Who Killed Mr. Garland's Mistress? (10 page)

They had their birth certificates and drivers' licenses ready and were quickly checked through the perfunctory Bermuda customs. A minibus, with the name of the surf club where they had reservations, waited patiently at the curb. They held hands during the twenty-minute drive to the hotel while the driver pointed out landmarks, and they laughed when he asked if they were recently married.

The water covered her ears as she floated on her back in complete silence and stared at the sky. She had never seen a more perfect day. Occasionally she gave a languid push with her arms through the warm water, a welcome change from the cold of the Maine bay. Far above a lone white cloud hovered in the sky, and as she watched a wisp slowly unraveled and extended outward.

A jet track moved over the cloud, too high for the engine sound or the plane to be visible. She wondered if the plane was going to Europe, or perhaps, Spain, from this latitude. Her sense of geography was hazy and she didn't bother to pursue the thought further.

Her feet gently kicked downward until she stood on the soft bottom. The water covered her breasts and lapped at her neck. Emptiness stretched to the horizon, broken only by a distant fishing boat. As she turned toward the pink Bermuda beach she was surprised how far out she was. She supposed that the dim figure dozing under the beach umbrella was Rob.

She hadn't felt so relaxed in days, and the sun and water were cleansing Will and Helen from her mind. She began to slowly walk through the water toward the beach.

In the waist-deep ocean to her side, a young couple was laughing and spraying water at each other. She supposed they were a honeymoon couple, and stopped to watch. The boy-man of twenty-one was well built and she liked the way his muscles moved under the smooth skin of his back. He was trim and bronzed from a summer of sun. As she watched, feeling began to course through her and she was amazed at the magnitude of her sexual urge.

The couple stopped their horseplay and looked at her expectantly, the young girl with a quizzical frown on her face. Tavie hurried toward the shore and when in knee-deep water, ran toward Rob.

Rob sat up under the umbrella and waved toward her. “Hi, I thought you were going to drift to the Azores.”

“Oh, are the Azores that way?”

“I don't know, but it sounds good. Let's have a drink on the terrace.”

Hand in hand they walked up a short flight of stone steps to the terrace and ordered a rum drink. When the drinks arrived they sipped slowly and felt indolent in the warm sun.

“It's just perfect, Rob,” she said. “The surf club couldn't be better, and the beach must be the most wonderful in the world.”

“I appreciate your enthusiasm. We were lucky though, on such short notice to get a reservation in a place that turned out so well.”

She put her hand over his and felt her love. “I feel great, but there is one problem.”

“Oh?”

“A secret—if you promise.”

“You sound like a young girl.”

“Yeah, and I just found myself staring hungrily at a young man.”

“Lord, Tavie,” he laughed. “I never knew girls from Massachusetts knew what studs were.”

“Oh, you'd be surprised. Let's go to bed.”

“Bed? I can't remember the last time you asked.”

“A new leaf.”

He signed for the drinks and they crossed the terrace for the short walk to the main hotel.

She was nude within the circle of motorcycles. The staccato of their engines rose and fell as the helmeted figures bounced impatiently in their saddles. The wavering headlights played across her body as she tried to see their faces, but only bulk forms obscured by visors were discernible across the glare.

One light blinked out and the engines of the Harley-Davidsons coughed to a stop. The driver slowly pulled one leg over the saddle and kicked the cycle's stand into place. He walked into the circle where she stood shivering, and he grabbed her hand.

“Get to it,” the voices yelled.

Gloved hands caressed her breasts and ran down her body, across her stomach and between her legs. Grasping a gloved finger between his teeth he pulled off one glove and then the other. Now, his hands playing across her body were warm and she felt moist.

“Give it to us or we tie you down,” the voices yelled.

“Relax and enjoy it, Hon,” the figure before her said. He took off his helmet and threw it into the waiting ring. It was a younger and larger Will, a grimacing and passionate Will.

“Screw her,” the voices yelled.

