She said nothing: if she even heard him she made no sign of it.
“I don’t ask so much of you, do I?” he appealed. Her eyes flickered in his direction. “Well, do I?”
Eventually, she deigned to reply. When she did her voice was so quiet Marty could barely catch the words. “Aren’t you ashamed?” she asked him.
“There are worse things, Carys, than having somebody need you; believe me.”
“I know,” she replied, taking her eyes off him. There was such pain, and such submission in the face of that pain, in those two words: I know. It made Marty suddenly sick with longing for her; to touch her, to try to heal the anonymous hurt. Whitehead crossed the room and came to sit beside her on the edge of the bed. Marty stepped back from the door, fearful of being spotted, but Whitehead’s attention was concentrated on the enigma in front of him.
“What do you know?” he asked her. The former gentility had suddenly evaporated. “Are you keeping something from me?”
“Just dreams,” she replied. “More and more.”
“Of what?”
“You know. The same.”
“Your mother?”
Carys nodded, almost invisibly. “And others,” she said. Who?”
“They never show themselves.”
The old man sighed, and looked away from her. “And in the dreams?” he asked. “What happens?”
“She tries to speak to me. She tries to tell me something.”
Whitehead didn’t inquire further: he seemed to be out of questions. His shoulders had slumped. Carys looked at him, sensing his defeat.
“Where is she, Papa?” she asked him, leaning forward for the first time and putting an arm around his neck. It was a blatantly manipulative gesture; she offered this intimacy only to get what she wanted from him. How much had she offered, or he taken, in their time together? Her face came close to his; the late-afternoon light enchanted it. “Tell me, Papa,” she asked again, “where do you think she is?” and this time Marty grasped the taunt that lay beneath the apparently innocent question. What it signified, he didn’t know. What this whole scene, with its talk of coldness and shame, meant, was far from clear. He was glad, in a way, not to know. But this question, that she asked him so mock-lovingly, had been asked-and he had to wait a moment longer, until the old man had answered it. “Where is she, Papa?”
“In dreams,” he replied, his face averted from her. “Just in dreams.”
She dropped her arm from his shoulder.
“Never lie to me,” she charged him icily.
“It’s all I can tell you,” he replied; his tone was almost pitiable. “If you know more than I do-” He turned and looked at her, his voice urgent. “Do you know something?”
“Oh, Papa,” she murmured reproachfully, “more conspiracies?” How many feints and counterfeints were there in this exchange? Marty puzzled. “You don’t suspect me now, surely?”
Whitehead frowned. “No, never you, darling,” he said. “Never you.”
He raised his hand to her face and leaned forward to put his dry lips to hers. Before they touched, Marty left the door and slipped away.
There were some things he couldn’t bring himself to watch.
25
Cars began to arrive at the house in the early evening. There were voices Marty recognized in the hallway. It would be the usual crowd, he guessed; among them the Fan-Dancer and his comrades; Ottaway, Curtsinger and Dwoskin. He heard women’s voices too. They’d brought their wives, or their mistresses. He wondered what kind of women they were. Once beautiful, now sour and lovelorn. Bored with their husbands, no doubt, who thought more of money-making than of them. He caught whiffs of their laughter, and later, of their perfume, in the hallway. He’d always had a good sense of smell. Saul would be proud of him.
About eight-fifteen he went into the kitchen and heated up the plate of ravioli Pearl had left for him, then retired into the library to watch a few boxing videos. The events of the afternoon still niggled him. Try as he might he couldn’t remove Carys from his head, and his emotional state, over which he had so little control, irritated him. Why couldn’t he be like Flynn, who bought a woman for the night, then walked away the next morning? Why did his feelings always become blurred, so that he couldn’t sort one from the other? On the television set the match was getting bloodier, but he scarcely registered the punishment or the victory. His mind was conjuring Carys’ sealed face as she lay on the bed, probing it, looking for explanations.