The captain smiled. “I won’t tell you what my wife calls me.”
“Then you do understand.” Another deep breath. “All right. Here’s the other thing. A lot of people would have said we weren’t married at all. That’s not right, but it’s what lots of people would’ve said. It’s called common-law marriage. We lived together and told everybody we were married. If you do that, you enter a common-law marriage. Please believe me. It’s the truth.”
“I know it is,” the captain said.
“This is true, too. We were going to have a regular marriage, a big ceremony. One of the missionaries on Great Takanga would do it. We were going to be married on the grass in front of some embassy. Bill had it all set up, and a dressmaker was making my wedding dress. Then the st-storm...”
“I understand,” the captain told her, “but how did you get on that island?”
“Wally d-d-died, and I was g-going to die, too. I kn-knew it. I wanted to die.” Cassie sighed. “I really did. I w-wanted to get it all over.”
The captain nodded. “Go on.”
“Some friends came. It was v-very unexpected, but they did and they were going to fly me out. Only they were o-overloaded and c-couldn’t carry me anymore.”
He nodded again. “Did they have a seaplane?”
“N-no. They landed on the beach and told me I’d be all right there, that I might even be h-happy. I guess I thought they would come back for me, but they never did.”
“Did it ever occur to you that they might have gone down at sea after they let you out?”
Cassie shook her head.
“A light plane, heavily loaded, trying to fly out through a storm? It could have happened very easily.”
THE owner, Madame Pavlatos, was a rake-thin brunette who had once (there were photos and oil paintings everywhere) been a great beauty. Her stateroom was large even for such a large yacht, and where her pictures were not, there were mirrors. Cassie had taken one and one-half steps into the stateroom when she glimpsed herself in one — a wasted face, sunburned and deeply lined, surmounted by dirty, graying hair. A bent and barefoot old woman dressed in rags, with arms and legs like sticks.
She screamed and sobbed and choked, and pounded the little table that held Madame Pavlatos’s tray with futile fists, while Madame Pavlatos (that austere mistress of a thousand millions) comforted her like a mother.
AFTERWARD
The Athena landed Cassie at Cairns, where she lived less than happily in a shelter for homeless women until the United States Government was persuaded to bring her home. Herbie, it transpired, had morphed into an undersecretary in the Department of Education. He had a friend in the Department of State and may have harbored a sneaking affection for the wife who had divorced him not quite ten years ago. So the thing was done.
THE airport was the one in which Zelda Youmans’s small pink hopper had once landed. It seemed almost unchanged, a lack of instability that struck Cassie as nothing less than miraculous. How could a little knot of mere buildings have changed so little, when she had changed so much?
Barclays scanned her retinas, and so established her identity. “You’ll need new checks, I suppose,” the bank officer said.
Cassie nodded.
“You have a box. We’ve been paying the rent from your account. That’s standard here.”
Thinking of her lost apartment and all the possessions that had mysteriously disappeared with it, Cassie said, “I wish everyone were that thoughtful.”
“Thanks.” The bank officer smiled. “Will you need a new key?”
She nodded again.
“If you require immediate access to your box, we can break into it today.” Embarrassed, he paused. “There’s a substantial fee for that. Five hundred dollars. I don’t control these things, you understand.”
“That won’t be necessary.” She sighed. “I’ll have a lot to do as soon as I get the checks.”
“A credit card? I can give you one of those, too.” The bank officer’s fingers danced over the keyboard.
“Yes. Please. I have to buy new clothes and find a place to stay. A hotel room for tonight, and an apartment as soon as I can find one. Furniture.”
“You lost everything.” He looked sympathetic.
“Everything except my life. I even lost my friends, because I don’t want them to see me like this. Is that crazy?”
“I don’t think so.”
“There was a nice little woman who used to work for me. Her name is Margaret Briggs.”
He waited.
“I passed her. Walking, I mean. I took the bus from the airport, and it let me out at the Blake. So I walked over. It’s three blocks, I think.”
“Yes. It is.”
“Margaret was walking the other way. I stopped for a minute and sort of stared at her. She just kept going. I know she didn’t know who I was.”
“There are beauticians... I’m afraid I don’t know much about those things.”
“I do.” Cassie managed to smile. “I’ll go to them, but it won’t be enough.”
The bank officer’s printer was birthing temporary checks. He turned to it, glad of the distraction. “A new key the usual way will take a week or so, but the charge is only twenty-five dollars. We’ll call you when it’s ready.”
“I don’t have a phone,” Cassie told him. “That’s the first thing I’m going to get.”
HER new apartment was old and small, yet she found it very pleasant indeed after the shelter. It was clean and cheap, and had just been repainted. Best of all it was on the east side of Kingsport, across town from her old one. There, when she had finished breakfast on the fourth day, she patted her lips, got out her new cell phone, and made the call she had planned for so many months.
“Miskatonic University. How may we help you?”
“I’m looking for a man who teaches there. I hope you can help me find him.” They were lines she had rehearsed a thousand times. “His name is Gideon Chase. Dr. Gideon Chase.”
“Oh, don’t you know? We’re so proud!”
She sucked air. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“Dr. Chase is on indefinite leave of absence. Our catalog this semester absolutely trumpets it. Our faculty member, the chair of our Department of Modern Gramarye, has been appointed ambassador to Woldercan. The whole school’s proud enough to burst.”
SELLING the bracelet took far longer than Cassie had anticipated; but when the sale was final at last, she found herself (as an awed manager at Barclays informed her) the wealthiest woman in the state. At which point it was time for another call. She entered a number she had gotten from Directory Assistance the day before.
“Klauser residence.”
“May I speak to Mr. Klauser?”
“I’m afraid not. He’s sleeping right now.” (A reedy voice in the background protested.)
“Will you tell him I called? My name’s Fiona Casey, and I was a friend of...” Something seemed to have taken Cassie by the throat. “Of the late William Reis. Please explain that I’m going to Woldercan, and I want very much to speak with Mr. Klauser before I leave.”
“Wait a moment.”
There was a long silence, during which Cassie smiled to herself and stared out her kitchen window. The sky was blue, and the steep roofs and sometimes ornate chimney pots of the old buildings in this part of town were a pleasant reminder of Kingsport’s colonial origins.
“Ms. Casey?”
“Yes, I’m still here.”
“Mr. Klauser is anxious to meet you. He, ah — ” The speaker’s voice sank to a whisper. “He isn’t at all well. Please don’t tire him.”