A blanket was spread on the ground and she lay back to look up at Will removing his clothes. He kneeled between her legs and she reached up to pull him toward her. The others stopped their machines and began to crowd around the embracing pair. Over Will's head she could see them surrounding her, and she knew that all … all would.

She awoke in a thin veil of perspiration. She extricated herself from the entanglement of Rob's legs and turned off the air conditioner. Pulling the drapes and opening the patio door, she allowed the breeze to gently brush her body. The patio overlooked the ocean, and cement block walls to each side kept her safe from casual voyeurs.

Good Lord, she thought. A gangbang from a motorcycle gang yet, and wondered why she had enjoyed the dream fantasy so completely. Brushing damp hair back over her forehead she went back and knelt on the floor next to the bed. She ran her hands over Rob's body and kissed him on the chest.

As he awoke he smiled. “We'll have to wait a couple of minutes. I'm not quite as up to these repeat performances as I used to be.”

She kissed him again. “That's all right, tonight will be fine.” She pulled back the covers on the other twin bed and lay down. Her body had tensed. Was it sex? Sex had never been a significant part of her life before, alone in Maine, days would go by without it passing through her mind—and now it seemed to preoccupy her completely. She was either an awakening woman or a wife frightened by her husband's infidelity.

The day after, Will had sent her one red rose and a short note that read, “Like the Petit Prince realized, that's all that can be said.” This ultra-romantic gesture from a man who lived on the energy of his cynicism had disquieted her. Later in the afternoon he'd called her, his voice deep and sober.

“Tavie, that you? This is the reluctant dragon,” he'd said.

“I've nothing to say to you.”

“I wondered if you wanted a further tour of the sewers?”

“My husband and I are going away.”

“Do you still want to find Helen?”

“I don't know. I'm afraid your price is too high.”

“That's the sewer, Hon.” His voice was low.

“I didn't expect that bonus side trip.”

“You wanted to.”

“Goodby Will.”

“Wait …”

She hung up on him. Unsaid were the sharp cutting comments she'd planned. After the call she'd gone to Oliver's house.

Her confessional was not a vaulted cavernous cathedral, but a book-lined study where orange pekoe tea was served while she sat in a pleasant-smelling leather chair. Outside the day was a colorless drizzle, while the lamp on Oliver's desk cast a warm glow over them. After Will's call she had retreated there to tell Oliver of the Springfield trip and the episode in the car.

“You're not going to tell Rob?” Oliver asked.

“No,” she replied. “He'd consider it a retaliatory act on my part and righteously forgive me. It wasn't that, at least I don't think it was.”

“I'm glad you're going away. Hopefully, by the time you return, Helen will have disappeared to wherever such people go. She won't persist indefinitely, you know.”

“What's happening to me, Oliver? My whole life has always been orderly, now everything is turned upside down—I don't even feel like me anymore.”

“I read an article last week about mental illness in the various professions. Contrary to my past beliefs, English teachers were not at the top of the list. The highest rate of suicide and mental breakdown in our society is among our psychiatrists. Not because sicker people go into that profession, but because in every doctor's life there's one particular patient, one group of patients, who transcend the therapeutic situation and become a part of the therapist.”

“Transference.”

“Yes. A necessary ingredient for therapy, and fraught with danger if one is not careful. Look what's happening to you, for days you've immersed yourself in another person's illness … assuming part of that illness yourself.”

“I've never met her.”

“There's a little of the demonic Helen in all of us—the ancients would say that you've released a vase of evil. That's what Helen is, you know. An amoral person who will, at any cost, satisfy herself.”

“You're beginning to sound like Will.”

“Not quite so perverted, I hope. He's seen so many of those people that he's begun to think the whole world is populated with them.”

“If there is an incarnate evil we would all have the seeds—there'd be that potential in all of us.”

“In that respect I agree with Haversham. Most of us have been able to control and temper it.”

“I can't believe that, Oliver. I listen when Will says it, but not from you.”

“Look what men do in war.”

“That's mass insanity.”

