When dinner was announced Norman lined up with the others at the long oak table, and filled a plate with lobster and rice, a slice of smoked turkey, and another slice from a bright red roast beef. Tom Tilson, on the line right behind Norman, walked with him to the terrace rail, and they sat together and began to eat.
"What a magnificent place they have here," Norman said.
"Ya-a-as." Tilson wrinkled up his face at Norman. "No doubt this is also what you had in mind when you moved to the Caribbean. Only to have this you need to be a Campbell of the Columbus, Ohio, Campbells. You've heard of Campbell Ball Bearings?"
"Of course."
"I like your Reef better, anyway. You've got the town view and the lights at night. Freddy's got nothing out front but sand and ocean. He has to take to the hills if there's a hurricane. When the wind's wrong the seaweed drifts in thick, the beach gets disgusting, and the flies can carry you off. Then he needs a squad of gardeners to clean up. Of course, it's nothing to Freddy. Campbell Ball Bearings pays him a quarter million a year just to stay the hell away from Columbus, Ohio. He's an awfully decent boy, Freddy, but not bright."
"I had an idea Amy Ball was rich, too," Norman said, "and now she tells me she's broke."
Tilson said, "Hah!" and ate a large bite of roast beef. "Amy's going to take a while building up enough cash for her next foolishness, that's all. Her husband left her a bundle, but it's in a trust, and all she gets is the income, though she's had half the lawyers in London try to bust through to that capital. -Amy! Sit down, old girl. Tell us more about that utter bastard."
Mrs. Ball giggled and sat in a chair facing them. "You know, it's the most marvelous relief to cry on people's shoulders? I think if I tell it about four more times it's going to start seeming funny to me, and then I'll be fine." She ate some food voraciously. "I want to know what's going on at the Reef. Is Hippolyte really as clever as ever? That man knows every inch of the Club, Norman, every wire and valve and hole and conduit. Why, he is the Club. He's its soul. Don't laugh. Something went out of the Club when that utter bastard fired him, just because Hippolyte took one teeny swipe at him with a cutlash."
"That wouldn't bother me in the least," Paperman said. "Hippolyte can do no wrong, and I don't care how many headless policemen I find on my lawn."
"It's all nonsense," Tilson said. "Hippolyte Lamartine is a fair maintenance and construction man. In the United States there are twenty million of them. It's just that he's on Kinja. By contrast with what's available here, he looks as though he's jetting around with flames shooting out of his behind."
"Never mind, you stick to him," Mrs. Ball said to Norman. "He's docile as a schoolgirl if you just let him have his way. What I want to know is"-here she dropped her voice-"how about lovely Iris? How is she?"
"She's fine," Paperman said.
"Dear Iris. She's such a sweet thing, and she's so attractive, isn't she, Norman?" Mrs. Ball gave a loud sigh, and smiled, and stopped smiling, and smiled again. "It's such a pity about her. Isn't it, Tom?"
"Well, we're all peculiar here, Amy, and one peculiarity's as good or as bad as another. Talk doesn't help."
"Yes, but such a lovely woman, and an actual film star once, and still very pretty, actually-I mean don't you think it's sad, Norman?"
Paperman knew that this was his chance to find out whatever there was to know about Iris Tramm. The drunken woman was pushing him to ask one question; then would come the spill. He was about to ask the question (though ashamed of doing so) when a crowd of youngsters came cascading on the terrace with a great noise. Giggling, whispering, chirping, shouting, they swarmed up to the buffet. Most of them were girls, in yellow, white, and pink; some in flounced dresses, some in narrow pants that were mere stretched films over their blossoming be-hinds. They had three baby-faced boys with them, all over six feet tall, in dark suits with absurdly short trousers, and great growths of hair. These girls were the Sand Witches, Norman perceived, a bit the worse for their evening hairdos, but still unquenchably pretty with the prettiness of seventeen. Amy Ball leaped up when she saw them. "Great day, just look at those children! Aren't those the Sand Witches? Isn't that Maude Campbell? Why she's a woman, and a year ago she was an infant. Maude! Don't you remember your Aunt Amy? And isn't that Gloria Collins?" Mrs. Ball strode to the youngsters, and they swirled around, hugging her.
