Authors: Patricia Highsmith
He turned on France Musique for company, opened his curtains wider to the sunlight, and tidied the kitchen. He poured a glass of milk, went upstairs and got into pyjamas again and went to bed. He could shave when he woke up.
Tom hoped that Jonathan could straighten things out with Simone. But it was the same old problem: how did the Mafia get tied up, how could they possibly be tied up with two German doctors?
This unsolvable problem began to make Tom sleepy. And Reeves. What was happening to Reeves in Ascona? Madcap Reeves. Tom still had a lurking affection for him. Reeves was now and then maladroit, but his crazy heart was in the right place.
Simone sat beside the flat bed, more wheels than bed, on which Jonathan lay taking in blood through a tube in his arm. Jonathan as usual avoided looking at the jar of blood. Simone was grim. She had spoken with the nurse out of Jonathan’s hearing. Jonathan thought his condition now wasn’t serious (assuming Simone had heard anything), or Simone would have been more concerned about him, kinder. Jonathan was propped on a pillow, and there was a white blanket pulled up to his waist for warmth.
‘And you’re wearing that man’s pyjamas,’ Simone said.
‘Darling, I had to wear something – to sleep in. It must’ve
been six in the morning when we got back —’ Jonathan broke off, feeling hopeless and tired. Simone had told him that Tom had called at the house to tell her where he was. Simone’s reaction had been anger. Jonathan had never seen her so grim. She detested Tom as if he were Landru or Svengali. ‘Where’s Georges?’ Jonathan asked.
‘I telephoned Gérard. He and Yvonne are coming to the house at ten-thirty. Georges will let them in.’
They would wait for Simone, Jonathan thought, then they would all go to Nemours for Sunday lunch. They want me to stay here till at least three, I know,’ Jonathan said. ‘The tests, you know.’ He knew she knew, probably another marrow sample would be taken, which required only ten or fifteen minutes, but there were always other tests, urine, the spleen-feeling. Jonathan still did not feel well, and he didn’t know what to expect. Simone’s hardness further upset him.
‘I cannot understand. I cannot,’ she said. Jon, why do you
see
this monster?’
Tom was not really such a monster. But how to explain? Jonathan tried again. ‘Do you realize that last night – those men were killers? They had guns, they had garrottes.
Tu comprends, garrottes. –
They came to Tom’s house.’
‘And why were you there?’
Gone was the excuse of paintings that Tom wanted framed. One didn’t help Tom kill people, help him get rid of corpses, because one was going to frame a few pictures. And what was the favour Tom Ripley had done him to make him co-operate so? Jonathan closed his eyes, gathering strength, trying to think.
‘Madame —’ That was the nurse’s voice.
Jonathan heard the nurse telling Simone that she should not tire her husband. ‘I promise you that I will explain, Simone.’
Simone had stood up. ‘I think you cannot explain. I think you are afraid to. This man has trapped you – and
why? For money. He pays you. But why? – You want me to think that you are a criminal too? Like that monster?’
The nurse had gone away and couldn’t hear. Jonathan looked at Simone through half-closed eyes, desperate, wordless, defeated, for the moment. Couldn’t he make her see, some time, that it was not so black and white as she thought? But Jonathan felt a chill of fear, a premonition of failure, like death.
And Simone was leaving, as if on a final word –
her
word,
her
attitude. At the doorway she blew him a kiss, but perfunctorily, like a person in church genuflecting barely, without thinking, as he passed some object. She was gone. The day ahead stretched like a bad dream to come. The hospital might decide to keep him overnight. Jonathan closed his eyes and moved his head from side to side.
They were almost finished the tests by 1 p.m.
‘You have been under a strain, haven’t you, m’sieur?’ asked a young doctor. ‘Any unusual exertions?’ Unexpectedly, he laughed. ‘Moving house? Or too much gardening?’
Jonathan smiled politely. He was feeling a little better. Suddenly Jonathan laughed too, but not at what the doctor had said. Suppose it had been the beginning of the end, this morning’s collapse? Jonathan was pleased with himself because he had pulled through it without losing his nerve. Maybe he could do that one day with the real thing. They let him walk down a corridor for the final test, the spleen palpation.
