Forth into Light (The Peter & Charlie Trilogy) (9 page)

“No. Everybody’s free at birth to share in the blessings of private enterprise.”

“No, but seriously. Is that sort of thing usual here?”

“A lot of kids work, if that’s what you mean.”

“But doesn’t it bother you?”

“Oh, come off it, Mike,” Sarah interjected. Reasons for wanting this reunion to be a success were beginning to preoccupy her. She was impatient of the least sign of discord. “Don’t start theorizing until you know something about the place.”

Memories of college days drifted through Leighton’s mind. He and Mike organizing meetings, drawing up petitions. What had they been about? Antiwar? Pro-war? Definitely socialistic. Mike had had firm and dogmatic opinions about everything and George had welcomed them as revelation. Life had taught him to be more pragmatic and tolerant. Should he be shocked that a ten-year-old be allowed to earn his living? He took a sidelong glance at Mike, dark, slim, stylish—frivolous was a word that came easily to mind—and wondered if he really cared. He wondered, too, with a wrench of regret and misgiving, if it were possible to recapture the old easy intimacy.

They left the controversial child still struggling with the luggage and strolled down around the
quai
toward the new hotel.

“What happened to the twentieth century?” Mike inquired. “Look at all these quaint beasts of burden. Don’t you have any cars or trucks?”

“Dear God, no,” Sarah exclaimed.

“But how do you go anywhere?”

“Go anywhere? We walk—or take a boat.”

“Farewell, mechanized world. Not that I’m not tempted to get out at times myself. If only I could afford to.”

“Afford to!” George protested. “You must make in a month what we spend in a year.”

“That is a secret between me and my tax man. But don’t forget my precious wives. They must be provided for in a manner to which I never intended to accustom them.”

George laughed. “I suppose there’s something to be said for sticking it out with only one.”

“Definitely. But not everyone is lucky enough to find Sarah.” He and Sarah bowed to each other with mock formality.

Sarah was struggling toward a decision. The invitation was explicit at last. He had come out with it just before George had found them together on the rocks. He would be at home alone all afternoon. The risk had seemed too great for her to accept even though she felt incapable of refusing when she was close to him. Mike’s arrival changed everything. George would be safely occupied; she might not get another such opportunity for weeks or months. She couldn’t go on living with this obsession. Just once with him would free her of it. He was only a body.

They chatted as they strolled, hugging the sides of buildings for whatever shade they could find. Mike’s voice was lighter than George remembered and made everything he said sound rather trivial and superficial. Was there something slightly effeminate about him? No, that was probably the effect of his new elegance. He worked in the theater; some of its artificiality was bound to rub off.

They turned into an interior street on the level that formed the floor of the great amphitheater of the town. Houses rose all around them, but the sun almost obliterated them, flattening them out and destroying perspective so that the effect was of a glaring white wall from which the eye shrank.

“Is your house near here?” Mike asked.

George pointed up and to the left. “Up in there. You can see part of it from here, but I wouldn’t be able to pick it out for you.”

“Good God. You have to
walk
up there?”

George laughed. “I remember when we were in New York we used to walk all over the whole damn city. There was a question of carfare.”

“I suppose we did. We must’ve been younger in those days.”

George looked at him and smiled. Perhaps they would strike the right note yet. The few casual words had sent memories crowding through his mind of that brief period before Sarah, just after they had escaped from the army and were discovering New York together, memories of the tiny apartment they shared over a drugstore, memories of girls, some of them shared too, memories of Mike still with a New England rawness on him, gawky in badly cut clothes, but with the flippantly abrasive humor that had made him seem older and more experienced than himself. Mike had been the leader. A residue of that element in their relationship colored George’s response now, strengthening and reassuring him, as if his friend’s presence might resolve the conflicts—yes, it was not too strong a word—that were destroying him.

They crossed the walled patio of the hotel and came to a halt at the desk. Mike looked around him. “My God. This is Greece? It looks like something out of Santa Monica.”