"The children's hour," Tilson said, flipping his cigarette stub from his holder to the sand below. "Bedtime for me, Paperman."
"I'll go too." Paperman put his plate down hastily. He made his farewells to Mrs. Campbell. She briefly expressed her desolation at his having to leave, and turned back to her little knot of gossipers. Norman was halfway up the wide stairway when he heard a voice from below, "Norman! Norman, love! Do wait up, there's a dear," and Amy Ball mounted the stairs on a rather weaving course. "Love, I abhor talking business at a party, but I'm so glad Bunny asked you, because there is just this one teeny thing."
"Perfectly all right."
"It's those silly old promissory notes, lover. I'm such a boob about money, but as I recall they're dated so that you don't start paying them till you've retired the bank loan, and that'll be a couple of years at least. Am I right?"
"Yes, Amy."
"Well, the point is, lover," said Amy, snuggling his arm to hers and teetering so that Paperman had to brace himself to keep from toppling down the stairs with her, "the point is, lover, two years from now I may be dead, do you know what I mean? Or you may be, or the nasty old Russkis may have blown the world to smithereens. You know? I mean ten or fifteen thousand dollars cash" would look a hell of a lot better to me right now than some silly little bits of paper that promise thirty-five thousand after I'm dead."
Paperman had drunk very little; and though he was no businessman, he realized that here was a sudden chance to cut the price of the Gull Reef Club almost in half. He also perceived why he had been invited to Broadstairs. "Well, Amy, that's something I have to think about."
"Of course, darling. I just want you to give it some thought, you and that enchanting man, Mr. Hercules, the one who was on the Time cover-"
"Atlas, you mean."
Mrs. Ball swayed and laughed. "Of course. Atlas. What did I say, Hercules'? How silly of me. Anyway I absolutely adored him he's so clever, and if you and he are interested in that notion, well, so am I, love. Good night."
Chapter Twelve
Dingley Dell
1
Norman and Iris set out for Big Dog in high spirits, at seven in the morning of a perfect day. Norman was almost prancing in his eagerness for the promised delights of Dingley Dell. They loaded the catamaran, hoisted sail, and skimmed out of the harbor, running before a fresh north breeze.
While they sailed down the south shore of Amerigo, the catamaran went like a train through calm green waters. But at Hog Point, the western end of the island, they saw swells from the north rolling by, throwing up thirty-foot showers of spray on the naked red spires of rock. As they passed the point, the catamaran picked up speed and began to toss in the wind and swells. Coming about was an ordeal; the two-hulled craft wallowed, the sails rattled and flapped, and waves broke over Iris, Norman, and the picnic hampers. But the water was warm, and they laughed off the soaking. They were in swimsuits, and getting drenched was part of the fun. Iris doubled the point with Norman's awkward help, and the catamaran went foaming and hissing up the north shore, over a heaving blue sea. The speed was good, but they were making little way toward Big Dog, though as close-hauled as possible.
There the island sat, green and beckoning in the morning sunlight, due northeast, and straight from there the wind blew. Iris tacked again and again, losing some of her good spirits each time she had to bring the catamaran about, and gradually disclosing a rich store of obscene imprecations, mostly heaped on the unlucky direction of the wind. At the end of several hours of this, the orange blossoms of Dingley Dell remained three good open sea miles away, straight to windward. The sun was high and blistering
. The wind, grown stronger, was clipping whitecaps and plumes of spray from the dark blue swells. Norman and Iris were so wet they might as well have been swimming to Big Dog.
Trying to come about once again, Iris slipped and fell on the pitching deck, and the free-swinging boom hit her head. She lay there swearing till she was breathless. Then she took another breath and bellowed over the flapping of the sail and the slosh of the waves, "This was the dumbest idea I've ever had! Screw Dingley Dell, Norm! I can't make it. I'm sorry."
"Whatever you say, Iris."
