Boys and Girls Together (11 page)

‘You've got two dresses,' the villain said, ‘both of them bought at May's in Los Angeles, not counting whatever the hell that was you had in your suitcase when you came to live with me. I suppose some of those rags were
supposed
to be dresses.'

They were all smiling or laughing all the time, drinking and talking and making fun of themselves because that's the best thing for the soul there is.

‘They were dresses I inherited from my mother,' Alice said. ‘You know my mother, darling. Remember when she telephoned and said: “Mr. Bard, I'd like to speak to my daughter if you don't mind. I understand she's studying acting with you. She's nineteen years old, you know.” You remember Mama, don't you, darling?'

‘Well, between the two of you,' Oscar said, ‘you made it. You must have planned the whole thing very carefully. Otherwise how did she know where you were? How did she get my unlisted number? But the joke's on you, because I couldn't have been more delighted. I mean, to have you move in with me and be bored to death for five, ten, maybe fifteen years.'

‘What do you mean?' Alice said. And then imitated her mother, ‘
If you don't mind
.'

She and Daisy laughed about this a long time.

The man saw the fox stop and turn, and then lope on. The villain chuckled because the joke
was
on her, it
was
on her mother, and not on him. To be past sixty and nothing much (you had to know you weren't much) and to have a luscious piece like that fall into your bed wasn't anything like what you could call bad luck.

‘Five, ten, maybe fifteen years?' Alice went on. ‘Five, ten, fifteen years until
what
. Divorce? Are you planning to unload me when I'm old? Is that it? Well, I'm not going to
let
you unload me. I've got so much on you already, you'll never be able to unload me.'

‘You look absolutely gorgeous,' the woman said to Alice. ‘Doesn't she, darling?'

‘Alice? She looks as if she might very well be the best piece of tail in Hollywood.'

‘What's the matter with New York?' Alice said.

‘What's the matter with Sacramento, too?' Daisy said. She turned on the man with mock anger. ‘Don't you dare say she's the best.'

‘I said she
might
be.'

‘Anything like that you've got to say about anybody, say about me, and never mind the
might be
part, either.'

‘O.K.' That Rosey—she looked just like her mother. Would she make out all right? No bawl that way, or
scream, or bite her fingernails, or wonder what to do next for fun? Telephone New York or ask a casual acquaintance in the street to come over after dinner or badger an old New York girl friend to get up in the middle of the night and drag her husband to San Francisco? Would Rosey have a little better luck than her poor mama? Her poor mama must have had very bad luck somewhere along the line. Would Rosey have to tell lies and believe they were the truth, or not care that they weren't, or would she have better luck than her poor mama?

‘O.K.?' the woman said. ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?'

‘What I said. The best.'

‘You know
that's
the truth. You know
you
never had any better.'

‘No, I never did.'

‘I swear on my mother, it's all the time.'

‘How
is
the old bag?' Alice said.

‘She still says
shite
, because it's more refined, she thinks. Remember that time you were staying with me and we'd gotten in at four in the morning and were still in bed at four in the afternoon and she came in and said it?'

‘“Shit, Mother, shit,” you said to her,' Alice said. ‘“It's affected to pronounce it shite. People will never know how refined you
really
are if you pronounce it that way,” you said. I'd never heard it pronounced that way before. I think she's the only person in the
world who pronounces it that way. Hasn't she poisoned her husband yet?'

‘Not yet. But he ought to drop dead any day now anyway.'

‘Is he actually ninety-two?'

‘No. He justs looks ninety-two. I think he's in his early eighties, though.'

‘And how old is your mother?' the villain said.

‘Forty,' the woman said.

‘
That
old?' the villain laughed. ‘He didn't do so good. I did a lot better than he did. Sixty-two and a wife of twenty-three isn't so bad.

‘Twenty-two until day after tomorrow,' Alice said.

