The Man Who Was Left Behind (16 page)

“I will if you will.”

“I’d like to, and I need it, but I think my head would come right off if I did.”

“Then I won’t.”

“How about something beforehand?”

“All right.”

I ordered for us, and looked around the place. The room was as pretty and open as a ballroom. At the far end the windows were all French windows that opened out on to a terrace. There was a double curtain like a theatre curtain for that whole side of the room. At noon they drew both sides nearly together. Some of the other curtains too had been drawn against the sun, but where it came in, it fell on the white tablecloths and silver, and made the bright water in the flower vases sparkle and flash.

“Are those for the kids?” I said, touching the postcards.

“Yes.”

“Can I add a note?”

“You can send them some others. I’ll show you which pictures I’ve got, so we won’t duplicate any.”

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

“Don’t you think it would be getting their hopes up? Bobby knows. I practically told him.”

“You didn’t actually tell him the word divorce, did you?”

“No, I said something about how you’d be working away for a while, like last year, and we wouldn’t see so much of you. But he has friends at school whose parents are divorced. He knows, I’m sure of it.”

She started to touch the flowers in the vase. She loved flowers. She probably even knew the name, though all I could see was that they were pinkish and like sweet peas.

“It isn’t complete custody,” she said.

“I know. Weekends and vacations. It would break my
heart. It would be better never to see them again at all. If I thought I had the strength, that’s what I’d do.”

“Let’s not talk about it.”

She looked up and away from me, towards the door. The waiter came up with our food and she remained looking off, like a giraffe scenting the air, in the way that meant she was trying not to cry.

There are so many different attitudes, like different lives, in a face and in a body. So many lines and forms, so many strengths and weaknesses. The expression of health, of nervousness, even the expression of truth, are things you can look at. How long it takes to know them all. And you never do, not completely. A body or face is never the same even in a single day. And the mind, that’s even more difficult.

“If only you hadn’t looked at the photographs,” I said. “That’s what did it.”

“Talk about pubic hair,” she snapped.

Quickly I put a finger to my mouth and said, “Shh.”

She went red and looked over her shoulder. The British Raj saw her and also went red. He hadn’t heard, but now he was suddenly aware of us.

“Oh, my God,” she mumbled, and started to stab her fork at her food.

I began to eat, too. When I swallowed, it hurt in my ears.

“If we gave it a try——”

“How much would you try?”

“As much as I always have.”

“You mean, it would be the same as it was before.”

“And it would have been all right if it hadn’t been for all our wonderful friends.”

“At least they told me the truth.”

“And how they enjoyed telling you the truth, and then telling you that I was the one who was hurting you.”

She put down her fork.

“But you’d resent it if I did it, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course. But it wouldn’t be the same.”

“It’s never the same for a woman—are you going to give me that?”

“What I meant was that if you did, you’re such a stickler for propriety, you’d marry him. You’d drop me like a hot potato.”

“Would it be better to have somebody on the sly every afternoon for years?”

She started to eat again.

“You probably wouldn’t even have minded,” she said, biting vigorously.

“Of course I would have. You’re my wife.”

“What does that mean?”

“I mean you’re my wife. Look, I’ve been in a lot of different places—waiting at bus stops, in airports, been out to parties. I’ve eaten meals in restaurants and had drinks at bars, been to people’s houses, been in people’s rooms. But if somebody asks me where I live, I don’t say in a bus stop or on the eight-ten or in a bar, or in a strange room. That isn’t where I live. Don’t you understand? You’re my wife. Christ, I’m tired.”

“So am I,” she said, spacing the words.

“Do you want coffee?”

“No, thanks.”

I looked for the waiter.

“He’s in back of you by the doorway,” she said. “About five of them have been standing there for the past few minutes.”

I turned around and saw the group of waiters standing there trying not to appear too curious about something that was going on in the lobby. I looked, too. Just before our waiter broke away and came towards us, I saw uniforms come in through the lobby and go in the direction
of the stairs with a man I’d never seen before, who might have been the manager.

