Beggarman, Thief (12 page)

“May I join you for a moment?” he asked. There were moments and moments.

Without a word, Dwyer drew up a chair from the next table. He was dressed as usual, tanned, muscular, his bantamweight arms ridged below the short sleeves of the white jersey with the printing on it. What mourning he carried was not on public display. “What will you have to drink?” Dwyer asked.

“What are you two drinking?”

“Pastis.”

“Not for me, thanks,” Rudolph said. He didn’t like its sweet, licorice taste. It reminded him of the long, black, pliant sticks of candy, like miniature snakes, that his father had bought for him when he was a boy. He was in no mood to be reminded of his father. “If I could have a brandy?”

Dwyer went into the café to fetch the brandy. Rudolph looked across the table at Kate. She was sitting there stolidly, no emotion showing on her face. She could be a Mexican peasant woman, Rudolph thought, all work done for the moment, sitting in front of an adobe wall in the sunlight, waiting for her husband to come home from the fields. She lowered her eyes, refusing to look at him, a baked mud wall around her primitive thoughts. He sensed hostility. Had the parting kiss when she left the
Clothilde
been a sardonic salute? Or had it been real, meant then and later regretted?

“How is Wesley?” she asked, her eyes still averted. “Bunny told me all about it.”

“He’s all right. They’re letting him leave France a week from today. Most probably for the States.”

She nodded. “I thought they might,” she said. Her voice was low and flat. “It’s better that way. He shouldn’t hang around this part of the world.”

“That was a foolish thing he did,” Rudolph said, “getting into a fight like that. I don’t know what could’ve come over him.”

“Maybe,” Kate said, “he was saying good-bye to his father.”

Rudolph was silent for a moment, ashamed of what he had said. He felt the way he had the day he had left the consulate for the first time, weeping in the streets. He wondered if his cheeks were wet with tears now. “You know him better than I do,” he said. He had to change the subject. “And how are you, Kate?” he said, trying to sound tender.

She made a curious, deprecating, blowing sound. “As well as might be expected,” she said. “Bunny’s been company.”

Maybe they ought to get married, Rudolph thought. Two of a breed. From the same graduating class, from the same hard school. Keep each other company, as she put it. “I had hoped you would call,” he said, lying.

She raised her eyes, looking at him. “I knew where I could find you,” she said levelly, “if I had piss-all to say to you.”

Bunny came back with the brandy and two fresh glasses of pastis. Rudolph watched as they poured the water into the glasses and the pastis turned milky yellow. Rudolph raised his glass mechanically. “To …” He stopped, laughed uncertainly. “To nothing, I guess.”

Dwyer raised his glass, but Kate just slowly twirled her glass on the table.

The brandy was raw and Rudolph gasped a little as it struck his throat. “There have been certain developments that I think you ought to know about …” I must stop sounding as though I’m addressing a board meeting, he thought. “I’m glad I found you both together …” Then, as clearly as he knew how, he explained the meaning of what Heath had told him about the estate. They listened politely, but without interest. Don’t you care what happens to your lives? he wanted to shout at them.

“I don’t want to be, what’s the word …?” Kate said slowly.

“Executrix.” Heath had told him that was probably what the judge would do.

“Executrix. I don’t know tuppence about executrix,” Kate said. “Anyway, I plan to go back to England. Bath. My ma’s there and I can go on the National Health for the baby and my ma can watch after it when I go out to work.”

“What sort of work?” Rudolph asked.

“I was waitress in a restaurant,” Kate said, “before I listened to the call of the sea.” She laughed sardonically. “A waitress can always find work.”

“There’ll be some money left,” Rudolph said, “when the estate’s settled. You won’t have to work.”

“What’ll I do all day, sit around and look at the telly?” Kate said. “I’m not an idler, you know.” Her tone was challenging, the implication clear that he and his women were idlers all. “Whatever money there is, and I don’t imagine there’ll be much after the lawyers and them others, I’ll put aside for the kid’s education. Educated, if it’s a girl, maybe she won’t have to wait on table and iron ladies’ dresses in a steaming ship’s laundry, like her ma.”

There was no arguing with her. “If you ever need anything—money, anything,” he said, without hope, “please let me know.”