“We must enjoy it, we do it so often.”

“Then we're all insane.”

“That's a contradiction in terms. Let's say that all of us bear the potential of psychosis … we have to consciously fight against succumbing.”

She laughed, “Even you and I?”

“Everyone.”

After dinner Rob and Tavie sat at a small table on the hotel's open porch. A benign ocean breeze intertwined with the soft ballads of the guitarist. The small brandy snifters reflected the gas lamps on the porch railings as inconspicuous waiters walked efficiently between the tables. Contentment fused into the setting and Tavie felt that she had never experienced a more perfect evening.

Something Oliver had said gnawed at her and she put her hand on Rob's. “Rob, while you were in the service—you never hurt anyone.”

“No. Remember, I was too young for Korea and too old for Vietnam. What kind of question is that?”

“But you would have?”

“I don't know. At the time I was young. Running around the countryside shooting blanks at fake enemies seemed an extension of children's games. A kid's game that got boring. I think a lot of us wondered what we might do if we actually went into combat.”

“Then, you don't know?”

“No, I really don't.”

They fell silent, each content to let the gentle breeze carry the soft music across the night. “When was the last time we were on vacation without little people?” Rob asked.

“Well, we had a honeymoon on Cape Cod.”

“God, where does the time go?”

“I think we spent the whole time in bed, at least I don't remember doing much else.”

“Not a bad idea,” he leaned over and kissed her.

“Oh, Rob. In a few minutes, let's enjoy the night.”

“Watching all these honeymooners is making me sexy.”

“We've been married too long.”

“That's what I thought until your invitation on the beach this afternoon … and then wanting a second round … there's more to ye, Octavia, than I dreamt.”

“It's the clear air here.”

“That's all?”

“That's all.”

The very British waiter came over to the table. “Can I get you something else?”

“No, thank-you,” Rob said.

“Wait, Rob.” She clutched his arm. “Let's have that thing we had before dinner.”

“The what-do-you-call-it?”

“Yes.” She turned to the waiter. “I think it's called a shamply.”

“A shandy,” the waiter replied. “Beer and Sprite.”

“Yes, a marvelous nightcap.”

As they sipped their shandys from tall mugs she felt at ease with her husband, all tension dissipated, and now she was deliciously tired and sleepy.

Helen Fraser would unquestionably climb aboard a Harley-Davidson and ride with the Hell's Angels, she thought, as she looked down at the spoked wheels of the small Honda bike grinning up at her. She resolved not to be frightened, and to learn to ride the machine. With trepidation she mounted the saddle and tested her balance.

It took half an hour of tutelage by Rob and the motorbike agent for her to regain her bicycle balance and learn to ride the machine. Rob had stood, arms akimbo, at the end of the drive and laughed at her first wavering attempts, but now she had the feel of the machine and breaked the bike to a halt near him.

“I'm all set,” she said. “The rental arranged?”

“We've got them for the week.”

“I can't wait to go to Somerset at the end of the island.”

He laughed. “I'd rather go to Hamilton and arrange for some of that duty-free booze.”

“Oh, Rob, how mundane. You go to Hamilton and I'll take the high road. I'm the new Me … Miss Self-reliant.”

“Are you sure you'll be all right?”

“Absolutely. I'll just ride along the coast road awhile.”

“O.K., I'll see you at lunch,” he said. He mounted his bike, kicked off, and soon was around the corner and out of sight.

She started her machine, waved to the attendant, and was soon humming along the coast road. Low stone walls, covered with vines of flowers and semitropical trees, bracketed the road. It was early, the traffic light, and the sun warm on her bare arms and shorts-clad legs.

Her sense of balance had fully returned as the bike sped smoothly over the gentle grade. She turned the hand accelerator to increase speed and leaned into a curve to the left. With a start, she realized that her years of driving had, by force of habit, taken her to the right side of the road and she swerved into the correct lane. The walls ended as the bike topped a small rise, and she had a magnificent view of the cliff which dropped steeply down to the beach.