He didn't blame Katya for her covetousness one iota. If being hungry for life meant being hungry for an eternity of nights wrapped in the arms of a man who loved you, then that was an entirely understandable appetite.
And there was just a little part of him which thought that if he stayed loyal to her long enough-if he played his part-then she would let him have a piece of her eternity. That she would show him how the years could be made to melt away.
He retreated from the door, and headed downstairs, leaving the sleepers to their secret slumber.
When he got to the mid-level landing Eppstadt had gone. Apparently, he'd made the decision to do downstairs and look for Joe. Jerry looked over the balcony. There was no sound from below. The wind had died away to nothing. The door was no longer slamming.
He went from the stairs to the front door, which stood ajar.
Perhaps this was his moment to depart. He had nothing more to contribute here. Katya had her man; Todd had found some measure of peace after his own disappointments. What else was there for Jerry to do, but make his silent farewells and slip away?
He stood at the front door for two or three minutes, unable to make the final break. Eventually, he convinced himself to just linger here a little longer, simply to see the look on Maxine's face when she realized Todd was still alive. He went back into the kitchen, and sat down, waiting-like anyone who'd spent their time watching other lives rather than having one of their own-to see what happened next.
Eppstadt had been two steps from the bottom of the stairs when the aftershock hit. He was by no means an agile man, but he leapt the last two steps without a stumble. There were ominous growlings in the walls, as though several hungry tigers had been sealed up in them. This was, he knew, one of the most foolish places to be caught in an earthquake, especially if (as was perfectly possible) the aftershock turned out not to be an aftershock at all, but a warm-up for something bigger. It would be more sensible-much more sensible-to ascend the stairs again and wait until the tigers had quieted down. But he wasn't going to do that. He'd been sensible for most of his life; always taking the safe road, the conservative route. For once, he wanted to play life a little dangerously, and take the consequences.
That said, he didn't have to be suicidal. There was a door-lintel up ahead. He'd be safer under there than he was in the open passageway. He made a dash for the spot, and as he did so, the aftershock abruptly ceased.
He took a deep breath.
Then he glanced over his shoulder into the room behind him. Presumably this was the place Joe had disappeared into; there was nowhere else for him to go.
He went to the door. Looked inside. He could see nothing at first, just undivided gloom. He reached in, as many had done before him, to fumble for a light switch, and failing to find one, allowed a little surge of curiosity to take hold of him. Hadn't he said to himself he wanted to live a little more riskily? Well, here was his opportunity. Stepping into this strange room at the bottom of this lunatic house was probably the most foolish thing he'd ever done, and he knew it.
A cold wind came to greet him. It caught hold of his elbow, and drew him over the threshold into the world-yes, it was a world-inside. He looked up at the heavens; at that three-quarter blinded sun, at the high herringbone clouds that he remembered puzzling over as a child, wondering what it was that laid them out so carefully, so prettily. A star fell earthward, and he followed its arc with his eyes, until it burned itself out, somewhere over the trees.
Far off, many miles beyond the dark mass of the forest, he could see the sea, glittering. This was not the Pacific, he could see. The ships that moved upon it were like something from an Errol Flynn flick, The Sea Hawk or some such. He'd loved those movies as a kid; and the ships in them. Especially the ships.
It was twenty-six seconds since the man from Paramount, who'd spent his professional life keeping the dreamy, superstitious child in him silenced by pretending a fine, high-minded superiority to all things that smelt of grease-paint and midnight hokum, had entered the Devil's Country; and had lost himself in it.
"Come on, don't be afraid, the wind from the sea whispered in his ear.
And in he went, all cynicism wiped from his mind by the memory of wheeling ships beneath a painted sky, still young enough to believe he might grow up a hero.
THREE
Todd stirred from a state closer to a stupor than a sleep. He was lying on the immense bed of the master bedroom in the house in Coldheart Canyon. Katya was lying beside him, her little body gathered into a tight knot, pressed close to him. One arm was beneath him, the other on top, as though she'd never let him go of him again. She was snoring in her sleep, as she had been that day he'd found her in her bedroom at the guest-house. The human touch. It was more eloquent now than ever, given what they'd gone through together.
There had been some terrifying moments for them both in the last few hours; fragments of them played in Todd's head as he slowly extricated himself from her embrace, and slid slowly out of the bed. First, there'd been that breath-snatching moment when he'd turned his back on the Malibu house and headed out into the dark waters of the Pacific with Katya. He'd never been so frightened in his life. But then she'd squeezed his hand, and looked around at him, her hair blowing back from her face, showing off the glory of her bones, and he'd thought: even if I die now, I will have been the luckiest man in creation. I will have had this woman by my side at the end. Who could ask for more than that?
It hadn't been quite so easy to hold on to those feelings of gratitude in the chaotic minutes that followed. Once they were out of their depth, and in the grip of the great Pacific, the bitter-sweet joy of what they were doing became a shared, instinctive attempt to survive in the dark, bruising waters. Fifty yards out, and the big waves, the surfers' waves, started to pick them up and drop them down again into their lightless troughs. It was so dark he could barely see Katya's face, but he heard her choking on seawater, coughing like a frightened little girl.
And suddenly the idea of just dying out here, beaten to death by the waves, didn't seem so attractive. Why not try to live, he found himself thinking? Not the kind of life he'd had before (he wouldn't want that again, ever) but some other kind of life. Travelling around the world, perhaps, incognito; just the two of them. That wouldn't be so bad, would it? And when they were bored with travel they could find some sunny beach down in Costa Rica and spend every day there drunk amongst the parrots. There they could wait out the years until the big, glossy world he'd once given a shit for had forgotten he even existed.
All these thoughts came in flashes, none of them really coherent. The only thought that took any real shape was the means by which they could escape this dark water alive.
"We're going to dive!" he yelled to Katya. "Take a deep breath."
He heard her do so; then, before another pulverizing wave could come along and knock them out he drove them both into a teetering wall of water, diving deep into the placid heart of the wave. They must have done this half a hundred times; diving down, rising up again gasping, then watching for the next monstrous wall to be almost upon them before diving again. It was a desperate trick, but it worked.
It was dearly preventing them from getting a terrible beating, but it was steadily taking its toll on their energies. He knew they couldn't continue to defy the violence of the water for very much longer. Their muscles were aching, their senses were becoming unreliable. It would only be a matter of time before the force of the water got the better of them, and they sank together, defeated by sheer fatigue.