* * *
Selina was sitting on the end of the jetty, with her back to the house, trailing her feet in the water. He came down the steps from the terrace and across the slipways and down the sagging planking, his footsteps echoing, but she did not turn around. He said her name, but she would not answer. He squatted to her height.
“Listen. I want to talk to you.”
She leaned away from him, out over the water, and her hair parted on the nape of her neck and fell down on either side of her face.
“Selina, try to understand.”
“You haven’t said anything yet.”
“You can go back to London, to-night. There’s a plane at seven; you should be home by midnight, or one in the morning at the latest. Frances says she’ll pay for your ticket.…”
“Do you want me to go?”
“It’s not a case of what I want, or what you want. We have to do what is right and what is going to be best for you. I suppose I should never have let you stay here in the first place, but circumstances did rather run away with us. Let’s face it; Cala Fuerte isn’t exactly the place for someone like you, and poor Agnes is bound to be anxious about what’s happening. I really think that you should go.”
Selina took her long legs out of the water, and pulled her knees up to her chin, hugging them as though she were trying to hold herself together, to stop herself from falling apart.
He said, “I’m not sending you away … it has to be your own decision.…”
“It’s very kind of your friend.”
“She wants to help.”
“If I’m going to go back to London tonight,” said Selina, “I haven’t very much time.”
“I’ll drive you to San Antonio.”
“No!” She startled him with her vehemence, turning to look at him for the first time. “No, I don’t want you to come. Surely someone else can take me! Rudolfo, or a taxi or something. There must be someone.”
He tried not to show his hurt. “Well, of course, but…”
“I don’t want you to take me.”
“All right. It doesn’t matter.”
“And in London I’ll call Agnes from the airport. She’ll be home; I can get a taxi, and she’ll be waiting for me.”
It was as though she had already gone, and they were both alone. She was alone in the plane, alone in London, cold, because after San Antonio it would be very cold; trying to ring Agnes from a call box. And it would be past midnight and Agnes would be asleep and would wake slowly. The telephone would ring in the empty flat, and Agnes would get up and pull on her dressing-gown and go, switching on lights as she went, to answer the call. And after that to fill a hot water bottle, to turn down a bed, put milk on to heat.
But beyond, he could not see.
He said, “What will you do? When you get back to London? I mean, when all this is over and forgotten?”
“I don’t know.”
“Hadn’t you any plans?”
After a little, she shook her head.
“Make some,” he said, gently. “Good ones.”
10
It was decided that Pepe, the husband of Maria, should be approached and asked if he would take Selina to the airport. Pepe did not run an official taxi service, but on occasion he would clean his aged car of the old straw and hen manure and such agricultural flotsam as it was normally encrusted with, and convey stray travellers to wherever they wanted to go. George, driving Frances’s car, went to seek Pepe out, and ask if he would do this thing, and Selina, left alone with Frances and Pearl at the Casa Barco, prepared for her departure.
It did not take very long. She took a shower and dressed, in George’s trousers that Juanita had so lovingly shrunk, and the striped shirt, and the espadrilles that she had bought in Maria’s shop. Her good jersey dress had already been bequeathed to Juanita as a duster, and her bikini was so small that it fitted without fuss into the bottom of her handbag. That was all. She combed her hair and put her coat over a handy chair, and reluctantly, because she did not want to talk, went out on to the terrace, where Frances had collapsed once more into the long chair. Her eyes were closed, but when she heard Selina approach, she opened them and turned her head to watch Selina as she came to sit on the terrace wall, facing her.
“All packed?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“That didn’t take long.”
“I didn’t have any clothes. I lost my case. It got sent to Madrid by mistake.”
“Those sort of mistakes are always happening.” She sat up and reached for her packet of cigarettes. “Smoke?”
“No, thank you.”
Frances lit one for herself. “I hope you don’t think I’m interfering, chasing you out of the place like this.”
“No. I had to get back anyway. The sooner I get home the better.”
“Do you live in London?”
“Yes.” She made herself say it. “Queen’s Gate.”
“How nice. Have you enjoyed your visit to San Antonio?”
Selina said, “It’s been very interesting.”
“You thought George was your father.”
“I thought he might have been. But I was wrong.”
“Did you read his book?”
“I haven’t read it properly yet. But I will when I get home. I’ll have time then.” She added, “It’s been a great success.”
“Oh, sure,” said Frances, dismissing the book.
“Didn’t you think it was good?”
“Yes, it was good. It was fresh and original.” She took a long pull on her cigarette, dropped the ash on to the floor of the terrace. “But he won’t write another.”
Selina frowned. “What makes you say that?”
“Because I don’t think he has the self-discipline to get down to a second book.”
“He’s been told he’s suffering from writer’s block.”
Frances laughed. “Look, darling, it was I who told him that.”
“If you don’t think he is capable of writing a second book, why did you say he was suffering from writer’s block?”
“Oh, because he was depressed, and I was trying to cheer him up. George doesn’t need to write. He has money of his own, and the sheer hard labour of writing simply isn’t worth the candle.”
“But he must write another book.”
