The Closed Harbour (12 page)

"But you are thirsty, I'm sure," replied Madame, she began pouring out coffee.

"I have just had coffee, indeed, my breakfast."

"Tut! tut! Have more," she said.

"You may talk to Lucy this evening if you wish to, and everything will be the same as usual, Captain, three hundred francs. Perhaps I can save you some time and indeed expense. I miss nothing of what goes on here, Captain. If you have talked in your sleep last evening, then be sure I already know what you have said. There is an hour in the morning when my girls and I get together, and most often the night's customers are discussed. It is most interesting, though we have our dull evenings like everybody else, beds are subject to a rise and fall, to economic laws, at least I find it so—"

He had her hand in his own, he pressed hard. She smiled at him and said, "well, Captain?"

"Did I talk in my sleep last night, I know you would have heard me, I am loud-mouthed when I am drunk, it is just my nature, I have been called a fog-horn in my time, Madame."

He released her hand, and he realized at once that it was an attitude in her that had made him so quickly let go. He leaned on the back of the chair.

"Possibly. If one is drunk, there are sometimes drunks, do try to understand Captain that you are only like some others. But if you did, well—I am the soul of discretion. Also I am quite unshockable, and I may assure you that you are quite safe here. Consider. I am myself always glad to return, if only after a single hour. I like to be in. Outside—" she waved a hand towards the window, "well—you have seen it, what do
you
think?"

Smiling she showed him all her pretty teeth. She began scratching vigorously under an arm, "I believe I have a flea, and I believe that Labiche creature brought it in the other evening. Well, Captain?"

Marius seemed as though dumb, he sat there trying to understand, trying to measure up this woman. After a while he said, "I am a lawless man myself."

"I am not as bad as that, thank heaven. Sometimes, out there, in the world, one is imperilled, there is always somebody who will not leave you alone, somebody watching, following perhaps, people—they can be terrible—"

She said, a little sternly, "you are not drinking your coffee," and stared at the hairy hand that completely enclosed the cup.

"A strong creature," she thought.

"You know now that I begin to think," she continued, "now that I begin to think, I ask myself if I really have seen you before?"

He sipped coffee through dry lips.

"You have, nevertheless," he said.

"You have not your uniform to-day, perhaps that is it."

"I burnt it."

"Indeed? An accident?"

"What time will Lucy be back, Madame?"

"My name is Flo, you may call me that," she smiled across at him.

"When I was here last night," Marius said, "a man came in, do you remember, a middle-aged, rather stout dwarf, with heavy moustaches, he was wearing a stiff black suit and a black hat, he had also an umbrella."

"Well?"

"A man named Labiche, I think that was the name."

"Correct. He is a friend of mine. A charming man, very respectable, he has a wife and two children. What of him?"

"Did he question you about me?" asked Marius.

"He asked who you were. After all, though we have many sailors here, it is not so often that we have Captains in their uniforms. I said you were a stranger here—"

"What did he say?"

"He just said, 'does he come here often', no more than that."

She filled the room with laughter, it came out in a burst, it made him sit up suddenly in his chair.

"I can't help laughing, my Captain, you look so—what shall I say—anyhow I told Labiche that you were simply a customer. I said, people are always coming and going, I rarely look at people's faces, this may seem strange in my profession, but it's a fact. Some nights perhaps, yes, it is often a matter of how one feels."

"I have seen him somewhere before," said Marius, "and I think he has seen me, too."

"You speak as though you were afraid of him. He is a harmless creature, I can assure you."

"If I could remember where I had seen him," continued Marius, "if I could remember—"

"Perhaps you have seen him when you have gone to the shipping offices, he is just a clerk, a petty clerk with the Heros people."

Marius struck the table with his fist. "You are right, that's where I have seen him. I wish Lucy would come back. She could tell me something."

Madame Lustigne drew her chair much nearer, she did not speak, but sat very close to him, smiling into his face.

