"Whatever makes you comfortable, then."

Luc pulled his knees up to his chest. He looked out over the flat blue sea at a gigantic insect-shaped motor yacht steaming inshore to round the easternmost point of the island on its way perhaps from Palma to Pollena, or to drop its anchor off the plush Hotel Formentor.

"So, okay," said April, her eyes still closed, "I want to talk about your mother."

"Okay."

"Well. She's very beautiful."

"That's nice."

"I mean, like, I can't believe she's seventy!" she said, ending forcefully, as if Luc had been deceiving her about his mother's age for months.

"You think she looks younger."

April made a sharp exhalation. "Yeah! Like, forty? Maybe? And she has a really-I don't know-is that an upper-class English accent?"

"That's what it sounds like now. It's what used to be called RP, or Received Pronunciation. It was the way some people in England spoke about ninety years ago. You hear it in old newsreels where they talk about the Suez 'Ca-nell.'"

"Then how come you have sort of an American accent when you speak English?"

"Because I am an American. I told you, my father was American. When I spoke English, I spoke with him."

April was silent but cogitative in the sun for a moment. "So what happened with your mother and father? How come they split up?"

"Why does anyone break up? They didn't get on."

"So, does she, like, have a boyfriend?"

"Not in the way you think of it."

"What do you mean?"

"She's had friends. And visitors. Friends who fly down for a few days."

"You mean they come down to see her and they have sex?"

"Yes."

"Oh, wow. That's different. Does she know to use protection?"

"You know what, April sweetheart? I don't go there."

"Well, she's from an older generation, and she's, you know, out there."

"I leave those things to her. It's sweet of you to concern yourself, though. Are you coming in soon?"

"In a while. I'm just, like, it's so peaceful here."

"Take your time."

Luc stood up and walked back across the road.

There you are," said Lulu, gliding across the patio between the bar and the main house. Their paths crossed.

"Hello, Mother. Are you having a nice birthday?"

"Yes, I am, darling. Come inside and have tea with me."

Luc followed his mother into the house.

"I'll have my tea now, Bronwyn," Lulu called as they passed the kitchen door. "And will you bring a cup for Luc?"

"Right!" came the reply, in stolid Estuary English.

They went into the living room that looked out over the shaded front patio, over the bougainvillea that obscured the dirt road but revealed the Jerusalem stonecolored rocks and the sea. Lulu arranged herself on the pale blue slipcovered sofa. Luc sprawled in a battered leather club chair opposite her.

"She's very lovely, your April."

Ah yes, he thought, here it comes. "She is."

"And is she any good?"

"What?"

"Is she a good actress?"

"Oh. She's not bad. You know. She's just starting out. She did well, as far as it went. She looked right-"

"And are you pleased with this film? Are you hopeful?"

"Well, it's not going to be Lawrence of Arabia." Luc's favorite movie, the benchmark for what films once were, against which he measured the subsequent impoverishment of cinema.

"Why not, darling?"

Luc smiled indulgently. "It's small, Mother. An indie film. A sort of noirish thriller. But it's edgy. I think I did a good job with what they gave me. Depending how well it turns out, if it gets some good reviews, has some legs, then my stock will go up; if it doesn't, or if it disappears, then I'm none the worse off, it's been a reasonable payday, and I'm on to the next."

"And what decides how well it turns out?"

"How it all cuts together. What the performances are like. What they-"

"Who are they, darling?"

"The director, the editor, the producer-"

"I thought you were going to produce your next film."

He laughed good-humoredly. "Well, I'm trying. It's not that easy. Lawrence of Arabia may be the greatest film ever made, but it couldn't get made today-"

"You told me yourself-you've complained for years, in fact-that the writer has no power. You're a hireling. But if you produce it, you're the boss. You get the right people and tell them how you want it done, and you have control of the end result."

"Yes, but-"

"But you have to come up with your own project, right?"

"Yes, Mother. That's right. And the money. And that's what I'm trying to do. I've told you. I'm writing stuff, I'm always reading, looking at properties, talking with people-"

"Now you sound like a schoolboy making excuses about your homework. Luc, you're forty-five. You can't be a beginner forever. You're treading water. You'll be none the worse off if this film drops into a black hole because nobody's ever heard of you. What happened to that novel you were going to write? It sounded wonderful. Why don't you write that?"

"I did write it, Mother. You read it. You thought it was rubbish. Evidently, you were right, because no one wanted to publish it."

"You were going to write a better one. I'm talking about that wonderful novel. Why don't you write it? Look at the rubbish that sells. You're a better writer than that. Write a good book."

"That's a great idea. I hadn't thought of that-"

"I can't stand to see you wallowing in failure."

"Mother-" Luc took a deep breath. He smiled. "I've written four films and made some money. I own a nice apartment in Paris-"

"Your father's apartment."

"Never mind, it's mine now, and I own it. It's worth a fortune. I work. I have friends. A nice life. Where, exactly, is the failure part of that?"

"You're throwing yourself away on dross. And look at this one-this girl you've brought down. She's pretty, sweet-extremely simple-but is she the girl for you? I mean, what are you doing, darling?"

