by Irwin Shaw
He wrote out a cable to Thomas telling him he was arriving in New York and would call as soon as he landed. He thought of sending a telegram to Constance canceling their lunch date on Monday, then decided against it. He would call her in the morning and explain. He knew she’d understand. And approve. And New York was closer to San Francisco.
In the lobby, with Bayard Patty standing next to him in a dark blue suit and necktie, he gave the cable to Bruce Thomas to the concierge and asked him to reserve a seat on a plane the next day from Nice to New York.
Patty looked forlorn as he listened to Craig’s conversation with the concierge. “You’re leaving so soon?” he said. “What if Anne comes back?”
“You’ll have to take care of her,” Craig said.
“Yeah,” Patty said without conviction.
They got into the car, and Craig drove to Golfe Juan where they ate in a seafood restaurant built right on the beach. The sea was rough and growled at the pilings on which the restaurant was built. Patty drank more wine than was good for him and was garrulous. By the end of the meal Craig knew all about his family, his politics, his ideas of love and student revolt. (“I’m not a typical jock, Mr. Craig, I’ll tell you that. Most of the things the kids are complaining about, they’re right. But I don’t go along with taking over buildings and bombing banks and crazy stuff like that. At least that’s one thing Anne and I agree about. My father thinks I’m a wild-eyed Red, but I’m not. And there’s one thing about my father—you can stand up to him like a man and he listens to you and tries to see your point of view. When you get out to California, you’ve got to meet him. I’ll tell you something, Mr. Craig, I’m a lucky man to have a father like that.”) At no point did he say that Anne was a lucky girl to have a father like Craig. He had seen two of Craig’s movies and was polite about them. He was a polite young man. By the end of the meal Craig was certain that, politics or no politics, it would be disastrous for Bayard Patty if his daughter married him, but he didn’t think he had to tell the boy that.
By the time they had had their coffee, it was still too early to go to the Hennessy party, which wouldn’t begin until around midnight. And Craig wasn’t sure that he wanted to go to the party or that Patty would be at ease there.
“How old are you?” he asked as they went out of the restaurant toward the car. (Patty had insisted on paying for the dinner.) “Over twenty-one?”
“Just,” Patty said. “Why?”
“Have you got your passport with you?”
“What do you want me to do?” Patty asked in a flare of belligerence. “Prove it to you?”
Craig laughed. “Of course not. I thought we might take in the casino. You ought to see some of the sights, anyway, as long as you’re here. And you need your passport to get in.” At the gambling tables he would be spared the boy’s dejected confidences for an hour or two.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Patty said. “Sure. I have it in my pocket.”
“Would you like to go?”
“What have I got to lose?”
“Money,” Craig said. “That’s all.”
In the casino, Craig explained briefly about roulette and put Patty next to a croupier to help him out. He himself sat down at a chemin de fer table. He had only played the one time since coming to Cannes, the night he had loaned Wadleigh the three hundred dollars, the night Murphy had told him to forget the idea of putting on The Three Horizons. He chuckled to himself, remembering Murphy on the phone. As he sat down at the table, he thought comfortably, I’m thirty thousand francs ahead, I can afford to fool around.
From time to time, when they were making up a new shoe at his table, Craig went over to where Patty was playing. There was a sizable pile of chips in front of Patty and an intent and fascinated glint in his eyes. I have introduced him to a new vice, Craig thought. But at least, putting his money on the numbers and on the red or black, he wasn’t mooning about Anne.
A place fell vacant at his table opposite his, and a woman sat down at it. She was a buxom woman in a bare-shouldered white silk dress that left a good deal of craftily engineered bosom showing. Her hair was marvelously set, and there was a considerable amount of heavy eye shadow. Thin, incongruous lips in the round, lacquered face were filled out dramatically in gleaming red. The deeply tanned skin of shoulders and bosom shone as though it had been oiled. Her fingers, armed with long curved crimson nails, were heavy with diamonds, which Craig, who was not expert at such matters, took for authentic. She had carried a pile of big chips from another table and placed them geometrically in front of her, tapping possessively on them with the long painted fingertips. She looked across at him and smiled cunningly, without warmth.