George took in the familiar lobby with astonishment. They had all been rather proud of the new hotel. It had a private bath with every room, flush toilets, box springs on the beds, and all sorts of unfamiliar luxuries. For the first time, he wondered what Mike would think of their house. He counted on the house to offer irrefutable proof of the felicity of their life here. He slapped the desk and called impatiently for the manager who shuffled out from some nether region. The deference with which he was greeted mollified him.

“I told the donkey boy to arrange everything. Your bags are in your room,” he explained to Mike. “You better go get out of some of that finery before you melt.”

“Good. I’ll pop into my island drag and be right with you.”

A maid appeared and led him away and the Leightons stood with the manager while George impressed upon him the importance of this guest. He invented vast sums purporting to be Mike’s income from Broadway and Hollywood. This might result in his bill being padded, but at least he would get whatever service the hotel was capable of providing. Even as he did it, it struck him as absurd that even he should feel the need of pampering the celebrated Michael Cochran. What difference did it make if he was slightly uncomfortable for one night? It was absurd, too, that he should be pleased by the luster his friend’s celebrity would add to his status on the island, but there was no denying that it counted.

In a few minutes, Mike returned resplendent and immaculately white in fine linen slacks and a sports shirt of some rich loosely woven stuff. He wore sandals on his carefully tended feet. He looked as clipped, trimmed, pruned and polished as a fashion model. There was no real reason why a writer shouldn’t look like that, George conceded to himself, but generally they didn’t. Mike wasn’t a writer, anyway, but a specialist in popular entertainment.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

“I’ll survive. You might tell your friend here that there’s no hot water.”

“I’m afraid he knows. They only turn it on in the morning.”

A frown crossed Mike’s face. “Ah, well, the Greeks doubtless invented plumbing so I suppose we must be grateful to them.”

“I told you you should’ve stayed with us. You could’ve had hot water morning, noon, and night.” He was glad to establish this fact for the record, although they never turned the water heater on during the hot months.

“Would you tell them to have a thermos of ice left in the room?”

“You go too far, Cochran.”

“You don’t have
ice
here?”

“Certainly. But you don’t put it in your drinks. Not if you want to survive.”

“Why not?”

“Ice is made with water,” George explained. “The only water we have is rainwater. The icehouse uses any liquid they can get their hands on. There are ugly rumors that they pee in it.”

“You mean if it doesn’t rain, you do without water?”

“That’s about it. We’re closely geared to nature here. It’s quite interesting, nature, but I suppose you’ve eliminated it from your scheme of things.”

“In the United States, which you seem to have eliminated from
your
scheme of things, we’ve learned to control nature. That’s interesting too.”

“Air conditioning!” Sarah exclaimed distractedly, aware of a sharp edge in the exchange. “It must be so strange not to know what it’s like outside.”

“Strangely wonderful. What I wouldn’t give for a little air conditioning right now.”

They set out once more under the blazing sun. George led the way through narrow streets which rose gently, broken by occasional steps. They moved through a dazzle of white, white walls, white streets. Even the boulders which thrust up here and there, forcing the street to detour around them, were washed with white. As they approached the house, he felt the excitement building up in him irrationally. Why should he care whether Mike liked the house? They reached the dark-green door in the high wall and he had an odd sensation of intense exhilaration mingled with dread, like a child opening a Christmas present, as he pushed the door back and stood aside to let Mike enter the paved oasis of trellised vines and citrus trees and glowing bougainvillaea which obscured the outlines of the whitewashed house.

“Well, this is more like it,” Mike said as he stood and looked around him.

Leighton exhaled a long breath of relief and felt the thrill of pride he always experienced when he showed a newcomer the house. Six years ago this court had been a weed-choked yard, the house a weatherstained ruin. He had done much of the heavy labor himself, which probably added to its value in his eyes. The place was the one element in his life about which he could feel total confidence. “I’ll fix us a drink and then show you around if you’d like.”

A bottle of ouzo had been set out on the table under the vines, and a thermos of ice-water. He poured them drinks, allowing himself a stiff one—he had had nothing but beer so far—and lifted his glass to Mike.

“Well, here you are,” he said, feeling that now at last they could really get through to each other. “Welcome.”

