The Dud Avocado (30 page)

The Contessa shrugged. “Tout de même, je crois qu’elle se dope, n’est-ce pas?”

“Could be.”

So it wasn’t me. So who was it?

And here’s where the Greek Tragedy part comes in. For my question was answered, and answered before I had time to put the button hook on the question mark, by the arrival of Lila, the old, old flame of Larry, on the arm of Teddy, the old, old flame de moi.

Larry, frozen with consternation, glared at them with the horrified fascination of one upon whom an entire troupe of furies has chosen to descend at once. It was frightening to watch; I was made afraid just looking at him. Nor was I at all purged by my feelings of pity and terror. I was as deeply embroiled in it as he was. I don’t know quite what Lila is to Larry, but Teddy’s been
my
main tormentor. I see him stalking me through the ages, always at hand with some fresh fiendish plot.

Lila was drunk—or, if the doping part was true, she was high. In any case she was in a very strange condition. A sly crooked
smile kept sliding across her face as she slithered over to our table.

“Hello, Larrybaby,” she purred. “I think we can skip all that fancy-meeting-you-here crap and get down to business, don’t you? Who’s having who these days—that’s what I want to know.” There was a dead silence. “Let’s see,” she went on, “now don’t tell me because I want to guess.” She turned to the rest of us. “I’m intuitive, you see. It’s one of my things.” She looked at us for a moment. “Oh it’s really too easy,” she said, pointing her finger at Missy. “It’s that one of course. The big blonde. The other one’s a bit—umm—squirrelly,” she added. That was me. She indicated Missy again. “That’s the one all right, isn’t it, Larry? Do you think she’ll make a good model? Who knows, perhaps she is one already. Saves you trouble. Not me any more, though. I’m just not cut out for it. And I tried, Larrybaby, I really tried. You know what I think? I think I’m just cut out for you. Now what about
you
, darling,” she said directly to Missy, sitting down and leaning forward intimately. “You can level with me, honey, after all, we’re practically related. Come on now—are you a model?”

Missy was magnificent. Cool and unruffled, and in her iciest tones, she said, “How dare you sit down at this table without being invited?” I’d never heard a Southern drawl come out so imperiously.

Lila looked at her with a pleased smile of someone who’s been spoiling for a fight for a long time and has at last come up against something solid.

“Oh I’ve got an invitation all right. I’ve got a permanent invitation to Master Keevil’s table, haven’t I, Larry? Go on, tell her about it.” Larry remained frozen. “O.K.,” said Lila lightly, and rose. “I wouldn’t dream of sitting down without being invited. I’ll tell you what, I’ll invite your Mr. Keevil to come and sit with
me
. You watch now, honey. He’ll come too. You see if he doesn’t, My, my, you’ve got a lot to learn,” she flung over her shoulder.

We all sat there stupefied, as Larry stumbled to his feet like a sleepwalker and followed her.

Teddy was hissing in my ear, “Quick, I must talk with you
privately. It is of the utmost importance.” Utterly dazed by it all, I let him steer me through the crowd to a corner table.

“Sally Jay,” he began. “Please listen to what I am about to tell you. I don’t know how far your affair with this Keevil has gone, but I do seriously believe you to be in very grave danger.” He held up his hand to prevent me from interrupting. “I know what you’re going to say—I know you have no reason to trust me, no reason at all.…”

“What the hell’s the idea of hounding me like this?” I said, finally recovering my voice. “You listen to
me
. Stay out of my way! I mean that. If you ever try to get near me again, I’ll send for the police!”

“You hate me. Very well. You have every right to. That dinner party I gave for you—the way I plotted and planned it— that was not a nice thing to do. I am not proud of it. But don’t forget that my little ruse would not have succeeded if your friend Larry had not decided to prefer—for whatever his reasons—to go home with the Contessa instead of you. Part of my motive was to hurt you—you had hurt me and I wished to hit back. But only part. You may remember that from the first day I laid eyes on Keevil I put him down as an opportunist. I saw no reason why the likes of him should have you if I couldn’t. So I wanted to open your eyes about him—disillusion you, if you will. Vindictive, maybe, but only if I succeeded.…”

“Sure, Larry went off with the Contessa,” I said wearily. “That proved only one thing. It proved he wasn’t in love with me. Thanks for pointing it out. I’ll never forgive you for it. And I’ll never forgive you for doing it by sicing the sort of person the Contessa is on him.”

