John Boce presently departed: Mervyn sprawled, thinking. Somehow he must bestir himself to sell the Chevrolet convertible, which in its present keyless condition was the property of anyone who knew where to find the hidden switch. He groaned, swung his legs to the floor, sat holding his head in his hands. He was sick of his own thoughts.
He went into the bathroom, showered, shaved, ran a comb through his hair, regarded himself in the mirror with disapproval. He was just too damn handsome in a Mexican-matinee-idol kind of way. His skin was a clear olive, eyes hazel and long-lashed, hair a dense black pelt. He wore unobtrusive clothes, having long since cultivated a sartorial reserve. But the dark grays and blues accentuated his coloring; the reserve was variously interpreted as arrogance, narcissism, or plain stupidity. So Mervyn had taken refuge in the twelfth century, where he could refresh himself with the chansons and gestes, the rondels and virelais of the Provençal jongleurs.
Mary Hazelwood was no less refreshing. Mary, uncritical and happy-go-lucky, took life as it came. She was an exuberant and enthusiastic flirt, an activity as natural and necessary to her as breathing. She flirted with John Boce, with the mailman, with Mrs. Kelly’s asthmatic grandson, with Mervyn Gray... with everyone and anyone.
Mervyn was amused and charmed; in her company he could abandon the twelfth century as well as his façade of calculated coolness. Nevertheless, the tradition of la belle dame sans merci impelled him to caution; besides, there was Susie, who possessed her own peculiar attractions.
Susie was even more perplexing than Mary. Mervyn understood that the role of Mary’s little sister posed special problems for Susie; still, she had all the necessary equipment to cope with them. Mervyn was unable to fathom her feelings toward him: did she regard him merely as an instrument to be used in her machinations — whatever they might be? Twice he had kissed her; she had seemed to melt, only to become more flippant and detached than ever. Meanwhile, Mary was Mary: pretty enough to make the heart stop, lavish with her charming provocations, and unpossessable as a sunbeam. Impossible not to love Mary! And perhaps, for one whose heart was broken, impossible not to hate her, too...
At six o’clock John Boce tramped back into Mervyn’s living room. He wore a suit of pinkish-brown silk and pointed yellow shoes. His long nose twitched; his eyes were bright. “Allons, mes enfants!” he called. “En avant! Au mouton! I smell it from here! The girls are waiting! Hurry, hurry, hurry!”
“Girls plural?”
“Harriet’s coming with us.” Boce watched from the corner of his eye. When no protest was forthcoming, he heaved a relieved sigh. “Well, boy? You ready? We’ll take the convert, eh? More room and all that.”
“The Volkswagen’s handier. The convertible’s out back, in the garage.”
The accountant started to grumble, but Mervyn had already stepped outside. Susie and Harriet waited by the fountain in the middle of the court. Susie wore a eucalyptus-green suit, and she had slicked down her tawny hair into a semblance of order. She was fluttering the fingers of her left hand against her thigh — a signal of displeasure, or tension. Harriet wore black tights under a mulberry red skirt, with a green-and-black Peruvian sweater of confused design.
They walked up the street to where Mervyn had parked the Volkswagen. He tried to maneuver Boce into the back seat with Harriet, but the fat man protested so vehemently that Susie, smiling grimly, slipped in ahead of him; and, still complaining, Boce heaved himself into the front beside Mervyn.
Mervyn looked at him for directions. “Where do we go?”
“Up Panoramic. Almost to the top. I don’t think we’ll make it in this goddamn motorized wheelbarrow.”
“I wonder if I need gas.”
“You’ve got the reserve tank. Once we get there we can coast all the way back down. C’mon, boy, move this heap. Sheep have only four legs. That’s one apiece if we get there now.”
“It’s only six o’clock. You can’t be hungry.”
“I’m always hungry.”
Mervyn started the car and set off toward the campus. John Boce sat hunched forward, pointing out traffic hazards with a nervous finger. “Next block turn... Stop. Traffic light... Now turn. All the way up Bancroft. Stop sign. Stop. Stop! You blind, Mervyn?”
Mervyn saw an opportunity to play his game. “It’s a fact I never seem to see the things. I wonder why. Maybe because I detest them so. Tall things with those bright red heads. They remind me of something, I can’t think what. My mother? That can’t be...”
Harriet Brill asked cautiously from behind, “Did your mother have red hair?”
“It’s hard to remember. She died when I was sixteen.”
“Oh,” said Harriet.
“Ignore him,” Susie said shortly.
At Boce’s direction Mervyn turned up Panoramic Way, a narrow and wickedly winding road that led up into the sky, with the reach of the bay spread out far below, and San Francisco a stipple of miniature towers in the hazy west.
Oleg and Olga Malinski lived in a house of glass and redwood perched incredibly over a cliff. A dozen cars were already parked along the street, and Boce sat on the edge of his seat while Mervyn backed into a parking place.
Harriet suddenly exclaimed, “John, I’ve been meaning to ask. Did Mary call you yesterday before she left?”
There was an instant of startled silence. Susie and Mervyn looked at John Boce, whose neck had turned red. “Why should she telephone me?”
“She spoke to a John and asked him to please be on time. I know it wasn’t you, of course—”
“Then why’d you ask?” growled Boce.
“Mary knows lots of Johns,” said Susie indifferently. “Also Petes, Wilburs, Dicks...”
“Any time you stable this goat I’ll get out,” the bulky accountant snapped at Mervyn.
Mervyn set the hand brake. “Lead the way.”
Malinski’s house was essentially one vast living room, with the incidental addition of two or three cubicles for bathing and sleeping. A deck across the entire width of the house hung out over what seemed miles of empty air. Below and beyond spread the gray cities, the leaden bay, the sky, where sunset colors were gathering.
The cars parked along Panoramic had given John Boce an unjustified fright; only eight or ten guests were in evidence. They had gathered at one end of the deck, where a whole lamb turned over glowing coals. Here stood Oleg Malinski, a small, agile man with a large, excessive head. A bushy mustache covered his wistful pink mouth; his gestures were extravagant. He drank red wine from a beaker of blue Mexican glass, he basted the lamb, he discoursed with emotion and conviction to the captive audience gathered around the spit. Boce hurried to join the group. “Oleg,” he said, “I’ve arrived. What a magnificent sheep!”
“Gad!” said someone. “You’ve ruined everything. I can’t stand the idea of eating sheep.”
“So much more for the rest of us,” said Boce with a pudgy bow. “Anyone else I can bug?”
Mervyn and Susie and Harriet came out on the deck, and Boce introduced Mervyn. Oleg absently extended the hand that held the basting brush. “Harriet I know. And Susie, of course. Where is your effervescent sister?”
Susie gave the slightest of shrugs; Harriet spoke in a voice quivering with excitement. “Can you guess? Mary has eloped.”
Oleg Malinski swung the brush dramatically high. “No! I cannot believe my ears! Who could succeed where I failed?”
“His name is John,” Harriet said.
“John? John who?”
“Not me,” said John Boce. “I plan to drown my sorrows in that sheep.”