Kitabı oku: «The Talented Mr Ripley / Талантливый мистер Рипли»

© Беспалова Н. В., адаптация, сокращение, словарь, 2017

© ООО «Издательство «Антология», 2017

1

Tom looked behind him and saw the man coming out of the Green Cage¹. Tom walked faster. There was no doubt that the man was following him. Tom noticed him five minutes ago from a table in the bar, so he drank his drink in a hurry, paid and got out. At the corner across Fifth Avenue² there was another bar – Raoul's. Tom hesitated – should he take a chance and go in for another drink? Or should he go further and try losing him?

He went into Raoul's, took an empty space at the bar and started watching the door.

'Gin and tonic, please,' he said to the barman.

Could they send this kind of man after him? Was he, wasn't he, was he? He didn't look like a policeman or a detective at all. He looked like a businessman, somebody's father, well-dressed, well-fed. He may start talking with you in a bar, and then bang! – the hand on the shoulder, the other hand showing a policeman's badge. Tom Ripley, you're under arrest. Tom watched the door.

Here he came. The man looked around, saw him and immediately looked away. My God, what did he want?

Tom saw that the man made a gesture to the barman, and came around the bar to him. Here it was! Tom was paralysed. They couldn't give you more than ten years, Tom thought.

Maybe fifteen. At the moment the man started to speak, Tom had a pain of agony.

'Pardon me, are you Tom Ripley?'

'Yes.'

'My name is Herbert Greenleaf. Richard Greenleaf's father.' The face was friendly, smiling and hopeful. 'You're a friend of Richard's, aren't you?'

Dickie Greenleaf. A tall blond fellow. He had a lot of money, Tom remembered. 'Oh, Dickie Greenleaf. Yes.'

'Do you think we could sit down at a table?'

'Yes,' Tom agreed, and picked up his drink. He followed the man towards an empty table at the back of the little room. Free! Nobody was going to arrest him. No matter what it was, it wasn't anything criminal. Maybe Richard was in trouble. Maybe Mr Greenleaf wanted help, or advice. Tom knew what to say to a father like Mr Greenleaf.

'I wasn't quite sure you were Tom Ripley,' Mr Greenleaf said. 'We are all trying to find you. Somebody told me you went to the Green Cage bar now and then. This is the first night I tried to find you, so I think I am lucky.' He smiled. 'I wrote you a letter last week, but maybe you didn't get it.'

'No, I didn't. ' Tom said. 'I moved a week or so ago,' he added.

'Oh, I see. I didn't say much in my letter. Only that I'd like to see you and have a chat with you. We think you knew Richard quite well.'

'I remember him, yes.'

'But you're not writing to him now?' He looked disappointed.

'No. I don't think I've seen Dickie for a couple of years.'

'He's been in Europe for two years. I want him to come home. He has responsibilities here – but just now he ignores anything that I or his mother try to tell him.'

Tom was puzzled. 'Why won't Richard come home?'

'He says he prefers living over there. But his mother's quite ill right now – Well, those are family problems. He says he's painting. There's no harm in that, but he doesn't have the talent to be a painter. But he's got great talent for boat designing.' He looked up as a waiter spoke to him. 'Scotch and soda, please. You're not ready, are you?' Mr Greenleaf looked at Tom as if to apologise.

'No, thanks,' Tom said.

'You're the first of Richard's friends who's willing to listen.

They all think that I'm intruding into his life.'

Tom could easily understand that. 'I certainly wish I could help,' he said politely. He remembered now that Dickie's money came from a shipbuilding company. Small sailing boats. No doubt his father wanted Dickie to come home and take the family firm. Tom smiled at Mr Greenleaf, then finished his drink. He was ready to leave, but he felt the disappointment across the table. 'Where is he staying in Europe?' Tom asked.

'In a town called Mongibello, south of Naples³. He divides his time between sailing and painting. He bought a house there. Richard has his own income – not big, but enough to live on in Italy. Well, I can't see why the place is attractive but every man has his own taste.' Mr Greenleaf smiled bravely. 'Can't I offer you a drink, Mr Ripley?' he asked when the waiter came with his Scotch and soda.

Tom wanted to leave. But he hated to leave the man sitting alone with his fresh drink. ' Thanks, I think I will,' he said, and handed the waiter his glass.

They didn't say anything for a minute. Mr Greenleaf's eyes were fixed on him. What on earth could he say? Tom was sorry he had accepted the drink. 'How old is Dickie now, by the way?' he asked.

'He's twenty-five.'

So am I, Tom thought. Dickie was probably having the best time of his life over there. An income, a house, a boat. Why should he want to come home? Dickie's face was becoming clearer in his memory: he had a big smile, blondish hair, a happy face. Dickie was lucky. What was he himself doing at twenty-five? Living from week to week. No bank account. Trying to escape from cops now for the first time in his life. He had a talent for mathematics. Why in hell didn't they pay him for it? Tom felt that all his body and fingers tensed. He was bored, bored, bored! He wanted to be back at the bar, by himself.

Tom took his drink. 'I'd be very glad to write to Dickie, if you give me his address,' he said quickly. 'I suppose he'll remember me. We were at a weekend party once, I remember. Dickie was talking about going to Europe that weekend.' His boredom changed. Tom knew this feeling. He had it sometimes at parties, when he was having dinner with someone with whom he didn't want to have dinner, and the evening got longer and longer. He could be polite for another hour, if he had to be, before he could lose his temper. What should he say? I'm sorry I'm not quite free now or… I'd be very glad to go over and see if I could persuade Richard myself.

'Maybe I could have some influence on him,' he said, just because Mr Greenleaf wanted him to say that.

'If you seriously think so – that is, I don't know if you're planning a trip to Europe or not.'

'No, I'm not.'

'Richard was always so influenced by his friends. If you or somebody like you who knew him could get a leave of absence, I'd like to send them over to talk to him.'

Tom's heart started to beat suddenly. It was a possibility. Something in him felt it was a chance for him. He wanted to leave New York. 'I might,' he said carefully.

