you when I was in Hollywood, Bill. I heard you were producing an Air Corps training
film.”
He stopped to light a cigarette and carefully blew out the match. “I went over to the
set, but you weren’t there.”
“I had to fly to London,” Fraser replied. “Catherine was there. I’m surprised you
didn’t run into each other.”
Catherine looked up at Larry, and he was watching her, his eyes amused. Now was
the time to mention what had happened. She would tell Fraser, and they would all laugh it
off as an amusing anecdote. But somehow the words stuck in her throat.
Larry gave her a moment, then said, “It was a pretty crowded set. I guess we missed
each other.”
She hated him for helping her out, for making them fellow conspirators against
Fraser.
When the drinks arrived, Catherine downed hers quickly and asked for another. This
was going to be the most terrible evening of her life. She could not wait to get out of there,
to get away from Larry Douglas.
Fraser asked him about his war experiences, and Larry made them sound easy and
amusing. He obviously didn’t take anything seriously. He was a lightweight. And yet in all
fairness, Catherine reluctantly admitted to herself that a lightweight did not volunteer for
the RAF and become a hero fighting against the Luftwaffe. Irrationally, she hated him
even more because he was a hero. Her attitude didn’t make sense to her, and she brooded
about it over her third double scotch. What difference did it make whether he was a hero
or a bum? And then she realized that as long as he was a bum, he fitted neatly into a
pigeonhole that she could deal with. Through the haze of the liquor she sat back and
listened to the two men talk. There was an eager enthusiasm about Larry when he spoke, a
vitality that was so palpable it reached across and touched her. He seemed to her now like
the most alive man she had ever met. Catherine had a feeling that he held nothing back
from life, that he gave himself to everything wholeheartedly and that he mocked those
who were afraid to give. Who were afraid, period. Like herself.
She hardly touched her food, she had no idea what she was eating. She met Larry’s
eyes, and it was as though he were already her lover, as if they had already been together,
belonged together, and she knew it was insane. He was like a cyclone, a force of nature,
and any woman who got sucked up in the vortex was going to be destroyed.
Larry was smiling at her. “I’m afraid we’ve been excluding Miss Alexander from the
conversation,” he said politely. “I’m sure she’s more interesting than the both of us put
together.
“You’re wrong,” Catherine said thickly. “I live a very dull life. I work with Bill.” The
moment she said it she heard how it sounded and turned red. “I didn’t mean it like that,”
she said. “I meant—”
“I know what you meant,” Larry said. And she hated him. He turned to Bill. “Where