1953 - The Sucker Punch (10 page)

The sea looked blue and inviting and I dived off the rail. As I swam I caught sight of a white-capped head some thirty yards in front of me.

For a moment I thought it was Vestal taking an early swim, but the swimmer turned on her back, and I saw it was Eve.

I increased my speed and overtook her.

"Hallo there," I said, treading water. "You're up early."

"Good morning, Mr. Winters. I was just going back."

"Keep me company. Let's swim out to that raft."

I was looking at her curiously. Without her glasses she was almost beautiful.

She shook her head.

"I'm sorry, but I want my breakfast. I have a lot of work to get through this morning."

She began to swim towards the cruiser.

I turned and caught up with her.

"Okay. We can have breakfast together."

"Mrs. Winters wouldn't like that. I am a member of her staff."

"So what? You're a member of my staff too. Besides, Mrs. Winters is asleep. I don't like eating alone."

"I do," she said shortly and increased her pace.

We swam to the cruiser without saying anything. She hoisted herself up the rope ladder that dangled over the side.

She was in a white one-piece swimsuit, and as she climbed the ladder, water dripping from her, I saw her body as if without clothes.

The sight of her shape under that wet, clinging swimsuit turned my mouth dry. It stopped me going up the ladder after her.

I lay on my back in the water and stared up at her.

She ducked under the rail and crossed the deck briskly without looking back, and disappeared into a cabin not far from the lower deck lounge.

I became aware that my heart was pounding.

I suddenly wanted her as I had never wanted any other woman before.

The next three days and nights were torture to me. I was haunted by this girl. I had her in my mind every hour of the day and most of the night.

I don't know if she sensed the change in me, but she avoided me so cleverly that I only saw her for brief moments when Vestal was with me.

Vestal nearly drove me crazy with her pathetic attempts to interest me.

She kept with me like my shadow. Every time I got up to pace the deck, she got up too. I could have strangled her, although I knew she was just trying her best to keep me company.

On the second evening I got away from her and went down to the lower deck, hoping to corner Eve, but I spotted her sitting in a deck chair with Rollinson and the purser on the deck at her feet, both trying to outshine the other in tall stories.

As I went back to the upper deck, jealous and furious, Vestal appeared out of the darkness.

"Where have you been, Chad, dear? I've been looking for you everywhere."

"Can't you leave me alone for one second?" I snarled to her. "I've had you in my hair all the goddam day!" I pushed past her and went to my cabin and shut myself in.

I knew I shouldn't have spoken to her like that, but my nerves couldn't take any more of her.

I undressed, put on my pyjamas and dressing gown and lay on the bed.

After a few minutes, I heard Vestal come into her cabin.

If only this dreary honeymoon could come to an end and I could get back to Little Eden, I thought as I reached for a cigarette. Once back in Little Eden I was sure I could handle the situation.

"Chad."

I raised my head, frowning.

Vestal was calling from the other room.

"What is it?"

"I want you."

I hesitated; then shrugging, I got off the bed and opened the door.

She was sitting before her dressing table. Her pinched face was set. She looked straight at me, and I was disconcerted to find that I couldn't meet her direct stare.

“Come in, Chad. I want to talk to you."

"I was just going to sleep," I grumbled, but I came in and sat on the bed.

"What is it?"

She swung around so she could face me.

"That's what I want to know," she said, her hands turning into fists. "Aren't you happy, Chad? Are you sorry you married me?"

I hadn't expected a frontal attack and I was startled. I had named her for her seventy million dollars, and I had lost sight of that fact while I had been with her. This question brought me up with a jerk.

“Happy? Why, of course I am. What makes you think I'm not?"

She stared fixedly at me.

"By the way you behave. You act as if you—you hated me."

"Why, Vestal!"

I got off the bed and went over to her. This was dangerous. I cursed myself for showing my hand so plainly.

"No, don't touch me," she said, shrinking away. "You've spoilt our honeymoon. I'm going home. I don't want you to come with me if you are going to behave as you've been behaving. I'm not going to be treated like this! I won't have it!"