'If you go, I'd be glad to take care of your expenses, that goes without saying⁴. Do you really think you might be able to arrange it? Say, this fall?'

It was already the middle of September. 'I think I might. I'd be glad to see Richard again – especially if you think I might be of some help.'

'I do! I think he will listen to you. Then the fact that you don't know him very well is a good thing. He will believe you if you explain to him why you think he must come home,' Mr Greenleaf, looked at Tom with hope. 'Funny thing is, Jim Burke and his wife – Jim's my partner – they went by Mongibello last year when they were on a trip. They spoke to Richard and he promised to come home when the winter began. Last winter. A boy of twenty-five never listens to an old man of sixty or more. You'll probably be more successful where the rest of us failed!'

'I hope so,' Tom said modestly.

'How about another drink? How about a nice brandy?'

* * *

Tom came home only after midnight. Mr Greenleaf offered him a taxi, but Tom did not want him to know where he lived – in a brown building between Third and Second Avenues⁵ with a sign 'ROOMS TO LET'⁶ on it. For the last two weeks Tom was living with Bob Delancey, a young man he didn't know very well, but Bob was one of Tom's friends in New York who had agreed to let him in when he was without a place to stay. Tom told nobody where he was living. The main advantage of Bob's place was that he could get his mail there with the minimum chance of detection.

But the place was dirty, smelly and looked as if it was never cleaned. Tom was shocked at the dirt of the place, shocked that anybody could live like that, but he knew that he wouldn't live there very long. And now Mr Greenleaf gave him a chance. One always gets a chance. That was Tom's philosophy.

Just before he climbed the brown steps, Tom stopped and looked carefully in both directions. Nothing but an old woman walking with her dog, and an old man coming around the corner from Third Avenue. He hated the feeling he had when he was followed, by anyone. And lately he had it all the time. He ran up the steps.

A lot of selfish motives mattered now, he thought as he went into the room. As soon as he could get a passport, he would sail for Europe, probably in a first-class cabin. Waiters to bring him things when he pushed a button! Dressing for dinner, talking with people at his table like a gentleman! He could congratulate himself on tonight, he thought. He had behaved just right. Mr Greenleaf couldn't have the impression that he had arranged the invitation to Europe. Just the opposite. He wouldn't let Mr Greenleaf down. He'd do his very best⁷ with Dickie. Mr Greenleaf was such a decent fellow himself, he believed that everybody else in the world was decent, too. Tom didn't believe such people existed.

Slowly he took off his jacket, watching every move he made as if he was watching somebody else's movements. He was standing much straighter now, and there was a different look in his face. It was one of the few times in his life that he felt pleased with himself.

When he woke up the next morning Bob was not there, and Tom was glad that Bob wasn't home this morning. He didn't want to tell Bob about the European trip. He wouldn't tell anybody. Tom began to whistle. He was invited to dinner tonight at the Greenleafs' apartment on Park Avenue⁸.

Fifteen minutes later, he showered, shaved, and dressed in a suit. He wanted to look well in his passport photo. Tom was walking up and down the room with a cup of black coffee in his hand, waiting for the morning mail. What should he do this afternoon? Go to some art exhibitions, so he could chat about them tonight with the Greenleafs. Do some research on Mr Greenleaf's company, so he could show Mr Greenleaf that he took an interest in his work? Tom went downstairs to take the mail. It was the letter addressed to George McAlpin. Tom opened it and saw a cheque for one hundred and nineteen dollars and fifty-four cents, for payment to the Collector of Internal Revenue⁹. Good old lady! Paid without hesitation, without even a telephone call. He went upstairs again, tore up the envelope and put her cheque into a pocket of one of his jackets in the closet. This raised his total in cheques to one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three dollars and fourteen cents, he calculated in his head. A pity that he couldn't cash them. Or that these idiots didn't pay in cash yet, or wrote cheques to George McAlpin. Tom had McAlpin's bank identification card that he had found somewhere with an old date on it. But he was afraid to cash the cheques. So this was no more than just a practical joke, really. Good clean sport. He wasn't stealing money from anybody. Before he went to Europe, he thought, he would destroy the cheques.

Shouldn't he try just one more in these last ten days before he sailed? Tom thought – it was easy, and persuaded himself to try just one more. Tom had a lot of forms from the Internal Revenue office¹⁰ where he had worked as a clerk a few weeks ago. He took a box with the forms from his suitcase in the closet.

There were seven more possible victims on his list. The list included special people – artists and writers and freelance people who made from seven to twelve thousand a year. Tom knew that such people seldom hired professional tax men to compute their taxes. It was only logical to suppose they had made a two– or three-hundred dollar error in their tax computations.

Tom examined the names on his list. There was journalist, musician, illustrator, photographer, artist…Tom remembered – Reddington, artist. He was a comic-book artist.

Tom chose the form 'NOTICE OF ERROR IN COMPUTATION'¹¹ and started to copy the information below the artist's name on his list.

* * *

'HELLO-O, Tom, my boy!' Mr Greenleaf said in a voice that promised good martinis, a delicious dinner, and a bed for the night in case he got too tired to go home. 'Emily, this is Tom Ripley!'

'I'm so happy to meet you!' she said warmly.

'How do you do, Mrs Greenleaf?'

She was very much what he expected – blonde, rather tall and slender, with enough formality to keep him on his good behaviour. Mr Greenleaf led them into the living-room. Yes, he had been here before with Dickie.

'Mr Ripley's been here before,' Mr Greenleaf said. 'He's come here with Richard.'

'Oh, has he? I don't believe I met you.' She smiled. 'Are you from New York?'

'No, I'm from Boston¹²,' Tom said. That was true.

About thirty minutes later they went into a dining-room where a table was set for three with candles, dinner napkins, and a whole cold chicken.

The conversation was dull, and the dinner excellent.

'Did you go to school in Boston?' Mr Greenleaf asked.

