The Talented Mr Ripley / Талантливый мистер Рипли

© Беспалова Н. В., адаптация, сокращение, словарь, 2017

© ООО «Издательство «Антология», 2017

1

Tom looked behind him and saw the man coming out of the Green Cage[1]. Tom walked faster. There was no doubt that the man was following him. Tom noticed him five minutes ago from a table in the bar, so he drank his drink in a hurry, paid and got out. At the corner across Fifth Avenue[2] there was another bar – Raoul's. Tom hesitated – should he take a chance and go in for another drink? Or should he go further and try losing him?

He went into Raoul's, took an empty space at the bar and started watching the door.

'Gin and tonic, please,' he said to the barman.

Could they send this kind of man after him? Was he, wasn't he, was he? He didn't look like a policeman or a detective at all. He looked like a businessman, somebody's father, well-dressed, well-fed. He may start talking with you in a bar, and then bang! – the hand on the shoulder, the other hand showing a policeman's badge. Tom Ripley, you're under arrest. Tom watched the door.

Here he came. The man looked around, saw him and immediately looked away. My God, what did he want?

Tom saw that the man made a gesture to the barman, and came around the bar to him. Here it was! Tom was paralysed. They couldn't give you more than ten years, Tom thought.

Maybe fifteen. At the moment the man started to speak, Tom had a pain of agony.

'Pardon me, are you Tom Ripley?'

'Yes.'

'My name is Herbert Greenleaf. Richard Greenleaf's father.' The face was friendly, smiling and hopeful. 'You're a friend of Richard's, aren't you?'

Dickie Greenleaf. A tall blond fellow. He had a lot of money, Tom remembered. 'Oh, Dickie Greenleaf. Yes.'

'Do you think we could sit down at a table?'

'Yes,' Tom agreed, and picked up his drink. He followed the man towards an empty table at the back of the little room. Free! Nobody was going to arrest him. No matter what it was, it wasn't anything criminal. Maybe Richard was in trouble. Maybe Mr Greenleaf wanted help, or advice. Tom knew what to say to a father like Mr Greenleaf.

'I wasn't quite sure you were Tom Ripley,' Mr Greenleaf said. 'We are all trying to find you. Somebody told me you went to the Green Cage bar now and then. This is the first night I tried to find you, so I think I am lucky.' He smiled. 'I wrote you a letter last week, but maybe you didn't get it.'

'No, I didn't. ' Tom said. 'I moved a week or so ago,' he added.

'Oh, I see. I didn't say much in my letter. Only that I'd like to see you and have a chat with you. We think you knew Richard quite well.'

'I remember him, yes.'

'But you're not writing to him now?' He looked disappointed.

'No. I don't think I've seen Dickie for a couple of years.'

'He's been in Europe for two years. I want him to come home. He has responsibilities here – but just now he ignores anything that I or his mother try to tell him.'

Tom was puzzled. 'Why won't Richard come home?'

'He says he prefers living over there. But his mother's quite ill right now – Well, those are family problems. He says he's painting. There's no harm in that, but he doesn't have the talent to be a painter. But he's got great talent for boat designing.' He looked up as a waiter spoke to him. 'Scotch and soda, please. You're not ready, are you?' Mr Greenleaf looked at Tom as if to apologise.

'No, thanks,' Tom said.

'You're the first of Richard's friends who's willing to listen.

They all think that I'm intruding into his life.'

Tom could easily understand that. 'I certainly wish I could help,' he said politely. He remembered now that Dickie's money came from a shipbuilding company. Small sailing boats. No doubt his father wanted Dickie to come home and take the family firm. Tom smiled at Mr Greenleaf, then finished his drink. He was ready to leave, but he felt the disappointment across the table. 'Where is he staying in Europe?' Tom asked.

'In a town called Mongibello, south of Naples[3]. He divides his time between sailing and painting. He bought a house there. Richard has his own income – not big, but enough to live on in Italy. Well, I can't see why the place is attractive but every man has his own taste.' Mr Greenleaf smiled bravely. 'Can't I offer you a drink, Mr Ripley?' he asked when the waiter came with his Scotch and soda.

Tom wanted to leave. But he hated to leave the man sitting alone with his fresh drink. ' Thanks, I think I will,' he said, and handed the waiter his glass.

They didn't say anything for a minute. Mr Greenleaf's eyes were fixed on him. What on earth could he say? Tom was sorry he had accepted the drink. 'How old is Dickie now, by the way?' he asked.

