The Story: Love, Loss and the Lives of Women: 100 Great Short Stories

by Victoria Hislop

  When James came up on deck, Sonny pulled a bottle of champagne from an ice chest and popped the cork. Billie held the glasses while he poured, champagne spilling over her fingers and along the frosted stems.

  ‘It’s suicide drinking in this heat,’ Sonny said with relish.

  James collapsed in a chair and set the bowl of tuna salad at his feet. ‘Make mine a double,’ he said.

  ‘That’s a bit morbid,’ Diana said, but he didn’t laugh.

  Sonny passed the glasses around. His white shirt was transparent with sweat, and through it Diana noticed the darkness of his chest hair, the belly rearing up under his ribcage. Today would be one more day in a long spree for Sonny, and she found this comforting. Somewhere, at least, the party never ended.

  ‘James, baby, I toast to you,’ Sonny, said, slinging an arm around James and thumping his back. He must have noticed James was down, Diana thought – Sonny was quick to notice things like that. ‘You ought to be reminded every half hour you’re a saint from heaven,’ he declared, breathing hard.

  ‘Should’ve married you, Sonny,’ James said.

  ‘Bingo,’ Sonny said. ‘Would’ve saved us both a heap of trouble.’

  ‘Now, wait a minute,’ Diana said, laughing.

  Billie watched with rapt attention, her legs drawn under her chin. ‘You all must’ve had some nice adventures, being friends so long,’ she said.

  ‘Adventures. Christ,’ Sonny said, flopping onto a chair. He turned to James and Diana and all three of them laughed, helpless at how many there were.

  ‘I wish I could’ve been there,’ Billie said.

  Sonny took her hand and swung it gently in the space between their chairs. His own hands were small and over-muscled, crowded with jeweled rings he’d smuggled in from somewhere. Billie ran her fingers over the rings.

  A lazy silence fell, and they lolled back in their chairs. Diana reached for James’s hand, pleased to feel his fingers relax into her own. She thought of the old days; stories they still told about parties that started calmly – like Hitchcock’s movies – and then spun out of control. ‘Am I imagining it,’ she said, ‘or was life completely different twenty years ago?’

  Sonny laughed. ‘Not mine.’

  ‘Nothing changes but your body,’ James said, patting Sonny’s gut.

  ‘I could have some fun in yours, that’s for sure,’ Sonny said.

  ‘It’s not like you’re doing so badly,’ Diana pointed out.

  Sonny turned to her. ‘I mean, what does he need it for? Parking himself in that stodgy office?’

  ‘I work pretty hard,’ James said, ‘believe it or not.’

  Sonny pulled another bottle from the ice chest and shot the cork into the lake. When James covered his glass, Sonny poured right over his hand until James yanked it away, shaking champagne from his fingers. Sonny filled each glass to the top, so it spilled in their laps when they tried to drink. His unflagging excess lifted Diana’s spirits. She could already hear herself, weeks from now at someone’s dinner party: ‘We were out on Sonny’s boat. His stolen bride was there, and Sonny’d been drinking for days…’

  ‘What will the two of you do after you’re married?’ she asked, unable to resist. ‘What kind of lives will you have?’

  James stared at her in disbelief.

  ‘We’ll give parties,’ Billie said. ‘Right?’

  ‘Sure, lots of parties,’ Sonny said. ‘Parties every night.’

  ‘I hope you’ll invite us,’ Diana said.

  ‘Of course,’ Sonny assured her. ‘You’ll be the guests of honor.’ He waited for James to speak. ‘Come on, buddy. Crash course on married life. Should we get a dog? One of those basketball hoops above the garage? Cheez Whiz and Ritz Crackers?’

  Billie listened with a frown, her idea of marriage to Sonny having clearly assumed a rather different shape.

  ‘Follow your instincts,’ James said mockingly. ‘You’re made for marriage, Sonny. It’s written all over you.’

  The sarcasm caught Sonny off guard. He studied James. ‘So it’s that easy,’ he said. ‘And here I’ve been admiring you all these years.’

  ‘You’ve kept that a secret.’

  ‘What do you mean? I tell everyone.’ Sonny refilled the glasses and shoved the bottle back inside the ice chest. ‘There was a time,’ he explained to Billie, ‘when James and I were in business together.’

