Islands in the Stream (24 page)

“Sure she was,” Roger said. “Ask your father.”

“I’m sorry about Mr. Raeburn dying,” young Tom said. “I remember him dying very well. He was killed by a bobsled that rode high over a turn and went into the crowd. He’d been very ill and Papa and I went to visit him. Then he was better after a while and he went to watch the bob races although he shouldn’t have. We weren’t there when he was killed. I’m sorry if talking about it upsets you, Audrey.”

“He was a nice man,” Audrey said. “It doesn’t upset me, Tommy. It was a long time ago.”

“Did you know either of us boys?” Andy asked her.

“How could she, horseman? We weren’t born yet,” David said.

“How was I to know?” Andy asked. “I can’t remember anything about France and I don’t think you remember much.”

“I don’t pretend to. Tommy remembers France for all of us. Later on I’ll remember this island. And I can remember every picture papa ever painted that I’ve seen.”

“Can you remember the racing ones?” Audrey asked.

“Every one I’ve seen.”

“I was in some of them,” Audrey said. “At Longchamps and at Auteuil and St. Cloud. It’s always the back of my head.”

“I can remember the back of your head then,” young Tom said. “And your hair was down to your waist and I was two steps above you to see better. It was a hazy day the way it is in the fall when it’s blue smoky looking and we were in the upper stand right opposite the water jump and on our left was the bullfinch and the stone wall. The finish was on the side closer to us and the water jump was on the inner course of the track. I was always above and behind you to see better except when we were down at the track.”

“I thought you were a funny little boy then.”

“I guess I was. And you never talked. Maybe because I was so young. But wasn’t Auteuil a beautiful track though?”

“Wonderful. I was there last year.”

“Maybe we can go this year, Tommy,” David said. “Did you use to go to the races with her, too, Mr. Davis?”

“No,” Roger said. “I was just her swimming teacher.”

“You were my hero.”

“Wasn’t papa ever your hero?” Andrew asked.

“Of course he was. But I couldn’t let him be my hero as much as I wanted because he was married. When he and Tommy’s mother were divorced I wrote him a letter. It was very powerful and I was ready to take Tommy’s mother’s place in any way I could. But I never sent it because he married Davy’s and Andy’s mother.”

 
“Things are certainly complicated,” young Tom said.

“Tell us some more about Paris,” David said. “We ought to learn all we can if we’re going there now.”

“Do you remember when we’d be down on the rail, Audrey, and how after the horses came over the last obstacle they would be coming straight down toward us and the way they would look coming bigger and bigger and the noise they would make on the turf when they would go past?”

“And how cold it used to be and how we would get close to the big braziers to get warm and eat the sandwiches from the bar?”

“I loved it in the fall,” young Tom said. “We used to ride back home in a carriage, an open one, do you remember? Out of the Bois and then along the river with it just getting dark and the burning leaves smell and the tugs towing barges on the river.”

“Do you really remember it that well? You were an awfully small boy.”

“I remember every bridge on the river from Suresnes to Charenton,” Tommy told her.

“You can’t.”

“I can’t name them. But I’ve got them in my head.”

“I don’t believe you can remember them all. And part of the river’s ugly and many of the bridges are.”

“I know it. But I was there a long time after I knew you, and papa and I used to walk the whole river. The ugly parts and the beautiful parts and I’ve fished a lot of it with different friends of mine.”

“You really fished in the Seine?”

“Of course.”

“Did papa fish it, too?”

“Not so much. He used to fish sometimes at Charenton. But he wanted to walk when he finished work and so we would walk until I got too tired and then get a bus back some way. After we had some money we used to take taxis or horsecabs.”

“You must have had money when we were going to the races.”

“I think we did that year,” Tommy said. “I can’t remember that. Sometimes we had money and sometimes we didn’t.”

“We always had money,” Audrey said. “Mother never married anyone who didn’t have lots of money.”

“Are you rich, Audrey?” Tommy asked.

“No,” the girl said. “My father spent his money and lost his money after he married mother and none of my stepfathers ever made any provision for me.”

“You don’t have to have money,” Andrew said to her.

“Why don’t you live with us?” young Tom asked her. “You’d be fine with us.”

“It sounds lovely. But I have to make a living.”

