“Nothing.”
“All right, then I’ll … the telephone’s right there, if you should need anything.”
This time there was no answer.
Mrs. Comstock’s eyes were closed and she was breathing regularly. The beautiful lips were parted. There was the faint sound of a snore. A very small snore, it was true, but nevertheless a snore.
There was no reason to stay longer. Richard’s mother was fast asleep, gin-soaked and played out. The scent of flowers in a bowl mingled with the costly perfume of a famous designer.
It smelled nice in there, Kelly thought, closing the door.
Yet, in a certain way, it stank.
• • •
Mrs. Comstock slept all through the morning hours. Kelly was told that breakfast had been sent up, but she hadn’t summoned her son to her room. Evidently she had decided that Richard was in safe hands.
Richard had, miraculously, recovered. So his mother was here, so what? She was an absentee parent, whether in spirit or in the flesh. He woke Kelly up playing castanets outside her room. When she opened the door, there he was, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, clapping the circlets of wood together.
“Yes, Richard?”
“Steve sent me to wake you.”
“Tell him I’m awake.”
“When will you be down? We’re waiting.”
“In a very short time.”
“Like what?”
“Half an hour.”
“Okay. I’m drinking milk. Steve said you wanted that.”
“I do. Drink a lot.”
“Yes, Kelly.”
“You’re a good boy.”
“Sometimes.”
“You’ll do as far as I’m concerned.”
• • •
After breakfast Steve told her a few things. “You may not think I’m God’s gift to women, but someone else does.”
“What do you mean?”
“I had a call at four o’clock in the morning. She invited me up to her room for a drink.”
“Richard’s mother?”
“Uh huh.”
“Oh, God.”
“A lush and a nympho. Should we adopt him, do you think?”
His face was bitter. “They’ll all start squabbling over him now. They all want him. For the wrong reasons. To butter their bread. What a family.”
“Where is he now?”
“Felipe’s teaching him to play the castanets.”
“Oh. He was clacking them outside my room earlier.”
Richard showed up a few minutes later. “Listen,” he said, and raised the castanets over his head. And sure enough, he had picked up the trick.
“I’ll be damned,” Steve said. “He not only has brains, but manual dexterity as well.”
“Oh, no, Steve,” Richard said. “There is a trick. You just have to catch on to it and voila … it’s as easy as rolling off a log.”
“You’re the smart one in the family,” Steve said. “One genius is enough.”
“Can I have a coke, for credits?” Richard asked, sliding into a chair.
When it came he asked what was on the agenda for the morning. “Even if she’s here,” he said, “we’re going some place, aren’t we? We always do.”
Steve considered. “Look, suppose I stay here, in case she … your mother … wants something. You and Kelly can do the sights. How’s that?”
“Okay, Kelly?”
“Yes, Rich. That sounds reasonable.”
“You don’t mind, Steve?”
“No, run along, you two. Have fun, have a ball.
Okay?”
“Sure.”
“Meanwhile, I’ll mind the store,” he said, and they went off, hand in hand, to take a gander, as Steve would have said, at the Giralda, the famous belltower of Seville which was in the center of a beautiful park where pure white pigeons, like the fabled doves of peace, strutted and spread their creamy wings.
“They’re groovy,” Richard breathed. “Just all white ones … oh, Kelly, aren’t they super?”
He darted over to a stand, where a vendor sold cornucopias of seed. As soon as he had one of the paper cones in his hand a flock of birds flew over, perching on his shoulder, head, arms, their wings fluttering, eager for the corn.
A photographer bustled over.
“Yes, we do want pictures,” Richard said eagerly. “But wait, Kelly has to be in it too.”
He bought her a packet of the feed.
She posed with him, smiling uneasily; there was a pigeon right atop her head. And then the flash flared.
How odd about the birds, she thought. The dream at Cordoba and now these whirling creatures, their wings beating.
It gave her such a peculiar feeling.
“Ninety pesetas,” the photographer said, holding out his hand. He took the money and promised to be back within the quarter hour. “Good picture, you’ll see,” he said boastfully.
The Giralda, towering over the city, was very Moorish, with an open balcony near its apex. “Can we go up?” Richard asked.
“Let’s ask.”
Yes, they could go up.
The fee was fifty pesetas; Richard insisted on paying, and they ascended, with only one or two other sightseers, to the top of the belltower.
The view was magnificent; at their feet all Seville was spread, with its glorious Tower of Gold at the edge of the blue river. There were the turrets of the Plaza de San Fernando and the Patio de Banderas.
“Look, Kelly, that’s where we were yesterday,” Richard said, pointing.
It was the great sweep of the Plaza de Espana at which he was looking.
“What a view,” he said, sighing. “Oh, I wish I didn’t have to go home.”
“Everything comes to an end,” she said. “We must all sooner or later realize that, Rich.”
“Yeah, I guess. But all the same …”
His face was wistful.
When they went down again the pigeons circled around once more, the whirr of their wings like thunder. And now there was a man selling balloons in a corner of the park. He was crying his wares in a loud, hoarse voice.
“Globo … globo …”
“I want one,” Richard said, and dashed over to the man with the small cart.