Now he recognized her. It was the plump woman who had been sunning herself when he and Murphy had passed on the way to the bar at the Hotel du Cap. He remembered the sweaty makeup, the naked, spoiled expression, the marks on the ill-tempered, self-loving face, he had thought, of grossness, devouring lust. The other side of the sensual coin. He was sorry she had come to the table.
He was sure she would win. She did. After a few hands he got up from the table, carrying his winnings. The pile of chips in front of Patty had grown somewhat, and Patty was hunched over the table in deep concentration on the spinning wheel.
“I’ve had it, Bayard,” Craig said. “I’m cashing in. How about you?”
Patty seemed to come back from a long distance as he turned at the sound of Craig’s voice. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I might as well quit while I’m ahead.”
At the cashier’s desk Craig saw that Patty had won a little over a thousand francs. “How much is that in dollars?” Patty asked.
“About two hundred and fifty.”
“What do you know,” Patty said wonderingly. “As easy as that. Well, like they say, lucky in love …”
“Oh, come on now, Bayard,” Craig said.
“Anyway,” the boy said, “it helps pay for the trip.” He folded the bills neatly and put them into an ostrich-skin wallet with gold corners. He stared mournfully at the wallet. “Anne gave this to me,” he said. “In better days. It has my initials on it.”
They walked back to the hotel. They were solicited several times by whores. “Disgusting,” Patty said. “Open like that.” He said he didn’t want to go to the Hennessy party. “You know as well I do, Mr. Craig,” he said, “parties like that aren’t for me.” He went into the lobby of the hotel with Craig just in case there was a message from Anne. There was no message.
“If I hear anything before I leave, I’ll let you know,” Craig said. He felt uneasy in the boy’s presence, as though he were deserting him.
“You’re a friend,” Patty said. “I regard you as a real friend, Mr. Craig.”
Craig watched the enormous form of his daughter’s lover limp forlornly out into the night through the lobby doors.
I have done my duty as a father, Craig thought, as the boy disappeared. Or part of my duty.
The door to Hennessy’s apartment was open, and the noise of the party could be heard all the way down the hall. It was the unmistakable noise of success. Hennessy’s movie must have been very well received that evening. There was also the equally unmistakable smell of marijuana floating out through the open door.
In my day, Craig thought, we just got drunk. Was there what the professors of sociology called a value judgment there?
The room was crowded as Craig pushed in. Murray Sloan, the critic from the trade paper, was standing next to a big table ranged with bottles. He was not smoking marijuana. Faithful to an older tradition, he was loading up on free whisky. On a big couch against the wall on the other side of the room Gail was sitting next to the hero of the evening. Hennessy was in his shirt sleeves, in suspenders, beaming and rosy and sweating. He was sharing a joint with Gail, who looked remote and cool, beyond the noise and celebration.
“How did it go tonight, Murray?” Craig asked Sloan.
“As you can see.” Sloan waved his glass at the chattering guests. �
��They slobbered over it.”
“Is that what you’re going to write?”
“No. I’m going to write that it was full of genial, rough American humor and that the audience reaction was all that the producers could hope for. It is a candidate for the highest honors.” Sloan teetered a little, decorously, and Craig could see that he had done his drinking diligently. “Another thing that I am not going to write is that the money spent on hash tonight would have financed a small-budget pornographic film. Another thing I am not going to write is that if it wasn’t for the free liquor, I would never go to another festival. And how are you, my friend? Is there any news of you I ought to put on the telex?”
“No,” Craig said. “Have you seen Ian Wadleigh around?”
“No,” Sloan said. “Old drinking companion. Notable by his absence. I heard about his big night with Murphy in the restaurant. He’s probably crawled into a hole in the basement and pulled it in after him.”
“Who told you about that?” Craig asked sharply.
“The wind speaks,” Sloan said, teetering and smiling. “The Mistral mutters.”