  ‘Don’t, Sonny,’ James said. He hadn’t touched his last drink.

  ‘We introduced a few inventions before the world was ready for them. Then James abandoned ship.’

  ‘The ship was sinking. I had a wife and a kid.’ He, too, spoke to Billie, as if a word from her would determine, finally, who had lived the better life. She looked from one to the other, flushed from their sudden attention.

  ‘Anyway, being a lawyer isn’t so bad,’ Sonny said, draining his glass and setting it on the deck. ‘It’s just boring as hell.’

  Billie stood up and moved behind Sonny’s chair. She reached her arms around his chest and rested her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes. Her long hair gathered in his lap. Sonny wound a strand around his finger. James looked away.

  ‘What’s boring as hell,’ James said, ‘is hearing you tell the same lies year after year.’

  Sonny burst out laughing. ‘Less boring than the truth,’ he cried.

  ‘What’re you talking about?’ Billie demanded, letting go of Sonny and turning on James.

  James shook his head. Sonny continued laughing in a loud, forced way. Now Billie marched over to James and stood before him. ‘How dare you insult my husband,’ she declared, using a voice she must have heard somewhere and liked the sound of.

  ‘He’s not your husband yet, and I wouldn’t be in such a hurry.’

  Sonny let out a whoop. ‘Bastard!’

  ‘James,’ Diana said.

  But James was looking up at Billie, who loomed over him now, hands on her hips, her pointy elbows shaking. ‘I’d marry him before you any day of the week,’ she said.

  ‘No one’s asking you to marry me,’ James said quietly.

  They stared at each other, Billie in a stance of pure childish defiance, James with a kind of confusion, as if the anger he felt toward this young, beautiful girl were a mystery to him.

  ‘I’d go back to my fiancé first,’ Billie muttered.

  ‘Give that some thought,’ James said. ‘Because if Sonny still remembers your name next month, you’ll have done better than most.’

  Billie hesitated, smiling uneasily. She looked unsure of what James meant at first. Then she said, ‘I don’t believe you. You’re just jealous.’

  James said nothing. He looked suddenly tired.

  ‘And even if he used to be like that,’ Billie said more loudly, ‘I couldn’t care less, because Sonny loves me.’ She turned to Sonny. ‘Right?’

  But Sonny’s eyes were closed, and he appeared lost in some private contemplation. Billie watched him, waiting. Finally he managed to open his eyes and look at her, squinting as if she were a piece of bright foil. ‘That’s right, baby,’ he said. ‘It’s different this time.’

  Billie held very still, as if waiting to experience the comfort of these words. Then she began to cry. Her shoulders curled, and she lifted her hands to her face. Diana left her chair and took the girl in her arms.

  Sonny shut his eyes again. Sunlight poured over his face, and sweat glittered in the creases of his skin. He opened his eyes and looked at James. ‘I slept with your wife,’ he said.

  Diana froze, still holding the sobbing Billie. Everything seemed to tilt, and a finger of nausea rose in her throat. ‘James, it was a hundred years ago,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t remember it,’ Sonny said, ‘but I know it happened.’

  James rose slowly from his chair, and went to the edge of the boat. He gazed toward the shore. Billie had quieted down and was looking with smeary, fascinated eyes from Sonny to James.

  James turned and veered toward Sonny, who rose halfwa
y out of his chair before James hit him twice in the face, knocking him backward over the chair and into the rail. Billie screamed and clung to Diana. Sonny lay with his mouth open, blood running from his nose.

  Billie and Diana went to Sonny, took his arms and tried to haul him to his feet, but he shook them off and stood up slowly. His breath stank of alcohol, not just a few drinks but a thick, rotten sweetness. Drops of red bloomed on his collar. He hovered unsteadily, pushing the hair from his eyes. ‘I’m gonna kill you,’ he said to James, ‘I swear to God.’

  ‘Do it,’ James said.

  Sonny came at James and attempted a clumsy punch, which James blocked easily. But Sonny followed almost instantly with a second, jabbing James high under his ribs, seeming to force the breath from him. Then again, in the chin, so James staggered backward.

