Three Balconies (19 page)

I've never had a shortage of ideas.... It occurred to me that I might do a mystery novel that would make use of some of the scenes in my abandoned play. No point wasting them. I chose a small hotel in Barbados. After a day or two of idling around, I jumped in and tried an opening scene, which came across as being forced and stilted. The theatre experience had evidently taken more out of me than I was willing to admit. Rather than get into a state, I set the work aside and walked out to the patio which was beside the hotel pool. It was a lovely day. As I looked around for a comfortable spot, I noticed a young woman who was stretched out on a chaise lounge. Though I tried to be discreet, I could not stop staring at her, the reason being that she was one of the most unforgivably beautiful women I had ever seen. Other than to say that she was fair-haired and that her features were flawless, I won't attempt to describe her. I lack to power to do so.”

There was no reason to doubt Gillis' judgment in this area. He had spent a good number of years in Hollywood as a screenwriter and had been exposed to more than his share of lovely women. Several of his wives had been legendary in this category.

He continued: “As she got to her feet, I half hoped to detect some flaw in her appearance. I had come to the island for a specific purpose and I did not need this distraction. But the Gods had apparently not quite finished toying with me. If her face was perfection, her tall slender body and her totally unselfconscious movements were even more so. By current standards . . . that thong business . . . the two-piece bathing suit she wore was modestly cut, all of which had a reverse and almost unbearably erotic appeal.

“What set off her appearance even more dramatically was the odd-looking individual who followed her to the pool and seemed to be her companion. He had a good height, but his shoulders and chest were sparrow-like, his stomach huge, and his legs spindly and shapeless. I would prefer not to comment on the scattered
patches of hair on his head and his womanish breasts. He might have been thrown together out of random body parts. What was most disturbing is that they seemed to get along remarkably well, his disagreeable appearance not seeming to matter to her in the least. He stood at the edge of the pool, barking out remarks to her in some strange tongue that I couldn't quite make out. It seemed to be their private code. Whatever it was he was saying seemed to delight her. She swam for a bit with a grace that was heartbreaking. And then, before the fates could intervene, he hurled himself into the pool and the two went splashing and cavorting about and having the time of their lives. At one point, unconscionably, she leapt upon his spindly shoulders, to be joyously carried, piggy-back, from one end of the pool to the other, her crotch pressed trustingly and maddeningly against his neck.”

He took a deep breath as if to recover from the unsavory image.

“All of this struck me as being horrendously unfair. The mismatch between them – unnoticed by her – had to be an affront to nature. After she had left the pool and dried herself with a towel, she lay upon her stomach and lowered her top, allowing her surprisingly heavy breasts to swing free. It had crossed my mind that he might be a cousin or some sort of freakish sibling, but the casual and intimate manner in which he spread lotion on her shoulders and the backs of her legs led me to believe that they were lovers – no matter how appalling the prospect might be.

“I cannot tell you how offended I was by this ungodly coupling and how much I wanted that woman. For my own purposes, of course, but also to redress some awful blunder in the natural order. Under normal circumstances, it would not have presented a huge problem for me to meet her . . . or perhaps I should say to meet them. There weren't that many guests at the hotel. I would simply have introduced myself, asked if they were from the States and what had brought them to the hotel. Something innocuous along those lines – and with a pretense of being interested in the two of them. I might have asked her friend what sort of work he
did and quickly gotten it across that I was a writer of mysteries. Perhaps they'd heard of me. And I'd insist on presenting them with a signed copy of my latest novel. I made sure to carry several in my valise for this very purpose. This might, inevitably, lead to the three of us having a drink in the evening, perhaps going to dinner. And then slowly, I would ease closer to her, gently and perhaps imperceptibly nudging her friend or companion aside. I am not suggesting that this would necessarily have led to my going to bed with her, although the odds would be in my favor. What I'm saying is that I was determined to have her and that somehow I would do whatever it took to achieve this – charm, wheedle, cajole, if necessary bull my way into the situation until I had her. I had been able to pull off this sort of thing before. . . .”

“But not this time. . . .”

“I had every opportunity,” said Gillis, not disagreeing with me. “That first day at the pool, she looked over at me on one occasion in a friendly manner. Following her lead, the friend or companion, or whatever he was, even threw a ghastly smile in my direction. There were so few people at the hotel . . . they may have even been mildly curious about me, wondering why I was there alone.... And yet somehow I could not bring myself to approach them. Instead, I spent a miserable night thinking about her, obsessing about her and how much I wanted her. It became worse for me the following day when I encountered them once again at the pool. He was reading
The Financial Times
, the clod, and she was holding a slim volume of the work of Siegfried Sassoon, one of the few poets I admire and whose work is familiar to me. I could have simply come up to her and recited aloud his haunting line: ‘To mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume.' My God, how much better an opportunity could a man ask for . . .”

“And yet . . . ,” I said, as he paused and seemed to berate himself.

