They began to talk about Ronny, but Stevens’ obvious concern made Grace frown. “My,” she said, “you do seem to care a great deal.”
“It’s my profession to care,” retorted Stevens.
Grace looked down at her hands with a faint smile. What a prissy creature! She wondered if it would be amusing to disturb him. After all here she was, bound to wait over until the Fourth of July. A little romance would do the tutor good, and when had it ever harmed Grace Villars? Besides, and also just for fun, she reminded herself, it would be a satisfaction to rout this girl over whom everyone seemed so upset, this June who was intruding in her life. Grace was always courageous when faced with others of her sex and had never been afraid of women, old or young. She was like one of those small, fierce, petted dogs who will rush yapping up to a wolf.
The iced coffee arrived and Grace sipped it slowly, looking at Stevens over the rim of her glass. “I have sent the man Jeremy home,” she stated.
“Oh I’ll be delighted to take you home, Mrs. Villars. You see I was supposed to have a scout meeting this afternoon but when you called that you were coming I put it off. I thought our meeting much more important.” He blushed and added hastily: “I mean the subject of our meeting.”
Grace gave her clearest laugh, showing her little, white teeth. Then she said: “I just can’t seem to picture you as a boy scout. You look such a man of the world, Mr. James Stevens.”
At once Stevens saw that nothing was more absurd than a boy scout and with this realization came another: Grace Villars came from the very world he wished to inhabit. She came from the world of first nights and celebrities and clubs and amusing scandals. She smelt of those things. They were in her eyes, her manner, the way in which she pulled her gloves through her fingers. Stevens had always known such a world existed; that if one could only find the right entrance there was a brilliant, glamorous life behind the every day one. Grace Villars made it seem obtainable.
Had Stevens but known it, this was the element which made Grace fascinating to many young men more or less of his type. She had got away from a humdrum beginning and therefore could show them how to do so as well. Or at least so they hoped.
“Don’t stare at me like that,” complained Grace. “You make me think something’s gone wrong with my face.”
As a matter of fact she had a slight coffee mustache from the rim of her glass. Stevens choked with embarrassment, especially as she reached for her purse and took out her compact.
“You might have told me!” she cried, pouting with her eyes, but not at all displeased. The light brown mark curving from each side of her upper lip gave her the air of a little girl masquerading as a bandit. It pointed up her blond, merry looks. It was just the sort of thing older men found so cute—or used to find. She took her time to wipe it off, shaking out her perfumed handkerchief.
Stevens thought her stained mouth vaguely revolting and the idea of coffee mixing with her lipstick on the handkerchief offended his fastidious nature. Yet, all the time, she was holding the world out to him, a shining ball which it would soon be too late to seize.
“I must say I agree with you about June Grey,” said Grace. “She sounds an unattractive creature. I’m surprised at Ronny. It isn’t like his—father.” She looked at him wickedly from the corners of her eyes and he comprehended that for her all this was a game. The curious weight that had been on his spirit lifted. It was a game after all, not a thing of moment or a thing of pain.
“Let’s take her down a peg,” suggested Grace.
“You make it sound such fun to do,” he said impulsively, showing his boyish smile.
“I can’t imagine what kind of women populate Star Harbour,” parried Grace, “you seem to have things to learn.”
Stevens wished he could say: “Won’t you teach me?” but he could not bring himself to do it. Was she really throwing him a challenge? And if so, would he have the courage to accept? He tried to read a direction in her eyes and found them only blue and bold.
“Were you aware of the fact, Mr. Stevens, that Ronny has got himself tattooed?” asked Grace.
“Tattooed! How do you mean?”
“Yes, he has a heart tattooed on his chest and the girl’s name is tattooed underneath it.”
Stevens actually turned pale so that his skin showed a sparse sprinkling of freckles. The idea filled him with horror and drowned out all the previous lightness of their conversation. He pictured Ronny then with his olive skin, the black fall of his hair, the sweet animal glitter of his eyes.
“My God,” he cried, “I know when he did it!” And this knowledge caused him the most unhappiness of all.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Flo was revolving slowly around and around the dance hall. He did not look as though he were enjoying himself, but he had been here for an hour, turning and shuffling. His partner was a girl whose bulk seemed to be melting in the heat of the room. Small spirals of black hair fell from a white parting and left traces of oil on her cheeks. Her eyes, obscured by fat, roved moodily this way and that because, aside from Flo, no one ever asked her to dance. Her breath was acid from constant candy eating and there was a black, glandular mustache on her upper lip.
Flo could not explain why nearly every week he wore his shoes out with such a creature, nor why he sometimes took her to the “Arabella” afterwards. She was not a human being for Flo at all, and in her turn she despised him.
Jeremy, passing by the open door of the harbour dance hall, saw the couple wheeling grotesquely across his line of vision. He had come to town partly to see Flo, but now, finding him occupied, went on to the food shop next door to look in on Eddie.
Jeremy had known Eddie for ten years. So had Walsh, for Eddie had made himself useful to the boathouse. He had often rowed into its water doorway and had unloaded on its cement quays liquor and other contraband stuff. In those days Jeremy too, whenever he had an evening free, had come to the port to drink and to comfort himself with the spectacle of active life. Then he had come less often. The speedboats had gone. The peninsula with its lonely woods had closed him in.
Entering SNACKS, he found it almost empty. Most people who wanted to eat went to a new place around the corner and those who wished to drink went to a bar. Only Eddie, Flo, the barber and a few others, stubbornly clinging to illicit ways, came here with flasks to eat and drink at the same time. This group considered itself apart, and only after close scrutiny would they accept a newcomer into their midst.
Eddie was there now, holding forth to the barber on past adventures in his soft voice. For all his ugly, thick, warty features, there was an attraction about the man. He seemed to caress the ears of his listeners and had a knack of making a brutal episode sound almost tender.
He looked up as Jeremy appeared. “Hello Jeremy. How’s tricks? Still worrying about all those worms?”
Jeremy laughed and wondered why he came here so seldom. Eddie turned his obsession with the grave into a joke, a joke which could perhaps be shared among men.
Someone came to fetch the barber for a shave and then Flo arrived, holding his girl by the hand and pulling her along as a tug pulls a barge. “Well Jeremy, what do you know?” he asked as they sat down.
“You might at least introduce me,” said the fat girl with an attempt at niceness.
“I might,” said Flo, without doing so. “I don’t know why I go with her,” he complained to no one and with no expression. “I’ve tried and tried to think. Haven’t I, Eddie? You heard me asking myself that question and I just don’t get any answer. It’s a mystery. Why, do you know Jeremy, I’m just the only man in Star Harbour that’ll date Ruby here?”
Ruby looked at them with contempt. “Give me a chocolate marshmallow sundae,” she called to Ma, and when it was put before her she ate it greedily, slowly but with a kind of lust, turning the spoon in her mouth and showing her tongue with every bite.
“You know we got a youngster up at our place,” said Jeremy.
“Two, ain’t it?” asked Eddie.
“You shouldn’t have done what you did, Flo,” said Jeremy.
“He wanted it.” Flo looked nervous.
“Now I never saw Flo do a better job,” said Eddie, “than on that nice kid from your place.”