"Don't talk nonsense!" I said sharply. "Of course I haven't spoilt the honeymoon. Can I help it if all this damned sightseeing bores me stiff? It's a cockeyed way of spending a honeymoon, anyway. When two people are in love they don't have to go crawling around ruins all day."

She looked quickly at me.

"You don't act as if you were in love with me," she said fiercely. "You don't even sleep with me!"

I was getting scared now. I had visions of her threatening me with a divorce. I had to get out of this spot somehow.

"Why, Vestal, the way you acted I thought you didn't want me to sleep with you," I said.

"How can you say a thing like that?" she exclaimed and got to her feet. "You said the physical side of marriage meant nothing to you. You're just telling lies!"

"Now look here, Vestal, I won't have you talking like that. There's been a misunderstanding. That night was a flop, and you know it. It was a flop because you acted as if I were repulsive to you. Can you wonder I moved into another room?"

"You repulsive to me?" she said, turning. "Oh, Chad, how can you say such a thing? I love you."

"That was the impression I got. I thought I was being considerate to you by going into the other room. You mean you want me to share this room with you?"

She was so anxious for it to be all right with us she wouldn't let herself doubt me.

"Of course I do." She began to tremble. "I want us to be everything to each other. Don't you?"

Did I—hell!

"Of course. Well, damn it! We've been acting like a couple of fools. I thought you were disappointed in me. I thought you wanted to be left alone. I'm sorry, Vestal, but you did give that impression."

"Oh, Chad."

She began to cry.

I forced myself to go to her and take her in my arms.

"It's all right, Vestal. Don't get upset."

I thought of all that money. What made me imagine I shouldn't have to earn it the hard way?

"Do you really love me, Chad?"

"Of course I do."

I picked her up and carried her across to the bed. I could feel her bony fingers digging into my shoulders.

The first thing I did was to turn off the light.

chapter eight

F
rom that night onwards I began to earn my right to those seventy million dollars the hard way. I began also to hate Vestal as I didn't think it possible to hate anyone.

Every minute of the day and night was a calculated act for me. I had to watch myself all the time. I couldn't afford to let her suspect again how she revolted me. I knew once this possessive love of hers for me died, she would become frustrated, spiteful and dangerous.

It might have been easier if Eve hadn't been on board. I thought of her continually, but I had no possible chance of getting her to myself. I had Vestal in my hair from the time I got up to the time I fell asleep.

It was torture to have to sit on the upper deck with her and bear Eve talking to the ship's officers while they swam with her in the tarpaulin pool they had rigged up on the lower deck. I could imagine her in that white swimsuit, and yet I couldn't go down there and watch her.

We reached Venice two days after our supposed reconciliation arid the cruiser dropped anchor in the Canale di San Marco.

Vestal and I, Eve, Vestal's maid and Williams, my valet, took the launch up the Grande Canale to the famous Gritti Hotel.

We had a suite overlooking the Grande Canale; two bedrooms, a big sitting room, two bathrooms and rooms for the staff.

I used the second bedroom as a dressing room, and as soon as I had taken a shower and changed, I joined Vestal in the sitting room where she was standing on the balcony looking down the Canale as excited as a child at her first party.

"Isn't this marvellous, Chad?" she exclaimed. "Look at those gondolas! Look at those cute palaces! I've never seen anything like this—it's wonderful!"

If it hadn't been for her it would have been wonderful.

"Shall we take a gondola after lunch and explore?" she asked, turning to smile at me.

"Sure," I said. "Come on; let's eat and get out."

We spent the entire afternoon and evening exploring. We visited the San Marco church, the Doges Palace, the prison and we crossed the Bridge of Sighs. We took a gondola over to San Giorgia Maggiore, and Vestal raved over the paintings by Tintoretto which were just paintings to me.

We got back to the hotel an hour before dinner, and while Vestal went up to change, I sat on the balcony of the deserted main lounge and watched the evening activity on the Grande Canale.

I spotted Eve come into the lounge and I got up and went over to her.

