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“Christ, no,” Dwyer said. “What would we need a contract for?”
“Is the boat in his name or in your joint names, Bu
“We were only married five days, Rudy,” Kate said. “We didn’t have any time for anything like that. The Clothilde is in his name. The papers are in the drawer with the bankbooks. With the insurance policy for the ship and the other papers.”
Rudolph sighed again. “I’ve been to a lawyer …”
Of course, Gretchen thought. She had been standing at the doorway, looking aft. She had been brooding over Billy’s telegram. It had been a brief message from a polite stranger, with no feeling of grief or attempt at consolation. She didn’t know the army all that well, but she knew that soldiers got leave, if they wanted it, to attend funerals. She had written Billy, too, about coming to the wedding, but he had written back saying he was too busy dispatching half-tons and command cars through the streets and roads that led through Belgium to Armageddon to dance at half-forgotten relatives’ weddings. She, too, she thought bitterly, was included among the half-forgotten relatives. Let him wallow in Brussels. Worthy son of his father. She focused her attention on her brother, patiently trying to disentangle tangled lives. Of course, Rudy would have gone immediately to a lawyer. Death, after all, was a legal matter.
“A French lawyer,” Rudolph went on, “who luckily speaks good English; the manager of the hotel gave me his name. He seems like a reliable man. He told me that although you’re all French residents, since you live on the boat and have no home on land and by French law the boat is technically American territory, it would be best to ignore the French and accept the jurisdiction of the American consul in Nice. Do either of you have any objection to that?”
“Whatever you say, Rudolph,” Kate said. “Whatever you think best.”
“If you can get away with it, okay with me,” Dwyer said. He sounded bored, like a small boy in school during an arithmetic lesson, wishing he was outside playing baseball.
“I’ll try to talk to the consul this afternoon,” Rudolph said, “and see what he advises.”
Wesley came in with the Crédit Suisse passbook and the Crédit Lyo
“Do you mind if I look at these?” Rudolph asked Kate.
“He was your brother.”
As usual, thought Gretchen, at the door, her back to the saloon, nobody lets Rudy off any hook.
Rudolph took the books and papers from Wesley. He looked at the last statement from the Crédit Lyo
“If you ask me,” Kate said, “that’s the whole thing. The whole kit and caboodle.”
“Of course, there’s the ship,” said Rudolph. “What’s to be done with it?”
For a moment there was silence in the cabin.
“I know what I’m going to do with the ship,” Kate said mildly, without emotion, standing up. “I’m going to leave it. Right now.” The outdated, too-tight dress pulled up over her plump, dimpled, brown knees.
“Kate,” Rudolph protested, “something has to be decided.”
“Whatever you decide is all right with me,” Kate said. “I’m not going to stay aboard another night.”
Dear, normal, down-to-earth woman, Gretchen thought, waiting to say a last good-bye to her man and then leaving, not looking for profit or advantage from the object that had been her home, her livelihood, the source of her happiness.
“Where are you going?” Rudolph asked Kate.
“For the time being to a hotel in town,” Kate said. “After that, I’ll see. Wesley, will you carry my bag for me to a taxi?”
Silently, Wesley picked up the bag in his big hand.
“I’ll call you at your hotel when I feel I can talk, Rudy,” Kate said. “Thank you for everything. You’re a good man.” She kissed him on the cheek, the kiss a benediction, a tacit gesture of exoneration, and followed Wesley past Gretchen out the saloon door to the deck.
Rudolph sank into the chair she had been sitting on and rubbed his eyes wearily. Gretchen came over to him and touched his shoulder affectionately. Affection, she had learned, could be mixed with criticism, even with scorn. “Take it easy, Brother,” she said. “You can’t settle everybody’s lives in one afternoon.”
“I’ve been talking to Wesley,” Dwyer said. “He knew Kate was leaving. He wants to stay on the Clothilde with me. At least for a while. At least until the screw and the shaft’re fixed. Don’t worry about him. I’ll take care of him.”
“Yes,” Rudolph said. He stood up, hunched over a little, his shoulders burdened. “It’s getting late. I’d better try to get to Nice before the consulate closes. Gretchen, do you want me to drive you to the hotel?”
“Thanks, no,” Gretchen said. “I think I’ll stay on here a few minutes and have a drink with Bu
“As you say,” Rudolph said. He put the bankbooks and the statements he had been holding in his hand on the table. “If you see Jean, tell her I won’t be back for di
“I’ll do that,” Gretchen said.
It was no afternoon, she thought, to be forced to speak to Jean Jordache, either.
“I think it might be nicer on deck,” Gretchen said to Dwyer after Rudolph had gone. The saloon, which had until now seemed like a welcoming, cosy room, had been darkened for her into a sinister countinghouse, where lives were entered in ledgers, became symbols, credits and debits, not flesh and blood.
She had gone through it before. When her husband had been killed in the automobile accident there hadn’t been a will, either. Perhaps Colin Burke, who had never hit a man in his life, who had lived surrounded by books, play scripts, screenplays, who had dealt gently and diplomatically with the writers and actors whom he had directed, and often enough hated, had more in common than was apparent on the surface with her barely literate, ruffian brother.
Without a will, there had been confusion about the disposal of Colin’s property. There was an ex-wife who lived on alimony, a mortgaged house, royalties. The lawyers had moved in, the estate tied up for more than a year. Rudy had handled everything then, as he was doing now, as he always did.
“I’ll bring the drinks,” Dwyer was saying. “It’s nice of you to visit with me. The hardest part is being alone. After everything we been through, Tom and me. And now Kate’s gone. Most women would have made trouble aboard. Between two men been friends and partners for so long. Not Kate.” Dwyer’s mouth was quivering, almost imperceptibly. “She’s all right, old Kate, isn’t she?”
“A lot better than all right,” Gretchen said. “Make it a stiff one, Bu
“Whiskey, isn’t it?”
“Plenty of ice, please.” She went forward where the saloon cabin and wheelhouse would hide them from passersby on the quay. She had had enough of friends of Tom and Dwyer and Kate from the other boats in the harbor coming on board with doleful faces to mumble their condolences. Their grief was plain. She was not as sure of her own.
In the bow, with the neat coiled spirals of lines and the polished brass and the bleached, immaculate teak deck, she looked out at the now familiar scene of the crowded harbor which had enchanted her when she saw it the first day: the bobbing masts, the men working slowly and carefully at the million small tasks that seemed to make up the daily routine of those who took their living from the sea. Even now, after all that had happened, she could not help but be affected by its quiet beauty.
Dwyer came up behind her, barefooted, the ice tinkling in the glasses in his hands. He gave her her glass. She raised it to him, smiling ruefully. She hadn’t had anything to eat or drink all day and the first mouthful tingled on her tongue. “I don’t usually drink hard stuff,” Dwyer said, “but maybe I ought to learn.” He drank in small sips, thoughtfully savoring the taste and effect. “I tell you,” he said, “your brother Rudy is one hell of a man. A take-hold guy.”