Once Departed

discomfort. The creature didn’t like to be out on the streets amongst so many. Deep within, as all its feelings were deep within, it was afraid of humanity in the mass.

It couldn’t understand why the master had sent him to follow after this lurching, stumbling one, who kept himself in the most crowded streets of the city.

When the tide flooded in again, Quint vaguely bacame aware of a voice across from him. He shook his head, and automatically reached for a glass. But it was tomato juice, and he put it down in disgust.

The voice was saying, “Quentin, you simply must eat more. You must get something into your stomach.”

He looked up at the impossibly blonde hair, shook his head again and stared into the improbably blue eyes. He said accusingly, “Marylyn, what in hell is a nice girl like you doing in Chicote’s?”

“Please don’t swear, Quentin. I’m… I’m not used to it. This isn’t Chicote’s. Don’t you remember? I saw you on the street, from my taxi. You were… distressed.”

“Distressed!” He leered at her. “I’m drunk.”

He looked about the room in which they were seated. It was a cellar converted into a restaurant. An age old celler, vaulted and with red walls of small flat bricks, the bricks of a construction period of long ago. He tried to bring his mind to focus. It must be one of the establishments beloved of tourists, which had been built into the old walls of Madrid. Once these cellars had held supplies, spare arms, forage for the horses. Now they were tourist drops.

He finally recognized the place. He’d been here many a time before. If a visiting fireman hit town and was to be in Madrid only a day or two, you brought him here.

“Botin’s” he chuckled.

She said anxiously, “You told me that if I insisted you must eat, then what you wanted was roast suckling pig and Valdepenas wine. You said if it was good enough for Papa, it was good enough for you.”

It came back to him now. Papa Hemingway’s favorite restaurant in Madrid. The last scene in Papa’s first best seller was laid here in Botin’s. Quint seemed to be on a Hemingway kick, tonight. Get drunk in Chicote’s and then eat at Botin’s, both Hemingway favorites.

Before him was a quarter of a roast suckling pig. He had the full left ham. Enough meat for three people. He never had been able to figure out why the management served such large portions. Right now food looked horrible to him.

Marylyn Worth was saying, a scolding in her voice, “You said the best thing to sober up on was roast fat pork.”

His mind was clearing by the minutes, but he could use a drink. He growled, “Where’s the Valdepenas?”

She said defiantly, “I ordered tomatoe juice instead.”

“Oh, great. Listen, why did you bother to take charge at all? I’m all right.”

She said, in a gush, “Oh, Quentin. You’re such a potentially wonderful person. And… and all you’re doing is throwing yourself away.”

He grunted self deprecation, and poked at the meat before him as though with sour fascination, and as though he didn’t quite understand what it was for. Certainly he couldn’t be expected to eat it.

“Potentially wonderful, eh? Why potentially? I thought you loved me just the way I am, pet. How do you mean, throwing myself away? I haven’t any responsibilities, no dependents. What difference is it if I hang one on every once in awhile?” He felt like a fool, hearing his own words.

She leaned forward and put a hand on his arm, and squeezed, as though in attempt to force her opinions upon him. Her hand was startlingly strong. “Quentin. You don’t know yourself. You refuse to see yourself. Admit yourself. You’re one of the great ones. You have dynamic. You are one of those born to lead. A few minutes of your talk, and just anyone at all is anxious to follow. But you waste it all. You throw it away. You spend your time with nothing people like the Dempseys, like that hard drinking newspaper friend of yours, like misfits such as Dave Shepherd. Like all of the Madrid expatriate set…”

“For a teacher, your syntax is lousy,” Quint grumbled. He picked at the tiny ham. The crisp skin was excellent, in spite of his present aversion to food. He motioned to a nearby waiter and when that worthy approached, said, ” Vino Unto.”

Marylyn Worth set her lips.

He looked at her. “Don’t let it get you. I’m over the hump. A glass of wine now will help me sober up. What’s wrong with my life? I don’t hurt anybody. My columns are popular, people like to read them. I entertain. What the hell do you want me to do, become active in the S.P.C.A. or something?”

Her voice was urgent. “Quentin, I don’t think you realize your own capabilities. Why, you’re rapidly becoming the most popular political columnist in the English language.”

“I’m not a political columnist,” he growled, uncomfortably. “I’m not any kind of specialist. I comment on political matters from time to time, but the next day it might be Hollywood, or French food, or the population explosion.”

“That’s what I mean,” she pled. “You’re a genius of wit and satire, of tongue-in-cheek cynicism. Why, back in the States people can hardly wait for their paper to come out. They turn to you instead…”

“Instead of the comics and sports page?” Quint grunted. “Don’t be silly.”

“Oh, I don’t mean the idiot level reader. I mean anybody who thinks at all. You’re everything that Will Rogers was and more. He was too frothy, too on the surface. But, Quentin, don’t you see? Most of the time you throw away the real you. Why do you ever stoop to write about Sophia Lollabrigida, or whatever the name of that Italian actress with the big…” She stopped and flushed.

“Mammary glands,” Quint laughed. He took a bite of the pork and a chunk of the heavy Spanish bread. It tasted good. He took a gulp of the Valdepenas, and appreciated its tart flavor. He thought for a moment before saying. “She’s a nice girl. A darn good egg. Everybody in the industry likes her. Most people in films are twitches at best, bastards on an average. She’s folks and I said so. Met her at a party once in Torremolinos.”

“Yes,” she said, still crusader-like. “But it isn’t you. You wouldn’t expect, well, Thomas Jefferson, or Benjamin Franklin, or, well, Thomas Paine, to spend their efforts on such piddling matters.”

“All right, pet,” Quint sighed. “Let’s turn it off for awhile. I’m not particularly interested in setting the world afire.”

“What are you interested in?” she said, heatedly. He scowled at her, and took another bite of the pig. He chewed and thought about it. “I don’t know,” he said finally.

She sat back, as though disgusted with him. Quint shrugged. His stomach was taking the food better than he had expected. Given luck, there wouldn’t be much of a hangover in the morning and possibly he’d be able to get back to his work. That thought brought things back to him.

He said, out of a clear sky, “Pet, what were you doing at the party last night?”

“Why… I…”

It occurred to him only then, that perhaps the girl had been there because she thought that possibly he was going to attend. It was the one thing about Marylyn Worth that irritated him. She lacked sophistication beyond belief. She simply couldn’t dissimulate even to the point demanded by every day social intercourse. The first time he had met her, possibly six months or so ago, she had asked him for his autograph. For a gag, he had written a long flowery passage working in her name and his appreciation of her understanding, and then had signed it with a great flourish. Weeks later, somebody who had been in her apartment mentioned that she had framed the thing and had it hanging on the wall. And from then on, Marylyn Worth, schoolteacher from Border, Nebraska, now teaching science at the local American school for dependents of U.S. Air Force personnel assigned to Spain, made herself as available as a teenage highschool sophomore might have for the school football hero of the senior class. Quint liked to do his own pursuing.

He said now, hurriedly, “What I meant was, the Dempseys went out of their way to let it be known the party was open house. I just wondered if you drifted in, under those circumstances, or if they had actually invited you.”

She flushed red.

He thought inwardly, “For crissake, didn’t anybody come to that party because they were invited,