“Yes,” she said. “You wait for me. I won’t be very long.”
When she came back to the room David was not there and she stood a long time and looked at the bed and then went to the bathroom door and opened it and stood and looked in the long mirror. Her face had no expression and she looked at herself from her head down to her feet with no expression on her face at all. The light was nearly gone when she went into the bathroom and shut the door behind her.
Chapter Thirteen
DAVID DROVE up from Cannes in the dusk. The wind had fallen and he left the car in the usual place and walked up the path to where the light came out onto the patio and the garden. Marita came out of the doorway and walked toward him.
“Catherine feels terribly,” she said. “Please be kind to her.”
“The hell with both of you,” David said. “With me, yes. But not with her. You mustn’t, David.” “Don’t tell me what I must and what I mustn’t.” “Don’t you want to take care of her?”
“Not particularly.”
“I do.”
“You certainly have.”
“Don’t be a fool,” she said. “You’re not a fool. I tell you this is serious.”
“Where is she?”
“In there waiting for you.
David went in the door. Catherine was sitting at the empty bar.
“Hello,” she said. “They didn’t bring the mirror. “Hello, Devil,” he said. “I’m sorry I was late.” He was shocked at the dead way she looked and at her toneless voice.
“I thought you’d gone away,” she said.
“Didn’t you see I hadn’t taken anything?”
“I didn’t look. You wouldn’t need to take anything to go away.
“No,” David said. “I just went into town.
“Oh,” she said and looked at the wall.
“The wind’s dropping,” he said. “It will be a good day tomorrow.
“I don’t care about tomorrow.
“Sure you do.”
“No I don’t. Don’t ask me to.”
“I won’t ask you to,” he said. “Have you had a drink?”
“I’ll make one.”
“It won’t do any good.”
“It might. We’re still us.” He was making the drink and she watched him mechanically as he stirred and then poured into the glasses.
“Put in the garlic olive,” she said.
He handed her one of the glasses and lifted his and touched it against hers. “Here s to us.
She poured her glass out on the bar and looked at it flow along the wood. Then she picked up the olive and put it in her mouth. “There isn’t any us,” she said. “Not anymore.
David took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the bar and made another drink.
“It’s all shit,” Catherine said. David handed her the drink and she looked at it and then poured it on the bar. David mopped it up again and wrung out his handkerchief. Then he drank his own martini and made two more.
“This one you drink,” he said. “Just drink it.”
“Just drink,” she said. She lifted the glass and said, “Here’s to you and your god damned handkerchief.”
She drank the glass off and then held it, looking at it, and David was sure that she was going to throw it in his face. Then she put it down and picked the garlic olive out of it and ate it very carefully and handed David the pit.
“Semi-precious stone,” she said. “Put it in your pocket. I’ll have another one if you’ll make it.
“But drink this one slowly.”
“Oh I’m quite all right now,” Catherine said. “You probably won’t notice the difference. I’m sure it happens to everybody.”
“Do you feel better?”
“Much better really. You just lose something and it’s gone that’s all. All we lose was all that we had. But we get some more. There’s no problem is there?”
“Are you hungry?”
“No. But I’m sure everything will be all right. You said it would didn’t you?”
“Of course it will.”
“I wish I could remember what it was we lost. But it doesn’t matter does it? You said it didn’t matter.”
“No.”
“Then let’s be cheerful. It’s just gone whatever it was.”