Five Smooth Stones

by Ann Fairbairn

  "There's nothing left, Chris. Except not wanting to hurt someone—"

  "You're quite a person, Sara. Quite a person. Don't change your mind. Don't change your mind, Sara. It would be hell. Sheer hell. For me. For you. Now go, Sara. Go, my dear, quickly."

  She knew as she crossed the street, clear now for a moment, that he was hot watching her, that he had turned toward Königsallee because he could not watch her, and was walking, very fast, away from where they had been standing together.

  ***

  Russell Square was dusty green and mottled yellow in the noon heat. The cabbies in the taxi rank looked damp and uncomfortable, and it wasn't London at all, thought Sara; it never was London in the heat. It was any city anywhere, its people beaten down and oppressed by a blazing tyrant without mercy. She knew the hotel would be fairly comfortable; the thick old walls would have held back the heat; its high-ceilinged antiquity would give at least an illusion of more air, and she was glad she had been extravagant and leased a room with bath. A bath. Sleep. The racking emotion of the night before that had driven her to pack as though her very life depended on it had eased a little, leaving her exhausted, with smarting eyes and a throat made raw by chain smoking. It was fortunate that the only seat available had been on an early-morning plane. There would have been no sleep in the hotel in Düsseldorf, might even have been, God help her and God help Chris, a telephone call to Chris. She arrived at the airport a long two hours before the flight's departure.

  Her room was musty-smelling and warm in spite of its high ceilings. She opened windows, started water for a bath, and while the tub was filling unpacked necessities. When she stepped out of the tub she dabbed lightly at her body with the big bath towel. Cools you off better that way, honestly. It only makes you hotter if you rub. Here, let me show you— Damn. Oh, damn, damn, damn. Go away, David, please for God's kind sake, go away.

  She threw herself on the bed, naked, heedless that a cool breeze might come up and chill her overwarm body. She fell asleep almost at once.

  The brassy tone of the telephone penetrated finally, and she groped for it on its shelf above her head, held the receiver a moment before answering, rubbing her face with her hand, trying to wake up.

  "Sara. Sara. Are you there?"

  "Hunter! Hunter Travis—"

  "Who else, ducky—"

  She shook her head, trying to clear it. "Bless you, Hunter. Wait. Wait. I haven't any clothes on. I just realized—"

  "My God, what a woman! Doesn't even knew when she's nekkid—"

  She rolled over on her back, noticed that the travel clock on the bedside table said four thirty, and flipped the light counterpane over her body. "There. Now I'm decent. I was asleep."

  "Dinner, Sara?"

  "How did you know I was here? No one knows—"

  "A mutual acquaintance saw you totter into an airport bus this morning. Answer my question, young Kent. Dinner?"

  "Give me a chance to wake up. I—let me think. Dinner? I don't think I've even had breakfast. Or lunch. Good grief, I haven't even had tea!"

  "On a diet, luv?"

  "No. Circumstances."

  "Oh. Those."

  "When I wake up I'll know it would be nice. What time?"

  "Seven? Your lounge?"

  "Fine. And—and—Hunter—I'm most awfully grateful—"

  "You're what? Knock it off, sweetie. Order a drink. You're slipping—"

  Hunter might not know why she was grateful, but she knew that it was because the first syllables of his voice had spelled home, had brought perspective. It was a sudden, present link with a sane and ordered past. It made her Sara Kent again, late of Chicago and New York and Pengard and Cincinnati.

  Hunter was ten minutes early, but she was already in the lounge when he arrived. From where she was sitting she could see the entrance to the hotel, and when he came through the doorway she jumped to her feet, smiling. He looked astonishingly cool and handsome in a light gray suit, his linen crisp and fresh.

  He gripped her shoulders, shook her gently, said, "None of your pecks on the cheek, my girl," and kissed her soundly. "Have you been sitting here guzzling alone?"

  "Not even a sherry."

  "We'll start now."

  They went to a small restaurant near Picadilly for dinner. Sara liked it because the oysters and steaks were excellent, the waitresses friendly, and because it held no memories. There were pubs and restaurants and espresso bars and hotel lounges all over London whose entrances she could not face. Sudsy and Rhoda had understood, and so had Hunter. Friends and acquaintances whose suggestions for places to go for lunch or dinner or quiet drinking she had brushed off didn't matter. Hunter suggested Rule's once, and she had hesitated, then shaken her head. "Ghosts?" he said. She nodded and replied, "I can admit it to you. Others don't understand." He folded her hand in his, held it gently for a moment. "The hell with them," he said.

