Патриция Хайсмит – The Talented Mr Ripley / Талантливый мистер Рипли (страница 5)

Tom took a room at the Miramare. It was four o'clock by the time he got his suitcases up from the post office, and he was so tired that he fell down on the bed. What was he doing here? He had no friends here and he didn't speak the language. Suppose he got sick? Who would take care of him?

He fell asleep and when he woke up still weak, the sun was shining and it was five-thirty. He went to a window and looked out, trying to find Dickie's big house among the pink and white houses in front of him. He saw the red terrace. Was Marge still there? Were they talking about him?

And then he saw Dickie and Marge as they crossed a space between houses on the main road. They turned a corner, and Tom went to his side window for a better view. Dickie and Marge came down to the little wooden pier just below his window. Dickie talked with an Italian, gave him some money, and the Italian touched his cap, then untied the boat from the pier.Tom watched Dickie help Marge into the boat. The white sail began to climb. Behind them, to the left, the orange sun was sinking into the water. Tom could hear Marge's laugh, and a shout from Dickie in Italian toward the pier. Tom understood he was watching them on a typical day – a siesta[19] after the late lunch, probably, then the sail in Dickie's boat at sundown. Then some drinks at one of the cafes on the beach. They were enjoying an absolutely ordinary day, as if he did not exist. Why should Dickie want to come back to New York, to subways and taxis and a nine-to-five job? Or even vacations in Florida and Miami?[20] It wasn't much fun. Here Dickie could sail a boat in old clothes, he had his own house with a kind maid who probably took care of everything for him. And money besides, to take trips if he wanted to. Tom envied him with envy and self-pity that was breaking his heart. Tom thought that Dickie was against him because of his father' letter. It would be better if they met in one of the cafes down at the beach as if by chance. He probably could persuade Dickie to come home, if it all began like that, but this way it was useless.

Tom decided to let a few days go by. The first step, anyway, was to make Dickie like him. He wanted that more than anything else in the world.

Tom let three days go by. Then he went down to the beach on the fourth morning, and found Dickie alone, in the same place.

'Morning!' Tom called. 'Where's Marge?'

'Good morning. She's probably working a little late. She'll come soon.'

'Working?'

'She's a writer.'

'Oh… Can I invite you for a drink at the hotel before you go up to your house?' Tom asked Dickie. 'And Marge, too, if she comes. I wanted to give you your bathrobe and socks, you know.'

'Oh yes. Thanks very much. I'd like to have a drink.' He went back to his Italian newspaper.

'Doesn't look as if Marge is coming down,' Dickie said. 'I think I'll be going.'

Tom got up. They walked up to the Miramare, saying practically nothing to each other, except that Tom invited Dickie to lunch with him, and Dickie refused because the maid had his lunch ready at the house, he said. They went up to Tom's room, and Dickie tried on the bathrobe and the socks. Both the bathrobe and the socks were the right size, and, as Tom had expected, Dickie was extremely pleased with the bathrobe.

Now Dickie had everything, Tom thought, everything he had to offer. He was going to refuse the invitation for a drink, too, Tom knew. Tom followed him toward the door. 'You know, your father's very worried about you. He asked me to talk to you. Of course, I won't, but I'll still have to tell him something. I promised to write him.'

Dickie stopped at the door.

'I don't know what my father thinks I'm doing over here – drinking myself to death or what. I'll probably fly home this winter for a few days, but I don't want to stay over there. I'm happier here. I think it's my business how I spend my life. Thanks, anyway, Tom, for the message and the clothes. It was very nice of you.' Dickie offered his hand.

Tom hesitated to take the hand. This was failure, failure with Mr Greenleaf's message, and failure with Dickie.

'I think I should tell you something else,' Tom said with a smile. 'Your father sent me over here especially to ask you to come home.'

'What do you mean?' Dickie frowned. 'Paid your way?'

'Yes.' It was his last chance. Dickie might laugh at it or go out in disgust. But the smile was coming, the way Tom remembered Dickie's smile.

'Paid your way! What do you know![21] He's very serious, isn't he?' Dickie closed the door again.

