Ernest Hemingway

ISLANDS IN THE STREAM
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XII

The next day the wind had dropped off and Roger and the boys were swimming on the beach and Thomas Hudson was on the upper porch working. Eddy had said he thought it would do David’s feet no harm to swim in the salt water if he put a new dressing on them afterwards. So they had all gone in and Thomas Hudson had looked down and watched them from time to time while he painted. He was wondering about Roger and the girl and that distracted him so he stopped thinking about it. He could not help thinking of how much the girl reminded him of young Tom’s mother when he had first met her. But so many girls had managed to look in such a way that they reminded him of her, and he went on working. He was sure that he would see this girl in time and he was quite sure they would see much of her. That had been clear enough. Well, she was decorative and she seemed very nice. If she reminded him of Tommy’s mother, that was too damn bad. But there was nothing to do about it. He had been through that one enough times before. He kept on working.

This picture would be good he knew. The next one, with the fish in the water, was going to be the really difficult one. Maybe I should have tried it first, he thought. No, it’s better to get this one done. I can always work on the other one after they are gone.

“Let me carry you up, Davy,” he heard Roger say. “So you won’t get dry sand in them.”

“All right,” David said. “Let me get them both clean here in the ocean first.”

Roger carried him up the beach and onto a chair by the doorway that faced the ocean. As they passed under the porch on the way to the chair Thomas Hudson heard David ask, “Do you think she’ll turn up, Mr. Davis?”

“I don’t know,” Roger said. “I hope so.”

“Don’t you think she’s beautiful, Mr. Davis?”

“Lovely.”

“She likes us I think. Mr. Davis, what does a girl like that do?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask her.”

“Tommy’s in love with her. So is Andy.”

“Are you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t get in love with people like they do. Anyway I want to see her some more. Mr. Davis, she isn’t a bitch, is she?”

“I don’t know. She doesn’t look like one. Why?”

“Tommy said he was in love with her but that she was probably just a bitch. Andy said he didn’t care if she was a bitch.”

“She doesn’t look like one,” Roger told him.

“Mr. Davis, aren’t those men with her a strange quiet lot?”

“They certainly are.”

“What do men like that do?”

“We’ll ask her when she comes.”

“Do you think she’ll come?”

“Yes,” Roger said. “I wouldn’t worry if I were you.”

“It’s Tommy and Andy that are worried. I’m in love with someone else. You know. I told you.”

“I remember. This girl looks like her, too,” Roger told him.

“Maybe she saw her in the cinema and tried to look like her,” David said.

Thomas Hudson went on working.

Roger was dressing David’s feet when she came in sight walking up the beach. She was barefooted and wore a bathing suit with a skirt of the same material over it and she carried a beach bag. (...)

(......)