“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters. I thought that you and Dino…”
“Oh don’t talk about Dino, darling. Please. Please.”
When she moaned again he knew that this time she was not in pain.
While they slept, the sun had inched across the sky. Gwen stirred and kissed him lightly on the cheek and nibbled at his ear and said, “The champagne is all gone, my love.”
“I’ll run down to the corner grocery.”
“And bring up the morning paper while you’re at it.”
“What about a swim?”
“Lovely.”
She leaped up and ran down to the edge. “Don’t look at me that way, you lecherous old man,” she called back at him. “Just because you’ve taken my virginity is no reason to get any funny ideas.”
“I’ve got all kinds of funny ideas.”
“So have I, darling.”
He dove in after her and they floated together in the sun-warmed shallows. She lay lightly on his arm and when she turned to kiss him he rested one knee on the bottom and supported her with the other.
“Have you ever made love in the water?” she asked.
“No,” he lied.
“You’ve never really made love to any other girl, isn’t that so?”
“That’s right.”
“Oh you’re such a liar.”
“Yes.”
“I hate the idea of your being with someone else.”
“There is no one else,” he said. “And if we don’t think about it there never has been. We’re all alone on the edge of the world and if we’re not careful we’ll fall off.”
“I want to fall off. I want to…”
“Hey. What do you think you’re doing down there?”
“Searching for underwater sea life.”
“Find anything?”
“Why yes. There are all sorts of interesting things. For instance there’s an enormous… Ah, Gus. Darling, darling.”
Toward evening he collected driftwood and built a small fire and cooked dinner for her. She had been going over the canned goods he had brought her and she said, “You must think I have a passion for spaghetti and meatballs. Was that all they had?”
“There are beans. Don’t overlook the beans.”
She made a wry face and said, “Four days of this and I’ll have as much shape as a tube of toothpaste. I think I’ll change my mind and go back with you.”
“There’s some canned hamburger too. That ought to make a difference. Anyway, I’ll make it up to you on the new boat. Fresh oysters and champagne all the way to Panama and through the canal and across the Pacific. And when we get to Papeete I’ll hire one of those coffee-colored French chefs for you.”
She did not return his smile. Instead she got up and walked away and stood for a moment on the tip of the sandbar, looking out at the darkening sea and the first faint star. When she returned her face was serious.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“It’s something all right. You’d better tell me. Do you want to go back?”
She shook her head. “I told you I’d stay and I won’t go back on my word.”
“Then what is it?”
“Can we have our dinner first?”
“Sure. I always talk better on a full stomach.”
When they had eaten he said, “Okay, honey, what’s on your mind?”
“Do you want me to be honest with you, Gus?”
“I wouldn’t want you to kid me about a thing.”
“I know you think I’m going to Papeete with you but I don’t want to.”
“Then we’ll make it Turia or Vanavana,” he said lightly. “Take your choice.”
“It won’t be either one, Gus. I’m going to marry Dino.” She was obviously not joking. He felt as though she had taken her small brown fist and hit him between the eyes.
“Say that again.”
“I’m going to marry Dino.”
His voice was very cold and formal when he said, “Then will you kindly tell me what all this business on the blanket and in the water was about?”
“Is that what it was to you, ‘business’?”
“What was it to you?”
“It was because I love you.”
“Fine. Very good. Now we’re getting somewhere. You love me and you’re marrying Dino.”
She nodded.
“I must be losing my grip,” he said. “Or it’s all this running around in the sun that has finally got to me. You’ll have to spell it out.”
“Why do you think I wanted you to make love to me?”
“I’m damned if I know, now.”
“I know you thought I was having an affair with Dino but certainly it should be clear to you now that I never had anything to do with him that way.”
“So?”
“I don’t love Dino the way I love you. I wanted you to be the first. The first and best and truest love. I wanted to have this afternoon with you to carry with me for the rest of my life. And don’t think for a moment that I don’t want to go off with you in a boat. I know what heaven it would be. But I have to ask myself how long it would last. I don’t love boats that much, Gus. I’ve cruised on small boats for two or three days at a time along the New England coast and I know how uncomfortable they can be. I just can’t picture myself spending the rest of my life that way.”
“We could stay ashore part of the time,” he said without any real conviction.
“And do what? Lock you down to a desk selling insurance? We both know what that would lead to. You’d be itching to get to sea and I’d be determined to stay ashore. In the end we’d wind up resenting each other and spending more and more time apart. Let’s face it, Gus. I like having interesting people around me. And I like big cities and night clubs and theatres and restaurants and fine apartments and good clothes. All the things you probably despise. You see, I’m just a very ordinary sort of girl.”
“You’re beginning to sound a little like your cousin Clare,” Robinson said grimly.
“Maybe in some ways I am. I want all the glamour and excitement that she had. But don’t you see, my darling, that I can’t live your life and that it would be a fatal error for me to ask you to live mine? If I asked you to give up the sea you’d never forgive, me. You told me yourself that without a boat you might as well be dead. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes,” Gus said, knowing that what he was really saying was, good-bye. God Bless. You’re the beginning and the end of everything and there will never again be anybody quite like you and not time nor distance nor anything else will ever really fill the void.
