Those Who Walk Away (6 page)

“Not very much the matter. But I would have had the psychiatrist come to the house, if I’d known how badly off she was. She ate normally—”

“I’ve heard that.”

“I thought Peggy needed to talk with someone else besides me, someone who’d try to explain to her—what reality was.”

“Reality?” Coleman’s tone was angry and suspicious. “Don’t you think she got a big dose of it with marriage?”

To Ray, it was a complex question. “If you mean the physical aspects—”

“I do.”

“It was like reality and not reality with Peggy. She wasn’t frightened. She—” He simply could not go on with it to Coleman.

She was just surprised. Shocked, maybe.

“Not at all. The trouble was not that. It might have been going away from you. Having me as the centre of her life, presumably, instead of you, after all those years when she had only you.” He rushed on, though Coleman wanted to interrupt. “She was an extraordinarily sheltered girl, you must know that. Private schools all her life, very much supervised by you when she was on her holidays. You must know you didn’t give her the freedom that most girls her age have when they’re growing up.”

“Do you think I wanted her to grow up knowing all the—the dirty side of life the way most girls do?”

“Of course not, I do understand that. And I appreciate the fact that Peggy was not like that. But maybe she wanted more magic than I had to give her—or than there is in marriage.”

“Magic?”

Ray felt baffled and vague. “Peggy was very romantic—in a dangerous way. She thought marriage was another world—something like paradise or poetry—instead of a continuation of this world. But where we lived, it couldn’t’ve been more like a paradise. The climate, the fruit on the trees right outside the door. We had servants, we had time, we had sunshine. It wasn’t as if she were saddled with children right away and up to the elbows in dishwater.”

“Oh, money couldn’t make Peggy happy. She’s always had money,” Coleman said tersely.

And Ray knew he had said the wrong thing, used the wrong comparison, because Coleman resented his having money, though he would never have let his daughter marry anyone who hadn’t it. “Of course it wasn’t merely money. I’m trying to describe the atmosphere. I tried many times to talk to Peggy. I wanted us to move to Paris for a while, take an apartment there. That would’ve been a step towards reality. The climate’s worse, there’s noise and people and—and there’s a calendar and a clock to watch in Paris.”

“What’s all this nonsense about reality?” Coleman demanded, puffing on the cigar between his teeth. His eyes were a little bloodshot now.

Ray realized it was hopeless, as Inez had told him. And during his silence, Ray saw Coleman’s anger harden again, as he had seen it do in Mallorca. Coleman sat back in his chair with an air of finality, of dignity in his bereavement. Peggy had been the reason for his existence, his only true source of pride, Peggy whom he had begotten and raised single-handed—or at least since she had been four or five—a paragon of beauty, grace and good manners. Ray could see all this going through Coleman’s mind, and no explanation, apology, atonement from him would ever change it. Ray realized now that he could never do it on paper, either, Coleman’s eyes as well as his ears were closed.

“I am utterly sick of discussing it,” Coleman said, “so let’s take off.” He looked swimmingly, absently about as if for a waiter. “And let bygones be bygones,” he mumbled.

That was not a phrase of reconciliation, as Coleman said it, and Ray did not take it as such. He got his trench-coat and followed Coleman out. Neither had tried to do anything about paying for the last brandy. Ray fumbled in the left pocket of his trench-coat, checking to see if he had his lighter. He pulled out his Seguso key, which he thought he had left at the desk, and with it came the folded scarf. He pushed the scarf back with the key, but Coleman had seen the scarf.

“What’s that?” Coleman asked.

They were walking into the lobby.

“My hotel key.”

“The scarf. The handkerchief.”

Ray’s hand was in his pocket, and he pulled it out again, with the scarf. “A scarf.”

“That’s Peggy’s. I’ll take that, if you don’t mind.”

Coleman’s voice was audible to the man behind the Excelsior’s desk and to the young bellhop by the door. Coleman’s hand was out. Ray hesitated an instant—he had a right to the scarf—then rather than have an argument, he gave the scarf to Coleman. “Take it.”

Coleman let the scarf drop from a corner, as they went through the hotel’s doors, looked at it, and said, “Just like Peggy. Thank you.” On the pavement, he said, “After all, you gave away her clothes in Mallorca.” He pushed the scarf into his overcoat pocket.

