the garage, so I know you're hereV In here, doll, he called, and she
stood in the doorway and they grinned at each other. She had put on
weight again, he saw, straining the seam of her skirt, and her bosom was
bulky and amorphous under the scarlet sweater. She had finally given up
her struggle with myopia and the metal-framed spectacles sat on the end
of her little nose, while her hair fuzzed out at unexpected angles.
You're beautiful, she cried, coming to kiss him and getting soap down
her sweater as she hugged him.
Drink or coffee? she asked, and David winced at the thought of alcohol.
Coffee will be great, doll She brought it to him in a mug, then perched
on the toilet seat.
Tell all! she commanded and while they chatted the pretty dark-haired
girl wandered in, still in her pyjamas and bug-eyed from sleep.
This is my coz, David. Isn't he beautiful? Mitzi introduced them.
And this is Liz. The girl sat on the dirty linen basket in the corner
and fixed David with such an awed and penetrating gaze that Mitzi warned
her, Cool it, darling. Even from here I can hear your ovaries bouncing
around like ping-pong balls. But she was such a silent, ethereal little
thing that they soon forgot her and talked as if they were alone. It
was Mitzi who said suddenly, without preliminaries, Papa is waiting for
you, licking his lips like an ivyleague ogre. I ate with them Saturday
night, he must have brought your name up one zillion times. It's going
to be strange to have you sitting up there on Top Floor, in a charcoal
suit, being bright at Monday morning conference - David stood up
suddenly in the bath, cascading suds and steaming water, and began
soaping his crotch vigorously . They watched him with interest, the
dark-haired girl's eyes widening until they seemed to fill her face.
David sat down again, slopping water over the edge.
I'm not going! he said, and there was a long heavy silence.
What you mean, you're not going? Mitzi asked timorously.
Just that, said David. I'm not going to Morgan Group. 'But you have
toVWhy? asked David.
Well, I mean it's decided, you promised Daddy that when you finished
with the airforce. No, David said, I made no promise. He just took it.
When you said a moment ago, being bright at Monday morning conference, I
knew I couldn't do it. I guess I've known all along. What you going to
do, then? Mitzi had recovered from the first shock, and her plump
cheeks were tinged pink with excitement.
I don't know. I just know I am not going to be a caretaker for other
men's achievements. Morgan Group isn't me. It's something that Gramps,
and Dad and Uncle Paul made. It's too big and cold - Mitzi was flushed,
bright-eyed, nodding her agreement, enchanted by this prospect of
rebellion and open defiance.
David was warming to it also. I'll find my own road to go. There's
more to it. There has to be something more than this. Yes, Mitzi
nodded so that she almost shook her spectacles from her nose. You're
not like them. You would shrivel and die up there on executive suite.
I've got to find it, Mitzi. It's got to be out there somewhere. David
came out of the bath, his body glowing dull red-brown from the scalding
water and steam rising from him in light tendrils. He pulled on a Terry
robe as he talked and the two girls followed him through to the bedroom
and sat side by side on the edge of the bed, eagerly nodding their
encouragement as David Morgan made his formal declaration of
independence. Mitzi spoiled it, however.
What are you going to tell Daddy? she asked. The question halted
David's flow of rhetoric, and he scratched the hair on his chest as he
considered it. The girls waited attentively.
He's not going to let you get away again, Mitzi warned. Not without a
stand-up, knock-down, drag-emout fight. In this moment of crisis
David's courage deserted him. I've told him once, I don't have to tell
him again. 'You just going to cut and run? Mitzi asked.
I'm not running, David replied with frosty dignity as he picked up the
pigskin folder which held his thick sheaf of credit cards from the
bedside table. I am merely reserving the right to determine my own
future. He crossed to the telephone and began dialling. Who are you
calling? 'The airline. 'Where are you heading? 'The same place as
their first flight out. I'll cover for you, declared Mitzi loyally,
you're doing the right thing, warrior. You bet I am, David agreed. My
way and screw the rest of them.
Do you have time for that? Mitzi giggled, and the dark-haired girl
spoke for the first time in a husky intense voice without once taking
her eyes off David. I don't know about the rest of them, but may I be
first, please? With the telephone receiver to his ear David glanced at
her, and realized with only mild surprise that she was in deadly
earnest.
