Cocoa Beach

  “I thought—I thought—”

  “Yes?”

  “I didn’t read them. I’ve been so busy, you know, with the hospital.”

  “I didn’t think you would. But I had to write something, or I would have run mad. You see . . .”

  “Yes?”

  His pulse beat against the skin of his neck. “There’s something I must tell you. Something I think—I hope—will change your mind about me.”

  “Oh.”

  “So I thought . . . well, I wanted to see you. To tell you the truth. To see if perhaps we might begin again.”

  I stood there, unmoving, thinking a hundred thoughts at once, not one of them expressible in words. His competent hands, operating on maimed and frightful bodies. The lines of his skin. The wool of his tunic. My painful feet. Lieutenant Green, pale under the ruddiness of wine. Footsteps on the pavement, and the uncanny instinct of being watched, and the even uncannier instinct that the danger had now passed, that I was safe. In good hands. I looked up from his collar and saw how earnestly his eyes were fixed on my face.

  “Please. Virginia. If I could just explain. If I could just make you understand. Do you know what I mean?”

  At the time, I didn’t know what he meant. I could not comprehend why this man’s gaze should be fixed on me, of all women. Now, of course, I understand wholly. I know the nature of his attraction to me. I know the exact length and breadth of his ardor, and why he felt it, and whether or not it could be trusted.

  But in that suffocating August foyer in the middle of Paris, sexual love remained a mystery to me, and I sometimes wish I could go back to that moment: when the mystery was still pure, when the possibility of discovery still hovered before me. When I didn’t know everything. When I was still innocent, and understanding lay in the future.

  When I could say, in a surge of unfathomable trust that only a virgin could muster: I suppose we could find somewhere to talk.

  Somewhere, by necessity, meant my room upstairs. For some reason, this suggestion didn’t seem daring at all; maybe it was his uniform, or my independence. Acts we would have deemed impermissible before the war had now become ordinary. Who needed a chaperone to navigate your private behavior, when you spent your days navigating the churned earth of northern France in an ambulance packed with barbarian soldiers, all on your own? We were sensible adults, he and I. There was no need to fear each other.

  Upstairs, I opened the window and asked Captain Fitzwilliam if he wanted a glass of water.

  He placed his hat on the table beneath the lamp. “Thank you, yes.”

  I poured out two glasses from the pitcher, and as I handed him his drink I wondered if our fingers would touch. They did not. There was just the warmth of his hand, brief and ghostly.

  “I’m afraid you can’t stay long,” I said. “Hazel will return any moment.”

  “Ah, yes. The irrepressible Hazel.”

  I sat in the armchair—a relic of the past century, wobbly at the legs, upholstered in threadbare velvet that might once have been burgundy but had since faded to a warm pink. Simon went to the window and parted the curtain an inch or so. “Is that the Bois de Boulogne?”

  “Yes.”

  “Charming.” He let the curtain fall and turned to lean against the window frame, crossing one leg over the other. His large hand swallowed the water glass. He looked so old and unnatural, standing before me in his dull uniform and polished shoes, his wide leather belt nicked and worn, the pips at his shoulder catching the light. I thought, It can’t be him, he can’t really exist in my hotel room, propped against the window like a living statue. When he was so far away, a moment ago. I was too unnerved to look at his face. Too stunned, and yet consumed by a paradoxical relief. He was safe. He was alive.

  “Mrs. DeForest told me your CCS was bombed,” I said.

  “Yes, we were. A week ago. Lost three patients and a nurse. Terrible scene. Pritchard had a lucky escape, however.” His mouth twitched.

  “Lucky?”

  “There are worse places to be hit, believe me.”

  A hysterical laugh rose in my throat. I said quickly, “And you? Were you injured?”

  “No. Cuts and bruises. Superficial stuff. My pretty face emerged unscathed, as you see.”

  This time I did laugh.

  “You see? That’s better. I’m not such a monster, am I?”

