by Howard Mason
“Is this a trial?” she asked, in a low, even tone. “I love you. I tried to show you that. But you’re standing before me like a judge. What is it you want to know? I’ve never told you a lie. I’ll tell you the truth now, about anything you want. Only tell me what I’m accused of. What is it I’ve done to make you hate me?”
“I don’t hate you,” he said.
“What have I done?” she asked again. “I came here to clear up everything. I wanted to get out of that wretched marriage. Was it my fault that Chauverney nearly killed himself in his panic? I was finished with Eric. I wasn’t even interested in him. Was it my fault that he tried to kill me in his panic? Am I supposed to be so wicked and so dangerous that I’ve got to be killed?”
“I’m not your judge,” Killian said.
“You’ve judged me, and you’ve condemned me,” she said. “All right. I’m not going to beg for mercy.”
“What about Bell?” Killian asked, with a painful effort.
“Well? What about him? I told you that story, all of it, except his name.”
“And except that you were living—you’re living now, on his money.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” she demanded, sitting up straight. “I was a child when I met him. I might have grown into something decent. I wasn’t a drunken little tramp then. Doesn’t he owe me something?”
“This isn’t any good,” Killian said. “We don’t see things the same way, that’s all.”
“I don’t see things any way,” she said. “I don’t care about anyone or anything but you. I don’t care about a divorce. I don’t care about Luther’s money. I’ll walk out of this house with you now if you want. Just as I am. Without a nickel. Without even a hat.”
“What the hell d’you think I could do with you?” he shouted.
Her eyes were wide, and he thought they were purple. The color of sorrow? It made him sick to hear himself shout at her. It made him afraid. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But—but that’s not practical.”
A car came gliding up, a great, long, sleek black car. She kept on looking at him, waiting to see what he would do, to hear what he would say. Only he didn’t know what to do, or what to say.
I can’t go now, like this, he thought. I can’t turn my back on her, and go. The chauffeur was waiting, and she was waiting. For him. And how did he know what to do?
“Well,” he said, with a nervous, silly smile. “Well, shall we go and get something to eat on the boat?”
She got up and went down the steps. She left her white coat behind, and Killian went back after it.
“You never know,” he said. “It may turn chilly. This time of the year.…” I’m talking like Luther Bell. They got into the back of the car, and they were all enclosed in glass; the chauffeur was shut off by a sheet of glass. Snow White in a glass coffin, Killian thought. He glanced at Jocelyn; she was leaning back with her eyes closed, and her mouth had a line of sorrowful patience. As if she were horribly resigned to any blow.
You’ve ruined people? he thought. Or have they ruined you? Are you bad, corrupt, beyond any helping? Or are you a victim? I don’t know. Would I be a brute to leave you, or the fool of the world to stand by you? I don’t know.
He opened a window, and the sweet air streamed in and blew her hair across her pale cheek. The sky was a clear, faint blue; they were driving past a red barn and a stone wall, and then they turned into that lane again. It’s like a dream, he thought. I’ve seen all this before. It’s as if everything that’s going to happen has happened before. Jocelyn and I drove in a big black car—when?
They came to the squalid little settlement with the chicken yards; they came to the open space where the wooden pier was. The boat was there, too, just as it had been this morning, and the Captain. Only now he wore a white drill jacket, much too small for him, so that his sunburnt wrists showed, and his shoulder blades were pulled forward. “Miss!” he said, and gave her a smile that made a network of wrinkles in his face.
“What time shall I come back, sir?” asked the chauffeur.
“Oh, nine o’clock,” said Killian at random.
The Captain was standing on the deck, holding out both hands to Jocelyn; she took them and stepped on board. He hurried ahead of her and moved one of the wicker chairs a little. She sat down, and he stood beside her, stooping with that broad smile of delight.
“Now we go to the Nort’ Pole?” he said.
“Not tonight, Captain,” she said, gently, and seriously.
“You vant to see something fine, you come to the Nort’ Pole,” he said. “My, dat’s fine! All snow and ice, all glittering. The vater, she’s blue and green. Deep. Vat do you say, ye go to the Nort’ Pole, hey?”
“I haven’t got my fur coat along, Captain,” she said. “I’ll need that, you know.”
“That’s right! That’s right!” he said. “Ve got to vait, hey?”
“I’m afraid we will, Captain.”
She did not smile. She looked into the man’s smiling face with a clear, steady gentleness. He wrinkled his nose and frowned, anxious and faintly confused.
“Some day you see dose Northern Lights,” he said. “My dat’s fine! I tell you one time I see a polar bear? She’s sitting on a berg, floating, floating along, far, far away from shore. She puts up her head, and she cries. She can’t get back home.”
“But that’s all over now, Captain. It’s nice here.”
“No,” he said.
“It’s nice when you play your radio.”
“Yes,” he said reluctantly. “Dat’s nice.”
“And your cat gets up in your lap.”
“Yes. Dat’s a good pussy,” he said. He was silent for a moment. “All right!” he said. “Now ye take a little ride, hey? Den I cook something?”
