When he had finished work and gone down to join them, Thomas Hudson was still thinking about the painting and he said “Hi” to the girl and then looked away from her. Then he looked back.
“I couldn’t help hearing it,” he said. “Or overhearing it. I’m glad we’re old friends.”
“So am I. Did you know?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Let’s get lunch. Are you dry, Audrey?”
“I’ll change in the shower,” she said. “I have a shirt and the skirt to this.”
“Tell Joseph and Eddy that we’re ready,” Thomas Hudson said to young Tom. “I’ll show you the shower, Audrey.”
Roger went into the house.
“I thought I shouldn’t be here under false pretenses,” Audrey said.
“You weren’t.”
“Don’t you think I could be any good for him?”
“You might. What he needs is to work well to save his soul. I don’t know anything about souls. But he misplaced his the first time he went out to the Coast.”
“But he’s going to write a novel now. A great novel.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“It was in one of the columns. Cholly Knickerbocker, I think.”
“Oh,” Thomas Hudson said. “Then it must be true.”
“Don’t you truly think I might be good for him?”
“You might.”
“There are some complications.”
“There always are.”
“Should I tell you now?”
“No,” Thomas Hudson said. “You better get dressed and comb your hair and get up there. He might meet some other woman while he was waiting.”
“You weren’t like this in the old days. I thought you were the kindest man I ever knew.”
“I’m awfully sorry, Audrey. And I’m glad you’re here.”
“We are old friends, aren’t we?”
“Sure,” he said. “Change and fix yourself up and get up there.”
He looked away from the girl and she shut the door of the shower. He did not know what made him feel as he did. But the happiness of the summer began to drain out of him as when the tide changes on the flats and the ebb begins in the channel that opens out to sea. He watched the sea and the line of beach and he noticed that the tide had changed and the shore birds were working busily well down the slope of new wet sand. The breakers were diminishing as they receded. He looked a long way up along the shore and then went into the house.
XIII
They had a fine time the last few days. It was as good as any of the time before and there was no pre-going sadness. The yacht left and Audrey took a room over the Ponce de León. But she stayed at the house and slept on a cot on the sleeping porch at the far end of the house and used the guest room.
She did not say anything again about being in love with Roger. All Roger said to Thomas Hudson about her was, “She’s married to some sort of a son of a bitch.”
“You couldn’t expect her to wait all her life for you, could you?”
“At least he’s a son of a bitch.”
“Aren’t they always? You’ll find he has his nice side.”
“He’s rich.”
“That’s probably his nice side,” Thomas Hudson said. “They’re always married to some son of a bitch and he always has some tremendously nice side.”
“All right,” Roger said. “Let’s not talk about it.”
“You’re going to do the book, aren’t you?”
“Sure. That’s what she wants me to do.”
“Is that why you’re going to do it?”
“Shove it, Tom,” Roger told him.
“Do you want to use the Cuba House? It’s only a shack. But you’d be away from people.”
“No. I want to go West.”
“The Coast?”
“No. Not the Coast. Could I stay at the ranch for a while?”
“There’s only the one cabin that’s on the far beach. I rented the rest.”
“That would be fine.”
The girl and Roger took long walks on the beach and swam together and with the boys. The boys went bone-fishing and took Audrey bone-fishing and goggle-fishing on the reef. Thomas Hudson worked hard and all the time he was working and the boys were out on the flats he had the good feeling that they would be home soon and they would be having supper or dinner together. He was worried when they were goggle-fishing but he knew Roger and Eddy would make them be careful. One time they all went trolling for a full day up to the furthest light at the end of the bank and had a wonderful day with bonito and dolphin and three big wahoo. He painted a canvas of a wahoo with his strange flattened head and his stripes around his long speed-built body for Andy, who had caught the biggest one. He painted him against a background of the big spider-legged lighthouse with the summer clouds and the green of the banks.