Puzzle for Fiends (18 page)

“Know something, baby?” Selena was stroking the blond hairs on my arm. “I never enjoyed anything so much as pretending to be your wife. Somehow it was exciting lying all the time. And it’s exciting touching you too. Darling, I love touching you.” She leaned one inch closer and kissed me on the mouth. “You’re like something fizzing in my veins. Oh, things are such fun always.”

She drew away from me, reaching up and twisting a lock of my hair out from under the bandages.

“Darling, don’t you really know who you are?”

“No.”

“Maybe you’re married.”

“Maybe.”

“To a nasty little woman with a stringy neck and curl papers.”

“Could be.”

“Baby, wouldn’t it be wonderful if you never got your memory back?”

I stroked her cheek. “Would it?”

Her eyes were flat, dreamy. “I think it’s that really that makes you exciting. Who are you? Nothing. No identity. No habits. No taboos. Just Man. That’s what you are, baby. Man. Oh, don’t ever get your memory back.”

“Like me this way?”

She was smiling a swift, enchanting smile. “That’s it, baby. Never get your memory back. I’ll divorce Gordy. I’ll be rich, stinking rich. You can be rich too because you can hold Gordy up for an enormous check too. And we’ll go off together and do the most wonderful things. And you’ll be part of me. You’ll be something I’ve made. I’ll have taught you everything you know.” Her hands fluttered over my chest. “I’ll have taught you everything you know—when the cast comes off.”

My pulses were racing. I couldn’t stop my pulses. My blood was racing too so that it was almost a pain. I hadn’t forgotten about Nate. I hadn’t even forgotten about Jan. I just didn’t care.

“Baby.” She whispered that, her lips warm against my ear. “Baby, tell me. Do you love me?”

“Love?” I gripped her shoulder, drawing her back so I could look at her. “Love’s a rather prissy word to use around you, isn’t it?”

“Oh, baby.” She laughed, a deep, husky laugh. “You and me.”

She jumped off the bed then, her hair tossing around her shoulders. She moved around the bed where I couldn’t see her.

“Baby?”

“Yes, Selena. “

“I’m undressing. Turn the other way.”

“I am turned the other way. It’s perfectly respectable. I can’t see you.”

“I know you can’t, you dope. That’s what bothers me. Turn around.”

I moved around in the bed. She was standing between me and the window. She undid her dress at the back and let it fall to the ground at her feet.

She was smiling at me, her teeth gleaming white between the red, parted lips.

“You and me, baby,” she said.

When
Jan wakened me the next morning, Selena had disappeared. My first glimpse of the Dutchman was sufficient to remind me that this was The Great Day. His huge body, normally naked except for his scanty swimming trunks, had been forced into a white shirt, with knotted black tie, and a seersucker suit. His blond hair had been slicked down too. He looked awkward and unconvincingly holy. He must have been told not to smile, for he maintained a stubborn sobriety as he bathed me and dressed me, as completely as the casts would allow, in an equally dour suit-and-shirt combination with a mourning arm-band of black. I was arranged in the wheel chair with the least colorful of the robes wrapped over my legs and pushed out to the glassed breakfast porch where the others were all assembled.

At a first glance I scarcely recognized the Friend woman. Mrs. Friend had always worn black, but her bright lipstick and her rakish upswept hair-do had given the effect of a faintly disreputable goddess in slapdash disguise as a widow. All that was changed. Her face now was devoid of make-up. Her hair was pulled into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. She wore no jewelry and had managed somehow to switch off her magnetism and assume an air of meek, bereaved piety.

Both the girls were in unrelieved black too. I was amazed how it obliterated Marny. She looked the way she’d claimed she’d always looked until her father’s death—a little mousey thing ready to scuttle to safety at the first “boo”. Selena’s transformation alone was unsuccessful. In spite of the shapeless black frock, in spite of the preposterous way in which she’d coiled her hair into fat braids around her ears, she still looked bravely voluptuous.

“Darling.” She surveyed me, grinning. “You’re wonderful—that repulsive suit. Try to look a little more constipated. There. Perfect. Gordy Friend—the reformed drunk.”

In spite of her subdued appearance, Mrs. Friend was as efficient as ever. Mr. Petherbridge, she told me, was arriving before the League convened. It was part of his duties as executor of Mr. Friend’s will to inspect the house for signs of depravity—bottles of liquor, ashtrays, things like that. He would be coming in an hour.

