The Loo Sanction (4 page)

He smiled. “All right. How would you like to celebrate?”

“I think dinner might be a good idea for starts. I haven't eaten since morning.”

“You're broke?”

“Stoney.”

“The only thing open this time of night would be one of the more fashionable restaurants.” He glanced involuntarily at her clothes.

“Don't worry. I shan't embarrass you. I'll just clean up and change before we go.”

“You have your clothes here?”

She nodded her head toward two suitcases standing against the wall. “My rent came due this morning, you see. And the landlady never cared for the stink of turps in the halls anyway.” She began scrubbing the paint from her hands with a cloth dipped in turpentine.

“You intended to sleep here?”

“Just for the night. The old geezer wouldn't mind. Other painters have done it from time to time. I used the last of my money to send an SOS telegram to relatives in Ireland. They'll be sending something down in the morning, I suspect. You can turn your back if the female nude disturbs you—not that I'll be all that nude.”

“No, no. Go ahead. I've passed some of my happiest moments in the presence of the nude figure.”

She wriggled out of her close-fitting jeans and kicked them up into her hands. “Of course, as a nude, I wouldn't have been much to Rubens's taste. I'm quite the opposite of ample, as you can see. In fact, I'm damned near two-dimensional.”

“They're two of my favorite dimensions.”

She was just pulling her jumper over her head, and she stopped in mid-motion, looking out through the head opening. “You've a glib and shallow way of talking. I suppose the girls find that dishy.”

“But you do not.”

“No, not especially. But I don't hold it against you, for I suppose it's just a habit. Will this do, do you think?” She drew up from the open suitcase a long green paisley gown that set off the cupric tones of her hair.

“That will do perfectly.”

She tossed it on over her head, then patted down her short, fine hair. “I'm ready.”

         

He gave her her choice of restaurants, and she selected an expensive French one near Regent's Park on the basis that she had never had the money to go there and it was fun to be both beggar and chooser. Nothing about the meal was right. The butter in the scampi meunière tasted of char, the salade niçoise was more acid than bracing, and the only wine available at temperature was a Pouilly-Fuissé, that atonic white that occupies so large a sector of British taste. But Jonathan enjoyed the evening immensely. She was a charmer, this one, and the quality of the food did not matter, save as another subject for laughter. The lilt and color of her accent was contagious, and he had to prevent himself from slipping into an imitation of it.

She ate with healthy appetite, both her portions and his, while he watched her with pleasure. Her face intrigued him. The mouth was too wide. The jawline was too square. The nose undistinguished. The amber hair so fine that it seemed constantly stirred by unfelt breezes. It was a boyish face with the mischievous flexibility of a street gamine. Her most arresting feature was her eyes, bottle green and too large for the face, and thick lashes like sable brushes. Their special quality came from the rapid eddies of expression of which they were capable. Laughter could squeeze them from below; another moment they would flatten to a look of vulnerable surprise; then instantly they were narrow with incredulity; then intense and shining with intelligence; but at rest, they were nothing special. In fact, no single element of her face was remarkable, but the total he found fascinating.

“Do you find me pretty?” she asked, glancing up and finding his eyes on her.

“Not pretty.”

“I know what you mean. But it's a good old face. I enjoy doing self-portraits. But I have to suppress this mad desire I have to add to my measuring thumb. Your face is not so bad, you know.”

“I'm glad.”

She turned to her salad. “Yes, it's an interesting face. Bony and craggy and all that. But the eyes are a bother.”

“Oh?”

“Are you sure you're not hungry?”

“Positive.”

“Actually, they're smashing. But they're not very comfortable eyes.” She glanced up and looked at them professionally. “It's difficult to say if they're green or gray. And even though you smile and laugh and all that, they never change. You know what I mean?”

“No.” Of course he knew, but he liked having her talk about him.

“Well, most people's eyes seem to be connected to their thoughts. Windows to the soul and all. But not yours. You can't read a thing by looking into them.”

“And that's bad?”

“No. Just uncomfortable. If you're not going to eat that salad, I'll just keep it from going to waste.”

Over coffee, over cognac, over more coffee, they talked without design.

         

“Do you know what I've always wished?”

“No. What?”

“I've always wished I were a tall, terribly handsome black woman. With long legs and a chilling, disdainful sideways glance.”

He laughed. “Why have you wished that?”

“Oh, I don't know, really. But think of the clothes I could get away with wearing!”

         

“. . . oh, it was a typical middle-class Irish childhood, I suspect. Cooed over and spoiled as a baby; ignored as a child. Taught how to pass tests and how to stand with good posture. My father was a rabid Irish nationalist, but like most he had suspicions of inferiority. He sent me off to university in London—to get a
really good
education. And they were delighted when I came back with an English accent. I hated school as a girl. Sports and gymnastics particularly. I remember that we had a very, very modern physical culture teacher. A great bony woman, she was, with a prissy voice and a faint moustache. She tried to introduce the girls to the joys of eurythmics. You should have seen us! A gaggle of awkward girls—some with stick legs and knobby knees, others placid and fat—all trying to follow instructions “to writhe with an inner passion and reach up expressively for the Sun God and let him penetrate your body.” We'd giggle about inner passions and penetrations, and the teacher would call us shallow, silly girls and dirty-minded. Then she'd writhe for us to show how it should be done. And we'd giggle some more. Cigarette?”

“I don't smoke.”

         

She didn't seem to realize that she had stopped her story midway and had turned her thoughts inward.

He allowed the silence to run its course, and when she focused again on him with a slight start, he said, “So you won't be going back to Ireland?”

