“Mr. Bobby might not like it. He might get in bad with Constable.”
“I’ll go down and tell Mr. Bobby and I’ll speak to Constable. He’s a friend of ours.”
“All right. You tell Mr. Bobby and keep a look out for when the yacht people show up. What will we do about Dave?”
“Can’t we carry him? He’d look good that way.”
“I’ll put on Tom’s sneakers and walk,” David said. “Have you got it worked out, Tommy?”
“We can make it up as we go along,” young Tom said. “Can you still turn your eyelids inside out?”
“Oh sure,” said David.
“Don’t do it now, please,” Andrew said. “I don’t want to be sick right after lunch.”
“For a dime I’d make you throw up now, horseman.”
“No please don’t. Later on I won’t mind.”
“Do you want me to go with you?” Roger asked young Tom.
“I’d love it,” young Tom said. “We can work it out together.”
“Let’s go then,” Roger said. “Why don’t you take a nap, Davy?”
“I might,” said David. “I’ll read till I go to sleep. What are you going to do, papa?”
“I’m going to work in the lee out on the porch.”
“I’ll lie out there on the cot and watch you work. Will you mind?”
“No. Make me work better.”
“We’ll be back,” Roger said. “What about you, Andy?”
“I’d like to come and study it. But I think I better not because the people might be there.”
“That’s smart,” young Tom said. “You’re smart, horseman.”
They went off and Thomas Hudson worked all afternoon. Andy watched for a while and then went out somewhere and David watched and read and did not talk.
Thomas Hudson wanted to paint the leap of the fish first because painting him in the water was going to be much more difficult and he made two sketches, neither of which he liked, and finally a third one that he did like.
“Do you think that gets it, Davy?”
“Gee, papa, it looks wonderful. But water comes up with him when he comes out, doesn’t it? I mean not just when he splashed back.”
“It must,” his father agreed. “Because he has to burst the surface.”
“He came up so long. A lot must have come up. I suppose it really drips off him or pours off him if you could see it fast enough. Is he on his way up or on his way down?”
“This is just the sketch. I thought of him as just at the top.”
“I know it’s just the sketch, papa. You forgive me if I butt in. I don’t mean to act as though I knew.”
“I like you to tell me.”
“You know who’d know would be Eddy. He sees faster than a camera and he remembers. Don’t you think Eddy is a great man?”
“Of course he is.”
“Practically nobody knows about Eddy. Tommy does, of course. I like Eddy better than anybody except you and Mr. Davis. He cooks just like he loved it and he knows so much and can do anything. Look what he did with the shark and look how he went overboard yesterday after the fish.”
“And last night people beating him up because they didn’t believe him.”
“But, papa, Eddy isn’t tragic.”
“No. He’s happy.”
“Even today after he was all beaten up he was happy. And I’m sure he was happy that he went in after him.”
“Of course.”
“I wish Mr. Davis was happy the way Eddy is.”
“Mr. Davis is more complicated than Eddy.”
“I know it. But I can remember when he used to be careless happy. I know Mr. Davis very well, papa.”
He’s pretty happy now. I know he’s lost the carelessness though.”
“I didn’t mean a bad carelessness.”
“I didn’t, either. But there is some sort of a sureness that he’s lost.”
“I know it,” David said.
“I wish he’d find it. Maybe he’ll find it when he writes again. You see Eddy’s happy because he does something well and does it every day.”
“I guess Mr. Davis can’t do his every day the way you do and Eddy does.”
“No, And there are other things.”
“I know. I know too much for a kid, papa. Tommy knows twenty times as much as I do and knows the damndest things and they don’t hurt him. But everything I know hurts me. I don’t know why it should, either.”
“You mean that you feel it.”
“I feel it and it does something to me. It’s like a vicarious sin. If there is any such thing.”
“I see.”
“Papa, you excuse me for talking seriously. I know it isn’t polite. But I like to sometimes because there is so much we don’t know and then when we do know, it comes so fast it goes over you like a wave. The way the waves are today.”
“You can always ask me anything, Davy.”
“I know. Thank you very much. I’ll wait, I guess, on some things. There’s some I guess you can only learn for yourself probably.”
“Do you think we better do this ‘rummy’ business with Tom and Andy at Bobby’s? Remember I got in trouble about the man saying you were always drunk.”
