Page 284 - tender-is-the-night

dark and unprecedented, asked:
‘What will you do, Dick?’
‘We’ll stay here with the car.’
Neither of them looked at their mother as they started
off. ‘Be careful crossing the road up there! Look both ways!’
Dick shouted after them.
He and Nicole looked at each other directly, their eyes
like blazing windows across a court of the same house. Then
she took out a compact, looked in its mirror, and smoothed
back the temple hair. Dick watched the children climbing
for a moment until they disappeared among the pines half
way up; then he walked around the car to see the damage
and plan how to get it back on the road. In the dirt he could
trace the rocking course they had pursued for over a hun-
dred feet; he was filled with a violent disgust that was not
like anger.
In a few minutes the proprietor of the inn came running
down.
‘My God!’ he exclaimed. ‘How did it happen, were you
going fast? What luck! Except for that tree you’d have rolled
down hill!’
Taking advantage of Emile’s reality, the wide black
apron, the sweat upon the rolls of his face, Dick signalled to
Nicole in a matter-of-fact way to let him help her from the
car; whereupon she jumped over the lower side, lost her bal-
ance on the slope, fell to her knees and got up again. As she
watched the men trying to move the car her expression be-
came defiant. Welcoming even that mood Dick said:
‘Go and wait with the children, Nicole.’

284 Tender is the Night