She had been here two weeks, and she was going on to Paris. She was from Pennsylvania. She wore no wedding ring. She was perhaps twenty-five. Ingham said he was from New York. At last—and not a moment too soon, because a man in swimming trunks and sportshirt, followed by a waiter with a tray, was walking towards them from the hotel—Ingham asked:
‘Shall we have a drink some time before you leave? Are you free this evening?’
‘Yes. For a drink, fine.’
‘I’ll pick you up at the Fourati. About seven-thirty ?’
‘All right. Oh, my name is Kathryn Darby. D-A-R-B-Y.’
‘Mine is Howard Ingham. A pleasure. I’ll see you at seven-thirty.’ He waved a hand and went away, towards his bungalow.
The approaching man and waiter were still thirty feet away. Ingham had not glanced at the man after his first long view of him, and did not know if he was thirty years old or sixty.
Ingham worked well that afternoon. He had done four pages in the morning. He did five or six in the afternoon.
A little after five o’clock, OWL came round and asked him to his bungalow for a drink.
‘I can’t tonight, thanks.’ Ingham said. ‘A date with a young lady at the Fourati. How about tomorrow here?’
‘A young lady. Well! That’s nice!’ OWL turned into a beaming squirrel at once. ‘Have a good time. Yes, tomorrow would be fine. Six-thirty?’
At seven-thirty, in a white jacket which he had had Mokta take to be washed and returned that afternoon, Ingham rang up Miss Darby from the desk at the Fourati. They sat at one of the tables in the garden and drank Tom Collinses.
She worked for her uncle in a law firm. She was a secretary, and learning a great deal about law, which she would never use, she said, because she had no intention of taking a degree. There was a warmth, a kindness—or maybe it was merely openness—about her for which Ingham was athirst. There was a naiveté, too, and a certain decorum. He was sure she didn’t have affairs with just anybody, or very often, but he assumed she did sometimes, and if she happened to like him, that was his good luck, because she was very pretty.
They had dinner at the Fourati.
Ingham said, It’s a pleasure to be with you. I’ve been lonely here in the last month. I don’t try to meet people, because I have to work. It doesn’t keep me from being lonely now and then.’
She asked some questions about his work. Within a few minutes, Ingham told her that the man with whom he had intended to make a film had not come. Ingham also told her he had committed suicide, though he avoided mentioning John’s name. He said he had decided to stay on a few weeks and to work on his own novel.
Kathryn (she had told him how to spell it) was certainly sympathetic, and it touched Ingham in a way that Adams’s equally genuine sympathy had not. ‘What a shock it must have been. Even if you didn’t know him well!’
Ingham changed the subject by asking her if she had seen other towns in Tunisia. She had, and she enjoyed talking about them and about the things she had bought to send and to take back home. She was on vacation alone, but had flown to Tunisia with some English friends who had been in America, and who yesterday had flown back to London.
Vague thoughts of accompanying her back to Paris, of spending a few days with her, danced in Ingham’s mind. He realized they were absurd. He asked if she would like to come to his bungalow for a nightcap and a coffee. She accepted. She did not accept the nightcap, but Ingham made small, strong cups of coffee. She was pleased also at his proposal of a swim-she wearing one of his shirts. The beach was deserted. There was a half-moon.
Back in his bungalow, as she sat wrapped in a large white towel, he said, ‘I’d like it very much if you stayed with me Would you?’
1 would like it, too.’ she replied.
It had been simple after all.
Ingham gave her his terry-cloth robe. She disappeared into the bathroom.
Then she got into bed, naked, and Ingham slipped in beside her. There were lovely, toothpaste-flavoured kisses. Ingham was more interested in her breasts. He lay gently on top of her. But after five minutes, he realized that he was not becoming excited enough to make love to her. He put this out of his mind for a moment or so, as he continued to kiss her neck, but then the realization came back. And perhaps thinking about it was fatal. She even touched him briefly, perhaps by accident. There were things he might have asked her to do, but he couldn’t. Emphatically, not this girl. At last, he lay on his side, and she facing him, both locked in a tight embrace. But nothing happened. Nothing was going to, Ingham realized. It was embarrassing. It was funny. It had never happened to him before, not if he actually wished and intended to make love, as he had. Ina—she had even called him exhausting, and Ingham had been rather proud of that. He said little to Kathryn, a few compliments, which, however, he meant. He felt lost, too lost perhaps to suffer the sense of inadequacy that he should. What was the matter? The bungalow itself? He thought not.
