“Darling,” she murmured, “don’t leave mc.”
Of course, she was asleep. Of course, she was not speaking to me. Perhaps she was dreaming of her husband or a lover; but I wanted it to be me she was speaking to and I held her close, her head on my shoulder.
Her body suddenly gave a great bound as if her nerves had bunched themselves together like a coiled spring and snapped apart. Then she woke and pushed away from me.
She blinked at me, yawned and flopped back on her pillow. “Hello,” she said. “What time is it?”
I looked at my wrist watch. It was five thirty-five.
“Oh God!” she exclaimed. “Can’t you sleep?”
I again realized how hot and stifling it was in bed. “How many blankets have we got on?” I asked, counting them. There were five and a quilt. I must have been pretty drunk not to have noticed that last night.
“Do you want all these?” I asked her.
She yawned again. “Of course I do. I feel cold in bed.”
“I’ll say you do.” I slid out and began to strip the blankets back.
She sat up in alarm. “Don’t do that, Clive . . . you’re not to!”
“Don’t get excited,” I said. “You’ll get ‘em back.”
I folded the blankets so that I had only two over me. The rest I laid on her side. “How’s that?”
She curled down in the bed again. “Mmmmm,” she sighed. “I’ve got an awful head. Was I tight last night?”
“You ought to’ve been.”
“I think I was.” She stretched luxuriously. “Oh, I’m so tired. Do go to sleep, Clive.”
My mouth felt stale. I wished I could ring for Russell and have coffee. Obviously there was no service here.
She looked up. “Do you want coffee?”
I brightened. “Not a bad idea.”
“Well, put the kettle on. Marty’s left it all ready,” and she drew the blankets to her chin.
It was a long time since I had made coffee for myself, but I wanted it, so I went into the other room. It was sparsely furnished with only one easy chair. The small kitchen was just beyond. I put on the kettle and lit a cigarette.
“Where’s the bathroom?” I called.
“Upstairs on your right.”
I climbed the steep stairs. There were three doors leading off the landing at the top of the stairs. Cautiously I looked into all three rooms. Except for the bathroom, the other two rooms were unfurnished. Dust lay on the floor and obviously no one ever went into them.
I went into the bathroom, sponged my face and brushed my hair; then I wandered downstairs again and found the kettle was boiling. I made coffee. A tray was on the table in the sitting room containing cups, sugar and cream. Then I returned to the bedroom.
Eve was sitting up in bed, a cigarette between her lips. She looked at me sleepily and scratched her head.
“I bet I look awful,” she said.
“A little tousled, but oddly enough, it suits you.”
“Don’t lie, Clive.”
“One of these days you’ll get over your inferiority complex,” I said, pouring out the coffee. “If this is bad, don’t blame me.”
I gave her a cup and sat on the bed.
“I’m going to sleep after this,” she warned me. “So don’t start talking.”
“Okay,” I returned. The coffee was not bad and the cigarette began to taste less like brown paper.
She stared out of the window at the fading stars. “You’re not falling in love with me, are you?” she asked abruptly.
I nearly dropped my cup. “What on earth makes you ask that?” I said.
She looked at mc, pursed her mouth and looked away again. “Well, if you are, you’re wasting your time.”
Her voice was brutal in its cold, flat finality.
“Why don’t you admit it?” I said. “You’ve a hell of a hangover and you’re looking for someone to pick on. Finish your coffee and go to sleep.”
Her eyes darkened. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. There’s only one man in my life, Clive, and that’s Jack.”
“Just as it should be,” I said lightly and finished my coffee. “So he means a lot to you, does he?”
She put her coffee cup down impatiently on the bedside table. “Everything,” she said, “so don’t think you can mean anything to me.”
I found it difficult to control my rising irritation, but in her present sullen mood, so different from last night, I knew we would quarrel unless I humoured her.
“All right,” I said, taking off my dressing gown and sliding under the blankets. “I’ll remember that Jack means everything to you.”
“You’d better,” she snapped and turning her back on me, she curled further down in the bed.
I stared up at the ceiling, savagely angry. I was angry with her because she had seen through me. She had sensed that she now meant something to me. She did. I did not want to admit it, but, there it was. I found her exciting, mysterious and I wanted her for myself. I knew it was lunacy. Perhaps if she had encouraged me it might have been different; but her calculated indifference made me want her all the more. It went beyond sex. I wanted to break down the wall she had erected between us. I wanted to make her care for me.
I woke again when the sun streamed through the cream blinds. Eve was in my arms, her head on my shoulder and her mouth against my throat. She was sleeping peacefully and her body was limp and still.
I held her, feeling good. She was easy to hold, light and small and warm. I liked her breath against my throat and the smell of perfume in her hair. She slept like that for almost an hour and then she moved, opened her eyes, raised her head and looked at mc.
“Hello,” she said and smiled.
I touched her face with my fingers. “Your hair smells nice,” I said. “Did you sleep well?”
“Mmmmm.” She yawned and rested her head back on my shoulder. “Did you?”