'No, sir. I went to Princeton¹³ for a while, then I moved to my Aunt Dottie in Boston and went to college there.' Tom waited, hoping Mr Greenleaf would ask him something about Princeton, but he didn't. Tom could discuss anything about Princeton, the system of teaching history, the campus, the atmosphere at the weekend dances, the student political tendencies. He knew it from a Princeton junior whom he had met last summer and who talked of nothing but Princeton. Tom asked him for more and more information, hoping he might be able to use it some time later.

Mrs Greenleaf came in with a photograph album, and Tom sat beside her on the sofa. Richard as a baby, Richard taking his first step, Richard dressed as a soldier, with long blond hair. The album was not interesting to him until it showed Richard at sixteen, long-legged and slim. Tom could see that Richard didn't change a lot between sixteen and twenty-three or – four, when the pictures of him stopped. Tom was surprised to see how little the bright, naive smile changed. Tom also had a feeling that Richard was not very intelligent; at least he looked not very intelligent with his smile from ear to ear.

'These are from Europe.' Mrs Greenleaf said, giving him some other pictures. They were more interesting: Dickie in a cafe in Paris, Dickie on a beach.

'This is Mongibello, by the way,' Mrs Greenleaf said, giving a picture of Dickie near a boat on the sand. The picture showed rocky mountains and little white houses along the shore. 'And here's the girl there, the only other American who lives there.'

'Marge Sherwood,' Mr Greenleaf added.

The girl was in a bathing suit on the beach, her arms around her knees, healthy and naive-looking, with short blonde hair. There was a good picture of Richard in shorts. He was smiling, but it was not the same smile, Tom saw. Richard looked more balanced in the European pictures.

Tom noticed that Mrs Greenleaf was very sad. Now he saw tears in her eyes.

'Mrs Greenleaf,' Tom said kindly, 'I want you to know that I'll do everything I can to make Dickie come back.'

'Bless you, Tom, bless you.' She touched Tom's hand.

'I hope you'll come again to visit us before you go, Tom,' she said. 'Since Richard went to Europe, we seldom have any young men here. I miss them.'

'I'd be happy to come again,' Tom said.

Mr Greenleaf went out of the room with her. Tom remained standing, his hands at his sides, his head high. In a large mirror on the wall he could see himself: the honest, self-respecting young man again. He looked quickly away. He was doing the right thing, behaving the right way. Yet he had a feeling of guilt. When he had said to Mrs Greenleaf, I'll do everything I can… Well, he meant it. He wasn't trying to fool anybody.

He began to sweat, and he tried to relax. What was he so worried about? That was the only time tonight when he felt uncomfortable, unreal, the way he felt when he was lying. The only true thing he had said was: My parents died when I was very small. I was raised by my aunt Dottie in Boston.

Mr Greenleaf came into the room. Tom felt a sudden terror of him, an impulse to attack him before he was attacked.

'Some brandy?' offered Mr Greenleaf.

It's like a movie, Tom thought. In a minute, Mr Greenleaf or somebody else's voice would say, 'Okay, cut!¹⁴' and he would relax again and be back in Raoul's with the gin and tonic in front of him. No, back in the Green Cage.

'Thinking about Europe?' Mr Greenleaf's voice said.

Tom took another glass from Mr Greenleaf. 'Yes, I was,' Tom said.

'Well, I hope you enjoy your trip, Tom, and have some influence on Richard. By the way, Emily likes you a lot. She told me so.' Mr Greenleaf rolled his brandy glass between his hands. 'My wife has leukaemia, Tom.'

'Oh. That's very serious, isn't it?'

'Yes. She may not live a year.'

'I'm sorry to hear that,' Tom said.

'I've got a list of boats. I think you can take the quickest, and also the most interesting way. Then the boat train to Paris, and another to Rome and Naples.'

'That would be fine.' It seemed exciting to him.

'You'll have to catch a bus from Naples to Richard's village. I'll write him about you – not telling him that you're my agent,' he added, smiling, 'but I'll tell him we've met. Richard must invite you to his place, but if he can't for some reason, there're hotels in the town. Now as to money – ' Mr Greenleaf smiled. 'I offer to give you six hundred dollars in traveller's cheques and your round-trip ticket. Does that suit you? And if you need more, you have to write me, my boy. You don't look like a young man who throw money away.'

'That will be enough, sir. I think I should be going.'

They shook hands, and it was over. But Tom still felt pain and fear as he was running home.

The next day he took care of Mrs Greenleaf's instruction to buy the dozen pairs of black woollen socks and the bathrobe for Dickie. Mrs Greenleaf did not tell a colour for the bathrobe. Tom chose a dark navy-blue one. It was not the best-looking robe in the store, in Tom's opinion, but he felt it was exactly what Richard would choose. He put the socks and the robe on the Greenleafs' account. Then he saw a heavy linen sport shirt with wooden buttons that he liked very much. He could easily put on the Greenleafs' account, too, but he didn't. He bought it with his own money.

The atmosphere of the city became stranger as the days went on. As if New York lost its reality or importance and became a show just for him, an exciting show with its buses, taxis, and hurrying people, its television shows in all the Third Avenue bars, and its sound effects of thousands of horns and human voices. As if when his boat left on Saturday, the whole city of New York would disappear.

Or maybe he was afraid. He hated water. He had never travelled anywhere before on water. His parents had drowned in Boston Harbour, and Tom, as long as he could remember, was always afraid of water, and he had never learned how to swim. It gave Tom a sick, empty feeling at his stomach to think that in less than a week he would have water below him, miles deep, and that he would have to look at it most of the time, because people on ocean liners spent most of their time on deck. And he was afraid to be seasick.

2

The morning of his sailing, the morning he was waiting for with such excitement was a sunless day, and the city was already like some grey, distant land.

A steward came out, 'Visitors ashore, please! All visitors ashore!' The ship was moving before Tom went down to his cabin. He saw a big basket of fruit on the floor by his bed. He took the little white envelope quickly. The card inside said:

 
Bon voyage¹⁵ and bless you, Tom.
All our good wishes go with you.
Emily and Herbert Greenleaf
 

The basket had apples and pears and grapes and a couple of candy bars and several little bottles of liqueurs. Tom had never received a bon voyage basket. To him, they were something for fantastic prices. Now he found himself with tears in his eyes, and he put his face down in his hands suddenly and began to cry.

