Puzzle for Fiends (4 page)

I’d almost forgotten that I was not myself. Somehow Marny had made my forgetfulness seem like an amusing, frivolous game. That question brought back the old disturbing sensation of something being hidden behind something, of everything being wrong and faintly menacing.

“I remember iris,” I said.

“Iris?” Marny’s alert eyes moved to the vase on the table. “What sort of an iris?”

“I don’t know. “My disquiet was almost fear now. “Just the word. Iris. I know it’s important if only I could pin it down.”

“Iris. “Marny’s lashes flickered over the candid eyes and for a moment they did not seem quite so candid. “Probably some hideous Freudian image. There’s nothing else?”

I shook my head. “A plane, maybe. Someone... Oh, what’s the use?”

“Gordy, don’t get depressed, darling.” She was back on the bed again, holding my hand. “Think what a sna
z
zy life you’ve got. All the money in the world. No worries. No work. All of Southern California to play around in. Us—and Selena.”

“Selena?” My doubts about Selena started to stir again. “Tell me about Selena. What’s she like?”

“If you’ve forgotten Selena,” said Marny, finishing her cocktail and pouring another, “you’re in for a shock.”

I asked anxiously: “Thin and sharp nosed with steel rimmed spectacles?”

“Selena?” Marny wiped a smudge of lipstick off her glass. “My dear, Selena’s probably the most gorgeous thing in California.”

I was feeling contented again, and smug. “A nice temperament too?”

“Angelic. She just adores everything and everyone.”

“And a fine, sterling character?” I asked enthusiastically. “Would the Aurora Clean Living League endorse her?”

Marny gave me that straight, uninhibited stare. “The Aurora Clean Living League would not endorse Selena.”

“Why not?”

Marny put her drink down. “That,” she said, “is something you might as well find out for yourself.”

I hadn’t
said anything in reply when the door opened. A girl came in, a girl in a brief white cotton dress with no sleeves. The first sight of her dazzled me. She was the blondest girl I had ever seen. Her hair, cut loose to her shoulders like Marny’s, was fair as fresh country cream. Her skin too was cream, a deeper shade of cream darkened by the sun. Her body, her bare arms and legs had the molded quality of sculpture. Looking at her, I felt I was touching her. And, although she was full bosomed and thighed, she moved to the bed with a grace that was liquid as milk.

“Gordy, baby.”

Her lips were natural dark red; her eyes were blue as summer in the sky. She sat down on the bed, studying me, the cream hair spilling forward.

“Scram, Marny,” she said.

Marny was staring at this new, breath-taking girl, her brown eyes stubborn with antagonism. She seemed small, now, artificial, rather metallic.

“Really, Selena,” she drawled, “do you have to be in that much of a hurry? His leg’s in a cast, you know.”

“Scram.” Selina turned to Marny then and her face relaxed into a swift smile that would have coaxed a platoon of mules. “Please, darling, be a sweet baby. You can be sweet if you try.”

Marny’s long black lashes flickered. “All right, I suppose. “She got up and, with a sudden rough movement, pushed past her sister-in-law and kissed me aggressively on the mouth. “If things get too hot for you, brother, ring an SOS on the buzzer, I’ll be up.”

She mussed Selena’s hair. “Take it easy, Snow-white.”

She picked up her cocktail shaker and her glass and strolled out of the room, kicking the door shut behind her.

“That Marny. Such a sordid infant. Sweet, though.” Selena’s sunwarm fingers curled into mine. “How do you feel, baby?”

I grinned. “Better by the minute.”

Her smile drooped swooningly. “I’m your wife, Gordy. You don’t remember me, do you?”

This settled it, I was thinking. Being Gordy Friend exceeded the dreams of the most ambitious amnesiac. “I can’t imagine getting hit that hard on the head, but I guess I was.”

“Poor baby. What’s it matter anyway? Remembering things is usually so embarrassing.”

Selena leaned over me, pressing her mouth quickly against mine. Her lips were warm and liquid as her walk. They seemed to melt into mine. It was a kiss that blotted out the memory of other kisses. Dimly I thought:
Didn’t I say something about brunettes? Sultry brunettes? I must have been out of my mind.

“I loathe sitting on beds.”

Impulsively Selena tumbled back on the grey and gold spread next to me, her hair foaming over the pillow.

