Читать «Райский сад (The Garden of Eden)» онлайн - страница 112

"You don't have to worry about working," she said. "I know. That will be all right."

"Sure," David said.

He cut one of the artichoke hearts up with the fork and ate a chunk swirled in the mustard sauce Madame had made.

"May I have the Tavel?" Marita said. She took a good swallow of the wine and set the bottle down by David putting its base firmly in the sand and leaning it against the basket. "Isn't it a good lunch Madame made, David?"

"It's an excellent lunch. Did Aurol really give her a black eye?"

"Not a real one."

"She has a bad tongue with him."

"There's the difference in age and he was within his rights to hit her if she was insulting. She said so. At the end. And she sent you messages.

'What messages?"

"Just loving messages.

"She loves you," David said.

"No. You stupid. She's only on my side."

"There aren't any sides anymore," David said.

"No," Marita said. "And we didn't try to make sides. It just happened."

"It happened all right." David handed her the jar with the cut up artichoke heart and the dressing and found the second bottle of Tavel. It was still cool. He took a long drink of the wine. "We've been burned out," he said. "Crazy woman burned out the Bournes."

"Are we the Bournes?"

"Sure. We're the Bournes. It may take a while to have the papers. But that's what we are. Do you want me to write it out? I think I could write that."

243

"You don't need to write it."

"I'll write it in the sand," David said.

They slept well and naturally through the late afternoon and when the sun was low Marita woke and saw David lying in the bed by her side. His lips were closed and he was breathing very slowly and she looked at his face and his covered eyes that she had only seen lidded in sleep twice before and looked at his chest and his body with the arms straight by his sides. She went over to the door of the bathroom and looked at herself in the full length mirror. Then she smiled at the mirror. When she was dressed she went out to the kitchen and talked with Madame.

Later, David was still asleep and she sat by him on the bed. In the dusk his hair was whitish against his dark face, and she waited for him to wake.

They sat at the bar and were both drinking Haig Pinch and Perrier. Marita was being very careful with her drink. She said, "I think you should go to town every day and get the papers and have a drink and read by yourself. I wish there was a club or a real cafe where you met your friends."

"There isn't"

"Well, I think it would be good every day for you to be away from me for a while when you're not working. You've been over run with girls. I'm always going to see you have your men friends. That's one thing very bad that Catherine did."

"Not on purpose and it was my own fault."

"Maybe that's true. But do you think we'll have friends? Good friends?"

"We each have one already."

"Will we have others?"

"Maybe."

.

"Will they take you away because they know more than I do?"