I listened to them talk. Existentialism, they said. Henry Miller and Truman Capote and Henry Moore. André Gide and Anais Nin and Djuna Barnes. And sex—hard-boiled, poached, coddled, shirred, and fried easy over in sweet, fresh creamery butter. Sex solo, in duet, trio, quartet; for all-male chorus; for choir and symphony; and played on the harpsichord in three-fourths time. And Albert Schweitzer and the dignity of everything that lives.

The fat man who had been listening to the tinkling woman closed his face against her and became absorbed in his drink. She looked around brightly and gaily like a bird, saw me, and picked up her drink. It was short and green. She sat down on a hassock by my chair, crossed her plump ankles, so that I could see the tininess of her feet, and tinkled:

“I so love crème de menthe; it’s such a pretty drink, and I always drink it when I wear my emeralds.” She bobbed her birdlike head, and the earrings swung. They were the right color, but almost too big to be real.

“I always eat oyster stew when I wear my pearls,” I said.

Her laughter had the same quality as her voice, and was an octave higher. I decided not to make her laugh, if possible.

“You’re Mr. Archer, aren’t you? I’ve heard such interesting things about you. My daughter’s on the stage in New York, you know. Her father’s constantly urging her to come home, because of course it costs him a great deal of money, but I tell him, after all, a girl is only young once. Don’t you agree?”

“Some people manage it twice. If they live long enough.”

I meant it as an insult, but she thought it was funny, and made me the curious gift of her laughter again. “You must have heard of Felice. She dances under the name of Felicia France. Leonard Lyons has mentioned her several times. Mr. Marvell thinks she has dramatic talent, too; he’d love to have her play the ingénue in his play. But Felice has given her heart and soul to the dance. She has a very, very beautiful body, dear child. I had a lovely body myself at one time, really utterly lovely.” Meditatively, she fingered herself, like a butcher testing meat which had hung too long.

I looked away, anywhere, and saw James Slocum standing up by the piano. Marvell struck a few opening chords, and Slocum began to sing, in a thin sweet tenor, the Ballad of Barbara Allen. The trickle of melody gradually filled the room like clear water, and the bubbling chatter subsided. Slocum’s face was untroubled and radiant, a boy tenor’s. Everyone in the room was watching it before the song ended, and he knew it, and wanted it that way. He was Peter Pan, caught out of time. His song had killed the crocodile with the ticking clock in its belly.

“Quite utterly lovely,” the emerald earrings tinkled. “It always reminds me of Scotland for some reason. Edinburgh is really one of my favorite places in the world. What is your favorite place in the whole wide world, Mr. Archer?”

“Ten feet underwater at La Jolla, watching the fish through a face-glass.”

“Are fish so terribly fascinating?”

“They have some pleasant qualities. You don’t have to look at them unless you want to. And they can’t talk.”

Below her bird-brained laughter, and drowning it out, a heavy male voice said clearly: “That was very nice, James. Now why don’t you and Marvell sing a duet?”

It was Ralph Knudson. Most of the eyes in the room shifted to him, and wavered away again. His thick face was bulging with blood and malice. Maude Slocum was standing beside him, facing her husband. Slocum stood where he was, his face as white as snow. Marvell was motionless, his eyes fixed on the keyboard and his back to the room. Short of homicidal violence, the atmosphere around the piano was as ugly as I had ever seen.

Maude Slocum walked through it, moving easily from Knudson to her husband, and touched him on the arm. He drew away from her, and she persisted.

“That would be nice, James,” she said simply and quietly, “if only Francis had a voice like yours. But why don’t you sing by yourself? I’ll accompany you.”

She took Marvell’s place at the bench, and played while her husband sang. Knudson watched them, smiling like a tiger. I felt like going for a long drive by myself.

Chapter 6

The fire in the sky had died, leaving long wisps of clouds like streaks of ashes livid against the night. All I could see of the mountains was their giant shadowed forms shouldering the faintly lighted sky. A few lights sprinkled their flanks, and a car’s headlights inched down into the other side of the valley and were lost in darkness. Then the night was so still that motion seemed impossible, all of us insects caught in the final amber. I moved and broke the spell, feeling my way down the dew-slick terraces beside the flagstone walk.

I closed a contact when I took hold of the left doorhandle of my convertible. The headlights and dashlights came on with a click. My right hand moved by reflex under my coat for a gun that wasn’t there. Then I saw the girl’s hand on the switch, the girl’s face like a ghost’s leaning towards me.

“It’s only me, Mr. Archer. Cathy.” There was night in her voice, in her eyes, night caught like mist in her hair. In a soft wool coat buttoned up to her soft chin, she was one of the girls I had watched from a distance in high school and never been able to touch; the girls with oil or gold or free-flowing real-estate money dissolved in their blood like blueing. She was also young enough to be my daughter.

“What do you think you are doing?”

“Nothing.” She settled back in the seat and I slid under the wheel. “I just turned on the lights for you. I’m sorry if I startled you, I didn’t mean to.”

“Why pick on my car? You’ve got one of your own.”

“Two. But father took the keys. Besides, I like your car. The seat is very comfortable. May I ride along with you?” She gave her voice a wheedling little-girl inflection.

“Where to?”

“Anywhere you’re going. Quinto? Please, Mr. Archer?”

“I don’t think so. You’re a little young to be running around nights by yourself.”

“It’s not late, and I’d be with you.”

“Even with me,” I said. “You’d better go back to the house, Cathy.”

“I won’t. I hate those people. I’ll stay out here all night.”

“Not with me you won’t. I’m leaving now.”

“You won’t take me along?” Her clenched hand vibrated on my forearm. There was a note in her voice that hurt my ears like the screech of chalk on a wet blackboard. The smell of her hair was as clean and strange as the redheaded girl’s who sat ahead of me in senior year.

“I’m not a nursemaid,” I said harshly. “And your parents wouldn’t like it. If something’s bothering you, take it up with your mother.”

“Her!” She pulled away from me and sat stonily, her eyes on the lighted house.

I got out and opened the door on her side. “Good night.”

She didn’t move, even to look at me.

“Do you get out under your own power, or do I lift you out by the nape of the neck?”

She turned on me like a cat, her eyes distended: “You wouldn’t dare touch me.”

She was right. I took a few steps toward the house, my heels grinding angrily in the gravel, and she was out of the car and after me. “Please don’t call them. I’m afraid of them. That Knudson man—” She was standing on the margin of the car’s light, her face bleached white by it and her eyes stained inky black.

“What about him?”

“Mother always wants me to make up to him. I don’t know if she wants me to marry him, or what. I can’t tell father, or father would kill him. I don’t know what to do.”

“I’m sorry, Cathy, you’re not my baby.” I moved to touch her shoulder, but she drew back as if I carried disease. “Why don’t you get the cook to make you some hot milk and put you to bed? Things usually look better in the morning.”