“Ah.” She sighed in satisfaction and twisted around to take a cigarette from the bedside table. As she lit it, she murmured: “What happened to that divine candy I got for you? I bet your mother ate it.” She gazed around the room through half-shut lashes, blue-grey as the cigarette smoke. “She’s taken half the flowers out too. How boring, I wanted to make your return to consciousness a real production.”

“As returns to consciousness go, I’d call this colossal,” I said.

“You would, baby?” She turned her head so that her face was almost touching mine on the pillow. “Darling, with those bandages you look different, kind of tough. Isn’t this exciting? It’s almost like having a new man.”

It’s hard to say what Selena was doing to me. She probably was the most gorgeous thing in California. Marny was right about that. But she was more than that. It wasn’t that part of me remembered her. It didn’t. But there was none of the awkwardness of a completely strange girl lying on my bed. It was exciting, yes, but it was somehow natural too. Selena made it that way. Some easy, ungrudging thing about her made her sensuality clean and spontaneous as a pagan Greek’s.

With my good hand I caught up some of the soft, shining hair, letting it slide through my fingers.

“My wife,” I said. “How long have I been married to you?”

“Two years, darling. Two years and a bit.”

“Where in heaven’s name did I find you?”

“Those bandages, they do something to me.” She arched her head up on her neck, kissing me. “Pittsburg, dear.”

“I bet you were the Pride of Pittsburg.”

“I was. They were crazy about me in Pittsburg. In the Junior League poll I was voted the girl most likely to exceed.”

“Honest?”

“Honest. “She nestled against me, bringing my hand down from her hair and holding it against her dress. “Darling, Nate’s awfully worried about you. Nate’s so sweet. Do try and get your memory back. It would do such things to his professional pride.”

“To hell with Nate. “I studied the gentle line of her nose in profile. “Tell me more about myself. Do I love you?”

The blue, blue eyes went solemn. “I don’t know. I really don’t know, Gordy. Do you?”

“On a snap judgement, I’d say yes. “I kissed her before she kissed me. “How about you? Love me?”

She moved away slightly, stretching contentedly. “You’re awfully sweet, Gordy. I simply adore you. I really do.”

“But I’m an ornery character, aren’t I? Good for nothing. Drink too much.”

“That Marny.” For a moment her face was almost savage. “The mean little limb of Satan. What’s she been telling you?”

“Just that. That I’m an amiable heel and a lush.”

“Really, she makes me sick. What if you do drink too much? How can anyone be nice without drinking too much?”

“Do you drink too much?”

She smiled and then laughed, a frank, husky laugh. “Darling, I do everything too much.”

She sat up again suddenly, straightening her skirt, stubbing her cigarette on an ashtray.

“Baby, this is all gay, but I’m supposed to help make you remember.”

“That’s what you’ve been doing, isn’t it?”

“I haven’t been doing anything. I’ve just been being pleased at having my husband conscious again. You can’t imagine how dreary it’s been sleeping with a husband as unconscious as a corpse.”

“You’ve been sleeping here?”

Her eyes opened wide. “But, of course. Ever since you came back from the hospital. “She pointed at the other bed. “Where d’you suppose I’d been sleeping?”

“I’d only just started thinking about it,” I said.

“Really, darling, and you all plaster of Paris.” Selena grinned and took another cigarette, inhaling smoke deeply. “But seriously, I mean, let’s talk about something—anything. Just something you’re supposed to remember.”

I said: “Okay. I’ll take the Aurora Clean Living League.”

“The Aurora Clean Living League? Really, I mean, do we have to talk about that?”

“I’m supposed to know about it, aren’t I? It’s important, isn’t it?”

“It’s terribly, terribly important, of course, but it’s terribly, terribly dismal.”

“Even so—give with the Aurora Clean Living League.” Her full mouth drooped sulkily. “All right. Well, it all begins with your father. I suppose you don’t remember your father, either?”

I shook my head. “They tell me he was called Gordon Renton Friend the Second and that he died a month ago. That’s all.”

“Your father,” Selena brooded. “How to describe your father? He was a lawyer in St. Paul. He was terrifically rich. That was the nice thing about him. But the important thing about your father was that he was godly.” Absently she had picked my hand up again and was stroking it. “Incredibly godly. Against things, you know. Against tobacco and dancing and lipstick and liquor and sex.”

“Uhuh. Go on.”

“What nice hands you have, darling. So square and firm. Like a sailor’s hands.”

