by Mavis Cheek
The Celtic crosses were polystyrene sprayed with grey paint and were very cosy, especially after Rohanne's long wait. The driver had pulled a tarpaulin cover over her and she lay back, bumping against the squeaking totems, looking up at the stars. The wind howled, the trees swayed and it seemed that the very elements were angry and urging her onwards, but the truck just crawled along. Without her Janice would be bullied, hammered, squeezed into shape. She would be unable to defend herself against the might and the wrath of the publisher denied. Rohanne must step in, put up that shield of faith, uphold Janice Gentle and her book, protect that synthesis she had helped to create. 'Faster!' she cried, to the swirling universe above, 'faster...'
*
Janice Gentle stood in the moonlight before the door of the inn and stared at its peeling paintwork, enraptured. Behind her the trees were whipped to a metallic fury, and she could hear, far off, the sea breaking and crashing in its hunger to be fed. Janice recognized that wild water's need in herself, but, despite its thrall, she was sure that she really could hear Dermot Poll singing. The door creaked and swung to and fro a little, its old hinges resisting the urge of the elements to thrust itself wide, and, as it moved, it released and recaptured an angle of reddish light that spoke of warmth and the hopeful pulse of love. Her heart beat steadily. She had always known this moment would come and she knew she was not dreaming, but awake and ready. She took the rubber band from her hair and shook it about her face, then she removed
her glasses and smoothed away the rain speckles on her skin. Thus prepared, and feeling suddenly beautiful, Janice Gentle pushed at the door and went in.
Chapter Twenty-seven
E
RICA von Hyatt emptied her glass. Dermot Poll was still singing as he refilled it for her. It was strong stuff. It needed to be strong stuff. Here he came again, thrusting his face at her, all stubbly jowls and bloodshot eyes. If ever there was a lesson in the evils of drink, here it was. It was no good. She could not respond. Not even to convince Gretchen O'Dowd that she was not a princess after all and no better than she ought to be. She sighed and drank deeply. Gretchen O'Dowd was honourable and probably would follow her to the ends of the bloody earth, exactly as she threatened . . .
Here he was again. Hand on chest, wet lips wobbling as he sang only to her. He placed something on the bar and gestured with his hands that she should take it. She looked. It was a heart-shaped cake.
‘I’ll look into your eyes and hold your hand . . .'He picked up her hand. 'Be mine, Valentine,' he sang.
Deirdre looked up and, seeing the cake, shrieked with rage. 'That's my present from Declan. Came in the post today. Oh you pig of a man. I'll give you Valentine . . .'
Dermot Poll smiled at Erica. He reached out his arms and enfolded her. He placed his lips to her hair and swayed as he sang, his voice rising still. And then he bent to kiss her, whispering, 'There now, little queen, come along, ah, come along, for I used to be irresistible to women . . .'
Several things then happened, all at the same time, as occasionally several things will. Gretchen, moving like a rugby ace, ran the length of the bar and delivered a stout blow to Dermot Poll's already strawberry-like nose, which brought about the release of Erica's hand quite nicely but, alas, did nothing for the pretty little cake into which Dermot immediately slumped.
'Thanks,' said Erica. 'Hic!'
'He had that coming to him,' said Deirdre peaceably. She trailed a ball of wool behind her, curving, stylized like a line of blood upon the floor, and drew near to peep at her husband. 'Is he dead now?' she said wonderingly.
'No, I am not dead,' said a voice much muffled by the bar top and the desecrated sponge.
A door creaked shut behind them.
'Oh, why has he stopped singing?' said the newcomer's voice.
Half hidden by the women, he of the copious nosebleed looked up. 'Madam,' he slurred, eyes glazed, lips trembling, 'I should have thought it was obvious.'
Deirdre automatically took the burgundy sock and pushed it on to his weeping nostrils. It was a good colour for it. She then remembered that she could not stand the sight of blood and slumped to her knees in a faint. Dermot Poll, seeing his wife take the easy way out as usual, chose to follow her and slid, as easily and naturally as a cut string, out of sight behind the bar. Taking the remnants of the cake with him.
Gretchen blew on her knuckles and blushed, pushing them out of sight behind her back. 'Janice!' she said brightly. 'You are here! We have found him for you. Here he is on the bar.' She gestured triumphantly, though not without embarrassment, to what had been Dermot Poll's resting-place.
