Those Who Walk Away Read Online Free PDF Page A

in Mallorca, but Ray had conceded nothing on this point), and he remembered thinking that afternoon that he could, if he were so inclined, probably start an affair with Elizabeth and conceal it from Peggy, and that Elizabeth would be casual and affectionate and that it would be a most salubrious change from Peggy’s mysticism for him. Ray also knew he never would have begun an affair. One couldn’t, with a girl like Peggy for a wife, a girl for whom ideals were real, even indestructible, maybe the realest things on earth. And certainly physically he had scarcely had energy for an affair, anyway.
    “He does look gloomy enough to do away with himself, and maybe he will,” said Coleman, mumbling again.
    “Edward, I insist you stop this,” said Inez.
    But another question was rising in Mrs Smith-Peters. She looked at her husband, as if asking his permission, but he was staring at the tablecloth. “Was she painting at all?” she asked Ray.
    “Less and less, I’m afraid. It was too bad. We—Because we had plenty of servants. There was lots of time.”
    Coleman was again listening critically.
    Ray went on: “It was a lazy atmosphere, though. I had a certain routine, an easy one, but—people fall apart without one. Peggy dropped her morning painting, and then she’d paint in the late afternoon, if she painted at all.”
    “Sounds utterly depressing,” Coleman said.
    But Peggy had not acted at all depressed, Ray thought. He could not say this. It sounded self-justifying. And what right had these strangers to hold a tribunal about him and Peggy? Ray tossed his napkin nervously on to the table.
    Mrs Smith-Peters looked at her watch and said they must go. She turned to Inez. “I wondered if you and Ed would like to go to the Col Rezzonica? I love the place. I was thinking of tomorrow morning.”
    “May we ring you at breakfast?” Inez asked. “Is nine or nine-thirty too early?”
    “Oh, heavens, no, we’re up at eight,” said Mrs Smith-Peters.
    Her husband rose first.
    “Perhaps you’d like to come, too,” Mrs Smith-Peters said to Ray as she stood up.
    “I’m afraid I can’t,” Ray said. “Thank you.”
    The Smith-Peters departed.
    “Can you get the check, Inez? Back in a minute,” Coleman said, getting up. He walked towards the back of the restaurant.
    Antonio stood up as soon as Coleman’s back was turned. “If you excuse me,” he said in English. “I think I go back to my hotel. I am very tired. I must write my mother.”
    “Oh, of course, Antonio,” said Inez. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”
    “Tomorrow.” Antonio bent over her hand and deposited a token kiss. “Good night,” he said to Ray. “Good night, madame.”
    Inez looked for a waiter.
    Ray raised his arm, but failed to catch the waiter’s attention.
    “Ray, I wish you would leave Venice,” Inez said to him. “What good does it do for you to see Edward again?”
    Ray sighed. “Ed doesn’t understand yet. I somehow need to explain more to him.”
    “Did he have dinner with you the last night in Rome?”
    “Yes.”
    “I thought so. But he said it was someone else. Listen, Ray, Edward will never understand. He was so mad about his daughter—” She closed her eyes, tilted her head back, but wasted only a second in this, because she was trying to speak before Coleman returned. I never met Peggy, but I heard about her from lots of people. Head in the clouds, they say. She was like a goddess to Edward, someone not even human. Too good for humans.
    “I know.”
    “He thinks you are very callous. I see that is not true. But I see also that he will never understand it was not your fault.”
    What she said did not surprise Ray. Coleman had called him callous in Mallorca, and probably would have called any husband of Peggy’s that, even if Peggy had had a happy marriage, with lots of children, even if Peggy had been radiating joy, fulfilment, and all the rest of it.
    “Is it true that Peggy was frightened of sex?” Inez