  ‘Stop it!’ Diana screamed, and tried with Billie to come between them, but it was impossible; the men shoved them away and lunged for one another in a frenzy, pounding, grunting, as if each believed his own survival hinged purely on the other’s annihilation. Blood ran from Sonny’s nose over his teeth, gathering in the cracks between them. He choked and started to cough, then went at James again, slugging his ear before finally James caught him in that boxing hold Diana had seen on TV, when the fighters seem to hug each other, heads down, so neither can move.

  A perfect stillness opened around them. Everyone seemed to wait. Diana noticed the whiteness of Sonny’s cuffs, a scar behind James’s ear from his basketball days, the slick, marmalade-colored planks at her feet. The world disappeared; the only sound was the men’s breathing.

  Finally James let Sonny go and waited, poised for a response. But Sonny was barely able to stand. His eyes were running – it could have been the sun or the blow to his nose. Diana had never seen him cry in all the years she had known him, and found it hard to watch. But Billie couldn’t take her eyes away from Sonny. She wore a look Diana recognized, the sick, scared look of a girl whose mischief has gotten her in trouble, who suspects her life will never be the same.

  Sonny went to a chair and sat down heavily. He picked up a glass and downed what was left inside it, then fumbled for the bottle. ‘I can’t kill you, buddy, I just realized,’ he said, making an effort to smile. ‘I’d be too lonely without you.’

  It was not until James started the motor that the world seemed to move again. A wind blew, the boat shook, and Diana inhaled the smell of gasoline. From the deck she watched her husband swing the boat around, his knuckles on the wheel, the hollow of his spine against his shirt. She was afraid to go near him. Sonny hadn’t moved from his chair. His head was thrown back, and under his nose he held a towel filled with ice Billie had brought him. One eye was already going black.

  Slowly Diana inched toward James, hesitating behind him on the flybridge. He had not glanced at her once since the fight with Sonny, and she felt as if he never would again. Finally she went around in front of him and touched his cheek, which was swollen and bloody. To her surprise, James grinned. Diana studied him, not sure what this meant. ‘The good old days,’ he said, and shook his head. He put an arm around Diana, and they stood side by side watching Billie, who was hunched alone at the bow. As the boat thumped over the lake, she leaned forward, watching the thick folds of water peel aside. Her curls had vanished, and now her thin, straight hair whipped madly around her head. Diana had an urge to go to her, to promise Billie she would thank God one day that none of this had worked. But she doubted the girl would believe her.

  More than a year passed before James and Diana saw much of Sonny again. By then Diana had earned her PhD and was teaching in the Film Studies Department at the U of I’s Circle Campus. Sonny had grown even fatter, and his complexion was the color of raw oysters. The doctor issued continual warnings, but Sonny’s only response had been to take up occasional smoking. Diana noticed that he flicked the cigarette constantly, so that it never had time to gather any ash.

  ‘Remember that time I almost killed you?’ he would ask James sometimes when they’d had a few drinks. ‘I should’ve let you have it – don’t know what stopped me.’

  ‘Willpower,’ James said, grinning at Diana. ‘Pure self-restraint.’

  ‘Don’t kid yourself, buddy. It was pity.’

  This was one story James and Diana never told at parties. Except sometimes the beginning, where Sonny made off with a bride on the eve of her own wedding. The rest they kept to themselves, hardly mentioning it, lest it take on that eerie power of old movies and faded snapshots, an allure against which the present day could only pale.

  Now and then Diana still thought of Billie, who had gone back to her original fiancé and married him. Somewhere in the Deep South, Diana guessed, the girl must occasionally tell the story of her brief elopement with a madman. ‘It was terrible!’ she would say. ‘It was something out of hell.’ Yet Diana guessed that when Billie looked at the familiar trappings of her life and recalled that strange day, she was sometimes wistful.

  Atlantic Crossing

  Jeanette Winterson

  Jeanette Winterson (b. 1959) is a British writer. Her first novel, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, won the 1985 Whitbread Prize for a First Novel and was adapted into a BAFTA-winning television programme. Winterson was awarded an OBE in 2006 for services to literature.