Janice peered round Gretchen O'Dowd's square form and stared at the counter. It held nothing but a half-finished sock of burgundy-coloured wool and a little blood. Janice put her fingers to her mouth. For one extraordinary moment, for one very extraordinary moment, she wondered if Dermot Poll had been turned into a sock. And, accordingly, was speechless.
Erica, finding the silence oppressive, and feeling something was required, said, 'I love your coat. You should wear bright colours more often.' Whereupon Janice, still staring at the sock, burst into tears of vexation.
Deirdre groaned from the floor.
'Where is he?' whispered Janice, rubbing at her eyes. It was him. She would have known his voice in a thousand. 'Is this some kind of joke?'
Erica shook her head and slid uncertainly from her bar stool. She pushed Gretchen towards Deirdre. 'That's where you belong,' she said firmly. Then she took Janice by the hand and led her around the corner of the bar and said wryly. 'And this is where you belong. There he is. Dreamboat.'
Janice knelt down behind the bar and stared. She felt for some comfort within her pockets, but they were bare. It had been a long, tiring taxi journey. Oh for something to suck.
'Ecce homo,' she whispered, touching the bloodied nose, picking away pieces of cake from his ears. 'Ecce Homo?'
But this was not Dermot Poll at all. Only the voice she had heard was his, only the dream of him. The rest - she removed a lump of icing from his hair - the rest was - She recoiled. Had she not passed this way before, all those years ago?
She knelt there, staring, speaking low. '"Mulier est hominis confusio.'" And shook her head regretful, sad but firm, ‘That Dermot Poll had turned out such a worm.
'... And curses on us both,
And first on me if I were such a dunce
As let you fool me oftener than once.
Never again, for all your flattering lies,
You'll coax a song to make me blink my eyes;
And as for those who blink when they should look,
God blot them from his everlasting Book!'
'Quoting poetry again,' Erica announced. The hiccoughs had ceased and there was a certain dignity in her bearing. 'Frankly,' she said, 'if this is normal life, I'd rather have the street.' She looked swimmily at Gretchen O'Dowd. 'I am going out. I am going out solo. And wherever I am going, it is my business, and mine alone.' She tossed her head. 'Right?'
'Not quite’ boomed a thunderous voice.
Deirdre jumped, finally jerked back into full consciousness.
Gretchen held her solicitously. 'Who said that?' asked Deirdre, trying to swivel her head and see.
'Don't move,' said Gretchen O'Dowd.
'But it's after hours,' said Deirdre, sitting up. She stared at the large man in the camel coat.
He was extremely angry.
So was she, what with one thing or another.
'Who are you, and why are you here at this ungodly hour?* she said, pulling her skirt back down over her substantial knees, which he seemed to be eyeing despite his high emotion.
'Morgan P. Pfeiffer,' said Morgan P. Pfeiffer, 'and I have a few things to say to Janice Gentle.'
He advanced towards Erica von Hyatt, bringing with him the strange, engulfing odour of sweetness. Rohanne Bulbecker's description of her was exact. Blonde, blue-eyed, unappetizingly slender. He pointed at her accusingly. 'Janice Gentle,' he
said. 'Your novel will not do. I asked for romance and you gave me dirt. You have taken my money under false pretences. You must rewrite it or face the consequences.'
'I am not -' began Erica von Hyatt, but Morgan Pfeiffer held up his hand to silence her.
'You most definitely are, Miss Gentle . . .'
'I am not -' began Erica even more indignantly, thinking, Look where it got me last time.
'Very well.' Morgan Pfeiffer was beyond good sense, beyond reason. 'If you continue to refuse, I shall break you. You will never work again . . .'
'I don't much now,' said Erica, and hiccoughed a smile.
He removed the large manuscript from his inner pocket and began flicking through it. 'There are acceptable targets of normality, Miss Gentle, there are concepts of the understood. When I said I wanted sex, I did not mean this kind of sex. I meant acceptable sex. As you very well knew. ‘I will not tolerate this’ He banged the manuscript against his hand and a little puff of white vanilla-scented powder flew out. 'Decent sex is what I have come here for and that is what I want! A decent, straightforward, love story with sex - sensitively handled. Not this deviant trash.../'
He advanced towards Erica. He smiled. Suddenly he changed to wheedling. 'For your readers, Miss Gentle. For your art. Please?'
