Forth into Light (The Peter & Charlie Trilogy) (18 page)

Mike seemed to be expecting the question and to welcome it. “That’s a good question. I could have said for old times’ sake and let it go at that, but I’m not much for reviving the dear dead past and all that. Let me see. Possibly in the back of my mind I wanted to know if you’d got hold of something that I’d missed. It’s always interesting to check your own—whatever you want to call it—progress, accomplishment against somebody you more or less started out with. Primarily, a lot of people led me to think I might be able to help you.”

“Help me?”

“In the ways we’ve talked about. Get your career back on a working basis. If you decided to come back, I could drop a word in the right quarters. I really do happen to have a good deal of influence. You’d find it pretty rough trying to reestablish yourself on your own. Especially in Hollywood. You’ve got to play hard-to-get before anybody really wants you. That’s where I would come in.”

George took a long swallow of the fresh drink that had been put before him. The drinks had carried him to another stage. He felt very lucid and detached now, free of the dictates of pride or shame. “Would it make you feel your visit had been worthwhile if I asked you to lend me a thousand dollars?” He was astonished by the words as he heard himself saying them, but they seemed to make complete sense. What a splendid idea. What a simple solution to the money mess.

Mike straightened himself in his chair as he absorbed the full extent of George’s ruin. The camouflage had fallen apart with a vengeance. Here was the drunken deadbeat he had expected to find. It was rather an anticlimax. “I thought you might be in a financial bind,” he said, all affection and kindliness in the face of George’s abject surrender. “But would a thousand really make much difference?”

“Oh, I thought I might buy a couple of dogs. Liven the house up a bit.”

Sarah’s hand was on his arm. “Darling, do you think this is worthwhile when he’s going to be here such a short time?”

He pulled his arm away. “You stay out of this. We’ll get around to you in a minute.”

“Now listen——” Mike began to protest, but George lifted his hand.

“Let’s stick to business, Mike. Well, what do you say, yes or no?”

“Of course. I assume you mean to come home. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for subsidizing more of—well, more of this.”

“But we’re not——” Sarah began.

“I told you to stay out of it,” he snapped without looking at her. “
This
, did you say, Mike boy? Drunkenness and adultery. Is that what you mean? You don’t have any of that over there in your antiseptic, brainwashed, air-conditioned, all-American hell? No, probably not. You probably have a pill. Anything to dull the pain so you can get on with the serious business of beating up niggers and bombing civilians and making money. Money! There’s the all purpose pill. Well, come on. Let’s get on with it. What about that
money
?”

Mike looked slightly pained, but picked up where he had left off. “I’ll tell you what. If you’ll write me a letter outlining an idea for a scenario—it doesn’t matter what it is—we can make it a business deal. I’ll deduct it and you won’t have to think of it as a loan. It’ll be money earned.”

“All right. Make it two thousand.”

“The tax people might not go for that much unless I do something with it. Fifteen hundred. There could be more once you’re there.”

“Deductible. You do me a favor, I do you a favor. We’re both satisfied. How about that, boy? Fifteen hundred bucks for two minutes’ work. I’m still in there fighting. Do you have your checkbook with you?”

“I do, as a matter of fact. But don’t you want to wait till tomorrow?”

“No, no. A deal’s a deal. Sign on the dotted line.”

Mike studied him for a moment, wondering if even now George were playing some sort of complicated joke on him. George faced his scrutiny with a mad grin. Without taking his eyes off him, Mike reached into his pocket for checkbook and pen and then, with a slight shrug, leaned over and wrote out a check. He tore it out and handed it over. George acknowledged it with a bow. He studied it a moment as his expression set and hardened into a look of malevolent fury. He turned to Sarah and shook the check under her nose. “Do you see that? Do you know what that is?” His voice was strangled with rage.

She drew back and lifted her hands, palms out, as if warding off a blow, and looked at him beseechingly with great liquid eyes. “Please,” she murmured, but it was only a feeble whisper in the storm that was breaking over her.

“This is a one-way ticket out of here. Single. The children are provided for. You can stay and sleep with every man on the goddamn island. I’m afraid you’ll have to get paid for it. I don’t see where else you’re going to get any money. But whores
should
get paid. You have every right to demand it.”

