She had turned toward him, and her voice came from far away. “Should I forget it, Paul?”
“Don’t ask me. Don’t ask me anything.” He pushed off the wall and dropped to the sand and walked away from her, not looking back. He walked fifty feet and stood, his fists doubled, hitting them softly together in front of his chest, his jaw muscles aching. Go back and drive her home, a sturdy little girl full of cool indignation, full of a careful politeness.
“Paul,” she said, close behind him. It startled him. The sea sound had washed out the noise of her footsteps.
“Paul, I’m sorry. It’s all pretty meaningless to you, isn’t it? I didn’t think.”
He turned and looked down at her face, grave and concerned, with the moon laid across it.
“That was rude, Linda. You don’t have to forgive it.”
“I feel like a child who’s stayed too long and bored the guests.”
“Not bored. I don’t know. This isn’t an excuse. All of a sudden I just didn’t want the responsibility for anything. For myself even. Didn’t even want the effort of living.”
She took one of his fists, cupped it in her small, firm hands, held it against the hollow of her throat, close under her chin. “You’re like broken springs,” she said. “You need acres of sleep. Orchards of it. Do you sleep?”
“Not too well yet.”
“I... I wish you’d come home to me,” she said. She quickly released his hand and moved uneasily away from him. Her voice changed. “I guess that made me pretty transparent. Linda, the world mother.”
“I wish I had come home to you. So now I’m obvious.”
“No. Just the need is obvious. But you’re strong, aren’t you? I mean. I feel that you are, way deep, where it counts. Where it adds up.”
“I don’t know that, either.”
“Moonlight makes people talk too much. You should be home. But I guess that isn’t a good place for you, is it?”
“It’s all right.”
“You’ll make it be all right, won’t you?”
They walked back, and he helped her up the broken wall and down the other side. He drove back and let her off at her place. He said. “I’m not thinking very well. I’ll sleep and do some better thinking, and then we’ll talk again.”
“If you’d like.” she said. He watched her walk in, and he sat in the car and smoked a cigarette and then drove back by the restaurant and down to the house. The night wind had blown through it, and it had a cleaner smell. Through the scrub trees, he could see a vague light next door. He undressed quickly and turned out the light. All at once the air around his head was full of the acid whine of mosquitoes. He stood it for a few minutes, cursed, and got up and turned on the lights. He found a newspaper and tore scraps and plugged the holes in the ruptured screens. He shut the door of the bedroom, took a towel, and began killing them. He went at it methodically, counting for a time, then losing count as he went after them more hurriedly, then wildly, flailing at the ones that refused to light, grunting with effort. Suddenly he saw his face in the mirror, strained, distorted, crazy-eyed.
It shocked him, and he took a long, shivering breath and stood very still. When his face was again a weathered mask, he killed the others, searched the room, turned out the lights, and went back to bed. Nothing else sang of hunger in the night. He wanted warm thoughts on which he could ride downward into sleep. He thought of the look of the body of the woman Linda. He thought of the look of moonlight on her face. He held thoughts of her tightly so that nothing else could get in, and when danger was past, he released her and fell, turning slowly, into sleep.
In the morning, he drifted in and out of sleep like a slow train that crosses mountains and goes through many tunnels. When he got up, the morning was bright and still and hot. He went naked down to the beach and swam hard, snorting and thrashing, fighting the water. He rolled and spat and went winded up the beach and lay in the sun with a towel across his loins until he could feel the rays biting the inner layers of skin. He showered, shaved, dressed, and drove to the restaurant. It was quarter of eleven. Linda served his breakfast at the counter.
“You slept,” she said.
“Power of suggestion. I mended a few of those springs.”
“If you always eat like this, I’ll start making money.”
“I’m going to Miami to sort out personal stuff that was put in storage. Can you come along?”
She made a face. “Checks to write today. Salesmen calling. Fish to buy. Menus to type. Uh uh. Thanks, though.”
He was back at the house by five, carrying one suitcase. In it were a few important papers, photographs of his parents and brother, long dead, some sport shirts, shorts, slacks, trunks. All the jumble in the warehouse had depressed him at first. Too many things had the touch of Valerie on them. In the beginning, he had sorted in a halfhearted way. Then he had begun to throw things out ruthlessly. It had been a release to do that. It made him feel free again. Paul Rayder owns a house, furniture, car, and bank balance. And everything else in the world he can pack and carry around with him. Full of this sense of freedom, he walked toward the door of the house and stopped as he saw the red bonnet of the MG parked close beside the house. He pushed the screen door open and let it hang behind him. She came out of the living room, faintly unsteady on her feet. Her smile was pasted on a bit crookedly. She wore a Chinese-red halter and tailored white linen slacks with a red belt. Her coarse dark hair was tied back with a piece of red yarn.
“Where’s Harry?” he asked flatly.
“I borrowed his car today. I thought I’d see how you’re making out.” Her tone was too casual.
“I’m making out fine, thanks. Nice of you to stop by. Have a nice ride back.”
She looked at the suitcase. “That’s one of ours.”
“One of mine. Drive carefully.”
She walked back into the living room. He went to the doorway and leaned against the frame, fists in his pockets, watching her. She sat down, uncapped a thermos bottle, filled the cap. She raised it to him and winked. “Cheers, dear. A picnic for one. They’re called stinkers. Made with rum instead of brandy.”
“Look. Valerie. Words of one syllable: Get out.”
“I’m a guest. Be nice to guests.”
“What’s on your mind?”
“Oh, I was sitting here alone. Right over there you nearly killed me. Remember? The hammer slipped off the roof. The scar’s right here. Over my ear.”
“Why did you come here?”
“Because I don’t like the idea of you being here. This was for two of us or none of us, not one of us.”
“It isn’t bothering me.”
“Winkler will buy it. Let him have it. Paul. That’s the last thing I’ll ever ask of you.”
“Why? It can’t make any difference to you. Not the way you live.”
“Paul, don’t stay here. Go away.”
“Are you maudlin? Is that it?”
She held the blue thermos top against her cheek and looked at the middle of the floor. “Even when I was little... I’ve told you... so terribly afraid of being hurt. Little things. A panic over a hornet. Hysteria about dentists. You don’t understand about that, about being weak and afraid. But when you are, they fix it so you pay and pay.”
“You’re not making sense. You better leave while you can still drive.”
She looked at him with the askew smile. “Add it up. That’s what I did. I added myself, and the total stinks. A minus character. But I was given a sample, and it broke me in pieces. What do you do when you can’t add yourself up and get anything? Just for — for memories of me when I used to add up right, please don’t stay. Go when the week is up.”