Forth into Light (The Peter & Charlie Trilogy) (17 page)

He passed his fingers lightly over his forehead. If it was true, he would have to kill her.
If
? Hysterical or no, Jeff hadn’t made it up. It had burst from him involuntarily.

She had been with Pavlo this morning. She had arranged it then, practically under his nose. A bitch in heat. He would leave her to it. She could have all the Pavlos she wanted. He would simply get on a boat and go. Disappear.

No. Why should he let her get away with it? He would confront her with it, beat her, throw her out. It was the end of everything. Nothing he could do would make any difference. Except to make an end to himself. The infinite relief of nonexistence.

He lifted his hands to his eyes and covered them. He remembered the curious state she had been in at lunch, drinking little, unusually lively and keyed up. He had sat at her feet later and touched her and felt some sort of anticipation vibrating in her. Of course. Thinking of that obscene hunk of male flesh. Panting for a screw.

He surged up and seized the chair Jeff had been sitting in and hurled it against a window. It clattered to the floor in a shower of glass. He strode to the shelves and pulled books from them and flung them about the room. He grabbed a lamp and smashed it to the floor. He would wreck the whole goddamn house. Home sweet home. Through the tumult he was creating, he heard her voice calling from below.

“George? Darling? Are you there? What’s happening?”

He froze, holding his typewriter in his hands, and remembered Mike. He couldn’t face her now and go on to a pleasant evening with Mike. Mike mustn’t know. He somehow had to get through the next few hours treating Sarah as if he knew nothing. His arms ached with a longing to hurl the typewriter down the stairs, catching her where she stood at the foot of them. Only a half hour ago she had welcomed him with eyes full of interest and love. Satisfied eyes. He put the machine down hastily. He had to answer her. If she came up, he wouldn’t be able to restrain himself. It was too raw and fresh in him to pretend with her.

“It’s all right,” he called, finding that his voice was under control. “I knocked over a lamp.”

“Broken?”

“It can be fixed. Are you ready? I don’t want to keep Mike waiting.”

“I’ll be ready in a minute.”

“I’ll be right down.” He moved silently around the room gathering up books and shoving them back in the shelves. He set the chair upright. The window was smashed, but he could fix it himself. The lamp was a ruin. He took a final look around. Nobody could tell what had happened. He would have to think of some explanation for the window.

He hurried downstairs on tiptoe and went to the cabinet in the living room where liquor was kept. He poured out two generous measures of brandy in quick succession, gulping them down. After the second one, he paused with the bottle in his hand and looked around him to gauge the effect. Better. Much better. Something was terribly wrong, something was broken, but he could bear it for the moment. He heard steps on the stairs outside and he poured more brandy into the glass and swallowed it down. He couldn’t look at her. He couldn’t touch her. It would be all right as soon as they were with people. She called his name unnecessarily loud, assuming he was still in the top of the house. He put the bottle back and started out.

“Coming. I’m in here.” He joined her at the door. It was still all right. With doors to open and close and the street to walk down, she wouldn’t notice that he was avoiding looking at her. She was just a presence beside him. She had no identity, no power to hurt or stir him.

“Dinner’s all taken care of,” she said. “I told Chloë we’d be back at about nine.”

“Fine.” Everything was in order. Everything was perfectly normal. He stumbled slightly as they set off down the rough cobbled street and he concentrated on holding himself steady. It wouldn’t do to look as if he were drunk. The sun was lowering in the west and color was beginning to creep back into the town. A vine bursting over a wall in front of them was a vivid green. All day it had been black.

“You and Mike have a good swim?” she asked conversationally. She noticed that he had been drinking and wondered. Had he and Mike got started on a bender?

“Sure. Fine.” They had had a fine swim while she—that was where the drink came in handy. While she what? He knew, but the answer was like a great blank ache in him, formless, like the knowledge of death. They walked on. Was she saying something? Had he answered? He held as aloof from himself as from her, putting his feet carefully one in front of the other.

