Free Patricia Highsmith - The Tremor of Forgery by Patricia Highsmith Page B

explained the situation.
    ‘ Oh, my goodness! You should have knocked me up — as the English say, ha-ha! Throwing up, eh? First of all, take some Pepto-Bismol. Come in, Howard! ’
    Ingham went into Adams ’ s bungalow. He wanted to sit down, or collapse, but made himself keep standing. He took the Pepto-Bismol at the bathroom basin. ‘ Ridiculous to feel so demolished. ’ He managed a laugh.
    ‘ You think it was the fish last night? I don ’ t know how clean that place is, after all. ’
    Adams ’ s words recalled the plate offish soup with which they had begun their dinner, and Ingham tried to forget he had ever seen the soup.
    ‘ Some tea, maybe? ’ Adams asked.
    ‘ Nothing, thanks. ’ Another trip to the toilet was imminent, but there was some consolation in the thought there could not be much of anything left in him. Ingham ’ s head began to ring. ‘ Look, Francis, I ’ m sorry to be a nuisance. I —I don ’ t know if I should have a doctor or not. But I think I ’ d better get back to my house. ’
    Adams walked over with him, not quite holding his arm, but hovering just by his side. Ingham had not locked his door. Ingham excused himself and went at once to the toilet. When he came out, Adams was gone. Ingham sat down gently on the bed, still in his bathrobe. The gripes had now become a steady ache, just severe enough to preclude sleep, Ingham knew.
    Adams came in again, barefoot, light and quick as a girl. ‘ Brought some tea. Just one hot cup with some sugar in, it ’ ll do you good. Tea balls! He went to Ingham ’ s kitchen, and Ingham heard water running, a pan clatter, a match being struck. 1 spoke to Mokta and told him not to bring breakfast, ’ Adams said. ‘ Coffee ’ s bad. ’
    ‘ Thank you. ’
    The tea did help. Ingham could not drink the whole cup.
    Adams gave him a cheery good-bye and said he would look in again after his swim, and if Ingham was asleep, he would not wake him. ‘ Don ’ t lose heart! You ’ re among friends ,’ Adams said.
    Ingham did lose heart. He had to bring a cooking pot from the kitchen to keep by his bed, because every ten minutes or so, he threw up a little liquid, and it was not worth going to the bathroom to do. As for pride, if Adams came in and saw the pot, Ingham had no pride left.
    When Adams came back, Ingham was barely aware of it. It was nearly 10 a.m. Adams said something about not coming in earlier, because he thought Ingham might have dropped off to sleep.
    Mokta knocked and came in, too, but there was nothing Ingham had in mind to ask him to do.
    It was between ten and twelve o ’ clock, when he was alone, that Ingham experienced a sort of crisis. His abdominal pain continued. In New York, he would certainly have sent for a doctor and asked for morphine, or had a friend go to a pharmacist ’ s to get something to relieve him. Here, Ingham was holding to Adams ’ s advice (but did Adams know how awful he felt?) not to bother about a doctor, that he ’ d soon feel better. But he didn ’ t know Adams very well, and didn ’ t even trust him. Ingham realized during those two hours that he was very much alone, without his friends, without Ina (and he meant emotionally, too, because if she were really with him, she would have written several times by now, would have assured him of her love), realized that he had no real purpose in being in Tunisia — he could be writing his book anywhere — and that the country wasn ’ t to his taste at all, that he simply didn ’ t belong here. All these thoughts came rushing in when Ingham was at his lowest physically, emptied of strength, emptied of everything. He had been attacked, ludicrous as it might be, in the vitals, where it hurt and where it counted, and where it could kill. Now he was exhausted and unable to sleep. The tea had not stayed down. Adams was not back at twelve o ’ clock, as he had said he would be. Adams might have forgotten. And an hour one way or the other, what would it