‘You’re a nice lover,’ she said.
He almost laughed. ‘You’re very attractive.’
Her hand on the back of his neck was pleasant, reassuring, but only vaguely exciting, and he wondered how much she minded, how much he had let her down.
Suddenly she sneezed.
‘You’re cold!’
It’s that swim.’
He got out of bed and poured a Scotch in the kitchen, came in and struggled into his robe, still holding the glass. ‘Do you want it neat?’
She did.
Twenty minutes later, he was driving her towards the Fourati. He had asked if she would like to stay the night, but she had said no. There was no change in her attitude towards him—alas, not as much as there might have been if he had made love to her.
‘Shall we have dinner tomorrow night?’ Ingham asked. ‘If you felt like it, we could cook something at my place. Just for a change.’
‘Tomorrow night I promised someone here.—Lunch tomorrow?’
‘I don’t make lunch dates when I’m working.’
They agreed on the evening after tomorrow, again at seven-thirty.
Ingham went home and got at once into pyjama pants. He sat on the edge of his bed. He felt utterly depressed. He could not see the bottom of his depression without actually going down there, he thought. He realized he had changed a great deal in the past month. And just how? He would know in the next few days, he thought. It was not the kind of question Ingham could answer by thinking about it.
Kathryn Darby was brighter than Lotte, Ingham thought out of nowhere. Which was not to say that anyone had to have an intellect to be brighter than Lotte. Lotte had been a mistake, a strong and powerful, long-lasting mistake. Lotte had left him for another man, because she had been bored with him. The man was one who had come to their parties many times in New York, an advertising executive, witty, extrovert, the kind women always liked, Ingham had supposed, and never took seriously. Then the next thing he knew, Thomas Jeffrey had been asking for her hand, or whatever, and moreover Lotte had wanted to give it to him. Never had anything in Ingham’s life, of equal importance, happened so quickly. He’d not had time even to fight, he felt.
“The only time you pay attention to me is in bed.’ Lotte had said, more than once. It was true. She hadn’t been interested in his writing, or in anyone else’s books, and she had a way, which at times had been funny, of demolishing an interesting remark by him or someone else, with a platitudinous remark of her own quite off the subject, yet well meant. Yes, he had often smiled. Though not unkindly. He had worshipped Lotte, and never had any woman had such a physical hold over him. But that was obviously not enough to keep a woman happy. No, he couldn’t blame her. She had come of a wealthy family, was badly educated, spoilt, and had really no interests at all, except tennis, which she had slowly given up, perhaps out of laziness.
Or could he somehow do better, if he had another chance with Lotte? But Lotte was married now. And did he want another chance with her? Of course not. Why had he thought of it?
I
ngham went to bed, still depressed, but unbothered, unconcerned even, by Kathryn Darby’s scent which still lingered on his pillow.
10
‘HASSO,’ JENSEN SAID, ‘is probably four feet under the sand somewhere. Maybe two feet will do.’ Jensen looked whipped, broken, slouched over the bar of the Café de la Plage. He was drinking boukhah, and looked as if he had had several.
It was noon. Ingham had driven into Hammamet to buy a typewriter ribbon, and, having tried at three likely looking stores that seemed to sell everything, had failed.
1 don’t suppose,’ Ingham said, ‘you could spread the word around that you’d give a reward if somebody found him?’
‘I did that the first thing. I told a couple of the kids. They’ll spread it. The point is, the dog’s dead. Or he’d come back.’ Jensen’s voice cracked. He hunched lower over his bare forearms, and Ingham realized to his embarrassment that Jensen was on the brink of tears.