  “I never thought you were a monster.”

  “You looked at me as if I was, a moment ago.”

  “No. I thought you were a ghost at first, not a monster.”

  “My sincerest apologies. I didn’t mean to startle you.” He looked down at the glass. Behind him, the old green damask curtains made a somber frame. “But I’m none of those things, you know. Just a man. Nothing to be afraid of.”

  “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “Aren’t you? Then why won’t you look at me?”

  Well, how was I supposed to answer that? Because I’m afraid of myself when I look at you. I’m afraid I’ll lose my head. I’m afraid I already have.

  The water trembled in my glass. I could hear another couple talking in a room nearby—he loud and bombastic, she sharp and quiet, the exact words muffled by plaster. The room was stuffy because of the curtains. I thought we should open a window, but of course we couldn’t, not unless we turned off the lamp.

  “Just tell me one thing,” he said. “One thing, and I’ll go.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Do you like me at all, Virginia?”

  “Yes! Of course I do.”

  “I’m not repulsive to you? My letters. What have you done with them?”

  “I destroyed them. I had to.”

  He drew in a gigantic sigh. I was staring at the water in my glass, but I felt his shoulders slump. The weight of his disappointment.

  “Of course,” he said. “Honorable soul that you are. But weren’t you curious? Didn’t you want to know what was inside them?”

  “No. I couldn’t. I couldn’t allow myself.”

  “You might have found that I’m not so fearsome as you think. Not such a terrible villain. It’s just that you’ve forced me out of my skin, to commit acts of unparalleled effrontery.”

  “Do you mean this? Seeking out one woman when you’re already married to another?”

  The words sounded so dreadful out loud. So harsh and vulgar and modern.

  “Yes. That. I presume she’s the reason you wouldn’t read my letters? My wife?”

  “How can you ask a thing like that?”

  “But that’s it, isn’t it? You’re an honorable woman. An innocent woman. Incorruptible. You won’t let me plunge you into some kind of sordid, adulterous affair. Blackguard that I am.”

  I shook my head.

  “Ah, Virginia.”

  He levered himself away from the window and walked toward me at a slow, heavy tread, until he was standing before the armchair and then kneeling, so I couldn’t help accepting his gaze. It would have been rude otherwise. His eyes, as I said, were the kind of hazel that takes different forms as the light changes. Now they looked rather green and terribly focused. I almost didn’t notice when his hand pried mine away from the glass. He set the tumbler on the table, under the lamp, and encircled my fingers with his. “Listen to me, Virginia. My marriage—my wife—it’s not what you think.”

  “How can you possibly know what I think?”

  “True. I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re thinking. Your telegram last winter was a masterpiece of brevity. You never replied to my letters. My entire hope existed in the knowledge that you hadn’t exactly told me to go to the devil, at least.”

  “You’re married. You have a child with her.”

  He hesitated. “Yes.”

  “You can’t renounce that. I would never—”

  “Of course not. My God. I don’t intend to renounce them. I shall always be Sam’s father. But you see, I can’t go on with the lie of it. I can’t pretend something is one thing, when it’s ano
ther.”

  “I thought you said you cared for her.”

  “Of course I care for her. She’s an old friend. But our marriage—you must understand—we weren’t in love. We never were, not the least bit. We only married because of my family.”

  “Your family?”

  “Yes. And little Sam.”

  “Your son.”

  “Don’t say it like that. If only you knew. You have to know, Virginia. I have to tell you. I can’t have you looking at me like that any longer. Thinking of me like that. It’s like death. It’s been killing me slowly for months. You’ve got no idea. I’ve hardly slept. I can’t think of anything else. Even there in the damned surgical hut in the middle of the night, the thought of you pounds in the back of my head. Your reproachful face. And I have tried to forget, believe me. I have tried to let you go. Not for my own sake, but for yours.”

  I pulled my hands away, but he snatched them back.

