The morning of his sailing, the morning he was waiting for with such excitement was a sunless day, and the city was already like some grey, distant land.
A steward came out, 'Visitors ashore, please! All visitors ashore!' The ship was moving before Tom went down to his cabin. He saw a big basket of fruit on the floor by his bed. He took the little white envelope quickly. The card inside said:
The basket had apples and pears and grapes and a couple of candy bars and several little bottles of liqueurs. Tom had never received a bon voyage basket. To him, they were something for fantastic prices. Now he found himself with tears in his eyes, and he put his face down in his hands suddenly and began to cry.
His mood was calm but he did not want to meet any of the people on the ship, though when he saw the people with whom he sat at his table, he greeted them pleasantly and smiled. He wanted his time for thinking. He began to play a role of a serious young man with a serious job ahead of him. He was polite and well-mannered.
He had a sudden wish to buy a conservative bluish-grey cap of soft English wool. He could wear it in different ways. He could pull it down over his face when he wanted to sleep in his deck-chair. He could look like a country gentleman, a criminal, an Englishman, a Frenchman, or a plain American eccentric, depending on how he wore it. Tom tried it in his room in front of the mirror. He always thought he had the dullest face, that could be easily forgotten. A real conformist's face.The cap changed all that. Now he was a young man with a private income, not long out of Princeton, perhaps. He also bought a pipe to go with the cap.
He was starting a new life. Good-bye to all the second-rate people he had known in the past three years in New York. He felt as immigrants when they left everything behind them in some foreign country, left their friends and relatives and their past mistakes, and sailed for America. A new start!
When Mr Greenleaf's money was spent, he might not come back to America. He might get an interesting job in a hotel, for instance, where they needed somebody who spoke English. Or he might become a representative for some European firm and travel everywhere in the world. Or somebody might need a young man, who could drive a car, who was quick at figures. The world was wide!
In the mornings he walked on the deck very slowly, so that the people could see him two or three times, then sat down in his deck-chair for more thought on his own life. After lunch, he stayed in his cabin, enjoying its privacy and comfort, doing absolutely nothing. Sometimes he sat in the writing-room, writing letters. The letter to the Greenleaf's began as a polite greeting and a thank-you for the bon voyage basket and the comfortable cabin. Then he added an imaginary paragraph about finding Dickie and living with him in his Mongibello house, about the slow but steady progress in persuading Dickie to come home, about the swimming, the fishing, the cafe life, and he got so excited that it went on for eight or ten pages but he knew he would never send any of it.
On another afternoon, he wrote a polite note to Aunt Dottie:
Dear Auntie [which he seldom called her in a letter and never to her face],
As you see by the writing paper, I am on the open sea. A sudden business offer which I cannot explain now. I had to leave suddenly, so I was not able to go to Boston and I'm sorry, because it may be months or even years before I come back.
I just wanted you not to worry and not to send me any more cheques, thank you. Thank you very much for the last one. I am well and extremely happy.
Love Tom
P. S. I have no idea what my address will be, so I cannot give you any.
That made him feel better, because it without doubt ended any contact with her. After his letter to Aunt Dottie, he got up and went to the deck. Writing her always made him feel angry. He didn't want to show politeness to her. Yet until now he had always wanted her to know where he was, because he had always needed her cheques. But he didn't need her money now. He would not depend on her any longer.
Lying in his deck-chair, excited by the luxurious surroundings and delicious food, he tried to take an objective look at his past life. The last four years had been a waste. A number of jobs, long intervals with no job at all and as a result depression because of having no money, and then making friends with stupid, silly people in order not to be lonely. He couldn't be proud of this, because he had come to New York with high ambitions. He wanted to be an actor, but at twenty he did not have the idea of the difficulties, the necessary training, or even the necessary talent. He thought he had the necessary talent and the only thing he had to do was show a producer a few of his original one-man parodies – but his first three failures killed all his courage and his hope. He had no money, so he had to take the job on the banana boat, which at least removed him from New York. He was afraid that Aunt Dottie had called the police to look for him in New York. After all, he hadn't done anything wrong in Boston, just run away from her to start his own life as millions of young men had done before him.
His main mistake was that he never remained at one job, he thought, like the accounting job in the department store but he was really disappointed at the slowness of department-store promotions. Well, he blamed Aunt Dottie for his lack of patience; she never gave him praise when he was younger. He had won a silver medal from the newspaper once. It was like looking back at another person to remember himself then, a thin boy with runny nose, who had still managed to win a medal. Aunt Dottie didn't praise him, she hated him when he had a cold and she used to take her handkerchief and almost twist his nose off.
He remembered the promises he had made, even at the age of eight, to run away from Aunt Dottie, he imagined the violent scenes – Aunt Dottie trying to hold him in the house, and he hitting her with his fists, pushing her to the ground, and finally killing her with a knife in her throat. He ran away at seventeen and they brought him back, and he did it again at twenty and succeeded. And it was a surprise and pity how naive he was, how little he knew about the way the world worked, as if he had spent so much of his time hating Aunt Dottie and planning how to escape her, that he had not had enough time to learn and grow.