Mrs. Friend whisked us through breakfast and held a conference in the living-room where the Clean Living League meeting was to be held. In spite of the room’s lavish splendor Mrs. Friend had contrived by sheer genius to create an atmosphere of respectable stodginess. There were no ashtrays, of course. Photographs of old Mr. Friend himself and of sour-looking relatives had been exhibited clumsily in the least suitable places. A genteel Paisley shawl had been draped over the piano. On it stood a vase stuffed with dead reeds of the type associated with the better boarding houses. Wooden chairs had been arranged in rows to seat the members of the League; and at one end a cluster of chairs around a table indicated where Mr. Moffat and the family party would preside.

Mrs. Friend made me recite the
Ode to Aurora
three times and even coached me as to the right tone of voice and the correct demeanor for a sheepish ex-sinner who had seen the light.

“We don’t have to worry about Mr. Petherbridge,” she said. “He’s an old fuss-budget, but I think he’s on our side. Mr. Moffat’s the danger, of course. He’ll be crazy for something to go wrong. The slightest slip-up and he’ll make a claim. We can’t very well afford a law-suit and all the embarrassing things a law-suit might bring out. You realize that?”

The last remark was addressed to me. I nodded. I saw only too well why we couldn’t afford a law-suit.

“You’d better know the pattern of these meetings, dear. First there’ll be a jolly song. Then Mr. Moffat will give a jolly speech about your father. Then you’ll recite the poem. Then Mr. Moffat will probably launch into a jolly harangue about another lost brother redeemed. Then you’ll sign the abstinence pledge. That means you’re never to drink again, darling boy. After that, maybe it would be nice if you gave a jolly little speech too. No, maybe you shouldn’t. I don’t quite trust your sense of humor. We’ll skip your jolly speech. Then the meeting’ll end with another jolly song, and they’ll all troop up to greet you as a fellow member. I’ve told Mr. Moffat they can spend their sunshine hour in the pool so we’ll get rid of them from the house after that. Got it?”

“Yes,” I said.

“And don’t mention the amnesia, dear. We haven’t told Mr. Petherbridge or Mr. Moffat that Gordy is suffering from amnesia. We thought it might make Mr. Moffat suspicious. But since he hasn’t the remotest idea you’re a fake, he won’t try and trip you with awkward questions, I’m quite sure of that.”

“I hope so,” I said. “Incidentally, are you sure none of the members ever saw Gordy?”

“I don’t see how any of them could have, dear. I really don’t.” Mrs. Friend stared at the two girls. “Marny, you’re all right. Selena”—she sighed—“I wish there was something you could do with your bosom.”

“I can cut them off,” said Selena.

“No, dear, I don’t think that will be necessary.” Mrs. Friend took one final, all-observing glance around the room. “Now I’ll get Grandma. She’s thrilled at the idea of sitting in on the meeting and I think she’d make a good effect next to Gordy. Gordy with his old grandmother on one side and his wife on the other. Remember, Selena, wifely but not sexy—like St. Paul. That’s your attitude.”

She made a vague gesture with her hand. “Oh, dear, I shall feel better when this is over. So tiresome, the whole thing. So very tiresome.”

She went out and came back soon with Grandma, draped in black crepe, spry on her arm. She was settled in a seat next to my wheel chair. She leaned towards me, bringing her own atmosphere of lavender and dust. An ancient lid was slowly lowered and raised over a bright eye.

“This is fun,” she whispered. “More fun than the radio. More fun than Jack Benny.” She cackled. “Jack Benny. There’s a funny man for you. Didn’t have men funny as that in Seattle when I was a girl.”

She was still cackling about the absence of funny men in Seattle in her girlhood when a maid came in to announce Mr. Petherbridge.

“Show him in, Susan,” said Mrs. Friend.

As the maid departed, a twinge of anxiety came. Was I sticking my neck in a noose? I looked at Selena. She grinned. I thought of last night and I wasn’t nervous any more.

Mr. Petherbridge came in behind the maid. From a dramatic point of view, he should have been a tall, ominous character with a steely, penetrating gaze. In fact, Mr. Friend’s lawyer was tiny and fluttery with a pink bald dome and blue, watery eyes. He looked like one of those butterflies that somehow manage to last through the winter and totter shabbily through the first few days of spring.

Mrs. Friend rose. “Mr. Petherbridge.”

“Ah, Mrs. Friend.”

Mrs. Friend took his hand and led him around. “I think you know everyone. My mother. Marny. Selena. Gordy… oh, no, I don’t believe you do know Gordy. Mr. Petherbridge, this is my son.”

Mr. Petherbridge looked at the cast on my right arm, seemed undecided as to whether or not to shake my left hand and then gave up.