“Como es?” he demanded.
“Ten centimos.”
“They cost almost nothing,” Richard cried, as Kelly came up to him. “Let’s buy them all. Let’s buy them all!”
“Richard, don’t be — ”
“Yes yes, I’ll buy them all. I’ll be the balloon man.”
“Now listen, Richard …”
But he got out his wallet, quite carried away. “I want them all,” he told the man, his voice quivering with excitement. “Every one of them, Senor. Si? How much for all of them?”
At first the man didn’t understand, but then he did. He was overwhelmed at his good fortune. “Todo?” He started figuring frantically, using his fingers. “Two hundred pesetas, nino, amo. No me enganas como un bobo?”
“What’s he saying?” Richard asked, flinging open his wallet.
“He wants to know if you’re kidding him.”
“No no. I want them all.”
The man took the money, slightly dazed, and then transferred the load of balloons into Richard’s arms. “Gracias” he cried, pocketing the cash.
“Loco … transtornado …” Laughing loudly, he wheeled his empty cart away.
“Americanos,” Kelly heard him chortling happily. “Crazy Americanos.”
A group of small children looked enviously at the little foreign boy who had bought the balloons. “You want one?” Richard asked, but of course they didn’t understand. And then he was passing out the balloons.
For a few minutes the children hung back, suspicious, incredulous, not knowing what trick this was. But at last one child accepted a balloon and then a second one did.
There were sudden cries, and laughter; Richard, his fist full of balloons on sticks, was
handing them out, a youthful philanthropist. It was like a carnival, it was quite beautiful, with all the shouts and the gleeful laughs and the gay colors of the balloons … red and blue and green and yellow.
“Kelly, this one is for you.”
He gave her a yellow one, because she had on a yellow dress. She took the balloon and stood watching. It was a really heartwarming sight: children who couldn’t communicate verbally because of the language barrier had another common language. She was so very proud of Richard, with his open heart and his sweetness and his generosity.
I love that child, she thought.
Richard was the first to release his balloon. The gas-filled globe, a bright blue, wafted up, wavered, rose, headed for the sky. Another shout went up. And then another balloon followed the first.
There was a crowd now. Adults had gathered to watch the impromptu show. Everyone was giggling, watching the children. And at last all the kids, transported, sent their balloons skyward. There were brightly colored circles of taut rubber all over the little corner of the park. Richard was laughing, was so happy. Just a little boy having a wonderful time with other laughing, screaming children.
A pang went through Kelly. If he belonged to me, she thought. To me … if he were mine …
The balloons floated through the soft air. The cries of the children shattered the quiet of the beautiful little park where the Giralda, centuries old, towered somberly. The birds, as white as snow and infected with the circus atmosphere, winged their way. One of them pierced a balloon with its beak.
Richard mingled with the crowd of frenzied children. This is beautiful, Kelly thought, almost in tears. All these happy children.
The cries mounted. For a moment she lost sight of Richard. She stood on her toes, sought for him. Then someone jostled her.
“Excuse me,” she said politely.
“Perdon.”
“It’s all right.”
The man who had bumped into her was apologizing elaborately. “Please forgive me, Senora.”
“It’s all right” she said again, and started to walk away.
A balloon, helium-borne, flew in front of her face. She pushed at it and the tenuous rubber globule flew up. And then several things happened at once: a pigeon, wings whirring, flew into the air, grazing her face, and someone laughed, a child’s laugh … but not Richard’s.
“Richard,” she called, concerned, and heard the screech of tires on asphalt. A hand grasped her elbow; she looked up, astonished, and the hand tightened.
“What do you want?” she asked, annoyed.
A face looked into hers, a quiet, dark-eyed face, a stranger’s face.
It happened so quickly that she had no defenses. She was propelled by the iron grip on her arm and suddenly she was curb-side. There was a big, black car there, and just as another shout of laughter went up, as a float of colored balloons was sent zooming, the door of the car was opened.
“What is this?” she started to say, dazed and confused by the noise, the laughter, the riot of color, the whirling birds and the blinding sun. “What is this?”
And then there was a sudden, excruciating pain in her ribs, at the kidney area, in the back. Her head swung round and her eyes were puzzled and then the pain weakened her and for a second she felt faint, not knowing what was happening. Everything was blurred and indistinct, and the red, red of the balloons struck her in the eyeballs.
She felt a vicious prod … and then knew that the pain was going to best her. A gust of air hit her in the forehead and suddenly she was inside the car. The car was moving. There was the sound of the pavement under the tires as the car gathered speed.
“What?” she asked numbly, and the object in her ribs was removed. She regained some of her perspective. “Richard!” she cried, and then the thing smashed down on her skull. Great circles made patterns in front of her eyes and then blackness engulfed her. Velvet darkness.
What could have happened? some reasoning part of her brain questioned, and then there was simply nothing at all.
• • •
Richard, laughing, watched the balloons go up. It was better than Central Park, that was for sure. He was a paternalist at the moment; due to him, these kids were having a ball, a real groovy ball. He watched them, tolerant and enormously pleased with himself.
“Hey, this is some fun,” he said, a little fatuous. “Boy, is this a ball.”