"Hallo there," I said. "What have you been doing this afternoon?"

She looked at me through her hard, rimless glasses. She had the bluest eyes I have ever seen. She was wearing her plain, severe, grey frock, and I realized it had been cut to hide her figure. Looking at her, I would never have known what a shape she had under that dress.

"I've been arranging for Mrs. Winters to visit the glass factory at Murano."

"Oh, hell! When's that to be?"

"Tomorrow afternoon."

I moved a little closer to her.

"Will you be coming?"

"Oh, no." She turned away, and began to move towards the exit.

"Hey, wait," I said, and caught hold of her wrist.

She jerked free and looked back over her shoulder at me.

For a long moment we stared at each other.

Just for a split second I saw something in her eyes that sent my heart leaping and my blood hammering. It was that same urgent, naked desire I had seen in Vestal's eyes; only much more urgent and much more naked. It wasn't a figment of my imagination. It was there: the look that sometimes comes into a woman's eyes to tell a man she can be had.

It was gone as quickly as it had come.

"Keep away from me!" she said, and she made the words sound as if she were speaking through clenched teeth.

She walked quickly out of the lounge and up the stairs.

I stood motionless, my heart pounding and that ripping, clawing desire for her gnawing at me.

But I knew I wasn't the only one who had that feeling.

She had it too.

Vestal joined me in the bar.

"Oh, Chad, darling," she said as we sat down, "I thought it would be kind if we took Eve out with us tonight. It would be fun to go in a gondola to the Lido. But if you rather we didn't take her, we won't."

I had to make an effort to keep my face expressionless.

"I don't mind if you want her along." I reached forward and patted her hand. "Nice of you to have thought of her."

She loved that.

"Well, it can't be much fun for her," she said patronizingly. "I'm fond of Eve, but she's so terribly drab. I've often told her to smarten herself up, but she doesn't seem to have the slightest idea how to dress."

I looked at the diamonds and the unsuitable white gown that showed off her skinny neck and shoulders. When it came to ideas of how to dress she was in a class of her own.

After dinner we went out to the gondola station where Eve waited for us. She was in a black evening dress with a high collar and sleeves. It was almost as if she had chosen it deliberately for its dowdiness. With her scraped back hair and her glasses she looked like a poor relation beside Vestal's glitter.

We had a cabin gondola. Vestal and I sat side by side, and Eve sat on one of the side seats, away from us.

We began the long, slow journey up to the Lido. Vestal chattered, but neither Eve nor I said much.

I was aware of her in the semi-darkness all the time. I could feel a hidden sensuality coming from her like a radio wave, and I would have given ten years of my life to have been rid of Vestal and have had Eve to myself. I couldn't understand it. It wasn't that Eve was anything to look at. It was a physical thing; reaching out to me, jogging my memory into life of the picture of her climbing up the ladder from the sea.

We left the gondola at the vaporetti station and took a carriage up to the hotel.

Vestal wanted to dance. She forgot her good intentions towards Eve once we got into the ballroom, and left her sitting at a table alone while she danced with me.

I could have strangled her for she was a poor dancer, but I knew it would be unsafe to remind her Eve was being left alone.

We returned to the table after twenty minutes dancing, and Vestal must have realized it couldn't have been fun for Eve to sit so long alone.

"Chad, darling, you must dance with Eve."

Eve looked up quickly.

"Thank you, Mrs. Winters, but I don't dance. I'm quite happy to sit here and watch you dance."

"You don't dance?" Vestal said scornfully. "My dear girl, you should learn. Well, if you don't, you don't." She turned to me. "I love this thing they're playing. Don't let's miss it."

It went on like that for the next hour. The hands of my watch crawled on, and finally, a little before midnight, she decided it was time to return to the hotel.

The journey seemed endless. Vestal chattered all the time. Eve said nothing. I filled in the few gaps with flatfooted remarks.

After Eve had thanked Vestal for giving her such an enjoyable evening and had gone to her room, Vestal went to the open window and looked down at the dark waters of the Canale.