The Invitation(87)

After a turn at the roulette table and several rounds of blackjack, Hal’s chips are nearly gone. The colour and noise of the place has become oppressive to him: his head aches. Stella is nowhere to be seen. The evening, visible through a sliver of open door, calls to him. He cashes in his chips and leaves, telling Aubrey that he will meet them back at the yacht.

The air outside is velvet-soft, and he breathes it in with relief. The sky, not yet quite dark, is an odd colour, a pale but profound grey with a quality of opalescence to it. The black shapes of the palm trees are stamped against it like cut-outs. Music – the groan of a saxophone, the soft wail of a clarinet – threads its way up from the centre of the town. He follows it, as though in a trance.

In the main street, men and women cluster outside bars. Eventually he finds the source of the music. The band are set up outside one of the bars. A saxophonist, a clarinettist, a double bass. And then the singer appears. She wears midnight blue silk against her dark skin: a floor-length sheath. There is a strip of silver ribbon tied about her cropped head, and she wears it like a diadem. She is magnificent, but when she begins to sing her voice is even more so: deep and roughly beautiful. There is strength in it, and great sadness.

A woman comes toward him, a young woman, and asks him if he wishes to dance. Together they move to the music. She is shorter than Stella; and her perfume is sweet, little-girlish.

At one point she looks up at him. ‘Where are you?’ she says.

‘Excuse me?’

‘I am thinking: you’re dancing with me, but you are not here. You are somewhere else.’

‘Sorry.’

At the end of the piece she pushes away from him with a small, slightly wistful smile. ‘It’s enough, I think. I’ll find a man who really wants to dance with me.’

He makes his way toward the bar. And something catches his eye: a sheen of gold. Stella. She sits at one of the pavement tables with a man, right in the middle of the listening crowd.

He cranes forward and sees to his relief that her companion is Gaspari. He makes his way to them through the throng. Gaspari glances up and, seeing Hal, smiles and raises his glass in a toast. Stella turns and looks at him and smiles cautiously, politely.

He takes a seat from the next table along and joins them.

‘You too were bored of the casino?’ Gaspari asks.

‘I lost all my chips,’ Hal admits. ‘And it wasn’t my idea of fun.’

Gaspari nods, approvingly. ‘Horrible places,’ he says. ‘Full of falseness and gaudiness. This is real life, here.’ He gestures to the crowd, the music. ‘I asked Mrs Truss if she would escape with me.’

They listen for several moments in silence as the voice floods over them, almost terrible in its beauty.

‘It feels like something more than real life to me,’ says Hal, thinking what the phrase means for him: long hours in the bureau, the too-small apartment, the heat and grime of summer in the city.

‘What did you say?’ Stella turns to him.

He coughs. ‘Like something more than real life. Do you know what I mean?’ It is how our new life will be, he thinks. Braver, truer.

She nods. He sees that her eyes are shining with tears.

‘Mrs Truss,’ Gaspari asks, ‘are you OK?’

‘Yes, I’m fine.’ Then, after several minutes of silence, she says, ‘It’s the music, isn’t it? It does something to you.’

‘I think we should all have another drink.’ Gaspari calls over one of the waiters.

The music shifts into a different key, and the singer produces a tambourine to tap against her leg as she sings. Gradually, some of the couples get up from the tables to dance.

‘Mrs Truss,’ Gaspari says to Stella, ‘why don’t you dance with Hal here?’

‘Would you like to?’ Hal turns to her.

She hesitates for a second. He can see her asking herself the same question: would it give away more to accept, or decline? She nods. ‘All right.’

They stand, and move together, but only just. He can feel the pressure of her fingertips upon his waist and shoulder and he, likewise, holds her as though she were made of the finest, frailest porcelain that might fracture with too much handling. But he can feel the warmth of her skin beneath his palms, feel her breath upon his collarbone: all of these things that remind him irresistibly of the fact that she is not china, is anything but frail.

At one point he glances back towards the table, and finds the old man watching them, curiously. Afterwards, when they sit back down at the table and have another drink, he can feel the director’s gaze moving between them. Making, perhaps, surmises … connections. He looks at Gaspari frankly, half-challenging him to make some comment. But Gaspari merely raises an eyebrow, and looks back down at his drink. He wears a small, secret smile.

Now a man comes and offers a hand to Stella. Hal is about to step in and prevent it, when he catches himself. She glides away with her new partner without a backward glance. It is the act, he reminds himself – all part of the act.

‘She is a good dancer, Mrs Truss,’ Gaspari says, watching Stella and her partner. And then he looks at Hal, ‘But I said it before. I thinks she dances best of all with you.’

Hal looks at him.

‘I do.’

Hal wishes that he could talk to him – share the wonder and the fear of it with this man who he feels would understand absolutely. Gaspari would keep their secret, he is certain. But they cannot take any further risks. Not until they have taken that final, all-important risk.