Part 5 (2/2)
Nancy was looking, beyond me at Dodd, standing with Mary Olan in a group of eight. Mary, laughing heartily, had taken Dodd's arm.
”Skoal,” Nancy said and thumped two-thirds of a c.o.c.ktail down her throat in two gulps and handed me her gla.s.s.
”Please, mister.”
I brought her a new one. She took half of it, said, ”To White Sands,” and downed the second half.
”Easy, my lady. These can be poison.”
”Hah! Fade me again, Clint boy.”
”I will not be a party to self-destruction, Nance.”
”I'll get it my own self.”
”Okay, okay.” It was not happy to watch. I wondered if our Nancy were a lush. I decided no. Female lushes carry the mark on them. Their faces coa.r.s.en, their features thicken, they grow fur on the larynx. So it had to be the Mary Olan situation, and an intensification of the strain I had noticed on the first date.
The four of us ate at a table for six with another couple.
I was between Nancy and a hollow-eyed brunette with a staccato bray of a laugh which made her husband, across the table, wince visibly each time she tinkled the chandeliers with it. Nancy had somehow managed to get a double martini at the table. When Dodd reached over for it, she wrapped her hand around it. She had reached the glazed state, monosyllabic, practically inert. After too many awkward holes in the conversation, Mary Olan began to carry the ball. She did it well, too. Conversation bounced and pranced, pa.s.sing back and forth in front of the dead eyes of Nancy Raymond. Mary kept hauling me in by the heels, but I still found time to whisper to Nancy that she should eat something. Her great slab of rare roast beef arrived and was removed untouched.
We were on coffee when she stood up abruptly. The conversation stopped and Dodd started to stand up too.
”Not you,” she said to him with great clarity.
”Have to walk. With Clint.”
He gave a little nod and I went off with Nancy. She walked with rigid dignity until we were outside and then clung tightly to my arm. There had been a misty rain earlier. The stars were covered and the gra.s.s was wet. We could see by the light from the club.
”Special service,” she said.
”Walking drunk ladies.”
”Where do we walk?”
”Round and around. Hooo. Dizzy as a bee.”
We walked in silence back and forth across the wide grounds near the tennis courts. She kept lifting her head high and breathing deeply. We must have walked for fifteen minutes and then she said, ”Sit down now. Over there.”
We went over to some benches beside the tennis courts.
In the faint light the nets had a forlorn sag, the asphalt courts gleamed wetly. I used my handkerchief to wipe the dampness from a bench. We sat down and I lit our cigarettes.
”Clint, you ever try to... to match yourself against a great tradegy, tradegy... h.e.l.l, tragedy.”
”Can't say that I have.”
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