She glanced about her instinctively and then her expression closed in with something very like boredom. “You’ll be sorry for saying these things in front of Mike, let alone anybody else who wants to listen.”

“Why should Mike care? He’s a whore too. His friends are whores. The whole world is one big goddamn brothel. And now I’m a whore.” He shook the check at her again. “I’m picking up my winnings and walking out. Out, do you understand? You can have the precious island and your pretty boys all to yourself.”

“That’s enough, George. I’m going now.” She made a move to rise.

“Sit down,” he roared and heads turned.

She subsided into her chair. Her hands were trembling and tears were welling up in her eyes, but she managed a tremulous public smile. “Very well, darling. If it helps you to say these things, I’ll try to listen. But maybe Mike would enjoy doing something else.”

“Don’t you believe it. Let me tell you about Mike. He’s come here to see what a wreck I’ve made of my life and I wouldn’t want to see him go away disappointed. We’ve played our little comedy for him, but it wouldn’t be fair to let him think it had anything to do with real life. I feel it my duty to tell him that that was the first civilized lunch we’ve had since the last time visitors came through and that by evening you’re usually too drunk to know whether there’ll be any dinner.”

“If this is the moment of truth,” Sarah said in a voice filled with sorrow, “perhaps I ought to tell him why we drink.”

Although George was looking at her, his rage blinded him so that he was spared any real communication with her. Mike was simply a shape beside him, as impersonal as a priest in a confessional. “Oh, I’ll tell him. It’s because I don’t give you a normal sex life. My problem is that I can’t take infidelity lightly. There’s something about touching a body that somebody else has——” His voice wavered and broke and he bowed his head over the bottles and glasses on the table. “Oh, shit,” he said.

“Please, darling. We can’t go on torturing ourselves for something that’s all over and done with. We’ve held onto it long enough. It’s part of the past.”

His head jerked up and his eyes burned into her without seeing her. “You filthy lying bitch. Go away. Go start on your evening rounds. You might as well get some practice.”

“I’m sorry, Mike,” Sarah murmured. She pressed a trembling hand to her forehead as if she felt feverish. “You see how it is.”

“Go, goddamn you.” He kept his voice low so that it came out like the hoarse echo of a shout. “Go before I kill you.”

As he spoke, all the lights of the port blazed on. They were lifted from intimate dusk and placed on a spotlighted stage. They all blinked.

“You mustn’t try to order me about, George.” Her poise remained intact and she communicated a sort of bruised valiant dignity. “I wanted to go ten minutes ago, but I stayed because I thought it would help you to get this out of your system, whatever it is.” She was sure he couldn’t know about this afternoon. She may have made some blunder—could he have come back to the house after she left?—that might have aroused his suspicions, but he couldn’t
know.
For his sake as well as hers, she must do nothing that even hinted at guilt.

“For the love of God, go,” he said in an agonized whisper, the muscles of his face and neck knotted in an agony of control. “Don’t you see what you’re doing to me? Do you want me to knock you out of your chair in front of everybody?”

She wasn’t afraid of him. She knew the limits beyond which he would not go. At his most violent, he would never hit her. She finished her drink composedly and picked up her straw bag. “This certainly isn’t very enjoyable for any of us,” she said. “I’ll wait for you at home. Sorry, Mike.” She rose and left.

George made a grab for his drink and spilled it into his mouth. It dribbled over his chin and splashed his shirt and trousers. He lurched heavily and almost tipped over. He shot out a foot and steadied himself. “That’s better. Just us boys together. Drink up, Mike.”

Mike looked at him coldly. His hair had fallen over his eyes. His lips and chin glistened wetly. His shirt was wet and wilted. He swayed in his chair. Mike shook his head slightly in response to a question that had formed in his mind. Had he really supposed that this wreck represented some secret value, some criticism of conventional success? He looked across at the ruin of his friend from the rampart of his large bank account, his numerous profitable interests, his celebrated and important friends, his efficiently luxurious establishments in New York and Hollywood, his nearly one million dollars’ worth of uncompleted contracts and he knew that even if he were inclined to sentiment, he would scarcely feel sorry for him. There wasn’t enough left to feel sorry for. George had made his bed. He had helped all he could, but the money would surely offer only a brief reprieve from the final inevitable collapse.