“And I understand Dino better than you think,” she went on. “I know he’s an opportunist and only a second-rate painter and maybe even a bit of a gigolo. And I know too that I’ll never have the same feeling making love with him that I had here with you today. That’s why I wanted the first time and the best time to be with you. But Dino can give me the kind of life that is right for me. He can give me Paris and New York and Rome and St. Tropez. He’s handsome and charming and gets along well with people. We’ll make a very presentable couple. All these things are important to me, Gus.”
“I understand,” he said, understanding only that there was a calculating wisdom in this tiny girl that he could not cope with.
“I hope you do.”
He looked up at the darkening sky. “I’d better get going. I wouldn’t want to keep my business partner waiting. She might get nervous.”
Gwen said nothing. His coldness and reserve left her numb. Robinson walked down to the water and pushed the two boats off the beach.
“You can still change your mind,” he said.
She shook her head. “You won’t forget to call Mr. Holland, will you?”
“I won’t forget.” His voice was icy.
She looked very small and childlike when she asked softly, “Won’t you even ki
ss me good-bye, Gus?”
“No, I don’t think I will.” As soon as he said it he was sorry but the wall between them now was impossible to breach.
He waded out to the skiff and climbed aboard and rigged a towing line to the sailboat. Using one of the oars he poled out into deeper water and then started the engine. He was keenly aware of the solitary figure on the beach but he avoided looking at her. Instead he pushed the throttle up and steered toward the first stars that were lying to the westward over Spanish Cay. Gwen waved at him but he ignored it.
CHAPTER NINE
Dino was one-third of the way through a bottle of Scotch. He was not an habitually heavy drinker and he knew that in a little while he would be very drunk. The thought contributed to his unhappiness; he despised people who lost control of themselves. But, he told himself, he would never have a better reason.
The phone rang but he paid no attention. It had been ringing every few minutes for the past hour and he knew who it was. Clare was trying to get him. Well he did not want to talk to Clare just now. Eventually he would have to make a decision about her but he wanted to put it off.
He stood up and moved close to his easel and stared moodily at the half-finished portrait. It was of Gwen, one that he had been working on from memory. It was one of the best things he had ever done—less stylized and more impassioned than most of his other work—and now it would never be finished.
Unlike most artists Dino was able to regard his own work objectively. As a draftsman he was not too bad but his paintings lacked vitality and inspiration. His portraits were cynical. They had brought him a certain amount of commercial success but never any artistic satisfaction. But this picture of Gwen was different. In it he had captured an elfin sparkle and joy of living that had brought the canvas to life. It seemed to reflect his hope that from now on things might be different. Now that he had Gwen his whole life would change. He might even attempt some serious work, enough for a one-man show. Di Buonaventura’s Sketches of the Caribbean. Sunstruck. Harsh. Primitive. Totally unexpected from the hitherto strictly society painter, the reviews would say. Some bright new influence has entered the painter’s life and reached sources of previously untapped power…
He had come so close to snatching the merry-go-round ring. He had held it in his fingers only to drop it at the last second. She was the kind of golden girl a man meets once in a lifetime—gay, young, beautiful and rich. Now there was nothing ahead but a succession of women like Clare—each a little older, a little more corroded by time and bitterness, a little more demanding.
He took another drink. Tears rolled down his tanned cheeks. Was he crying for Gwen or for himself? It did not really matter because in a way it was the same thing. At least it was something to know he could still weep. It had been years since he had felt any genuine emotion. Or was it the whiskey?
When he heard the knock on the door he ignored it. It came again, more demanding this time. “Yes?” he said. “Who is it?”
“It’s Clare, darling.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to speak to you. Please open the door.”
“Go away.”
“Dino, open the door right now.”
The instinct for survival was still too strong. He was alone now and he might need her again. He got up and unlocked the door.
“Where have you been, darling? I’ve been calling you for hours.” She was crisply beautiful, her fair hair and pale skin set off by the pink linen gown. Her eyes were sparkling and the room was filled with the expensive scent of her perfume. She looked, he thought, as if she had just been notified that she held a winning ticket in the Irish Sweepstakes.
“I see you’re all broken up by grief, Clare.”
“Should I be? I may be many things, darling, but at least I’m no hypocrite. Do you want me to say I’m sorry about it? Well, I’m not.”
“My God, Clare. She was your cousin. Don’t you feel anything at all?”
“Only an honest sense of relief that she’s gone.”
“How can you talk that way? Is there nothing human in you at all?”
She came closer and caressed his cheek. “Don’t you know that you’re the most important thing in the world to me? Gwen wanted to steal you from me. How can I pretend that I’m not glad she’s dead? Anyway it’s over now, darling. Let’s forget it.”
The whiskey surged through his brain. He tried to focus his bright blue eyes on her face but she seemed to swim in an alcoholic haze. What was it she had said? ‘Gwen wanted to steal you from me.’ Was there a threat of some kind in that?