She butted her cigarette out deliberately. “No. Not ever.” She lit another and stared at the gold lighter as though she were seeing it for the first time. “I should never have gone to the North. But I did and . . . too much happened there. Too much hatred. And death.” She sighed and shook her head briskly. “No. I'll never go back to Ireland.”

         

“Say, do you like Sterne?” she said.

“Ah . . . funny you should mention him.”

“Why?”

“I haven't the slightest idea who you're talking about.”

“Sterne,” she said, “the writer.”

“Oh. That Sterne.”

“I've always had this deep intuition that I would get on well with any man who had a fondness for Sterne, Trollope, and Galsworthy.”

“Has it worked out like that?”

“I don't know. I've never met anyone who liked Sterne.”

“More coffee?”

“Please.”

         

“. . . and you took up painting?”

“Oh, little by little. Not with much courage at first. Then I took the plunge and decided I would do nothing but paint until my money ran out. The family was dead against it, especially as they had wasted so much money sending me over here to school. I suppose they would have been happier if I had gone into prostitution. At least they would have understood the profit motive. Well, I painted and painted, and nobody at all noticed. Then I ran out of money and sold everything I had of any value. But the first thing I knew, I was stoney broke and didn't even have rent money.”

“And that was that.”

“And that was that.” She looked up and smiled. “And here I am.”

         

“I have a confession to make,” he said seriously.

“You're a typhoid carrier?”

“No.”

“You're designed to self-destruct in seven minutes?”

“No.”

“You're a boy.”

“No. You'll never guess.”

“In which case, I give up.”

“I have never liked the films of Eisenstein. They bore me to screaming.”

“That is serious. What do you do for espresso talk?”

“Oh, I'm not excusing myself. I recognize it to be a great flaw in my character.”

         

“. . . oh, I love to drive! Fast, at night, in back lanes, with the lights off. Don't you?”

“No.”

“Most men do, I think. British men especially. They use fast cars sexually, if you know what I mean.”

“Like Italians.”

“I suppose.”

“Maybe that's why both countries produce so many competent grand prix drivers. They get practice on public roads.”

“But you don't like to drive fast?”

“I don't need it.”

She smiled. “Good.” The vowel was drawn out and had an Irish curl.

         

“. . . philosophy of life?” he asked, smiling to himself at the idea. “No, I've never had one. When I was a kid, we were too poor to afford them, and later on they had gone out of fashion.”

“No, now, don't send me up. I know the words sound pompous, but everyone has some kind of philosophy of life—some way of sorting out the good things from the bad . . . or the potentially dangerous.”

“Perhaps. The closest I've come to that is my rigid adherence to the principle of leave-a-little.”

“Leave a little what?”

“Leave-a-little everything. Leave a party before it becomes dull. Leave a meal before you're cloyed. Leave a city before you feel that you know it.”

“And I suppose that includes human relationships?”

“Most especially human relationships. Get out while they're still on the upswing. Leave before they become predictable or, what is worse,
meaningful
. Be willing to lose a few events to protect the memory.”

“I think that's a terrible philosophy.”

“I'm sorry. It's the only one I've got.”

“It's a coward's philosophy.”

“It's a survivor's philosophy. Shall we have the cheese board?”

         

He half stood in greeting as she returned to the table. “A last brandy?” he asked.

“Yes, please.” She was pensive for a second. “You know, it just now occurred to me that one might make a useful barometer of national traits by studying national toilet tissues.”

“Toilet tissues?”

“Yes. Has that ever occurred to you?”

“Ah . . . no. Never.”

“Well, for instance I was just noticing that some English papers are medicated. You'd never find that in Ireland.”

“The English are a careful race.”

“I suppose. But I've heard that American papers are soft and scented and are advertised on telly by being caressed and squeezed—right along with adverts for suppository preparations and foods that are finger-licking good. That says something about decadence and soft living in a nation with affluence beyond its inner resources, doesn't it?”

“What do you make of the waxed paper the French are devoted to?”

“I don't know. More interest in speed and flourish than efficiency?”

“And the crisp Italian papers with the tensile strength of a communion wafer?”

She shrugged. It was obvious that one could make something of that too, but she was tired of the game.

         

She took his arm as they walked along the wet street to a corner more likely to produce taxis.

“I'll drop you off at Mac's. It's more or less on my way.”

“Where
do
you live?”

“Right here.” They were indeed passing the entrance to the hotel in which he had a penthouse apartment.

“But you said—”

“I thought I'd give you a way out.”

She walked along in silence for a while, then she squeezed his arm. “That was a nice gesture. Truly gentle.”

“I'm like that,” he said, and laughed.

“But it
is
a bit odd that you just happen to live two doors from the restaurant.”

“Now wait a minute, madam.
You
picked the restaurant.”

She frowned. “That's true, isn't it. Still, it's a troubling coincidence.”

He stopped and placed his hands on her shoulders, searching her face with mock sincerity. “Could it be . . . fate?”

“I think it's more likely a coincidence.”

He agreed and they started off again, but back toward the hotel.

         

The phone double-buzzed several times before an angry voice answered. “Yes? Yes?”

“Good evening, sir.”

“Good Lord! Do you know what time it is?”

“Yes, sir. Sorry. I just thought you'd like to know that they just went into his hotel on Baker Street.”

“Is there any trouble? Is everything prepared?”

“No trouble, sir.”

“Then why are you calling?”

“Well, I just thought you would want to be kept in the picture. They entered the hotel at exactly . . . oh, my. I must get this watch seen to.”

There was a silence on the other end of the line.

Then, “Good night, Yank.”