  During dinner they talked around life, not of it; of Sara's exhibits, her students in Germany, of Hunter's father and of Hunter's latest book.

  While they waited for brandy Hunter leaned back, eyes narrowing slightly. "How's Chris?"

  She started to speak, hesitated, then said: "Unprovoked bombing attacks aren't fair. You didn't even ask if I'd seen him. You only said 'How's Chris?' What makes you think—"

  "Sara. Sara, don't be coy. Not you. You've been over here enough to know that we live in a small town. The people you and I know move about. There are things called airplanes. Jets. Do you think you can be seen walking hand in hand on the Via Veneto in Rome, eating smorgasbord at the Europa in Copenhagen, drinking coffee together in Bonn and beer in Munich—and get away with a 'casual acquaintance' routine? I thought better of you."

  Sara did not answer, kept her eyes on the package of cigarettes she was trying to line up with geometrical precision along the edge of the table.

  Hunter went on relentlessly. "That's why you're here, isn't it? You've folded your tents. Again."

  "Hunter, I don't want to talk about it."

  "You're damned well going to. Or listen about it. I have two friends, Sara—male, that is—of whom I am very fond. One of them is Christopher Barkeley."

  "Please—"

  "My advice to you, my pet, is that you do one of two things. Legalize your biological urges—or hie thee to a nunnery."

  "This from you!"

  "I know. It's not advice I would usually hand out. But I'm talking about Sara Kent, who is aching all over for emotional security. And I'm not saying, God knows, that marriage usually brings it. But I'm also talking about Christopher Barkeley. And that makes it a different story. Chris isn't, never has been, a man who could feel comfortable for too long in an illicit liaison. Not when he loves. I know the guy. Better than you do, perhaps. Go back to him, Sara."

  "I—I—God damn you, Hunter! No one asked your advice —no one asked—" She looked at him now, her eyes bright with anger.

  "Temper!" he said. "Temper, temper. And stop gritting your teeth. Go back to Düsseldorf—"

  "I—I can't. You're talking about something you don't know anything about. Chris doesn't want me. Not—not—"

  "When you're still obsessively in love with another man. Whom you haven't seen in donkey's years."

  "Please—"

  "Please, my foot! I said I have two friends of whom I am very fond. The other is young Champlin. A spoiled brat, if ever there was one, but a lad who manages to make his friends knock themselves out for him. Without trying." He stopped and smiled. "Oh, hell, Sara. We're quarreling."

  Sara's smile was small and uncertain. "We usually do, don't we? Eventually."

  "I suppose we do, at that. But never for long, thank God."

  His eyes warmed, his face softened. "There is, of course, another solution. A lousy one for you, perhaps. An excellent one for me, not requiring, maybe not deserving, as Chris does, all or nothing. Marry me."

  Sara's eyes widened with almost comic suddenness.

  "What—what— Hunter! What an—
an incestuous suggestion."

  "It is, isn't it? Unfortunately." He smiled at her bewilderment. "I just got tired of hiding the light of my nobility under a bushel of platonism. I shan't mention it again."

  "Don't. Please. My God, Hunter, I'm upset enough—"

  "Shattering, isn't it? To be a ninety-pound femme fatale."

  "What are you trying to do, Hunter, what are you trying to do? What's the point, what's the darned point of all this?"

  "Actually, in spite of anything I may feel, I'm trying to drive you back to Chris. You see, Sara, you've never given up. Not for one second have you given up on David, even though you may think you have. What I'm saying is, for God's sake, give up. Now, before it's too late. I think, with Chris, you could at last let go, start looking somewhere besides backward. If I didn't think so I wouldn't be saying now, for about the tenth time—go back to Düsseldorf."

  "It wouldn't work, I tell you. It wouldn't work. Not one small bit. I tell you, he doesn't want me. Hunter, listen please. Just listen and don't interrupt—" Not glibly but in short, halting phrases, uncertain sentences, she told him of her year with Chris, not sparing herself, watching his face, dreading to find judgment there, but not finding it She finished her story at last with Chris's words, "Now go, Sara. Quickly." Then she said, "He's a pretty damned wonderful human, Hunter. Do you think I don't know it? He's a thousand, thousand years old; and wise, and disciplined and—and contained. And strong and vulnerable, all at once." Her voice became unsteady, and she stopped for a moment, then went on: "And I'm just a damned child, with a damned child's mind and emotions. I—I'm trying to grow up, but I'm not getting very far."