“If the rest of it’s anything like this, it’s gorgeous,” Mike said, raising his glass in turn. “I do hope I don’t start envying you.”

“Come along. As a matter of fact, the tour is compulsory.”

They went through the lower rooms, rich with polished woods and gleaming brasses, the walls lined with books and pictures, the floors of stone or tile, the ceilings of intricately patterned wood characteristic of the island. They went upstairs to the wide, awninged terrace which commanded a sweeping view of the town above and the port below and the encircling sea. They completed the tour in Leighton’s big workroom on the top floor.

“Well, you’ve certainly done yourself proud,” Mike admitted. The house had completed his discomfiture. He had come to perform a rescue operation, to pick up the pieces of George Leighton and send them home. The drunken derelict he had been told to expect was in aggressive good spirits and apparent good health, emanating self-confidence and prosperity. He had been prepared to offer a substantial loan if necessary, but George was living like a king. In Hollywood or around New York, a comparable house would cost over a hundred thousand dollars. It diminished his own achievements, threw into question the validity of the course he had followed, stirred unfamiliar guilt about the sacrifices and compromises he had been obliged to make. It was disconcerting. He was determined now to find the flaw beneath this apparently untroubled surface—the flaw that lay buried in every life—and expose it so that even George would be forced to acknowledge it. He wouldn’t want to leave until he had done so. “What I don’t understand,” he said, “is how you afford it. I’ve never been able to hold on to any loot.”

“Neither have I.”

“Oh, come on. I know you’ve made a pot, but Hanscombe told me what your last couple of books have done. You haven’t been living on them.”

“Of course I have. You don’t realize—if we really pay attention we can live here for about a hundred and fifty dollars a month.”

“You’re kidding. I couldn’t keep my dogs for that.”

George cursed his habit of truth. Modesty wasn’t the line for this new Mike. “I said we could,” he pointed out. “I didn’t say we do.”

“All right. Then what’s the trick?”

George felt his grip tightening on his glass. Why couldn’t the damn fool let well enough alone? Couldn’t he conceive that a man might go on struggling to give the best of himself even though the rewards constantly diminished? He thought of the stolen money and almost hurled his glass against the wall. He was being hemmed in, his very survival threatened. And Mike sat looking cool and elegant, talking about what it cost to keep his dogs.

“For one thing, I’ve never cared all that much about money,” he said carefully, amazed that he sounded so calm. “That’s something you’re bound to remember, even though your attitude has changed. It’s pretty old-fashioned of me, but I still don’t believe in the money-success standard.”

“That’s one in the eye for old Mike. Of course, you’ve got rich parents.”

“That might make a difference. I suppose in the back of my mind the fact that someday I’ll have a steady income relieves some of the pressure, even though I can’t count on it for another fifteen or twenty years.”

“Well, since we’re having this moment of truth, I’ll tell you straight, Cosmo. I’ve been more or less commissioned by Hanscombe to bring you back alive.”

“Oh, Christ. Is that why you’re here? What does Hanscombe care? He gets my books regularly.”

“That’s not necessarily enough. Hanscombe makes no bones about it. He thinks at the rate you’re going you won’t have any public at all in a few more years.”

“Hanscombe seems to’ve been shooting his mouth off a good deal.”

“He’s just thinking of your interests. Hell, you could make a good living at home. There’re all sorts of possibilities for a prestige writer like you. Your name would mean something on the lecture circuit. If you were back where people could see you, even the movies would probably use you.”

“When am I supposed to do my work?”

“Ah, yes. The dedicated artist. There’s nothing wrong with reaching a popular audience. Even Shakespeare was a hack. What’s special about you?” As he asked the question, Mike knew there
was
something special about him. There was an undeniable aura that clung to his name out of all proportion to Mike’s evaluation of his accomplishments. If this weren’t true, if Leighton didn’t figure among the nation’s cultural assets, Mike wouldn’t have come. Failure embarrassed him. “I’ll tell you frankly I think you’re missing something. Your stuff’s getting remote. People want to be socked between the eyes these days. If you got back into the world, you’d feel it. I suppose it’s a matter of losing touch.”