“I can’t wait. He wants to lighten it really but we were afraid you might not like it.”
“The sun and the salt water lighten it.”
“This would be much fairer. He said he could make it as fair as Scandinavian. Think how that would be with our dark skin. And we could make yours lighter too.”
“No. I’d feel funny.”
“Who do you know here that makes any difference? You’d get lighter swimming all summer anyway.”
He did not say anything and she said, “You won’t have to. We’ll just do mine and maybe you’ll want to. We can see.
“Don’t make plans, Devil. Tomorrow I’ll get up very early and work and you sleep as late as you can.
“Then write for me too,” she said. “No matter if it’s where I’ve been bad put in how much I love you.
“I’m nearly up to now.
“Can you publish it or would it be bad to?”
“I’ve only tried to write it.”
“Can I ever read it?”
“If I ever get it right.”
“I’m so proud of it already and we won’t have any copies for
sale and none for reviewers and then there’ll never be clippings and you’ll never be self conscious and we’ll always have it just for us.”
David Bourne woke when it was light and put on shorts and a shirt and went outside. The breeze had died. The sea was calm and the day smelled of the dew and the pines. He walked bare footed across the flagstones of the terrace to the room at the far end of the long house and went in and sat down at the table where he worked. The windows had been open overnight and the room was cool and full of early morning promise.
He was writing about the road from Madrid to Zaragossa and the rising and falling of the road as they came at speed into the country of the red buttes and the little car on the then dusty road picked up the Express train and Catherine passed it gently car by car, the tender, and then the engineer and fireman, and finally the nose of the engine, and then she shifted as the road switched left and the train disappeared into a tunnel.
“I had it,” she had said. “But it went to ground. Tell me if I can get it again.”
He had looked at the Michelin map and said, “Not for a while.”
“I’ll let it go then and we’ll see the country.” As the road climbed there were poplar trees along the river and the road climbed steeply and he felt the car accept it and then Catherine shift again happily as it flattened the steep grade.
Later, when he heard her voice in the garden, he stopped writing. He locked the suitcase with the cahiers of manuscript and went out locking the door after him. The girl would use the pass key to clean the room.
Catherine was sitting at breakfast on the terrace. There was a red-and-white checked cloth on the table. She wore her old Grau
du Roi striped shirt fresh-washed and shrunk now and much faded, new gray flannel slacks, and espadrilles.
“Hello,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep late.”
“You look lovely.” “Thank you. I feel lovely.” “Where did you get those slacks?”
“I had them made in Nice. By a good tailor. Are they all right?”
“They’re very well cut. They just look new. Are you going to wear them into town?”
“Not town. Cannes in the off season. Everybody will next year. People are wearing our shirts now. They’re no good with skirts. You don’t mind do you?”
“Not at all. They look right. They just looked so well creased.”
After breakfast while David shaved and showered and then pulled on a pair of old flannels and a fisherman’s shirt and found his espadrilles Catherine put on a blue linen shirt with an open collar and a heavy white linen skirt.
“We’re better this way. Even if the slacks are right for here they’re too show-off for this morning. We’ll save them.”
It was very friendly and offhand at the coiffeur’s but very professional. Monsieur Jean, who was about David’s age and looked more Italian than French, said, “I will cut it as she asks. Do you agree, Monsieur?”