“Why?”
“Because he agreed to. Because the publisher is waiting for it. For his own sake.”
“That’s just a lot of hooey.”
“Don’t you want him to go on writing?”
“What I want or what I don’t want is immaterial. I am merely stating an opinion. Look, honey, I run an art gallery. I deal all the time with these temperaments, these artists, these moods. I just don’t think George is a creative artist.”
“But if he doesn’t write, what will he do?”
“What he did before he wrote Fiesta at Cala Fuerte. Nothing. It’s easy to do nothing in San Antonio, to say ‘Mañana’ to everything.” She smiled. “Don’t look so shocked. George and I are twice your age, and at forty some of your illusions and your bright dreams get a bit bumped at the corners. Life doesn’t have to be so real and so earnest as it does at eighteen … or whatever you are.…”
“I’m twenty,” said Selina. Her voice was suddenly cold and Frances was pleased, because she thought she had annoyed her. She lay, watching Selina, and she was not afraid anymore, as she had been when she first saw her, because Selina was going; in half an hour she would be on her way. To the airport, to London, back to a life in Queen’s Gate about which Frances was content to remain in total ignorance.
The sound of the returning Citröen disturbed their uneasy silence, followed by the less sophisticated grinding of Pepe’s ancient car. Selina stood up. “There’s the taxi, now.”
“Oh, fine!” Frances stubbed her cigarette out on to the floor. “Here, I’ll give you the money.”
She could scarcely bear to take it, but it was being counted into her palm when George ca
me through the house to join them. He looked as uncomfortable as Selina about the whole business, but only pointed out that Selina would need sterling in London, whereupon Frances signed one of her American Express cheques and handed that over too.
“You can get it cashed at the airport.”
“It’s very kind of you.”
“Oh, it’s a pleasure,” said Frances. “Think nothing of it.”
“I … I’ll make certain you’re paid back.…”
“Yes, of course you will.”
George said, “Where’s your bag?”
“Inside.”
He went to get it, and it was he who took the money from Selina and stowed it away in a secure and well-hidden inner pocket. “Don’t lose it again,” he said; “I couldn’t stand the strain.” It had been meant as a feeble joke, but was instantly regretted because it sounded as though he couldn’t bear the thought of once more being landed with her. He said, quickly, to cover up, “You’ve got your passport?” She nodded. “You’re sure?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I think perhaps you should make a start. There’s not all that much time to spare.…”
She was being eased, gently, but firmly, away. She would never come back. Slowly, she followed George back into the house. He picked up her porridge-coloured coat, and moved aside, as though to let her go ahead of him. Behind her, Frances Dongen stood in the open terrace doorway.
He said quite gently, “Pepe’s waiting…”
Selina swallowed. She said, “I’m suddenly very thirsty. Have I got time to have a drink…?”
“But of course.” He moved towards the well, but Selina said, “No. I’d rather have soda water, it’s more refreshing and so cold. Don’t bother. I’ll get it. There’s some in the fridge. I won’t be a moment.”
They waited while she went for the drink, slipping behind the counter of the galley, and stooping to open the refrigerator and take out a frosty bottle. For a moment she was invisible, and then she stood up, holding the bottle, and opened it, and poured it into a tumbler, and drank it so quickly that George said that she would surely explode.
“I won’t explode.” She put down the empty glass and suddenly smiled. It was as though the glass of soda water had solved all her problems. “It was delicious.”
They went out into the sunshine, and Pepe waited for them. Pepe took Selina’s coat and laid it with care over the hastily-cleaned back seat, and Selina said good-bye to Frances, and thanked her for all her help, and then she turned to George. She did not hold out her hand and he could not kiss her. They said good-bye without touching, but he felt as though he were being torn apart.
She got into the old car, erect and touching and hideously vulnerable, and Pepe got in beside her, and George gave him half a dozen last-minute instructions, and threatened death if anything should go wrong, and Pepe understood, and nodded, and even laughed toothlessly as he put the old car into gear.
It ground away up the hill and away from them, and George went on watching, long after it was out of sight, because he could still hear the sound of the engine.
* * *
There was a great party that night in the Cala Fuerte Hotel. It was not planned, but it evolved, in the way that the best parties do, growing and expanding to include a dozen different nationalities and a terrifying amount of drink. Everybody got very gay. A fat girl decided that she would dance on the table, but fell off into the arms of her boyfriend and remained there, asleep, for the rest of the evening. One of the boatmen from the harbour produced his guitar and a Frenchwoman did a mock flamenco which seemed to George the funniest thing he had ever seen in his life. At about one in the morning, however, he suddenly announced that he was going home, back to the Casa Barco. There was a great howl of protestation, taunts of being a kill-joy, claims that it was his turn to stand the drinks, but he remained adamant, because he knew that he must get out before he stopped laughing and started to cry. There was nothing worse than a maudlin drunk.
He stood up, pushing back his chair from the table with a head-splitting sound. Frances said, “I’ll come too.”
“You’re staying here, remember.”
“I’ll drive you home. What’s the good of walking when there’s a perfectly good car at the door?”
