And now his hands twisted and shook, and again he turned toward her. He muttered: “I will tell you all that matters.”
But he could not begin. He cleared his throat and shook his head. His red and tormented eyes looked her way. She found herself looking directly into them—and then away. She could not read all they held; and she knew she did not want to.
“You find it difficult. Correct me if I go wrong.”
He made a sound that could be taken for assent.
“I was in San Francisco as a very small child,” Mermaid began. “This I know because the ship, from the wreck of which I was saved, sailed from there. But I know it quite as much because Guy has told me about the city and it recalls something to me. For a long time it recalled nothing distinct—only a vague sense of the familiar. I have thought and thought about it, and some time ago there came to me a definite image of something in the past. It was the figure of a man, a sea captain like yourself, coming and going to the house or wherever it was that I had my home. I don’t remember anything about it. I only remember that there was someone in it—it must have been my mother—who had a childish voice.... And she was pretty, too, in a girlish way; at least I suppose she was. I remember no faces; I remember no figures except the single figure of the seaman who came and went; I remember only the childish voice and the sense of prettiness about me. One other thing I do remember and that was seasons of fright. I think they were connected with the coming and going of that seaman. He was, no doubt, the man you have refused to let me name. Very well; it is unnecessary to name him. What I want to know is—did he live with my mother?”
The man in front of her had been standing stock still. Still with his back turned to her he answered, “Yes.”
“He was not my father?”
“No.”
“John Smiley.”