“There won’t be any need,” she said, lowering her eyes again, still twirling her glass on the table.

“Just in case,” Rudolph said. “Maybe, for example, one day you’d like to visit America.”

“America’s no attraction for me,” she said. “They’d laugh at me in America.”

“Wouldn’t you want to see Wesley again?”

“Wouldn’t mind,” she said. “If he wants to see me, there’re planes every day from America to London.”

“In the meantime,” Rudolph went on, trying to keep the note of pleading out of his voice, “while the estate’s being held up, you’ll need some money.”

“Not me,” she said. “I have my savings. And I made Tom pay me my wages, just like before, even when we were sleeping in the same bed and fixing to marry. Love is one thing, I told him,” she said, a proud declaration of categories, “and work is another.” She finally lifted her glass and sipped some of the pastis.

“I give up.” Rudolph couldn’t help sounding exasperated. “You sound as if I’m your enemy.”

She stared at him, blank pueblo eyes. “I don’t rightly remember saying anything that could be construed like enemy. Did I, Bunny?”

“I wasn’t really paying much heed,” Dwyer said uneasily, “I couldn’t pass judgment.”

“How about you?” Rudolph turned to Dwyer. “Don’t
you
need money?”

“I’ve always been a saving type of man,” Dwyer said. “Tom used to tease me, saying I was mean and miserly. I’m well set, thank you.”

Defeated, Rudolph finished his brandy. “At least,” he said, “leave me your addresses. Both of you. So I can keep in touch.”

“Leave Wesley’s address with the shipyard here,” Kate said. “I’ll drop them a line from time to time and they’ll pass on a card. I’d like to let him know whether he’s got a sister or brother when the time comes.”

“I’m not sure where Wesley will be,” Rudolph said. He was beginning to feel hoarse, his throat rasped by the brandy and the effort of talking to these two evasive, stubborn human beings. “If you write to him care of me, I’ll make sure he gets the letter.”

Kate stared at him for a long moment, then lifted the glass to her lips again. She drank. “I wouldn’t want your wife to be reading any mail of mine,” she said, putting down her glass.

“My wife doesn’t open my mail,” Rudolph said. He couldn’t help sounding angry now.

“I’m glad to see she’s a woman of some character,” Kate said. There was just the hint of a malicious glint in her eye, or was he imagining it?

“I’m only trying to be of help,” Rudolph said wearily. “I feel an obligation …” He stopped, but it was too late.

“I thank you for your intentions,” Kate said, “but you’re under no obligation to me.”

“I say we just would do better not to talk about it, Mr.… Rudy,” Dwyer said.

“All right, let’s not talk about it. I’m going to be in Antibes for at least a week. When do you plan to leave for England, Kate?”

Kate smoothed the wrinkles in the lap of her dress with her two hands. “As soon as I get my things together.”

Rudolph remembered the single, scuffed, imitation-leather suitcase Wesley had carried off the
Clothilde
for her. It probably couldn’t take her more than fifteen minutes to get her things together. “How long do you think that will take?” Rudolph asked patiently.

“Hard to tell,” Kate said. “A week. A fortnight. I have some goodbyes to make.”

“I’ll have to have your address here, at least,” Rudolph said. “Something may come up, may have to be signed in front of a notary …”

“Bunny knows where I am,” she said.

“Kate,” Rudolph said softly, “I want to be your friend.”

She nodded slowly. “Give it a little time, mate,” she said harshly. The kiss of parting in the saloon of the
Clothilde
had been one of numbness. A week’s reflection had embittered her. Rudolph couldn’t blame her. He turned to Dwyer. “How about you,” he asked, “how long do you expect to stay?”

“You’ll know that better than I do, Rudy,” Dwyer said. “I mean to stay until they throw me off. They’ll be arriving any day now with the new shaft and the new screw and that’ll mean hauling her up on dock for at least three days, that is if the insurance comes in.… You
could
do me a favor—get after the insurance. They’re slow as shit if you don’t get after them. And you’d know how to talk to them better than me. So if …”

“Goddamn the insurance,” Rudolph said, letting go. “You handle the insurance yourself.”

