“You mustn’t bother the gentleman.”
“I’m not bothering. He said he would like to talk.” This wasn’t quite the truth, and she looked quickly at Avery from the corners of her eyes to see if he would support her in the small lie, and was relieved to see that he was looking at her mother and nodding his head.
“It’s quite all right,” he called.
Satisfied, the woman settled back in her chair again. She lowered the glasses and lifted the book. The girl turned back to Avery.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Not at all.”
“It wasn’t quite true, you know. You didn’t actually say you would like to talk.”
“Didn’t I? I want to, just the same. I guess I was getting bored myself.”
“Do you get bored frequently?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes.”
“I do. I get bored very frequently. Are you married?”
“No.”
“Neither is Mother.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“She was married once but isn’t any longer. She’s divorced.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Do you think so? I don’t. I live part time with her and part time with Father. It makes things a little more interesting. It’s not so boring when you change off.”
“Where does your father live?”
“In Baltimore. That’s in Maryland. My mother lives there too, but not with my father. They’re divorced.”
“I know. You told me that.”
“I have a bad habit of repeating myself. Mother says I do, and I guess it’s so. Why aren’t you married?”
“I guess I just never found a girl who would have me.”
She looked at him judicially, her head cocked to one side.
“I don’t believe that’s the reason at all. You’re very good-looking you know.”
“Well, I didn’t know, as a matter of fact. Thank you for telling me.”
“Do you intend to get married?”
He was quiet for a long time, looking beyond her and far out across the glittering water. She was afraid for a minute that she had offended him. Her mother often told her that she was far too inquisitive. She did not want to offend him because she would then have to go back to being bored, and she wished there were a way to retract the question, but of course it was too late, just as it was almost always too late to do anything about something you’d put your foot in. She was vastly relieved when he laughed quietly and did not seem to be offended after all.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” he said.
“When?”
“I really haven’t decided. I haven’t even asked anyone. Soon, perhaps.”
“I don’t ever expect to get married myself.”
“No? Why not?”
“Because I don’t suppose anyone will ever want me. I’m too plain.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”
“Well, if you wouldn’t, it’s just because you’re kind. It’s true, however. I’m very plain, but I’ve learned to accept it. I’ve even learned to like it, rather. Being plain has advantages, you know. People don’t expect so much of you.”
“How old are you?”
“Ten. Why?”
“I just wondered. To tell the truth, I think a great deal should be expected of you. For ten, you’re pretty precocious.”
“Precocious? What does that mean?”
“It means that you act older than your age.”
“Oh. My father has said the same thing, only he didn’t use that particular word. Would you care to go swimming?”
“I thought your mother wouldn’t let you go.”
“That was alone. I’m sure she’d allow it if you went too. Then she wouldn’t have to take me later, you see. She hates going into the water.”
“All right, then. You run over and ask, just to be certain.”
The girl got up and went over to her mother, and Avery stood and watched the sequence of small actions between the two of them, the girl standing and waiting for attention, the mother lifting her eyes and lowering her book and glancing quickly, after listening for a moment, in his direction. Finally, the short nod of her head that signified assent, the relieved retreat to the book.
The girl returned and said, “I told you. It’s perfectly all right.”
“Good. I’ll race you to the water.”
She turned and ran down across the sand on thin, stem-like legs, and he followed more slowly, letting her stay ahead. When she reached the water, she went straight in, throwing her negligible weight against massive fluid resistance, and he increased his speed, catching up with her when the water was already above her waist.
“Can you swim?” he said.
“No.”
“Then I don’t think we’d better go any farther out.”
She looked up at him. The salt water had splashed up and wet her hair, darkening the shade of red a little but making it look thinner than ever, and he thought that she was indeed an extremely homely little girl, but at the same time there was a strange, inquisitive charm about her.
“It would be all right if you were to carry me,” she said.
“Yes, I suppose it would.”
“If you’ll just squat down a little I can get onto your back.”
He turned and squatted down to make his back available, and she climbed quickly aboard. Her thin arms around his neck felt as if they had no flesh whatever on them. They were like flexible bone. He walked on out against the resistance of the Atlantic until only his head and neck were above water, and then she slipped off his back, retaining a hold on one arm.
“Help me float,” she said.
She floundered over onto her back and began to sink, and he put a hand under her and raised her to the surface, and she lay there as rigidly as a body with rigor mortis, floating on the light touch of his fingers. Her weight, which was little enough normally, was hardly anything at all in the water. Apparently all she wanted to do was to lie on her back and look up into the sky, and she lay there on his fingers without speaking or moving, except as she was moved by the motion of the water, for what seemed to him like a very long time. Eventually he glanced toward the beach and saw the fat woman, her mother, standing at the edge of the water and gesturing for them to come in.
“Your mother wants you,” he said.
“Yes.” She closed her eyes and made a face at the sky. “I thought it must be about time. She never lets me stay in longer than fifteen or twenty minutes. It’s a ridiculous idea of hers.”
“Shall we go in, then?”
“I suppose we have to.”
She flopped over onto her stomach and regained her hold on his arm. From there she clambered onto his back again, and he waded in with an exhilarating sense of power rising within him in a kind of counter-action to the descent of the water on his body. He felt like a god or something. Or like a saint. Saint Christopher rising from the water with a child on his back.
The mother, seeing them approach, had returned to her chair and was preparing to leave the beach. Avery deposited the girl on the sand and said, “It looks like you’re going to have to go. Thank you for letting me go swimming with you.”
“Did you really enjoy it?”
“Yes. It was fun.”
“Mother will say I’ve made a nuisance of myself again. She says I bother people.”
“In my case, that isn’t so. You tell your mother that.”
“I’ll tell her, but she won’t believe it. You’re very nice. I hope you marry a nice girl.”
“Did I say I was going to get married?”
“You said you were thinking about it.”
“Yes. So I did. I remember now.”
He looked down at her, at her small ugly face beneath the ridiculous pink hair, and she assumed all at once in his mind a monstrous and unreasonable importance, as if he were suddenly certain through intuition that she was a kind of strange oracle by the sea who had come to him for a purpose which he must at this moment, before it was too late, recognize and exploit.