‘Yes, but
you're
young, Oscar,' the woman said, ‘and he's old. You know how some men are. Some are young all the time and some are old from the beginning. Well, he's been old all the time. Old and ugly. She's crazy about him, though. Well, anyhow, she
says
she is. You know how people fool themselves when they're desperate. Don't people fool themselves when they're desperate, darling?'

‘When they're
not
, too.'

The girls laughed and the villain chuckled.

‘You want some coffee maybe?' the man asked the villain.

‘Hell no. I wouldn't think of spoiling this with coffee. I haven't felt so good in years. Seeing these two together does me good, that's all. I was feeling rotten when you called. Sick of myself. I get sick that
way quite a lot, always have. But hell, I said, why not? It's crazy, but why the hell not? Why don't we always do things like that? I like it here. I like sitting here and drinking and talking and watching the girls. I worked like a dog all my life. What the hell for? To be famous for twenty years as a movie villain. Never met a villain in my life. Why? Do
you
want some coffee?'

‘No, but I thought you might want some, and something to eat. There isn't much in the house, but there are steaks and chops any time we want them. We've got a little bread lying around, too,' he said and suddenly began to roar with laughter. ‘I always loved bread,' he said quickly. ‘If I ever get rich I'm going to buy a bakery. Alice, there are steaks and chops any time you're hungry.'

‘Yum yum,' Alice said.

‘No,' the villain said. ‘You can't mean it, darling. For God's sake, it's only half past three. Now please don't break this up by fooling around with steaks. You know, I haven't been in a house like this in years. I mean, where
people
live. A house, not a movie set. A
home
. I'd like to buy a house like this in San Francisco and move into it myself.'

‘Don't do it, Oscar,' the woman said. ‘It stinks. It's small. The front door opens right into the whole house. The living-room and the hall are stuck together. This is no house.'

‘It's the best house I've ever been in,' the villain said.

‘There was nothing else new to be had when I got out of the Army,' the man said. ‘Daisy was pregnant and we had to have something so I figured that something out by the ocean would be fine. This was out by the ocean and almost finished: they were painting it. I had a little money then, so I paid cash for it, and we moved in. It stinks all right, but it's not so bad. There's a big fenced-in yard, mostly lawn, with rose bushes and other stuff around. The kids play there. Upstairs is another apartment just like this one, and I work there. If we've got a nurse, we both live up there and the kids and the nurse live down here, and I work in the second bedroom, the one that the kids sleep in down here, but it's not like a bedroom any more, shelves all around and a desk. It's a small room to begin with and after the shelves were put in it got smaller, but it's a good place to work. I figured out by the ocean would be fine. I never cared for a place that wasn't near the ocean.'

‘It's the best house I've ever been in,' the villain said. ‘My house isn't a house, it's an institution for the help. Three full-time gardeners alone. I come from the East Side in New York, so I'm living in a castle in Beverly Hills. I don't feel at home there.'

‘You've lived there almost thirty years,' the villain's wife said. ‘What do you mean you don't feel at home
there? Are you trying to get me to move to the East Side in New York or something?'

‘I'm drunk,' the villain said suddenly, ‘but I love it. And I'm going to get drunker. This is the kind of house I want to live in, that's all. I know I never will, but this is the kind I want to.'

That's the way I'll do it, the man thought. Sierra Fox. This is too good to be cluttered with any other programme. The kids are asleep. They're all right. All I've got to do is get my luck back and get the money we need.

The fox loped on up the slope, stopped and turned, alone and laughing.

The night ended in daylight, the villain and his wife went off in a taxi to the St. Francis, and the woman said: ‘I told her it's all the time. What do you want to do, make a liar out of me?'

‘It's after five. In a little while Rosey's going to be waking up Johnny. And if you're going to have the big day you think you are, you'd better get some sleep.'

‘Sleep isn't the only thing I need at night. You can get in bed and
hold
me, can't you?'

‘I'm not going to bed.'

‘Why not?'