A pain of sympathy went through Ingham, and his own eyes stung. ‘I’m sorry. Really I am.—Bastards!’
Jensen gave a snort of a laugh and finished his little drink. ‘What they usually do is toss the head into one of your windows. At least they’ve spared me that so far.’
‘There isn’t something, maybe, that they’re holding against you? Your neighbours, I mean?’
Jensen shrugged. ‘I don’t know of anything. I never had any quarrels with them. I don’t make any noise. I pay my landlord—in advance, too.’
Ingham hesitated, then asked, ‘Are you thinking of leaving Hammamet?’
‘I’ll wait a few more days. Then—sure, for Christ’s sake, I’ll leave. But I’ll tell you one thing, I hate the thought of Hasso’s bones being in this goddam sand! Am I glad the Jews beat the shit out of theml’
Ingham glanced around uneasily, but as usual there was a din in the place, and probably no one near them understood any English. A couple of men, including the barman, glanced at Jensen because he was upset, but there was no hostility in their faces. ‘I’m with you there.’
It isn’t good to hate as I do.’ Jensen went on, one fist clenched, the other hand clutching the tiny, empty glass, and Ingham was afraid he was going to throw it ‘It isn’t good.’
‘You’d better eat something. I’d suggest we have dinner tonight, but I’ve got a date. How about tomorrow night?’
Jensen agreed. They would meet at the Café de la Plage.
Ingham drove back to his bungalow, feeling wretched, as if he hadn’t done enough to help Jensen. He realized he did not want to see Kathryn Darby tonight, and that he would have been less bored, even happier, with Jensen.
That afternoon, along with a letter from Ingham’s mother in Florida (his parents had retired and gone there to live), came an express letter from Ina. Ina’s letter said:
July 10, 19—
Dear Howard,
It’s true I owe you some explanations, so I will try. First of all, why I was upset. I thought for a while that I loved John—and to continue further with the truth, I went to bed with him, twice. You may well ask ‘Why?’ For one thing, I never thought you were madly in love with me—that is, deeply and completely. It’s possible to be slightly in love, you know. Not every love is the grande passion and not every love is the kind on which to found a marriage. I was attracted to John. He was absolutely gone on me—strange as it may seem, developing suddenly, after we’d known each other for a year or so. I made him no promises. He knew about you, as you well know, and I told him you had asked me to marry you and that I had more or less agreed—in our casual way, it was on, I know. I thought John and I—if I tried to play it a bit cool with him (he was fantastically emotional) might find out if we really did or could care for each other. He was a different world to me, full of pictures in his head, which he could visualize so clearly and put into words.
Ingham thought, couldn’t be do that, too? Or did Ina think him a lousier writer than John had been a cameraman?
Then I began to sense a certain weakness, a shakiness in John. Nothing to do with his feeling for me. That didn’t seem shaky at all. It was something in his character which I did not care for, which actually frightened me. It was a weakness he should not have been blamed for, and I never thought of blaming him, but having seen or sensed this weakness, I knew it was no go with John and me. I tried to break it off as gently as possible—but things can never be done that way. There is always the moment when the Awful Speech must be made, because the other person won’t accept the truth without it. And when I say break it off- this whole ‘affair’ went on just about ten days. My pulling out, unfortunately, was fatal for poor John. He had five days of decline, during which I tried to help him as much as I could. The last two days, he said he didn’t want to see me. I assumed he was in his own apartment. He was dead when I found him. I won’t try to describe the horror of seeing him there. I don’t know the right words. They don’t exist.
So, dear Howard, what do you think of all this ? I suspect you want to drop me. I would not blame you—and even if I did? I could have withheld this. No one knows about it but me, unless John told Peter, I mean told him everything. I still like you, even love you. I don’t know how you feel now. When you come back, and I assume that will be very soon, we can see each other again, if you like. It is up to you.
I carry on with work, but am dead-tired. (If your employer ask for your lifeblood, give him your corpse also.) The usual amount of take-home work still. It looks like a lull in August and that’s when ‘I’ll take my two weeks’ vacation.
Would you write me soon, even if it’s a rather grim letter?