Norman was relieved when she quit. In theory love-making in Dingley Dell (which he had counted on as part of the picnic menu) was worth any hardship. But in fact he was soaked, burned, chilled, and a bit seasick; and also scared, out there in the wild sea, in a balky boat with an angry, exhausted woman.
One extended run to the west, and they sailed into the quiet lee of the south shore, dripping sea water, grumpy, silent. It was a straight long slow sail back. As they turned into the harbor, the noon whistle blew from the fort. They unloaded the hampers, the snorkeling gear, the sodden blankets, towels, and clothes, and they brought everything to Iris's cottage.
"Let's see what we can salvage," she said, ripping open a hamper. "We'll have our picnic down on my beach."
But though she had wrapped the lunch in a waterproof cloth, the sea had gotten in. The food was a gluey mess of salt water, bread, vegetables, and meat tumbled together, unfit even for Meadows. Iris dug down farther, saying "Hell, let's drink the martinis anyway," but she stopped with a cry of pain, pulled out a bleeding thumb, and sucked it. The glass jar of martinis had broken.
She and Norman were standing in her kitchenette, in their damp swimsuits, their skins dry, burned an angry pink and crusted with salt. Norman's hair hung on his forehead in salt-stiffened gray ringlets exposing the bare place on the crown of his head. "Oh damn!" She sounded as though she would weep, though her eyes were bright and she was even smiling a little, as she watched blood well from her finger. "This does it, Norman. Doesn't it? A stinking, total, unmitigated bitch-up, complete with spilled blood. And I thought it would be one of the nicest days of my life. Wait a minute while I bind up my wound."
She went into her bathroom. Norman dropped on her divan, his bare white-crusted shoulders slumped, his chin dropping on his chest. Soon she came out in her pink robe, securing a Band-Aid on her thumb. She glanced at a round mirror on the wall. "Look at me, will you? The daughter of Dracula, to the life." She made comic fangs of her teeth, and said to Norman's reflection in the mirror, "Poor Norman Paperman. A little whipped down too, no doubt."
"I'll be fine," he said. "All I need is a shower and something to eat."
She turned and came to him. "Take your shower here. I'll fix you something."
"Thanks, Iris. I need clothes and all. I'll drag myself up to my room."
He stood, and since she was so close to him, he put his arms around her. She embraced him willingly enough. "Honey, I'm so sorry about the disaster. It was that damned north wind. A cat just won't beat to windward. We should have taken a motorboat, after all."
"It was fun, Iris. It was an adventure."
"Oh, sure. But this isn't exactly Dingley Dell, is it?"
"Why, no. But it would do."
"Do, dear?"
"Yes, do." He did his best to produce an eager smile, and he kissed her. There they stood, to a certain extent holding each other up, and kissing. They were both very tired.
Iris took her palm from his naked back, and licked it. "Jesus, Norman you taste like a pretzel," she said. "Go take your shower."
"What about you?"
"Well, I'm for a long sleep. Then I'll try to put the old hulk back together again. I may actually fail this time, and they'll just find the pieces scattered around the bathroom."
"You're having dinner with me tonight," Norman said wearily but firmly. "If you have any business or other mysterious shenanigans, they're cancelled. You're dining with me. Understand?"
Her eyes lit up with affectionate mockery. "Why precious, you're so masterful. I'm not doing a thing. I'd love to have a nice date with you. They say Hogan's Fancy has a new French cook who's marvelous. I find it hard to believe, but shall we try?"
"Dinner at Hogan's Fancy it is," Norman said. "And then a long, memorable night of it. We are going to paint Kinja red."
He staggered out.
