The Tide Can't Wait (4 page)

“Were you expecting to be met?” His voice was quick, sharper than usual.

She remembered his last letters. “By you, of course.” For a reason she could not put into words, she did not want to mention Leon to Tommy. She said, “And I'm starved.”

“All arranged.” He held the car door for her, saw that the bags were stowed away, tipped the porter and slid beneath the wheel. “You're on your way to your first genuine English breakfast—postwar, post-rationing style. So sit and nurse your appetite.”

The excitement of the previous days, plus that of the trip, had made her too nervous to have more than coffee during the flight. But now that she was actually in England, faced with situations that had been dreams only short hours ago, she was suddenly relaxed and very hungry.

Tommy Price was quiet, driving casually but well through thickening traffic. Tommy, she thought, was one of those people who seem to bumble into one's life and then continue to be in it, always bumbling.

When she had joined the school faculty, he, although as new a member as she, had gone out of his way to help her become oriented. And even after his constant following her about had become somewhat embarrassing, she had not been able to dislike him. Perhaps because he was always there, always someone to fall back on. And when once he dropped his flippant attitude and declared his love for her, she felt thoroughly mean for having used him as she had. Only Tommy's careful handling of the situation had prevented a possibly embarrassing affair.

One of the other instructors told her that she was a fool for turning Tommy down. He had money, which was not usual in a junior college teacher, he had traveled a great deal, he was cultured, and he was quite good looking despite the scar on his cheek and the bend where his nose had been broken. And he had a pleasant, hard-to-ruffle nature. But Lenny decided that her refusal to become engaged to Tommy was because he was such a total loss about practical matters.

Because Tommy was not practical. By the time he had helped her learn the ropes at the college—her first teaching assignment—she had discovered how thoroughly he could do the wrong thing. Not long after his proposal, he tried to smooth things over by taking her to San Francisco and introducing her to Leon Roget that she might relearn her French. And of course he lost what little chance he had to Leon. He accepted it with his silly grin and a shrug and, at the end of the school year, quit his job and went off to the Continent.

They corresponded and when she wrote that she had won her fellowship to England, she received an effusive letter, telling her of everything he planned for them to do together.

Entry into a spurt of London traffic brought her back to full awareness of her surroundings and she began to take in the buildings, the people on the streets, the cars of off-sizes and types driving erratically on what seemed the wrong side of the road.

“Cigarette, old dear?”

“I have some, thanks.”

He whipped past a lumbering double-decked red bus, squeezed in front of a truck—called a lorry here, she recalled—and took a corner with a screech of tires. “Breakfast dead ahead.”

Lenny lit her cigarette. London was beginning to fascinate her already, and the thought of coming into it alone, with no one to meet her, was suddenly horrifying.

“Tommy,” she said fervently, “I'm so glad to see you!”

• • •

Lenny's hotel overlooked Hyde Park, separated from it by a steady stream of cars and buses that never ceased roaring from early morning until well after dark. Neither the noise nor the flow of traffic disturbed her; right now, she was too tired. She lay on her bed and dozed. Tommy was safely away on something he called “business.”

When she awakened, her mind returned, as it had all during the plane trip and afterward, to the man in the hotel and what he had said about Leon. It made no difference how often she recalled his words, now that she was away from his physical personality, she could only come to one conclusion—it was not Leon who was the fanatic, but the man in the hotel.

Why, he had admitted that he had only the vaguest notion of who Leon's contacts might be and, later, that he did not even know the full extent of Leon's information. How ridiculous could one get? Out of this lack of information—as she thought scathingly of it—he had built a devouring monster—a monster she was supposed to help capture!

She felt a little sick, remembering the end of their conversation. She had said, “If all this is true, why did you let Leon out of the country?”

“Because we want his contacts as much as we want him and his information.”

“And once you have his contacts and the information?”

“Then your job will be at an end and you can proceed with your studies as though none of this had ever happened.”

She thought,
Because they won't need Leon any longer then. They'll kill him. That's what he means.

She wondered now how she could face Leon. Even though she did not believe what they said about him, he would sense that there was something wrong. He had always been sensitive to her moods. And he was quick, clever. Once he understood … The thought of losing Leon was frightening.

Then she could not help wondering—was he waiting for her? She had not really been too upset because he failed to meet the plane. Any number of things besides his horror of rising early could have delayed him. Perhaps his enemies even now were closing in and he was hiding from them. Perhaps they had caught him. But she could not believe that. Leon was too clever; he would not let himself be caught easily. But it was one thing to fail to meet her in the morning, another to make no effort to call her during the day.

It should soon grow dark outside. She idly considered rising and pulling the curtains against the coming night, but before she could make up her mind to move the telephone rang.

It was Leon. His voice, through the uneasiness that had taken over her mind, was a shock that left her shaking. “Lenore?”

She found her voice. “Oh, Leon …” He was here and safe, at the other end of a copper wire not far away.

“I'm sorry that I have not been able to see you. Something came up. Are you angry with me, Lenore?”

“No, no, darling. I was worried but not angry, Leon.”

“I'm free now and I want to give you dinner tonight.”

She looked at her travel clock; it said five to seven. “Eight-fifteen?”

He confirmed the time and hung up. For all his suave manner, Leon always had difficulty in leave-taking, and so he had developed an abrupt, almost rude manner to cover his difficulty.

Lenny rang for the maid and asked that her bath be run. Once in the tub, she made an effort to concentrate on bathing, but her mind kept returning to Leon.

Are we still lovers?
It was something she did not want to face at the moment. Should she greet Leon with a kiss, with her hand out to be kissed—because Leon always kissed a woman's hand—or should she wait and see what he expected of her?

