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the key and then sit down like a slob. He picked up his
glass and took a drink. The drink was good anyway.
     
    "What
are you going to do about lunch?" he asked.
     
    "You
say where and I'll eat it with you. You do still love me, don't you?"
     
    "Don't
be silly."
     
    "That
was a sordid quarrel," Catherine said.
     
    "The
first one
     
    "It
was my fault about the clippings."
     
    "Let's
not mention the god damned clippings."
     
    "That's
what it was all about."
     
    "It
was you thinking about them when you were drinking. Bringing them up because
you were drinking."
     
    "It
sounds like regurgitating," she said. "Awful. Actually my tongue just
slipped making a joke." "You had to have them in your head to bring
them out that way. "All right," she said. "I thought maybe it
was all over. "It is." "Well why do you keep on insisting and
insisting about it for then?" "We shouldn't have taken this
drink." "No. Of course not. Especially me. But you certainly needed
it. Do you think it will do you any good?" "Do we have to do this
now?" he asked. "I'm certainly going to stop it. It bores me."
"That's the one damned word in the language I can't stand."
"Lucky you with only one word like that in the language." "Oh
shit," he said. "Eat lunch by yourself." "No. I won't.
We'll eat lunch together and behave like human beings." "All
right." "I'm sorry. It really was a joke and it just misfired. Truly
David that was all."
     
     

–5–
     
     
    THE
TIDE WAS FAR OUT when David Bourne woke and the sun was bright on the beach and
the sea was a dark blue. The hills showed green and new washed and the clouds
had gone from the mountains. Catherine was still sleeping and he looked at her
and watched her regular breathing and the sun on her face and thought, how
strange that the sun on her eyes should not wake her.
     
    After
he had taken a shower and brushed his teeth and shaved, he was hungry for
breakfast but he pulled on a pair of shorts and a sweater and found his
notebook and pencils and the sharpener and sat at the table by the window that
looked out over the estuary of the river to Spain. He started to write and he
forgot about Catherine and what he saw from the window and the writing went by
itself as it did with him when he was lucky. He wrote it exactly and the
sinister part only showed as the light feathering of a smooth swell on a calm
day marking the reef beneath.
     
    When
he had worked for a time, he looked at Catherine, still sleeping, her lips smiling
now and the rectangle of sunlight from the open window falling across the brown
of her body and lighting her dark face and tawny head against the rumpled white
of the sheet and the unused pillow. It's too late to get breakfast now, he
thought. I'll leave a note and go down to the cafe and get a café creme and
something. But while he was putting his work away Catherine woke and came over
to him as he was closing the suitcase and put her arms around him and kissed
him on the back of his neck and said, "I'm your lazy naked wife."
     
    "What
did you wake up for?"
     
    "I
don't know. But tell me where you're going and I'll be there in five
minutes."
     
    "I'm
going to the cafe to get some breakfast."
     
    "Go
ahead and I'll join you. You worked didn't you?"
     
    "Sure."
     
    "Weren't
you wonderful to after yesterday and everything. I'm so proud. Kiss me and look
at us in the mirror on the bath room door."
     
    He
kissed her and they looked into the full length mirror.
     
    "It's
so nice not to feel overdressed," she said. "You be good and don't
get in any trouble on your way to the cafe. Order me an oeuf au jambon too.
Don't wait for me. I'm sorry I made you wait so long for breakfast."
     
    At
the cafe he found the morning paper and the Paris papers of the day before and
had his coffee and milk and the Bayonne ham with a big beautifully fresh egg
that he ground coarse pepper over sparsely and spread a little mustard on
before he broke the yolk. When Catherine had not come and her egg