“You sound as if you had something to do with her death,” he said thickly.
“Do I? Well, if she had been poisoned you might be right. I’m afraid, however, that I could hardly push her overboard when she was alone in a sailboat. We’ll just have to put it down to wishful thinking. I do plead guilty to that.”
“What an incredible bitch you are.”
“Of course, my sweet. And so are you. That’s what makes us so right for each other.”
“No! We are not right for each other. I have sold almost all of myself but there is still a little something left. I can still love and I can still weep for the one I love. But not you. If you cried, the tears would be made of stainless steel.”
“And what are your tears made of, my love? Of whiskey and self-pity for the fortune that has slipped away from you. You’ll soon get over your grief and then everything will be as it was before, only better.”
“God, how I hate you, Clare.”
“You’ll get over that too.”
“Never.”
“After you’ve had time to consider the prospect of supporting yourself you’ll be surprised how your attitude toward me will change.”
“Behold the superb American female in all her glory. Fresh from the hairdresser and the couturier. The chromium heart and the iron gut. You are the bitch of all bitches, Clare, and you will not be happy until you have emasculated me.
“You’d be very little use to me that way, dear. It’s really the last thing in the world I’d like to see happen.”
“Go away.”
“Are you ill, dear? You look terribly pale. Shall I get you some coffee? You never did have a head for liquor.”
“Go away.”
“Why don’t you lie down for a while, darling, and I’ll fix you a cold compress and hold your hand.”
“Go away, damn you,” he said weakly.
“Just think of the wonderful life we’re going to have, darling. All the best places and the best people. Oh, we’ll have a lovely time, Dino.”
“I’ll tell you something, Clare,” he said sadly.
“What is it, dear?”
“With her I might have had a chance.”
“Now what does that mean?”
“I might have done some serious work.”
“Is that what’s worrying you, Dino? Well there’s nothing Gwen could have done for you that I can’t do. Perhaps we ought to go to Florence. I think Florence would be lovely. We’ll find you a nice little studio somewhere near the Piazza Della Signoria—a little pied-à-terre all your own. And of course I know some very important people in the Uffizi and the other galleries and I’ll arrange for you to meet them and we’ll give marvelous parties for the sort of people who can afford to commission you. Oh we’ll be a great success, you’ll see.”
“Not with you,” Dino said. “You will suck out my insides and leave nothing but the husk. With you I will be nothing but a lap dog, a damned manicured French poodle on a gold leash.”
“I’m really beginning to lose patience with you, my love. I do wish you’d stop talking such utter, bloody, filthy nonsense.”
He stared up at her somberly and said, “And I’ll tell you something else. I never slept with her.”
“More fool you. What do you want? A gold star?”
“No, I don’t want any stars. I tried hard enough but she would never let me.”
“You don
’t have to feel defeated, darling. She was one of those awful professional virgins.”
“Better a professional virgin than a professional whore.”
“There was a time when you enjoyed it well enough,” she answered coldly.
“Yes, I enjoyed it. I have also enjoyed it with other whores. Many of them. They are full of tricks. Some are even more competent than you. Would you like to know? For instance there was your friend—”
“I’ll forgive you for this, Dino,” she said interrupting him, “because you’re drunk.”
“Don’t forgive me, Clare. Please don’t forgive me. I think I can stand anything but your goddamned forgiveness.”
“I would watch myself if I were you. I think you’re going too far.”
“How does one go too far with you, Clare? Do you mean to tell me there is some insult you will not accept so long as it suits your purpose?”
“Stop it, you fool.”
“You are as smart and cold and dangerous as a snake. Someday I will do your portrait and when it is finished it will be that of a female cobra. No one has ever beaten you at anything but one thing is beating you now—age. Each day another little line, a little wrinkle to mark the place where you have lost a battle. All your forces are in retreat, Clare. The battle is going against you and,” he added venomously, “there is not a single bloody thing you can do about it.”
She raised her hand to strike at his face but he caught her by the wrist and bent her arm down. Her face went white with pain.
“Don’t ever try that with me again, you murderous bitch,” he said.
Their eyes were not more than six inches apart. Suddenly she spat directly into his face. He released her with an expression of disgust and said, “All right. Very good. Thank you. Now we are quits. I was going to tell you how many times I was ready to vomit when I saw your face on the pillow beside me but now it is no longer necessary. Now we understand each other.”
She was speechless with rage. At that moment she could have killed him. But she managed to bring herself under control. Now, when she had won, was she to toss it all away because he had succeeded in driving her blind with anger? She would only be defeating her own purpose and in a way it would be a victory for Gwen. Without Dino she would be alone, and she could not stand to be alone. When you were alone you remembered the way Harry looked with the top of his head blown off and the spatter of brains on the English carpet. And when you were alone you remembered Gwen as a child and taking her to the Bois in Paris to ride in a donkey cart and eat a strawberry ice. To be alone and growing old was the most terrible thing that could happen.
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