Martin knew an alternative in that purple morning. A gun—the shot—the quick flutter of his hand.
“No,” he whispered. “Too demure. Fruitful, but demure.”
Outside, the sun blended into trucks and the yapping noise of turning wheels. He dressed and went into the street, stopping at the nearest bar. And strangely, in all his tiredness and fear, arose the man as he had been—straight from the ocean, with clear eyes that had watched the sea so often, and with hand half-raised as though holding the helm of his ship. It was momentary; but the bartender stood looking at him quietly and with respect.
“A Guinness’s Stout,” said Martin.
“A nip or a pint, sir?” asked the man.
“A nip and a pint.”
The black liquid hung to Martin’s glass as he raised it to his lips. The stout ran through his dry throat and into his stomach, washing away the starved slime. It spanged against his knotted intestines, loosening their disgusted quiver. It broke the cordy fold of nervous tissue.
Martin bent over the bar, touched by its rustic intimacy. Out of its shining, wooden face arose the image of Deane, slim-throated, filling the mist. She moved closer. Martin mused over the bar and drank, and drank again. The liquor sank to his nerves and he awoke.
Deane forgotten?... Her bell-like gown drifting over his teeth—sprung from the fog—outlined in the smoke of his thoughts....