Next up for a visit with the doctor, was Briars. I went to see him in hospital. He was sitting up, and the nurse assured me he'd be able to leave the next morning. That news, however, did not appear to cheer him up. He sat silently as I chattered away to him on whatever neutral subjects I could come up with, until I decided I should just leave him alone.
"Don't go, Lara, please," he said, when I announced my departure. "I know I'm not a brilliant conversationalist today, but I'm really glad to have your company. I'm just dreading having to call Ron's parents. I know I have to do it, but it makes me ill to think of it."
"Maybe you should leave it for a few days," I said. "I've talked to the embassy, and they've contacted Mr. and Mrs. Todd. His body is being shipped back home tomorrow morning."
"Are they coming over here?" he asked.
"I don't think so. I gather Ron's father has MS, and would have difficulty traveling. The U.S. embassy is helping the family look after the arrangements."
"I've had to do this before," Briars said. "When that young man Mark . . ."
"I know, Briars. You told me about it. You don't have to go over it again."
"I've been thinking about it a lot, today," he said. "I think maybe that was what ended my marriage. It didn't seem like it at the time. I flew home a few weeks later, called Mark's father, then went back to teaching. But a few months later, right about when I'd be going back to Tunisia for another summer of diving, were it not for the fact that Peter and I had fallen out, I went into a tailspin. I didn't attribute it to the previous summer until today. Stupid, I know, but it just never occurred to me until this moment that it was the terrible accident that caused it. I drank too much, was horrible to my wife and sons, quarreled with my colleagues and even the head of the department, which is a particularly dumb thing to do if you want to get ahead in academia. Finally Emily, that's my wife, told me to get out. My colleagues said I'd better take a break, or I'd probably be out of the university, too. This revelation has come as something of a shock. As you have no doubt already guessed, I'm not a terribly introspective kind of person."
"Sounds like the average man to me," I said, trying to lighten the conversation up a little.
He smiled ever so slightly. "I have a feeling you and Emily would get along."
"You've said that before. Maybe you should call her."
"She threw me out, remember."
"You don't seem to be drinking excessively, at least as far as I have seen, nor do you strike me as a difficult person anymore, if that was the problem."
"I've been trying to straighten myself out," he said. "But I think as far as my marriage is concerned, it's too late." He paused for a moment. "I have a question to ask you, and I'd really appreciate an honest answer. Do you think I'm turning into another Peter Groves? Have I become so obsessed with finding this miserable shipwreck that I'm risking young people's lives, ruining my marriage, destroying any chance I have at my job? Please tell me the truth."
"Briars, I don't know you very well, but I don't think so. After all, those tanks were deliberately tampered with, weren't they? It's Groves the police are talking to now. It wasn't a case of you sending Ron down under dangerous conditions. You went down with him. Is a shipwreck, no matter how old, worth the loss of a life? No, it isn't. But that's a different question entirely."
"Should I have known, after the fire on the Susannah, that something like this was inevitable?"
"I guess that depends on whether you think Peter Groves, in a vengeful mood, is the one who tampered with the tanks, and, if you'll forgive me for saying it, whether or not you set, or arranged to have set, the fire on Peter's ship, and in so doing escalated the conflict."
"I had nothing whatsoever to do with the fire on Peter's ship, although he no doubt thinks I did. As to whether or not he tampered with the tanks, I wouldn't have thought he'd do such a thing. He'd run the risk of killing his own daughter, wouldn't he? They may be estranged, but it's quite a different thing to do something that might get your child killed."
I had a horrible thought. "Did Sandy ask not to dive yesterday?"
"No. We drew lots. Why? Oh, I see what you're getting at. I have great faith in Sandy."
"Okay, just asking."
"To get back to your earlier question: I wouldn't have put Peter down for such a terrible act, but the truth of the matter is, I can't think of anybody else."
My next therapy patient was Marlene. "That daughter of mine!" she exclaimed. "She's just impossible. She won't do anything I tell her. The way she's carrying on! Lighting those matches and everything. It's been so hard since her father left. And she's pestering Emile all the time, follows him everywhere he goes. She's gone into town now to see what he's doing. I can't stop her. The poor man is getting quite embarrassed about it. I'm just trying to get my life straightened out."
Was it that Emile was embarrassed about it, or that Marlene didn't like the competition from her daughter?
"It's her father. Walking out on us like that. Men are all alike, don't you think? Bastards, just like her father. He takes up with a bimbo who is barely older than Chastity and whose IQ is roughly the same as my bra size. And you know what, Chastity blames me for it, can you believe it?"
"I think that happens a lot with mothers and teenage daughters," I said. "I'm sure she'll get over it." Actually I wasn't sure at all. I just didn't know what to say to this woman who was baring her soul to me. "Why don't you try talking to her about all of these things?"
"I can't," she said. "She won't talk to me. Maybe you could say something to her?" she said, brightening. "She thinks you're great."
"That's nice," I said. "But I think you and she need to talk, Marlene."
She sighed. "I'll try. Maybe we can talk about this again."
Who's next? I wondered.
"Lara," Sylvie said. "I have a matter of some delicacy to discuss with you. Do you mind coming into the office for just a minute?"
"I'll be happy to," I said. "Delicate discussions are something I feel I'm gaining more and more experience with by the hour." She looked perplexed for a moment, poured me a cup of tea, and after briefly discussing the weather, sidled into a rant about the hotel business.
"It's not an easy business, Lara," she said. "We aren't like the big hotels that can handle planeloads of German tourists coming in every week. We rely a lot on word of mouth. Also we're small, but we still require plenty of staff to maintain standards. Not having our best suite in use for a few weeks is a real problem for us. Sometimes I wonder why Chantal and I came back. We don't own the hotel anymore, just run it for Khelifa. He's good to us, of course, but at times like this I think of going back to France and starting over again. Paris is so beautiful, and the south of France has a Mediterranean climate. It's not North Africa, but . . ."
Was there something in the air, I wondered, that was making everybody around me so introspective, and worse than that, so talkative? All these people getting in touch with their inner selves and then feeling compelled to share their feelings with me! When times are bad, I confess I take the opposite approach. I throw myself into my work and try not to think or talk about these kinds of things at all. This undoubtedly makes me a shallow person, but sometimes I think that's preferable to all this slobbering about. "Is there something specific that's bothering you that I could help with, Sylvie?" I said finally.
She handed me a piece of paper, a rather long list of phone numbers and charges. "Mme. Ellingham's phone bill," she said. "I am wondering who will pay for it. You know long distance charges here are very high."