Erica stared, unable to make head or tail of it. 'Will you clean it up? Your public awaits . . .' Gretchen and Deirdre looked at Erica with wonderment. Erica shrugged.
From the damaged nose of a supine man came the rasping drone of a snore. Nothing else could be heard in the room. And then . ..
'Just a minute!' said a voice from the other side of the bar. 'Just a bloody minute!' And Janice Gentle, bathed in the only bright light left burning, stepped out, radiant, wrathful, as immense as an avenging goddess. The hand she extended was plump and white, the finger she pointed was rounded and dimpled, the legs on which she stood were as solid and firm and curvaceous as those marbled calves of antiquity. Above the short hem lay treasures of roundness: a belly full and ripe; the push of breast swellings that held no quarter with angles; a full chin; a veritable orb, like a marshmallow, for a face; and eyes that flashed from the depths of generous sockets. Athena, Demeter and all the warring, fructifying sisters of the world burned forth out of her.
Morgan Pfeiffer's spine tingled. His heart pumped painfully. Such a vision, even here in the land of them.
Deirdre and Gretchen were quite still. Erica was almost still, save for the gentlest of swayings as if she were caressed by a breeze.
Janice Gentle looked magnificent. 'Who are you?' said Morgan Pfeiffer.
The vision was solid. It moved. It put down the finger and advanced its whole form towards him. 'I am Janice Gentle,' it said. 'I wrote that book. And I will not change one word of it.'
Samson in his chains was no more helpless than Morgan Pfeiffer. He looked from Erica von Hyatt and back to Janice
Gentle. Something by way of explanation was required. 'I thought this person was you,' he said cautiously. 'They all do at first,' offered Erica kindly.
Janice continued to advance but was suddenly stilled by a long snore that turned into a groan of agony. It came from behind the bar. The terrible and monstrous sight of Dermot Poll rose above the wet-ringed woodwork. He looked about him and blinked. He groaned again. Janice turned.
'Dermot Poll,' she whispered, staring at him, attempting again to find in the bloodhound eyes and folds of chin flesh the beautiful young man of the past. 'Dermot Poll,' she said louder, 'I have come looking for you. Do you remember me? ... St Valentine's Eve, a wet street . . . "O Lady of Colours" and "a picture made of jewels"?'
Dermot Poll stared. There was some dim remembrance -something in the shape, something in the coloured coat, something of red satin hearts and rain in the air. Declan asleep at a breast, a bus and the boot of a policeman. He put his hand to his nose, which felt like hell. And his head ached. Was it not from her that all his ills befell?
'Perhaps,' he said cautiously. 'But you've aged very badly.' Humour, savage and vengeful, welled up. He laughed through troubled teeth. He glanced at his wife. She was staring at him with that look which said the world and all its troubles, including hers, were his fault. She, his wife, had also aged badly. He looked back at the colourful woman. He sniggered through his hurt nose. By golly, so she had. He dimly remembered her mysterious young face in lamplight, aglow with admiration. There was little of that commodity about her now. He stared. The savage and vengeful humour welled up . ..
'Do you remember me?' repeated Janice, rather afraid.
. . . and overflowed. 'I do,' he said. 'And by God, I could wish you had stayed at home. For you've turned to fat and are amazingly ugly.' He looked pointedly from her to his wife and back again. 'And I've no time for women who let themselves go . . .'
Straight away he knew that it had not been a sensible thing to
say. The large camel-haired shape lunged towards him. The moustachioed woman lunged towards him. He knew what was about to come, it would be his tender nose again, and he ducked. Swiftly he ran the length of the bar, lifted up the counter flap, and scooted out into the night. It was wild and cold and wet. Behind him he could hear shouts, commands, an order for him to return and make apology to the ladies he had insulted. Well, he thought, bugger to that, and he ran off over the fields and down to the hungering sea. A little salt water to his stinging face, a moistening of the already drying blood, and he'd be right as a rat. He scudded over the dunes, pounded towards the water's edge, and thrust his face at the flying foam. The wind dragged him towards the pull of the breaking waves. He was in further than he had thought to be - ah, but the cold sea spray felt good. He closed his eyes. Neptune roared the hunger of his belly across the boiling empdness, and with one great motion swept him into his pot, washed clean of the world.
