“Except for the fact that I feel I’ve probably done a great wrong to you that I must try to set right I feel very well,” Catherine said. “That was one reason I was going to Paris. I didn’t want to tell you.”
“Let’s not discuss casualties,” David said. “So you want to go on the train?”
“No. I want to go in the Bug.”
“All right. Go in the Bug. Just drive carefully and don’t pass on hills.”
“I’ll drive the way you taught me and I’ll pretend you’re with me all the time and talk to you and tell us stories and make up stories about how I saved your life. I always make those up. And with you it will all seem so much shorter and effortless and the speed won’t seem fast. I’m going to have fun.”
“Good,” said David. “Take it as easy as you can. Sleep at Nimes the first night unless you get off early. They know us at the Imperator.”
“I thought I’d get to Carcassonne.”
“No, Devil, please.”
“Perhaps I can get off early and make Carcassonne. I’d go by Aries and Montpellier and not lose time by Nimes.”
“If you get off late stop at Nimes.”
“It seems so babyish,” she said.
“I’ll drive with you,” he said. “I should.”
“No, please. It’s important that I do this by myself. It really is. I wouldn’t have you.”
“All right,” he said. “But I ought to go.”
“Please don’t. You must have confidence in me, David. I’ll drive carefully and I’ll drive it right straight through.”
“You couldn’t, Devil. It gets dark early now.
“You mustn’t worry. You’re sweet to let me go,” Catherine said. “But you always did. If I did anything I shouldn’t I hope
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you can forgive me. I’ll miss you terribly. I miss you already. Next time we’ll drive it together.”
“You’ve had a very busy day,” David said. “You’re tired. At least let me run your Bugatti down to town and back and give it a check.”
He stopped at Marita’s door and said, “Do you want to go for a ride?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Come on then,” he told her.
Chapter Twenty – seven DAVID GOT INTO THE CAR and Marita climbed in beside him and he put the car at a stretch of road where the sand drifted across from the beach and then throttled back and held it in, watching the papyrus grass ahead on his left and the empty beach and the sea on his right as he saw the black road ahead. He put the car at the road again until he saw the white painted bridge coming at him fast then held his speed as he calculated the distance, raised his foot from the throttle and pumped the brakes gently. She was steady and lost momentum at each pump with no devia tion and no binding. He brought the car to a stop before the bridge, downshifted and then put her at the road again in a rising disciplined snarl along the N.6 to Cannes. “She burned them all,” he said. “Oh David,” Marita said and they drove on into Cannes where the lights were on now and David stopped the car under the trees in front of the cafe where they had first met. “Wouldn’t you rather go somewhere else?” Marita asked. “I don’t care,” David said. “It doesn’t make a hell of a lot of difference.”
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“If you’d rather just drive,” Marita offered.
“No. I’d rather cool out,” David said. “I just wanted to see if the car was in shape for her to drive it.”
“She’s going?”
“She says so.”
They were sitting at the table on the terrace in the dappled shadow of the leaves of the trees. The waiter had brought Marita a Tio Pepe and David a whiskey and Perrier.
“Do you want me to go with her?” Marita said.
“You don’t really think anything will happen to her?”
“No, David. I think she’s done her damage for a while.”
“Could be,” David said. “She burned every fucking thing except the narrative. The stuff about her.”
“It’s a wonderful narrative,” Marita said.