Dover Beach (27 page)

"Happy Christmas," Kathy managed to reply.

Her mother attempted a smile, then turned and retreated to her home.

Chapter 24

The platform was deserted except for a couple necking at the far end. I tried not to look.

"I'm sorry," Kathy said.

"Quit apologizing," I replied. "I really had a wonderful time."

"I didn't mean to get you into all this—all this family stuff."

"That's okay. Believe me. I think your father is fascinating."

"He's really not as...
weird
as my mother makes him out, you know."

"Excuse me for saying so, Kathy, but those letters speak for themselves."

"I know, but what I mean to say is, I think he's changed since then. I don't think he'd say the same things now."

"What would he say?"

"Well, I think the things he'd say would be... normal."

The train pulled into the station. The necking couple, their arms around each other, got on the next car. Kathy and I had no difficulty finding an empty compartment. We sat next to each other, our arms almost touching.

"Are your parents alive, Walter?" Kathy asked as the train pulled away.

I shook my head. "In America, everyone's parents are dead, more or less."

"How awful."

"You get used to it."

And then she started to cry. I had been expecting it. "It's all so stupid," she said. "The world is falling apart, and I'm unhappy because I had a lousy childhood."

"Everyone's pain is real," I replied. I reached out and took her hand.

"I was just looking for love, and I never could seem to find it. Just looking for some... normal... love."

I thought of Cornwall's love, in quotation marks: a momentary weakness. "Your mother loves you," I said. "That's pretty obvious."

Kathy shook her head. She took her hand away from mine and fumbled for her handkerchief. "So stupid," she repeated. And then: "You know, he wasn't a bad father, he really wasn't. Just, you know,
private.
And the divorce was good for all of us, I think. When I came to visit, he would take an interest, we would do things together. I remember once—it was my thirteenth birthday—he gave me a gold necklace. I still have it. And he hired a car and we went for a drive. We stopped off in a village somewhere and we had lunch, and then we just walked about. We went by a playground, and we stayed for a while watching the children running around, enjoying themselves. And I don't think I had ever felt so happy—because I didn't envy those children their normality, you see. I was there with my father, holding his hand, and nothing else mattered.

"But even so, even then, I couldn't really... connect. Sometimes I think I'm studying to be an actress just so I can find the right role. 'Is this it? Is this what you want?' Just so I can connect with him. Oh, God."

Kathy sobbed some more. I was silent. The train rattled toward Waterloo.

When it came into the station, she quickly dried her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said, as usual.

"It's all right," I murmured.

"This is inexcusable, though. You, with your problems—"

"I left my problems behind when I came to England," I lied. "The only problem I have now is a desk clerk who thinks I should pay the hotel bill for Winfield and me."

She glanced at me. Her eyes were red, her expression uncertain. "You know," she said, "you could stay at my flat if you like. My roommate moved out a couple of months ago, so there's an extra bed." And then she added quickly: "You don't have to come, of course. It's not, you know,
that
sort of invitation."

Why would she think I'd object to
that
sort of invitation? Well, it didn't really matter. "I'd like to come very much, Kathy. Thank you for asking."

She smiled. I smiled. The train came to a stop.

When we got off, the affectionate couple we had seen at the beginning of our journey was ahead of us, walking slowly, hand in hand, through the vast empty concourse. We followed them to the exit, and then our paths diverged.

Kathy lived two flights up in an old brick building on a Soho side street. She was in better spirits as we took the brief Tube ride from Waterloo. We joked about Mrs. Stumple and her mother's cooking, and there was no crying, no mention of her father. She didn't apologize until we reached her building. "Sorry for the climb," she said. "The lift never works."

"I've lived in places like that," I replied.

And it wasn't until we were on the landing outside her flat that she gripped my arm, her eyes wide with fear.

She was looking at the door. It was open a couple of inches. "I'm sure I locked it this morning," she whispered.

I pried her hand loose and moved forward.

I looked inside. The flat was dark. I strained to hear any sounds. Nothing. I kicked the door all the way open and stepped to one side. No response. I walked in.

"Winfield?" I called out, guessing. "Cornwall?" No one answered. "Is there a light here, Kathy?" I asked. She came up behind me, reached to the right, and flipped a switch.

We were standing in a large living area. At the far end, three windows looked out onto the street. There was a kitchenette to the right, and three doors leading off to the left.

The living room looked all right, except that papers were scattered all over the floor around a rolltop desk next to the kitchenette. I quickly searched the two bedrooms and the bathroom on the left. Nobody under the beds, nobody in the closets or the shower. The drawers of Kathy's bureau had been emptied. Papers and makeup and jewelry and underwear and clothing covered the floor. I shuddered and returned to the living room.

