But he did not worry much about any of it. He had long ago ceased to worry and he had exorcised guilt with work insofar as he could, and all he cared about now was that the boys were coming over and that they should have a good summer. Then he would go back to work.
He had been able to replace almost everything except the children with work and the steady normal working life he had built on the island. He believed he had made something there that would last and that would hold him. Now when he was lonesome for Paris he would remember Paris instead of going there. He did the same thing with all of Europe and much of Asia and of Africa.
He remembered what Renoir had said when they told him that Gauguin had gone to Tahiti to paint. “Why does he have to spend so much money to go so far away to paint when one paints so well here at the Batignolles?” It was better in French, “quand on peint si bien aux Batignolles,” and Thomas Hudson thought of the island as his quartier and he was settled in it and knew his neighbors and worked as hard as he had ever worked in Paris when young Tom had been a baby.
Sometimes he would leave the island to fish off Cuba or to go to the mountains in the fall. But he had rented the ranch that he owned in Montana because the best time out there was the summer and the fall and now the boys always had to go to school in the fall.
He had to go to New York occasionally to see his dealer. But more often now his dealer came down to see him and took canvases north with him. He was well established as a painter and he was respected both in Europe and in his own country. He had a regular income from oil leases on land his grandfather had owned. It had been grazing land and when it was sold the mineral rights had been retained. About half of this income went into alimony and the balance provided him with security so that he could paint exactly as he wanted to with no commercial pressure. It also enabled him to live where he wished and to travel when he cared to.
He had been successful in almost every way except in his married life, although he had never cared, truly, about success. What he cared about was painting and his children and he was still in love with the first woman he had been in love with. He had loved many women since and sometimes someone would come to stay on the island. He needed to see women and they were welcome for a while. He liked having them there, sometimes for quite a long time. But in the end he was always glad when they were gone, even when he was very fond of them. He had trained himself not to quarrel with women anymore and he had learned how not to get married.
These two things had been nearly as difficult to learn as how to settle down and paint in a steady and well-ordered way. But he had learned them and he hoped that he had learned them permanently. He had known how to paint for a long time and he believed he learned more every year. But learning how to settle down and how to paint with discipline had been hard for him because there had been a time in his life when he had not been disciplined. He had never been truly irresponsible; but he had been undisciplined, selfish, and ruthless. He knew this now, not only because many women had told it to him; but because he had finally discovered it for himself. Then he had resolved that he would be selfish only for his painting, ruthless only for his work, and that he would discipline himself and accept the discipline.
He was going to enjoy life within the limits of the discipline that he imposed and work hard. And today he was very happy because his children were coming in the morning.
“Mr. Tom, don’t you want nothing?” Joseph the house-boy asked him. “You knocked off for the day, ain’t you?”
Joseph was tall with a very long, very black face and big hands and big feet. He wore a white jacket and trousers and was barefooted.
“Thank you, Joseph. I don’t think I want anything.”
“Little gin and tonic?”
“No. I think I’ll go down and have one at Mr. Bobby’s.”
“Drink one here. It’s cheaper. Mr. Bobby was in an evil mood when I went by. Too many mixed drinks he says. Somebody off a yacht asked him for something called a White Lady and he served her a bottle of that American mineral water with a lady in white kinda mosquito netting dress sitting by a spring.”
“I better be getting down there.”
“Let me mix you one first. You got some mails on the pilot boat. You can read your mails and drink the drink and then go down to Mr. Bobby’s.”
“All right.”
“Good thing,” said Joseph. “Because I already mixed it. Mails don’t look to amount to anything, Mr. Tom.”
“Where are they?”
“Down in the kitchen. I’ll bring them up. Couple with women’s writing on them. One from New York. One from Palm Beach. Pretty writing. One from that gentleman sells your pictures in New York. Couple more unknown to me.”
“You want to answer them for me?”
“Yes sir. If that’s what you want. I’m educated way beyond my means.”
“Better bring them up.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Tom. There’s a paper too.”
“Save it for breakfast, please, Joseph.”
Thomas Hudson sat and read his mail and sipped at the cool drink. He read one letter over again and then put them all in a drawer of his desk.
“Joseph,” he called. “Have you everything ready for the boys?”
“Yes sir, Mr. Tom. And two extra cases of Coca-Cola. Young Tom, he must be bigger than me, ain’t he?”
“Not yet.”
“Think he can lick me now?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I fought that boy so many times in private life,” Joseph said. “Sure is funny to call him mister. Mr. Tom, Mr. David, and Mr. Andrew. Three of the finest goddam boys I know. And the meanest is Andy.”
“He started out mean,” Thomas Hudson said.
“And boy, did he continue,” Joseph said admiringly.
“You set them a good example this summer.”
“Mr. Tom, you don’t want me to set those boys no good example this summer. Maybe three four years back when I was innocent. Me, I’m going to pattern myself on Tom. He’s been to an expensive school and he’s got good expensive manners. I can’t look like him exactly. But I can act like him. Free and easy but polite. Then I’m going to be smart like Dave. That’s the hardest part. Then I’m going to learn the secret of how Andy gets that mean.”
“Don’t you get mean around here.”
“No, Mr. Tom, you mistook what I meant. That meanness isn’t for in the house. I want that for my private life.”
“It will be nice to have them, won’t it?”
“Mr. Tom, there won’t be nothing like it since they had the big fire. I rank it right along with the Second Coming. Is it nice? you ask me. Yes sir, it’s nice.”
“We’ll have to figure out plenty of things for them to do to have fun.”
“No, Mr. Tom,” Joseph said. “We ought to figure out how to save them from their own fearsome projects. Eddy can help us. He knows them better than me. I’m their friend and that makes it difficult.”
“How’s Eddy?”
“He’s been drinking a little in anticipation of the Queen’s birthday. He’s in tip-top shape.”
“I better get down to Mr. Bobby’s while he’s still in that evil mood.”
“He asked for you, Mr. Tom. Mr. Bobby’s a gentleman if there ever was a gentleman and sometimes that trash comes in on yachts gets him worn down. He was wore down almighty thin when I left.”
“What were you doing there?”
“I went for Coca-Cola and I stayed to keep my hand in shooting a stick of pool.”
“How’s the table?”
“Worse.”
“I’ll go down,” said Thomas Hudson. “I want to take a shower and change.”
“I’ve got them laying out for you on the bed,” Joseph told him. “You want another gin and tonic?”
“No thanks.”
“Mr. Roger’s in on the boat.”
“Good. I’ll get hold of him.”
“Will he be staying here?”
“Maybe.”
“I’ll make up a bed for him anyway.”
“Good.”
III
THOMAS HUDSON TOOK A SHOWER, scrubbing his head with soap and then rinsing under the prickling drive of the sharp, jetted shower. He was a big man and he looked bigger stripped than he did in his clothes. He was very tanned and his hair was faded and streaked from the sun. He carried no extra weight and on the scales he saw that he weighed 192 pounds.
I should have gone swimming before I took the shower, he thought. But I had a long swim this morning before I started work and I’m tired now. There will be plenty of swimming when the boys come. And Roger’s here too. That’s good.
He put on a clean pair of shorts and an old Basque shut and moccasins and went out the door and down the slope and through the gate in the picket fence onto the white glare of the sun-bleached coral of the King’s Highway.
Ahead a very
