Sorry, I was forgetting, he said. Now me Im lucky. Ive always been able to take it or leave it. He grinned his teeth chattering slightly. Mostly take it, mind you one of lifes great pleasures, like a good woman.
Just what was his definition of good was anybodys guess. He swallowed deeply, made a face and examined the label on the bottle. Glen Fergus malt whisky. Never heard of it and Im the original expert.
Our finest local brew.
They must have made it in a very old zinc bath. Last time I tasted anything like it was during Prohibition.
Not that he was going to let a little thing like that put him off and as I took the whaleboat out through the pack ice, he moved down to the prow. He sat there huddled in his blanket, the bottle clutched against his chest, staring up at the mountains and the ice-cap beyond as we skirted an iceberg that might have been carved from green glass. He spoke without turning round.
Ilana shes quite a girl, isnt she?
She has her points.
And then some. I could tell you things about that baby that would make your hair stand up on end and dance. Miss Casting Couch of 1964. I was aware of a sudden vague resentment, the first stirrings of an anger that was as irrational as it was unexpected, but he carried straight on. I gave her the first big break, you know.
I nodded. She was telling me about that on the flight in. Some war picture you made in Italy.
He laughed out loud, lolling back against the bulwark as if he found the whole thing hilariously funny in retrospect. The biggest mistake I ever made in my life, produced and directed by Jack Desforge. We live and learn.
Was it that bad?
He was unable to contain his laughter. A crate of last years eggs couldnt have smelled any higher.
What about Ilana?
Oh, she was fine. He shrugged. No Bergman or anything like that, but she had other qualities. I knew that the first time I met her. He took another pull at the bottle. I did everything for that girl. Clothes, grooming, even a new name the whole bit.
I frowned. You mean Ilana Eytan isnt her real name?
Is it hell, he said. She needed a gimmick like everyone else, didnt she? I started out myself as Harry Wells of Tilman Falls, Wisconsin. When I first met Ilana she was plain Myra Grossman.
And she isnt Israeli?
All part of the build-up. You know how it is. Israeli sounds better. It did to her anyway and thats the important thing. Shes got a complex a mile wide. Her old man has a tailors shop in some place called the Mile End Road in London. You ever heard of it?
I nodded, fighting back an impulse to laugh out loud. Its a funny old world, Jack, has that ever occurred to you?
Roughly five times a day for the last fifty-three years. He grinned. Im only admitting to forty-five of those remember. And then his mood seemed to change completely and he moved restlessly, pulling the blanket more closely about his shoulders. Ive been thinking. Did Ilana have anything for me?
Such as?
A letter maybe something like that.
It was there in his voice quite suddenly, an anxiety he was unable to conceal and I shook my head. Not that I know of, but why should she confide in me?
He nodded and raised the bottle to his mouth again. It was cold now in spite of the sun and the perfect blue of the sky. A small wind lifted across the water and I noticed that the hands trembled slightly as they clutched the bottle. He sat there brooding for a while, looking his age for the first time since Id known him and then quite unexpectedly, he laughed.
You know that was really something back there with the bear I mean. What a way to go. Real B picture stuff. We dont want it good, we want it by next Monday.
He took another swallow from the bottle which was now half-empty and guffawed harshly. I remember Ernie Hemingway saying something once about finishing like a man, standing up straight on your two hind legs and spitting right into the eye of the whole lousy universe. He swung round, half-drunk and more than a little aggressive. And what do you think of that then, Joe, baby? Whats the old world viewpoint on the weighty matter of life and death, or have you no statement to make at this time?
Ive seen death if thats what you mean, I said. It was always painful and usually ugly. Any kind of life is preferable to that.
Is that a fact now? He nodded gravely, a strange glazed expression in his eyes and said softly, But what if theres nothing left?
And then he leaned forward, the eyes starting from his head, saliva streaking his beard and cried hoarsely, What have you got to say to that, eh?
There was nothing I could say, nothing that would help the terrible despair in those eyes. For a long moment he crouched there in the bottom of the boat staring at me and then he turned and hurled the bottle high into the air and back towards the green iceberg. It bounced on a lower slope, flashed once like fire in the sunlight and was swallowed up.