Ripley Under Water (5 page)

Two bedrooms, a bathroom in between, and that was it. Wallpaper of a modest floral pattern everywhere. One picture in the hall, also floral, of the kind one saw in hotel rooms.

“You’re renting,” Tom said as they went down the stairs.

“Oh, yes. Not sure we want to live here. Or in this house—but just look at the reflection now! We left the side shutters wide open so you could see.”

“Yes—isn’t that pretty!” From the stairs, just below eye-level with the ceiling, Tom could see rippling gray and white designs created on the Pritchards’ ceiling by the pond on the lawn.

“Of course, when the wind blows it’s even more—lively!” Janice said with a shrill giggle.

“And you bought this furniture yourself?”

“Ye-es. But some of it’s lent—by the people we’re renting from. The dining-room suite, for example. A little heavy, I think.”

Tom made no comment.

David Pritchard had the drinks ready on the sturdy made-yesterday antique coffee table. The canapes were melted cheese bits stuck with a toothpick. There were also stuffed olives.

Tom took the armchair; both the Pritchards sat on the sofa, which was covered, like the armchair, in a chintz like flowered material, the least offensive items in the house.

“Cheers!” said David, apronless now, lifting his glass. “To our new neighbors!”

“Cheers,” said Tom, and sipped.

“We’re sorry your wife couldn’t come,” said David.

“So is she. Another time. How are you liking—just what is it you do at instead ? ” Tom asked.

“I’m taking courses in marketing. All aspects. Marketing and how to keep track of results in same.” David Pritchard had a clear and direct way of speaking.

“All aspects!” said Janice, and giggled again, nervously. She was drinking a pinkish something, which Tom supposed was kir, a mild concoction with wine.

“The courses are in French?” asked Tom.

“French and English. My French isn’t bad. Wouldn’t hurt me to try harder though.” He spoke with hard r’s. “With marketing training a variety of jobs open up.”

“Where are you from in the States?” Tom asked.

“Bedford, Indiana. Then I worked for a while in Chicago. Always in the sales end of things.”

Tom only half believed him.

Janice Pritchard fidgeted. She had slender hands, nails painted a pale pink and well cared-for. She wore one ring with a small diamond that looked more like an engagement ring than a wedding ring.

“And you, Mrs. Pritchard,” Tom began pleasantly. “You’re from the Midwest too?”

“No, Washington, D.C., originally. But I’ve lived in Kansas and Ohio and—” She hesitated, like a small girl who had forgotten her lines, and looked down at her gently writhing hands in her lap.

“And lived and suffered and lived—” David Pritchard’s tone was only partly humorous, and he stared at Janice in a rather cold way.

Tom was surprised. Had they been quarreling?

“I didn’t bring it up,” Janice said. “Mr. Ripley asked me where I’d—”

“You didn’t have to go into detail.” Pritchard’s broad shoulders turned slightly toward Janice. “Did you?”

Janice looked cowed, speechless, although she tried to smile, and gave Tom a glance, a quick glance that seemed to say: Think nothing of this, sorry.

“But you like to do that, don’t you,” Pritchard went on.

“Go into detail? I fail to see—”

“What on earth’s the matter?” Tom interrupted, smiling. “I asked Janice where she’s from.”

“Oh, thanks for calling me Janice, Mr. Ripley!”

Now Tom had to laugh. He hoped his laugh relieved the atmosphere.

“You see, David?” said Janice.

David stared at Janice in silence, but he had leaned back against the sofa cushions, at least.

Tom sipped his drink, which was good, and pulled cigarettes from a jacket pocket. “Are you people going anywhere this month?”

Janice looked at David.

“No,” said David Pritchard. “No, we still have cartons of books to unpack. Cartons are in the garage just now.”

Tom had seen two bookcases, one up and one downstairs, empty except for a few paperbacks.

“Not all our books are here,” Janice said. “There are—”

“I’m sure Mr. Ripley doesn’t want to hear where our books are—or extra winter blankets, Janice,” said David.

Tom did, but he kept silent.

“And you, Mr. Ripley,” David went on. “A trip this summer—with your lovely wife? I saw her—once, and only from a distance.”

“No,” Tom replied somewhat thoughtfully, as if he and Heloise could still change their minds. “We don’t mind staying put this year.”

“Our—most of our books are in London.” Janice sat up straighter, looking at Tom. “We have a modest apartment there—direction of Brixton.”

David Pritchard looked sourly at his wife. Then he took a breath and said to Tom, “Yes. And I think we might have some acquaintances in common. Cynthia Gradnor?”