* * *

His mood was calm but he did not want to meet any of the people on the ship, though when he saw the people with whom he sat at his table, he greeted them pleasantly and smiled. He wanted his time for thinking. He began to play a role of a serious young man with a serious job ahead of him. He was polite and well-mannered.

He had a sudden wish to buy a conservative bluish-grey cap of soft English wool. He could wear it in different ways. He could pull it down over his face when he wanted to sleep in his deck-chair. He could look like a country gentleman, a criminal, an Englishman, a Frenchman, or a plain American eccentric, depending on how he wore it. Tom tried it in his room in front of the mirror. He always thought he had the dullest face, that could be easily forgotten. A real conformist's face.The cap changed all that. Now he was a young man with a private income, not long out of Princeton, perhaps. He also bought a pipe to go with the cap.

He was starting a new life. Good-bye to all the second-rate people he had known in the past three years in New York. He felt as immigrants when they left everything behind them in some foreign country, left their friends and relatives and their past mistakes, and sailed for America. A new start!

When Mr Greenleaf's money was spent, he might not come back to America. He might get an interesting job in a hotel, for instance, where they needed somebody who spoke English. Or he might become a representative for some European firm and travel everywhere in the world. Or somebody might need a young man, who could drive a car, who was quick at figures. The world was wide!

In the mornings he walked on the deck very slowly, so that the people could see him two or three times, then sat down in his deck-chair for more thought on his own life. After lunch, he stayed in his cabin, enjoying its privacy and comfort, doing absolutely nothing. Sometimes he sat in the writing-room, writing letters. The letter to the Greenleaf's began as a polite greeting and a thank-you for the bon voyage basket and the comfortable cabin. Then he added an imaginary paragraph about finding Dickie and living with him in his Mongibello house, about the slow but steady progress in persuading Dickie to come home, about the swimming, the fishing, the cafe life, and he got so excited that it went on for eight or ten pages but he knew he would never send any of it.

On another afternoon, he wrote a polite note to Aunt Dottie:

Dear Auntie [which he seldom called her in a letter and never to her face],

As you see by the writing paper, I am on the open sea. A sudden business offer which I cannot explain now. I had to leave suddenly, so I was not able to go to Boston and I'm sorry, because it may be months or even years before I come back.

I just wanted you not to worry and not to send me any more cheques, thank you. Thank you very much for the last one. I am well and extremely happy.

Love Tom

P. S. I have no idea what my address will be, so I cannot give you any.

That made him feel better, because it without doubt ended any contact with her. After his letter to Aunt Dottie, he got up and went to the deck. Writing her always made him feel angry. He didn't want to show politeness to her. Yet until now he had always wanted her to know where he was, because he had always needed her cheques. But he didn't need her money now. He would not depend on her any longer.

Lying in his deck-chair, excited by the luxurious surroundings and delicious food, he tried to take an objective look at his past life. The last four years had been a waste. A number of jobs, long intervals with no job at all and as a result depression because of having no money, and then making friends with stupid, silly people in order not to be lonely. He couldn't be proud of this, because he had come to New York with high ambitions. He wanted to be an actor, but at twenty he did not have the idea of the difficulties, the necessary training, or even the necessary talent. He thought he had the necessary talent and the only thing he had to do was show a producer a few of his original one-man parodies – but his first three failures killed all his courage and his hope. He had no money, so he had to take the job on the banana boat, which at least removed him from New York. He was afraid that Aunt Dottie had called the police to look for him in New York. After all, he hadn't done anything wrong in Boston, just run away from her to start his own life as millions of young men had done before him.

His main mistake was that he never remained at one job, he thought, like the accounting job in the department store but he was really disappointed at the slowness of department-store promotions. Well, he blamed Aunt Dottie for his lack of patience; she never gave him praise when he was younger. He had won a silver medal from the newspaper once. It was like looking back at another person to remember himself then, a thin boy with runny nose, who had still managed to win a medal. Aunt Dottie didn't praise him, she hated him when he had a cold and she used to take her handkerchief and almost twist his nose off.

He remembered the promises he had made, even at the age of eight, to run away from Aunt Dottie, he imagined the violent scenes – Aunt Dottie trying to hold him in the house, and he hitting her with his fists, pushing her to the ground, and finally killing her with a knife in her throat. He ran away at seventeen and they brought him back, and he did it again at twenty and succeeded. And it was a surprise and pity how naive he was, how little he knew about the way the world worked, as if he had spent so much of his time hating Aunt Dottie and planning how to escape her, that he had not had enough time to learn and grow.

'Mr Ripley?' he heard suddenly from one of the Englishwomen who he had seen the other day during tea. 'We were wondering if you could join us for a bridge in the game-room? We're going to start in about fifteen minutes.'

Tom sat up politely in his chair. ' Thank you very much, but I think I'd like to stay outside. I'm afraid, I'm not too good at bridge.'

'Oh, neither are we! All right, another time.' She smiled and went away.

Tom sank back in his chair again, pulled his cap down over his eyes. His lack of interest, he knew, was producing a little comment among the passengers. He imagined how the passengers might guess: Is he an American! I think so, but he doesn't act like an American, does he? Most Americans are so noisy. He's extremely serious, isn't he, and he can't be more than twenty-three. He must have something very important on his mind.

Yes, he had. The present and the future of Tom Ripley.

* * *

Paris was no more than a very short view out of a railroad station window, like a tourist poster illustration, a series of long station platforms down which he followed porters with his luggage, and at last the sleeper that would take him all the way to Rome. He could come back to Paris at some other time, he thought. He was eager to get to Mongibello.