'He's twenty-five.'

So am I, Tom thought. Dickie was probably having the best time of his life over there. An income, a house, a boat. Why should he want to come home? Dickie's face was becoming clearer in his memory: he had a big smile, blondish hair, a happy face. Dickie was lucky. What was he himself doing at twenty-five? Living from week to week. No bank account. Trying to escape from cops now for the first time in his life. He had a talent for mathematics. Why in hell didn't they pay him for it? Tom felt that all his body and fingers tensed. He was bored, bored, bored! He wanted to be back at the bar, by himself.

Tom took his drink. 'I'd be very glad to write to Dickie, if you give me his address,' he said quickly. 'I suppose he'll remember me. We were at a weekend party once, I remember. Dickie was talking about going to Europe that weekend.' His boredom changed. Tom knew this feeling. He had it sometimes at parties, when he was having dinner with someone with whom he didn't want to have dinner, and the evening got longer and longer. He could be polite for another hour, if he had to be, before he could lose his temper. What should he say? I'm sorry I'm not quite free now or… I'd be very glad to go over and see if I could persuade Richard myself.

'Maybe I could have some influence on him,' he said, just because Mr Greenleaf wanted him to say that.

'If you seriously think so – that is, I don't know if you're planning a trip to Europe or not.'

'No, I'm not.'

'Richard was always so influenced by his friends. If you or somebody like you who knew him could get a leave of absence, I'd like to send them over to talk to him.'

Tom's heart started to beat suddenly. It was a possibility. Something in him felt it was a chance for him. He wanted to leave New York. 'I might,' he said carefully.

'If you go, I'd be glad to take care of your expenses, that goes without saying[4]. Do you really think you might be able to arrange it? Say, this fall?'

It was already the middle of September. 'I think I might. I'd be glad to see Richard again – especially if you think I might be of some help.'

'I do! I think he will listen to you. Then the fact that you don't know him very well is a good thing. He will believe you if you explain to him why you think he must come home,' Mr Greenleaf, looked at Tom with hope. 'Funny thing is, Jim Burke and his wife – Jim's my partner – they went by Mongibello last year when they were on a trip. They spoke to Richard and he promised to come home when the winter began. Last winter. A boy of twenty-five never listens to an old man of sixty or more. You'll probably be more successful where the rest of us failed!'

'I hope so,' Tom said modestly.

'How about another drink? How about a nice brandy?'

Tom came home only after midnight. Mr Greenleaf offered him a taxi, but Tom did not want him to know where he lived – in a brown building between Third and Second Avenues[5] with a sign 'ROOMS TO LET'[6] on it. For the last two weeks Tom was living with Bob Delancey, a young man he didn't know very well, but Bob was one of Tom's friends in New York who had agreed to let him in when he was without a place to stay. Tom told nobody where he was living. The main advantage of Bob's place was that he could get his mail there with the minimum chance of detection.

But the place was dirty, smelly and looked as if it was never cleaned. Tom was shocked at the dirt of the place, shocked that anybody could live like that, but he knew that he wouldn't live there very long. And now Mr Greenleaf gave him a chance. One always gets a chance. That was Tom's philosophy.

Just before he climbed the brown steps, Tom stopped and looked carefully in both directions. Nothing but an old woman walking with her dog, and an old man coming around the corner from Third Avenue. He hated the feeling he had when he was followed, by anyone. And lately he had it all the time. He ran up the steps.

A lot of selfish motives mattered now, he thought as he went into the room. As soon as he could get a passport, he would sail for Europe, probably in a first-class cabin. Waiters to bring him things when he pushed a button! Dressing for dinner, talking with people at his table like a gentleman! He could congratulate himself on tonight, he thought. He had behaved just right. Mr Greenleaf couldn't have the impression that he had arranged the invitation to Europe. Just the opposite. He wouldn't let Mr Greenleaf down. He'd do his very best[7] with Dickie. Mr Greenleaf was such a decent fellow himself, he believed that everybody else in the world was decent, too. Tom didn't believe such people existed.

Slowly he took off his jacket, watching every move he made as if he was watching somebody else's movements. He was standing much straighter now, and there was a different look in his face. It was one of the few times in his life that he felt pleased with himself.

When he woke up the next morning Bob was not there, and Tom was glad that Bob wasn't home this morning. He didn't want to tell Bob about the European trip. He wouldn't tell anybody. Tom began to whistle. He was invited to dinner tonight at the Greenleafs' apartment on Park Avenue[8].

