possible restaurants, and later still that he had to dance by candlelight in a cellar strewn with nets. He also had to help carry Maria's guitar, and, at four in the morning, listen to her sing cowboy songs. She did this by the pier, sitting on an upturned boat, and in no time at all she had an audience. Her voice was hard and driving, her guitar- playing skillful, searching; sometimes with Negro overtones, sometimes with a hint of Mexico. Craig almost expected to be told to pass the hat around, but Sophie attended to that, wheedling, coaxing, demanding coins until it was her turn to sing, her voice a strong despair, while Maria played. They stopped when they'd made thirty new francs, enough to live on for tomorrow.
The crowd broke up, and Craig looked across the mole to the soft, moon-stroked sea, where the fishing boats bobbed like swans. Sophie leaned against him, and he put his arms around her shoulders.
'You sing well,' he said.
'Well enough,' said Sophie. 'Listen. You and your friend-are you rich?'
'Nobody ever says yes to that,' Craig said. 'But we're not poor.'
'That's what I thought,' said Sophie. 'Suppose Maria and I lived with you for a while?' Craig stared. 'Well, why not? We like you.'
'You're very kind,' said Craig.
'I can be,' Sophie said.
'No, but-' he hesitated. She was staring this time. 'We're too old for you. I'm thirty-six.'
'I like old men,' Sophie said. 'I think you are very clever, very serious, and when you make jokes, you are witty also. I feel very relaxed with you. I like to be relaxed.' She touched his arm, feeling the hard muscles. 'You are very strong, John. In your world it is important to be strong.'
'My world?'
'Les affaires. Business,' she said. 'It is different for Maria and me. We don't need anything. We have so many friends. Do you know that eight of us share a room? It is true. In an hour it will be our turn to sleep. I would rather sleep with you.'
'No,' said Craig, and kissed her lightly. 'I can't. I wish I could.' He looked into her eyes. Very grave eyes she had, gray and serene.
'I'm sorry,' said Craig. 'I can't do it.'
'Why not?'
He sighed, and looked at her again. Beneath the easy manner, the propositioning demands for four-star meals and a five-star bed, there was something else that he had no right to. This girl liked him, liked him so much that she was ready to love him. As Tessa had done. It would not be easy to turn her down. She knew well enough how desirable she was, how much men wanted her. If he said no, she would remember, and she would not forgive--
'Why did you pick on me?' he asked. 'Grierson's the good-looking one. Your sight must be bad.'
'I can see very well,' she said. 'Grierson is attractive, certainly. But you-you are far more interesting. You are much stronger than he is, and much more gentle.'
'You're wrong,' Craig said.
'No, I'm not. If you were fond of someone, they would always be safe. I know this.'
How safe was Tessa? How safe would this girl be?
'You are also much more intense,' said Sophie, and laughed at his bewilderment. 'You five so much more than anyone else-every minute I have been with you, you have been eating up life. Avignon, the Alfa, me, sardines for dinner. You gobble it all up. You are so greedy, my dear.'
Because I have so little time.
'Why won't you?' she asked.
'I'm sharing a room,' he said.
'Couldn't you ask your friend to go somewhere else?'
'No,' said Craig. 'I couldn't. He would think he knew about us. He wouldn't-but he'd think he did. I'd never let him do that.'
'You'd sooner do nothing?'
'Much sooner,' Craig said. 'You're a dream, Sophie. You come from somewhere unbelievable-' 'A club called Venus,' Sophie said.
'-and you'll disappear into somewhere beyond the stars.'
'A club called La Ultima.'
'The places dreams come from. If I can't have my dreams perfect, I don't want them at all.'
'Where can we get some Scotch?' Sophie asked.
'At my hotel, I suppose. Do you want a drink?'
'It will be cold later,' the girl said, and sighed. 'I would have liked to sleep in a bed tonight. A big, warm, comfortable bed.' Then she laughed. 'I'm a very substantial dream, John. I weigh fifty kilos.' She put her hands on his arms, and suddenly her nails dug into the long, smooth muscles.
'I may not be as strong as you are, but I bet I can scream much louder, and if you don't come with me I will, too. I mean it!'
And Craig knew that she did and went, telling himself that she would be suspicious if he didn't, and knowing that it wasn't for that at all. She was offering him life, perhaps for the last time, and he wasn't strong enough to refuse. Not like Grierson. Perhaps Grierson was the stronger, after all. And Tessa-perhaps he would not see Tessa again. Perhaps this would be the last time.
He drove to his hotel, and bought a bottle of Scotch, then went to Sophie's place and waited till she came out, bent under the weight of a vast sleeping bag, and put it in the car. He drove as she directed, along the moonlit road to the beach, until she told him to turn off, and the car jolted along a rutted track in second gear. She told him to pull over at last, and they climbed a fence, Craig struggling with the unwieldy mass of the sleeping bag, and found themselves in a vineyard. She led the way through the vines, and they were back by the road, with the sea below.
At last she let him put the sleeping bag down, and spread it out beneath an old, espaliered vine. Nearby, the tideless waves whispered, and slapped at the rocks. The thin, bitter scent of the vines was everywhere.
'I slept here last year,' said Sophie. 'By myself. Always. Nobody else knows this place. Only you. It is a strange place to make love. Strange enough for a dream.'
He looked at her in the shadowed moonlight that turned her golden hair and skin to a delicate silver, and for a moment she belonged to a dream world, then frankly, without sophistication or teasing, she took off her clothes, folded them neatly by the sleeping bag, and stood naked before him, grave and patient as Craig looked at her strong, shapely body before he undressed and took her in his arms.
Her skin was cool as he touched her, and she gasped at his hard strength, and they kissed, her mouth soft, yielding under his, until, incredibly, she broke away.
'Now we swim,' she said. 'In the best dreams there is always swimming.'
And Craig, cursing, wrapped the towel she gave him around his waist, put on his shoes, looked out for cars, then ran across the road and scrambled down the rocks to the sea. Naked they poised together on a ledge of rock, and dived into the dark water beyond the flurry of spray. Craig gasped at its coldness, surfaced, and struck out in a rapid crawl, swirling in the water toward the girl as she raced to meet him, her body silver in a nimbus of foam, white as the froth on champagne. He took her in his arms and they sank beneath the water, kissing, kissing, until they surfaced once more and swam back, side by side, scrambled up the rocks and back to the vineyard. The rubbed themselves dry and sipped the whisky until their bodies warmed to each other again, and she lay in his arms, shivering still, her skin smelling of the clean, salt smell of the sea as he possessed her. She was skilled, compassionate, eager for his pleasure as for her own, so that their love was demanding and complete. When they had done, they crawled inside the sleeping bag, luxuriating in its fleece-lined warmth, and drank once more.
Sophie took his hand in hers, kissed his fingers, drew the hand down to touch her body as she relaxed against him.
'You are very good-for an old man,' she said. Craig pinched her and she squealed.
'You young people nowadays have no manners,' he said.
Sophie said submissively, 'Yes, monsieur. I'm very sorry, monsieur,' and rolled over toward him, teasing him, willing him to want her again.
'I read about making love like this,' she said. 'It was in a book by Ernest Hemingway. The girl loved a man