  I met Gabriel Angel in 1956. The year Arthur Miller married Marilyn Monroe. I was going home. Gabriel Angel was leaving home. We were both going to the same place. We were going to London. The Millers were there too at the time.

  The Cowdenbeath was a pre-war liner with a mahogany lining. She looked like a bath-time boat with two fat black funnels and a comfortable way of sitting in the water. She had been money and ease, the Nancy Astor generation, not the frugal fifties.

  She had been requisitioned as a troop ship during the war, and now her cruising days were over, she was faded, just a ferry, when I got to her. Once a month she sailed from Southampton to St Lucia and once a month she sailed back again. One end of the bath to the other in eight days. She didn’t have glamour but she had plenty of stories to tell and I’ve always liked that in a woman. It is what I liked about Gabriel Angel.

  Journeys make me nervous, so I was up too early on the morning of my leaving, opening and shutting my trunk and bothering the porters about safe storage. The gangway up to the Cowdenbeath was busy with bodies run random like ants before ants. There was freight to be loaded, food to get on board, everything to be cleared before eleven o’clock embarkation.

  Invisible worlds, or worlds that are supposed to be invisible interest me. I like to see the effort it takes for some people to make things go smoothly for other people. Don’t misunderstand me; mostly I’m part of the invisible world myself.

  A couple of hours after I had permanently creased my permanent press suit by sitting hunched up in a roll of rope, I saw a good-looking black woman, maybe twenty, maybe twenty-five, standing with her feet together, a little brown suitcase in her hand. She was staring at the boat as if she intended to buy it. If the sea hadn’t been on one side; she would have walked right round, her head cocked like a spaniel, her eyes eager and thoughtful.

  After a few moments she was joined by a much older woman with a particular dignity. The younger one said something to her, then spread out her arm towards the ship. Whatever it was, they both laughed, which did nothing for my nerves. I wanted to be reassured by the imposing vessel before me, not have it picked at like a cotton bale.

  I climbed out of my rope hole, grabbed my hat, and sauntered towards them. They didn’t give me a glance, but I heard the older one asking to be sent a tin of biscuits with a picture of the Queen on the lid. It is the same all over the Commonwealth; they all love the latest Queen. She’s too young for me.

  The steward showed me to my cabin. Mr Duncan Stewart D22. I opened my hand luggage, spread a few things on the lower bunk, and went back up on deck to watch the spectacle. I like to see the people arriving. I like to imagine their lives. It keeps me from thinking t
oo much about my own. A man shouldn’t be too introspective. It weakens him. That is the difference between Tennessee Williams and Ernest Hemingway. I’m a Hemingway man myself although I don’t believe it is right to hunt lions.

  Look at these two coming on deck right now; lesbians I’ll bet. Both about sixty-five, shrunk into their cotton suits and wearing ancient Panamas. The stout one has a face the colour and texture of a cricket ball and the thin one looks as if she’s been folded once too often.

  What brogues the stout one is wearing; polished like conkers and laced too tight. Shoe lacing is a revealing and personal matter. There are criss-cross lacers; the neat brisk people who like a pattern under the surface. There are straight-lacers; who pretend to be tougher than they are but when they come undone, boy, are they undone. There are the tie-tights; the ones who need to feel secure, and there are the slack-jacks, who like to leave themselves a little loose, the ones who would rather not wear shoes at all. I’ve met people who always use a double knot. They are liars. I’m telling you because I know.

  Once the lesbians had gone by, trailing their old woman smell of heavy scent and face powder, I went back downstairs, intending to nap for an hour. I was suddenly very tired. I wanted to get my jacket off, let my feet smell, and wake up an hour later to a Scotch and Soda. In my mind I was through the sleep and tasting the drink.

  I opened the door to my cabin. There was the young woman I had noticed earlier on the dock. She turned at the noise of the door and looked surprised.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she said.

  ‘There must be some mistake’ I said, ‘this is my cabin.’ She frowned and picked up a cabin list from the top of her little suitcase. Her voice lilted.

  ‘D22. G Angel and D Stewart.’

  ‘That’s right. I am Duncan Stewart.’

  ‘And I am Gabriel Angel.’

  ‘You should be a man.’

  She looked confused and examined herself in the mirror. I tried to pursue this obvious line. Obvious to me.