  After a moment Hunter said, " 'He who knows and knows that he knows is wise, follow him.'" He reached for the check. "Lead me, Sara. Back to the hotel. We'll have a drink in the lounge."

  ***

  They relaxed in the hotel lounge, sipping drinks, talking of small things, trivialities, in the low tones that so many old London hotel lounges seem to call forth, as do musty ancient churches. It was Hunter who snatched the question that was at the back of both their minds out of the limbo where it hovered.

  "You've been unusually patient." He sighed. "I know that every time I see you, I shall have to face a certain look. The 'have you heard?' look. All right, ducks, I have. As soon as Bill Holden told me he'd seen you at the airport, I got busy on the telephone, trying to track down Brad Willis. My father has a legal something going with his firm. It was a good excuse."

  She leaned forward in her chair, unashamed of her eagerness, not trying to hide it. "Did you? Did you reach him?"

  "Yes. It took time. Peg Willis sent me on a geographical treasure hunt from Boston to Beauregard, then over the river to New Orleans, then to some damned place that sounded like Heliopolis—it couldn't be, could it?—and finally to a place called Cainsville."

  "Cainsville. What a—wait. There was trouble there a while ago. And in Heliopolis, too."

  "You don't miss a thing, do you? Not a blow falls on an unprotected Negro head in the South you don't hear."

  "It's—well, I suppose it's like having someone in the front lines in a war."

  "Yes, and it's a hell of a comment on our times. Anyhow, the second place I tried in Cainsville I reached Brad. He answered the phone. By then it was four o'clock in the morning, their time. Everything's all right, Sara. All's well with our lad."

  "That's not enough, Hunter. You know it isn't."

  One of the reasons Lawrence Travis found such aid and comfort in his son's presence at meetings and conferences was the tape-recorder memory he had for conversations. Now Hunter could recall every word of his talk with Brad; it was as clear and distinct as Brad's voice had been when he answered the telephone at last.

  ***

  "This is Bradford Willis."

  "And high time. I've been all over the whole damned United States trying to find you."

  "Hunter Travis! Good to hear you, boy."

  "Don't 'boy' me, you bastard."

  "Where are you?"

  "London. What's going on back there."

  "All hell."

  "The press doesn't exaggerate?"

  "That would be hard to do."

  "Why Cainsville?"

  "We've a little project going here. If I ever find time, I'll write you about it."

  Hunter laughed. "The hell you will. I've heard that one before. Heard from David?"

  "He's right here, in the same house. Sound asleep, I hope. He's pretty well beat."

  "These days you have to ask: literally or figuratively?"

  "Both, Hunter."

  "Hell, no!"

  "Yes. Acting like a damned hero in a riot when he should have been hiding under the porch. Or somewhere. He took a shellacking from a local red-neck.... Hunter... you still there?"

  "Yes. I wonder why. To reverse Thoreau."

  "Because it's where you belong. This mess isn't everyone's cup of tea."

  "It takes guts, that's what you mean."

  "Don't be an ass. That typewriter of yours can carry as much impact as a billy club."

  "I don't type. I write with my own delicate nearly white damned hand. A pretty thing. Well shaped."

  "Listen, son, did you call me at this hour to discuss the ethics of physical participation and nonparticipation? I say you're doing all right. Stay where you are and don't complicate matters further. Good God, I feel like a hen with too many chicks already—"

  "David getting beat up—"

  "It's not the first time. It won't be the last if he doesn't get the hell out of these parts. As a matter of fact, a few days ago he was planning to go back to Boston, get some rest, then dig into the legal work. I don't know exactly what changed his mind. He just showed up here this—no, yesterday morning. He was dead tired when he got here."

  "You sound worried."

  "I am. The edge he's on is too damned ragged to suit me. I'd call him, only—"

  "Let him sleep, Brad. Give him my best."

  "Right. If there are inquiries—"

  "There will be. Loud, silent ones. Sara arrived in London early this morning, I hear. As soon as she's had a chance to get some sleep, I'm going to call her and have dinner with her if she's free."