  “We’re broke, you know. My family. I expect I should tell you that, up front. We’re absolutely dead broke. Utterly skint. Not a spare shilling in the till. Mortgaged to the hilt, estate falling to pieces. The old story. My parents are mostly to blame, I suppose, though old Granddad was no slouch when it came to ruination. I’d always known the bill would come due, sooner or later, and I’d have to pay it, having had the abominable bad luck to be born a few minutes earlier than my brother—”

  “You have a brother?”

  “I had a brother. Twin brother. Didn’t I mention that? Samuel. He was in the regulars, one of the first regiments sent out. He lasted about three months. Went missing on patrol, presumed killed. Awful show.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yes. It was rather a shock, for all of us. But the point is, I’m the eldest, the one who inherits the old pile, and I’ve known since I was a child that I must marry money.”

  “And I suppose your wife . . . ?”

  “Bags of it. Her father’s in shipping. My parents own a few citrus groves in Florida—an old inheritance—and that’s how they met, you know, ages and ages ago. My father-in-law’s company exports the oranges, to put it simply. What there are of them, anymore, after two generations of utter neglect. So it seemed natural, to my parents, that—”

  “That you would make her fall in love with you.”

  He rose without warning, dropping my hands, and patted his tunic for his cigarettes. “It wasn’t like that. She was never in love with me.”

  “Then why did she marry you?”

  He took out the case and lit a cigarette slowly, examining first the paper and then the match, striking twice against the side of the case. Drawing in the first gasp, so that the end flared orange. “Because she was carrying my brother’s child.”

  My lips parted. “Oh.”

  “Yes. She was deeply in love with him, and he with her. I knew it, and they knew I knew it. A bit of a secret, because of course her parents wouldn’t allow it, and neither would mine. She was supposed to marry me instead. So we were all three biding our time, I suppose, waiting for her father to die and leave her his fortune free and clear—he wasn’t in the best of health, you see, and a disagreeable bloke to boot, drunkard and philanderer—and then the war started. Samuel was killed. She came to me in November and said that she was going to have a baby.” He parted the curtains, cracked open the window, knocked out a bit of ash. Braced his hands on the sill and bent his head in my direction, over his shoulder. “You’re not to say a word of this, of course. Nobody else knows, not even our parents. Everybody thinks Sam’s mine, and for Lydia’s sake—and his—I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “But—but—well, how did you do it?”

  “Why, we got married at Christmas. Then I shipped out. We’re friends, as I said, and Lydia was terribly grateful. She made it quite clear that I could do as I liked, as far as lovers are concerned, so long as I kept it quiet. Everyone was made happy, after all. My parents got her money, Lydia got a name for her child. The only trouble’s that she’s still in love with my brother.”

  My head was dizzy. Tongue all dry. I whispered, “How terrible for her. For both of you.”

  “Oh, she’s got the worst of it. Mourning Samuel while pretending to be in love with me. Surrounded by my family. I daresay she’s fairly miserable, except for little Sam.” He paused to smoke. “We didn’t have a wedding night, in case you’re wondering. Did not consummate the marriage. My God, how could we? I suppose we reckoned we might try for a proper union, once the war was over and everything back to normal, but now . . .”

  “Now?”

  He straightened himself from the window and turned to me. The cigarette dangled above the floor, between his fingers. “Now I’ve met you.”

  I stared at him wordlessly.

  “Well?” he said. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think. It’s all so—I can’t quite understand it all yet.”

  “She won’t object, after everything. I’ll take the blame, of course. Adultery. Shall have to get properly caught by a detective, as a formality, but that’s easily done.”

  “What?”

  He smiled. “I don’t mean actually committing adultery, of course. Just for show. It’s done all the time. The war’s breaking up all the old rules.”

  His face was open and sincere; his hand, holding the cigarette, didn’t quiver a fraction. Was it my imagination, or had his hair, in the past few months, gone a little more silver? But his skin seemed untroubled. The lines about his mouth had softened. He was almost smiling.