“Have you written anything about it?” Craig asked.
“I am not a gossip columnist,” Sloan said with dignity. “Although others are.”
“Has there been anything in any of the columns?”
“Not that I know of,” Sloan said. “But I don’t read the columns.”
“Thanks, Murray.” Craig moved away from the critic. He hadn’t come to the party to spend his time with Murray Sloan. He made his way across the room toward Gail and Hennessy. Corelli, the Italian actor, was there, sitting boyishly on the floor, showing his teeth, with his inevitable two girls. Craig couldn’t remember whether he had seen these particular two girls before or not. Corelli was sharing his cigarette with the girls. One of them said, “Pure Marrakesh heaven,” as she exhaled. Corelli smiled sweetly up at Craig as Craig nearly stumbled over his outstretched foot.
“Join us, Mr. Craig,” Corelli said. “Please do join us. You have a simpatico face. Doesn’t Mr. Craig have a simpatico face, girls?”
“Molto simpatico,” one of the girls said.
“Excuse me,” Craig said, being careful not to step on anyone as he made his way to Hennessy and Gail McKinnon. “Congratulations, Hennessy,” he said. “I heard you killed them in there tonight.”
Hennessy beamed up at him, tried to stand, fell back. “I am immortal tonight,” he said. “Move over for the new Cecil B. DeMille. Isn’t this a nice party? Booze, hash, and fame, with the compliments of the management.”
“Hello, Gail,” Craig said.
“Why, Malcolm Harte, as I live and breathe,” Gail said. Craig couldn’t tell whether she was drunk or drugged.
“What’s that, what’s that?” Hennessy said querulously. “Did I invite anybody else?”
“It’s a private joke,” Craig said, “between Gail and myself.”
“Great girl, this kid,” Hennessy said, patting Gail’s arm. “Drank me drink for drink all night long while my fate was being decided on the Côte d’Azur. Interested in my early life. Up from slavery. Amateur boxer, truck driver, stunt man, pool hustler, bartender, publicity man … What else was I, dear?”
“Garage mechanic, farmhand …”
“That’s it.” Hennessy beamed at her. “She’s got me down pat. Perfect American banality. I’m famous, and she’s going to make me famous, aren’t you, dear?” He passed his cigarette to Gail, and she drew in a long draft, closing her eyes as she did so.
This isn’t any party for me, Craig thought. “Good night,” he said as Gail opened her eyes and slowly let out the sweetish smoke. “I just wanted to tell you I’m leaving for New York tomorrow.”
“Traveling man,” Gail said, giving the cigarette back to Hennessy. “Good night, traveling man.”
He was awakened by the ringing of the telephone. It seemed to him that he had never been asleep, that he was in the middle of one of those dreams in which you feel you are really awake but are dreaming that you are asleep. He fumbled for the telephone in the darkness.
“I knocked and knocked,” Gail said, “but nothing happened.” Her voice sounded as if she, too, were in his dream.
“What time is it?”
“Three A.M.,” she said, “and all’s well. I’m coming up.”
“No, you’re not,” he said.
“I’m floating, floating,” Gail said. “And I’m horny. Beautifully horny for the touch of my true love’s lips.”
“You’re stoned,” he said.
She giggled. “Beautifully stoned. Beautifully horny. Leave the door open.”
“Go home and go to bed,” he said.
“I have a joint with me. The most beautiful Moroccan kif. Leave the door open for me. We’ll drift away together into the most beautiful Moroccan heaven.”
He hesitated. He was fully awake now. The familiar dreamy caressing voice troubled him, traveled insinuatingly along the electric circuits of his nerves.
Gail giggled again. “You’re crumbling,” she said. “My true love is crumbling. I’m on my way up.” There was the click of the telephone.