They reached the shops and he greeted people automatically. Out on the
quai
, he saw Peter and a girl heading in the direction of the Mills-Martin house. He didn’t immediately identify the girl and his mind was too abstracted to bother with a second glance. The sun was about to perform its daily miracle. All the houses on the eastern arm of the harbor were beginning to flush with a golden glow and fire was springing up in their windows. In another fifteen minutes it would be dusk.

The tables in front of Lambraiki’s were full. As they approached, he spotted the Varnums and Sid Coleman and his girl and Joe and Lena sitting together. At a table near them, Mike was sitting with the Italian painter, Roberto, and Paul, his Dutch friend. He wondered where Mike had picked them up. He turned away quickly as he caught a glimpse of Pavlo a few tables from them.

Mike waved. “We’ve saved chairs for you,” he said as they approached. The three men stood for Sarah.

George remained standing for a moment, exchanging remarks with the group at the next table. He was sorry the Mills-Martins weren’t here. Charlie was always an impressive presence to display to visitors. He was aware of a recently arrived French contingent whom he hadn’t met looking at him and nudging each other. He had been successfully translated into French. A big frog in this little pond. He sat down carefully and braced himself to make small talk with the others. Only a few more hours. Mike would be gone tomorrow. Roberto and Paul immediately began asking questions about Costa. It was apparently the latest sensation, for lack of any more scandalous gossip. Roberto and Paul were inclined to be indignant about his being held.

“How can they lock him up when they have no evidence?” Paul demanded.

“They do pretty much what they want to do,” George said indifferently. He wanted a drink. He clapped his hands and ordered for Sarah too when a Lambraiki boy came running.

“I hear he offered to give Joe’s money back.”

“Yes. Perhaps that’s the way it’ll be settled. We’ll know in the morning.”

“Even if he does, can you imagine the police letting him go?” Roberto insisted. “Because he’s had trouble before, they’ll keep him for years. I heard about a case like this in Athens. It was four years while he languished in prison.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about all this?” Mike inquired. “You said you were just going to interpret for an American. I understand you’ve been robbed of seventy thousand drachmas.”

“By tomorrow, it’ll be a hundred thousand.”

“What is all this?” Sarah chimed in belatedly. “Costa’s been arrested?”

George was muddled. Hadn’t he discussed it with Sarah? How had Mike found out about it? Not wanting to be reminded of it, he stated the bare facts to the table in general, not mentioning Jeff. “Joe is certain about Costa,” he concluded. “Otherwise his name wouldn’t have come into it.”

“Yes, but the police!” Roberto and Paul wouldn’t let it go.

“It’s not unusual for the police to be called in when there’s been a robbery.”

“George is a cynic,” Mike said lightly. “If the police abuse their power here you must grin and bear it.”

“You don’t really know anything about it, Mike,” Sarah said, giving, George thought with a burst of hatred, her usual performance of unshakeable loyalty. “Roberto and Paul are upset because we all like Costa. He hasn’t anything to worry about if he’s innocent.”

George didn’t want her as an ally. He didn’t want anybody as an ally. He had always been recognized as the final authority on island affairs; he was unused to the criticism implied in Roberto and Paul’s comments. He must set them straight. What about? The drink was beginning to hit him. A moment of concentration. Now then: “That’s not quite true. Ordinarily, he might just be taken off and forgotten about. I won’t let that happen. I’ll see that he’s treated fairly.”

“Of course, that makes a difference. They’ll pay attention to you,” Paul agreed. George shot him a grateful glance. Drinks arrived and he took a long swallow of his.

“Big man on island,” Mike said. “I’m amazed they haven’t made you mayor.”

George wondered if he’d been drinking too. The sneer was undisguised. Well, if that was the way he wanted it. “We can’t all be chums with the President,” he said with a warning edge.

Roberto and Paul seized on the reference and began questioning Mike about the White House. George finished his drink quickly and ordered another. He was aware that Sarah was trying to catch his eye and he pretended to be following the conversation. A pressure was building up in him that shook him physically. He had to drink it into submission or he would explode with it. Pavlo was sitting only two tables away. Sarah was performing with sickening credibility; it made everything about her false, an affront to all they had ever been to each other. Mike was parading his important connections with graceful modesty and Roberto and Paul were drinking it in. How much more of this was he supposed to take? He looked over heads across the port. The light on the white houses had deepened to a rich copper and seemed to come from within. As he watched, it faded rapidly and the air itself turned gray. He drank.