When he woke up the next morning, he was in Italy. Something very pleasant happened that morning. Tom was watching the landscape out of the window, when he heard some Italians in the corridor who said something with the word 'Pisa¹⁶ ' in it. Tom went into the corridor to get a better look at it, looking automatically for the Leaning Tower¹⁷, though he was not at all sure that the city was Pisa or that the tower would even be seen from here, but there it was! – a thick white column, leaning at an angle that he couldn't imagine was possible! It seemed to him a good sign. He believed that Italy was going to be everything that he expected, and that everything would go well with him and Dickie.

He arrived in Naples late that afternoon, and there was no bus to Mongibello until tomorrow morning at eleven. Tom had dinner that evening at a restaurant down on the water, which was recommended to him by the English-speaking manager of the hotel. He had a difficult time ordering, the first course was miniature octopuses, and it tasted terrible. The second course was also a mistake, fried fish of various kinds. The third course – which was a kind of dessert – was a couple of small reddish fish. Ah, Naples! The food didn't matter. He was enjoying the wine.

He boarded the bus the next morning at eleven. The road followed the shore and went through little towns where they made brief stops – Tom listened to the names of the towns that the driver called out, when he finally heard: 'Mongibello!'

Tom was alone at the side of the road, his suitcases at his feet. There were houses above him, up the mountain, and houses below, against the blue sea. Keeping an eye on his suitcases, Tom went into a little house across the road marked POSTA, and asked the man behind the window where Richard Greenleaf's house was. Without thinking, he spoke in English, but the man seemed to understand, because he came out and pointed from the door up the road, and gave in Italian what seemed to be clear directions how to get there.

Tom thanked him, and asked if he could leave his two suitcases in the post, and the man seemed to understand this, too, and helped Tom carry them into the post office.

He had to ask two more people where Richard Greenleaf's house was, but everybody seemed to know it, and the third person was able to point it out to him – a large two-storey house with an iron gate on the road. Tom rang the metal bell beside the gate. An Italian woman came out of the house.

'Mr Greenleaf?' Tom asked hopefully. The woman gave him a long, smiling answer in Italian and pointed towards the sea.

Should he go down to the beach as he was, or be more casual about it and get into a bathing suit? Or should he wait until the tea or cocktail hour? Or should he try to telephone him first? He hadn't brought a bathing suit with him, and he certainly needed to have one here. Tom went into one of the little shops near the post office that had shirts and bathing shorts in its small front window, and after trying on several pairs of shorts that did not fit him he bought a black-and-yellow thing and started out of the door barefoot. The stones were hot as coals. 'Shoes? Sandals?' he asked the man in the shop. The man didn't sell shoes.

Tom put on his own shoes again. He went down stone steps, past shops and houses, down more steps, and finally he came to a broad sidewalk where there were cafes and a restaurant with outdoor tables. Some bronzed Italian boys inspected him carefully as he walked by. He felt shame at the big brown shoes on his feet and at his ghost-white skin. He had not been to a beach all summer. He hated beaches.

There was a wooden walk that led to the beach, which Tom knew must be hot as hell to walk on, but he took his shoes off anyway and stood for a moment on the hot wood, inspecting the groups of people near him. None of the people looked like Richard. Then he took a deep breath, ran down across the hot sand to the cool water at the sea's edge.

Tom saw him from a distance – no doubt it was Dickie with a dark brown skin and his blond hair looked lighter than Tom remembered it. He was with Marge.

'Dickie Greenleaf?' Tom asked, smiling.

Dickie looked up. 'Yes?'

'I'm Tom Ripley. I met you in the States several years ago. Remember?.. I think your father said he was going to write you about me.'

'Oh, yes!' Dickie said, touching his forehead as if it was stupid of him to have forgotten. He stood up. 'Tom what is it?'

'Ripley.'

'This is Marge Sherwood,' he said. 'Marge, Tom Ripley.'

'How do you do?' Tom said.

'How do you do?'

'How long are you here for?' Dickie asked.

'I don't know yet,' Tom said. 'I just got here. I'll have to look the place over.'

'Taking a house?' asked Dickie.

'I don't know,' Tom said as if in a doubt.

'It's a good time to get a house, if you're looking for one for the winter,' the girl said. 'The summer tourists have all gone.'

Dickie said nothing. Tom felt that he was waiting for him to say good-bye and leave. Tom took his pack of cigarettes from his jacket, and offered it to Dickie and the girl.

'You don't seem to remember me from New York,' Tom said.

'I can't really say I do,' Dickie said. 'Where did I meet you? My memory's very bad for America these days.'

'It certainly is,' Marge said. 'It's getting worse and worse. When did you get here, Tom?'

'Just about an hour ago. I've just parked my suitcases at the post office.' He laughed.

'Don't you want to sit down?' She offered a white towel beside her on the sand.

'I'm going in for a swim,' Dickie said, getting up.

'Me too!' Marge said. 'Coming in, Tom?'

Tom followed them. Dickie and the girl swam out very far – both seemed to be excellent swimmers – and Tom stayed near the shore.

When Dickie and the girl came back to the towels, Dickie said, as if he was instructed by the girl, 'We're leaving. Would you like to come up to the house and have lunch with us?'

'Why, yes. Thanks very much.'

Tom thought they would never get there. The sun was burning, his shoulders were already pink, he felt awful.

Fifteen minutes later he was sitting in a comfortable chair on Dickie's terrace after a cool shower with a martini in his hand. The table on the terrace had been set for three while he was in the shower, and Marge was in the kitchen now, talking in Italian to the maid. Tom wondered if Marge lived here. The house was certainly big enough. There was not much furniture – a pleasant mixture of Italian and American style. He could see two original Picasso¹⁸ drawings in the hall.

Marge came out on the terrace with her martini. 'That's my house over there.' She pointed. 'See it?'

Tom pretended he saw it. 'Have you been here long?'

'A year. All last winter it was raining all the time. Rain every day except one for three months!'

'Really!'

'Um-hm.' Marge was drinking her martini and looking out at her little village with satisfaction. She was back in her bathing suit with a shirt over it. She wasn't bad-looking, Tom supposed, and she even had a good figure, if one liked the rather strong type. Tom didn't, himself.

'I understand Dickie has a boat,' Tom said.

'Yes, the Pipi. Short for Pipistrello. Want to see it?'