The balloons bumped against each other on their way up. “Look at those crazy balloons,” he cried, holding his sides to keep from dying of laughter. “Boy, what a nutty scene.”
“You dig?” he asked a dark-eyed little girl near him. The inky eyes were uncomprehending. “Bella?” he asked. “Broma?”
The little face burst into a grin.
“Admirable.”
Oh boy, what an afternoon. “Too bad Steve wasn’t here,” he said. “He would have liked this, Kelly.”
He felt for her hand. But she wasn’t beside him any longer. The crowd was dense. “Kelly?” he said, and pushed his way between bodies to find her.
She was here … somewhere …
“Hey, Kelly,” he called, still chuckling.
She was here, somewhere. “Kelly, wasn’t that something?”
He wormed his way past a group of kids and, looking for her, thought what fun they’d had.
That was her, he decided. That girl with the yellow balloon.
But it wasn’t.
After a while he stopped laughing. His face took on a worried look. He started saying, “Kelly? Kelly?” and made his way through the throng.
He didn’t see Kelly anywhere.
After a while he began pushing, quite rudely, using his elbows. “Hey, Kelly,” he said, over and over again. But her answering voice failed to reach him.
Where the hell was she?
The crowd began to disperse. The carnival was over. All the balloons were gone now. And still no sign of Kelly’s dark head, her tail, lissome figure.
She had to be here … somewhere.
Soon the little island in the park, which only a short time before had been so gala, was almost deserted. Passersby came and went.
Kelly wasn’t anywhere. She wasn’t anywhere.
He felt his face crumpling. He didn’t like that. But after all he was only a ten year old kid, and his friend … why, she wasn’t here. She wasn’t here.
A middle-aged woman saw him standing there, looking round uncertainly. She said something to him, but of course he couldn’t understand; she spoke in Spanish. Yet he clutched her arm.
“I’m looking for my friend,” he said in a small voice.
“Perdon?”
And then, shamefully, the tears came. Because he didn’t know what it was, but he did know that something terrible had happened to Kelly. He knew it. “Hotel Madrid,” he said at last, as the woman patiently questioned him. “Hotel Madrid, el favor …”
She got him back to the hotel and he thanked her. He wasn’t crying any more; he was beyond that. He was terrified. Not knowing why, but terrified. He tried to pay the woman for the taxi, digging out his wallet. But she made him put it away and took him to the desk clerk.
“Felipe, Kelly’s gone,” Richard said tremulously. “We were in the park, near the Giralda and then she wasn’t there any more.”
There was a long confab between the desk clerk and Richard’s rescuer and then suddenly Steve was there. Richard clung to him.
“I can’t find Kelly, Steve.”
“What do you mean, can’t find her?”
“I can’t,” he said piteously. “I gave her a balloon, a yellow one, and everyone was laughing. And then there were only a few people left there, and Kelly wasn’t — ”
He said passionately, “She wouldn’t leave me just like that. You know that, Steve.”
The man looked at Felipe, at the woman who had brought Richard home, and then sat Richard down.
“Okay, cool it,” he said. “Sit. Now. Tell me about it. What happened?”
/>
“We went up to the top of the tower. The Giralda. Then when we came down there was a man with balloons. I bought them all. I gave one to Kelly, a yellow one. Then I gave the rest to all the kids who were there. We let them go up. It was …”
“Yes. Take it easy, Rich.”
“And then when it was all over, Kelly wasn’t there. Steve, she was gone. This lady brought me home.”
And then he was crying again. He was sick about it, but he couldn’t help it. “Because where could she be?” he asked brokenly. “How can someone just disappear like that?”
“It’s okay.”
Steve straightened up. “What do you think?” he asked Felipe.
“I don’t know.” The clerk looked worried. “I don’t know what to think, Senor.”
Richard watched Steve become as helpless as he himself felt. The man, the big, strong man, looked dazed. As if he didn’t know what the hell to do next. It was the child’s first experience with adults who were totally ineffectual. Some of his faith, some of his feeling that grown people were godheads, was lost at that moment. But he gained something else. The knowledge that being no longer a child was the key to wisdom and strength.
It was then that his tears stopped.
Tears, he saw, weren’t going to help. He got up off the chair and stuck his hands in his pockets. “What are we going to do, Steve?” he asked.
The man looked down at him. “Let me think,” Steve said. “Just let me think. The thing is, I can’t seem to — ”
His face tightened. “If anything’s happened to Kelly, I’ll — ”
“But what could happen in Seville?” Felipe asked wonderingly. “This is a quiet city.”
The woman who had brought Richard home finally went off. Quite clearly, she didn’t want anything; she had only been sorry for the little boy. But Steve insisted on paying the cab fare, and he added a substantial amount to it.
“And I’ll remember your kindness always,” he said.
After she’d left he pumped Richard again.
“Tell me from the beginning,” he said.
“I … we … we went up to the belltower. The Giralda. It was a nice view and then we came down again. After that there was the man with the balloons. I wanted all of them and he said it would be two hundred pesetas. He seemed glad to sell them all. And then I gave all the kids a balloon.”
Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances Page 62