The Moonlight Man Read Free

Park Zoo. But he had arrived in a rented car and taken her out to the end of Long Island. It was early November and most of the summer people were gone. He had driven over a carpet of hog cranberry right up to a dune and parked there. They got out and both ran down to the edge of the sea.
    It was a chilly day with brief moments of sunlight, windy, the sand shadowed by scudding clouds. The great stretch of beach was empty except far ahead, where a young man ran with his dog.
    As they trudged through the sand, keeping out of reach of the breaking waves, he told her a story about a man who lived alone in a lighthouse with no telephone. He had had an attack of appendicitis and set out in agony for the nearest village, several miles away. In the dark night, close to death, he struggled on, draining the poison out of himself. By the time he reached help, he was out of danger. She wondered if the story could be true. She knew her father would say a story was always true in some way, even if it wasn’t factual and couldn’t be proved. Facts, he had said to her, could lead in any direction you wanted them to, but there was only one truth.
    What truth was that? she mused, and musing, fell asleep. Almost at once she was awake. The overhead light was on. Madame Soule, wrapped in her long, green silk dressing gown, was standing beside the bed shaking her shoulder.
    â€œCatherine, your father is on the telephone.”
    Catherine staggered up.
    â€œLet him wait a minute,” Madame said with a certain sharpness. “He’s kept you waiting a very long time. You’re still asleep. Wake up entirely or you’ll trip on the stairs.”
    Behind Madame stood Roland, his leash gripped firmly between his jaws. “Don’t be ridiculous, Roland,” said Madame. “It’s one o’clock in the morning.” Roland groaned through the leash. “Night has no meaning for this creature,” Madame remarked. She looked as though she had more to say but Catherine didn’t wait to hear. Her bathrobe thrown over her shoulders, she ran out of the room and down the two flights of stairs to the hall, where she grabbed up the telephone.
    â€œDaddy?”
    â€œI’m sorry, sorry, sorry—you can’t know how badly I feel,” he said.
    â€œBut what happened?”
    â€œCatherine, I wasn’t fit to be around. I’m afraid I lifted a few too many glasses in my wretchedness. The first blow was a perfectly terrible row with Emma. She didn’t want to horn in on us and our plans, but she discovered a cousin she detests is going to be in Petersburg while she’s visiting her family. Like a lot of peaceable women, she’s wild when she’s crossed—”
    â€œYou could have telephoned or written,” Catherine interrupted.
    â€œI did telephone a week ago, dear Rabbit. A Tuesday evening, I think. I spoke to a person so swoggled I thought I’d been connected with your local loony bin. I shouted my name at her—and yours—but all she wanted to do was to talk about Mozart—or perhaps it was Moss Hart—it was hard to tell.”
    She remembered that Tuesday Madame Soule and her husband had taken her to see a new ballet company. Madame LeSueur must have consumed more of her sherry than usual and imagined the phone call was from another music lover.
    â€œYou could have written,” she said.
    â€œI know I could have written—but every day it seemed the damn clouds would blow away and things would settle down and I’d be able to come and get you.”
    â€œIt’s all right,” she said suddenly, though she had meant to press him more, make him really answer her. But she didn’t want to have to think any longer about how unhappy she’d been.
    â€œI know,” he said. “I know you don’t want to hear all this, but you must. Later it will matter. I also had trouble with a series of articles that bored me to death to