“Come on, everybody. Time for another round,” Mike said. “This party is on me.”

“We must go. We have a date,” Roberto said. Paul finished his drink and the pair rose together. They thanked Mike and drifted off. George wondered who would take their places. There was usually a rush for any empty chairs at his table.

“I like those two,” Mike said. “Your friend Peter Mills-Martin’s not among us this evening?”

“I saw him a little while ago. He’ll probably be along.”

“Roberto and Paul are very nice,” Sarah said. “I feel terribly sorry for them.”

“Really? They struck me as being quite pleased with themselves.

“She means because they’re queer,” George said, and then told himself to stay out of it. It was too much like actually speaking to her. Dangerous.

Mike laughed. “Women can’t stand seeing any man escape their clutches.”

“Is that all you see in it?” Sarah objected. “I mind for their sakes. They have so much love in them. If it had been channeled in a normal direction, their lives would be so much more complete.”

“You mean they could have wives and babies?” Mike was laughing at her.

“Yes, that. And more. All that can exist between a man and a woman that goes beyond just physical coupling.”

“How do you know it can’t exist between a man and a man?”

“How can it? There’s none of the natural duality of male and female. It’s all on one note. Can you imagine a whole community of homosexuals?”

“Certainly. Hollywood. Everybody’s as queer as a toad. Lovely people.”

“I suppose it’s possible you don’t really know what I’m talking about,” Sarah said, brushing aside his flippancy. “You obviously didn’t find it in your marriages.”

“You can say that again.”

George found his hands clenched into fists beneath the table. Physical coupling! There she sat, looking so clean and fastidious, an almost spiritual light shining from her great lovely eyes, talking about the beauty of marriage. He wanted to smash her into the ground, kick her, stamp on her. And Mike too. Smug, flippant, arrogant. He didn’t give a damn about people. That was it—he’d felt it all along but hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself. Total self-absorption.

“Perhaps we’re talking at cross purposes,” Sarah was saying with the disinterested air of one who seeks enlightenment. “Perhaps you’re trying to tell me that you’re a homosexual, too.”

Mike laughed comfortably. “My wives would be astonished to hear it. But I like queers. They’re generally fun to be with.”

“Considering your exalted position,” George broke in, “I should think that might be rather dangerous.”

“You mean, what will people think? You really are out of touch, Cosmo.” He snapped his fingers at the passing boy and gestured for more drinks. “They’re all over the place these days. I could name you some names that would amaze you. Everybody knows it’s just one maladjustment among others. It’s something for the head shrinkers to work out.”

“Head shrinkers! Tolerance in the U.S.A. We’re just smearing—smoothing over all distinctions between right and wrong.”

“You tolerate Roberto and Paul.”

George took a swallow of his drink. It dribbled over the side and he brushed at his chin as he steadied himself against the table. “Not tolerate. I
accept
Roberto and Paul because they’re two people living decently for each other. I don’t accept the predatory strays who corrupt the locals and consider anybody fair game, including my children.”

A look of sharpened interest came into Mike’s eyes. He had learned a lot about the Leightons since his swim. George’s drinking was confirming his suspicion that his earlier air of assurance and well-being was an heroic but fragile pretense. “And what about the predatory heterosexuals?” he asked.

George lurched forward against the table, spilling drinks. “What in hell do you mean by that?” he demanded.

“Just that.” He was playing his cards with the watchful concentration of a dedicated gambler. “Observation has led me to suspect that marriage doesn’t represent perfection in human relationships. Surely there’s as much hanky-panky going on here as anywhere else.”

George studied him intently, trying to keep himself steady in his chair. Did he know something? At least Sarah had the good grace to keep quiet. He was conscious of the three empty chairs among them. Why didn’t people come as they always did and put an end to this impossible conversation? Now that it was started he didn’t know how to stop it. “I wonder why you really came here, Mike,” he said musingly, almost to himself.