The smile filled him with sudden horror, he drew back in the chair.

"You know?"

"People are sometimes drunk, and sometimes they may talk in their sleep, but what is that, most often rubbish. How nervous you are, Captain, I sigh to see such a strong hand trembling, is there anything the matter? Is it that you think we here may discuss the rubbish you shouted out last night? You are something of a fool, Captain, I may tell you that because in a certain way I like you, I might not be so honest with others. Perhaps that is why you are now shipless. And think of it, the sea drying up all the way from Nantes to Marseilles, you are so slow, perhaps you are least aware of it. You are also a little clumsy, I have heard of your jauntings through the city in your admiral's uniform. If you like people to be interested in you, then that is the way to do it, people will always talk, if they did not they might go mad. You are in some distress. In your sleep you told Lucy that you had killed somebody at sea, that may be true," she gave a sudden violent shrug of the shoulders, "nevertheless, even if it were I should not give you away. I mind my own business. People are murdering each other every day, Captain, and think nothing of it, nothing at all. Hiding it up in you like that, letting it fester inside you, tear you to pieces, like a tiger grown there—you understand. You trust me?"

"I do not even trust myself" he said.

"If it would ease your mind," she said.

"I will say nothing."

"In which case there is nothing more to be said," replied Madame Lustigne.

"I have someone else to tell," he said.

"Who?"

"It does not matter," Marius said, he had turned his back on her and was looking straight at the door.

He heard her step behind him, felt his arm gripped, heard her say softly, "wait, sit down. I will go and fetch you a drink."

She went out and left him standing there, and he was still in this position when she came back.

"Your drink," she said.

She returned to her chair and sat down.

"Everything is all right, Captain," she said.

"Labiche is watching me," Marius said, "I knew it from the moment I first saw him."

"You are wrong, such a harmless person as that. Why, that man is not interested in anybody except himself, a most selfish creature if you ask me."

"He is watching me," Marius said stubbornly.

"I think you rather like being mysterious, Captain," said Madame Lustigne.

She crossed the room, took his hand, "for God's sake sit down," she said.

She pushed him into the chair, she felt she might have been pushing down some paper, some old clothes, inside this suit there appeared to be nothing at all.

"You are not ill?"

"I'm not ill," he said.

"I say again, Captain, please, if it would ease your mind."

"I want to speak to Lucy."

"You have Lucy on the brain. I know what Lucy heard, I told you. She tells me everything, they all do, that is the one subject of our conversation. Men. Why, Captain, we haven't even the radio here, we make our own news, it is much more exciting. At this very moment you should be out looking for the ship you want—"

"Does Labiche come here every night?"

"Well, no," she smiled, "he is a respectable man, sometimes he must be with his wife. You are getting Labiche on the brain. Indeed I think you are imagining things, Captain. Are you now afraid to go out?"

He said "Can I wait for Lucy?" and his voice had sunk so low she had to strain to catch what he said.

"You may wait."

She sat watching him.

"A poor, harmless clerk," she thought, "really— and then he is so mysterious, if he were honest with me—"

The silence had become suddenly unbearable. "You are so miserable" she said, "so miserable. Are you alone here?"

"No. I have my mother, my sister."

"They live here?"

"They followed me here."

"What do you want to do?"

"Get away from here," he shouted at the top of his voice, "I want to get away from here."

"Have you money?"

"A little?"

"Something might be done, in that case you would leave them here."

"Nothing can be done."

"Now you are just being impossible," she said.

"I am unhappy," Marius said, he left his chair and went across to her.

"May I sit here?"

"Do!"

He sat down on the end of the bed.

"Why are you unhappy? Because you have killed somebody, or because you only think you have killed somebody. You are an intelligent man, Captain, you ought to make up your mind."

"I cannot get a ship," he said.

"Nonsense! There are lots of ships."

"But I cannot sail them any more."

"You have Captain on the brain, too," said Madame Lustigne. "One must be humble, you have lost a ship, it is not easy, one is always falling down a rung or two, if you have legs you climb up again."