“We’re going to Paris,” Andrew said. “You come along. It will be wonderful. You and I can go and see all the arrondissements together.”

“I’ll have to think it over,” the girl said.

“Do you want me to make you a drink to help you decide?” David said. “That’s what they always do in Mr. Davis’s books.”

“Don’t ply me with liquor.”

“That’s an old white slaver’s trick,” young Tom said. “Then the next thing they know they’re in Buenos Aires.”

“They must give them something awfully strong,” David said. “That’s a long trip.”

“I don’t think there’s anything much stronger than the way Mr. Davis makes martinis,” Andrew said. “Make her a martini, please, Mr. Davis.”

“Do you want one, Audrey?” Andrew asked.

“Yes. If it’s not too long before lunch.”

Roger got up to make them and young Tom came over and sat by her. Andrew was sitting at her feet.

“I don’t think you ought to take it, Audrey,” he said. “It’s the first step. Remember
ce n’est que le premier pas qui conte
.”

Up on the porch Thomas Hudson kept on painting. He could not keep from hearing their talk but he had not looked down at them since they had come in from swimming. He was having a difficult time staying in the carapace of work that he had built for his protection and he thought, if I don’t work now I may lose it. Then he thought that there would be time to work when they were all gone. But he knew he must keep on working now or he would lose the security he had built for himself with work. I will do exactly as much as I would have done if they were not here, he thought. Then I will clear up and go down and the hell with thinking of Raeburn or of the old days or of anything. But as he worked he felt a loneliness coming into him already. It was next week when they would leave. Work, he told himself. Get it right and keep your habits because you are going to need them.

When he had finished work and gone down to join them, Thomas Hudson was still thinking about the painting and he said “Hi” to the girl and then looked away from her. Then he looked back.

“I couldn’t help hearing it,” he said. “Or overhearing it. I’m glad we’re old friends.”

“So am I. Did you know?”

“Maybe,” he said. “Let’s get lunch. Are you dry, Audrey?”

“I’ll change in the shower,” she said. “I have a shirt and the skirt to this.”

“Tell Joseph and Eddy that we’re ready,” Thomas Hudson said to young Tom. “I’ll show you the shower, Audrey.”

Roger went into the house.

“I thought I shouldn’t be here under false pretenses,” Audrey said.

“You weren’t.”

“Don’t you think I could be any good for him?”

“You might. What he needs is to work well to save his soul. I don’t know anything about souls. But he misplaced his the first time he went out to the Coast.”

“But he’s going to write a novel now. A great novel.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“It was in one of the columns. Cholly Knickerbocker, I think.”

“Oh,” Thomas Hudson said. “Then it must be true.”

“Don’t you truly think I might be good for him?”

“You might.”

“There are some complications.”

“There always are.”

“Should I tell you now?”

“No,” Thomas Hudson said. “You better get dressed and comb your hair and get up there. He might meet some other woman while he was waiting.”

“You weren’t like this in the old days. I thought you were the kindest man I ever knew.”

“I’m awfully sorry, Audrey. And I’m glad you’re here.”

“We are old friends, aren’t we?”

“Sure,” he said. “Change and fix yourself up and get up there.”

He looked away from the girl and she shut the door of the shower. He did not know what made him feel as he did. But the happiness of the summer began to drain out of him as when the tide changes on the flats and the ebb begins in the channel that opens out to sea. He watched the sea and the line of beach and he noticed that the tide had changed and the shore birds were working busily well down the slope of new wet sand. The breakers were diminishing as they receded. He looked a long way up along the shore and then went into the house.

They had a fine time
the last few days. It was as good as any of the time before and there was no pre-going sadness. The yacht left and Audrey took a room over the Ponce de León. But she stayed at the house and slept on a cot on the sleeping porch at the far end of the house and used the guest room.

She did not say anything again about being in love with Roger. All Roger said to Thomas Hudson about her was, “She’s married to some sort of a son of a bitch.”

“You couldn’t expect her to wait all her life for you, could you?”

“At least he’s a son of a bitch.”

“Aren’t they always? You’ll find he has his nice side.”

“He’s rich.”

“That’s probably his nice side,” Thomas Hudson said. “They’re always married to some son of a bitch and he always has some tremendously nice side.”