Fifteen minutes later, he showered, shaved, and dressed in a suit. He wanted to look well in his passport photo. Tom was walking up and down the room with a cup of black coffee in his hand, waiting for the morning mail. What should he do this afternoon? Go to some art exhibitions, so he could chat about them tonight with the Greenleafs. Do some research on Mr Greenleaf's company, so he could show Mr Greenleaf that he took an interest in his work? Tom went downstairs to take the mail. It was the letter addressed to George McAlpin. Tom opened it and saw a cheque for one hundred and nineteen dollars and fifty-four cents, for payment to the Collector of Internal Revenue[9]. Good old lady! Paid without hesitation, without even a telephone call. He went upstairs again, tore up the envelope and put her cheque into a pocket of one of his jackets in the closet. This raised his total in cheques to one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three dollars and fourteen cents, he calculated in his head. A pity that he couldn't cash them. Or that these idiots didn't pay in cash yet, or wrote cheques to George McAlpin. Tom had McAlpin's bank identification card that he had found somewhere with an old date on it. But he was afraid to cash the cheques. So this was no more than just a practical joke, really. Good clean sport. He wasn't stealing money from anybody. Before he went to Europe, he thought, he would destroy the cheques.

Shouldn't he try just one more in these last ten days before he sailed? Tom thought – it was easy, and persuaded himself to try just one more. Tom had a lot of forms from the Internal Revenue office[10] where he had worked as a clerk a few weeks ago. He took a box with the forms from his suitcase in the closet.

There were seven more possible victims on his list. The list included special people – artists and writers and freelance people who made from seven to twelve thousand a year. Tom knew that such people seldom hired professional tax men to compute their taxes. It was only logical to suppose they had made a two– or three-hundred dollar error in their tax computations.

Tom examined the names on his list. There was journalist, musician, illustrator, photographer, artist…Tom remembered – Reddington, artist. He was a comic-book artist.

Tom chose the form 'NOTICE OF ERROR IN COMPUTATION'[11] and started to copy the information below the artist's name on his list.

'HELLO-O, Tom, my boy!' Mr Greenleaf said in a voice that promised good martinis, a delicious dinner, and a bed for the night in case he got too tired to go home. 'Emily, this is Tom Ripley!'

'I'm so happy to meet you!' she said warmly.

'How do you do, Mrs Greenleaf?'

She was very much what he expected – blonde, rather tall and slender, with enough formality to keep him on his good behaviour. Mr Greenleaf led them into the living-room. Yes, he had been here before with Dickie.

'Mr Ripley's been here before,' Mr Greenleaf said. 'He's come here with Richard.'

'Oh, has he? I don't believe I met you.' She smiled. 'Are you from New York?'

'No, I'm from Boston[12],' Tom said. That was true.

About thirty minutes later they went into a dining-room where a table was set for three with candles, dinner napkins, and a whole cold chicken.

The conversation was dull, and the dinner excellent.

'Did you go to school in Boston?' Mr Greenleaf asked.

'No, sir. I went to Princeton[13] for a while, then I moved to my Aunt Dottie in Boston and went to college there.' Tom waited, hoping Mr Greenleaf would ask him something about Princeton, but he didn't. Tom could discuss anything about Princeton, the system of teaching history, the campus, the atmosphere at the weekend dances, the student political tendencies. He knew it from a Princeton junior whom he had met last summer and who talked of nothing but Princeton. Tom asked him for more and more information, hoping he might be able to use it some time later.

Mrs Greenleaf came in with a photograph album, and Tom sat beside her on the sofa. Richard as a baby, Richard taking his first step, Richard dressed as a soldier, with long blond hair. The album was not interesting to him until it showed Richard at sixteen, long-legged and slim. Tom could see that Richard didn't change a lot between sixteen and twenty-three or – four, when the pictures of him stopped. Tom was surprised to see how little the bright, naive smile changed. Tom also had a feeling that Richard was not very intelligent; at least he looked not very intelligent with his smile from ear to ear.

'These are from Europe.' Mrs Greenleaf said, giving him some other pictures. They were more interesting: Dickie in a cafe in Paris, Dickie on a beach.

'This is Mongibello, by the way,' Mrs Greenleaf said, giving a picture of Dickie near a boat on the sand. The picture showed rocky mountains and little white houses along the shore. 'And here's the girl there, the only other American who lives there.'