“Yes . . . how’s the head?”
“All right. Are you hungry? Shall I get you something to eat?”
“I’ll get it.”
“You stay here.” She broke away from me and slid out of bed. In her blue nightdress, she looked slight and childish. She put on her dressing gown, looked in the mirror, grimaced and left me.
I went up to the bathroom, and after a leisurely shave, I returned to find her in bed. On the table by the bed was the tray containing fresh coffee and a plate of thinly cut bread and butter.
“You don’t want me to cook you anything, do you?” she asked as I stripped off my dressing gown and slid into bed beside her.
“No, thank you. Don’t tell me you can cook,” I said, reaching for her hand and turning it over in mine.
“Of course I can,” she returned. “Do you think I’m quite helpless?”
The palm of her hand was fleshless and hard and I could easily encircle her wrist in my thumb and forefinger. I examined the three sharply etched lines in her palm.
“You’re independent,” I said. “That’s the key to your character.”
She nodded. “I am independent.”
I released her wrist and she examined her palm herself. “What else?” she asked.
“You’re moody.”
She nodded again. “I have an awful temper. I go crazy when I’m really angry.”
“What makes you really angry?”
“Lots of things.” She dumped the plate of bread of butter on my chest.”
“Docs Jack make you angry?”
“More than anyone.” She sipped her coffee and stared blankly out of the window.
“Why?”
She pursed her lips and shrugged. “Oh, he’s jealous of me and I’m jealous of him.” She suddenly giggled. “We fight. Last time I went out to dinner with him, there was a woman he kept looking at. She was only a silly little blonde — she had a good figure though. I said he could go with her if he wanted to. He told me not to be a fool, but he didn’t stop looking. I got mad then.” Her eyes sparkled. “Do you know wha
t I did?”
“Tell me.”
“I grabbed the table cloth and I jerked everything onto the floor.” She put down her coffee cup and laughed. “Oh, Clive, I wish you’d been there to see it. The mess — the noise — and Jack’s face! Then I walked out and left him. I was still mad when I got home so I went into the sitting room and smashed everything that would smash. It was marvellous! You have no idea how marvellous it was. I went up to the mantel-piece and swept everything off it. The clock, Jack’s glass animals.” she pointed across to the chest of drawers, “These are the only ones that survived. I keep them here because he thinks they’re all smashed. And there were photographs and — well you know — everything.” She lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. “Of course he was furious when he came back. I’d locked myself in the bedroom but he kicked the door down. I thought he was going to kill me but he just packed his bag and walked out without even looking at me.”
“And you haven’t seen him since?”
“Oh, he knows me.” She tapped ash into her empty coffee cup .”He knows what I’m like. I’m always getting into tempers. I’ve no time for anyone who hasn’t a temper . . . have you?”
“I like a peaceful life.”
She shook her head. “When Jack gets wild . . .” she threw up her hands and laughed.
I found she was quite willing to talk about her husband. In fact, she seemed anxious and pleased to have someone who would listen. By asking her a few leading questions and by letting her talk, I pieced together much of her background.
I knew by now, that she was a skilful liar, but some of the things she told me I felt must be true.
She had been married for ten years. Before her marriage I gathered she had been pretty wild. She met Jack at a party and they took one look at each other and that was enough. It must have been one of those rare violent physical clashes that left no doubt that they were meant for each other. They were married almost immediately.
At that time, she had money of her own. She did not say how much she had, but she must have been fairly well off. Jack was a mining engineer whose work took him to many distant countries — places where a woman could not go. The first four years of their married life must have been dull and lonely for a woman like Eve. She was, of course, neurotic and highly strung. She had extravagant tastes and Jack was not making big money. That did not matter at the time because she kept her independence and refused to accept any of his money. He knew she was comfortably off and the arrangement suited him. But Eve was a gambler. She admitted that both Jack and she were born gamblers. She played the races while he concentrated on poker for big stakes. Because he was an expert player he made a little more than he lost.
While he was in West Africa — this would be some six years ago — she got in with a fast set and she began to drink heavily and to plunge recklessly on horses. She had continued bad luck, but it did not stop her. Always at the back of her mind, she believed that she could recoup her losses. Then one morning, she discovered that she had worked through every nickel of her capital and was high and dry. She knew Jack would be furious with her, so she did not tell him. She was popular with men and it only needed this financial pressure to make her what she was now.
She had been living on men for the past six years. The unsuspecting Jack still thought that she had her comfortable income and she kept up the illusion.
“I suppose some day he’ll find out . . . then I don’t know what’ll happen,” she concluded with a fatalistic shrug of her shoulders.
“Why don’t you give it up?” I asked, lighting my tenth cigarette.
“I must have money . . . and besides what shall I do with myself all day? It’s lonely enough as it is.”
“Lonely? Are you lonely?”
“I have no one . . . except Marty. She goes about seven o’clock and I’m here by myself until she comes the following morning.”
“But you have friends . . . surely?”
“I’ve no one,” she repeated flatly; “and I don’t want anyone.”