Kathy was sitting by the rolltop desk, staring at the chaos. Her arms were folded tightly across her breasts, as if to protect herself from the unseen forces that were attacking her. She seemed too stunned to cry. "You think it was Winfield?" she asked.

"Maybe. Maybe he figured he'd find an address where he could find your father. Or maybe you just got robbed. Why don't you check to see if anything's—"

Kathy got up and rushed into her bedroom. She returned a few moments later with a gold chain, which she carefully placed around her neck. I knew without having to ask that it was the one her father had given her on the magical birthday she had talked about on the train.

She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. "Everything's going to be all right," she repeated softly, as if it were a mantra. "Everything's going to be all right."

Chapter 25

"Shall we call the police?" I asked her.

She opened her eyes and shrugged. "I should tell Grimby, I suppose. But that can wait until morning."

"Okay. What about your mother, then? If Winfield is prowling around looking for your father, he might end up at her place."

"Oh, I can't imagine he would go that far. Anyway, I couldn't face talking to my mother again tonight. Let's just clean the place up and go to bed, shall we?"

She was wrong not to call her mother, but I figured it wasn't up to me to argue with her. "Whatever you say, Kathy."

We spent half an hour setting the flat to rights, and then Kathy made up the bed in the spare room. I tried, and failed, to fix the broken lock on the front door. "Have to get a new one, I'm afraid," I told her.

"I'll worry about it tomorrow," she said. She looked exhausted. "I'm glad you're here, Walter."

"So am I."

"Will you be staying up?"

"For a while, maybe."

"Well, you can read, of course." She motioned to a large bookcase next to the desk. "And the refrigerator—there's not much in it, but feel free."

"Don't worry about me. Get some sleep."

She smiled. "All right. Good night, then. And thanks."

"Good night, Kathy."

She went into her bedroom and closed the door. I went into the bare room on the other side of the bathroom and sat in an uncomfortable ladderback chair, trying, and failing, not to listen. Another night eavesdropping on Kathy preparing for bed. Where had I gone wrong?

I knew, of course. Kathy was not a private eye's fantasy. She was too real. When she cried, her nose ran like a little girl's. There was a cut on the index finger of her left hand. She was mean to her mother; she apologized too much. All of this made her infinitely more appealing than the sultry blondes in the novels I had read; but it also made me unwilling to try to make her part of my fantasy. This was life, for better or worse, and I had to learn how to live it, private eye or not.

After a while her sounds ceased. I wandered out of my room and into the kitchen. Photographs of skinny models were taped to the refrigerator door. Kathy was prettier than any of them. I looked inside: tomato juice, milk, cottage cheese, eggs. She was right—not much. I noticed the bag of leftovers on the counter, next to the scale. I took out half a turkey sandwich and put the rest of the bag into the refrigerator. Munching on the sandwich, I went back to the living room.

There were mostly plays in the bookcase. Too bad. What I needed was some fat, exciting novel I had never set eyes on before—something that would sweep me up in its plot and make the hours till dawn fly by.

I read
The Winters Tale
instead. Shakespeare would do.

And after I was finished, I sat in a rocking chair by the window and stared down at the silent street.

Too deep in my dreams, I didn't react at first to the sound behind me. The ever-alert private eye. I turned my head slightly and caught a glimpse of a white shape creaking toward the kitchen. "Kathy?" I whispered.

The shape gasped and stopped. "Walter?"

"I couldn't sleep."

"Neither could I."

"There's half a turkey sandwich in the refrigerator."

"Oh. Thanks." Kathy went out to the kitchen and turned on a light. A minute later she returned with the remains of the sandwich and a glass of milk. She came over and sat on the sofa to my left. I moved the rocker slightly to face her. She was wearing a plain white nightgown and fluffy slippers. She looked very real. "You like Shakespeare?" she asked, pointing to the play on the floor next to the rocker.

"'We shall not see his like again,'" I said.

She smiled. "You're an interesting fellow, Walter Sands."

I shrugged.

She stared at me. "You don't talk about yourself, do you? My mother certainly didn't get much information, for all her prying."

"There's not much to tell," I said. "Just the usual tale of mistaken identity, unrequited love, vengeful fairies, and feigned madness. Shakespeare wrote about it all the time."

Kathy laughed. "Come on, Walter." She paused. "I've told you a lot."

Had she? I suppose she had, although I still didn't feel as if I knew her very well. Would she know me if I recited the grim facts of my past? That wasn't the way I wanted her to know me, of course; but the way I wanted her to know me was fantasy, and this was real life. I didn't want to talk about my past, but I didn't have a strong reason not to, just a temperamental disinclination. And there was this in its favor: if I talked, Kathy would stay. I wanted very much for her to stay. "Well," I said tentatively, "what do you want to know?"