“What’s that?” Eddy’s head showed in the companion-way with the old felt hat pushed onto the back of it showing the white above the sunburnt part of his face and a cigar sticking out of the corner of his Mercurochromed mouth. “Let me catch you drink anything but beer I beat the hell out of you. All three of you. Don’t you talk about drinking. Do you want more mashed potatoes?”
“Please, Eddy,” young Tom said and Eddy went below.
“That makes ten,” Andrew said, looking down the companionway.
“Oh shut up, horseman,” young Tom said to him. “Can’t you respect a great man?”
“Eat some more fish, David,” Thomas Hudson said.
“Which is that big yellowtail?”
“I don’t believe he’s cooked yet.”
“I’ll take a yellow grunt then.”
“They’re awfully sweet.”
“I think spearing makes them even better if you eat them right away because it bleeds them.”
“Papa, can I ask Eddy to have a drink with us?” young Tom asked.
“Sure,” Thomas Hudson said.
“He had one. Don’t you remember?” Andrew interrupted. “When we first came in he had one. You remember.”
“Papa, can I ask him to have another one with us now and to eat with us?”
“Of course,” Thomas Hudson said.
Young Tom went down below and Thomas Hudson heard him say, “Eddy, papa says would you please make a drink for yourself and come up and have it with us and eat with us.”
“Hell, Tommy,” Eddy said. “I never eat at noon. I just eat breakfast and at night.”
“What about having a drink with us?”
“I had a couple, Tommy.”
“Will you take one with me now and let me drink a bottle of beer with you?”
“Hell yes,” said Eddy. Thomas Hudson heard the icebox open and close. “Here’s to you, Tommy.”
Thomas Hudson heard the two bottles clink. He looked at Roger but Roger was looking out at the ocean.
“Here’s to you, Eddy,” he heard young Tom say. “It’s a great honor to drink with you.”
“Hell, Tommy,” Eddy told him. “It’s an honor to drink with you. I feel wonderful, Tommy. You see me shoot that old shark?”
“I certainly did, Eddy. Don’t you want to eat just a little something with us?”
“No, Tommy. True.”
“Would you like me to stay down here with you so you wouldn’t have to drink alone?”
“Hell no, Tommy. You aren’t getting mixed up on anything, are you? I don’t have to drink. I don’t have to do anything except cook a little and earn my goddam living. I just feel good, Tommy. Did you see me shoot him? True?”
“Eddy, it was the greatest thing I ever saw. I just asked you if you wanted somebody so as not to be lonesome.”
“I never been lonesome in my life,” Eddy told him. “I’m happy and I got here what makes me happier.”
“Eddy, I’d like to stay with you, anyway.”
“No, Tommy. Take this other platter of fish up and go up there where you belong.”
“I’d like to come back and stay.”
“I ain’t sick, Tommy. If I was ever sick I’d be happy to have you sit up with me. I’m just feeling the goddam best I ever felt ever.”
“Eddy, are you sure you’ve got enough of that bottle?”
“Hell yes. If I ever run out I’ll borrow some of Roger’s and your old man’s.”
“Well, then, I’ll take the fish up,” young Tom said. “I’m awfully glad you feel so good, Eddy. I think it’s wonderful.”
Young Tom brought the platter of yellowtail, yellow and white grunts, and rock hind up into the cockpit. They were scored deep in triangular cuts across their flanks so the white meat showed, and fried crisp and brown, and he started to pass them around the table.
“Eddy said to thank you very much but he’d had a drink,” he said. “And he doesn’t eat lunch. Is this fish all right?”
“It’s excellent,” Thomas Hudson told him.
“Please eat,” he said to Roger.
“All right,” Roger said. “I’ll try.”
“Haven’t you eaten anything, Mr. Davis?” Andrew asked.
“No, Andy. But I’m going to eat now.”
In the night Thomas Hudson would wake and hear the boys asleep and breathing quietly and in the moonlight he could see them all and see Roger sleeping too. He slept well now and almost without stirring.
Thomas Hudson was happy to have them there and he did not want to think about them ever going away. He had been happy before they came and for a long time he had learned how to live and do his work without ever being more lonely than he could bear; but the boys’ coming had broken up all the protective routine of life he had built and now he was used to its being broken. It had been a pleasant routine of working hard; of hours for doing things; places where things were kept and well-cared for; of meals and drinks to look forward to and new books to read and many old books to reread. It was a routine where the daily paper was an event when it arrived, but where it did not come so regularly that its nonarrival was a disappointment. It had many of the inventions that lonely people use to save themselves and even achieve unloneliness with and he had made the rules and kept the customs and used them consciously and unconsciously. But since the boys were here it had come as a great relief not to have to use them.