Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [111]
May was flabbergasted. She began to question Willie about his life on the Caine, and became more and more appalled as he talked, the Stilwell narrative shaking her most of all. “Ye gods, this Queeg, he’s a-he’s a monster, a maniac!”
“Well, more or less.”
“Is the whole Navy like that?”
“Oh, no. The skipper before Queeg was a grand guy, and damned capable, too.” The words were out of his mouth before it occurred to him to smile at his change of heart about De Vriess.
“Can’t you do anything about him?”
“But what, May?”
“I don’t know. Report him to an admiral. Write a letter to Walter Winchell. Something!”
Willie grinned, and put his hand over hers. They were silent for a while. Then May patted her lips with a napkin, opened her purse, and began repainting her mouth skillfully and quickly with a small brush which she dipped into a little black pot of rouge. Willie hadn’t seen such a cosmetic technique before, and he found it a bit glaring and over-professional, but he pushed the distaste from his mind with the thought that a night-club singer must carry with her a trace or two of her trade. The hope flitted across his mind that May wouldn’t bring out the brush if ever they dined with his mother. Lovers are supposed to come near the telepathic state; perhaps for this reason May gave him a keen look as she put away the brush and said, “Nice of your mother to let you run off like this.”
“Well, I pretty well do as I please, darling-”
“I know-but after she came across the country, and all-you just leave her flat-footed-”
“I didn’t ask her to come. She surprised me. Anyway, she’s going to stay on, and you have to go back. It’s only natural. She knows the score.”
“I wonder,” said May, with a little rueful smile. Willie pressed her hand, and they both colored a little.
“What does she think of me?” asked May, as forty billion poor girls have asked in their time.
“She thinks you’re swell.”
“I’ll bet she does- Really, what did she say? I mean the very first time she had a chance, when I walked off the pier and went back to the hotel? What were her exact words?”
Willie reviewed the awkward triangle scene on the wharf in his mind, the lame exchanges, the forced smiles, May’s deft withdrawal in a few minutes, and his mother’s remark, “Well, well. My Willie is keeping secrets from his old mother, eh? She’s remarkably pretty. Model, or showgirl?”
“Her exact words, as I recall them,” said Willie, “were, ‘There goes a very beautiful little girl.’ ”
May snorted delicately and said, “Your memory isn’t so hot, or you’re a liar. Little of both, I guess- Ow!”
A large blond young man in skiing clothes, walking past the table and chatting lovingly with a girl in a bright red ski suit, had cracked May’s head with his elbow. There were apologies, and the young couple went off, fingers interlaced, swinging their arms and laughing into each other’s eyes. “Goddamn honeymooners,” muttered May, rubbing her head.
“What do you say, would you like to try skiing?” Willie said.
“No, thanks. I like my spine the way it is.” But May’s eyes brightened.
“Look, they have slopes that your grandmother wouldn’t get hurt on-”
“I have no clothes, no skis-neither have you-”
“We’ll buy ’em or rent ’em. Come on!” He sprang up and tugged at her hand.
“Well, just to be able to say something if anybody asks me what I did in Yosemite-” She rose. “I’ll tell ’em I skied.”
There were few people on the trails, and often they seemed to be playing by themselves in a white mountain world. Now and then Willie caught himself wondering whether the U.S.S. Caine really existed: the cramped little wheelhouse, the clip shack, the dreary gray-green wardroom with its tattered copies of Life and Esquire and its smell of old coffee boiling too long, the rust, the obscenity, the nagging little man who rolled steel balls in his fingers and talked