"It makes sense to you," she said carefully.
"Ah. . . ." He got the point immediately. He was very quick, astonishingly sensitive. "So it won't be free?"
"No."
He said: "All right. . . . I'm a rich man. . . . But I guess you know that already."
"I'll need to think about it, anyway."
He said, again: "All right."
She stood up straight; the small of her back was sore where she had pressed it against the rail. Around them the night was warm and still; far away, at the edge of the dock, there was the clang of a bell—an ambulance, a police car—to recall them to the world. As they stepped apart, and the link between them dissolved, she was struck by an enormous self-disgust. This was so utterly sordid. ... He was such a good man, basically; in spite of what he had said, the wild lust for youth and softness would vanish; the moment it was slaked, he would be a grandfather again. ... All he wanted was the transient use of her body, and she was going to sell it to him, though she wanted nothing of his—it would have been the same if he had been made of wood, of rubber hose. . . . Twisting the suicidal knife, because she loathed what she was preparing to do, she said:
"How much?"
His cigar-butt described a wide arc, up and away, and fell thirty feet below into the invisible water.
"You can have anything you want," he said.
They began to walk away from the rail, towards the lighted sun-room. There was someone inside, a woman, sitting in the same chair as Kathy had used, when she watched Tim Mansell being young and brave. . . . Tillotson pushed open the door, and stood aside to let Kathy pass through. The woman within rose, as if a signal had been given, and took a step towards them. It was his wife.
It might have been an electric moment, but it was not; the principals involved were too well-disciplined, and perhaps too adroit. Tillotson closed the door behind him, and advanced into the light.
"Hallo, dear," he said, without hesitation. "I was wondering where you were."
Mrs. Tillotson, though she had risen with alacrity, was also entirely calm; her plain and pleasant face showed no important emotion; only a certain watchfulness as she glanced from one to the other told Kathy that there were reservations and tensions beneath the surface. How much she had seen, or had guessed, was problematical; the two of them had been standing within a corner made by the third and fourth lifeboats; the deck was virtually unlighted; they might well have been out of sight. But they had, indubitably, been together, in circumstances which aided the imagination, particularly the imagination of a wife.
"I was reading," said Mrs. Tillotson, on a quietly social note. "Then I thought I'd like some fresh air. But it seemed a bit chilly outside. . . . You'll catch cold!" She looked at Kathy's exiguous off-the-shoulder dress. "Both of you."
"Oh, it's warm enough," said Kathy. Try as she would, she could not look quite directly at Mrs. Tillotson; her eyes were focused a little to the side, in a neutral area which promised safety. "We were enjoying the view."
"One way of getting warm," said Tillotson, "and that's a drink. How about it?"
"Can we get one?" asked Mrs. Tillotson. She glanced at her watch. "It's after twelve, you know."
"I'll fix it____Whisky and soda?"
"Just a small one, then."
"Kathy?"
"I'd love one," said Kathy. She knew what was going to happen now, but there was no way of avoiding it. Perhaps she did not deserve to avoid it.
"I'll bring it up," said Tillotson, and turned, and was gone.
It was all right for him. ... As she smiled and sat down, she wondered why he had left so promptly; a drink was a welcome idea, but a drink did not need fetching, on board the Alcestis—-there were bells for drinks, all the way round the clock. It was not due to cowardice, because he was not that sort of man. Perhaps it was something more directly connected with his wife and his background—a belated social sense, even, which told him that he had spent quite enough time with a young unmarried woman, and must absent himself for a space. . . . Whatever it was, it left herself in an awkward position. If the thing became emotional, or competitive, or unpleasant, she would scarcely know how to deal with it. In her present mood of confusion, she did not even know whether she wanted to win or to lose.
She need not have bothered. Mrs. Tillotson was far too kind a woman, too genuine a person, to vulgarize or to out-face. She had some points to make—so much was quickly clear; but she was going to make them in her own fashion, and her own fashion was subdued, oblique, and above all civilized. Nothing she said overstepped the limits of social exchange; it was the footnotes, known to both of them, which supplied the key to their communication.
"Bill is so energetic," said Mrs. Tillotson, looking after her husband as the swing door closed behind him. "I can hardly keep up with him, these days. This cruise has really made him feel young again."
Kathy, busy with her cigarette, remarked that it seemed to have had the same effect on a lot of their fellow-passengers. The sea air— could that be it?
"And the people themselves, I think." Mrs. Tillotson seemed to be considering the point judiciously; her eyes were turned towards the boat-deck. "You know how one makes new friends. . . . And then, I suppose, as soon as one gets home, everything goes back to normal again."
"That's rather a sad idea," said Kathy. She was content to supply the linking, not the material; her eyes, following Mrs. Tillotson's, had noted that from this vantage point the boat-deck was dark and shadowy; if they had been seen at all, it could only have been as two people emerging out of the twilight between the two boats, after a lengthy absence. Perhaps, in the circumstances, that was enough.
Mrs. Tillotson shook her head. "Oh, I don't think so. It's like waking up suddenly, in the middle of the night, and then falling asleep again. It's almost a shock; the sleep is so much more natural." She laughed softly, as if this were a domestic joke they could easily share. "Don't let me give the impression that Bill is asleep all the time! Far from it. But after all, he is nearly sixty."
"He doesn't seem that," said Kathy.
Mrs. Tillotson's head came round, inquiringly. "Not to you? I'm surprised—considering that you're so very much younger. Bill and I must seem like antiques. Set in our ways. . . ." She rummaged in a brocade bag at the side of her chair, and produced her knitting; it accented what she had just said, more delicately than any further words could have done. "Socks for the grandchildren," she murmured, "Bill just adores them. . . . Perhaps he gives people a different impression—on a holiday trip like this, I mean—but he's very much a family man. He won't be really happy till he gets back home. Nor will I. Ridiculous, isn't it?—to come all this way, and see all these new things, and then settle back again as if nothing had happened."
Kathy kept her silence.
"Of course, it's different for you," Mrs. Tillotson went on. "Being young, I mean. . . . When you meet someone new, it might change your whole life. A young man, I mean. . . . You might even meet the man you're going to marry. . . ." She sighed, as if the thought made her happy and contented, for Kathy's sake. "Of course, there's no one really suitable on the boat, is there? Except those nice officers."
Kathy said, lightly, that for all sorts of reasons she couldn't imagine marrying a sailor.
"Perhaps not," agreed Mrs. Tillotson. "I only meant, of all the men on board, they're the only ones really available."
Kathy wondered how much more she would want to say; the targets had all been hit, the information passed on. . . . She could never have argued with Mrs. Tillotson, or tried to put another point of view- there could be no battle, when most of her own thoughts and feelings were so confused and, where they were clear, so self-disparaging. She wanted to shut her eyes, and fall asleep, and have the whole of the last hour vanish without trace. This warmhearted, quietly determined woman at her side would certainly help her to do that. Perhaps Tillotson himself would, when he came to think it over, when he saw the knitting and re-entered the even flow of their shared life. Perhaps he would not really want to wake up from that sleep, even for a brief dazzlement.