Garden of Eden (13 page)

"You're
not my girl." "I am," she said. "I told you before."
"You don't blush anymore. "I got over it when we went bathing. I hope
I won't now for a long time. That's why I said everything—to get over it.
That's why I told you." "You look nice in that cashmere sweater,"
David said. "Catherine said we'd both wear them. You don't dislike me
because I told you?" "I forget what you told me. "That I love
you. "Don't talk rot." "Don't you believe it happens to people
like that? The way it happened to me about you two?" "You don't fall
in love with two people at once. "You don't know," she said.
"It's rot," he said. "It's just a way of talking." "It
isn't at all. It's true." "You just think it is. It's nonsense."
"All right," she said. "It's nonsense. But I'm here."
"Yes. You're here," he said. He was watching Catherine as she crossed
the room, smiling and happy. "Hello swimmers," she said. "Oh
what a shame. I didn't get to see Marita have her first martini."
"This is still it," the girl said. "How did it affect her,
David?" "Made her talk rot." "We'll start with a fresh one.
Weren't you good to resuscitate this bar. It's such a sort of tentative bar.
We'll get a mirror for it. A bar's no good without a mirror." "We can
get one tomorrow," the girl said. "I'd like to get it. "Don't be
rich," Catherine said. "We'll both get it and then we can all see
each other when we talk rot and know how rotty it is. You can't fool a bar
mirror." "It's when I start looking quizzical in one that I know I've
lost," David said. "You never lose. How can you lose with two
girls?" Catherine said. "I tried to tell him," the girl said and
blushed for the first time that evening. "She's your girl and I'm your
girl," Catherine said. "Now stop being stuffy and be nice to your
girls. Don't you like the way they look? I'm the very fair one you
married." "You're darker and fairer than the one I married."
"So are you and I brought you a dark girl for a present. Don't you like
your present?" "I like my present very much." "How do you
like your future?" "I don't know about my future. "It isn't a
dark future is it?" the girl asked. "Very good," Catherine said.
"She's not only beautiful and rich and healthy and affectionate. She can
make jokes. Aren't you pleased with what I brought you?" "I'd rather
be a dark present than a dark future," the girl said. "She did it
again," Catherine said. "Give her a kiss David and make her a fair
present." David put his arm around the girl and kissed her and she started
to kiss him and turned her head away. Then she was crying with her head down
and both hands holding the bar. "Make a good joke now," David said to
Catherine. "I'm all right," the girl said. "Don't look at me.
I'm all right." Catherine put her arm around her and kissed her and
stroked her head. "I'll be all right," the girl said. "Please, I
know I'll be all right."

"I'm
so sorry," Catherine said. "Let me go please," the girl said.
"I have to go. "Well," David said when the girl was gone and
Catherine had come back to the bar. "You don't need to say it,"
Catherine said. "I'm sorry David." "She'll be back."
"You don't think it's all a fake now do you?" "They were real
tears if that's what you mean. "Don't be stupid. You aren't stupid."
"I kissed her very carefully." "Yes. On the mouth."
"Where did you expect me to kiss her?" "You were all right. I
haven't criticized you." "I'm glad you didn't ask me to kiss her when
we were at the beach." "I thought of it," Catherine said. She
laughed and it was like the old days before anyone had mixed in their life.
"Did you think I was going to?" "I thought you were so I dove
in." "Good thing you did." They laughed again. "Well, we've
cheered up," Catherine said. "Thank God," David said. "I
love you, Devil, and really I didn't kiss her to make all that." "You
don't have to tell me," Catherine said. "I saw you. It was a miserable
effort." "I wish she'd go away." "Don't be heartless,"
Catherine said. "And I did encourage her." "I tried not "I
egged her on about you. I'll go out and find her." "No. Wait a little
while. She's too sure of herself." "How can you say that, David? You
just broke her all up.

"I
did not."

'Well
something did. I'm going to go and get her."

But
it wasn't necessary because the girl came back to the bar where they were
standing and blushed and said, "I'm sorry." Her face was washed and
she had brushed her hair and she came up to David and kissed him on the mouth
very quickly and said, "I like my present. Did someone take my
drink?"

"I
threw it out," Catherine said. "David will make a new one.

"I
hope you still like having two girls," she said. "Because I am yours
and I'm going to be Catherine's too."

"I
don't go in for girls," Catherine said. It was very quiet and her voice
did not sound right either to herself or to David.

"Don't
you ever?"

"I
never have."

"I
can be your girl, if you ever want one, and David's too."

"Don't
you think that's sort of a vast undertaking?" Catherine asked.

"That's
why I came here," the girl said. "I thought that was what you
wanted."

"I've
never had a girl," Catherine said.

"I'm
so stupid," the girl said. "I didn't know. Is it true? You're not
making fun of me?"

"I'm
not making fun of you."

"I
don't know how I could be so stupid," the girl said. She means mistaken
David thought and Catherine thought it too.

That
night in bed Catherine said, "I never should have let you in for any of
it. Not for any part of it."