‘I might fall asleep and not want to get up when Johnny comes in.'

‘He won't come in for at least an hour. Please take off your clothes and get in bed.'

The man stretched out on her bed without taking off his shoes, even. The woman was under the covers and he bundled her up in them and held her tight because she was drunk and lonely and happy and half-dead.

‘They're so rich,' she said. ‘They've got so much money. Did you see that dress she was wearing? How much do you think it cost?'

‘Five thousand dollars.'

‘It cost a thousand. She told me. But she didn't look as beautiful as I did, did she?'

‘No.'

‘Don't just say it.'

‘No, you looked best. You became a little prettier each time you had a kid. She hasn't had any.'

‘That isn't it. I'm more beautiful anyway.'

‘Yes, you are.'

‘But she
is
fun. Lucretia isn't fun the way Alice is. Lucretia's a dope compared to Alice but much more beautiful. Don't you think Lucretia's much more beautiful than Alice?'

‘I guess so.'

Actually they all looked about the same: that is, young and pretty.

‘Is Lucretia more beautiful than I am?'

‘I don't think so.'

‘Don't you
know
?'

‘No, she's not.'

He'd been through this routine too many times not to know that even dead-tired she'd be miserable if he didn't agree with everything. She'd start an argument that would go on for hours, sometimes days. It was
still
going on. This was part of it because long ago, years ago, he had tried to tell her something about beauty, that it came from inside, and a woman who was plain on the outside could very well be beautiful because she was beautiful inside. She hadn't ever been beautiful that way, not even after Johnny was born, not even after Rosey was. It was only when she bawled that she was anything at all inside, but it wasn't beautiful, it was pathetic.

‘Would you like to lay Lucretia?'

‘No.'

‘You probably would, but don't you dare make a pass at her. I'd be so humiliated I'd never be able to speak to her again. After the things I've told her about how you adore me. You won't make a pass at her, will you?'

‘No.'

‘Not even the littlest kind of pass? You know.
Don't look at her the way you do sometimes. Just be nice to her, but don't look at her that way. You looked at Ellen Flesch that way last night. I didn't make anything of it because she's Ellen, but it would be awful if it was Lucretia.'

‘I'll just open my eyes a little when it's Lucretia.'

‘No, don't be funny. This is serious. Alice and Lucretia are my best friends. Alice is O.K. because she's really in love with her husband, and I know you're O.K. as far as she's concerned because you didn't look at her once that way all night. But Lucretia isn't in love with her husband. She
says
she is, she
thinks
she is, but I know she isn't, and all she'd need to make my life hopeless would be one little pass from you. So you won't, will you?'

‘No.'

‘Do you love me?'

‘Yes.'

‘With all your heart?'

‘Yes.'

‘Am I the most beautiful girl in the world?'

‘Yes.'

‘Am I the best wife a man could ever have and the best mother and the best lay and the most intelligent and the most inspiring girl?'

‘Yes.'

‘That's nice.'

She giggled at her joke, turned quickly to be kissed, and then fell asleep.

The man held her a moment, then got up, covered her, made the room as dark as possible, went out and closed the door.

He stood at the door of the children's room and listened. Rosey was saying half-asleep things. He went to the bathroom, shaved, showered and dressed, put coffee on, fetched the morning paper and sat down at the kitchen table to have a look at the entries.

Sierra Fox wasn't running.

The sixth looked best. They were Makai, Sunfair, Pay Me, Cold Roll, Court Toubo, Hail Victory, Valdina Andire, and Cyclone. He would telephone Leo around half past three and bet two hundred across on Pay Me at four to one. Post time would be about four, the race would be over by four-fifteen, but he wouldn't bother to find out who got it. He'd forget he'd made the bet. He had the money for it and more besides, enough for two more bets of the same size. He put the paper aside because he didn't want to be tempted to change his hunch. It was a good one. Six hundred dollars on Pay Me to win, place, and show.