He did not hear her open the hatchway behind him.
‘Composing your acceptance speech?’ she said.
He turned, startled by her voice, ignoring the remark or perhaps not hearing it. Instead he was staring at her as she stood in the hatchway, huddled in a green jacket which she held shut with both hands, her magical features framed by tousled black hair, her blue eyes still filled with sleep, her long, perfect legs bare below the jacket.
‘God you’re something,’ he said. You are really something.’
She laughed. ‘Changing your mind?’
His face grew sombre again and he turned away from her, staring back into the fog when he shook his head.
‘You’re making it sad,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t have to be sad. There are still a couple of very good hours left before the sun comes up.’
Without thinking he began stroking his leg. She came out and stood near him, putting her head gently on the back of his neck and moving her fingers lightly in his hair.
‘Want me to do that for you?’
‘No. It’s nothing.’
‘Did you hear what I said? It doesn’t have to be sad. That’s for the songwriters.’
‘It got to me a little, seeing you there. A little nudge, that’s all. What is it the French say? “To say goodbye is to die a little.”’
She sighed. ‘You’re going to get emotional on me. I can tell.’
‘Well, my mother always said I was emotional. “Donald,” she’d say, “don’t be so dramatic.”’
She sat down beside him and nestled against him. He put his arm around her.
‘Well, don’t go getting dramatic on me. Save that for the tax-payers.’
Hotchins laughed. ‘You’ve noticed that too, hunh?’
‘Come on. When that voice begins to tremble and those eyes fire up, I just have to marvel at you.’ Then, a moment later: ‘You’re going to win, Hotch. You’re a straight-line guy and people like that.’
‘What do you mean, “straight-line guy”? That sounds stuffy.’
‘Not at all. It’s one of your. . . charms. You get right to it, no fussing around. Now most men would have brought me out here, wined me, had a little dinner catered in a pretty picnic basket, made love to me all night, then made their little farewell speech two minutes before we docked. You gave it to me before we even got out of the harbour. And I like that about you. The only problem is, you’ve been acting like a little boy who did something wrong ever since.’
‘Well I —,
‘It’s not guilt. Guilt is not one of your problems.’
‘I guess I figured, when you close the door it isn’t fair to climb back in the window.’
‘How about me? How about the way I feel?’
He drew her closer to him, his fingers searching the jacket, feeling her nakedness under it. He remembered a time in Virginia, one of the first times she stirred feelings in him he thought he had lost forever. His hand moved around her and up until he felt the curve of her breast and she turned slightly so it rested against his palm.
Out beyond the cove a foghorn sounded, its mournful tune going sour at the end of the bleat.
‘That’s old Jerry Stiliman’s tugboat,’ Hotchins said. ‘That foghorn’s had a frog in its throat since I was a kid.’
‘You know what, Hotch? I knew you were going to be a good lay the first time I ever saw you.’
‘Oh?
The remark startled him. Her uninhibited observations always caught him off-guard. He laughed and said, ‘You mean, you thought about bedding me down the first thing? Right in the middle of a cocktail party?’
She thought about that night. She had seen his picture in the newspaper, seen him on television, and had wondered about him the way any woman wonders about a man of prominence. It was Victor who had introduced them.
‘Want to meet the next president?’ he had asked her.
‘Of what?’
‘The United States.’
Now who could turn down an invitation like that? Of course she wanted to meet him. There had been a fund- raising dinner to save the historic old Fox Theatre, with a private cocktail party beforehand.
‘He is a lonely man,’ DeLaroza had told her casually.
‘Does it show?’
‘Only to those who know him. The public sees only what he wants it to see.’
‘Bad marriage?’
‘Typical. He married a small-town glr1 when he was quite young. She has not kept up. She is uncomfortable in the political arena.’
