Seven Lies South

3

It was well-meant advice, and sound as far as it went, Beecher thought, as he crossed the plaza to buy a Herald Tribune. But Trumbull, with more tact than accuracy, was equating Beecher’s position with his own; he had urged Beecher to go home and go to work, arguing that he was bucking the law of diminishing returns in Spain. “You can absorb just so much from a foreign culture,” he said. “Some can take more than others, sure. But after the saturation point you’ll find you’re sticking around for the wrong reasons — because it’s sunny and the booze is cheap. That’s the crucial moment. When you know you’ve had it. If you don’t get out then you’re hooked.”

It was all very reasonable, and Beecher hadn’t argued the point. He knew lots of people who fitted Trumbull’s equation perfectly.

When Beecher started for home it was dark, but the streets were gay. Spanish girls walked arm-in-arm with jasmine twisted in their black hair, and the cafés were crowded with sun-flushed tourists. An accordionist played vigorously on the terrace of the Bar Central, and dogs wandered among the tables feeding on bits of shrimp and fish.

Beecher’s villa was on an inland bluff with an excellent view of the sea. The house was old and not particularly comfortable in the winter months, but the rooms were large, and the grounds included brilliant gardens and a small but charming swimming pool.

Beecher parked in front of the grill gate and walked through the garden to the side entrance. The maids had heard the car, for Encarna was standing in the doorway watching for him in the darkness. She and her sister, Adela, had taken care of the villa for more than a year. Encarna wore her best uniform and a white apron trimmed with a filigree of lace. And there was a flower in her hair.

“There is a young lady waiting,” Encarna said. “She has been waiting almost an hour.”

That explained the uniform, he thought, and her air of excitement.

“All right,” he said, and smiled at her. “Is there anything to drink?”

“Everything is ready.”

Beecher thanked her and walked into the drawing room which faced the gardens and the sea. The fire was lighted and there were bowls of fresh flowers on the tables and mantelpiece. A blonde girl in a slim brown dress was sitting in one of the leather armchairs. She stood up smiling. “I’m Laura Meadows. That won’t mean anything to you, but I’m a friend of Bunny’s.” American voices occasionally irritated Beecher, with their flatness and lack of distinction; but hers was very nice, he decided, crisp and warm and clear.

He found himself smiling. “Well, welcome to the casa. Welcome to Spain. And how is Bunny? Did she send any messages?”

“No. It was the oddest thing. I hadn’t seen her in years, until I bumped into her shopping in New York just a month or so ago. I told her I was coming to Spain, and she told me you were living here. She was going to write you, but I begged her not to. I know what a bore things like that are.” She smiled at him. “To set your mind at ease, I don’t need bullfight tickets, plane or train reservations, or someone to help move a big trunk. Isn’t that a relief?”

Beecher felt pleasantly stimulated. “Well, I hope you need a drink at least.”

“Thanks, I’d love one.”

Beecher called to Encarna who must have been waiting just outside the door, for she appeared instantly with a tray of bottles, glasses, and ice. She moved in a hush of dignity, eyes and face grave, and her slippers barely whispering on the tiled floor. The tray was set with the villa’s best linen and silver, and everything looked calm and pretty, with the firelight sparkling on the shining glasses and deepening the colors of the fresh flowers. Beecher was grateful to Encarna for sensing that this was a special occasion.

“Sit by the fire,” he said to Laura Meadows. “The nights cool off pretty fast.”

“I love your place. I walked down to the swimming pool before you came in. The sun was setting and the fishing boats were bobbing around in the water. It looked like... I don’t know... like something out of a Fifth Avenue toy shop.” She sat down and crossed her lovely legs and put her hands out to the fire. “No wonder Bunny can’t entice you home.”

“Ye gods!” Beecher said. “Did she send you over with the heavy artillery?”

“No, please,” she said, looking up at him quickly. She seemed to sense that she had blundered into a personal area. “She just mentioned that she misses you. I’m sorry.”

Beecher smiled. “Bunny lives in pictures, as you may know. Firelight flickering on family and friends, Christmas carols sounding faintly, even if it’s the middle of July, and everybody rosy and happy and gay. If someone is missing, she’s mildly upset. The picture isn’t complete.”

“I understand what you mean.”

Beecher made two drinks with care, and as he measured gin and lemon juice into ice-filled glasses, he tried to analyze the current of emotion that was running through him. It must be that he was lonely for someone who looked and talked like Laura Meadows, he thought.