“A sailor.” Something stirred faintly deep down in my consciousness. “Selena, I wondered—”

“Oh, yes, your father.” Selena’s glance had moved from my face and she was talking rather quickly. “What else about him? Well, as you can imagine, he was awfully dismal to live with. And then, ten years ago, when you all thought things were just about as lugubrious as they could be, your father met the Aurora Clean Living League and fell in love with it.”

The disquiet had gone again. I had almost forgotten it. “Did he have sex with it?” I asked.

“Gordy, don’t be frivolous.” Selena was smiling down at me again. She had tucked my hand into her lap. “The Aurora Clean Living League is a nationwide organization to make America pure. It publishes dozens of pamphlets called:
Dance, Little Lady
—
to Hell
and
Satan Has a Deposit on Every Beer Bottle 
and things like that. It runs jolly summer camps where youth can be hearty and clean-living. And, of course, they’re frightfully against…”

“… lipstick, tobacco and dancing and liquor and sex,” I said.

“Exactly, baby. Well, the head of all this gloomy business was a repulsive man called Mr. Heber. Mr. Heber
was
the Aurora Clean Living League in St. Paul. And Mr. Heber loved your father at first sight and your father loved Mr. Heber at first sight. Your father started deluging the League with money and made St. Paul cleaner and cleaner and cleaner by the minute. And all the time, he made all of you cleaner and cleaner too.”

She fell back again on to the pillows, her fair hair shimmering close to my cheek. “Darling, you can’t imagine what life was like. I mean, I suppose you will imagine when you get your memory back. Every morning you were all inspected for seemliness of attire. Your father scrubbed powder off Marny’s nose himself in the bathroom. You weren’t allowed to go to the theatre or the movies. You spent long, crushing evenings at home listening to your father recite pure poems and quote from Mr. Heber’s nauseating pamphlets. And as for sex—well, your father was particularly against sex.” She sighed, a deep, reminiscent sigh. “Baby, if you knew how pent-up you all got.”

“I can imagine,” I said. “But how did I, the drunken heel, fit into that picture?”

“You didn’t, baby. “She had picked up my hand again. It seemed to fascinate her. “That’s the whole point. The more clean living your father got, the more dirty living you went in for. At college, you did the most shameless things…”

“Like switching clothes with Marny and having Mr. Heber proposition me in a canoe?”

Selena sat up, amazed. “Darling, you remember?”

“Sorry,” I said. “Marny told me.”

“Oh.” She sank back. “Well, yes, things like that—and worse. Mr. Heber pronounced you permanently unclean. Father would have loved to throw you out for good. But there he was in a cleft stick. You see, The Family is one of the things the Clean Living League has a passion for. And one of your father’s favorite compositions was a long poem about your son is your son and you forgive him seven times seven, nay seventy times seven. You know—all that.”

“I know,” I said.

“But after college he tried to keep you away from home as much as possible. He got you a job in Pittsburg. Somehow you managed not to be fired. But, boy, the things you did to Pittsburg.” She looked dreamy. “That’s where you met me. Darling, what a night.” She snuggled against me cozily. “Gordy, how long is the cast going to be on?”

“Don’t know. You’ll have to ask your buddy Nate.”

She frowned. “Oh, well… Where was I? Oh, yes, you met me. We were married. I wasn’t at all the sort of thing your father relished, of course. But we scrubbed my face and I bought a perfectly hideous brown dress like a missionary in China and you brought me home and I was wonderful and your father adored me and I wrote a poem against sex myself and drank ginger ale and then, after we’d gone to bed, we used to get potted on stingers in the bedroom. Darling, don’t you remember?”

I shook my head disconsolately. “No, baby, I’m afraid I don’t. Not yet.”

Selena lay a moment, quite still, holding my hand against her dress. I could feel the strong, healthy pulse of her heart. “All this,” I asked, “was in St. Paul?”

She nodded.

“And then a couple of years ago we moved to California?”

“We didn’t, darling. Not you and I. We stayed in Pittsburg. But the others did.”

“Why?”

“Mr. Moffat,” said Selena. “Mr. Moffat’s the head of the California branch of the Clean Living League. He was visiting Mr. Heber and your father fell even more in love with him than with Mr. Heber. Mr. Moffat is even cleaner, you see. So your father sold everything and trailed out here. Fairly soon, he developed a bad heart. I guess all that purity preyed on his organs. A couple of months ago he had an attack of some sort addressing the local chapter. He was supposed to be getting better. Then, suddenly, he died.”