“Not even now that you know me?”
She twisted round in bed so she could look at me. “I wonder just what your game is,” she said. “You’re up to something. If you’re not in love with me . . . then what is it?”
“I’ve told you. I like you. You interest me and I want to be your friend.”
“No man’s my friend,” she said.
I stubbed out my cigarette and slid my arm round her, pulling her close to me. “Don’t be so suspicious,” I said. “Everyone needs a friend some time or other. I might be able to help you.”
She relaxed against me. “How? I don’t need any help. The only trouble I might have is from the police. I have a judge who would take care of that.”
She was right of course, apart from money there was nothing I could really do for her.
“You might be ill . . .” I began, but she just laughed at me.
“I’ve never been ill and if I was no one would care. That’s a time when men always leave a woman. She’s no use to them when she’s ill.”
“You’re a hell of a cynic, aren’t you?”
“So would you be if you’d lived my life.”
I rested my face against her hair. “Do you like me, Eve?”
“You’re all right,” she returned indifferently; “and don’t fish, Clive.”
I laughed. “Where shall we lunch?”
“Anywhere . . . I don’t mind.”
“Shall we take a movie in tonight?”
“All right.”
“That’s fixed then.” I looked at the clock on the mantelshelf. It was after twelve. “You know I could do with a drink.”
“And I must have a bath.” She slid away from me and got out of bed. “Make the bed, Clive. That’s one thing I can never do.”
“All right,” I said, watching her fuss before the mirror.
I got up and made the bed. Then I went into the other room and telephoned the Barbecue Restaurant and reserved a sofa table against the wall.
Eve had come down by then.
“The water’s running,” she called. “What shall I wear?”
“Oh, a dress, I think,” I said. “Although I liked that costume last night.”
“Costumes suit me better than a dress.” She came to the door as I was going upstairs. She put her hands on her flat chest. “They suit my figure,” she added and giggled.
“All right,” I returned, “you please yourself.”
The rest of the day passed too quickly for me. I seemed to have gained her complete confidence and she talked about her experiences with men and her husband was never far from her conversation. We enjoyed ourselves. But I had a feeling that I could only get so far. There was still this invisible wall which every now and then I came up against. She would not tell me how much she earned. When I asked her if she saved money, she said, “Every Monday I go to the bank and deposit one half of what I’ve made. I never touch that.”
This came out so glibly that I did not believe her. I knew how careless and extravagant this kind of woman always is. I was willing to bet that she had not saved a nickel, although of course, I could not give her the lie.
I tried to persuade her to take out an endowment policy. “It’ll be something when you are old and when you’ll be glad of the money,” I explained.
But she wasn’t interested. I doubt if she even listened. “I can’t be bothered,” she said. “I’m saving money . . . besides what business is it of yours?”
One thing she said, pleased me. It was after we had seen Bogart’s latest picture and we were driving back to Laurel Canyon Drive. We had both been drinking heavily and she had slipped low down in the cushioned seat of the car with her head back and her eyes closed. “Marty said I’d be bored with you,” she said. “She thought I was crazy to spend a whole weekend with you. She’ll be surprised when she hears I didn’t throw you out.”
I put my hand over hers. “Would you have thrown me out?”
“I would h
ave if you bored me.”
“So you’ve enjoyed the week-end?”
“Mmmmm . . . very much.”
Well, that was something.
We lay in the dark and talked far into the night. I do not think she had talked with such complete freedom to anyone for a long time. It was as if she had opened the gates of a dam and words came from her at first haltingly and then in an uninterrupted flow. I cannot remember everything she said. Although most of it was about Jack. Their life seemed to be made up of endless quarrels and wildly exciting reunions. From what she told me, his relations with her were based on a kind of brutal affection which appealed to her odd, complexed nature. The fact that he occasionally beat her made no difference so long as he was faithful to her. Of this, she was sure. She told me how one evening they had come home from a party and she had slipped and fallen in the street. She had turned her ankle which immediately swelled up. Jack had laughed at her and had left her sitting on the curb. He was tired and he wanted his bed. When she did finally limp home, she found him asleep and the following morning, he drove her out of bed, when she could hardly walk, to bring him coffee. She seemed to admire him the more for this kind of treatment.
This defeated me. It was so outside my normal relations with women that I could not understand it.
“Are you telling me that you don’t like considerate treatment?” I asked her.
I felt her shoulders lift. “I hate weakness, Clive. Jack’s strong. He knows what he wants and nothing will stop him.”
“Well, if you like to be treated like that . . .” I gave up.
When she talked about the men who came to see her, she did not mention names. I admired her for her discretion. At least, it meant that she would not talk about me.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I REACHED my apartment around noon. As I entered the elevator the boy gave me one of those it’s-six-months-to-Christmas smiles. “Good morning, Mr. Thurston.”
“Morning,” I said and experienced the inevitable lift in my stomach as the elevator raced between floors.
“Did you see about the two guys who killed themselves last night outside Manola’s?” The elevator boy asked as I left the cage.
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