“It’s the cops,” I said.

When we reached the lobby, they had gone.

“I think I’ll take a stroll around for a couple of minutes,” I said.

“I’ll go on up.”

“See you later,” I said, and watched her go up the stairway. Then I went to the desk. The clerk we called King Umberto was there. I asked him for stamps, which he produced from a drawer under the desk. Then I said, “The police are here?” and his English vanished. I had a bad feeling about it. I said, “Would you tell me the room number of a Mr. Butterworth?”

“Butterworth?” He looked behind him at the board full of keys and said, “I am sorry, monsieur Butterworth is not in his room. He has taken the key.”

“What’s the number?”

He had to look at the board again. For a Greek, he wasn’t a very good liar. For a hotel clerk, he was an even worse one.

“Four-one-eight,” he said, still looking imperturbable. “Monsieur is a friend of monsieur Butterworth?”

“My wife and I met them last night.”

He counted up the stamps and told me the amount. I put them in my wallet.

“I believe,” he said, “an English monsieur has lost his passport. The maid looks, but he asks the police to look.”

“I see,” I said.

I walked outside into the sunlight, and kept to the shady side of the street. There was very little shade except directly under the trees, because of the time of day. I walked all around the side of the hotel, crossed the street, and moved over to the back entrance where the police car was
parked. I waited, wishing that I could smoke, or even sit down. Fifteen minutes later they came out with Butterworth.

“Rocky,” I said, and he turned his head. He didn’t know me with all the bandages. I went up to him. “It’s Don,” I said. “Coleman.”

“Oh, hello, Sir,” he said. “What’s happened to you?”

“Broke my nose. What’s happened to you?”

“It’s Linda. She’s in a coma or something, but they won’t call a doctor. I don’t understand it.”

The man who looked like a manager came and took me by the elbow and pulled me back. Another man, in a business suit and carrying a doctor’s bag, took Butterworth in tow and steered him over to the car. He didn’t look back. They got in to the back seat with a policeman, and the two other policemen got into the front and closed the doors. Suddenly Butterworth leaned over and started to rap on the window. He was looking at me.

“Just a minute,” I told the man holding my arm.

The doctor rolled down his window and Butterworth leaned over him.

“Mr. Coleman,” he said, “she can’t get an annulment, can she?”

“Annulment? Did she say that?”

“Not after you get married, can you? It wouldn’t be fair.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“That’s what I told her,” he said. “They don’t do it any more nowadays.”

“It’ll be okay,” I told him, and waved. The car started up. As soon as they began to move, he lost interest in the window and looked straight ahead.

“Monsieur is staying at the hotel?” the manager-figure asked me.

“Yes. A lovely hotel.”

He inclined his head very slightly in what might have been a bow.

“My name’s Coleman,” I said.

He told me his, which began with Pappa-something. Then he said, “Ah yes, the nose. Last night.”

“Yes,” I said. “The night staff were very helpful.”

We started to walk away from the doors and towards the main hotel entrance.

“You are a friend of Mr. Butterworth?”

“Not exactly. My wife and I met them last night at a nightclub and we walked back to the hotel together.”

“Ah, yes.”

“While we were walking, he talked to me. He said he needed some advice.”

“Yes.”

“About his marriage.”

“Yes, I see.”

“I tried to talk to him like a friend. Or as a father would talk to his son. He seemed rather young for his age.”

“Yes.”

“I think you’d better tell me about it. Has he killed her?”

“Yes,” he said.

I thought he would leave it at that, but as it turned out, he decided to tell me about it, starting from the point when the maid had run to the floor waiter.

When I got to my room I found my wife sitting on the edge of my bed.

“I got your stamps.”

“Oh, thank you. I forgot.” She handed me the postcards. I sat down next to her on the bed and stuck stamps on all of them.

“One thing about a broken nose, you can’t taste the glue,” I said. “Does it really matter if I add something?”

“No, go ahead.”