‘M. Trevanny ? There is a telephone call for you.’ a nurse said. ‘Since you are so near —’ She motioned towards a desk and a telephone, which was off the hook.
Jonathan felt sure it was Tom. ‘Hello?’
‘Jonathan, hello. Tom. How is everything? ... Can’t be too bad if you’re on your feet now … That’s fine.’ Tom sounded really pleased.
‘Simone was here. Thank you,’ Jonathan said. ‘But
she’s—’ Even though they were talking in English, Jonathan couldn’t get the words out.
‘You had a tough time, I can understand.’ Platitudes. Tom at his end heard the anxiety in Jonathan’s voice. ‘I did my best this morning, but do you want me to – to try to talk with her again ?’
Jonathan moistened his lips. ‘I don’t know. It’s not of course that she —’ He’d been going to say ‘threatened anything’, such as taking Georges and leaving him. ‘I don’t know if you
can
do anything. She’s so —’
Tom understood. ‘Suppose I try? I will. Courage, Jonathan! You’re going home today?’
‘I’m not sure. I think so. By the way, Simone is with her family in Nemours for lunch today.’
Tom said he wouldn’t try to see her till about 5 p.m. If Jonathan was home then, that would be fine.
It was a bit awkward for Tom, Simone’s not having a telephone. On the other hand, if there’d been a telephone, she would probably have given him a firm ‘No’ if he asked if he might come to see her. Tom bought flowers, yellow forced dahlias, from a vendor near the chateau in Fontainebleau, as he had nothing presentable as yet from his own garden. Tom rang the Trevanny doorbell at 5.20 p.m.
There were steps, then Simone’s voice,
‘Qui est-ce?’
‘Tom Ripley.’
A delay.
Then Simone opened the door with a stony face.
‘Good afternoon –
bonjour, encore,’
Tom said. ‘Could I speak with you for a few minutes, madame? Has Jonathan returned?’
‘He will be home at seven. He is having another transfusion,’ Simone replied.
‘Oh?’ Tom boldly took a step into the house, not knowing if Simone would flare up or not. ‘I brought these for your house, madame.’ He presented the flowers with a
smile. ‘And Georges.
Bonjour,
Georges.’ Tom extended his hand, and the child took it, smiling up at him. Tom had thought of bringing sweets for Georges, but he hadn’t wanted to overdo it.
‘What is it you want?’ Simone asked. She had given Tom a cool
‘Merci’
in regard to the flowers.
‘I definitely must explain. I must explain last night. That is why I am here, madame.’
‘You mean – you can explain?’
Tom returned her cynical smile with a fresh and open one. ‘As much as anyone can explain the Mafia. Of course! Yes! Come to think of it, I could have bought them off-1 suppose. What else do they want except money? However, in this case I’m not so sure, because they had a special grudge against me.’
Simone was interested. But this fact did not diminish her antipathy to Tom. She had taken a step back from him.
‘Can’t we go into your living-room – perhaps?’
Simone led the way. Georges followed them, gazing fixedly at Tom. Simone motioned Tom to the sofa’ Tom sat down on the Chesterfield, gently slapped its black leather and started to pay Simone a compliment on it and didn’t.
‘Yes, a special grudge,’ Tom resumed. ‘I – You see, I happened – just happened to be on the same train as your husband when he was returning from a visit to Munich recently. You remember.’
‘Yes.’
‘Muniche!’ said Georges, his face lighting up as if in anticipation of a story.
Tom smiled back at him. ‘Muniche. –
Alors,
on this train – for reasons of my own – I will not hesitate to tell you, madame, that sometimes I take the law into my own hands just as much as the Mafia do. The difference is, I don’t blackmail honest people, I don’t expect protection money from people who wouldn’t need protection if not for my threats.’ It was so abstract, Tom was sure Georges was not following it, despite Georges’ intense gaze at Tom.
‘What’re you getting at?’ Simone asked.