2
Despite its tiny bathless rooms and its pervading moss, mildew, and rats, even Hogan's Fancy was crowded at this time of the year. All the tables of the terrace were taken, and guests lined the ornamental iron rail, watching the sun go down. Gilbert, in a new white mess-jacket and satin-striped black trousers, came out from behind the bar to greet Norman and Iris, laughing and offering his hand. He placed them by the rail at a small wrought-iron table, brought in a hurry by two colored waiters, with chairs. Gilbert didn't touch these objects, but he minutely supervised their placing, glancing at Norman in open pride of executive status. "No, mon, not dah, dey can't see nuttin' fum dah, mon, put it hyah-dat bettah, mon-yazzuh, Mistuh Papuh, I does miss de Reef. Aha udune nassaba dungda." Paperman noted with pleasure that his ear for Calypso was improving. He could transpose readily: "I hear you're doing not so bad down there."
"Not so bad, Gilbert. We'd do better if you'd come back."
Gilbert laughed and laughed, slapping his hands together. "You does have Hippolyte now. He okay 'cep' when he fonny."
He took their order and went back to the bar, still laughing. The lawyer Collins now appeared in brown Bermuda shorts, brown knee stockings, and a butter-yellow jacket with a sort of green leprosy all over it. "Hello there, stranger!" he bawled, treating Paperman to a bear hug and a strange whiff of a masculine perfume with a name like Brawn or Thuggee, which Paperman particularly detested. "You've really picked the evening for it. Look at that horizon! A razor edge. It's that north wind that's been blowing all day. You'll see a green flash to end all green flashes. Say, do you realize you're about to get some competition?" He pulled up a chair and sat, his huge jaw dropped, his eyes popped in a sly, glassy grin, his tongue stuck far out.
"Competition?"
"You know that your friend Lionel Williams is coming next week with the Freed party."
"Why, sure. He'll be staying at the Reef."
"For a while, yes. Then he'll be staying at Hogan's Fancy, since he'll own it."
"Lionel?" said Norman, astonished. "I thought he wanted to buy Casa Encantada."
"Well, yes. As a matter of fact, I represent Casa Encantada. I did try to put over the deal, but there were all kinds of crossed signals, and now he's buying Hogan's Fancy. So there'll be two Broadway producers running Kinja hotels. You see? You've started a trend, by George." He jumped up, pointing out to sea. "There it goes, folks! The sun's just touched the horizon!"
Several guests left their tables and joined the watching crowd. It was a remarkably clear evening. The sun, its lower edge already sliding below the purple horizon, was bright as gold. The shiny disk sank to half its size, reddening and dimming. It went lower, turning orange-red, shrinking moment by moment. Soon there was only a glistening orange fragment poked above the ocean-and at that moment Paperman saw it. In the instant of its vanishing, the last bit of sun turned green.
There was a wave of chatter along the rail. Some had seen it, some hadn't, and everyone was talking at once.
Oddly stirred, he said to Iris, "It's really true. I saw it this time."
"Yes, so did I. I've seen it three or four times. It's the strangest thing."
A waiter set their martinis before them. Norman extended his glass toward her. "Well, Iris, darling-to our green flash at sunset."
Iris's eyes misted, and her face grew taut. She looked long at Norman then raised her glass. "Watch me on these tonight, please."
"Watch yourself. Don't you want to have fun? I do."
"Yes, I do, Norm. I very much want to have fun." Iris took a small sip, put the glass on the table,
removed her hand from it, and clasped her hands in her lap. "I'm no damned good, you know. I'm sorry that Henny's coming tomorrow, and I'm sorrier yet that I ever met her." She stared at her drink, her lips sulky and tight. She wore her diamond earrings and a light low-cut gray dress. Her thick hair was pulled back behind her ears, which gave her something of her old look of Janet West. Her face and bosom had an afterglow of the morning sunburn. She looked more fetching to Norman than she had in his first glimpse of her, sitting at the Gull Reef bar with Bob Cohn. At that time it had been an insubstantial attraction, a vagrant wistful pulse such as any man can feel for a lovely strange woman glimpsed in an airport or on a train. Now he knew her.
She was shaking her head, as though trying to clear it. "Tell me something, Norm. What's it like to have kids? I mean really, all sentimental gop and double-talk aside. Is it a mess? Is it a bore? Is it nice? Is it painful? Has it been very important to you?"
Herman Wouk - Don't Stop The Carnival Page 32