“I think you’d better go home too,” he said. “
If
Sarah will let you in. I wouldn’t if I were she.”

“Wouldn’t you now? A fat lot you know about it. God, what a prick you’ve turned into. Sad.” With Sarah gone, his venom flowed freely over Mike.

“If you’d look at yourself in a mirror, you’d see something truly sad. But I don’t think it’s worth discussing. Let’s call it a day, George.”

“Good idea. Let’s call it a day. I don’t think dinner would really be much fun. You should find plenty to amuse you around town. Sarah thinks you’ve got the hots for Jeff. Don’t try anything or I’ll have you run off the island.”

“Christ. Little Napoleon. Another crack like that and I may just have that check stopped.”

George lifted his hand and fumbled for the lock of hair that hung over his eyes and tugged it. “I forgot I was your indentured slave.”

“Since we knew each other when we were kids, I suppose it’s natural for us to revert to this schoolboy nonsense but I don’t really find it amusing.”

“So frightfully sorry. I must go have my head shrunk. God, what garbage.” Let it all go, he thought. Throw away the past. Stamp on affection and gratitude. He wanted to hold out his hand to Mike and weep with him.

“Will you ask that child how much all this is? I want to go.”

George clapped his hands and the boy came running. He wept within himself while Mike paid the bill. Would there be a chance at the end to salvage at least some talisman of the old love?

“Well, that’s that,” Mike said. “I’ll count on that letter from you. There may be other papers you have to sign to help create the fiction that you’re capable of having an idea worth fifteen hundred dollars. My lawyers will take care of it.”

That finished it. That snapped the final tie. “I know you mean that as an insult, Mike, and your intention is noted. But truthfully, if I thought I were capable of writing the sort of crap you do, I’d turn in my typewriter and go get an honest job.” He chuckled happily to himself.

Mike rose, rigid and tight-lipped. “I’ll wave to you on my way to the bank, funny man.”

George was alone. He sat, breathing heavily, not thinking but aware of the thing building up in him again that made his body feel too small. It would surely crack under the strain. He gripped the straw seat of his chair and wondered if he should have another drink. It would do no good. Drink helped when he had to confront others, but he was alone now and must confront himself. He felt suddenly terribly conspicuous, indecently exposed in the midst of this brightly lighted, laughing, convivial crowd. Somebody might try to join him at any minute. Yet moving would require a superhuman effort. He had to make it. He had to get away. Mustn’t crack in public.

Slowly he pulled himself up and steadied himself for a moment against the chair. The first step was the tough one. After that he would be all right. He took it, lurched as he had known he would, righted himself, and then began to thread his way through the tables. People called to him in the accents of half a dozen nations. Hands reached out to him, but he eluded them. Darkness was his goal. Each step threatened to bring him crashing ignominiously into a chair or table. He began to chuckle softly as he thought of the havoc he would create if he ended up in a tangle of legs and broken bottles and overturned tables. He gained confidence as he went along. He was perfectly all right, really. He’d just been sitting down too long.

He got clear of the café without mishap and headed out around the port. He didn’t know where he was going. Anywhere where it was dark. American jazz blared at him as he passed the tourist bar. He hugged the edge of the
quai
, staying as much as possible in shadow. In another few moments, he had passed the last buildings and was in the clear, climbing the road that led up and around to the swimming platforms. Away from the lights of the town, the sky was suddenly unfolded above him, thick with stars.

At the fig tree, he turned off the road down steps and stumbled across rough terrain until he came to the first platforms. He stayed up away from the sea, following the ramparts of the old fort toward the place where he knew now he had intended to go all along. The ramparts curved back and joined the massive retaining wall of the road which continued to rise high above him. He went on, his left hand maintaining a light contact with the wall. The tumble of rock on his right narrowed gradually so that as he advanced the sea came closer to him, until he came to a ledge little more than a yard wide, backed by the wall, with a sheer drop of a hundred feet down to some semi-submerged rock outcroppings and the sea. Here, he lowered himself carefully, his back against the wall, his knees drawn up under his chin, his feet only a few inches from the edge of nothing. He had made it.