David came out into the impersonal concrete and glass arrivals hall of
Schipol Airport, and he paused to gloat on his escape and to revel at
this sense of anonymity in the uncaring crowd. There was a touch at his
elbow, and he turned to find a tall, smiling Dutchman quizzing him
through rimless spectacles.
Mr. David Morgan, I think? and David gaped at him.
I am Frederick van Gent of Holland and Indonesian Stevedoring. We have
the honour to act on behalf of Morgan Shipping Lines in Holland. It is
a great pleasure to make your acquaintance. God, no! David whispered
wearily.
Please? No. I'm sorry. It's nice to meet you. David shook the hand
with resignation.
I have two urgent telex messages for you, Mr. Morgan. Van Gent produced
them with a flourish. I I have driven out from Amsterdam especially to
deliver same. The first was from Mitzi who had sworn to cover for him.
Abject apologies your whereabouts extracted with rack and thumbscrew
stop be brave as a lion stop be -ferocious as an eagle Love Mitzi.
David said, Traitorous bitch! and opened the second envelope.
Your doubts understood, your action condoned stop confident your good
sense will lead you eventually on to path of duty stop your place here
always open affectionately Paul Morgan.
David said, Crafty old bastard, and stuffed both messages into his
pocket.
Is there a reply? Van Gent asked.
Thank you, no. It was good of you to take this trouble.
No trouble, Mr. Morgan Can I help you in any way?
Is there anything you require?
Nothing, but thanks again. They shook hands and Van Gent bowed and left
him. David went to the Avis counter and the girl smiled brightly at
him.
Good evening, sir.
David slipped his Avis card across the desk. I want something with a
little jump to it, please.
Let me see, we have a Mustang Mach 1? 1 She was pure blonde with a
cream and pink unlined face.
That will do admirably, David assured her, and as she began filling the
form in, she asked, Your first visit to Amsterdam, sir?
They tell me it's the city with the most action in Europe, is that
right?
If you know where to go, she murmured.
You should show me? David asked and she looked up at him with
calculating eyes behind a neutral expression, made a decision and
resumed her writings.
Please sign here, sir. Your account will be charged, then she dropped
her voice. If you have any queries on this contract, you can contact me
at this number, after hours. My name is Gilda.
Gilda shared a walk-up over the outer canal with three other girls who
showed no surprise, and made no objection when David carried his single
Samsonite case up the steep staircase. However, the action that Gilda
provided was in a series of discotheques and coffee bars where lost
little people gathered to talk revolution and guru babble. In two days
David discovered that pot tasted terrible and made him nauseous, and
that Gilda's mind was as bland and unmarked as her exterior. He felt
the stirrings of uneasiness when he studied the others that had been
drawn to this city by the news that it was wide open, with the most
understanding police force in the world. In them he saw symptoms of his
own restlessness, and he recognized them as fellow seekers.
Then the damp chill of the lowlands seemed to rise up out of the canals
like the spirits of the dead on doomsday, and when you have been born
under the sun of Africa the wintry effusions of the north are a pale
substitute.
Gilda showed no visible emotion when she said goodbye, and with the
heaters blasting hot air into the cab of the Mustang David sent it
booming southwards. On the outskirts of Namur there was a girl standing
beside the road. in the cold her legs were bare and brown, protruding
sweetly from the short faded blue denim pants she wore. She tilted her
golden head and cocked a thumb.
David hit the stick down, and braked with the rubber squealing protest.
He reversed back to where she stood.
She had flat-planed slavic features and her hair was white blonde and
hung in a thick plait down her back.
He guessed her age at nineteen.
You speak English? he asked through the window.
The cold was making her nipples stand out like marbles through the thin
fabric of her shirt.
No, she said. But I speak American, will that do? 'Right on! David
opened the passenger door, and she threw her pack and rolled sleeping
bag into the back seat.
I'm Philly, she said.
David. You in show biz? God, no, what makes you ask?
The car, the face, the clothes. The car is hired, the clothes are
stolen and I'm wearing a mask. Funny man, she said and curled up on the
seat like a kitten and went to sleep.
He stopped in a village where the forests of the Ardennes begin and
bought a long roll of crisp bread, a slab of smoked wild boar meat and a
bottle of Wet Chandon.