“There is no point at present in going back over that,” said Teddy quickly. “What I must try to warn you of as fast as possible is that he is not just an opportunist; he is a very dangerous man. He is a killer. It is he you should send the police for, not me, I assure you.”

I looked at Teddy with revulsion and astonishment, wondering what I’d ever seen in him. And then suddenly I just laughed in his face.

“Do you mean to tell me you’ve come tooling all the way
down from Paris dragging that hop-head Lila with you for the sole purpose of getting off a statement like that? A killer! I hope you remembered to bring his criminal record with you.”

“I have brought it with me,” said Teddy gravely. “Unfortunately I have brought this poor girl Lila with me. Excuse me if I express myself badly. It is because I cannot put it to you strongly enough. And let me make it quite clear that I never for a moment would have set foot down here if I’d known we were going to run into him. Quite the opposite. Her only hope is to get as far away from him as she can. As it happens he told her he was spending the summer in Germany. To state the case in the simplest terms: he ruined her. He was, I believe, the first man she’d ever known. The rest I imagine it was fairly easy for him. Do you know what she is now?” He paused. “She is a call-girl.”

“So?” I felt myself trembling.

“Can’t you understand?
She works for him

I really felt sick. I wanted to strike him and I didn’t have the strength to. I couldn’t have touched him. Everything about him revolted me so; the hair on the back of his hands, his manicured fingernails, the way he held his cigarette. I looked at his face and thought, I am looking at the face of evil.

“You are
hell
” I said, my voice shaking so badly I could hardly hear it. “Do you know I wouldn’t believe you if you swore on a stack of Bibles?” Then I stopped talking. I was completely at sea. I couldn’t find any words to tell him what I thought of him. Why is it that the most insulting things you can ever find to say in those circumstances are as meaningless and unhurtful as you-dirty-lousy-double-crossing-son-of-a-bitch? I mean, have nine more meaningless unhurtful words ever been strung together? “You—you European!” I said finally. “You nasty, suspicious, vicious European. Stop ascribing your own vicious motives to everyone else. Anyone capable of playing the tricks you played on me is capable of anything, but I never dreamed you’d go so far. Why don’t we take my case for a change? You were the first man I ever knew and you can hardly be said to have ruined me. I don’t even remember you terribly well, if you want to know the truth. I wasn’t very moved.

“I know what gets you about all this,” I said—and suddenly I did. “I know what you can’t stand. The only people you’ll tolerate have to be stuffed into one of two pigeon-holes: they either have to have pots of their own money like the Contessa— you don’t mind that at all, do you, as long as you have a hand in the spending of it—or they have to have good steady jobs like you. What you can’t stand is the whole new young adventurous floating population with either just a little money or no money at all, no jobs, nothing, just a desire maybe to see the world awhile. Then all the jealousy and envy in your mournful little unfulfilled life rises up inside you and you have to invent all sorts of dark sinister motives for everyone. Larry’s finances are shaky, so are Lila’s. O.K. So are dozens of others I know, it’s a perfectly normal occurrence in Europe today. But to you they have to become white-slavers and call-girls and God knows what. Pull yourself together, Larry’s a director and a damn good one. Lila’s a model and probably a damn lazy one. Some of the others are just bums. Who cares? Let them roam the earth if they want to. Nobody cares except you, who probably never had the guts to do the same thing yourself. It really makes me laugh. When I tried to explain you away to Larry once, I invented all sorts of cloak-and-dagger intrigue about you: rivalry at the Italian Embassy, burned papers, you about to be recalled, the works. But I certainly didn’t kid myself for a minute that I wasn’t making it all up.”

“Sally Jay, you are so naïve.”

“You’re the naïve one! You’ve got so entangled in your cloak you keep stabbing yourself with your own dagger! Next you’ll try to tell me about a gang of spies; big white-slave market operating around the world.”

“That is not impossible.”

“Don’t you
know
what you really are?” I asked incredulously. “Can’t you see it? You’re a vain, vain man. An insanely jealous man. And you’re getting to be an old one.”

“Very well,” said Teddy stiffly. “It is now impossible to continue this conversation.”

“Oh no it isn’t. There’s one more thing,” I went on. “Why don’t we put your little theory to the test? You get Lila to come
over here and tell me all about it. That shouldn’t be too hard, since you’re trying to save her from a fate worse than death, and Larrv’s a killer.”

