She halted, and Craig struck a match and put it to her fresh cigarette.
‘You mentioned your work,’ he said. ‘Wouldn’t there be some absorption in finding new work and-’
‘Find new work? Just like that? You should know better. Mr. Craig. Is an author so different from a scientist? One does not find work-the work finds one. Maybe, from now on, the work will never find me. And if that happens, and Claude leaves me, I will know widowhood twice and at the same time. Surely, that would be too much to bear. For this reason, in the only way I can think of, I am fighting to keep Claude.’ She drew steadily on her cigarette and then sat back. ‘So-you still do not like my plot?’
Craig threw up his hands. ‘What can I say? Criticism, without engagement, is not too easy to make accurately. It is just that I have the feeling, Dr. Marceau, that the plot, for better or worse, will resolve nothing. The solution must come by other means.’
‘Let it come by any means,’ she said. ‘Beggars are not choosers. But I cannot wait for happy accidents. I must go ahead.’
‘Then I wish you luck, believe me. If I can help in any way-’
‘You have helped me enough. I will read your books… Here, they have left the menu. Whatever is Friterade sjötungsfileer med remouladesås?’
Craig signalled for the waiter, and then, with his guidance, they studied the luncheon menu. Except for the pickled herring, salad, and mushrooms, they skipped the smorgåsbord and ordered a fillet of sole, to be accompanied by glasses of cold brännvin.
No sooner had the waiter gone than his place was filled by the figure of another man. Both Denise and Craig looked up as one to find Dr. John Garrett before them. His features wore their perpetual anxiety, even the purple bruise under his right eye seemed jump, and he pinched nervously at his grey worsted suit.
‘I thought I’d tell you, Dr. Marceau,’ he said, ‘they’re paging you in the lobby. There’s a phone call.’
‘Oh, thank you, Dr. Garrett.’ She rose and said to Craig. ‘Excuse me a minute,’ and then hurried off behind the pillar and through the tables.
Garrett remained standing, searching the busy room for someone. At last, he brought his attention back to Craig. ‘Do you happen to know Sue Wiley? She’s the-’
‘I know her,’ said Craig, and added, ‘unfortunately.’
‘Have you seen her around?’
‘No, I haven’t, and I don’t want to.’
‘She was supposed to meet me here,’ said Garrett. ‘She has a lunch somewhere else, but she had an interview here in the morning and said she’d see me for a minute. Maybe she got tied up.’
‘I wouldn’t concern myself about her,’ said Craig. ‘If you can help her, she’ll be around.’
Garrett seemed suddenly agitated. ‘What did you mean by that-if I could help her?’
‘Why, nothing at all. Only you’re a laureate, and she’s doing a hatchet job on laureates, all of us and those in the past, and so she won’t pass up a chance to see any one of us. Why don’t you sit down? Keep us company until she comes around.’
‘If you don’t mind?’ Garrett took the chair facing the lobby entrance, peered off expectantly for a moment, and then turned to Craig. ‘You don’t like Sue Wiley, do you?’
‘I think I’ve made that clear.’
‘Would you trust her at all? I mean-I know about her sensationalism, but she has a reputation-a big organization behind her-and the press has some integrity.’
‘I wouldn’t trust her under any circumstances,’ said Craig flatly.
This appeared to fluster Garrett. ‘But I mean-there are often special circumstances. For example, I’m always reading about reporters going to jail for a day or two, rather than divulge sources of their stories. Miss Wiley told me this once happened to her.’
‘I don’t believe it. I don’t think Wiley would go to jail an hour to protect her own mother.’
‘You’re just sore at her.’
‘That’s right,’ said Craig.
‘There’s good and bad in all of us,’ said Dr. Garrett.
‘And some of us believe what we want to believe,’ said Craig. ‘I don’t know what you’re seeing her about, but you had better be prepared to explain that mouse under your eye.’
Garrett touched the bruise. ‘Does it look bad?’
‘On someone else, no, but on a Nobel Prize winner, it might provoke questions.’
Garrett squirmed in his chair. ‘I guess you’re right. I’ll think of something.’ He hesitated, then went on. ‘I never got a chance-I mean-I guess I should give you my thanks for breaking-up that fight the other night. It was foolish. I shouldn’t drink.’
‘I’m glad I was there,’ said Craig. ‘He’s a big man. He could have killed you.’
Garrett said nothing, and then he said, ‘Maybe, but I would have killed him first.’
‘I won’t ask you what started it, only I can’t conceive of anything on earth that would make two-well, let’s face it-famous men-make two of them risk their reputations-’
‘Mr. Craig,’ Garrett interrupted, ‘there are times when you don’t think of consequences. Self-preservation is man’s first instinct. This was self-preservation-in a way, self-defence.’
‘I had the impression you started the fight.’
‘That night, yes, I plead guilty. But with moral justification. The original provocation came from Farelli. He stole my discovery, and if that wasn’t enough, to get half my prize undeservedly-now, he’s trying to get it all.’
The waiter appeared with the two modified smorgåsbord plates, and Garrett stopped speaking.
‘The lady will be right back,’ Craig told the waiter. Then he asked Garrett, ‘Will you join us?’
Garrett shook his head. ‘Thanks, I’m not hungry.’ He spoke absently, as if his mind were elsewhere, and the moment that the waiter had gone, he addressed himself earnestly to Craig. ‘I suppose I can talk to you,’ he said. ‘I am desperate for some advice.’
‘I’m not sure I’m capable of helping myself, let alone anyone else,’ said Craig, and he picked at the salad with his fork.
‘I mean, besides my wife, you’re the only one who knows about Farelli and me.’
Craig remembered Märta Norberg and Ragnar Hammarlund, but kept his silence.
‘I have an awful problem, Mr. Craig. I make up my mind, and then I’m not positive about it. To tell the truth, and this is between us, I even telephoned my psychoanalyst in California last night-long distance. I’ve been overworked and upset this last year, and I’ve been in group therapy-and Dr. Keller has been extremely helpful, settling-’
‘Well, I’m sure I couldn’t give you better advice.’
‘Dr. Keller wasn’t in. He’s out of town for two days. And now I have to make this decision-in fact, right now. I had made it when I phoned Sue Wiley to meet me, but suddenly here I am, and I’m not sure.’
Craig was reluctant to become involved in an intramural squabble, but the fact that Garrett was involving Sue Wiley made whatever it was sound more ominous. ‘What’s the problem?’ Craig asked. ‘Are you going to tell the Wiley woman that Farelli took a poke at you?’