He disappeared into the cabin; the engine started, and the little craft shook. He came out again and cast off, and they started smoothly through the smooth water.
“He’s crazy,” Killian said, half to himself.
“No,” Jocelyn said. “Not really. He’s had a bad time, that’s all.”
“Who hasn’t?”
“He was in a shipwreck,” she said. “He was in a small boat with four or five other men, for days and days in the tropics. And in that horrible sun he used to think about the North Pole.”
“And he still thinks about the North Pole.”
“That’s what everybody does,” she said. “When we’re perishing of thirst and anguish, we think about a cold, empty, white world.”
How can you talk like that? he thought. How can you look like that? So kind, and so patient.
“Why do you pick him out to be sorry for?” he asked.
“He’s had a bad time,” she said again.
I’ve judged you, thought Killian, looking at her. I’ve decided that you’re not capable of any pity, or any kindness, or anything good. I’ve decided that you’re poison. My decision is final. I stand before you, like a judge.
Her hands lying in her lap, looked helpless. The breeze blew her hair and fluttered the sleeves of her blouse. What have I done? he thought. Look at her! Nineteen. Look at her lovely face, so quiet and sad. Look at her lovely throat and her little hands.
“May I have a cigarette, please?” she asked.
He felt in his pockets, but he had none.
“I’ve got some, I think, in my coat,” she said.
The white coat lay over a chair behind her. He felt in the pocket and brought out a crumpled pack, and an envelope. It was addressed “Angelo,” and very dirty.
Killian took out the note that was in the envelope.
Meet me Sunday morning at six-thirty where the wall begins. I’ll bring what you want. Burn this.
JOCELYN.
He read it over again. When he glanced up, Jocelyn sat half-turned in her chair, looking at him through a
veil of loose hair.
He first thought he could not speak a word. But he had to. “Did you—do that?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“I mean,” he said, “did you run him over?”
“Yes,” she said again.
“It was an accident, I suppose.”
“No, it wasn’t,” she said. “He was the one who saw you throw me overboard. I had to keep him quiet. For your sake.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
He threw the pack of cigarettes overboard.
“Why did you do that?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Keep quiet. Let me alone.”
She got up and wandered away, into the cabin, and he stood by the rail. The sun was very low, standing on the horizon in a lake of fiery gold.
I’m alone, he thought. Let me stay alone, that’s all I want. I’m free now.
He was as free as an unborn soul. He felt no love and no hate, no regret and no hope. He remembered nothing; he wanted nothing but just this—the salt wind and the swift motion, and the solitude. They were passing a low spit of land, and he saw little sandpipers moving on it; the quiet water lapped the shore; a shaft of sun made the reeds a pale, translucent green.
They’re alive, he thought, watching the sandpipers.
You talk about the sun going down, but that’s not what happens at all. The earth runs past it. You could almost think that the earth runs over it and crushes it out. Angelo had the life crushed out of him. When the sun came up this morning, he was alive. Now he’s dead. She did that. Then she went home and had her breakfast. I fed her with toast. She could do that. She could eat and drink, and look so sweet.
I’m free now. I’m alone.
When you are not thinking about anything and not feeling anything, the time slips by very easily. The earth has run over the sun now; nothing left but a few little light clouds. They fade, and there is nothing but a vast grey calm. Rather a nuisance for those lights to spring out on the shore, twinkling. Why twinkling? Why not steady? A long string of them, twinkling sadly in the dusk. That must be a road.
The harbor of Rio is one of the most beautiful in the world. When I first saw Rio.… A horrible pain seized him. He remembered exactly how he had felt when he had first seen Rio. Before sunrise, it had been, and he had stood on deck, thinking how he would describe this when he got home. He had been violently happy, as if he had accomplished something admirable. This was the first foreign port he had seen. So the world is like this, he had thought. It’s better than anything they told you. I’m young and strong; I can see all the rest of it. I got myself here; I can do anything.
Youth was gone now. All those strong, clear feelings were gone. Can I go back? Can I be like that again?
Lights came on in the roof of the deck. He resented them; he wanted to get away from them. The boat stopped; the anchor went overboard. What’s the idea of this, he thought? What are we stopping here for?
“Come in and make a cocktail, Jocko?” said Jocelyn from the door of the cabin.
“I don’t want a cocktail,” he said in a queer voice. That was because his throat was stiff.
She came out to him. The overhead lights made her face look wan. “Cigarette, Jocko?” she said, holding out a pack.
“No, thank you. Where did you get those?”
“From the Captain,” she said.
“Why have we stopped?”
“Oh, just while he cooks,” she said, and sat down on the rail.
Don’t sit on the rail! But he didn’t say that aloud. “The Captain’s an interesting character,” was what he said aloud.
He was only talking to stave off something that was pressing in on him. She was sitting on the rail in a white dress.
“I saw a lot of sandpipers a while ago,” he said.
“Jocko, are you thinking about Angelo?”
“Don’t talk,” he said. “Keep quiet and let me alone.”
“Nobody will ever know about it,” she said. “I got my note out of his pocket. Nobody will ever know what you did, either.”
