For all the tourist traffic that flows through it, Nassau is a very small town on a very, very small island, so that it has no secret dispensaries of ambrosial food and/or dionysian entertainment known only to a fortunate elite. It takes a very large community to sustain a hideaway so famous that it is a privilege to be permitted to discover it. Simon could offer her nothing that she could not have found for herself by reading a few advertisements, and out of that selection she had already covered plenty of ground in other company. But nothing about the places they went to was new to him either, except what her presence contributed.
They began almost conventionally at a white table under an artistically lighted tree in the patio of Cumberland House, over the ritual turtle pie which is the best-known gastronomic specialty of the islands, and with the equally predictable conversational probings that have to be undergone at such first encounters. He learned that aside from any personal interest in a racing driver, she was one herself.
"But not a very good one yet," she said. "I need a lot more experience, and that is hard for a woman to get. It is a stupid prejudice. You don't need to be a gorilla with great muscles to drive a modern car. All it takes is strong nerves, and a skilful touch, and good judgment. It is one of the few non-intellectual contests where a woman can start equal with a man. Perhaps that is why they make it so hard for us to prove ourselves. My own father discourages me."
"I thought the name sounded familiar." Simon was frowning. "But I couldn't place—"
"A woman. No, you were thinking of him. Enrico Montesino. He could have been one of the greatest. But he rolled over a mountain corner in the Mexico City race, trying to pass someone he thought had sneered at him. And he says I am too reckless and too emotional!"
"Is he here now?"
"Oh, yes. But not for me. Because he is a great mechanic, too, Ferrari still gave him a job when he could not drive again. And from that job, Godfrey hired him away to be his personal chief mechanic. For this his wife insults me, and perhaps I shall kill her."
Simon only blinked once, for by now the line had begun to sound faintly like a refrain.
"All by yourself?" he inquired hopefully.
"Who else would do it for me?"
He studiously evaded a direct entanglement with her witch's eyes; but after a moment she went on as she had done before, as if she would scarcely have heard anything he said anyway: "Besides, it would be most easy for me to do, in the Ladies' Trophy race. If there is an accident, you will be quite right to suspect me — but that is the most you will be able to do."
The Saint devoted himself to maintaining a sangfroid which would have been rated commendable by the sternest British standards.
"I didn't know she was a driver too," he said.
"She isn't. At least, not for any kind of professional racing. But she wants to prove something, and she has learned enough to get through a few qualifying laps. Godfrey is letting her drive his Ace Bristol. He can hardly refuse, since she bought it. She would drive his Ferrari if she could, but it is too big for the class. Another discrimination against women — we can only be trusted with smaller cars. But in my Maserati I shall show her some tricks. Do you know what a real driver can do to an amateur?"
Simon raptly allowed her to embroider some examples, while he made the most of his dinner. He was wise enough at that age not to take the initiative in convulsing his digestion.
Thus the rest of the meal meandered through pleasant trivialities, until over coffee and Benedictine and some background music at the Drake there came the inevitable lull in which he said: "Why do you care enough about Cynthia Quillen to want to knock her off? I gather from some things that have been said that you've got the inside track — if such a horsey metaphor isn't indecent in strictly horse-power circles—"
"To use your language, that is a position I would have to keep jockeying for, which is not dignified. I would rather have him all to myself. So I am only thinking of the kindest way to take him from her."
"Of course, how stupid of me. Not many girls I know would be so sensitive."
"If I merely steal him because I am more attractive," she went on calmly, without any hint of whether she was unconscious of his irony or ignoring it, "Cynthia would never get over the injury to her pride. She would rather die. So, it would be generous of me to let her."
Simon was glad now that he had waited for this until he had nothing in his mouth to choke on.
"And what does Godfrey think about this?"
"I have not asked. As you have seen, he is the charming type who likes a woman to tell him. The right woman, naturally."
"Yes, little mother."
"You should dance with me to this music," she said. So for a while he danced with her, as casually as it could be done with anyone of her build and cooperative zeal. Another unfriendly woman might have commented that she was not very subtle about the way she made it difficult for her partner to be unaware for a moment of her architectural assets; but to a victim with hormones it was not a completely unendurable ordeal. And then there was some other music at the Prince George, not for dancing, where he persuaded her to moderate the Benedictine to B-and-B and tapered himself into Old Curio on the rocks. She seemed to hold her fuel much more phlegmatically than Cynthia, but he wanted to be able to cope with any extra acceleration she might develop.
Thus, after many other bandyings of irrelevancies which this chronicler has no space to quote, Simon only found himself verging back on the fatal subject when he said: "You must get tired of answering this, but why didn't those Roman talent scouts think they could get more dividends from you in a movie than a motor-car?"
"I have had those offers. And perhaps I would be as good as some others who have taken them." She was just brash enough to pull back her shoulders a trifle and take a slightly deeper breath, which on her was a seismic combination. Yet the Saint was far more devastated by the absolute certainty that he detected a downright twinkle in her gaze. "But the competition is much tougher, and I am very lazy. There are a thousand pretty girls who want to be movie stars, but so few who want to drive the Mille Miglia. So, while they scramble for the photographers' attention, the photographers scramble for mine. And while they must submit to many horrible people with influence, I can choose my important people."
"Thank you," said the Saint gravely. "But if Godfrey heard all that I have this evening, do you think his respiration would be running at the same r-p-m?"
"It might be accelerated a lot. But being a gentleman, you will not tell him. And if you did, being the kind of man he is, he would not believe you, and only punch your nose."
"Now I'm feeling miserable too. Where would you like to go next?"
She was in the mood then for some of the more boisterous native entertainment, so he walked her a couple of blocks up Bay Street to the Junkanoo, where it was noisy enough to make any but the most succinct and rudimentary forms of conversation impossible. It was a respite of sorts, if not exactly a soporific; and when she suggested another move after the deafening climax of the floor show that they had walked in on, he would have hated to be called for an appraisal of just how grateful he was.
"This is all wonderful for me," he said, with ingenious congeniality. "But I don't have to be needle-eyed and full of reflexes tomorrow."
"I know, you think I should go home. Very well, take me."
It would have been only another fairly short walk, and pleasant in the mild freshness of the night, but the little car he had rented was even closer, and he put her in and drove her up to the Royal Victoria, where she was quartered. "I think that is the word," she said. "The invited drivers are all guests of the meeting, and they deal us to the hotels like a pack of cards."