‘At the fact that I killed one of those beasts on the train, and nearly killed the other – pushed him out – and Jonathan was there and saw me. You see —’ Tom was only briefly daunted by the shock in Simone’s face, by her fearful glance at Georges who was following the story avidly, and perhaps thought that ‘beasts’ were indeed animals, or maybe that Tom was making it up as he went along. ‘You see, I had time to explain the situation to Jonathan. We were on the platform – on the moving train. Jonathan kept a look-out for me, that’s all he did. But I’m grateful. He helped. And I hope you see, Madame Trevanny, that it was for a good cause. Look at the way the French police are fighting the Mafia down in Marseille, die drug merchants. Look at the way
everyone
is fighting the Mafia! Trying to. But one must expect dangerous retaliations from them, you know that. So that’s what happened last night. I —’ Did he dare say he had asked for Jonathan’s help? Yes. ‘It was entirely my fault that Jonathan was at my house, because I asked him if he would be willing to help me again.’
Simone looked puzzled, and highly suspicious. Tor money, of course.’
Tom had expected this, and remained calm. ‘No. No, madame.’ It was a matter of honour, Tom started to say, but that didn’t completely make sense, even to him. Friendship, but Simone wouldn’t like that. It was kindness on Jonathan’s part. Kindness and courage. You shouldn’t reproach him.’
Simone shook her head slowly, disbelieving. ‘My husband is not a police agent, m’sieur. Why don’t you tell me the truth?’
‘But I am,’ Tom said simply, opening his hands.
Simone sat tensely in the armchair, her fingers working together now. ‘Very recently,’ she said, ‘my husband has received quite a bit of money. Are you saying that that has nothing to do with you?’
Tom leaned back on the sofa and crossed his feet at the ankles. He was wearing his oldest, nearly worn-out desert boots. ‘Ah, yes. He told me a little about that,’ Tom said with a smile. The German doctors are making a bet together, and they’ve entrusted the take to Jonathan. Isn’t that right? I thought he’d told you.’
Simone merely listened, waiting for more.
‘In addition, Jonathan told me they’d given him a bonus – or prize money. After all they are using him to experiment on.’
‘He also told me there was no – no real danger in the drugs, so why should he be paid?’ She shook her head and laughed briefly. ‘No, m’sieur.’
Tom was silent. His face showed disappointment, and he meant it to. ‘There are stranger things, madame. I’m simply telling you what Jonathan told me. I have no reason to think it isn’t true.’
That was the end of it. Simone stirred restlessly in her chair, then stood up. She had a lovely face, clear, handsome eyes and brows, an intelligent mouth that could be soft or stern. Just now it was stern. She gave him a polite smile. ‘And what do you know about the death of M. Gauthier? Anything? I understand you often bought things at his shop.’
Tom had stood up, and he faced this, at least, with a clear conscience. ‘I know that he was run over, madame, by a hit-and-run driver.’
‘That is all you know?’ Simone’s voice was a little higher pitched, and it trembled,
‘I know that it was an accident.’ Tom wished that he hadn’t to speak in French. He felt he was being blunt. ‘That accident makes no sense. If you think I – that I had anything to do with it, madame – then perhaps you will tell me for what purpose. Really, madame —’ Tom glanced at Georges, who was now reaching for a toy on the floor. Gauthier’s death was like something in a Greek tragedy. But no, Greek tragedies had reasons for everything.
Her mouth twitched a little, bitterly. ‘I trust you won’t have need of Jonathan again?’
‘I won’t call on him if I do,’ Tom said pleasantly. ‘How is—’
‘I would think,’ she interrupted, ‘the people to call on are the police. Don’t you agree? Or perhaps you are already in the secret police? Of America, perhaps?’
Her sarcasm had very deep roots, Tom realized. He was never going to succeed with Simone. Tom smiled a little, though he felt slightly wounded. He’d endured worse words in his life, but in this case it was a pity because he had so wanted to convince Simone. ‘No, that I am not. I get into scrapes now and then, as I think you know.’
‘Yes. I know.’
‘Scrapes, what is scrapes?’ Georges piped up, his blond head turning from Tom to his mother. He was on his feet, very near them.