Evan Hunter - Lizzie

“My. brave Lizzie,” Alison said, and smiled.

“I feel like a bawd,” Lizzie said, her teeth chattering.

“Nonsense,” Alison answered, and rolled over onto her back. “Feel the sun, Lizzie,” she murmured. “Let the sun kiss you.”

They floated on their backs in the sunshine, their eyes closed, their arms outstretched, their hands almost touching. They bobbed gently on the water. The world was utterly still. Lizzie suddenly laughed.

“What?” Alison said.

“Should there be someone on that cliff...”

“But there isn’t,” Alison said.

“But should there be, and should he have a spyglass...”

“Yes?”

“He shall wonder what on earth these four pink-tipped globes are.”

“Oh, Lizzie, you are a bawd!” Alison said, and both women began laughing as foolishly and as fiercely as they had that day in her Kensington home while the shadows lengthened and the tea grew cold.

The servants left early Sunday morning for their day off, making a frightful clatter of their departure and awakening Lizzie before she felt entirely slept out. In her nightdress she went to the small arched window opening on the courtyard and saw first Moira and then Isabel traipsing across it, each of them carrying small fabric bags similar to the one Lizzie used while shopping back home. In a whisper that must have awakened half the occupants in the adjoining villas, George said from the main gate, “Hurry now, you two!” and she watched as the women quickened their pace. Moira said something to the cook, and both women laughed. She heard the massive entrance doors swinging shut with a loud bang, and then more laughter from beyond them, and the sound of the horse’s hooves as the carriage started its descent toward town.

She was ravenously hungry; the fish last night, though fresh, had tasted a bit too much of the ocean, and she had scarcely touched it. She pulled on a combing cape over her nightdress and, barefooted, went silently onto the gallery. Tiptoeing down the stairs to the courtyard, she nonetheless frightened a mourning dove who took sudden flight and soared up over the tiled roof of the villa.

Isabel had squeezed fresh oranges and had set the juice out on the counter alongside the sink. A pot of coffee was steaming on the iron cookstove. A loaf of bread covered with a cloth to keep off flies was on the table, a knife beside it. Lizzie found where the glasses and cups were kept, poured herself some orange juice and coffee, and then rummaged about until she found the sugar bowl in one of the cabinets and the milk pitcher in the top compartment of the square wooden icebox. She found a slab of butter there as well, beside a square block of fresh ice. She was cutting a thick slice of bread from the loaf on the table when Alison came into the kitchen.

“Did the thundering herd awaken you as well?” she asked.

Her blond hair was hanging loose about her face. Her green eyes appeared heavylidded, as though she were not yet fully awake. She wore a muslin nightdress with a frilly collar and sleeves; the early morning sunlight danced through the garment, silhouetting her slender body as she walked barefooted across the tiled kitchen floor.

“Good morning, Lizzie,” she said, and took her hands and kissed her on the cheek. “Ah, good, I see they’ve left something for us to nibble on. They’re not always quite so generous on their day off. Have you... yes, I see you have, good for you. Did you sleep well last night?”

“Beautifully,” Lizzie said.

“And have awakened beautifully as well. I apologize for the stampeding buffalo in the courtyard. Our only consolation is that they’ll be gone till Lord knows what hour tonight — the women, that is. The men won’t come tumbling in till dawn. What time is it, anyway?” She looked up at the wall clock. Sighing, she said, “Well, we can thank them for a bright and early start.” She went to the cabinet, took down a glass and a cup, and then poured herself orange juice and — surprisingly for her — coffee. “I feel dreadful,” she said. “I haven’t made any plans at all for today, and I’m afraid you’ll soon find the life here tedious.”

“No, not at all,” Lizzie said, and wondered why she hadn’t seized upon the opportunity to discuss her departure.

“You’re too kind,” Alison said. “I know I’ve been neglectful. But I promise, if you like, that I shall take you to any of the social mornings, afternoons or evenings we’re invited to from this moment on.”

Lizzie suddenly wondered if she had been declining invitations before now.

“I shall deck you out in all your finery and introduce you to the very cream of our vast empire — male, female and some who are woefully neuter. Your wish is my command,” she said, and made a deep curtsy. “Nor shall I neglect to show you the neighboring sights as well, such as they are. I shall take you to the pinewoods at Juan-les-Pins, and to Grasse and Cap d’Antibes, should you desire. I shall even take you to the fortress on Ste. Marguerite, where that chap in the iron mask was imprisoned. And if one evening you think you might enjoy a visit to Monte Carlo, I’m sure we can find a suitable escort. Do you think you might enjoy that? Wasn’t it beastly of Albert to have run off just when we might have made good use of him? Didn’t you just adore the sea yesterday?”

“I loved it,” Lizzie said.

“And how charming you looked, au naturelle but for your enticing black stockings,” Alison said, and rolled her eyes. “Lizzie, you must absolutely promise to tell me the instant you’re bored, and I shall send for Geoffrey to escort you to wherever your dear friends may be.”

Again, the opportunity. And again, Lizzie ignored it.

“I’m perfectly content,” she said.

“Good, then,” Alison said, and to Lizzie’s astonishment, pulled her nightdress over her head and walked naked out onto the terrace and down to the lawn, holding her coffee cup in one hand as delicately as though she were fully dressed and carrying it out to a visiting vicar!

Lizzie watched her long strides across the grass, saw her hesitate, step aside to dodge what was obviously a bee she spied, and then continue toward one of the wicker lounges. She set her coffee cup down, bending over from the waist like a dancer, her back burnished a deep glowing bronze, and then adjusted the cushions on the lounge, spread a towel over them, and lay down on her belly, her arms bent, her head cradled on them, her face turned toward the terrace and the house, her eyes closed.

Well, it is her house, Lizzie thought, and the servants are all gone, and certainly if she chooses to wander about nude there’s less danger of her being seen here than there was on the beach yesterday. And yet there seemed something innately rude about her casual assumption that a guest would accept her nakedness as offhandedly as she herself did, would not in fact find something a trifle — well, yes — brazen about a hostess who cared so little for propriety. She remembered, of course, that she herself had been as naked as a sparrow when Alison soaked her with alcohol day and night in Paris, but that had been a situation born of necessity, and illness was certainly ample excuse for such a breach. She remembered, too, that Alison had slept naked on the train to Cannes, but then again the quarters had been cramped and the compartment close, and one might generously suppose that Alison had considered herself as sequestered as if she had been in her own bedroom, which in fact the sleeping compartment temporarily had been. And yesterday, in the sea together, their nakedness had seemed somehow appropriate, an exuberant joining with nature, a celebration of the flesh and spirit under God’s own sky and the benign eye of His dazzling sun. (Enticing, had she said? The black stockings? But how? How on earth?)