Chapter 16

MARIE STOPPED AND STOOD in front of my table on her long legs, smiling. There was a constant tremor in her smile. She had on just blue jeans and a cotton shirt. No underpants, no bra. But what her body did to blue jeans and a cotton shirt made them look like something else.

“Hi there! Mind if I sit down?”

I pushed a chair out with my foot. “Help yourself. Watching you come over here, I understand why they call you Sweet Marie.”

She blushed. “That’s sweet. Thanks. But I don’t feel very sweet right now. Actually, they call me that because I say the word sweet a lot. Just like now I did.” She must have been all of 22.

“What’s on your mind?” I said.

“I wanted to apologize. I’ve been thinking about you all afternoon since I met you, and I guess I seemed awfully distant out there today, and I’m sorry.”

“Don’t give it a thought.”

“But I couldn’t get you out of my mind. You seem to like skindiving so much, and you seemed to know so much about it. Why don’t you do more of it?”

“You have to be where there’s water.”

“You could do it here.”

“Not in shape. About the time I got back in shape for it, I’d be leaving.”

Behind us at the tall man’s table there was a sudden explosion of loud argument. Both of us turned to look, in time to see the older woman get to her feet shouting. The tall man casually got to his feet too, but without talking.

The woman continued to shout. The words “fucking son of a bitch,” in female voice, came out clear from amongst the gabble. Then the woman drew back and punched him in the side of the head with all her strength. She did not look like any weakling, but it didn’t even faze him. Shouting, the woman collected the girl, her daughter, who had been sitting and wringing her hands, and marched her off across the gravel to the path. The tall man sat back down calmly and picked up his drink.

“She ought to pick on somebody her own size,” I said. “Who is that guy?”

“Oh, that’s just Pete,” Marie said. “Don’t you know him? That’s a weird story. He came here the tail end of last summer, all alone. No friends. He had quite a bit of loot. He met her and the daughter, and started balling the mother. The mother liked the loot. The daughter was just a kid. Then the daughter suddenly grew up. Meantime, he spent the loot. And the old lady got drunk in all the bars with the fishermen. And Pete started balling the daughter. Now the old lady has found this other fisherman who has money, apparently. But she doesn’t want to let Pete have the daughter, anyway.”

“And Pete has descended to being a hash runner for some of the local talent,” I said. I remembered him now. “Georgina mentioned him to me. Georgina tells me everything about everybody.”

Marie smiled at me. “What did she tell you about me?”

“Well,” I said, drawling it. “You’re a hash runner yourself. For Girgis. In the summer season. You sell the fish you catch. You make enough to live. You stayed here all last winter.” I stopped, and didn’t go on. “That’s all.”

“That’s all she told you?”

“All I seem to remember.”

“She didn’t tell you I’d slept with everybody on the island? Boys and girls alike? And in gangs and groups?”

“I don’t seem to remember that.”

“I think you’re just being sweet to me, Mr. Davies.”

“What’s wrong with being sweet to you?”

“Nothing. I’m just not so used to it, is all.” She went on smiling, and it was an easy, unforced smile. “Anyway, that’s the way they usually say it.” In fact, her wording had been almost exactly Chantal’s wording. “And the thing is, that’s all true. Or close enough. It’s awful, isn’t it?”

“Pretty big rep to hold up.”

She shrugged, and just smiled. “Well, the locals help me out a lot.”

“I’m more interested in this hash running you do.”

“Oh, that’s nothing much. I know most of the students—”

“Are they all students?”

“No. Some are. And Girgis has a thing about not being seen with what he calls heepies. So I deliver for him. And he pays me a good bit.”

“And Kirk supplies him?”

“Yes. In the summertime. There’s a much greater demand in the summer with all the kids here. Girgis brings it in himself when he can, but he has a lot of other work to do with the tourists. So Kirk brings it in in the Agoraphobe.”

“Nice straightforward way of making a little money.”

“It is.” Marie smiled that easy, but always tremulous smile. “But I’m more interested in you. You know, you ought to do it a lot more. Diving, I mean. Why don’t you do it all the time?”

“You’re the second person today to tell me that.”

“I mean it. I mean, why don’t you quit your job, whatever it is—as a detective—and just go skindive? If you love it so much.”

“Responsibilities,” I said laconically.

“You’re married?”

“Wife and two kids.”

“Well, at least you’re married and have kids.” There was an open sad look on her face, suddenly. She was as incapable of hiding her feelings, apparently, as she was of not feeling them. “That’s a lot. Don’t knock it.”

“Except I don’t even have that.”

“Divorced.”

“Yeah. But I still got to pay.” I smiled my rueful smile. “You wouldn’t want me not to put my two girls through school?”

“You’ve got two girls?” Then, as I nodded, “You know, you probably won’t believe this—and it’ll probably make you mad—but one of the reasons I couldn’t get you out of my mind after I saw you today is that you made me think of my father. I bet that makes you mad.”