“I didn’t think you wanted any,” Ray replied. “After all, you took all her work—her paintings and drawings.” He was sorry that his bitterness was audible. But the scarf was phoney, in a way, and this gave him a rather nasty satisfaction.

Their steps crunched again on the gritty road with the rhythm of the night in Rome, three nights ago. Ray was watchful for a sudden move from Coleman, a draw of the gun, perhaps—Coleman thought his life worthless—so he walked some two feet to one side of Coleman. Coleman wanted him to know he considered his life worthless, Ray realized. It was part of Coleman’s punishing him. They passed only two people, two men walking separately, in the walk across the island.

“I don’t have to go back with you,” Ray said. “I’m sure there’s a vaporetto.”

Coleman seemed to shrug slowly. Then he said, “No trouble. Same direction. Here it is. The ‘
Marianna
number two.’” He walked towards a group of three motor-boats, moored against the dock which turned at right angles from Ray and Coleman.

On the stern of one of the boats, Ray saw
MARIANNA II
. None of the boats had a canvas cover.

Coleman looked around. Only three or four young Italian boys were in view, huddled in their coats, not far from the ticket-booth of the vaporetto, twenty yards away. The ticket-booth was closed, Ray had noticed. He looked out at the lagoon for an approaching vaporetto, but saw none. It was 1.20 a.m.

“Damn Corrado. He’s probably gone home,” Coleman mumbled. “Well, let’s go. We don’t need him, anyway.”

Coleman stooped on the wharf, went down a short ladder and got himself awkwardly on board, into the pit at the stem.

Coleman was going to drive it. Ray recoiled at once, sought for an excuse, a good excuse to get out of going, and, realizing both the difficulty and the absurdity of having to invent an excuse to protect his life, he smiled with amusement and felt blank. “You’re going to drive it?” he asked Coleman.

“Sure. I drove it all day. Corrado just comes along for the ride. He lives on the Lido, but I don’t know where.” Coleman was fishing keys out of his pocket. “Come on.”

I can stand up to him
, Ray thought. Coleman wouldn’t catch him a second time by surprise. If Coleman tried, he might have the pleasure of hitting Coleman, at least, of knocking him out. Anyway, retreating now would be blatant cowardice, and Coleman would gloat. Ray stepped aboard. A low brass rail ran around the stem, and the boat had a covered cabin where the controls were.

Coleman started the motor and backed out cautiously. Then the boat turned, and they picked up speed. The noise of the motor was unpleasant. Ray turned his trench-coat collar up and buttoned the top button.

“I’ll head for the Giudecca Canal! Put you off somewhere on Zattere!” Coleman yelled at him.

“Schiavoni’s okay!” Ray yelled back at him. He was sitting in the stern on the low seat. It was certainly fast transport, but it was cold. Ray started into the cabin for shelter, just as Coleman turned from the controls and moved towards him.

“Got the wheel set!” Coleman said, jerking a thumb behind him towards the motor.

Ray nodded, keeping his hand on the cabin door-top for balance. The boat was bouncing about. In view of the buoys around, not to mention possibly other boats, Ray did not think it very safe to set the controls. He looked ahead anxiously, but saw nothing between them and the bobbing lights of the mainland of Venice. Coleman bent and turned sideways to Ray to relight his cigar. Ray started into the cabin again, and Coleman came towards him, so that Ray had to step back, but Ray still kept his hand on the cabin top. Then Coleman, with the cigar between his teeth, lunged against Ray with his whole weight bent low, catching Ray in the stomach. Ray fell half over the gunwale, but his right hand caught the slender brass rail. Coleman hit him in the face with his fist, and shoved a foot in his chest. Ray’s right arm was bent awkwardly, and his grip was broken as his weight swung over the side.