Tom at once knew the name, the girlfriend and fiancee of the now dead Bernard Tufts. She had loved Bernard but parted from him because she couldn’t bear his forging of Derwatts. “Cynthia …” said Tom, as if searching his memory.

“She knows the Buckmaster Gallery people,” David went on. “So she said.”

Tom could not have passed a lie-detector test at that moment, he thought, because his heart was beating palpably faster. “Ah, yes. A blondish—well, fair-haired woman, I think.” How much had Cynthia told the Pritchards, Tom wondered, and why should she have told these bores anything? Cynthia wasn’t the talkative type, and the Pritchards were a few cuts below her social level. If Cynthia had wanted to hurt him, ruin him, Tom thought, she could have done that years ago. Cynthia could have exposed the Derwatt forgeries too, of course, and never had.

“You maybe know the Buckmaster Gallery people in London better,” said David.

“Better?”

“Better than you know Cynthia.”

“I don’t really know any of them. I’ve been to the gallery a few times. I like Derwatts. Who doesn’t?” Tom smiled. “That gallery specializes in Derwatts.”

“You’ve bought some from there?”

“Some?” Tom laughed. “At Derwatt’s prices? I have two—bought when they weren’t so costly. Old ones. Well-insured now.”

Several seconds of silence. Pritchard might have been planning his next move. It occurred to Tom that Janice might have impersonated Dickie Greenleaf on the telephone. Her voice had a wide range, from shrill to a quite deep tone when she spoke softly. Was his suspicion correct, that the Pritchards had briefed themselves on Tom Ripley’s past as far as they could—via newspaper archives, talks with people like Cynthia Gradnor—just to have fun with him, pique him and perhaps make him admit something? What the Pritchards believed would be interesting to know. Tom did not think Pritchard was a police agent. But one never knew. There were sub-employees of the CIA, and FBI too. Lee Harvey Oswald had been one for the CIA, Tom thought, and the fall guy in that story. Was extortion, money, on the Pritchards’ minds? Horrid thought.

“How’s your drink, Mr. Ripley?” asked David Pritchard.

“Thanks. Maybe a half one.”

Pritchard went into the kitchen to make it, taking his own glass too, ignoring Janice. The kitchen door leading off the dining room was open—it wouldn’t be much of a problem to hear what was said in the living room, Tom supposed, from the kitchen. But he was going to wait for Janice to begin. Or was he?

Tom said, “And do you work too, Mrs.—Janice? Or did you?”

“Oh. I was a secretary in Kansas. Then I studied singing—voice-training—first in Washington. So many schools there, you wouldn’t believe it. But then I—”

“She met me, tough luck,” said David, coming in with the two drinks on the little round tray.

“If you say so,” said Janice with deliberate primness. She added in her quieter and deeper tone, “You should know.”

David, who had not yet sat down, took a mock swat at Janice with fingers crumpled against his palm, narrowly missing her face and right shoulder. “I’ll fix you.” He did not smile.

Janice had not flinched. “But sometimes it’s my turn,” she replied.

They played little games, Tom saw. And made up in bed? Unpleasant to contemplate. Tom was curious about the Cynthia connection. That was a can of worms, if the Pritchards or anybody else—especially Cynthia Gradnor, who knew as well as the Buckmaster Gallery people that the last sixty-odd “Derwatts” were forgeries—ever opened it, and told the truth. No use trying to put the lid back on, because all those very expensive paintings would become next to worthless, except for eccentric collectors who were amused by good forgeries; like Tom, in fact, but how many people in the world were like him, with a cynical attitude toward justice and veracity?

“How is Cynthia—Gradnor, is it?” Tom began. “It’s been ages since I’ve seen her. Very quiet, as I remember.” Tom also remembered that Cynthia detested him, because Tom had thought up the idea of Bernard Tufts’s forging Derwatts, after Derwatt’s suicide. Bernard had done the forgeries brilliantly and successfully, working slowly and steadily in his little London garret-cum-studio, but he had ruined his life in the process, because he had adored and respected Derwatt and his work, and had finally felt that he had betrayed Derwatt unforgivably. Bernard had committed suicide, a nervous wreck.

David Pritchard was taking his own sweet time answering, and Tom saw (or thought he saw) that Pritchard was thinking that Tom was worried about Cynthia, that Tom wanted to pump Pritchard about her.

“Quiet? No,” said Pritchard finally.

“No,” said Janice with a flash of a smile. She was smoking a filter cigarette, and her hands were calmer, though still clasped, even when they held the cigarette. She looked constantly from her husband to Tom and back.