'Mr Ripley?' he heard suddenly from one of the Englishwomen who he had seen the other day during tea. 'We were wondering if you could join us for a bridge in the game-room? We're going to start in about fifteen minutes.'
Tom sat up politely in his chair. ' Thank you very much, but I think I'd like to stay outside. I'm afraid, I'm not too good at bridge.'
'Oh, neither are we! All right, another time.' She smiled and went away.
Tom sank back in his chair again, pulled his cap down over his eyes. His lack of interest, he knew, was producing a little comment among the passengers. He imagined how the passengers might guess: Is he an American! I think so, but he doesn't act like an American, does he? Most Americans are so noisy. He's extremely serious, isn't he, and he can't be more than twenty-three. He must have something very important on his mind.
Yes, he had. The present and the future of Tom Ripley.
Paris was no more than a very short view out of a railroad station window, like a tourist poster illustration, a series of long station platforms down which he followed porters with his luggage, and at last the sleeper that would take him all the way to Rome. He could come back to Paris at some other time, he thought. He was eager to get to Mongibello.
When he woke up the next morning, he was in Italy. Something very pleasant happened that morning. Tom was watching the landscape out of the window, when he heard some Italians in the corridor who said something with the word 'Pisa[16] ' in it. Tom went into the corridor to get a better look at it, looking automatically for the Leaning Tower[17], though he was not at all sure that the city was Pisa or that the tower would even be seen from here, but there it was! – a thick white column, leaning at an angle that he couldn't imagine was possible! It seemed to him a good sign. He believed that Italy was going to be everything that he expected, and that everything would go well with him and Dickie.
He arrived in Naples late that afternoon, and there was no bus to Mongibello until tomorrow morning at eleven. Tom had dinner that evening at a restaurant down on the water, which was recommended to him by the English-speaking manager of the hotel. He had a difficult time ordering, the first course was miniature octopuses, and it tasted terrible. The second course was also a mistake, fried fish of various kinds. The third course – which was a kind of dessert – was a couple of small reddish fish. Ah, Naples! The food didn't matter. He was enjoying the wine.
He boarded the bus the next morning at eleven. The road followed the shore and went through little towns where they made brief stops – Tom listened to the names of the towns that the driver called out, when he finally heard: 'Mongibello!'
Tom was alone at the side of the road, his suitcases at his feet. There were houses above him, up the mountain, and houses below, against the blue sea. Keeping an eye on his suitcases, Tom went into a little house across the road marked POSTA, and asked the man behind the window where Richard Greenleaf's house was. Without thinking, he spoke in English, but the man seemed to understand, because he came out and pointed from the door up the road, and gave in Italian what seemed to be clear directions how to get there.
Tom thanked him, and asked if he could leave his two suitcases in the post, and the man seemed to understand this, too, and helped Tom carry them into the post office.
He had to ask two more people where Richard Greenleaf's house was, but everybody seemed to know it, and the third person was able to point it out to him – a large two-storey house with an iron gate on the road. Tom rang the metal bell beside the gate. An Italian woman came out of the house.
'Mr Greenleaf?' Tom asked hopefully. The woman gave him a long, smiling answer in Italian and pointed towards the sea.
Should he go down to the beach as he was, or be more casual about it and get into a bathing suit? Or should he wait until the tea or cocktail hour? Or should he try to telephone him first? He hadn't brought a bathing suit with him, and he certainly needed to have one here. Tom went into one of the little shops near the post office that had shirts and bathing shorts in its small front window, and after trying on several pairs of shorts that did not fit him he bought a black-and-yellow thing and started out of the door barefoot. The stones were hot as coals. 'Shoes? Sandals?' he asked the man in the shop. The man didn't sell shoes.
Tom put on his own shoes again. He went down stone steps, past shops and houses, down more steps, and finally he came to a broad sidewalk where there were cafes and a restaurant with outdoor tables. Some bronzed Italian boys inspected him carefully as he walked by. He felt shame at the big brown shoes on his feet and at his ghost-white skin. He had not been to a beach all summer. He hated beaches.
There was a wooden walk that led to the beach, which Tom knew must be hot as hell to walk on, but he took his shoes off anyway and stood for a moment on the hot wood, inspecting the groups of people near him. None of the people looked like Richard. Then he took a deep breath, ran down across the hot sand to the cool water at the sea's edge.
Tom saw him from a distance – no doubt it was Dickie with a dark brown skin and his blond hair looked lighter than Tom remembered it. He was with Marge.
'Dickie Greenleaf?' Tom asked, smiling.
Dickie looked up. 'Yes?'