Ray had a sickening backward fall for a second, then he was in, wet, sinking. When he had struggled up to the surface, the boat was many yards away, its buzzing motor faint in his water-clogged ears. His shoes and his trench-coat were pulling him down. The water was icy on his body, and already he could feel the approach of numbness. He cursed himself.
It’s what you deserve, you ass!
But his body, like an animal’s body, fought to keep afloat, to gasp for air. He tried to remove a shoe, but couldn’t without his head going under. He concentrated on keeping afloat, on finding a boat to hail. The water was outrageously rough, as if the sea itself had taken up Coleman’s cause. He saw no boats anywhere. Venice looked farther away than it had from the boat, but the Lido was still farther, Ray knew. One of his ears popped and cleared of water, and then he heard a bell faintly. A buoy’s bell. For several seconds, he could not tell its direction—or see its lights, if it had any—but he decided it was on his left, away from Venice, and he bent his efforts in that direction. His progress could not have been called swimming. It was a series of jerks of legs and body and arms, and these he made with caution, not wanting to exhaust himself. He was a fair swimmer, only fair, and clothed and in icy water he was a rotten swimmer. He realized, very profoundly, that he was probably not going to make it.

“Help!” he yelled. Then, “Aiuto!” wasting valuable breath. The bell sounded closer, but his strength was going faster than the bell was coming. Ray rested, anxious about cramp. He felt it in his left calf, but he could still move the leg. Then he saw the buoy, a light grey blob, closer than he had dared hope. It had no light. The wind was blowing the sound away from him, and Ray hoped blowing the water towards the buoy. Now Ray stayed afloat, and tried only to steer himself, progressing by inches.

The buoy rose like a smooth teardrop that had half fallen into the water. He saw no handhold, and the top—a mess of bars enclosing the bell—was too high out of the water to be leapt for. Ray touched the buoy with his finger-tips, at last felt its fat, slippery body with the palm of one hand. It took energy to cling to it, arms outspread, but it was immensely encouraging to his morale to have reached it. It warns ships away from it, Ray thought, and found a macabre amusement in that fact. He groped hopefully with his feet for some kind of hold, and didn’t find any. The water was at his neck. The metal bars were twelve inches above his finger-tips when he reached for them. With one hand—the other pressed gently against the inward sloping buoy—he loosened his tie, removed it, and tried to fling one end of it across a bar. The bars were nearly vertical, but bowed out slightly. He tried from a direction in which the wind would help him. On the fourth or fifth try, one end of the tie went through, and Ray jiggled it patiently. When the two ends were even, he leapt for it, and it held. Cautiously, he put his weight on it, letting himself be borne as much as possible by the water, then grabbed for the metal bar and missed, released the tie so as not to break it, and went under. He struggled up, waited for a few seconds, to recover his breath, then tried again. Using knees against the buoy and careful tugs on the tie, he lunged again for the bar and this time caught it. He half knelt against the buoy and locked both arms around the bar.

Now, he supposed, it would be a test of muscular strength, a test of how long he could stand the cold before fainting or freezing or falling asleep or whatever people did, but at least he was out of the water, and he was also in a better position to see a ship.

He saw one, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, a boat that looked like a cargo barge with a motor at its stem.

“Aiuto!” Ray shouted. “
Soccorso!—Soccorso!
”

The boat did not change its course.

He yelled again. But it was evident whoever was aboard did not hear him.

It was a disappointment to Ray, because he felt that this was the only boat destined to pass him. He also had a strange feeling that he did not very much care, not as much as he would have cared five minutes ago, when he had been in the water. But he supposed that now he was just as much in danger of dying. The idea of removing his trench-coat and somehow tying himself with it to the metal bars was too complicated to consider. But the barge’s oblivious progress away from him seemed a blatant rejection, a shameless (because there was no need for the barge to have shame) denial of his right to live. For several seconds, he felt drowsy, bowed his head against the wind, but set his arms hard to hold himself. The ache of cold in his ears grew worse, the bell’s clangour fainter to him.

Ray lifted his head and looked around again, saw what he thought was a bobbing light far away over his left shoulder, then it disappeared. He kept his eyes on the spot, however, and the light reappeared.

He gathered himself and shouted: “
Hello-o!
”

He got no answer, but at least he heard no motor, which was a fact in favour of his being heard. Or was this a buoy with a light instead of a bell? Now, far behind the light, something that looked like a vaporetto was moving in the Lido’s direction, but for hailing purposes, it might as well have been a million miles away.

“
Hello—o! Soccorso!
” he yelled toward the light. He was sure it was moving now. Ray’s lightless buoy swung and banged its bell, warning boats away. He could not tell in which direction the light was moving, obliquely towards or from him. “
Soccorso
!” His throat felt raw from cold and salt.