“I thought she was going to drown you over by Belvedere,” Miguel said.
Tom smiled and clucked. “Boy, did I ever grab a good feel of her.”
“Where?”
“Where do you think? She didn’t object, either. Brother, what buzzooms. Yipe.”
Miguel regarded Tom half-enviously, half-doubtfully. Probably Tom was telling the truth. If it had been he, he didn’t think he would have the courage to get fresh with Billie Stapp. But then, Tom was a lot different.
“Tell me something, Spick.”
“Sure, if I can.”
“Have you gone the limit with Allie Wylie?”
Miguel was caught off balance and hesitated before answering, “No, of course not.”
“Bull. You can tell your old Uncle Tom.”
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t tell anyone. It was something just between Allie and himself. Something, well, sacred.
Tom shrugged. “Okay, okay. Just be careful, for chrissake.” He glanced at the bridge and listened to the noise from below. Then he turned his back to the wind and said, “Here, have a weed.”
They lit cigarettes and smoked, shielding the coals against the wind with their palms.
“We ought to get looped sometime,” Tom said. “You ever been?”
“No. Buzzed on beer is all.”
Tom flipped his cigarette in a long arc along the wind and watched it fall into the darkening water. Miguel buttoned the collar of his peacoat. It was turning cold with the sun gone.
“We ought to get ourselves a bottle and try it,” Tom said. “They sure get a bang out of it.” He jabbed a thumb toward the deck.
Miguel wondered if Tom really minded the way Oliver and Ella were, always partying around and drinking. Tom never said. Still, you wouldn’t think a fellow would like having everybody always making passes and cracks about his mother the way people did about Ella. Not that some of the stuff wasn’t true. Miguel could still remember that day he saw her with Billy Alberg’s father. But she was Tom’s mother and Tom must love her and respect her even if he did kid around a lot and call her Ella and the old lady.
It was odd, he thought, that he couldn’t adjust to the ways of the older people the way Tom, for instance, could. Tom, right now, was being tolerant about the messy party that had been going on all day, in spite of the fact that all either of them could do was sit and watch. Miguel had been restless all day, wishing he could be somewhere with Allie. It seemed to him that Raoul pushed him toward manhood with one hand, giving him the car, letting him smoke a little and probably drink, too, if he wanted to ask permission; yet with the other hand he held him back, close to a restrictive family life that demanded first call on his time and loyalty. It created a peculiar sort of conflict where none ordinarily would exist.
The eastern sky was heavy with evening; the first stars were appearing.
“Spick, can I tell you something?”
Miguel looked at Tom sitting hunched against the stanchion. He had the cellophane wrapping from the cigarette package in his hands and he was twisting it into a tight roll.
‘Sure,” Miguel said. “What’s on your mind, Uncle?”
“I think old Floss and I are about through.”
It surprised Miguel that Tom should worry about something like that. He had never given any indication that Florian was very important to him.
“There’s some bastard from Montezuma she’s been going out with. He’s got a Buick Century.”
Tom sounded so unhappy about it that Miguel was moved to sympathy. “It’s probably just a lot of talk,” he said.
Tom shook his head. “Nope. I came down to Paly last weekend and just sat out in front of her place. Sure enough, this guy shows up in his yellow Buick. I guess we aren’t going steady any more.” He looked up at Miguel defensively. “And I know why, too.”
Miguel waited.
“Because I go to Lowell now instead of Roslyn. And because Horace Greeley is an old crock...
“That’s silly,” Miguel said, knowing very well that it wasn’t silly at all and that reasons like that would seem very good reasons to a girl like Florian O’Connor.
“There’s something else, too,” Tom said in a voice almost too low to be heard over the sound of the wind and the water. “She heard stuff. So did her mother.” He looked away. “About Ella.” Miguel breathed slowly. He felt stiff and awkward. He wished he could think of something to say.
