4
The walk to the beach at Rioufrède was mostly downhill, across the central intersection of Héliopolis and down a road that started at right angles to the one they had trudged up from the port, so that Mr Oddington’s energetic pace was easy even for McGeorge’s unconditioned legs to keep up with. Mr Oddington, whose siesta seemed to give him the fire to start an afternoon as if it were a whole new day, drew their attention to the rusty barbed wire on one side of the road and an occasional faded sign posted behind it, and held forth trenchantly about the recent invasion by the French Navy and its attempt to take over the whole island as a base for guided missile experiments, and the stubborn struggle of the residents to retain their foothold.
“Bureaucracy’s the same everywhere. As if they didn’t have half the Sahara desert doing no good to anyone, this was the only place they could pick on to play with their stupid toys. They couldn’t set up shop in a place like Timbuktu, which nobody would have missed. It was more fun to destroy a place that stood for just a little more freedom from regulations than anywhere else. But they got a surprise when they found that they’d stirred up a hornets’ nest!”
From the pugnacious thrust of jaw that went with that, Simon added to his observations the awareness that Mr Oddington was capable of fully as much stubborn aggressiveness as his nephew had unexpectedly revealed, and the new-born conviction grew on him that the inevitable conflict might not be pretty at all. But it was not easy to pursue that thought with the sun baking scent from the pines and the mellow air more consciously experienced by his skin than he would have thought possible. He was wearing his “minimum” with all the aplomb he could muster, as he had promised himself, but the white stencil left by his regular swimming trunks was something that no mere resolve could obliterate.
“Don’t feel like a freak,” Mr Oddington said sturdily. “Every one of us has been through the same stage. But did you ever have a more comfortable walk?”
“It’s certainly the perfect costume for a hot day,” Simon admitted. “But what’s it like here in the winter?”
“Hardly anyone stays, but I like it. We have heat in the house, and it never gets so cold outside that you can’t keep warm if you walk fast enough.”
Presently they turned off the road, down a well-worn footpath to the right. The path started mildly, grew rapidly steeper, and finally became precipitous. When it was little more than a goat-track slanting down the side of a cliff, the stunted bushes thinned out to unmask the first sudden view of the cove it was leading down into. It was a deep little bay enclosed between two steep slopes of rock, hardly big enough to contain a football field, and reaching back to a broad crescent of pebbly beach. There were half a dozen heads bobbing in the water and three or four dozen people lying or sitting or walking about on the beach; and the actuality of their freedom from inhibition, which could be basically established at the first glance, was a momentary jolt even to the Saint. He thought it was merciful for McGeorge that the condition of the path made it extremely hazardous for the eyes to wander for most of the remainder of the descent.
But that took no longer than a few flights of stairs, and then they were down on the beach themselves, with the astonishing display of epidermis all around them. Apparently this cove was a little too far for the ambition of the majority of merely curious sightseers, who probably felt that they had worked hard enough for a sensation by the time they had struggled up to the village center, or else the route was not too well publicized, for the Saint fascinatedly counted exactly one scattered handful, two men and three women, who were even technically over-dressed for a game of Adam and Eve.
“Well, now we can make ourselves comfortable,” said Mr Oddington.
And, untying the string, he stepped gratefully out of his irksome habiliment.
“Aren’t you coming for a swim, George?” he demanded. “You look dopey. It’ll wake you up.”
“It still isn’t quite a full hour since we finished lunch,” said McGeorge, clutching even at that swiftly vanishing straw.
“Nonsense,” scoffed Mr Oddington. “An old superstition. Look at seals. They swim while they’re eating.”
McGeorge somehow managed to refrain from mentioning that he was not a seal.
“I… I’m not so used to the sun as the rest of you,” he pleaded. “I don’t think I should have too much all at once. Besides” — he grabbed at another inspiration — “we’ve still got lots of things to talk about.”
“We’ll have the whole evening for that, my boy.”
“The last ferry leaves at five, doesn’t it?”
“But you weren’t thinking of going back today, were you?”
“Obviously. You know we didn’t bring any luggage.”
“I thought you might have a toothbrush in your pocket. You’d know I could lend you a razor. You knew that we didn’t wear clothes here. What on earth would you put in your luggage?” asked Mr Oddington, in devastating perplexity.
The Saint had been gazing around, inventorying details of the general scene with unabashed interest and studiously keeping aloof from the argument. At that moment his eyes came to rest on the statuesque figure of a man standing on a ledge of rock about thirty feet up the trail down which they had recently scrambled, staring steadily down at them. Simon recognized him at once as the self-satisfied Adonis whom Nadine had been talking to in the village. It seemed unnecessarily imaginative to assume that the man had followed them there, but the Saint automatically re-scanned the walk through his mind like a film and confirmed that he had not had any occasion to look back. However, it would probably have been equally easy for anyone who knew Mr Oddington’s habits to foresee where he would go in the afternoon.
“I feel like talking now, Uncle Waldo,” McGeorge said stubbornly.
He put on the shirt which he had brought with him and sat down firmly, with his knees drawn up, huddling the shirt around him like a small tent.
Mr Oddington glanced wistfully at the new spear-gun which he had brought along with him. His jaw tightened, and then, surprisingly, he also sat down.
“All right, George, if that’s how you feel. We’ll talk a bit.”
Simon could not tell who else had seen the man on the rocks above.
Nadine Zeult touched his arm.
“Will you come for a swim with me?” she suggested tactfully.
A little triangle of cloth fluttered down onto the beach as she ran into the water.
The Saint ran in after her. Much as he would have given to find an excuse to stay and listen, there was nothing else he could do about it. He stumbled into a plunging dive and swam violently for about twenty yards without lifting his head, until the effort had neutralized the first cool contrast of the water. Then he turned over and pushed his hair back, treading water, and found the girl not far away.
“It’s good, isn’t it?” she said.
“Very good.” He smiled.
He had an idea she was referring to something more than just the ordinary goodness of a temperate sea, but his reply was safe and would have been the same anyway. Somehow it was always a new surprise, because the opportunities were so rare, to re-discover the fantastic difference between swimming in the raw and swimming in anything else at all. Perhaps it was not only the unfamiliarity of total physical liberation, but a throwback of memory to old swimming holes and boyhood truancies and golden days of innocence that could never come again.
She swam idly along for a while, drifting towards one side of the bay, and the Saint paddled lazily beside her because it was the most natural thing to do. Presently they were close to a smooth step of rock, and the girl climbed out onto it and sat there, shaking the water out of her yellow hair, like a sea-nymph. After a moment, the Saint pulled himself up beside her.