She looked sadly at Nick and tears began to fill her eyes. “I wanted to stay with him.”
“I'm sure you did. But you were wiser to leave.”
“I had no choice. Armand insisted. And he said that I couldn't endanger the girls—” Her voice choked and she couldn't go on. She turned away so he wouldn't see her cry, but suddenly she felt him holding her in a warm, brotherly hug, and she stood there on the deck, crying in his arms. It was not an unusual sight now, even among the men. They had all suffered losses and terrible separations in leaving Europe. And it suddenly didn't even seem strange to be crying in Nick's arms, this man whose path had crossed hers from time to time, and whom she scarcely knew, and yet they both felt they knew each other well. They had always met at peculiar times, in circumstances that allowed them both to be surprisingly open. Or maybe that was just the way he was. But she didn't think about it now. She just stood there, grateful for his warmth and compassion. He let her cry for a while and then he patted her back with a gentle hand.
“Come on, let's go inside and have a cup of coffee.” There was a constantly available pot in the dining room, and it did a land-office business. There was nothing else to do on the ship except sit around and talk, or walk the decks, or sit in one's cabin while others slept or poured out their stories of the war. The ship wasn't set up for entertainment or distraction. And the few books that had been lined up on shelves in the dining hall had disappeared when the first passengers boarded. Even the zigzag course grew tedious very quickly, and it was difficult to escape one's own thoughts in the monotony of looking out at the empty horizon. The mind drifted back to recent weeks, to the events of the past month, to the people one had left…. Liane sat down in the dining room at an empty table and tried to stop her tears. As she blew her nose in a lace handkerchief the children had given her for her last birthday, she looked up at Nick with an attempt at a smile.
“I'm sorry.”
“For what? For being human? For loving your husband? Don't be silly, Liane. When I put Johnny on the Aquitania, I stood on the dock as it pulled out, and cried like a baby.” He still remembered the dockworker who had patted his shoulder and muttered a few comforting words. But nothing had really helped. He had never felt so bereft in his life. But Liane was looking at him now and her face registered a question. He hadn't mentioned Hillary.
“But you told me that Hillary went with him.” Suddenly she was confused. Had he sent the child alone? But she thought …
“Yeah.” He decided to tell her now. “And with Philip Markham. Do you know who he is?” Nick's eyes grew hard as he stared into his coffee and then back at Liane. He spoke in a low voice and his hand shook slightly on his cup.
“I've heard the name.” All over Paris for a while, linked to Hillary. But she didn't say that. “He's something of an international figure.”
Nick smiled a bitter little smile. “An international playboy, to be exact. My wife has charming taste. They spent the summer in the South of France together.”
“Did you know they would be on the ship together?”
Nick shook his head. “I saw his name on the manifest after they left that morning.”
She couldn't resist asking the next question. Does it still bother you, Nick?” He should have been used to her indiscretions by now.
He looked into her face, at the softness of her skin, and wondered as he had before how two women could be so different. “My source of concern isn't because she's my wife. I'm past that. I never got a chance to tell you, but after we spoke on the Normandie that night, I don't think I ever felt the same way again. I think she'd pushed me too far. And I let her do what she wanted in Paris. But I care because of Johnny. If she continues carrying on like that, one of these days she's going to find someone who suits her, and she may get ideas into her head about leaving and taking Johnny. Up to now she's been content to live with me and fool around, I've gotten to the point where I can live with that.” He fell silent for a moment and then told Liane the truth. “I'm scared … I'm so goddamn scared that I'd lose Johnny.”
“You couldn't.”
“I could. She's his mother. If we got divorced, she could do anything she damn well pleased. She could move to Timbuktu, and then what? I see him once a year for a two-week vacation?” It was a horrifying thought he had pondered often, particularly lately. He knew from Hillary's silence that things had changed in the last six months. Before, she had felt some obligation to report to him. But there had been not a word, not a line, not a sound since the first cable.
“I didn't think she was that interested in the boy.” Liane looked worried for him.
“She's not. But she cares about what people think. And if she gives him up, people will say a lot of ugly things about her. She'd rather keep him and park him somewhere with his nurse while she goes off to play. She hardly ever called him last summer when she was in Cannes with Markham.”
“What are you going to do about all that, Nick?”
He sighed deeply and finished the last of his coffee before he set his cup down and looked her in the eyes. “I'm going to go home and shorten her leash again. I'm going to remind her that she's married to me and that's the way it's going to stay. She'll hate me for it, but I don't give a damn. It's the only way I can keep my kid. And, damn it, that's what I'm going to do.”
Liane felt bold as she listened to him. She was going to tell him what she thought. They were once again on a ship, suspended between two worlds, and all was fair. “You deserve a better woman than that, Nick. I don't know you very well, but I do know that much. You're a good man and you have a lot to give. And she's never going to give you a damn thing in return except heartache.”
He nodded. She already had done much of that. But at least his heart was no longer involved. Only his son. And to him that was more important. “Thank you. That's a nice thing to say.” They exchanged a smile over their empty coffee cups, and a group of the journalists on board wandered in for a round of coffee. One of them was carrying a half-full bottle of whiskey to add a little kick to the coffee. But neither of them accepted his offer of a nip. Nick was thinking over what Liane had said. “The trouble is that in order to get myself another woman, I'd have to give up my son, or at least living with him. And I'd never do that.”
“It's a high price to pay.”
“It is either way. And in ten years he'll be grown up and things will be different.”
“How old will you be then?” she asked softly.
“Forty-nine.”
“That's a long time to wait to be happy.”
“How old was Armand when you married him?”
She smiled at the question. “Forty-six.”
“I'll only be three years older. And maybe if I'm very lucky, I'll find someone like you.” She blushed at his words and looked away, but he reached out and touched her hand. “Don't be embarrassed. It's true. You're a wonderful woman, Liane. I told you when I first met you that Armand was a lucky man, and I meant it.” She brought her eyes back sadly to his.
“I gave him a hard time this year in Paris.” She felt guilty about that, now that she knew what he'd been doing. “I didn't understand what pressures he was under. We hardly ever saw each other and …” Her eyes filled with tears again and she shook her head. But she had been haunted for days now by her anger at Armand over the past months. If she had only known … but how could she have?
“You must both have been under a tremendous strain.”
“We were.” She sighed. “And so were the girls. But Armand most of all. And now he won't even have us to lean on.” Not that he really had in the past year. He had carried all the burdens alone. She looked at Nick with agony in her eyes. “If something happens to him …”