“That’s one of the reasons I didn’t want to go up to Tahoe this weekend,” Tom said. He threw the twisted cellophane into the bay and looked helplessly at Miguel. “What the hell is a guy supposed to do, Spick? Jesus—”
Though it cost him something to speak of it, Miguel felt he had to say something that would help Tom, so he said, “People talk a lot, Tom. People used to say things about my mother, too.” Tom’s voice sounded thick. “Not the same kind of things, Spick. I remember your mother. Nobody ever—nobody ever called her a—a roundheels.” He stood up and leaned on the railing, watching the water rush past. Miguel got to his feet and stood beside him. “I get so goddam mad I feel like blubbering. God—old Flossie talking like that. And after she let me get in her pants, too. That’s what hurts. Some babe lets you do anything you want to her and then talks about a guy’s mother. Damned old whore.”
“Did she say anything really? I mean right out?”
“I think Alberg told her some stories. You know what a slimy little bastard he can be when he wants. It seems Lillian is taking off for the islands to be a Christian Science Reader in a church over there and old man Alberg isn’t going. And they’re sending Bill down to Cate School. He’s sore about it and he takes it out on me.”
Miguel thought he understood what had happened now. Billy must have found out about Martin and Ella. Probably Lillian had wormed the information out of Martin in that way she had and Billy found out, too. It was all ancient history, but that wouldn’t matter to Lillian Alberg. It was Error, or Sin, or something. For the first time Miguel felt a bit of sympathy for poor old Martin.
He put his hand on Tom’s shoulder and they stood in silence. After a time, Miguel said, “Let’s go in. I could use a Coke. How about you?”
Tom blew his nose noisily and said, “Go ahead. I’ll be right in.”
Miguel turned and walked down the catwalk to the bridge. The noise of the party was like a blast of sound as he opened the door. The lights of the Key System jetty pointed a brilliant finger into the bay. Morgan turned as he entered and asked him to switch on the running lights. Below, in the salon, Miguel could hear Mel Guthrie telling someone a joke. He had just delivered the tag line and Raoul’s laughter was blended with Billie Stapp’s shrill whinny. He heard her say in a metallic voice, “Ooooh, Raoul honey, your hands are like ice” Luis dropped a glass into the stainless steel sink in the galley and muttered an audible curse. The phonograph ground on. Miguel stole a glance at Morgan. The crewman’s face was imperturbable. He had, Miguel guessed, plenty of experience with these yachting parties.
Miguel sighed and looked through the windscreen at the ominous shape of Alcatraz Island abeam of them. It loomed starkly out of the black water, the rocks along the shore breaking the swells into a white froth under the glare of floodlights. He had an unexplainable impulse to take the wheel from Morgan and see how close he could run the Nereid before the jagged shoals ripped the bottom out of her.
He shivered in his heavy coat, even though the bridge was warm and sheltered from the wind.
He went down the ladder into the galley. Luis was still mixing drinks. His face was flushed and his speech thick. He moved aside as Miguel poured himself a Coke.
“How much longer are we staying out, Luis?” Miguel asked. He wanted to go back to the yacht basin so he could slip away and call Allie.
Luis said, “Don’t you know you’re aboard the Flying Dutchman, young brother?” Then he laughed and walked into the salon where Raoul was dancing with Becky.
Ella had vanished into the tiny head
in the very V of the bow. Oliver was giggling and saying to Nadine Guthrie, “If we hit a rock, you know where Ella will get it, don’t you?” Nadine said, “Oh, you filthy thing, you.”
Miguel went back into the bridge. Tom had come in.
Raoul appeared in the hatchway and said, “Make for Paradise Cove, Morgan. We’ll go ashore there and have dinner at Mario’s.”
“Yes, sir.” Morgan swung the wheel and took up a course for the Marin County shore. Miguel wondered if he were relieved at having somewhere to go instead of this endless cruising they had been doing all afternoon. Luis was right, he thought. It did seem a little like being on the Flying Dutchman.
Miguel looked down at his fathers tall figure standing on the ladder. The hawklike face was growing heavier and there was a certain thickness around the chest. This was because of his heart trouble, Dr. Winthrop said. Miguel wondered about some of the things Raoul did, and about how good or bad they were for his heart condition, but his father was the sort who forgot completely about ill health once an attack was over. Raoul must know best, Miguel had decided.
