We had a grand time fixing that house up. It took us a week to get straight, and we did all the work ourselves, even to fixing the carpets. When we got through, we were tickled to death with it.
Getting Mardi to the sea was a good thing. In a week or so it began to make a big difference to her. She lost the drawn, tense look that had begun to worry me, and she tanned mighty quick in the sunshine and sea air. She was happy and so was I. I reckon I never felt happier.
We got up every morning and had a bathe in the sea. It was grand swimming in that deep blue water, with no one to watch us— just the two of us, in the rolling swell of the sea. Mardi wore a white swim-suit that made her figure look better than it was, and that’s saying something. She never bothered about wearing a cap, and we played around with each other without a care in the world.
Mardi said to me, a couple of weeks after we had settled down, “Nick, you must start working.” I’d just come out of the sea, and was lying down on the sand, too lazy to dry myself, and letting the hot sunshine do it for me.
“That’s okay with me,” I said. “I’ll look around and see what I can find.”
Mardi knelt over me, her knees and thighs buried in the soft sand and her hands crossed in her lap.
“Nick,” she said, “I’ve been thinking. Why don’t you write a book?”
I blinked up at her. “Write a book?” I said. “Why, hell— I couldn’t write a book.”
She shook her head. “You’ve never tried,” she said, which was true. “Look how some novels sell. Why don’t you try, and see what happens?”
“Yeah, but look how some flop. I guess novel-writing ain’t so hot.”