'Marge Sherwood,' Mr Greenleaf added.

The girl was in a bathing suit on the beach, her arms around her knees, healthy and naive-looking, with short blonde hair. There was a good picture of Richard in shorts. He was smiling, but it was not the same smile, Tom saw. Richard looked more balanced in the European pictures.

Tom noticed that Mrs Greenleaf was very sad. Now he saw tears in her eyes.

'Mrs Greenleaf,' Tom said kindly, 'I want you to know that I'll do everything I can to make Dickie come back.'

'Bless you, Tom, bless you.' She touched Tom's hand.

'I hope you'll come again to visit us before you go, Tom,' she said. 'Since Richard went to Europe, we seldom have any young men here. I miss them.'

'I'd be happy to come again,' Tom said.

Mr Greenleaf went out of the room with her. Tom remained standing, his hands at his sides, his head high. In a large mirror on the wall he could see himself: the honest, self-respecting young man again. He looked quickly away. He was doing the right thing, behaving the right way. Yet he had a feeling of guilt. When he had said to Mrs Greenleaf, I'll do everything I can… Well, he meant it. He wasn't trying to fool anybody.

He began to sweat, and he tried to relax. What was he so worried about? That was the only time tonight when he felt uncomfortable, unreal, the way he felt when he was lying. The only true thing he had said was: My parents died when I was very small. I was raised by my aunt Dottie in Boston.

Mr Greenleaf came into the room. Tom felt a sudden terror of him, an impulse to attack him before he was attacked.

'Some brandy?' offered Mr Greenleaf.

It's like a movie, Tom thought. In a minute, Mr Greenleaf or somebody else's voice would say, 'Okay, cut![14]' and he would relax again and be back in Raoul's with the gin and tonic in front of him. No, back in the Green Cage.

'Thinking about Europe?' Mr Greenleaf's voice said.

Tom took another glass from Mr Greenleaf. 'Yes, I was,' Tom said.

'Well, I hope you enjoy your trip, Tom, and have some influence on Richard. By the way, Emily likes you a lot. She told me so.' Mr Greenleaf rolled his brandy glass between his hands. 'My wife has leukaemia, Tom.'

'Oh. That's very serious, isn't it?'

'Yes. She may not live a year.'

'I'm sorry to hear that,' Tom said.

'I've got a list of boats. I think you can take the quickest, and also the most interesting way. Then the boat train to Paris, and another to Rome and Naples.'

'That would be fine.' It seemed exciting to him.

'You'll have to catch a bus from Naples to Richard's village. I'll write him about you – not telling him that you're my agent,' he added, smiling, 'but I'll tell him we've met. Richard must invite you to his place, but if he can't for some reason, there're hotels in the town. Now as to money – ' Mr Greenleaf smiled. 'I offer to give you six hundred dollars in traveller's cheques and your round-trip ticket. Does that suit you? And if you need more, you have to write me, my boy. You don't look like a young man who throw money away.'

'That will be enough, sir. I think I should be going.'

They shook hands, and it was over. But Tom still felt pain and fear as he was running home.

The next day he took care of Mrs Greenleaf's instruction to buy the dozen pairs of black woollen socks and the bathrobe for Dickie. Mrs Greenleaf did not tell a colour for the bathrobe. Tom chose a dark navy-blue one. It was not the best-looking robe in the store, in Tom's opinion, but he felt it was exactly what Richard would choose. He put the socks and the robe on the Greenleafs' account. Then he saw a heavy linen sport shirt with wooden buttons that he liked very much. He could easily put on the Greenleafs' account, too, but he didn't. He bought it with his own money.

The atmosphere of the city became stranger as the days went on. As if New York lost its reality or importance and became a show just for him, an exciting show with its buses, taxis, and hurrying people, its television shows in all the Third Avenue bars, and its sound effects of thousands of horns and human voices. As if when his boat left on Saturday, the whole city of New York would disappear.

Or maybe he was afraid. He hated water. He had never travelled anywhere before on water. His parents had drowned in Boston Harbour, and Tom, as long as he could remember, was always afraid of water, and he had never learned how to swim. It gave Tom a sick, empty feeling at his stomach to think that in less than a week he would have water below him, miles deep, and that he would have to look at it most of the time, because people on ocean liners spent most of their time on deck. And he was afraid to be seasick.

2

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

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.