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“You’d do the same if you were me,” Arthur said.
“It’s not your fault if he drowns this time.” Her voice was surprisingly kind coming from the woman who was holding Charlie’s fate in her hands.
“Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, but that isn’t going to stop me from diving in after him like he did for me.”
She didn’t argue further, only said, softly, “The moment you realize you’re going to die someday is the moment your childhood ends.”
That was it. He’d been ten years old when he’d learned that terrible truth, learned it with a bellyful of river water. That had been the end of his childhood, the end of even wanting to be a child, since to him it always meant letting his brother down.
“When did your childhood end?” Arthur asked.
“My mother died when I was four,” she reminded him. “I never got to be a child.”
The door handle rattled. Someone wanted in.
Arthur froze, looked at Regan. “Should we unlock the door?” he mouthed.
“No,” she whispered. “I may make you fuck me again.”
“Shouldn’t we go back to the ball?”
“After.” Then she called out, “Lounge closed for private party.”
The door handle stopped rattling. They waited until the footsteps faded.
“So, are you going to force me to listen to another story about your sex life?” he said.
“I’ll tell you one right now, if you’d like.”
* * *
She saton the sofa and Arthur took the club chair opposite her. She was an absolute mystery to him, despite being a seemingly open book. He’d found photographs of her online from every year of her marriage to Sir Jack Ferry. Their hotels. Their charitable functions. A few high society weddings in Milan and Rome and New York. But something was amiss. Something beyond the trauma of a bad marriage, beyond the unconventional way she’d lost her virginity. Something that made her work too hard and drink too much.
“I cheated on Sir Jack only once in our entire marriage,” she said, swirling her drink in her glass. “We were in New York dining at one of his hotels there. I saw a painting on the wall near our table and it was very good. I asked the waiter if he knew the artist, and he said it was one of their servers, a young woman. He told me a bit about her work, how she was in art school. That’s all. When he stepped away from our table, Sir Jack quietly and calmly called me a disgusting tart for throwing myself at our waiter in front of my own husband.” She laughed to herself. “All for something as innocent as asking the name of a painter.”
Arthur wanted to hold her but didn’t dare move. Her eyes told him she had only just begun her story.
“It was Fleet Week. Do you know what that is?”
He nodded. “When the U.S. Navy docks its ships in New York and other ports.”
“Five years into our marriage…I thought I was immune to Sir Jack’s insults,” she said. “Apparently not. I ran from the restaurant, really ran and ran straight into a white wall.”
“A white wall?”
“A Naval officer. Full dress whites, cap and everything. Executive officer on theU.S.S. Something or Other.An officer and a gentleman. I had never seen a more handsome man in my life. I don’t even know if he was handsome or if he was just so kind that he might as well have been wearing a golden halo. He offered to take me up to my room. I said I couldn’t go there, never wanted to go there again. We went to his room instead.”
She took a sip of her drink.
“I seduced him,” she said. “It was easy enough. He asked what he could do to help me. I said he could make love to me.”
Another drink.
“He knew I was married. I didn’t lie to him. He said a man who would treat a woman that badly didn’t deserve to be married. Maybe it was a line, but it was a line I needed to hear. After the sex, he gave me a bath so I wouldn’t go back to Sir Jack ‘smelling like a sailor,’ he said. That evening with him was the first tenderness I’d felt in years. I can still see him in the lobby of the hotel, like something out of a dream. When I saw you in your uniform at my door, it brought it all back in an instant.”
She put her elbow on the sofa arm and leaned her head against her hand. “I suppose that’s not a very sexy story though,” she continued. She smiled but Arthur saw through it. “No virgin girls in white socks getting spanked with Ben Wa balls inside of them.”
“What can I do to help you?” he said.