'He'll be back,' said Deirdre, drawing strength from his departure and going through to the kitchen. 'I'll be wetting some tea if anybody wants it.'
'God,' said Erica von Hyatt, 'I'd give anything for a cup right now. But first I'm going out for some air.'
'I'll go with you,' said Gretchen O'Dowd.
Erica smiled at her, quite kindly. 'Yes,' she said. 'Come and walk along the beach with me a little. It will be for the last time.'
'Oh?' said Gretchen, looking from Erica to the swinging kitchen door and back again.
'I need to be free,' said Erica. 'And you'll like being here.'
Chapter Twenty-eight
THEY were alone. Morgan P. Pfeiffer stared at Janice Gentle, who in turn stared at him. 'Thank you,' she said, 'for being so gallant.' 'Any man would have done the same,' said Morgan Pfeiffer. There was an uneasy silence.
'So,' said Morgan Pfeiffer eventually, you are Janice Gentle?' 'I am she.'
'And you wrote this . . . er . .. book?'
'I did.' She smiled. Suddenly she felt as old as the universe itself. She smiled again. 'And you are Morgan Pfeiffer, the man who is going to publish it.'
'I am?'
'Why, yes.' She blinked her pale eyes, round and distant in their unfocused mistiness. 'Of course. It is very simple. You wanted me to write you a book. And I have done.' She pointed with her plump finger again, a finger that looked infinitely suckable to Morgan Pfeiffer. He could almost imagine its cushiony flesh pressing on his tongue. 'Ecce liber: she said, 'as Christine de Pisan told her queen some six hundred or so years before, and on this very saint's night, too. Behold my book. With which I honour you. Fidem servare, Mr Pfeiffer, fidem servare :
He thought about the marketing department. He thought about the Moral Majority. He felt he had commissioned a swimming-pool and been given the unbiddable sea.
'You were magnificent,' he said. He moved a little closer. He touched her hand, lightly and fleetingly, to be sure she was flesh. She was flesh. 'Miss Gentle?'
'Mr Pfeiffer?'
'I don't suppose . . .' - he held up his forefinger and thumb to
indicate a tiny mote - 'I don't suppose you could
see your way to changing a fraction of it?'
'Not one whit, sir,' she said, and shook her head. Her full, white neck shivered as she did so. 'Mr Pfeiffer ...' she said, sniffing the air, drawing even nearer. She was sure, she was positive, that she could smell chocolate and Turkish delight - with perhaps, just perhaps, an underscent of jelly babies. 'Do you happen to have anything of a sweet nature upon you?'
And he, with the delight of one who has waited too long, withdrew from his pocket a handful of sugared almonds. In another pocket he had a heart-shaped box of chocolates and jelly babies, but he would save those for later.
'Oh,' said Janice Gentle lasciviously. 'Oh oh oh.'
He held them out, then withdrew them slightly. 'Not even one very small fraction of it?'
'Oh no,' said Janice. 'Not one particle.' She took a sugared almond, placed it on her tongue, smiled up at him with pleasure.
Morgan Pfeiffer knew that he was sunk.
Above them someone gave a satisfied sigh. In the firmament, Christine de Pisan relaxed back into her couch of clouds. Never underestimate, she wrote, the value of both the strength and the weakness of women. Here was her sister scrivener, susceptible to sweetmeats, rock-like in conviction, ready to be loved. The Perfect Triumvirate, the Golden Ideal. Well - she yawned, feeling pleased - she had never really doubted the outcome. So now she could go back to her real task in hand, which was, as always, to defend women against defilement of their essential qualities, which, sad to say, still seemed to occur . .. She had learned a new phrase in her heaven that day, from a new arrival, a Ms Sylvia Perth. 'Sleeping with the enemy,' this woman had said and had got very hot under the stomacher (or whatever they called those garments nowadays) about it. Christine had listened, as one should, and then used one of the words she had come to learn and love just recently. 'Bullshit,' she said.
The woman, who had expected her companion to say, at the very worst, 'Non Blastange!' was surprised into silence.