“Ah, yes. I heard of your accident. What a merciful escape.”

He smiled awkwardly. In fact, he seemed extremely embarrassed by the whole situation.

Mrs. Friend laid her hand on his arm. “Dear Mr. Petherbridge, I know this is uncomfortable for you. Frankly, I think the will’s just a teeny, teeny bit silly, don’t you? But we must abide by it. You have to inspect the house. Remember? Come on. Let us at least get that over with before our virtuous guests arrive.”

“Virtuous guests. “Mr. Petherbridge tittered. “I must admit I never quite understood your poor husband’s enthusiasm for the Clean Living League. Myself, I always enjoy a glass of sherry before dinner, I’m afraid.”

“Mr. Petherbridge, you naughty man.” Mrs. Friend tapped his sleeve archly. “Now, let us ransack the house for signs of depravity—you and I.”

She led him out of the room. After a moment’s pause Grandma cackled.

“Funnier than Jack Benny,” she said.

None of the rest of us spoke. Jan came in and sat down stiffly on one of the wooden chairs. Soon Mrs. Friend and Mr. Petherbridge reappeared.

Mrs. Friend was looking guardedly pleased. “There. That’s cleared up,” she said. “Mr. Petherbridge feels our house is no more sinful than the average American home, don’t you, Mr. Petherbridge?”

“Ah, yes, Mrs. Friend. Nothing wrong there that I can see. Nothing that would have distressed poor Mr. Friend.”

He sat down next to Mrs. Friend, his little hands scurrying back and forth over his pin-striped trousers. He was getting more and more nervous. I wondered why.

Splendidly adequate, Mrs. Friend kept the conversation simmering until the sound of an automobile was audible from the drive.

“Ah, that will be they. The League. Mr. Moffat, I understand, has chartered a bus to bring them all at once. They enjoy doing things in a group. Things are jollier in a group.”

Soon the maid, rather rattled, came in, said: “They’ve come, Mrs. Friend,” and scuttled out.

People—thirty or forty of them—started streaming into the huge room then. For some reason, I had expected the Clean Living League to be as dour and lugubrious as our own mournful black clothes. I was completely wrong. Most of them, men and women alike, were dressed in white—a discreet gesture, I felt, towards someone else’s mourning. But they were far from lugubrious.

Bouncy was the word for them. Although, as they descended upon us, they assumed expressions suitable to greet a bereaved family, they were all bursting with a sort of inner heartiness. I felt that they had come from a jolly good romp somewhere on the shore, probably, tossing balls to each other and wading and maybe uproariously burying one of the stouter men in the sand and dancing around him.

In spite of their outdoorsiness, however, none of them looked healthy. The men were either fat and middle-aged or young and scrawny with a fine display of pimples. Of the women and girls I didn’t see one who would ever be on the receiving end of the drunkest sailor’s whistle. They reeked of self-complacency, too. They were obviously thanking Aurora for their own purity which set them loftily above those unfortunates whose romps were vitiated with tobacco and drink and sex. I saw what Mrs. Friend had meant the night before. The prospect of these people with several million dollars behind them indeed curdled my blood.

Chattering in respectful undertones, nudging each other in the ribs, carrying on little pure flirtations, they swarmed over the wooden chairs and seated themselves facing our family group.

Until then there had been no sign of Mr. Moffat. I suspected he was staging his entrance, and I was right. A moment after the Aurora Clean Living League had finally seated itself, a man’s figure appeared at the door, paused there a second and then strode eupeptically through his seated satellites straight up to Mrs. Friend.

He grasped her hand, shaking it up and down vigorously.

“Mrs. Friend, Mrs. Friend. A sad occasion. A very sad occasion. But we know he’s still with us, do we not? Part of the sparkling summer light. Part of the lovely garden flowers. Part of the glorious sunset.” He beamed. “There is no death, Mrs. Friend.”

Mr. Moffat was unbearably dynamic. Large, youngish, with tightly curled reddish hair and red hairs on his thick wrists, he projected personality as if he was charged with it from a battery concealed beneath his crinkled seersucker suit. He was unbearably chummy too.

He swung to me, picking up my left hand and pumping it. “And this is Gordy.” He surveyed the casts. “A crack-up, eh, boy? Well, sometimes we need a real shock to help us Come Through. Ah, alcohol, that weevil-like borer. It’s caused many a worse tragedy than a smashed arm, a broken leg. You were lucky, boy. And we’re lucky too, for today’s a great day, I understand. Today you’re Coming Through.”