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” I said.

  “I mean I’m getting a divorce, Virginia. I’m going to ask my wife to divorce me.”

  I sprang to my feet, wobbled, and sat down again. “My God.”

  “Yes.”

  “A divorce?”

  “Yes. Good Lord, what did you think? That I would ask you to become my mistress? Carry on with you behind Lydia’s back?”

  “I—I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t—I hardly know you at all, do I?”

  He gazed at me quietly, letting the cigarette burn from his fingers. “No, I suppose not. Not in actual fact. And yet I feel as if I’ve known you all my life. I felt that from the first moment.”

  I pressed my lips together.

  “And you? Have you felt that at all?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Yes, you can. You must have felt it. I could tell that you did. I could see how you were struggling, just as I was. I tried to explain, in my letters—”

  “Which I didn’t read.”

  “No. But if you had, you might know me a little better. You might know that I would never ask you to commit any act repugnant to you. I would never ask you to be anything other than your own brave, honorable self.”

  His voice spun around my ears: too many words, too much to take in. I needed to think. I needed to piece through everything he had told me. And there was a light inside all this—I could just feel its warmth on my skin—a tiny, hopeful light glimmering somewhere at the end, but it disappeared every time I looked for it. I curled my fingers around the edge of the sofa and stared at his battered leather belt. “I don’t what to say. I don’t know what you’re asking. I can’t—I can’t just—”

  He stubbed out the cigarette. “I’m not asking you for a thing. I just wanted you to know.”

  “Is that all?”

  “And to ask you, I suppose, if you care at all. If I have the slightest hope, when the divorce is final—”

  I put my face into my palms.

  “Dearest, it’s not like that. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Then why do I feel as if I have?”

  “If there’s any sin, it’s mine. But there isn’t. I promise you that. Just tell me—”

  “What? Tell you what?”

  “Tell me you care, just a little.”

  I lifted my face away and stared at him bleakly. “But you don’t really mean that. If I say yes—” br />
  He took two giant strides to stand before me. His hands touched my elbows. “Do you? Say yes?”

  “If I say yes, it means more than just that, doesn’t it? Because if I only cared a little—”

  “Then you wouldn’t raise my hopes. You’re too good for that.”

  My head was spinning a little. I could taste his breath on my tongue, at the back of my throat. I wanted to push him away; I wanted to draw him close. I wanted to hide; I wanted to be reckless. So close, so promisingly near. I wanted to touch his stubble and his eyebrows and the line of cheekbones. I craved the warmth of his skin. I desired the thoughts inside his brain, the electricity animating his nerves. I pressed my thumb against his, and his thick eyebrows rose. His lips parted.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said.

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “Yes, you are. But you shouldn’t be. I’m absolutely harmless. I’m here to cure whatever troubles you.”

  “But you can’t. You can’t cure this.”

  “Not true, Virginia. Not true at all. Whatever happens between us, between you and me, the divorce will go forward. For Lydia’s sake, as much as mine. She deserves another chance to fall in love.”

  “I can’t do this.”

  “Only if you don’t care. If you don’t care, I’ll walk away this second. But you do care, don’t you?”

  I shook my head.

  “You’re holding back from me. Don’t you trust me?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Again with the falsehoods. You won’t let me in. All I want on this earth is to know everything about you, and you won’t give me a single tiny clue.”

  “I’ve already told you more than I’ve ever told anybody.”

  “Really? My God, what a dry, lonely existence you’re leading, my dear.” His thumb was now stroking mine, the way you might stroke a nervous animal. And it struck me in that moment—an instinct, maybe—that he knew exactly what he was doing. That he was an expert in this kind of thing, making people feel at ease, and somehow the knowledge that I was being soothed—consciously, purposefully—was itself soothing. No need to worry, Virginia. He’s a doctor. He knows what he’s doing. He’s dealt with your kind before.

  You can trust him.