I took out my pen, and on the one to Ginny I put a plus sign after the signature and wrote, “Love from Daddy.” On Bobby’s it was “Love from Dad.” He had taken to calling me Dad two years before, because it sounded more grown-up, I suppose. I put the pen back in my pocket and felt lousy. Then I turned the postcards over and looked at the pictures.

“We haven’t even been here yet.”

“I thought they’d like it anyway.”

“I like it, too. We should go there. Maybe we could go later this afternoon.”

“Would you feel up to it?”

“I think so. I’m going to take another pill. Is the door closed on the other side?”

“Yes.”

I went into the bathroom and took two of the pills. Then I unstrapped the sunglasses and went back into the room.

“Did you find out what all those policemen were for?”

“Some Englishman couldn’t find his passport and thought the maid had stolen it. One of those types that wouldn’t take the manager’s word for it.”

“Oh. What an anti-climax. I was sure with so many of them it must be a jewel thief at least. Or maybe a bomb.”

“They wouldn’t notice a bomb with all the doors slamming around here.”

I took off my jacket and shoes.

“Well, I’ll go read my book,” she said, and stood up.

“Stay here and read it. Maybe you could read it out loud to me. My eyes aren’t good for much.”

“All right.”

I lay down on the bed.

“I can use that chair,” she said.

“If I move over a little, you can sit on the bed. Unless your back is going to get tired.”

“Oh. All right.”

She sat on the bed near my knees.

“What’s happened so far?”

She explained the plot. A body had been found in the library and everyone in the house had a good motive and lots of opportunity. Things were just coming to the point where she was sure there was going to be a second murder. It had said on the blurb that there were two.

“All right?”

“Bring on the corpses,” I said, and shut my eyes.

She began to read. The second body was found, shot this time instead of stabbed, and all the members of the houseparty were having a sticky time getting through breakfast without hysterics.

I began to feel happy listening to her voice. And I thought about poor Butterworth who would never be lying in bed listening to his wife reading a book to him. It was just like being home again, with everything all right. I started to cry.

If it always hurt so much, no one would ever cry. The salt in my eyes, the nose broken up and held together with splints and bandages. With every breath the pain knocked me over. I turned my head away, but couldn’t help making a noise.

“What is it?” she said. “Oh, Don. I’ll call the doctor.”

My nose was broken, my head was breaking up, my life was all broken up. And I couldn’t even cry.

“Oh hell,” I sobbed. “Oh hell. Oh God damn it to hell!” I grabbed her hand and made whooping noises, trying to stop.

Finally I got it under control and lay back.

“Does it hurt real bad?” she said, in the accent she hadn’t used or heard for fourteen years.

“It’s all right now, I think. I just started to think how nice it was to hear you reading to me. Can’t even cry in this damned thing.”

She rubbed her free hand over my hair.

“Do you want me to go on?”

“Let’s rest here for a while.” I pulled her forward carefully and she put the book down on the floor and took off her shoes and let me settle her on the bed. We were lying the way we lay after love.

“Tell me something,” I said.

“What?”

“Anything. A story, anything, anything that comes to mind.”

“I can’t think of anything.”

“All right. I’ll tell you.”

I told her about going down to the lobby and meeting the night staff, and tried to make it sound funnier than it had been. When I got to where I claimed to have fought in a war against the Chinese, she started to laugh. Her hair was by my mouth and I missed not being able to smell it. I told her about the doctor and his goatee and the letter he had given me, which had been so interesting to see being written, and about getting dizzy from looking at the palm trees as I came up the stairs.

“Now you. Tell me.”

“I just can’t think of anything.”

“Tell me about what you did this morning while I was dead to the world.”

“I went down to the changing-room and got into my bathing suit. And I sat on the beach. There were only one or two other people there and one or two boys from the hotel raking the pebbles. I tried to read, and I got more and more sort of nervous. That huge, empty beach full of pebbles. So then I got up, and changed back into my clothes and went and bought postcards. And that was all.”

She started to cry. I smoothed down her hair with my hand and held her with the other hand around her waist.