“Enjoying yourself, boys?” Raoul asked. His only concession to the amount of liquor he had consumed during the afternoon was a slight huskiness of speech and the heavy-lidded set of his eyes.
“We re doing great,” Tom said. “Just great, Mr. Rinehart.”
“Sure, Dad,” Miguel said.
Raoul reached up and squeezed his shoulder. “You’re my hijito” he said.
Miguel squirmed slightly. He was never at ease with Raoul when Raoul was drinking. Alcohol stimulated a sentimentality Miguel found suffocating. Often Raoul would take to talking about Maria, and at his insistence, Luis would play his guitar and sing all the old Mexican ballads Maria had loved so—“Borrachita,” “Las Mananitas,” “Quatro Milpas,” and Raoul’s eyes would fill with tears and he would talk about Maria as a young woman. His Spanish would become slurred and almost unintelligible and there would eventually come a moment when his head would sink forward on his chest and he would sighingly mumble that he would soon be with Maria. These scenes both frightened and repelled Miguel.
The forward hatch opened and Billie Stapp appeared like a phoenix on the forward deck. She was reeling, but she managed to scramble past the pilot house on the narrow outside catwalk and stagger on into the cockpit on the fantail.
Oliver Eubanks came up the ladder into the bridge. He walked unsteadily over to Tom and tousled his hair. “How’s my all-American?”
“I’m great, Ollie,” Tom said quickly. “How are you?”
Oliver waved a finger in front of his face and said, “Not so good right this second, old sport. Not so good. I need a little air before we go ashore.” Oliver always called people old sport, or buddy, or pal. Anything but their name. It was as though he couldn’t remember what their names were, even Tom’s, Miguel thought.
“Need any help, Dad?” Tom asked.
“Not a bit. Just need a little air. Think I’ll go outside a bit.”
“Be careful, Oliver,” Raoul said.
Oliver laughed. “You can bet your boots on that, Skipper,” he said, and headed for the rear cockpit.
Raoul said, “I’d better keep everything under control forward. Captain’s duty, isn’t it, hijo? To keep peace in the crew?” He went down the ladder into the salon. Miguel looked over at Tom. He looked back, his face set.
Down in the salon, Becky had thrown herself into Raoul’s arms with cries of, “Dance with me!” Luis was glaring impotently at his father. The phonograph was blaring inanely about the night being delightful, delectable, delicious, delovely.
The door to the head was closed tight.
Nadine said, “Good heavens, is she still in there?”
Raoul said, “It’s just as well. Leave her alone.”
Mel Guthrie said, “Billie in the back with Oliver?”
“Aft,” Becky said drunkenly. “You call it aft on a boat.” Nadine laughed shrilly. “I call it adultery no matter where it happens!”
Tom looked over at Miguel, then back toward the fantail. He shook his head before Miguel could say anything and turned away.
Raoul insisted on ferrying everyone ashore in the dinghy. Morgan rowed the passengers by fours to the dock with the neon sign on it that said: MARIO’S FINE SEA FOODS, THE PRIDE OF PARADISE. Raoul took the last load himself, leaving Morgan in charge of the boat, which was anchored fifty feet from the pier. Miguel and Tom stayed aboard and ate a quiet meal with Morgan.
After dinner, they left Morgan to clean up in the galley and went aft to sit on the fantail and smoke a cigarette.
The night was dark and pleasantly warm in the lee of the shore. They sat and smoked in silence, watching the lights of the other cruisers anchored nearby and listening to the sound of the waves.
Presently, Miguel said, “I’m sorry Tom. You wouldn’t have come along if it hadn’t been for me.”
“What difference does that make? Hell, Spick, they do it all the time. One or the other.” His voice sounded miserable in the darkness. “I guess they just can’t help it. They were like that when they were kids and they never got over it.”
“I’m sorry anyway. You could have been up at Tahoe except for me.”
“I wouldn’t have gone.”
They fell silent, watching the blue shimmer of Mario’s sign on the water. A small sloop, its sails furled, ghosted by on its softly burbling auxiliary. They watched the disembodied red eye of the portside running light glide out into the bay.