“I let that opportunity slip as well.... That night, I saw them having dinner on the terrace of the hotel dining room. With a fresh tan, set off against her white gown, she was more ravishing than
before. We'd been together, so to speak, for several days now in the thinly populated little hotel. By this time, there would have been something odd, or even rude, about my not speaking to them – even if my intentions were less predatory. After fortifying myself with several glasses of Merlot, I polished up a few Sassoon anecdotes . . . and finally approached them. They looked up at me, somewhat expectantly. My ‘adversary' half rose from his chair to greet me, somewhat less clumsily than I would have imagined. I nodded politely in their direction, hesitated as I came alongside their table, fully intending to speak to them – and then maddeningly found myself walking out of the restaurant or, to put it correctly, it was as if someone was walking me out of the restaurant . . . and into the lobby. . . .”

“And that was it?”

“The whole of it.”

“You never saw either of them again. . . .”

“Never. . . .”

“You returned to New York. . . .”

“The very next day. . . .”

“Went to Slotkin's office. . . .”

“Directly . . . .”

“And murdered him in the most savage way imaginable.”

“It was a fair exchange,” said Gillis, fixing his clear blue eyes on me for the first time. “He'd stolen my confidence.”

“Dear Harry,” the letter began. “You probably don't remember me, but I thought I'd take a chance and write – in the hope that you would. We knew each other in The Long Ago and dated for several months. (My name was Sybil Barnard at the time.) Then we drifted apart. Since that time, I've been married, had two sets of twins and have recently gotten divorced.
☺ /
I have followed your career with a great deal of interest – and thought it might be fun to get together – and catch up on old times. I'll be at the Plaza Hotel Nov. 7,8, visiting my sister, and wonder if you would consider meeting me for a drink. I certainly hope so. If not – I wish you continued good luck – and just write this off as the idle fantasy of an (ex) suburban housewife....

 

HARRY REMEMBERED HER, of course. How could he not remember her? He had thought about her for the last twenty-five years, if not every day, then at least once a week for sure. She was The One Who Got Away. Or, more correctly, The One Who Broke His Heart And Got Away. She had been a drama student at the University of Colorado; Harry reviewed the plays she was in for the local newspaper. He had dated her in his senior year. She was tall and blonde and beautiful in a quite regal way, and although Harry was in love with her, they had never slept together, which may have been why she broke off their romance so suddenly, and in Harry's view, with such brutality. Their dates consisted for the most part of the two of them dancing together, along with other
couples, in the parlor room of Harry's boarding house. At some point in the evening, her skin would become damp and she would start to quiver.

“Take me home when I feel like this,” she would say.

And Harry would dutifully and gallantly whip her right back to her sorority house. Whenever they passed the wooded area, where couples slipped off to be together in total privacy, she would say: “Whatever you do, don't take me in there.” And Harry would assure her that he had no intention of doing so. They continued along this way, taking walks, seeing an occasional movie together and dancing – less and less dreamily as time went by – in Harry's boarding house parlor. One night, her hand brushed against his erection and she jumped and Harry apologized and told her not to worry, it would never happen again.

In some section of himself, Harry had the sense that all they were doing was treading water. He liked being with Sybil, liked the
idea
of her, but he didn't really know what he was supposed to do next. One night, she asked: “You wouldn't ever consider meeting me in Denver and taking a hotel room, would you?” Harry said of course he wouldn't. This time even Harry knew what she was driving at – but he was twenty years old and had never rented a hotel room before. The thought of walking through the lobby with Sybil and dealing with the desk clerk was more than he could handle. Maybe if she had phrased it differently – or if
she
had arranged for the room.

One night, Harry returned to the boarding house after a film course in which the class had dissected “The Loves of Gosta Berling.” Waiting for him at the top of the stairs was his roommate Travis, who was smiling broadly.

“You have a call,” said Travis, who must have known what was in store for Harry and was enjoying the moment immensely. He accompanied Harry to the wall booth, as if he were a
maitre d'
and stood by smartly as Harry picked up the receiver. Sybil was at the other end and wasted no time in telling Harry that she didn't want to see him anymore.

“I didn't come all the way out here to date just one person.”

Harry pleaded with her to give him another chance, but she wouldn't budge.

“Maybe after we graduate . . . if you're ever in Charlotte,” she said. “But not now.”

Harry was sick to his stomach after he hung up, which did not deter Travis from telling him – again, with enormous pleasure – that Sybil had been dating an agriculture major on the nights when she wasn't seeing him. Oddly enough, Harry did not hold any of this against Travis. His friend, who was the school's only male cheerleader, had suffered a series of romantic setbacks of his own, all with girls named Mary, and obviously took comfort in having some company.

Harry didn't give up. The next night, he caught up with Sybil, who was on her way to rehearsals for
The Wild Duck,
and begged her to go out with him one more time.

“I have something to show you,” he said, suggestively, “that I've never shown you before.”

She reacted to this with a little smile, indicating to Harry that the agriculture major had shown her all she needed to see. He trailed her across the campus, asking her if he could at least have a picture of her for his wallet, but she said she didn't think it would be a good idea.

“Not even a
picture
?” he said, as she disappeared into the rehearsal hall. That seemed awfully cruel to him; spitefully, he made no mention of her in his favorable review of
The Wild Duck
.

He didn't eat or sleep in the weeks that followed. To Travis's great delight, Harry could not even get fried chicken past his throat – the ultimate test of romantic misery. The other fellows in the boarding house, Travis excepted, gave him lots of room and lowered their voices sympathetically whenever he walked by. One night, Harry ran into Sybil's roommate, who looked him over quizzically and said: “You're such a nice man,” which really pissed him off.