She pointed at something down at the little pier that they could see from the corner of the terrace. The boats looked very much alike, but Marge said Dickie's boat was larger than most of them and had two masts.

Dickie came out with a cocktail. 'Sorry there's no ice. I haven't got a refrigerator.'

Tom smiled. 'I brought a bathrobe for you. Your mother said you had asked for one. Also some socks.'

'Do you know my mother?'

'I met your father just before I left New York, and he asked me to dinner at his house.'

'Oh? How was my mother?'

'She was well that evening. But I'd say she gets tired easily.'

'I had a letter this week saying she was a little better. At least there's no crisis, is there?'

'I don't think so. I think your father was more worried a few weeks ago.' Tom hesitated. 'He's also a little worried because you won't come home.'

'Herbert's always worried about something,' Dickie said.

Marge and the maid came out of the kitchen carrying spaghetti, salad, and bread. Dickie and Marge began to talk about the restaurant down on the beach. The owner was widening the terrace so there would be room for people to dance. They discussed it in detail, slowly, like people in a small town who take an interest in their neighbours. There was nothing Tom could say about it.

He spent the time examining Dickie's rings. He liked them both: a large green stone in gold on the third finger of his right hand, and a large signet ring on the little finger of the other. Dickie had long, bony hands, like his own hands, Tom thought.

'What hotel are you staying at?' Marge asked Tom.

Tom smiled. 'I haven't found one yet. What do you recommend?'

'The Miramare's the best. '

'In that case, I'll try the Miramare,' Tom said, standing up. 'I must be going.'

Neither of them asked him to stay. Dickie walked with him to the front gate. Marge was staying on. Tom wondered if Dickie and Marge were having a love affair. Marge was in love with Dickie, Tom thought, but Dickie was as indifferent to her as if she were the fifty-year-old Italian maid.

'I'd like to see some of your paintings sometimes,' Tom said to Dickie.

'Fine. Well, I suppose we'll see you again,' and Tom thought he added it only because he remembered that he had brought him the bathrobe and the socks.

'I enjoyed the lunch. Good-bye, Dickie.'

The gate closed.

3

Tom took a room at the Miramare. It was four o'clock by the time he got his suitcases up from the post office, and he was so tired that he fell down on the bed. What was he doing here? He had no friends here and he didn't speak the language. Suppose he got sick? Who would take care of him?

He fell asleep and when he woke up still weak, the sun was shining and it was five-thirty. He went to a window and looked out, trying to find Dickie's big house among the pink and white houses in front of him. He saw the red terrace. Was Marge still there? Were they talking about him?

And then he saw Dickie and Marge as they crossed a space between houses on the main road. They turned a corner, and Tom went to his side window for a better view. Dickie and Marge came down to the little wooden pier just below his window. Dickie talked with an Italian, gave him some money, and the Italian touched his cap, then untied the boat from the pier.Tom watched Dickie help Marge into the boat. The white sail began to climb. Behind them, to the left, the orange sun was sinking into the water. Tom could hear Marge's laugh, and a shout from Dickie in Italian toward the pier. Tom understood he was watching them on a typical day – a siesta¹⁹ after the late lunch, probably, then the sail in Dickie's boat at sundown. Then some drinks at one of the cafes on the beach. They were enjoying an absolutely ordinary day, as if he did not exist. Why should Dickie want to come back to New York, to subways and taxis and a nine-to-five job? Or even vacations in Florida and Miami?²⁰ It wasn't much fun. Here Dickie could sail a boat in old clothes, he had his own house with a kind maid who probably took care of everything for him. And money besides, to take trips if he wanted to. Tom envied him with envy and self-pity that was breaking his heart. Tom thought that Dickie was against him because of his father' letter. It would be better if they met in one of the cafes down at the beach as if by chance. He probably could persuade Dickie to come home, if it all began like that, but this way it was useless.

Tom decided to let a few days go by. The first step, anyway, was to make Dickie like him. He wanted that more than anything else in the world.

* * *

Tom let three days go by. Then he went down to the beach on the fourth morning, and found Dickie alone, in the same place.

'Morning!' Tom called. 'Where's Marge?'

'Good morning. She's probably working a little late. She'll come soon.'

'Working?'

'She's a writer.'

'Oh… Can I invite you for a drink at the hotel before you go up to your house?' Tom asked Dickie. 'And Marge, too, if she comes. I wanted to give you your bathrobe and socks, you know.'

'Oh yes. Thanks very much. I'd like to have a drink.' He went back to his Italian newspaper.

'Doesn't look as if Marge is coming down,' Dickie said. 'I think I'll be going.'

Tom got up. They walked up to the Miramare, saying practically nothing to each other, except that Tom invited Dickie to lunch with him, and Dickie refused because the maid had his lunch ready at the house, he said. They went up to Tom's room, and Dickie tried on the bathrobe and the socks. Both the bathrobe and the socks were the right size, and, as Tom had expected, Dickie was extremely pleased with the bathrobe.

Now Dickie had everything, Tom thought, everything he had to offer. He was going to refuse the invitation for a drink, too, Tom knew. Tom followed him toward the door. 'You know, your father's very worried about you. He asked me to talk to you. Of course, I won't, but I'll still have to tell him something. I promised to write him.'

Dickie stopped at the door.

'I don't know what my father thinks I'm doing over here – drinking myself to death or what. I'll probably fly home this winter for a few days, but I don't want to stay over there. I'm happier here. I think it's my business how I spend my life. Thanks, anyway, Tom, for the message and the clothes. It was very nice of you.' Dickie offered his hand.

Tom hesitated to take the hand. This was failure, failure with Mr Greenleaf's message, and failure with Dickie.

'I think I should tell you something else,' Tom said with a smile. 'Your father sent me over here especially to ask you to come home.'

'What do you mean?' Dickie frowned. 'Paid your way?'

'Yes.' It was his last chance. Dickie might laugh at it or go out in disgust. But the smile was coming, the way Tom remembered Dickie's smile.