“All right,” Roger said. “Let’s not talk about it.”

“You’re going to do the book, aren’t you?”

“Sure. That’s what she wants me to do.”

“Is that why you’re going to do it?”

“Shove it, Tom,” Roger told him.

“Do you want to use the Cuba House? It’s only a shack. But you’d be away from people.”

“No. I want to go West.”

“The Coast?”

“No. Not the Coast. Could I stay at the ranch for a while?”

“There’s only the one cabin that’s on the far beach. I rented the rest.”

“That would be fine.”

The girl and Roger took long walks on the beach and swam together and with the boys. The boys went bone-fishing and took Audrey bone-fishing and goggle-fishing on the reef. Thomas Hudson worked hard and all the time he was working and the boys were out on the flats he had the good feeling that they would be home soon and they would be having supper or dinner together. He was worried when they were goggle-fishing but he knew Roger and Eddy would make them be careful. One time they all went trolling for a full day up to the furthest light at the end of the bank and had a wonderful day with bonito and dolphin and three big wahoo. He painted a canvas of a wahoo with his strange flattened head and his stripes around his long speed-built body for Andy, who had caught the biggest one. He painted him against a background of the big spider-legged lighthouse with the summer clouds and the green of the banks.

Then one day the old Sikorsky amphibian circled the house once and then landed in the bay and they rowed the three boys out to her in the dinghy. Joseph sculled out in another dinghy with their bags. Young Tom said, “Goodbye, papa. It certainly was a swell summer.”

David said, “Goodbye, papa. It certainly was wonderful. Don’t worry about anything. We’ll be careful.”

Andrew said, “Goodbye, papa. Thanks for a wonderful, wonderful summer and for the trip to Paris.”

They climbed up into the cockpit door and all waved from the door to Audrey, who was standing on the dock, and called, “Goodbye! Goodbye, Audrey.”

Roger was helping them up and they said, “Goodbye, Mr. Davis. Goodbye, papa.” Then very loud and carrying over the water, “Goodbye, Audrey!”

Then the door closed and locked and they were faces through the small glass panes and then they were water-splashed faces as the old coffee mills revved up. Thomas Hudson pulled away from the rush of spray and the ancient, ugly plane taxied out and took off into the little breeze there was and then circled once and straightened course, steady, ugly, and slow across the Gulf.

Thomas Hudson knew Roger and Audrey would be leaving and as the run-boat was coming the next day he asked Roger when he was going.

“Tomorrow, old Tom,” Roger said.

“With Wilson?”

“Yes. I asked him to come back.”

“I just wanted to know about ordering on the run-boat.”

So the next day they left the same way. Thomas Hudson kissed the girl goodbye and she kissed him. She had cried when the boys left and she cried that day and held him close and hard.

“Take good care of him and take good care of you.”

“I’m going to try. You’ve been awful good to us, Tom.”

“Nonsense.”

“I’ll write,” Roger said. “Is there anything you want me to do out there?”

“Have fun. You might let me know how things are.”

“I will. This one will write, too.”

So they were gone, too, and Thomas Hudson stopped in at Bobby’s on the way home.

“Going to be goddam lonely,” Bobby said.

“Yes,” Thomas Hudson said. “It’s going to be goddam lonely.”

Thomas Hudson was unhappy
as soon as the boys were gone. But he thought that was normal lonesomeness for them and he just kept on working. The end of a man’s own world does not come as it does in one of the great paintings Mr. Bobby had outlined. It comes with one of the island boys bringing a radio message up the road from the local post office and saying, “Please sign on the detachable part of the envelope. We’re sorry, Mr. Tom.”

He gave the boy a shilling. But the boy looked at it and put it down on the table.

“I don’t care for a tip, Mr. Tom,” the boy said and went out.

He read it. Then he put it in his pocket and went out the door and sat on the porch by the sea. He took the radio form out and read it again. YOUR SONS DAVID AND ANDREW KILLED WITH THEIR MOTHER IN MOTOR ACCIDENT NEAR BIARRITZ ATTENDING TO EVERYTHING PENDING YOUR ARRIVAL DEEPEST SYMPATHY. It was signed by the Paris branch of his New York bank.