“Sometimes I wonder why they stick together,” Tom said.
“You don’t mean you think they should get a divorce?”
“Why not? They always act like they’re having a big time together, but inside they’re just bored with each other, I guess.”
“Divorce isn’t the answer,” Miguel said. He felt impelled, for some reason he didn’t completely understand, to talk to Tom about Maria. It was difficult, yet somehow necessary to him. He needed to be close to someone, and Allie was far away.
“Dad always said it was an accident,” Miguel said finally, ‘“but I just don’t know.” He dropped his cigarette over the side and heard it hiss in the water.
“It must have been rough,” Tom said.
“I don’t think Essie would have gone into the convent if it hadn’t happened. Maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know,” Miguel said. “She had some goofy idea God was punishing her for going to Young Communist meetings with Anson Wilbur. It sounds crazy, but when Anson got killed last year she must have figured she was right as rain and lucky to get away from Raoul and me.”
“Why you? You didn’t have anything to do with it,” Tom protested.
“Golly, Tom. I don’t know. I never did know Essie very well. I wanted to. I really did. But it never worked out. It wasn’t like trying to know a girl like, well, say Allie Wylie. Essie is all sort of dark inside. Do you know what I mean? I’m not being very clear about it, I know. It was like being a man was a sort of crime around Essie.” He thought a minute and then said, “You remember that summer on the river—the time I saw those people—“ he stumbled a little and then hurried on “—those people from the Villa?”
Tom laughed shortly and said, “Sure. I remember. Christ, you were green, Spicko.”
“Sure I was. I know. I’ll tell you how green.” He told Tom about the incident of the journal and Esther’s reaction to what he had written. “She acted as though I were, well, infected or something.”
Tom gave a low whistle. “I’ll bet.”
“Well, it’s just one of the things that happened. Maria, and then Essie going into the church. The place is right over that hill. You can almost see it from here. And it might just as well be a million or so miles away or Mars or somewhere. Raoul doesn’t even try to see her any more. She doesn’t want him to.” Miguel kicked at the teak paneling with a sneaker. “So now there’s just me and Dad and Luis. And Becky, of course. That’s why Dad is so funny about letting me go anywhere—like to Tahoe
or down to Del Monte.” Miguel realized that he was apologizing for Raoul, trying to explain things to Tom that didn’t really need explaining, but he went on with it. “Dad’s really a terrific guy, Tom.”
“Sure he is,” Tom agreed. “Hell, I remember one time—I guess it was while your mother was still alive—he took us down to Idora Park and let us ride on all the things down there. Remember that?”
“And that time we came back from Sacramento on the Delta Queen?”
Tom laughed. “That was a hell of a lot of fun.”
“He isn’t like other guys’ fathers,” Miguel said, “but that’s because he’s really a foreigner. He was raised differently from most of the people we know. And then Luis and I are about all the family he has left.”
“Sure. It figures.”
They lapsed into silence again. A cool breeze was blowing in from the bay and the Nereid swung slowly about at the end of her anchor line.
“Think Morgan’s got some hot coffee?” Tom asked.
“I guess so.”
“Sit still. I’ll bring you some.”
Miguel lit another cigarette and settled down to wait. He could hear voices on shore and the creak of oars. Presently, through the dim path of light made by Mario’s sign, he saw a dinghy coming slowly toward the boat.
He could hear the oars dipping into the water and the murmur of someone talking in a low voice. He heard the oars being shipped. Whoever it was was letting the dinghy drift.
Tom came back with two cups of coffee. He joined Miguel at the rail and asked, “What’s going on?”
“Someone in a dinghy out there,” Miguel whispered.
“Ours?” Tom whispered back.
Miguel shrugged.
Over the water came the sound of a low, provocative laugh. Miguel swallowed doubtfully. The voice was familiar. Someone said, “No, wait. We mustn’t.”
Miguel drew back from the rail. The voice was Becky’s.
A man muttered something indistinguishable, but Becky’s reply carried clearly across the water. “Wait—oh, no—all right—God, yes, yes—”
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