'Paid your way! What do you know!²¹ He's very serious, isn't he?' Dickie closed the door again.

'He came up to me in a bar in New York,' Tom said. 'I told him I wasn't a close friend of yours, but he insisted I could help if I came here. I told him I'd try.'

They laughed.

'I don't want you to think I'm someone who tried to use your father,' Tom said. 'I expect to find a job somewhere in Europe soon, and I'll be able to pay him. He bought me a round-trip ticket.'

'Oh, don't bother! It goes on the Greenleaf expense account.

I can just see how Dad talks to you in a bar! '

They had a drink downstairs in the hotel bar. They drank to Herbert Richard Greenleaf.

'Oh, it's Sunday today,' Dickie remembered. 'Marge went to church. Could you come up and have lunch with us? We always have chicken on Sunday. You know it's an old American custom, chicken on Sunday.'

Dickie wanted to go past Marge's house to see if she was still there. Her house was a one-storey building with a garden. Through an open window, Tom saw a table in disorder with a typewriter on it.

'Hi!' she said, opening the door. 'Hello, Tom! Where've you been all this time?'

She offered them a drink, but discovered that her bottle of gin was almost empty.

'It doesn't matter, we're going to my house,' Dickie said. 'Tom has something funny to tell you,' he said. 'Tell her, Tom.'

Tom took a breath and began. He made it very funny and Marge laughed like someone who didn't have anything funny to laugh at in years. 'When I saw him coming in Raoul's after me, I was ready to climb out of a back window!'

His reputation was going up with Dickie and Marge. He could see it in their faces.

The way up the hill to Dickie's house didn't seem so long as before. When they got there, they showered and then had a drink, just like the first time, but the atmosphere now was completely changed.

Dickie sat down in a chair. 'Tell me more,' he said, smiling. 'What kind of work do you do? You said you might take a job.'

'Why? Do you have a job for me?'

'Can't say that I have.'

'Oh, I can do a number of things – being a servant, baby-sitting, accounting – I've got an unfortunate talent for calculation. No matter how drunk I get, I can always tell when a waiter's cheating me on a bill. I can forge a signature, fly a helicopter, imitate practically anybody, cook – and do a one-man show in a nightclub. Shall I go on?'

'What kind of a one-man show?' Dickie asked.

'Well – ' Tom jumped up. 'This for example. This is a lady trying the American subway. She's never even been in the underground in London, but she wants to take back some American experiences.' Tom did it all in pantomime, – here Marge came out, and Dickie told her it was an Englishwoman in the subway, but Marge didn't seem to understand it and asked, 'What?'

'Wonderful!' Dickie shouted, clapping.

Marge wasn't laughing. She stood there looking a little confused. Neither of them bothered to explain it to her. She didn't look as if she had that kind of sense of humour, anyway, Tom thought.

Dickie stood up. 'Come on in, Tom, I'll show you some of my paintings.' Dickie led the way into the big room.

'This is one of Marge I'm working on now.' He pointed at one of the pictures.

'Oh,' Tom said with interest. It wasn't good in his opinion, probably in anybody's opinion.

'And these – a lot of landscapes,' Dickie said with an apologizing laugh, though obviously he wanted Tom to say something complimentary about them, because obviously he was proud of them.

Tom felt almost a personal shame. 'Yes, I like that,' Tom said. Mr Greenleaf had been right. Yet it gave Dickie something to do, kept him out of trouble, Tom supposed. He was only sorry that Dickie fell into this category as a painter, because he wanted Dickie to be much more.

'Yes,' Tom wanted to forget all about the paintings and forget that Dickie painted. 'Can I see the rest of the house?'

'Absolutely! You haven't seen the salon, have you?'

Dickie opened a door in the hall that led into a very large room with a fireplace, sofas, bookshelves, and three doors – to the terrace, to the land on the other side of the house, and to the front garden. Dickie said that in summer he did not use the room, because he liked to save it as a change of scene for the winter. It surprised him.

'What's upstairs?' Tom asked.

The upstairs was disappointing: Dickie's bedroom in the corner of the house above the terrace was almost empty – a bed, – a narrow bed, hardly wider than a single bed. There was certainly no sign of Marge anywhere, least of all in Dickie's bedroom.

'How about going to Naples with me sometime?' Tom asked. 'I didn't have much of a chance to see it on my way down.'

'All right,' Dickie said. 'Marge and I are going Saturday afternoon. We have dinner there nearly every Saturday night. Come along. I suppose we could go tomorrow, if you feel like it.'

'Fine,' Tom said, hoping to avoid Marge in the trip. 'I had the idea she was in love with you.' He added as they went down the stairs.

'With me? Don't be silly!'

The dinner was ready when they went out on the terrace. Tom hoped Marge would leave after the coffee, but she didn't. When she left the terrace for a moment Tom said, 'Can I invite you for dinner at my hotel tonight?'

'Thank you. At what time?'

'Seven-thirty? So we'll have a little time for cocktails? – After all, it's your father's money,' Tom added with a smile.

Dickie laughed. 'All right, cocktails and a good bottle of wine, Marge!' Marge was just coming back. 'We're dining tonight at the Miramare.

So Marge was coming, too, and there was nothing Tom could do about it. After all, it was Dickie's father's money.

The dinner that evening was pleasant, but Marge's presence kept Tom from talking easily.

'How long are you going to be here?' Dickie asked.

'Oh, at least a week, I'd say,' Tom replied.

'Because – ' Dickie's face went red a little over the cheekbones. The wine had put him into a good mood. 'If you're going to be here a little longer, why don't you stay with me? There's no use staying in a hotel, unless you really prefer it.'

'Thank you very much,' Tom said. 'I'm sure I'd like to. By the way, your father gave me six hundred dollars for expenses, and I've still got about five hundred of it. I think we both ought to have a little fun on it, don't you?'

The next morning he moved in.

'Are we still going to Naples?' Tom asked.

'Certainly.' Dickie looked at his watch. 'It's only a quarter to twelve. We can make the twelve o'clock bus.'