When he got back to the car Philly was awake. You hungry? he asked.
Sure. She stretched and yawned.
He found a loggers, track going off into the forest and they followed it
to a clearing where a long golden shaft of sunlight penetrated the green
cathedral gloom.
Philly climbed out and looked around her. Keen, Davey, keen! she said.
David poured the champagne into paper cups and sliced the meat with a
penknife while Philly broke the bread into hunks. They sat side by side
on a fallen log and ate.
It's so quiet and peaceful, not at all like a killing ground. This is
where the Germans made their last big effort, did you know that?
Philly's mouth was full of bread and meat which didn't stop her reply. I
saw the movie, Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan, it was a complete crock. All
that death and ugliness, we should do something beautiful in this place,
David said dreamily, and she swallowed the bread, took a sip of the
wine, before she stood up languidly and went to the Mustang. She
fetched her sleeping bag and spread it on the soft bed of leaf mould.
Some things are for talking about, others are for doing, she told him.
For a while in Paris it looked as though it might be significant, as
though they might have something for each other of importance. They
found a room with a shower in a clean and pleasant little pension near
the Gore St Lazare, and they walked through the streets all that day,
from Concorde to Etoile, then across to the Eiffel Tower and back to
Notre Dame. They ate supper at a sidewalk cafe on the Boule Mich, but
half-way through the meal they reached an emotional dead end.
Suddenly they ran out of conversation, they sensed it at the same time,
each aware that they were strangers in all but the flesh and the
knowledge chilled them both.
Still they stayed together that night, even going through the mechanical
and empty motions of love, but in the morning, when David came out of
the shower, she sat up in the bed and said, You are splitting. It was a
statement and not a question, and it needed no reply.
Are you all right for bread? he asked, and she shook her head. He
peeled off a pair of thousand-franc notes and put them on the side
table.
I'll pay the bill downstairs. He picked up his bag. Stay loose, he
said.
Paris was spoiled for him now, so he took the road south again towards
the sun for the sky was filled with swollen black cloud and it rained
before he passed the turn-off to Fontainebleau. It rained as he
believed was only possible in the tropics, a solid deluge that flooded
the concrete of the highway and blurred his windscreen so that the
flogging of the wipers could not clear it swiftly enough for safe
vision.
David was alone and discomforted by his inability to sustain
communication with another human being.
Although the other traffic had moderated its pace in the rain, he drove
fast, feeling the drift and skate of his tyres on the slick surface.
This time the calming effect of speed was ineffective and when he ran
out of the rain south of Beaune it seemed that the wolf pack of
loneliness ran close behind him.
However, the first outpouring of sunshine lightened his mood, and then
far over the stone walls and rigid green lines of the vineyards he saw a
wind-sock floating like a soft white sausage from its pole. He found
the exit from the highway half a mile farther on, and the sign Club
Aeronautique de Provence. He followed it to a neat little airfield set
among the vineyards, and one of the aircraft on the hard-stand was a
Marchetti Acrobatic type F26o. David climbed out of the Mustang and
stared at it like a drunkard contemplating his first whisky of the day.
The Frenchman in the club office looked like an unsuccessful undertaker,
and even when David showed him his logbook and sheafs of licences, he
resisted the temptation of hiring him the Marchetti. David could take
his pick from the others, but the Marchetti was not for hire. David
added a 500-franc note to the pile of documents, and it disappeared
miraculously into the Frenchman's pocket. Still he would not let David
take the Marchetti solo, and he insisted on joining him in the
instructor's seat.
David executed a slow and stately four-point roll before they had
crossed the boundary fence. It was an act of defiance, and he made the
stops crisp and exaggerated. The Frenchman cried Sacr6 blue! with
great feeling and froze in his seat, but he had the good sense not to
interfere with the controls. David completed the manoeuvre and then
immediately rolled in the opposite direction with the wing-tip a mere
fifty feet above the tips of the vines. The Frenchman relaxed visibly,
recognizing the masterly touch, and when David landed an hour later he
grinned mournfully at him.
Formidable! he said, and shared his lunch with David, garlic polony,
bread and a bottle of rank red wine. The good feeling of flight and the
aroma of garlic lasted David all the way to Madrid.