"I
wish we'd never seen her."

"It
might have been something worse. Maybe to go through with it and get rid of it
that way is best."

"You
could send her away.

"I
don't think that's the way to clear it now. Doesn't she do anything to
you?" "Oh sure." "I knew she did. But I love you and all
this is nothing. You know it is too." "I don't know about it,
Devil." 'Well we won't be solemn. I can already tell it's death if you're
solemn."

IT
WAS THE THIRD DAY of the wind but it was not as heavy now and he sat at the
table and read the story over from the start to where he had left off,
correcting as he read. He went on with the story, living in it and nowhere else,
and when he heard the voices of the two girls outside he did not listen. When
they went by the window he lifted his hand and waved. They waved and the dark
girl smiled and Catherine put her fingers to her lips. The girl looked very
pretty in the morning, her face shining and her color high. Catherine was
beautiful as always. He heard the car start and noted it was the Bugatti. He
went back into the story. It was a good story and he finished it shortly before
noon.

It
was too late to have breakfast and he was tired after working and did not want
to drive the old Isotta into town with its bad brakes and huge malfunctioning
motor although the key was with a note Catherine had left saying they had gone
to Nice and would look in at the cafe for him on their way home.

What
I would like, he thought, is a tall cold liter of beer in a thick heavy glass
and a pomme à l'huile with coarse ground peppercorns on it. But the beer on
this coast was worthless and he thought happily of Paris and other places he
had been and was pleased he had written something he knew was good and that he
had finished it. This was the first writing he had finished since they were
married. Finishing is what you have to do, he thought. If you don't finish,
nothing is worth a damn. Tomorrow I'll pick up the narrative where I left it
and keep right on until I finish it. And how are you going to finish it? How
are you going to finish it now?

As
soon as he started to think beyond his work, everything that he had locked out
by the work came back to him. He thought of the night before and of Catherine
and the girl today on the road that he and Catherine had driven two days before
and he felt sick. They should be on the way back now. It's after noon. Maybe
they're at the cafe. Don't be solemn, she had said. But she meant something
else too. Maybe she knows what she's doing. Maybe she knows how it can turn
out. Maybe she does know. You don't.

So
you worked and now you worry. You'd better write another story. Write the
hardest one there is to write that you know. Go ahead and do that. You have to
last yourself if you're to be any good to her. What good have you been to her?
Plenty, he said. No, not plenty. Plenty means enough. Go ahead and start the
new one tomorrow. The hell with tomorrow. What a way to be. Tomorrow. Go in and
start it now.

He
put the note and the key in his pocket and went back into the work room and sat
down and wrote the first paragraph of the new story that he had always put off
writing since he had known what a story was. He wrote it in simple declarative
sentences with all of the problems ahead to be lived through and made to come
alive. The very beginning was written and all he had to do was go on. That's
all, he said. You see how simple what you cannot do is? Then he came out onto
the terrace and sat down and ordered a whiskey and Perrier.

io8

The
proprietor's young nephew brought the bottles and ice and a glass from the bar
and said, "Monsieur had no breakfast."

"I
worked too long."

"C'est
dommage," the boy said. "Can I bring anything? A sandwich?"

"In
our storeroom you will find a tin of Maquereau Vin Blanc Capitaine Cook. Open
it up and bring me two on a plate."

"They
won't be cold."

"It
makes no difference. Bring them."

He
sat and ate the maquereau vin blanc and drank the whiskey and mineral water. It
did make a difference that they were not cold. He read the morning paper while
he ate.

We
always ate fresh fish at le Grau du Roi, he thought, but that was a long time
ago. He started to remember Grau du Roi and then he heard the car coming up the
hill.

"Take
this away," he said to the boy and he stood up and walked into the bar and
poured himself a whiskey, put ice in it and filled the glass with Perrier. The
taste of the wine-spiced fish was in his mouth and he picked up the bottle of
mineral water and drank from it.

He
heard their voices and then they came in the door as happy and gay as
yesterday. He saw Catherine's birch bright head and her dark face loving and
excited and the other girl dark, the wind still in her hair, her eyes very
bright and then suddenly shy again as she came closer.

"We
didn't stop when we saw you weren't at the cafe," Catherine said.

"I
worked late. How are you, Devil?"

"I'm
very well. Don't ask me how this one is.

"Did
you work well, David?" the girl asked.

'That's
being a good wife," Catherine said. "I forgot to ask."

'What
did you do in Nice?"

"Can
we have a drink and then tell?"

They
were close to him on each side and he felt them both.

"Did
you work well, David?" she asked again.

"Of
course he did," Catherine said. "That's the only way he ever works,
stupid."

"Did
you, David?"

"Yes,"
he said and rumpled her head. "Thanks."

"Don't
we get a drink?" Catherine asked. "We didn't work at all. We just
bought things and ordered things and made scandal."

"We
didn't make any real scandal."

"I
don't know," Catherine said. "I don't care either."