  "I'd go easy on the details—"

  "Of course. You're not prettying it up, Brad? He is all right?"

  "In general, yes. In particular, bruises, that sort of thing. That's all."

  ***

  Hunter brought himself back to Sara, and Sara's impatient, questioning eyes and tense expectancy.

  "What is it, Hunter? What's happened?"

  "Nothing, Sara. David's O.K., Brad said. Tired, that's all. He's in Cainsville with Brad, but he's been planning to go back to Boston and rest and then devote his time to the legal work."

  "But if he's really all right, why didn't you talk to him?"

  "Sara, Sara. Because he was asleep. I told you it was four in the morning there. I wouldn't have called Brad except that I knew I'd have to face that look. You'll have to make do with that, my muffin."

  "Thanks, Hunter. I mean, really thanks. I'm sorry to be so —so greedy. But it's all I have, these bits and pieces and scraps of news."

  Hunter was standing now, looking down at her. 'T know. I wish I could bring you more than news. Like, possibly, peace." He took her hands, drew her to her feet from the depths of the chair. "Get some more sleep, luv. Your eyes would be at home in a coma—"

  She walked across the lobby toward the hotel entrance with him, but before they reached it he felt her small, strong hand on his arm, stopping him. She was looking up into his face with wide, troubled eyes. "Hunter. Have I done something wrong? In leaving Chris? Do you think I've done something horribly wrong? Do you, Hunter?"

  "You ask me, of all people? How would I know, my dear? I'm the one who is constantly blasting at the concept of right and wrong, if you happen to have read the stuff I write that gets printed. You did what you had to do. Is anything right? And if it is, does
that necessarily mean the opposing action is wrong? Stop thinking, Sara. Stop it. And get some sleep. Now."

  When they reached the entrance, she squeezed his arm gently. "Thanks," she said. "Thanks again, Hunter. Good night. And God bless."

  He touched her cheek lightly with the back of his hand. "Why?" and suddenly he saw the Sara Kent of years before, the tiny, intense girl who would desert the company of her classmates to slide belly-bumpus down a hill on a sled with the town children of Laurel. She grinned up at him. "Damned if I know, my friend. But sometimes God does seem to bless the most unlikely people."

  CHAPTER 76

  Before six o'clock on the morning following the committee briefing, Brad Willis got up and dressed quietly. He had slept little and after Hunter Travis's call had lain half awake until daybreak.

  He found David in the kitchen drinking coffee. "Feeling all right, brat?"

  "So far. What do we do, just sit here and wait until they get damned good and ready to send over for the committee? Damn it, Brad, this whole thing is too lousy passive."

  "There wasn't time to plan. Haskin is going to telephone the mayor's office at nine and tell them the committee will be over at ten o'clock."

  " 'Here I come, ready or not—' like some fool kid game. There are people out there already, standing at the barriers."

  "Any of them who have jobs over there?"

  "Yes. It's the only bright spot in the picture. Mrs. Haskin has been out there already talking to some of them. She says a lot of them won't cross over as long as the kids are in the stockade or jail."

  "Whether that's good or bad depends on a number of things. How many, for one."

  "Couldn't tell you. She said it looked like a lot. She's already gone over to the store."

  "Gracie?" Brad asked the question deliberately and noted the hesitation before David answered.

  "Mrs. Haskin said she was letting her sleep in. She said someone around here ought to get their rest if this was going to keep up. I made the coffee."

  "And good, too." Brad turned away to replenish his cup. It was probably stupid to think David could tell anything by his face, but he didn't trust David's quick, almost intuitive, perceptions. He was remembering how, at two thirty that morning, restless and unable to sleep he had come into the kitchen to fix some whiskey and hot milk. The whiskey was gone, but he had taken milk from the refrigerator, heated it, and while he was drinking it heard a door close quietly on the back porch. Feet had padded softly across the creaking boards; there had been the sound of an old-fashioned latch lifting, then the sound of a second door closing. Which was just fine as far as he was concerned, thought Brad; best thing that could have happened to the guy. He wished to God he thought the incident might have some permanent emotional importance. For years he and Peg had wanted David to find someone warm and comfortable like Gracie, someone who could bring him the uncomplicated emotional peace he had never known, a peace whose healing he needed above all else.