He painted anything and everything. He painted landscapes and seascapes. He painted Camp Two and a still-life with fruit, rabbitype skins and tomahawks. He painted Tom and Mary swimming, and a nude and a head of Barbara. He even painted crabs in a rock pool.
After a time, Tom, who was getting more than a little impatient with Avery’s obsession, took to going off on hunting or fruit-collecting expeditions by himself. Sometimes, when she was well enough, he took Mary: sometimes, when she could be distracted from her admiration of the greatest painter since Leonardo, he took Barbara.
It was one of these hunting expeditions that brought the halcyon period to an end.
Avery had begun a portrait of Mary—which was to be, he announced, a birthday present to her son…. Or daughter Mary’s sickness was slowly diminishing;
but mornings were still an uneasy time for her. She was lethargic, and strenuous activity tended to produce unwelcome responses in her stomach. So mornings were an excellent opportunity to sit for the portrait. She felt she ought to be working; but Avery’s contention that sitting was working helped to reduce her feelings of guilt at seeing Barbara do all the chores.
On this particular morning, however, she and Avery were alone in camp. The meat supply was down to zero, and so, almost, was the fruit supply. Tom and Barbara had gone to remedy the situation. They had not taken the gun because it was a standing rule that it should be kept at Camp Two for purely defensive purposes.
Time passed—with Avery quite oblivious of its passing—and Mary became tired of the sitting. They abandoned it for a spell, while Avery went to freshen up in the sea and Mary lay on the shore, relaxing and watching him. Presently, he came out.
‘How about another short session before lunch? Or will it be too tiring?’
She nodded. ‘I’m fine now, thanks. But it will only have to be a short one, because Tom and Barbara will be coming back any time.’
‘Nonsense. They only left about an hour ago.’
She laughed. ‘Tom’s right. This painting mania has done a mischief to your faculties…. They have been away about three hours.’
Avery said nothing. He was already back at his painting. He had just seen something spontaneous in her eyes that he might otherwise have missed completely.
Presently, he saw that she was fidgeting. ‘Do be still, dear—otherwise your left breast is going to look like a dented melon.’
‘Sorry…. My back has been aching a bit.’
He was solicitous. ‘Hell, you should have said so as soon as it started… . No, it’s not your fault, it’s mine for being too bloody obsessional. Tom will murder me if he finds I’ve made you tired Shall I rub it a bit for you?’
She shook her head. ‘I wish they’d get back. They’ve been away ages. Do you think anything can have happened?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Avery confidently. ‘Tom can take care of most things. So can Barbara, too, for that matter.’ Mary stretched, then lay back on the sand. ‘It’s not most things I’m worried about,’ she retorted.
Avery continued to add a few touches to the portrait. Presently he said: ‘I’ve just thought of a name for our island. It ought to have a name. How about El DoradoT Mary smiled. ‘Apart from golden spheres and golden people, it somehow doesn’t seem like the sort of place where there is any real gold.’
He put down his brushes and stared critically at the portrait. Then he turned to her. ‘If you’ll excuse a hoary old platitude, my dear, the real gold is always only where you find it Somehow, my resentment of Them is growing less and less—because you and Tom, Barbara and I all seem to have found something that may or may not be gold, but if it isn’t, by the Lord, it seems a dam good substitute. Personally, I’m happier now, I think, than I have ever been…. Yes, El Dorado sounds all right. Let’s go democratic and take a vote on it when they get back.’
Mary sat up, looking anxiously along the shore and then at the luxuriant green wall of trees and vegetation. ‘I wish they’d hurry up. I’m beginning to get worried. Something must have happened.’
‘Nonsense,’ began Avery. ‘It’s your condition that makes ’ He stopped. The words froze.
About forty yards away, a figure had just emerged from among the trees. It was Tom. He swayed and reeled uncertainly—like a drunken man trying to find his way home. As he stumbled towards them, Avery saw that his tattered brown shirt was ominously red.
Mary gave a pathetic cry and jumped to her feet. Avery ran towards Tom.
He blinked at them both and screwed his eyes up as if trying to focus. ‘Sorry, old man,’ he mumbled thickly. ‘Not much good…. The bastards got Barbara. I—I.’ Suddenly he crumpled. The broken shaft of a javelin was sticking out of his back—high, near the shoulder.
TWENTY-TWO
Somehow, between them, they got him up the ladder and into a tent. Avery laid him face down, gently, on one of the camp beds.
Mary was white-faced and trembling. But when she spoke, she made a tremendous effort to keep her voice normal. ‘Can—can you take it out, Richard?’
‘Yes,’ he said, with more confidence than he felt. ‘I’ll get it out— You’d better go for some water And, Mary—don’t hurry. You understand?’
She nodded dumbly, and went out of the tent.
Avery knelt down. ‘Tom, old son, can you hear me?’ Pushing urgently through all his pity and friendship for Tom was something more selfish, more agonizingly personal. Barbara, Barbara, he thought. Please be all right. Oh, my love, please be all right…
‘Tom, can you hear me?’ Avery was shocked at the sudden harshness in his voice. He wanted to know. He had to know. He fought back a terrible impulse to lift Tom up and shake the truth out of him.
‘Tom! For Christ’s sake, wake up!’
But there was no response. Tom had managed to stay conscious until he got back, and that was all.
Oh, God, don’t let him die, pleaded Avery. I must know. I must]
Then suddenly the panic stopped, and an icy calmness came over him. Sweat ran down his face and into his mouth. It was cold and bitter. He looked at Tom—eighteen inches of javelin sticking out of his back, and the blood pulsing darkly through the dark patches on his shirt where it had already dried and cracked—he looked at Tom and was filled with shame.
‘Sorry, old son,’ he murmured gendy. ‘I can’t go to pieces on you, can I?’
He bent down to examine the javelin, mumbling to himself as he did so. ‘Number one, it’s got to come out. Number two, there’s only one bloody way to get it out.
…Don’t hold it against me, Tom. Whatever happens, don’t hold it against me. I’jn only a poor ignorant clod trying to do my best.’
He gave the javelin a cautious and tentative pull. Nothing happened. It must be embedded in bone or muscle—possibly both.
Then he tried a quick hard wrench. All that happened this time was that Tom’s body lifted an inch or two from the bed. It plopped back heavily, forcing out of him a vague sound that was half groan and half grunt.
Sweet Christ, thought Avery, what the hell am I going to do? Whatever it was, it was going to have to be done in a hurry. Mary wasn’t going to sit on her anguish for ever.
The answer was obvious and logical; and he didn’t like it at all, for it seemed somehow to reduce Tom to the status of a lump of meat. But Avery could think of nothing else, so it had to be done.
He placed one foot in the small of Tom’s back, took a grip on the javelin with both hands, and heaved.
It came out. And with it, it tore out of Tom a thin, high-pitched animal scream that was mercifully cut off by returning unconsciousness. Avery was afraid there was going to be a fountain of blood—a result of his clumsiness in tearing an artery or vein—but there wasn’t. It just bubbled out in a sad, thin rivulet. The javelin fell to the ground out of Avery’s shaking fingers.