'He came up to me in a bar in New York,' Tom said. 'I told him I wasn't a close friend of yours, but he insisted I could help if I came here. I told him I'd try.'

They laughed.

'I don't want you to think I'm someone who tried to use your father,' Tom said. 'I expect to find a job somewhere in Europe soon, and I'll be able to pay him. He bought me a round-trip ticket.'

'Oh, don't bother! It goes on the Greenleaf expense account.

I can just see how Dad talks to you in a bar! '

They had a drink downstairs in the hotel bar. They drank to Herbert Richard Greenleaf.

'Oh, it's Sunday today,' Dickie remembered. 'Marge went to church. Could you come up and have lunch with us? We always have chicken on Sunday. You know it's an old American custom, chicken on Sunday.'

Dickie wanted to go past Marge's house to see if she was still there. Her house was a one-storey building with a garden. Through an open window, Tom saw a table in disorder with a typewriter on it.

'Hi!' she said, opening the door. 'Hello, Tom! Where've you been all this time?'

She offered them a drink, but discovered that her bottle of gin was almost empty.

'It doesn't matter, we're going to my house,' Dickie said. 'Tom has something funny to tell you,' he said. 'Tell her, Tom.'

Tom took a breath and began. He made it very funny and Marge laughed like someone who didn't have anything funny to laugh at in years. 'When I saw him coming in Raoul's after me, I was ready to climb out of a back window!'

His reputation was going up with Dickie and Marge. He could see it in their faces.

The way up the hill to Dickie's house didn't seem so long as before. When they got there, they showered and then had a drink, just like the first time, but the atmosphere now was completely changed.

Dickie sat down in a chair. 'Tell me more,' he said, smiling. 'What kind of work do you do? You said you might take a job.'

'Why? Do you have a job for me?'

'Can't say that I have.'

'Oh, I can do a number of things – being a servant, baby-sitting, accounting – I've got an unfortunate talent for calculation. No matter how drunk I get, I can always tell when a waiter's cheating me on a bill. I can forge a signature, fly a helicopter, imitate practically anybody, cook – and do a one-man show in a nightclub. Shall I go on?'

'What kind of a one-man show?' Dickie asked.

'Well – ' Tom jumped up. 'This for example. This is a lady trying the American subway. She's never even been in the underground in London, but she wants to take back some American experiences.' Tom did it all in pantomime, – here Marge came out, and Dickie told her it was an Englishwoman in the subway, but Marge didn't seem to understand it and asked, 'What?'

'Wonderful!' Dickie shouted, clapping.

Marge wasn't laughing. She stood there looking a little confused. Neither of them bothered to explain it to her. She didn't look as if she had that kind of sense of humour, anyway, Tom thought.

Dickie stood up. 'Come on in, Tom, I'll show you some of my paintings.' Dickie led the way into the big room.

'This is one of Marge I'm working on now.' He pointed at one of the pictures.

'Oh,' Tom said with interest. It wasn't good in his opinion, probably in anybody's opinion.

'And these – a lot of landscapes,' Dickie said with an apologizing laugh, though obviously he wanted Tom to say something complimentary about them, because obviously he was proud of them.

Tom felt almost a personal shame. 'Yes, I like that,' Tom said. Mr Greenleaf had been right. Yet it gave Dickie something to do, kept him out of trouble, Tom supposed. He was only sorry that Dickie fell into this category as a painter, because he wanted Dickie to be much more.

'Yes,' Tom wanted to forget all about the paintings and forget that Dickie painted. 'Can I see the rest of the house?'

'Absolutely! You haven't seen the salon, have you?'

Dickie opened a door in the hall that led into a very large room with a fireplace, sofas, bookshelves, and three doors – to the terrace, to the land on the other side of the house, and to the front garden. Dickie said that in summer he did not use the room, because he liked to save it as a change of scene for the winter. It surprised him.

'What's upstairs?' Tom asked.

The upstairs was disappointing: Dickie's bedroom in the corner of the house above the terrace was almost empty – a bed, – a narrow bed, hardly wider than a single bed. There was certainly no sign of Marge anywhere, least of all in Dickie's bedroom.

'How about going to Naples with me sometime?' Tom asked. 'I didn't have much of a chance to see it on my way down.'