“I thought you might like to take a walk.”
“All right. I know I’m obnoxious. I’ll leave,” he said. “I apologize, painter. You’re an artist. Your pigs will be hung in the Louvre someday.”
They went out of the courtyard into the street. They walked along the sidewalk in the dark under the balconies and colonnades in front of the apartments with the trees hanging over the walk, the tattoo parlors, antique shops, the small lighted restaurants with the steamed windows, the ten dollar a week rooming houses that catered to the Tony Bacino clientele, the pool halls and bars and Salvation Army missions, past the girls who stood in the darkened doorways and smiled woodenly, and across the street to the grocery store on the corner with the big screen doors and the green shutters and coarse-grained floors and the rusted Hadacol sign and the glass cases of chewing tobacco and cigars.
Avery bought a package of Virginia Extra and poured the tobacco into the wheat-straw paper. He and Wally walked back towards the apartment. Avery struck a match and lighted the cigarette and watched the paper curl away from the flame.
“How do you feel?” he said.
“Nonrepentant,” Wally said.
“You made it a little hard on Suzanne.”
“I didn’t mean to, old pal. My bile is directed only towards pretentious painters. I can’t tolerate that fellow. He’s such a goddamn boor.”
“Do you think you can go back in now?”
“I’m in excellent shape. By the bye, can we forget that Lardner business?”
“Sure.”
“I know I’m bloody insulting when I get on the grog.”
“Forget about it.”
“It’s merely that I don’t like Kipling or Lardner. Neither of them could write. I can’t understand how these people are given attention.”
“Do you want a smoke?” Avery said.
“Lardner wrote Saturday Evening Post fiction.”
Avery walked on listening and not answering.
They passed a package store just before they got to the apartment.
“I say, could you let me have a couple of dollars?” Wally said. “I’m out of booze and I don’t like drinking off the others all evening.”
Avery gave him the money. Wally bought a pint bottle and put it in his coat pocket, and they went back into the courtyard. The guests were eating the barbecued chickens from paper plates with their fingers, and Suzanne was serving several other people who had just arrived. Avery looked at her damp temples and the way her body moved against her dress. He took a beer out of the tub of crushed ice and opened it. The foam came out over the top of the bottle and slid down the side onto his hand.
“How is he?” she said.
“Still plastered.”
“Get a plate. You haven’t eaten anything.”
“Can we be together later?” Avery said.
“We’ll have to go somewhere else. Denise is going to be home.”
“Let’s go to the beach.”
“All right. Maybe everyone will leave early.”
“We can rent the beach cabin,” he said.
“Ssssh.” She smiled.
“They can’t hear us. Wally is talking too loud.”
“We’ll have to get him to leave early, too. He’s always the last one to go. He spent the night on our sofa one time.”
“Maybe we can send him home with the painter. They seem to get along well.”
“Excuse me a minute, darling. I have to go upstairs and get some more chickens.”
“I’ll help you.”
“I can do it by myself.”
“I’ll help you, anyway,” he said. She smiled back at him.
They went up the stone steps to the apartment. When they were inside he closed the door behind them. He kissed her on the cheek and mouth in the darkened living room.
“Ummmmm,” she said. “You’re nice.”
She put her arms around his neck and held him close.
“Do you think they would miss us for a few minutes?” he said.
“Oh, darling, wait until tonight.”
“It would only take a few minutes.”
“We can’t. Someone might come in.”
“Let’s stay at the beach house all night, then.”
“Won’t you be too tired to work tomorrow?”
“We probably won’t get to work a full day. It’s supposed to rain.”
“We haven’t gotten a whole night together in a long time. Won’t it be lovely?” she said.
“Do you think the others will go home early?”
“I’ll ask Denise to suggest that everyone go to that cellar place on Burgundy.”
“Will they do it?”
“I think so. It’s one of those sandal and beard places. It’s artistic to be seen there.”
He kissed her on the neck and held her and put his face in her hair. He felt the smoothness of her body against him.
“I want you so much,” she said.
“You’re a precious lady.”
“I love you terribly.”
“Can’t we go in the other room?”
“It will only be a couple of more hours.”
“We haven’t had each other in four days.”
“I know, darling. But it will be so good tonight. Let’s wait.”
He kissed her cheek again and bit the lobe of her ear.
“We have to go back,” she said. “Stay a little longer.”
“I have to cook.”
“Let’s don’t go to any more parties for a while.”
“All right, darling.”
“We’re around other people too much.”
“We won’t go to any more parties unless you want to, and we’ll only see each other.”
“Do you mind not seeing anyone but me?” he said. “Of course I don’t. We have good times together.”
“Don’t go back yet.”
“We have to. Be good and help me carry the food down.”
They went down the stone steps to the courtyard. The light from the Japanese lanterns fell on the oleander and jasmine and Spanish daggers in the flower beds. There was the whisper of silk and petticoats, and the quiet talk of couples in the shadows, and the clink of ice in cool glasses of gin and quinine water. Avery reached his hand down into the tin tub and took out one of the last bottles of beer and opened it. The cap clicked on the flagging of the court. Suzanne stood under the willow by the iron gate to greet some people who had just come in. She came over to Avery.
“We’ll have to get more beer,” she said. “Can you go down to the grocery store?”
“It’s closed now.”
“That place on Esplanade is still open. Go in the car.”
“Where are the keys?”
“Upstairs, I suppose. You don’t mind going, do you? I’d ask Wally, but he’d never come back.”
“When are they going to leave?”
“It won’t be long. I’ll talk with Denise. Be a good darling.”
Avery went upstairs and got the keys and came back down and started out the courtyard.
“Where are you going, old pal?” Wally said.
“To get beer.”
“Is it all right if I go along? That painter has started talking again. I swear to Jesus I can’t tolerate listening to that fellow.”
“I’m only going to be gone a few minutes.”
“Maybe he will have left when we get back. If he’s still here I think I’m going to hit him.”
“You’d better come with me.”
“Rather. I’m not keen on getting into a bash with such a disgusting fellow.”
They went around the side of the building to the cobbled alley where the car was parked. Avery started the engine and drove out onto the street with the convertible top down and pressed on the accelerator. The exhaust roared against the pavement and echoed off the quiet buildings. The car, low-slung and flat with a wide wheelbase, could turn a corner with a slight twist of the steering wheel.