The Lower Deep Read Online Free PDF Page B

hang out at a certain Pointe Pierre shop in the evenings."
    "The place with the blaring radio. Yes."
    "Well, Ginny goes there quite often with the others. But according to Eddie Forbin, she frequently slips away by herself and disappears for a time."
    "What?"
    "Once he followed her. She walked all the way down to Arise Douce—that cove with the big rocks, you know? Which, of course, is always deserted at night. When he caught up with her there, she was furious."
    Clermont thought for a moment. "It sounds to me as though that girl has things on her mind that are troubling her. You don't suppose—it couldn't be possible that—is this Forbin lad her first boyfriend?"
    "Her first steady, I'm sure."
    "But you say he's a good kid."
    "I can't believe it's anything like that," Dannie protested.
    "It's possible, though. Sometimes a nice quiet boy is just the kind a girl can't handle. If she is pregnant, it would explain quite a lot about her behavior, wouldn't it?"
    "I suppose it would. But that's your department, Doctor—isn't it?"
    Clermont looked at his watch and reluctantly stood up. By now he was sure to have patients waiting. "Maybe we've made a little progress. I'll talk to her folks again, first chance I get. Thanks, Dannie."
    "Thank you, Dr. Clermont."
    Wish I were thirty years younger, damn it, Clermont thought as he departed.

5
     
    A fter talking to Dr. Louis Clermont and going without lunch because of his bitten tongue, George Benson had spent the afternoon back at the Pointe Pierre pier. To his simple peasant fishermen, most of whom made their own boats or ceiba-tree dugouts, the outboard motors grudgingly provided by the island government were a major mystery.
    He had spent the afternoon showing his men how to take one apart and put it together again without having half a dozen pieces left over. "No, I don't think you guys are stupid," he had said in answer to a solemn question. "Can I dance the Rada the way you do?" It had seemed to please them that he knew the name of one of their voodoo dances.
    The day was over now as he arrived on foot at Danielle André's cottage. Night had come down on Dame Marie like a warm, sticky-wet blanket that smelled of the sea. Before climbing the steps, he looked at his watch and frowned. He was twenty minutes later than he had expected to be, and losing that much time annoyed him. Every moment with Dannie was precious.
    It was his wife's fault he was late. Scheduled to attend a meeting of the church ladies, she had deliberately, or so it seemed to George, postponed her departure until the very last moment.
    She couldn't get out of going, of course. This was a country town in a West Indian island, and the church ladies were wives of fishermen, farmers, shopkeepers. As the wife of an outsider employed by the island government she had obligations, just as she had been obliged to acquiesce when asked to donate some time to teaching English at the school. But she hated it.
    The cottage door opened to George's quiet knock, and when it closed again he was inside with Dannie in his arms. Everything was suddenly all right again then—except, of course, that his bitten tongue was still giving him fits.
    All his other worries fell away, the tensions brought on by his home life fled, and he felt like a man again.
    There was an almost magical sensation of peace at moments like this, when this woman freely and happily stepped into his embrace. Sex was not incidental, of course. It would come later. But it was not essential to the first warm glow.
    "I'm late," he said when their mouths came apart. "And if that was only half a kiss, it's be cause I bit my tongue again. What did you do with yourself all day?"
    "You bit your tongue again?" Genuinely concerned, she stepped back to look at him. "George, we've got to do something about this." Dannie spoke English as fluently as she spoke French and St. Joe Creole.
    "We are, pal. I talked to Dr. Clermont and he's going to run some tests on me Monday