"Listen to you: this one, she says," Luc said more irritably than he'd wished. "I mean, what about you? When's the last time you tried having a relationship with someone?"

"Darling, I have many dear friends, as you know. I don't do relationships, like taking the waters at Baden-Baden."

"I know. You're completely self-sufficient, apart from regular servicing. I, on the other hand, try to engage with the human race now and then. I try to have relationships. They're difficult, but at least I try. I'd still even like to have children someday. I should think you'd be pleased that I bring someone down, but you're not. Instead you're-I mean, what are you talking about, Mother?"

Lulu looked at him steadily. "I'm talking about the joke you once told me, about the position of the writer in the film industry."

"Which of the many jokes was that?"

"The one about the starlet who's so stupid that she sleeps with the writer."

"Ah." Luc looked at his watch-his father's old stainless steel Rolex-as if reminded of an appointment. He stood up. "Well, I'm going to have a shower before I dress."

Bronwyn came in with a tray.

"I've got your tea," she said to Luc. "Do you want to take it with you?"

"No, thanks, Bronwyn." He left the room.

Outside, Luc started toward the barracks, then changed his mind, swerved left, and walked across the patio.

"Hallo!" said the cheerful blonde behind the bar. Lulu's staff were always British girls, usually very young and fantastically thrilled to spend a season in Mallorca for very little pay. Luc hadn't met this one. She was wearing a loose sarong.

"Hi. A San Miguel, please. I'll just have it in the bottle."

"Sure. You're Luc, aren't you, Lulu's son?"

"Yes. And you are?"

"Sally! Hi!" She stretched her hand across the bar and Luc shook it.

"Of course you are," he said.

"You're the film producer!"

"Just a screenwriter."

"Oh, brilliant!"

Another cretin.

"No, no, Luc, her name really is Sally!" said an elderly man sitting on a nearby barstool. He appeared to be naked, except for the salami-sized cigar in one hand, and all but the rear strip of his tiny Speedo concealed by a large belly. "This Sally's a Sally!"

For most of the 1960s, the Rocks' universally beloved bartender had been a plump, pretty, effusive English blonde named Sally. The regular annual guests had thereafter called all successive bartenders Sally.

Sally pulled a San Miguel from the thick-doored icebox-style fridge with the handle that clicked shut, and placed the bottle, immediately frosting with condensation, on top of the bar.

"I'll try to remember," said Luc. "How are you, Richard?"

"I'm well, old bean," said the man with the cigar. "And how are you? Arabella's jolly excited to see you. And to meet your friend."

"I'm looking forward to seeing her," said Luc. "You can put it on my tab," he told Sally.

"Brilliant!" she said.

Peripherally, Luc noticed the younger couple at the bar smiling broadly at him. He could tell, a prickling in his skin, that they were just about to say to him, with a rapid and thrilled rise in inflection, "Oh, do you work in films, then?" He turned quickly away.

Luc took the beer and walked across the courtyard and sat at a table that had not yet been laid for dinner. He raised the icy bottle to his lips. His first San Miguel this year. It had been Luc's first alcoholic drink, 1965, the summer he turned fifteen. The first one had been too bitter, but a few days later he'd had another and soon they began to taste just right. Those bubbles on the roof of his mouth and the clean, hoppy flavor. Every year since, the first San Miguel became his madeleine. As he drank it, scenes from all those summers spent at the Rocks and around Cala Marsopa rose up whole and three-dimensional before him with all their hopes, intrigues, and desires that had somehow never been slaked.

He drank half the bottle immediately while it was as cold as possible. Of course, if he did make Lawrence of Arabia, it wouldn't be good enough for his mother (she had only seen the film once and found "all that desert excruciatingly boring"). Her job as a mother, which she took seriously, had always been to goad him with his complacent wallowing in mediocrity. His persistent nonarrival. The little triumphs-a Cesar nomination for one of his screenplays-were heard, when he mentioned them, pronounced "how nice for you, darling," and never mentioned again. The success and good fortune of managing to get jobs, make money, were ignored. The two years he'd spent in Los Angeles developing a screenplay that went nowhere, but for which he'd made good money, was an opportunity to offer sympathy over yet more failure. "I know you wanted it, darling, but I do think it's as well nothing came of it. It was such absolute rubbish." Trouble was, he agreed with her: when was he going to make it-really make it? When was he going to be more than an also-ran? At forty-five, could there still be something big ahead, or was this it? Small movies, made for not a franc more than the anticipated box office of German, French, and middle-European territories, ennobled by the appellation noirish, destined for certain oblivion; enough money to live less than another year on; and the perks of per diems, good hotel rooms, and someone like April Gressens?

The old, cold horror gripped him: was he fated to hack his way through mediocrity?

"Perdo."

He looked up. It was the catering girl with the hooked nose.

She'd spoken reflexively in mallorqui, but now she said in Spanish, "Perdoneme"-her hands were full of plates, cutlery-"tengo que-"

"Yes, of course," Luc answered in fluent Spanish. "I'm in your way." He started to rise.