, obviously, Eve was no ordinary woman. Perhaps I had been over anxious. Perhaps I gave up too soon. I don’t know. It was a difficult task not only because Eve knew every move in the game, but because the line that divides loathing and loving in a woman’s heart is very fine. I may have had too clumsy a touch.
Now that I can look back in our association over a bridge of two years, I can say that although she caused me much pain and bitterness, it was an experience that I would not have missed.
Our week-end together was in itself an intense physical impact that few men have experienced. And I do believe that she enjoyed it as much as I did. But I made the mistake of continuing our association when I should have seen her no more after that week-end.
But why go on? I have gained experience from the past and I must prepare for the future. I must stop now. Russell is looking anxiously up at my window. I can see the sun catching the glass of his watch which he holds in his hand. Already Carol has her full complement of tourists. They are waiting for me.
The End
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Document ID: 242cefcd-c9e4-4520-954d-617246e9778c
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Document creation date: 27.8.2013
Created using: calibre 1.0.0, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software
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James Hadley Chase
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