“I didn’t do that,” he said.
“Angelo saw you. I gave him some money to shut him up, but he wanted more. He’d have kept on wanting more.”
Don’t ask any questions. “Did you chase him with the car?” he asked. Had to ask that one.
“No. I dropped my purse and he went to pick it up.”
“Then you ran over him. You squashed him. Then you got the note out of his pocket and you went home and had breakfast.”
“I did that,” she said, “because you made me.”
“No,” he said in a flat, unconvincing way. “No, I didn’t.”
“I’m glad I killed Angelo,” she said, very low. “I’m glad I’ve done what you did. It’s a bond between us, stronger than anything else could ever be.”
Two sinners. Two damned souls. Paolo and Francesca, flying through Hell in each other’s arms, forever and ever. Only it’s not like that. Sibyl sent you here to get murdered. By me. But I will not. There is no bond between us. I won’t look at you, sitting on the rail in a white dress.
“Jocko, let’s go away,” she said, in that same low voice, a little unsteady. “Let’s start again. Let’s forget all this, and start again. I’ll be different, Jocko. I’ll try—”
“Please don’t talk!” he said.
I’ve got to get away, he thought. There’s a dinghy tied astern. If I could get rid of her for a few minutes, I could get into the dinghy and row ashore.
“Jocko, let’s get out of this,” she said. “I’ve got things I can sell for enough money to get us away.”
She rose. He moved backward, but she followed him. “Don’t!” he said. “Please don’t, Jocelyn. Please let me alone.”
“Oh, Jocko!” she cried. “What’s happened? I haven’t anyone but you. Have you turned against me?”
Thou, too, Brutus? You, the trusted one, you, too? Yes. I’ve gone, too.
“I’m sorry,” he said anxiously, and put out his hand to keep her away. She caught it in both of hers. She was clinging to him again. “Dear…” he said, with the most ludicrous falseness. “Sit down, dear.”
She let his hand go, and he was off guard for a moment. She put her arm round his neck and laid her cheek against his. Her face was wet with tears.
“You couldn’t not love me, now, Jocko. Not after this.”
Not after murder? He caught her in an embrace so fierce that she gasped. She yielded completely, limp, crushed against him, breathing with difficulty. Murderess. You’ve been talking too much about murder, my dear girl. You love me, do you? And I love you, do I? Do I?
You’re wrong! This is not love—murderess. This is something else. You’re hanging round my neck, murderess, and I’ve got to get rid of you. Somehow. Anyhow.
“No!” he cried, and pushed her away so suddenly that she staggered back against the rail.
“Jocko, what—”
“I have a chill,” he said. Maybe that was true. He was shaking. “I want some whisky. See if there’s any whisky.”
She went into the cabin, and he ran aft and lowered himself into the dinghy. He was trying to untie the painter when a door opened just above him, and there she was again.
“Jocko!”
“I’m just going to row ashore,” he said. “I’m just going to get some aspirin. I’m just going to get some cigarettes.”
“Take me with you,” she said, and she jumped down into the dinghy, and it rolled over and nearly capsized. The oars went overboard.
“I’ll have to get the oars,” Killian explained, and began to take off his shoes.
“Hurry!” she said. “The current’s taking them away.”
“Yes. I certainly will,” he said.
He took off his coat and went into the water. It was very
cold. He started to swim; the idea was to get out of the path of light from the boat. To get into the dark. He heard a clank on board. It didn’t matter what happened there. What he had to do was to get away. He knew very well what he had to get away from.
“Jocko, are you all right?”
“Fine, thanks,” he answered, from the cold black water. Getting farther and farther away from her.
The engine started. “Jocko!” she screamed.
He stopped and turned, astonished. The boat was under way, pulling the dinghy after her. He saw Jocelyn stand up, swaying from side to side. She fell down on the seat. “Jocko!”
The boat was going faster than anything you ever saw in your life, heading out for the open sea. Red light, green light, shooting forward like an arrow.
He knew about this. He knew what it was like to be swimming alone in the sea at night. Now the lights of the boat were gone, and there was nothing. Except whatever might be living in the water. “No,” he said to himself, “it’s not the same. The shore can’t be far. Stop swimming out to sea. The shore isn’t far. Take it easy. Stop swimming out to sea. You’re a fool.”
He turned his head until he saw that row of little twinkling lights. Not far? It was as far as Heaven.
“You can’t expect me to swim there,” he said indignantly. The water was like ice. He swam and swam, and made no progress at all. The little twinkling lights were fainter, he thought. I’m swimming like a mouse in a pail.
This was perfectly right. This was what had to happen, and what ought to happen. Everything was very clear in his mind now. It was Angelo himself who pushed her overboard. Must have been. Not me. I didn’t kill her.
Dying? There’s nothing to it. His arms were moving, trying to drag a tremendously heavy log through the water. All he had to do was to stop this struggle. It’s too damn cold to swim. But the sandpipers. He remembered them, running among the green translucent reeds, alive. Maybe they were somewhere near here, asleep. But alive. I’d like to see them again, he thought.
