Patricia Highsmith - The Tremor of Forgery Read Free

was everywhere apparent in the souk. The jewellery in the market was shoddy, but inspired Ingham to go to a good shop and buy a silver pin for Ina, a flat triangle which fastened with a circle. They came in all sizes. Since the box was so small for posting, Ingham bought also an embroidered red vest for her — a man ’ s garment, but so fancy, it would look very feminine in America. He posted them the afternoon of the same day, after much time-killing, waiting for the post office in Hammamet to open at 4 p.m. The post office was open only one hour in the afternoon, according to a sign outside.
    On the fourth day at the Reine, he wrote to John Castle-wood. John lived on West Fifty-third Street in Manhattan.
    June 8, 19—
    Dear John,
    Hammamet is as pretty as you said. A magnificent beach. Are you still arriving the 13th? I am ready to get to work here, chatting with strangers at every opportunity, but the kind of people you want don ’ t always know much French. I visited Les Arcades last night. [This was a coffee-house a mile or so from the Reine.]
    Please tell Ina to write me a line. I ’ ve written to her. Sort of lonely here with no word from home. Or maybe as you said the mail is fantastically slow…. ’
    And so he trailed off, and felt a little more lonely after he had written it than before. He was checking with the Golfe every day, sometimes twice a day. No letter or cable had come. Ingham drove to the post office to mail his letter, because he wasn ’ t sure it would get off today, if he left it to the hotel. Various clerks had given him three different times for mail arrival, and he assumed they would be equally vague as to collection.
    Ingham went down to the beach around six o ’ clock. The beach was approached via a patch of jungle-like palm trees which grew, however, out of the inevitable sand. There was a footworn path which he followed. A few metal poles, perhaps from an abandoned children ’ s playground, stuck up out of the sand and were encrusted near the top with small white snails fastened tightly like barnacles. The metal was so hot, he could barely touch it. He walked on, daydreaming about his novel, and he had brought his notebook and pen. There was really nothing more he could do on Trio until John got here.
    He went into the water, swam out until he felt slightly tired, then turned back. The water was shallow quite far out. There was smooth sand underfoot, which farther inshore became rocky, then sand again, until he stood upon the beach. He wiped his face on his terry-cloth robe, as he had forgotten to bring a towel. Then he sat down with his notebook. His book was about a man with a double life, a man unaware of the amorality of the way he lived, and therefore he was mentally deranged, or unbalanced, to say the least. Ingham did not like to admit this, but he had to. In his book, he had no intention of justifying his hero Dennison. He was simply a young man (twenty when the book began) who married and led a happy family life, and became a director in a bank at thirty. He expropriated funds from the bank when he could, by forgery mainly, and he was as free with giving and lending as he was in stealing. He invested some of the money with a view to his family ’ s future, but he gave away two-thirds of it (also usually under false names) to people who needed it and to men who were trying to start their own businesses.
    As often happened, Ingham ’ s ruminations made him doze within twenty minutes, and after writing only twelve lines of notes, he was half asleep when the voice of the American woke him like a repeated dream:
    ‘ Hello, there! Haven ’ t seen you for a couple of days .’
    Ingham sat up. ‘ Good afternoon .’ He knew what was coming, and he knew he would go, this evening, to have a drink at Adams ’ s bungalow.
    ‘ How long ’ re you here for? ’ Adams asked.
    ‘ I don ’ t quite know .’ Ingham had stood up and was putting on his robe. ‘ Maybe another three weeks.