'I'm Tom Ripley. I met you in the States several years ago. Remember?.. I think your father said he was going to write you about me.'
'Oh, yes!' Dickie said, touching his forehead as if it was stupid of him to have forgotten. He stood up. 'Tom what is it?'
'Ripley.'
'This is Marge Sherwood,' he said. 'Marge, Tom Ripley.'
'How do you do?' Tom said.
'How do you do?'
'How long are you here for?' Dickie asked.
'I don't know yet,' Tom said. 'I just got here. I'll have to look the place over.'
'Taking a house?' asked Dickie.
'I don't know,' Tom said as if in a doubt.
'It's a good time to get a house, if you're looking for one for the winter,' the girl said. 'The summer tourists have all gone.'
Dickie said nothing. Tom felt that he was waiting for him to say good-bye and leave. Tom took his pack of cigarettes from his jacket, and offered it to Dickie and the girl.
'You don't seem to remember me from New York,' Tom said.
'I can't really say I do,' Dickie said. 'Where did I meet you? My memory's very bad for America these days.'
'It certainly is,' Marge said. 'It's getting worse and worse. When did you get here, Tom?'
'Just about an hour ago. I've just parked my suitcases at the post office.' He laughed.
'Don't you want to sit down?' She offered a white towel beside her on the sand.
'I'm going in for a swim,' Dickie said, getting up.
'Me too!' Marge said. 'Coming in, Tom?'
Tom followed them. Dickie and the girl swam out very far – both seemed to be excellent swimmers – and Tom stayed near the shore.
When Dickie and the girl came back to the towels, Dickie said, as if he was instructed by the girl, 'We're leaving. Would you like to come up to the house and have lunch with us?'
'Why, yes. Thanks very much.'
Tom thought they would never get there. The sun was burning, his shoulders were already pink, he felt awful.
Fifteen minutes later he was sitting in a comfortable chair on Dickie's terrace after a cool shower with a martini in his hand. The table on the terrace had been set for three while he was in the shower, and Marge was in the kitchen now, talking in Italian to the maid. Tom wondered if Marge lived here. The house was certainly big enough. There was not much furniture – a pleasant mixture of Italian and American style. He could see two original Picasso[18] drawings in the hall.
Marge came out on the terrace with her martini. 'That's my house over there.' She pointed. 'See it?'
Tom pretended he saw it. 'Have you been here long?'
'A year. All last winter it was raining all the time. Rain every day except one for three months!'
'Really!'
'Um-hm.' Marge was drinking her martini and looking out at her little village with satisfaction. She was back in her bathing suit with a shirt over it. She wasn't bad-looking, Tom supposed, and she even had a good figure, if one liked the rather strong type. Tom didn't, himself.
'I understand Dickie has a boat,' Tom said.
'Yes, the Pipi. Short for Pipistrello. Want to see it?'
She pointed at something down at the little pier that they could see from the corner of the terrace. The boats looked very much alike, but Marge said Dickie's boat was larger than most of them and had two masts.
Dickie came out with a cocktail. 'Sorry there's no ice. I haven't got a refrigerator.'
Tom smiled. 'I brought a bathrobe for you. Your mother said you had asked for one. Also some socks.'
'Do you know my mother?'
'I met your father just before I left New York, and he asked me to dinner at his house.'
'Oh? How was my mother?'
'She was well that evening. But I'd say she gets tired easily.'
'I had a letter this week saying she was a little better. At least there's no crisis, is there?'
'I don't think so. I think your father was more worried a few weeks ago.' Tom hesitated. 'He's also a little worried because you won't come home.'
'Herbert's always worried about something,' Dickie said.
Marge and the maid came out of the kitchen carrying spaghetti, salad, and bread. Dickie and Marge began to talk about the restaurant down on the beach. The owner was widening the terrace so there would be room for people to dance. They discussed it in detail, slowly, like people in a small town who take an interest in their neighbours. There was nothing Tom could say about it.
He spent the time examining Dickie's rings. He liked them both: a large green stone in gold on the third finger of his right hand, and a large signet ring on the little finger of the other. Dickie had long, bony hands, like his own hands, Tom thought.
'What hotel are you staying at?' Marge asked Tom.
Tom smiled. 'I haven't found one yet. What do you recommend?'
'The Miramare's the best. '
'In that case, I'll try the Miramare,' Tom said, standing up. 'I must be going.'
Neither of them asked him to stay. Dickie walked with him to the front gate. Marge was staying on. Tom wondered if Dickie and Marge were having a love affair. Marge was in love with Dickie, Tom thought, but Dickie was as indifferent to her as if she were the fifty-year-old Italian maid.
'I'd like to see some of your paintings sometimes,' Tom said to Dickie.
'Fine. Well, I suppose we'll see you again,' and Tom thought he added it only because he remembered that he had brought him the bathrobe and the socks.
'I enjoyed the lunch. Good-bye, Dickie.'
The gate closed.
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