I pursed up my mouth in mock pain. “Well, not really. Was your old man a cop, you mean?”

“I’m glad you’re not mad. No, no. Not that. He wasn’t a cop.”

“Well, that’s something to be thankful for,” I said.

“It wasn’t because you were a cop. It was just your—your you, the you I was talking to, made me think of him.” Suddenly her mouth quivered. “You really made me think of my daddy so much, Mr. Davies. And just suddenly it all came flooding back.” Her mouth made that quiver again. “I’m from California. But my folks come from Iowa.” Her voice went off up higher, nearly broke. “And it just came roaring back. My dad, and the house, and the yard, and the block, and the kids on the block, and my school, and—I haven’t had you off my mind since I saw you.” She dashed her hand quickly under first one eye then the other.

“Here, now, here, now,” I said. I had been warming to this girl very swiftly. Suddenly I had a flutter of panic. “What is this, some new kind of a come-on?”

“That’s not very sweet, Mr. Davies,” Marie said. She managed a tremulous smile.

Her face seemed to have split wide open right in front of me. She was letting everything all hang out, as the kids loved to say.

Either this girl was living daily just an inch from going over the edge at every second, or she was driving on a set of frayed retreads for nerves, or she was capable of turning herself on and off like a faucet for reasons of her own.

“You’re right,” I said. “It’s not. I apologize. The truth is, I am old enough to be your father. Give or take a year.”

“Something about your eyes, that level way you look at everybody, it’s so like the way my dad looked at people.” She shrugged suddenly, a large wild shrug. “I’ve been going over and over my life ever since. Whatever happened to it. How it got in the mess it’s in. Gee, I don’t know.”

“Is it in a mess?”

“You see that boy over there? With the glasses? The one I’m with? I’m living with him. This month. This week. This twenty-four hour period. They call him Slow John. You know why? Acid. Too much acid, too long. He’s very rich. And he’s an amoeba. He picked me up here this summer, when he first arrived. He’s got lots of money. So what. I know one day, sooner or later, he’ll up and leave—when Tsatsos bores him, or some other stimulus moves him in some other direction.”

“Are you in love with him?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. What does it matter? What difference does that make? That’s the wrong question. He doesn’t love me. He doesn’t love anybody. He can’t. He’s an amoeba. And he’s too worried about his spiritual welfare. And his money. He loves him. And I’ll still be here on Tsatsos. And sometimes I wonder where it all went. What happened to it all? I used to think it was such fun. How did it wind up like this? If it wasn’t for my skindiving sometimes I’d—

“Besides—”

“Whoa, whoa,” I said.

She paid no attention. “Besides, he’s an orgiast. That’s the only way he can get it up. He likes more than one girl. Okay. That’s all right. All that’s fine. I’ve been around a lot. A lot, Mr. Davies. But a time comes in your life when you get tired of all that fun and games shit and you want something else. And you wonder where did it all go?”

She stopped. Finally. And I was silent, too. Stunned by her outburst. “I don’t know anything to tell you,” I said in a low voice finally. “If you’re asking me. I wonder the same thing sometimes myself. Where did it all go? None of it turned out like you wanted it to, like you imagined it. But I don’t have any answer. I don’t know what to tell you.”

The girl dashed her hand across her eyes again. “Gee, I didn’t mean to bend your ear like this. I don’t know what happened to me. That something about your eyes. I’m really sorry. I guess that’s what you get for making me think of my dad.”

“Would you like to go somewhere and talk about it?”

“No. No, I can’t. I really can’t. But you’re sweet to ask me. I just can’t. He’s sitting over there. Old Slow John.” She gave me a long look, and then suddenly reached across and squeezed my hand with both of hers. “I really can’t. But would you mind if I came and talked to you some more sometime while you’re here? You sort of do me good.”

I gave her a long look back. “Not if it will help.”

“God, am I getting incestuous in my old age?” Marie tossed her hair back, and laughed but it sounded hollow. “You won’t mind if I come look you up?” She got up, dashing her hand across her eyes again. I realized suddenly that everything had been said between us in extremely low voices, just like an ordinary conversation. I was surprised.

“I’m really sorry,” she said. “Please excuse me.”

I made a gesture. “That’s why I have big shoulders.”

“My daddy used to say that to me, Oh, gee. You really—Well, bye.” And off she went, in her long-legged, half-coltish walk.

I sat and looked at my drink.

It was as if a tornado had passed. There was always a great calm after, and quiet, but it was a calm full of screaming nerves and broken teeth and limbs, and downed trees, and peoples’ smashed houses and cars and heads, and always there was an ambulance wailing in the distance: Somebody’s hurt. That was the kind of calm it was.

Suddenly I puffed out my lips. I puffed them out again and let my breath out through them in a long sigh. I was feeling pretty beat up, pretty much a failure. Pretty powerless to help anyone. Pretty old.