He gave in, because it was simpler and less effort than having a scene. Outside, the warm southern night was bright with starlight. The Citröen was parked in the middle of the square, and as they walked towards her, Frances slid the car keys into George’s hand and said, “You drive.”
She was perfectly capable of driving herself, but every now and then liked to pretend that she was helpless and feminine, so George took the keys and got in behind the wheel.
It occurred to him that while his own ridiculous little yellow-wheeled car was merely a method of getting about the island, Frances’s Citröen, fast and powerful, was somehow a sexy extension of her own personality. She sat beside him now with her face tipped up to the stars, her brown neck plunged into the deep V of her low-buttoned shirt. He knew that she was waiting to be kissed, but he lit a cigarette, before he started the engine, and she said, “Why don’t you kiss me?”
George said, “I mustn’t kiss you; I don’t know where you’ve been.”
“Why do you have to turn everything into a joke?”
“It’s my British defence mechanism.”
She glanced at her watch, clear in the starlight. “It’s one o’clock. Do you think she’ll be back in London?”
“She should be.”
“Queen’s Gate. Not really our line of country, darling.”
He began to whistle, beneath his breath, a tune that had been plaguing him, at the back of his brain, all evening. “You aren’t worrying about her, are you?”
“No, I’m not worrying. I should have taken her to the airport though, not let her go with Pepe in that sewing-machine on wheels he calls a car.”
“She didn’t want you to take her. She would have howled all over you, and you would both have been embarrassed.” He made no answer to this, and she laughed. “You’re like a stubborn bear that won’t bait.”
“I’m too drunk to bait.”
“Let’s go home.”
He drove back, still whistling that damned tune. When they got to the Casa Barco and George killed the engine and got out of the car, Frances got out too. As though it had been planned, she came in with him, and the house was cool and dark, but he turned on the lights and went, automatically, to pour himself a drink, because without a drink he would die, or go to sleep and burst into tears, and he was damned if he would do any of these things with Frances watching him.
She flopped, entirely at home, on to his sofa, her feet on one arm, and her curly head propped up by a sky-blue cushion. He fumbled his way through pouring a couple of drinks, dropped the opener and spilt the ice, and Frances said, “That’s the hell of a tune you’re whistling. Don’t you know any other?”
“I don’t even know what it is.”
“Well, stop anyway.”
His head was thumping, there seemed to be pools of water and melting ice everywhere and he couldn’t find anything with which to wipe it all up. He picked up the drinks, and took them over to where Frances lay, and she took hers, but all the time her eyes were on his face, and he sat on the hearth with his back to the empty fireplace, and his own drink cradled between his hands.
She said, untroubled, “You know, darling, you’re mad at me.”
“I am?”
“Sure you are.”
“Why?”
“Because I got rid of your little girl-friend. And because you know in your heart of hearts, you should have done that for yourself. And right away.”
“I couldn’t buy an air ticket without any money.”
“That, if you don’t mind my saying so, is the feeblest excuse any man gave to himself.”
He looked down at his drink. “Yes,” he said at last. “Maybe it is.”
The tune went on and
on in the back of his mind. After a little, Frances said, “When you went off to find Pepe and that child was getting ready to go, I had a little mosey round your desk. You don’t seem to be exactly productive.”
“I’m not. I haven’t written a word.”
“Have you replied to dear Mr. Rutland?”
“No. I haven’t done that either. But,” he added with a touch of malice, “I’ve consulted a specialist and been told I’m suffering from writer’s block.”
“Well,” said Frances, with some satisfaction, “at least that’s a flash of your ornery self. And if you take your kid gloves off, then I can too. You see, darling, I don’t think you’re ever going to write that second book.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Just you. The way you are. Writing’s hard labour, and you’re one of those classic, no-good, expatriate Englishmen who do nothing more gracefully than any race alive.” He acknowledged this with a spontaneous gleam of amusement, and Frances sat up, encouraged, because she had not lost her gift for making him laugh. “George, if you don’t want to go to Malagar, if you don’t enjoy the bull-fighting, then I don’t want to go either. But why don’t we get away together? We could take Eclipse to Sardinia, or go overland to Australia, or … ride a camel through the Gobi desert…”
“Bags on the front hump.”
“You’re turning everything into a joke again. I’m serious. We’re free and we have all the time in the world. Why flog yourself to bits over a typewriter? Is there anything left, in the world, that you can write about really well?”
“Frances, I don’t know.”
She fell back on to the cushion. She had finished her drink, and dropped the empty glass down on the floor beside her. She was sprawled, seductive, raffish, frighteningly familiar. She said, “I love you. You must know that.”
There seemed no reason not to make love to her. He set down his glass, and went to sit beside her, to pull her into his arms, and kiss her as though he wanted to drown himself. She made small, pleasurable noises, and writhed her hands in his hair, and he took his mouth from hers and rubbed his cheek down the sharp angle of her jaw, and could feel the roughness of his beard scraping her skin, and she buried her face in his shoulder and her strong arms were like a vice about his neck.
Sleeping Tiger Page 14