And what did that mean—that Cynthia had blabbed the whole story out to Janice and David Pritchard? Tom simply could not believe that. If so, let the Pritchards say it right out: the Buckmaster Gallery people are phony as to the last sixty-odd Derwatts.

“Is she married now?” Tom asked.

“I think so, isn’t she, David?” asked Janice, and rubbed her right arm above the elbow with the palm of her hand for a few seconds.

“I forget,” David said. “She was alone the—the couple of times we saw her, anyway.”

Saw her where, Tom wondered. And who had introduced Cynthia to them? But Tom was shy about probing further. Were Janice’s arms bruised, Tom wondered. Was that the reason for the rather quaint long-sleeved cotton blouse on this hot August day? To hide bruises inflicted by her aggressive husband? “You go often to art exhibitions?” Tom asked.

“Art—ha-ha!” David, after a glance at his wife, had given a genuine laugh.

Cigaretteless, Janice was again twiddling her fingers, and her knees were pressed together. “Can’t we talk about something more pleasant?”

“What’s more pleasant than art?” Tom asked, smiling. “The pleasure of looking at a Cezanne landscape! Chestnut trees, a country road—those warm orange colors in the house roofs.” Tom gave a laugh, and it was good-natured. Time he was leaving, but he tried to think what to say in order to learn more. He accepted a second cheese canape when Janice extended the plate. Tom was not going to say anything about Jeff Constant, a photographer, and Ed Banbury, a freelance journalist, who years ago had bought the Buckmaster Gallery on the strength of Bernard Tufts’s forgeries and the profit they would derive from them. Tom also was deriving a percentage from Derwatt sales, a sum merely steady in recent years, but that was normal, considering no more forgeries were coming since Bernard Tufts’s death.

Tom’s sincere remark on Cezanne might have fallen on deaf ears. He took a glance at his wristwatch. “Thinking of my wife,” Tom said. “I must be getting home.”

“And suppose we kept you for a while?” said David.

“Kept me?” Tom was on his feet now.

“Didn’t let you out.”

“Oh, David! Games with Mr. Ripley?” Janice writhed with apparent embarrassment, but she was grinning with her head tipped sideways. “Mr. Ripley doesn’t like games!” Her voice had gone shrill again.

“Mr. Ripley’s very fond of games,” said David Pritchard. Now he was sitting upright on the sofa, his sturdy thighs in evidence, big hands on his hips. “You couldn’t leave now, if we didn’t want you to leave. And I know judo too.”

“Really.” The front door, or the door Tom had come in by, was some six meters behind him, he thought. He didn’t relish a fight with Pritchard, but was ready to defend himself if it came to that. He’d grab the heavy ashtray between them now, for instance. An ashtray in the forehead had done for Freddie Miles in Rome good and proper. One blow. Dead was Freddie. Tom gazed at Pritchard. A bore, an overweight, everyday, mediocre bore. “I’ll be off. Many thanks, Janice. And Mr. Pritchard.” Tom smiled and turned.

Tom heard nothing behind him, and turned again in the doorway that led to the hall. Mr. Pritchard was merely strolling toward him, as if his game was forgotten. Janice fluttered near. “Are you people finding everything you need in the neighborhood?” Tom asked. “Supermarket? Hardware shop? Moret’s still the best bet for everything. Nearest, anyway.”

Affirmative replies.

“Ever hear from the Greenleaf family?” asked David Pritchard, throwing his head back as if to increase his height.

“Now and then. Yes.” Tom still wore his bland expression. “Do you know Mr. Greenleaf?”

“Which one?” asked David, jokingly and a bit roughly.

“Then you don’t,” said Tom. He looked up at the circle of quivering water reflected on the ceiling in the living room. The sun had nearly disappeared behind the trees.

“Big enough to drown in when it rains!” said Janice, noticing Tom’s glance.

“How deep is that pond?”

“Oh—five feet or so,” replied Pritchard. “Soggy bottom, I think. Not for wading.” He grinned; the square teeth showed.

The grin might have seemed pleasant and naive, but Tom knew him better now. Tom descended the steps to the grass. “Thank you both. We’ll see each other soon, I hope.”

“No doubt! Thanks for coming,” David said.

Weirdos, Tom thought as he drove homeward. Or was he one hundred percent out of touch with America by now? Was there a couple like the Pritchards in every small town in the United States? With funny hang-ups? Just as there were young men and women—seventeen, nineteen years old—who ate until they were two meters and more in girth? These were to be found mostly in Florida and California, Tom had read somewhere. These extremists went on draconian diets after food binges, and once they had become skeletons started the cycle again. A form of self-obsession, Tom supposed.