“No need to yell at poor old Bunny,” Kate said placidly. “He’s just trying to keep the ship in shape so that when you sell it you won’t have a rotten hulk on your hands.”

“I’m sorry,” Rudolph said. “I’ve been going through a lot …”

“To be sure, you have,” Kate said. If it was ironic, there was no telling it from her tone.

Rudolph stood up. “I have to go back to the hotel now. What do I owe here?”

“The drinks’re on me,” Dwyer said. “My pleasure.”

“I’ll keep you posted about what’s going on,” Rudolph said.

“That’s kind of you,” said Dwyer. “I’d like to see Wesley before he leaves for America.”

“You’ll have to see him at the airport,” Rudolph said. “He’s going right there from the jail. With a policeman.”

“French cops,” Dwyer said. “It don’t pay to let them get their hands on you, does it? Tell Wesley I’ll be at the airport.”

“Take care of yourselves,” Rudolph said. “Both of you.”

They didn’t answer, but sat there in silence with their glasses in front of them, in shadow now, because the sun was going down and the building across the street was blocking it out. Rudolph made a little gesture and walked back toward the Agence de Voyages near the square where he could buy the three plane tickets for tomorrow’s flight.

Husband and wife, he thought bitterly, as he passed the antique shops and the cheese shops and the shops that sold newspapers, they’d make a good pair. What’s wrong with me? What makes me so goddamn sure I can take care of anybody? Everybody? I’m like those idiotic dogs at the greyhound races. Show me a responsibility, mine, not mine, anybody’s, and I’m off after it, like the dogs after the mechanical rabbit, even if they never catch it,
know
they never can catch it. What disease infected me when I was young? Vanity? Fear of not being liked? A substitute for denied religion? It’s a lucky thing I never had to fight a war—I’d be dead the first day, shot by my own men, stopping a retreat or volunteering to go for the ammunition for a lost and surrounded gun. My project for the next year, he told himself, is to learn how to say, Fuck you, to one and all.

CHAPTER 6

F
ROM
B
ILLY
A
BBOTT’S
N
OTEBOOK—

MONIKA DISTURBED ME TONIGHT. SHE WAS WORKING ON THE PRINTED PROOFS OF A SPEECH SHE HAD TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH INTO ENGLISH, WHEN SHE LOOKED UP AND SAID, I’VE JUST NOTICED SOMETHING. IN BOTH LANGUAGES—AND IN MOST OTHERS, TOO—THE VERBS—TO HAVE, TO BE, TO GO, AND TO DIE—ARE ALL IRREGULAR. IN ENGLISH—I HAVE, HE HAS, I HAD—NOT TOO MUCH OF A VARIATION, BUT THERE ALL THE SAME. MORE STRIKING IN FRENCH. J’AI, TU AS, IL A, NOUS AVONS. “TO BE” WANDERS MUCH MORE. I AM, YOU ARE, HE IS, WE WERE, YOU ARE BEING, THEY HAD BEEN, I SHALL, HE WILL. IN FRENCH, JE SUIS, TU ES, NOUS SOMMES, VOUS ÊTES, IL SERA. THEN SOIS ET SOYONS AND JE FUS AND IL FUT IN OTHER TENSES. THINK OF I GO, I WENT, I HAVE BEEN GONE. AND ALLER—JE VAIS, NOUS ALLONS, ILS VONT. DYING IS A BIT MORE IN A STRAIGHT LINE, BUT IT GIVES YOU PAUSE. I DIE. I AM DEAD. IN FRENCH, MOURIR IN THE INFINITIVE, BUT JE MEURS, NOUS MOURIONS, NOUS SOMMES MORTS. WHAT DOES THAT ALL MEAN—THAT ACTIONS—EXISTING, OWNING, MOVING FROM PLACE TO PLACE, DYING? THAT WE SEEK TO DISOWN OR DISGUISE OR FLEE FROM OUR MOST BASIC ACTIVITIES? THE VERB TO KILL, HOWEVER, IS STRAIGHTFORWARD AS COULD BE, I KILL, YOU KILL, HE KILLS. I KILLED, YOU KILLED. HE KILLED. NOTHING TO HIDE THERE OR COPE WITH UNEASILY. THE SAME WITH FUCK. IS THERE JUDGMENT THERE?