She was beautiful, of course, as refreshing as a lovely sunrise, with a slim healthy body, and hair that was like pale gold in the dancing firelight. There was a pleasant but casual confidence in her manner, and her face was bright with humor and intelligence. The tones of her body were warm and tawny, from clear yellow hair to bare brown legs, and Beecher could imagine how she would feel to the touch, cool and smooth as ivory, with fine supple muscles moving under the silken skin. But what appealed to him about her wouldn’t be evident in any catalogue, he knew; it was an intangible thing which stirred him, a quality of health and vigor and freshness, which, in his loneliness, he equated painfully and nostalgically with home.

Laura Meadows was, he thought, the shining end-product of a large and fortunate class of Americans; she would have a degree in psychology or history, speak careful grammatical French, and play golf and tennis with precision and style. He could imagine her in white shorts and pinned-back hair swinging a racket to an instructor’s cadence, or, as a child in shorts and an unnecessary bra, swimming like a seal under the eye of a lifeguard. She would have been pumped full of vitamins and orange juice from the day she was born, and been in and out of every museum in New York City by the time she reached fourth grade.

Beecher realized there was considerable bitterness in his inventory. But he didn’t resent Laura Meadows. What he resented was the frustration she stirred in him. She symbolized everything that was unobtainable, beyond his reach; the rosy and prosperous life of America, with the tides of success sweeping everyone on to fine, fat futures.

That wasn’t for him. Trumbull said go home and go to work, which was all very well, but he had no home and there was no work he knew except flying military aircraft, and he was too old for that now. She had made him nostalgic, and he hated it; he despised this self-pity, this picture of himself with his nose pressed against the windows of the candy store, shut out from all warmth and pleasure. But he couldn’t help himself. And he wondered at his luck, wondered why she couldn’t have been one of the noisy, all-knowing ones, bursting to tell him of her hilarious experiences with bidets and foreign currencies. Why did she have to be so damned nice?

“Well, here’s luck,” he said, and gave her the gin-and-lemon punch. “When did you arrive in Mirimar?”

“Just this morning. I came over from Gibraltar by bus. That left me black and blue and beat so I slept till noon. Then I went to the Post Office and got your address.”

“How long will you be here?”

“Until Monday night. I’m flying down to Rabat. I want to see a little bit of Morocco. Then back to Madrid, you know, the Prado, Toledo and Alhambra,” she said, smiling and ticking the names off on her fingers. “Typical tourist with flat heels and camera.”

This was Friday, Beecher thought. She’d be in Mirimar two full days and nights. He realized that he would have to put on some kind of show for her; Bunny would expect it. The problem was pesetas; he was damn near broke. He had planned to go to Gibraltar this week end and change some of a slender stock of dollars. The Irishman would help him out, he decided.

“Well now,” he said, and rubbed his hands together briskly. “What do you want to go and see?”

She sat back smiling. “I want to look around Málaga, and I’d like to see a bullfight. And maybe go swimming. But I meant what I said about not being a nuisance.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a pleasure.”

“Are you sure?” Then she laughed and put her head back against the chair. “I’m going to call you Mike. All right?”

“Sure.”

“I’m still slightly in awe of you, I’ll confess. I met you once, but you won’t remember. I was visiting Bunny and you were home on furlough. I was twelve and had big shining braces on my teeth. You were dark and grim and wonderful. A romantic birdman.” She laughed again and the sound was fresh and young in the long dark room. “We’d been to the movies, you see.”

“Most of Bunny’s friends had braces,” Beecher said. “I don’t remember yours specifically. They probably weren’t as ghastly as you thought. Now tell me about your trip so far. Are you having fun?”

“Oh, yes. I started in Paris. I took a room on the Left Bank, which is what everyone said to do, and mon Dieu, les types! There was a barefoot young man begging money for a children’s crusade to Moscow, and another who wrote poetry on roofing slate with big nails. It was wonderful. Then I went to London, where my brother gave me letters to his business friends. Some kind people took me to dinner, and other kind people asked me for the week end.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “It was like a novel. Nothing grand, but everything was so snug and cozy, like Thomas Hardy. Teas and open fires and a long hike to look at the view and then little pubs and dart games. I’ll hate to go home.”

“Where is home?”

“New York, and work,” she said, with a rueful smile; but her air of regret was merely polite, he guessed, the courteous reflex of travelers.

“What kind of work?”

“I’m with a commercial film company. Cigarettes that dance and beer bottles that sing. It’s hectic, but I enjoy it.”

Yes, she would enjoy it, he thought. He could imagine her in late conferences, arguing a point with the bright young men who abounded in such professions, and then dining much later, relaxed and sustained and sure of herself in the dark exciting city. He saw with a touch of panic that she had picked up her gloves.

“Here, let me fix your drink,” he said.

“No thanks. It was perfect, but I’m feeling just fine.”

She must be around twenty-five or twenty-six; it was no wonder she wanted nothing but a few words and a polite drink.