He thought for a moment, remembering what it had been like to make love to her. Young girl’s skin. The soft, bold hands. It would be the first and last time he would ever know what the rest of the world seemed to know about drugs. Whatever else Gail was at the moment, she was certainly happy. If he was to share that secret and delicious happiness for an hour or two, who would be the loser? He was going to be on another continent in twenty hours. He would never see her again. Another ordered life was to begin for him tomorrow. He had one last night to enjoy the pleasures of chaos. He knew that if he kept the door closed, there would be no sleep for him that night. He got out of bed and went to the door, unlatched it. He was naked, and he stretched out on top of the bed sheets and waited.
He heard the door open, close, heard her come into the room. “Sssh, sssh, my true love,” she whispered.
He lay still, heard her undress in the darkness, saw her face briefly in the flare of the match as she lit up. She came over to the bed, got in beside him without touching him, moved a pillow, sat up cross-legged, propped against it, the pinpoint of light glowing and getting larger as she pulled at the beautiful Moroccan kif. She handed him the cigarette. “Keep it down as long as you can,” she said in her dreamy, remote voice.
He had given up smoking, from one day to the next, more than ten years ago, but he remembered how to inhale.
“Beautiful,” she whispered. “Beautiful boy.”
“What was your mother’s name?” he asked. He had to ask quickly before the smoke began to take effect. Even the first lungful was already at work.
She giggled. “Full fathom five my mother lies,” she said. She reached for the cigarette, touched his hand. He felt as though his body was being swept by a soft, warm wind. It was too late for questions.
They finished the joint slowly, alternating it from hand to hand. The room was misty with smoke. The sound from the sea outside was musical, a rhythmic, soothing resonance, an organ in a cathedral. She slid down beside him, touched him. They made love timelessly, tracklessly. She was all the girls, all the women of that southern coast, the plump, lustful woman stretched out on her belly in the sun with her legs apart, the blonde young mother at the pool, all of Corelli’s bread-brown, bread-warm girls, Natalie Sorel, white-bosomed and dancing, Constance spelling Meyrague.
After, they did not sleep. Nor talk. They lay side by side in what seemed like an endless, perfect trance. But when the first light of dawn slanted in through the shutters, Gail stirred. “I must go now,” she said. Her voice was almost normal. If he had had to speak, his voice would come from miles away. It made no difference to him whether she went or stayed, whether anyone went or stayed. Through a haze he watched her dress. Her party dress.
She leaned over him, kissed him. “Sleep,” she said. “Sleep, my true love.”
And she was gone. He knew
he had a question to ask her, but he didn’t know what the question was.
HE was almost finished with his packing. He moved with a minimum of luggage, and he could pack for anywhere in a quarter of an hour. He had a call in for Paris, but the operator had reported that all lines were busy. He had told her to keep trying.
When the phone rang, he picked it up without enthusiasm. He didn’t relish having to explain to Constance that he wasn’t going to take her to lunch on Monday, after all. But it wasn’t Constance. It was Bayard Patty speaking in a voice that sounded as though someone had him by the throat. “I’m in the lobby, Mr. Craig,” Patty said. “And I have to see you.”
“I’m in the middle of packing and …”
“I tell you I have to see you,” Patty said in that strangling voice. “I’ve heard from Anne.”
“Come on up,” Craig said, and told him the number of his apartment.
When Patty came into the room, he looked wild, his hair and beard disheveled, his eyes red-rimmed as though he hadn’t slept in days. “Your daughter,” he said accusingly. “Do you know what she’s done? She’s run off with that fat old drunken writer, Ian Wadleigh.”
“Wait a minute,” Craig said. He sat down. It was an automatic reaction, an attempt to preserve at least the appearance of reasonableness and convention. “It can’t be. It’s impossible.”
“You say it’s impossible.” Patty stood over him, his hands working convulsively. “You didn’t talk to her.”
“Where did she call from?”
“I asked her. She wouldn’t tell me. All she said was she was through with me, for me to forget her, she was with another man. That fat old drunken …”
“Hold on a second.” Craig stood up and went over to the phone.
“Who’re you phoning?”
Craig asked the operator for Wadleigh’s hotel. “Calm down, Bayard,” he said while waiting for the call to be put through.