I forced myself to look around the room. Finally I spotted them. They looked anything but sinister. As a matter of fact Lila was talking her head off to Larry—probably giving him the story of her ruined life with Teddy. Larry looked exhausted and trapped and extremely bored. He caught my eye and winked wanly over at me. It was hardly the reaction of a guilty man.

“Go on. Go over there,” I insisted to Teddy. “When you go around making accusations like that you’ve got to prove them.”

Teddy went over to them. I hid my face in my hands and waited. Finally he came back.

“You win,” he said. “Or rather he has won.”

“You don’t have much luck with your girls, do you?” I rose. “I mean that about the police. If I ever set eyes on you again I’m going to send for them.”

Back at our table all was quiet. In fact it was empty, except for Bax. Missy had gone off in a huff, dragging Mac with her. Bax and I drove back to the villa alone.

On the way home I told him what Teddy had said. He was very quiet.

“Well, say something,” I demanded irritably.

“I don’t know what to say, Sally Jay.”

I exploded. “You don’t
believe
that junk, do you? What’s got into everyone all of a sudden? All Larry ever does is to try to help people—in his own madly misguided way, granted—but he does try—and all he ever gets for it is a kick in the teeth.”

“Yes, maybe.”

“What do you mean, maybe?”

“I mean partly.…”

“Do you or do you not owe your break in Hollywood
entirely
to Larry?” Bax nodded. “And you owe our villa to him and all of us corning down here. And you owe
me
coming down here too. I assure you I wouldn’t have come if he hadn’t begged me to.”

Bax shook his head miserably.

“So what’s eating you?”

“Sally Jay, I can’t explain it. But you’re very different from what I imagined you’d be.”

“Sorry about that,” I said coldly.

“No, it’s just—I don’t know. No, I don’t know. Perhaps I’m not being fair.”

I stopped concentrating on Bax.

So we got back to the villa. And Christ, all hell is breaking loose around here now. Adissy sobbing downstairs in the living room on Mac’s shoulder, saying she won’t stay another minute in the same house with a man who’s allowed her to be insulted like that, and at the same time insisting that Mac stay on here with us to protect her from Larry, Bax pacing up and down in his room like a caged lion, me scribbling away trying to get worn out enough to drop off to sleep.… Boy, oh boy, wait till Larry comes home. What’s going to happen next?

“Make voyages. Attempt them. That’s all there is.”

—T
ENNESSEE
W
ILLIAMS
(
Camino Real
)

S
OME DAYS AFTERWARD—
or maybe it was only two or three— I can’t remember exactly any more—I got out of bed one morning and found myself all alone in the empty house. I put on my bathing suit and went down to the untidy kitchen and made myself some coffee. Then I went out on the terrace and looked at the sky. It was a morning full of clouds; the sun shining brightly one moment and hiding under pearly grayness the next. It felt doom-ridden from the very beginning, out there among the ruins—very fin de siècle, fin du monde, fin de line. Bugs were climbing all over the roses, the chaotic breezes seemed wild and unfriendly, and the grass had burned brown. It was hard to believe that it was the beginning of July, not the end of summer. I thought: is summer only a state of mind? Is it always only two months long from whenever you start it? My arms would get no browner; my skin had reached saturation point, and the sun only succeeded now in bleaching them lighter—grayer. I shivered. I might have been something washed up against the River Styx. Or maybe I was waiting to be ferried across. I put on a sweater and went down to the sea.

I was thinking hard about Larry. I hadn’t seen him since the night at the Spanish boîte, but I’d been thinking about him incessantly. After my final talk with Bax, my thoughts had grown more and more troubled and disturbed. It was very confusing to have to reinterpret all his past actions in the new light. I felt as
if I’d been wandering through life like one of those comic-strip characters, while right, left and center buckets of paint were falling off ladders, and cars were crashing into each other.

I very nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw Larry lying there almost at my feet on the sands. His eyes were closed. They had deep shadows under them, and the pallor of his skin, on which his freckles stood out as if painted and the faint scar running up his forehead had turned into a livid gash, contrasted weirdly with his carroty shock of hair. He looked like a frightened clown. When he breathed I could see how near the skin his rib-cage was. In spite of everything I could have wept with pity.