"You do not understand?"

She could restrain herself no longer.

"I'm quite sure I do not," she said and laughed. "We seem to be talking for the sake of talking. You tell me nothing. What exactly is it that you want. You come here and have one of my girls, you get drunk, you come again, you get drunk again, we throw you out, but again you come, perhaps you are in love with my Lucy. Why do you come here at all?"

"To forget myself."

"That is easy enough. But now you are wasting my time. I could say to you, 'get out' and you would have to go."

"It is Lucy I want to see," he said with maddening persistency. "This morning when I woke up I couldn't find my clothes, they'd destroyed them, my clothes, my own uniform—"

"Perhaps it is gone to the laundry, Captain. It was rather dirty if I remember rightly."

She got up and went and stood by the window.

"This man," she thought, "sounds a little queer to me. He has certainly got that poor man on the brain."

"But it was my uniform," he shouted.

She turned and looked at him.

"You may see Lucy to-night," Madame said, "it will cost you three hundred francs."

She crossed quickly to the door and opened it. "And now get out. You waste my time. What do I care about your misery, or whom you have killed. You are hardly a man at all, I suppose you are afraid to tell them the truth."

She stood waiting by the door. When he did not move she called out "Henri. Henri."

"Madame Lustigne," Marius said, he half rose from the bed, but promptly sat down again.

"Well?"

"I will tell you everything."

She waved her hands in the air.

"I don't want to hear a word," she replied, "I'm only waiting for you to go. Do you know what time it is? And think of the ship you may have missed, while you've been sitting here telling me how miserable you are. You're a coward, Captain, you are a spoiled child of your mother."

"I did kill him," Marius said, and he looked up at her, waited for her answer.

"I don't care who you killed."

"It was unfortunate," he said.

"Whining now," she said, her voice was pregnant with disgust, "you are hardly a man at all. I suppose you are living on
them
.
"

"I scratch along," Marius said, "do you mind if I smoke?"

She watched him fill and light a pipe, from which he took great long draws, as though from its stem he were sucking in some kind of strength. He stretched out his legs, looked up and said assuringly,

"I am sorry, Madame Lustigne, it is only that at the moment I am worried. Often I lie in my room and I talk, but there is no-one there, one cannot always be feeding on oneself. The others, they are as rocks. She is old, my mother is old. I did not say come, they came. They are there, alone, sitting, just sitting."

"Perhaps they are only waiting to bid you good-bye, Captain. Ships turn up when you are least expecting them."

When the knock came to the door she called, "all right, you may enter."

Henri came in.

"What is it?"

Marius studied him. He thought "this is her husband."

He saw a man in his sixties, grey, bearded, with tousled, dirty-looking hair.

"Is Lucy back?"

"She has just come in," he said, he never once looked at the man on the bed.

"Tell her I want her."

He went out, banging the door after him.

"You see, he is no Labiche," she said.

Lucy came.

"This gentleman was with you last evening?" said Madame Lustigne, a finger pointing towards Marius.

"Of course, what about it?" asked Lucy.

Marius sat, steadily watching her. Her thick black hair made a violent contrast to the green of her dress, and he noted an even more violently green handbag hanging on her arm. She plumped herself down on the other side of the bed.

"Well?"

The unchanging expression upon Marius's face amused her, she suddenly started to laugh.

"You see, Captain, Lucy is like that, she is always laughing, it's a sign of happiness at any rate. Now you may ask her what you wish."

"Here."

"Anywhere," Madame said.

She went to her desk and sat down, she ignored Lucy, had suddenly forgotten Marius. She took up some notepaper and a pen and began to write. Somewhere below she heard a child crying, and got up and closed the window.

"I am waiting for you to get out," she said, without pausing in her writing. She did not look up.

The sudden swish of a skirt told her that Lucy had got up. She heard her cross to the door.

"Close the door after you, please."