She began to cry, letting the tears of self-pity come. She hated the man in the hotel room with sudden violence. The tears trickled down her cheeks and onto her nose and made it itch. She reached up a soapy hand and scratched it. The absurdity of the gesture, coming at a time like this, struck her, and she began to giggle. For a moment the giggling was uncontrollable, then she forced herself to stop, drawing back from the edge of hysteria.

By the time she was ready and standing before the mirror for a final survey, she felt much better. She looked her gown over critically. She had bought it for the journey, and in buying it, she had had Leon in mind. It was plain black, showing off her shoulders and back, both of which he liked her to accent. The simple bodice also showed her breasts to their best advantage, molding their heaviness. She felt a warm pleasure in the gown.

The telephone rang and she was told that Mr. Roget was waiting. She asked that he come up and then she had to go sit on the couch. Her legs had rebelled, threatening not to hold her. Now the panic was starting.

“Damn him!” she said of the man in the hotel room. She clenched her teeth and took deep breaths of air until she was somewhat calmer. When the familiar rap came, she was able to walk easily to the door.

Leon was as she remembered him, smooth and suave in his dinner clothes. He wore his overcoat open and carried a black Homburg in one hand, a florist's box in the other. They might have been back in San Francisco.

She forgot the man in the hotel room, forgot her indecision and her fear, forgot everything. Eagerly she drew him inside, taking his hat, taking the box and laying them on a table. Then she faced him.

“You look charming, Lenore. Charming.” He took her hands, lifting them to his lips. His eyes rose and met hers, and she knew that her desire lay naked for him to see.

He straightened up and she came into his arms, seeking his kiss. He gave it to her unstintingly. She had to laugh inside herself. How wonderful this was after her hours and hours of self-torture! Leon was the same. Leon was Leon, not some bug-eyed monster dreamed up by an absurd gray-haired man who had appeared in her New York hotel room. That had been a nightmare. This was reality.

She pinned on the rose corsage he had brought and then they drove in his little car to the restaurant he had selected. The evening was just what she had dreamed the reunion with Leon would be. His sameness was exciting—his softly accented, precise speech, his smile that somehow never became a laugh no matter how humorous the situation, his eyes almost constantly watching her.

They talked of her plans and of his plans for her. And they ate. She grew warm with food and wine, and then they drove through the thinning London traffic to his flat.

It was on the edge of Mayfair, not far from her hotel, and was a fancier place than she had expected of him. He helped her off with her cape, his fingers lingering on her bare shoulders, his lips smiling their sleepy, anticipatory smile that she knew so well.

“I have your favorite brandy,” he said, and left her alone in the soft warmth of the room. It was the kind of place one could sink into, she felt, new and modern, yet restful. Taking a deep chair by the radio, she found a soft air by Brahms, leaned back and closed her eyes.

Leon returned with the brandy. They sat and sipped it quietly, listening to the music. Only when it ended did she allow herself to be fully aware of Leon, and it was then that she became conscious of something that had nagged her throughout the evening, but which she had refused to face.

There was something in Leon's eyes she had never seen there before. Now she could see it clearly. Leon was afraid. He had hid it well, but now it came and went in the space of time it took him to turn down the radio.

He sat on the arm of her chair, put his fingers beneath her chin, and turned her head so that she faced him.

“It has been so long, Lenore.”

“Two and a half months yesterday, Leon.” She could feel her breath shaking her again, but this was the familiar excitement she had always associated with Leon. His fingers were on her shoulder, his lips at the edge of her hairline.

“Lenore?”

She reached up, running her fingers along his cheek. “Yes, Leon.”

• • •

In the soft light from a lamp by the bed, she lay quietly and looked into his face. She wanted to reach out and touch him as always, to trace the line of his nose and chin with her fingertips, but she could not. He was unaware of her. She was gone from his eyes; only fear lay there now, openly and starkly ugly.

She said, “Leon, can I help?”

He turned his head so that she could no longer see his expression. When he spoke, his voice was strange, different from anything she had ever heard. “There is nothing to help, Lenore.”

From the simple gesture of his turning away, from the tone of his voice, she realized the truth.

Leon knew that she knew.

Lenny had never before been afraid of Leon; he had always seemed the gentlest of men. But there was something in his voice when he repeated, “It's nothing, Lenore. There's nothing to help,” that was unlike the Leon she knew, that frightened her.

And in her sudden, sharp awareness of him, she also knew that he was planning to use her. Through her mind went the parade of little tricks Leon had—the facial expressions, the ingenious denials that she could be of assistance, the slow succumbing to argument, the agreement, and finally the letting her help him. Each step of their relationship had been that way.

She thought, The man in the hotel was right. She had really known it all along. Otherwise, she would not have been afraid of Leon.

She listened to Leon breathing heavily, feigning sleep, and for the first time she could see clearly the meaning of many of the things he had done and said. And yet it was not a shock. Only the fact of her fear was a shock. She had not known that she would ever be afraid of Leon.

He knew—and now she saw that this also could be a possible advantage. Because her knowing that he knew without his being aware of her knowledge put her in a position of potential power. Obviously, Leon wanted to use her again. And he would try to use her in such a way that she would be tangled even more irrevocably in his affairs, so that she would not even have the escape offered her by the Chief.

She thought,
Let him use me then.
And while he was doing so, she would use him. She had no choice. The Chief had made that plain enough.

She said now, “It's always nothing, Leon. But you can't take chances just because you want to protect me.”

His feigned sleep fell away and he rolled onto his back so that she could see his profile. It was one of the angles from which she saw him as extremely handsome. He said, “A minor difficulty, Lenore. What seemed easy in San Francisco does not appear so now that I am here. But I will work it out.”

“Without my help? You took help from me before. Why not now?”