They took nothing with them but their jackets and Tom's book of traveller's cheques. The bus was just arriving as they reached the post office. Tom and Dickie stood by the door, then Dickie pulled himself up, right into the face of a young man with red hair and a sports shirt, an American.

'Dickie!'

'Freddie!' Dickie shouted. 'What're you doing here?'

'Came to see you! And my Italian friends. They've invited me to stay with them for a few days.'

'Fine! I'm off to Naples with a friend. Tom?' Dickie pointed at Tom over and introduced them.

The American's name was Freddie Miles. Tom thought he was disgusting. Tom hated red hair, especially this kind of carrot-red hair with white skin and freckles. Tom turned away from him, waiting for Dickie to finish his conversation. Dickie and Freddie were talking about skiing, making a date for some time in December in a town Tom had never heard of.

'There'll be about fifteen of us at Cortina²² by the second,' Freddie said. 'A real first-class party like last year! Three weeks, if our money holds out!'

'If we hold out!²³' Dickie said. 'See you tonight, Fred!'

The bus took them to a big square in Naples.

'I know a good place for lunch,' Dickie said. 'A real Neapolitan pizzeria. Do you like pizza?'

'Yes.'

The pizzeria was up a street too narrow for cars. They sat there until five o'clock, when Dickie said it was time to move on to the Galleria.²⁴ Dickie apologised for not taking him to the art museum, which had original da Vincis and El Grecos²⁵, he said, but they could see that at another time. Dickie had spent most of the afternoon talking about Freddie Miles, and Tom had found it as uninteresting as Freddie's face. Freddie was the son of an American hotel-chain owner, and a playwright – a false one, Tom thought, because he had written only two plays, and neither had seen Broadway²⁶.

'This is what I like,' Dickie said frankly in the Galleria, 'sitting at a table and watching the people go by. It does something to your idea of life. The Anglo-Saxons make a great mistake not staring at people from a sidewalk table.'

Tom nodded. He had heard it before. He was waiting for something wise and original from Dickie. Dickie was handsome. He looked unusual with his long, finely cut face, his quick, intelligent eyes, the proud way he carried himself, no matter what he was wearing.

A well-dressed Italian greeted Dickie with a warm handshake and sat down at the table with them. Tom listened to their conversation in Italian, but could understand only some words. He was beginning to feel tired.

'Want to go to Rome?' Dickie asked him suddenly.

'Sure,' Tom said. 'Now?' He stood up and paid for their coffee.

The Italian had a long grey Cadillac. They reached Rome in about two hours. The Italian left them in the middle of a street in Rome and said good-bye.

'He's in a hurry,' Dickie said. 'Got to see his girl friend and get away before the husband comes home at eleven. There's the music hall I was looking for. Come on!

They bought tickets for the music-hall show that evening. Tom got very little out of the music-hall show, but he tried his very best.

Dickie suggested leaving before the show was over. Then they caught a horse carriage and drove around the city, past fountain after fountain, through the Forum and around the Colloseum²⁷. The moon came out. Tom was still a little sleepy, but excited at being in Rome for the first time. They were sitting in the carriage in the same pose with a sandalled foot on a knee, and it seemed to Tom that he was looking in a mirror when he looked at Dickie. They were the same height, and very much the same weight, Dickie perhaps a bit heavier, and they wore the same size bathrobe, socks, and probably shirts.

They were in finer mood at one o'clock in the morning, after a bottle and a half of wine. They walked with their arms around each other's shoulders, singing, and around a dark corner they saw a girl and knocked her down. They lifted her up, apologising, and offered to accompany her home. She protested, they insisted. Dickie got a taxi. They helped the girl out in a little street that looked like Naples again, and she said, 'Grazie tante!'²⁸ and shook hands with both of them, then disappeared in a black doorway.

'Did you hear that?' Dickie said. 'She said we were the nicest Americans she'd ever met!' He turned around and asked, 'Now where are we?'

They didn't know.

'When the dawn comes up, we can see where we are,' Dickie said cheerfully. 'It's because we got a nice girl home, isn't it?'

'Sure it is. I like girls,' Tom said protestingly. 'But it's a good thing Marge isn't here tonight. We never could go with that girl with Marge with us.'

'That's right!' Dickie put an arm around his shoulder.

Tom opened his eyes and looked into the face of a policeman. He sat up. They were in a park. It was dawn. Dickie was sitting on the grass beside him, talking to the policeman in Italian.

'Passaporti!' the policeman demanded.

Tom knew exactly what Dickie was saying. He was saying that they were Americans, and they didn't have their passports because they had only gone out for a little walk to look at the stars. Tom had an impulse to laugh. He stood up. Dickie was up, too, and they began to walk away, though the policeman was still crying at them. Dickie said something back to him in a polite, explanatory tone. At least the policeman was not following them.

'We look dirty,' Dickie said. They began to laugh. They were still drunk.

By eleven o'clock they were in Naples, just in time to catch the bus for Mongibello. It was wonderful to think of lying on the beach at Mongibello this afternoon, but they never got to the beach. They had showers at Dickie's house, then fell down on their beds and slept until Marge woke them up around four.

Marge was annoyed because Dickie hadn't sent her a telegram saying he was spending the night in Rome.

'I don't mind if you spend the night, but I thought you were in Naples and anything can happen in Naples.'

'Oh-h,' Dickie exchanged glances with Tom. He was making cocktails for all of them.

Tom kept his mouth shut. He wasn't going to tell Marge anything they had done. Let her imagine what she pleased. Dickie made it clear that they had had a very good time. Tom noticed that she looked at Dickie with blame for his hangover. There was something in Marge's eyes when she was very serious that made her look wise and old. Or was it jealousy?

After a few moments she seemed relaxed. Dickie left him with Marge on the terrace. Tom asked her about the book she was writing. It was a book about Mongibello, she said, with her own photographs. He tried to be pleasant to her. He walked with her to the gate, and they said a friendly good-bye to each other, but both didn't say anything about their all getting together later that day or tomorrow. There was no doubt about it, Marge was a little angry with Dickie.