A silence settled between them, and he knew that she was about to leave; she had put her glass aside, uncrossed her legs, and was probably planning a graceful but noncommittal exit line. “This was such fun. I’ll tell Bunny... Well, I do have some shopping to do, so supposing I call you before I leave?... Yes, it was delightful... Thank you so much...”

There was nothing to do in Mirimar this evening, he realized; everyone he knew would be at Don Willie’s.

“Where are you staying?” he asked her.

“The Espada.”

“That’s new. It’s fantastic, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it certainly is.”

“When I came here two years ago this was a proper village. Now it’s blown up into a miniature Biarritz.” He was talking inanely, he knew, chattering pointlessly to keep her from leaving. And he experienced then the familiar and distasteful foreknowledge of defeat; he wanted to please her very much, not for Bunny’s sake, or to salve his pride or ego, but because he liked her, and wanted her to like him. And when he wanted something very much, the odds always adjusted themselves against him.

“Listen to me,” he said quickly. “How would you like to go to a party tonight?”

She smiled politely at him, as if she had been offered an inappropriate treat by a jolly adult. “But I’m not invited, am I?” she asked him. “And I’m obviously holding you up. No thanks, Mike, I must run along.”

“Please sit still a minute. Everyone’s invited to Don Willie’s tonight. He’ll be delighted to have you.”

“Are you sure?” she said, tilting her head and smiling at him with good-humored suspicion. “You’re not just being nice?”

“Not at all. Please say yes.”

“But I’d have to change.”

“That’s fine. I’ll put on a jacket and take you to your hotel. Let me freshen your drink. I won’t be a minute.”

“No thanks.” She smiled and stretched her legs toward the fire. “I’m fine. Take your time.”

Beecher closed the glass doors of the living room and walked down the hall to the telephone.

Sighing, he gave the operator Don Willie’s number. There was a long wait. A maid finally said, “Digame?” He asked for Don Willie. There was another wait. Then Don Willie’s voice exploded in his ear, high and tense and irritable. “Yes, yes? Who is it? What do you want?” Beecher could imagine him shouting into the phone, flushed and excited, with an eye rolling about anxiously to check last-minute preparations for his party.

“This is Mike Beecher.” He couldn’t make himself say Don Willie; the title was pure affectation, and Beecher salvaged some pride by not using it.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Don Willie cried, in a rush of sibilants. “What do you want? I am very busy, I have many things to do, please.”

“I’d like to come to your party tonight,” Beecher said. “Is that all right?”

“I have asked you before, you say no, you are not interested. I am hurt by these things. Why do you want to come tonight? Why are you interested?”

“I have an American friend who would enjoy your party. She’s a young girl, and this is her first visit to Spain.”

“She would like it, no? And you, Mike Beecher? It is not interesting to you?”

“Oh, I’d like it too, of course.” Beecher sighed and hauled down his pathetic little flag. “I’d be delighted.”

“There is a large crowd already.”

“Well, if we’d be in the way, Don Willie...”

“What did you say?”

“I said, if we’d be in the way, well forget it.”

Beecher knew that this wasn’t what Don Willie wanted to hear; it was the title, the lovely Don, that he wanted to hear ringing over the wires. “Another time, Don Willie,” he said. “But thanks anyway, Don Willie.”

“No, no, you must come to my party. I am happy to have you and your friend. She is, how is it, no tramp, eh, Mike?”

“She’s no tramp,” he said slowly.

“You must dress up, please, Mike. A tie and a coat. Many important people will be here.”

“Sure.”

Beecher went into his bedroom and poured himself a small peg of brandy from a bottle on his dressing table. He rolled it around in his mouth before swallowing it. It almost got rid of the taste of shame. He put on dark slacks and a white silk jacket he had had made in Gibraltar, and which now glowed softly and luminously from Encarna’s numerous gentle launderings. Don Willie wanted a tie, too, he remembered; mustn’t miss a trick. He chose a solid blue bow tie, and stuck a red carnation in his buttonhole. Then he stared at himself in the mirror. When you hung around because the booze was cheap, it was time to get out. That’s what Trumbull said. Well, Don Willie’s booze wasn’t just cheap, it was free. Beecher poured himself another drink and stood looking at himself in the mirror, the glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The romantic birdman, he thought, bitterly. He was tall and wiry, with thick black hair graying at the temples, and his face was deeply tanned except for a white scar that ran diagonally across his forehead from his hairline to his eyebrow. Once there had been a look of anger and impatience in his eyes, he remembered; when he was flying and there was reason and purpose in his life. Now that look was gone. His eyes were mild, and his expression was without conviction; he was a man who would not give offense, a man who would find a compromising solution to any challenge. This was what Beecher saw in the mirror, the reflection of a man who had solved his problems by smiling, shrugging, and taking a drink. Anybody’s drink.