“I remember—when he’d seen me drunk on wine twice in three years—but let’s not talk about it. This at Mr. Bobby’s will be a good alibi in case I ever did drink. If I did it twice with that man I might do it three times. No, I think this is a good thing to do, papa.”
“Have you done it lately, the pretend-rummy scene?”
“Tom and I do some pretty good ones. But with Andy they’re much better. Andy’s sort of a genius on them. He can do horrible ones. Mine are sort of special.”
“What have you done lately?” Thomas Hudson went on drawing.
“Did you ever see me do the idiot brother? The mongolian idiot?”
“Never.”
“How do you like it now, Davy?” Thomas Hudson showed him the sketch.
“It’s fine,” David said. “Now I see what you were after. It’s when he hangs in the air just before he falls. Can I really have the painting, papa?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“There’ll be two.”
“I’ll only take one to school and I’ll keep one at home at mother’s. Or would you rather keep it here?”
“No. She might like it. Tell me about some others that you did,” Thomas Hudson said.
“We used to have some awful ones on trains. Trains are the best because of the sort of people I guess. You don’t get those sort of people concentrated almost anywhere except on trains. And then they can’t get away.”
Thomas Hudson heard Roger talking in the other room and started to clean up and put away his gear. Young Tom came in and said, “How are you, papa? Did you work well? May I see it?”
Thomas Hudson showed him the two sketches and he said, “I like them both.”
“Do you like one better than the other?” David asked him.
“No. They’re both fine,” he said. Thomas Hudson could see he was in a hurry and that his mind was on something.
“How is it coming?” David asked him.
“It’s terrific,” young Tom said. “It will be wonderful if we do it right. They’re all down there now and we’ve been working on them all afternoon. We saw Mr. Bobby and Constable before they came. The way it’s been so far is that Mr. Davis is sodden and I’ve been trying to dissuade him.”
“You didn’t overdo it?”
“Hell no,” young Tom said. “You ought to have seen Mr. Davis. Every drink made a difference in him. But only imperceptibly.”
“What was he drinking?”
“Tea. Bobby’s got it in a rum bottle. He’s got a gin bottle fixed with water for Andy.”
“How did you try to dissuade Mr. Davis?”
“I pled with him. But so they couldn’t hear me. Mr. Bobby’s in it, too, but he’s using real liquor.”
“We better get down there,” David said. “Before Mr. Bobby gets too far ahead. How’s Mr. Davis feeling?”
“Wonderful. He’s a great, great artist, Dave.”
“Where’s Andy?”
“Downstairs practicing part of it in front of a mirror.”
“Is Eddy going to be in it?”
“Eddy and Joseph are both going to be in it.”
“They’ll never remember.”
“They only have one line.”
“Eddy can remember one line but I don’t know about Joseph.”
“He just repeats it after Eddy.”
“Is Constable in it?”
“Sure.”
“How many of them are there?”
“Seven with two girls. One nice-looking and one wonderful. She’s sorry for Mr. Davis already.”
“Oh boy,” said David. “Let’s go.”
“How’re you going to get down there?” young Tom asked David.
“I’ll carry him,” Thomas Hudson said.
“Please, papa, let me wear sneakers,” David said. “Let me wear Tommy’s sneakers. I’ll walk on the side of my feet and it won’t hurt them and it will look good.”
“All right. We might as well go. Where’s Roger?”
“He’s having a quick one with Eddy for his art,” young Tom said. “He was at bat a long time on that tea, papa.”
The wind was still blowing hard outside when they went into the Ponce de León. The people from the yacht were at the bar drinking rum swizzles. They were a nice-looking lot of people, tanned and dressed in whites, and they were polite and made room at the bar. Two men and a girl were at one end where the slot machine was and three men and the other girl were at the other end nearest the door. It was the lovely-looking girl who was at the slot machine end. But the other girl was awfully nice-looking, too. Roger, Thomas Hudson, and the boys came in straight. David even tried not to limp.
Mr. Bobby looked at Roger and said, “You back?”
Roger nodded hopelessly and Bobby put the rum bottle and a glass on the bar in front of him.
Roger reached for it and didn’t say anything.
“You drinking, Hudson?”