With love,
Ina
Ingham’s first reaction was one of slight contempt. What a mistake for Ina to have made I He had thought Ina was so bright. And in the letter, she was more or less begging his forgiveness, in fact pleading, or hoping, that he would take her back. It was all so goddamned silly.
It wasn’t even as important as Jensen’s dog, Ingham thought.
Ina was right. He wasn’t ‘madly in love’ with her, but he counted on her, he depended on her in a very important and profound way. He knew that, now that he had learned she had betrayed him. The word ‘betrayed’ came to his mind, and he hated it. It wasn’t, he thought, that he was stuffy enough to object to any affair that Ina might have had while he was gone, but the fact that she apparently had sunk so much emotion into this one. She was looking for something ‘real and lasting’, as practically every woman in the world was, and she’d looked for it in that weak fish John Castlewood. How he wished that Ina had written that she’d had a silly roll in the hay with Castlewood, which hadn’t meant anything, and that Castlewood had taken it seriously! But Ina’s letter made her sound like every feather-brained run-of-the-mill-He wanted a drink, a drink of Scotch on this. The bottle was down to the last inch. He drank this with a splash of water, not bothering with ice, then shoved his billfold in the pocket of his shorts and walked to the bungalows’ grocery store. It was a quarter to six. He’d have a couple of drinks before picking Kathryn up. Was Kathryn Darby a bore or not?
As he walked towards the store, Ingham watched a couple of camels on the edge of the main road. One of the camels was ridden by a sun-blackened wraithe in a burnouse. The camels were tied together. A donkey-drawn cart, piled high with kindling and topped by a barefoot Arab, paused at the edge of the road, and someone got down. To Ingham’s surprise, it was old Abdullah of the red pants. What was he doing here ? Ingham watched him look in both directions, then hump across the road to the hotel side and turn in the direction of Hammamet. The cart had come from the Hammamet direction, and it went on. The Arab was lost to view by the hotel’s bushes and trees. Ingham went into the grocery shop and bought eggs, Scotch, and beer. The old Arab, Ingham thought, might be going to see the man who ran the curio shop a few yards down the road. And there were fruit and vegetable shops between here and Hammamet, too, run by Arabs. But his presence so near the hotel irked Ingham. Ingham realized he was
living through one of the worst, therefore one of the crabbiest, days of his life.
Ingham took Kathryn straight to the Café de la Plage de Hammamet for a pre-dinner drink. She had been in the Plage a couple of times with her English friends. ‘We adored it, but it was a little noisy. At least they said so.’ Kathryn was a better sport, it seemed, and obviously enjoyed the noise and the sloppiness.
Ingham looked for Jensen, hoping to see him, but Jensen was not there.
From the Plage, they went across the street to Melik’s. The bakers were at work next door. One young Arab baker, lounging in shorts and a paper hat in the doorway, looked Kathryn over with interest. There was again the delicious, reassuring smell of baking bread. Melik’s was loud. There were two if not three tables with flutes and stringed instruments. The canary, in a cage that hung from a horizontal ceiling pole, was accompanying the music merrily. Ingham remembered one evening when Adams had been droning away, and the canary had been asleep with its head under its wing, and Ingham had wished he might do the same. There was only one other woman besides Kathryn on the terrace. As Ingham had foreseen, the evening was a trifle boring, and yet they were not at a loss for conversation. Kathryn talked to him about Pennsylvania, which she loved, especially in autumn when the pumpkin season was on and the leaves came down. Surely, Ingham thought, she would marry a nice solid Pennsylvanian, maybe a lawyer, and settle down in a town house with a garden. But Kathryn didn’t mention a man, gave no hint of one. There was something attractively independent about her. And there was no doubt at all she was very pretty. But the last thing he could have done that night was go to bed with her, the last thing in the world he wished. A nightcap at the Fourati, and the evening was over.
Ingham was pleasantly mellow on food and drink. His anger and irritability had gone, at least superficially, and for this he was grateful to Miss Kathryn Darby of Pennsylvania. What did they say there? ‘Shoo fly pie and apple pan dowdy.’