The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress

by Beryl Bainbridge

  After that he’d got a job in a Pasadena bookstore specialis­ ing in occult subjects, which had led to him acquiring hypno-programming skills and treating shell-shocked veterans of the Korean War. Now he was on the board of the American Insti­tute of Hypnosis. It was an important position.

  He was still involved in medical practice, instructing others. Hypnosis required concentration, self-belief. The guy he was waiting for could be put under almost instantly. ‘Tell Sirhan to do something, no matter what,’ he said, ‘and he’ll do it.’

  ‘Blimey,’ said Rose.

  ‘I bet,’ he confided, leaning close and breathing into her face, ‘I could hypnotise everyone in this place in less than five minutes.’

  Gazing into his bloodshot eyes she was tempted to tell him to go ahead, but at that moment the man he was expecting arrived. It was yellow sweater, only he was wearing a black leather jacket.

  Although he neither looked at Rose nor addressed her directly, she knew he recognised her. He was, she reasoned, immensely shy of women on account of being from Arabia. Arabic men were taught that women were inferior and only important on account of sex, and being religious they had to avoid contamination. Not that he talked much to Fedler either, merely nodded a lot as the old man rambled on about the con­ dition of the mare and what it was worth. When Fedler left to go to the toilet, yellow sweater began drumming his fingers on the table.

  ‘It was kind of you to give me a cigarette the other day,’ Rose said, hoping he’d offer her another one. He didn’t, nor did he reply, just went on tapping in that agitated way he had. She smiled at him, but he was leaning back in his chair, star­ ing up at the ceiling. The silence continued; she fidgeted, searching for something to say. Suddenly he sat up straight, moistened his lips and asked, ‘You have been here before?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not here I haven’t.’

  ‘You have much money?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Hardly any.’

  ‘You are content with your holiday?’

  ‘It’s not a holiday,’ she corrected. ‘I’m searching for some­ one.’

  ‘They owe you money?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘he’s not like that.’

  ‘They have seen much of you?’ he persisted.

  She said, ‘Not for years, but it doesn’t matter because he understands me.’ She would have elaborated further if Fedler hadn’t returned.

  The two men left almost immediately, Fedler being in a hurry to show yellow sweater the mare. Rose thought of fol­ lowing them, but changed her mind. It would look as if she was desperate for company, which she wasn’t. What she needed was somewhere quiet, a place where she could con­ centrate on what was going to happen when she was reunited with Dr. Wheeler. She asked the waitress if there was a church nearby and was told to turn left past a white truck parked down the street.

  The church was small, huddled between a funeral parlour and a furniture showroom. Above the door hung a plaster statue of Our Lord, the toes of his left foot broken off, holding up his hand in a gesture of blessing. It was a pity there wasn’t a graveyard outside, like the one she and Dr. Wheeler had strolled through all those years ago. In the presence of the dead, he’d said, one was more conscious of being alive.

  The inside of the church was empty, save for a man on his knees and a woman with a beehive hairstyle lighting a candle beneath an image of the Virgin Mary. The praying man had a bad cough. Rose had once been picked up in a church. When she’d told Dr. Wheeler about it he’d laughed and said the man must have thought his prayers had been answered.

  Rose didn’t kneel, just slouched, gazing at the altar. Thoughts and questions tumbled through her head. If, when she got back, Polly and Bernard asked for her impressions of America she wouldn’t find it easy, the miles having cascaded past in a swirl of sun-scorched days. She supposed she might waft on about Mr. Nixon and how unfair it was that Mr. Kennedy, the JFK one, had cheated him out of the presidency because he was so rich, but she wasn’t sure she’d get the facts right. She could come up with a few place names . . . Chicago, Yellow­stone Park, Wanakena . . . and that town where Harold had wet himself in the bank, but not much else. No point men­ tioning the gun held to her head, they’d only accuse her of lying, like the time she’d told them about Father hanging her out of the window because she’d called him a bugger. What would happen when she got to Los Angeles . . . how would Dr. Wheeler react? What if he suggested she should stay and get a job, or even work for him, offered to fix her up in a nice flat, one with its own bathroom? Of course she wouldn’t let him pay for it, that would be wrong, even though he could afford it. With her English accent she could find employment in a bookshop . . . she’d be good at that. She wasn’t sure what work Dr. Wheeler did, but she could be a sort of hostess when he gave a dinner party . . . or just someone who opened the door and took coats and hats . . . she’d need another dress . . . and proper shoes, scarlet ones with high heels . . . She’d jump at the chance of staying, there being nothing much to go back for, no one she really cared about—apart from Bernard’s boxer dog—no future that really mattered . . .

  The praying man stood up and made for the door. She fol­ lowed him because he was digging into his pocket and she thought he might be reaching for a cigarette, but the beehive woman barred her way, clutching her arm and asking if she knew where the priests lived. Her husband had left her, she wailed, and she’d just found out she was pregnant; she needed money.

  ‘Wait here,’ Rose said, ‘my father will have some.’

  By the time she stepped outside the man had disappeared. She walked back to where she had left Harold. He wasn’t in the bar, nor the van. She sat on the running board and waited. A quarter of an hour went by until she spied him at the top of the street. When he saw her he broke into a run. She prepared herself for a ticking off for being away too long, but when he drew level he pulled her upright and hugged her fiercely. She could feel his beard tickling her neck. When he let go and stood back she noticed his eyes were watering. Surprised, she asked him what was wrong.

  ‘The museum’s on fire. I was afraid you were inside.’

  ‘I never got to the museum,’ she said. ‘I got involved with a pregnant woman.’

  He seemed in such a good mood that when they got into the van she was daring enough to light a cigarette. Again, he surprised her by saying how much he liked the smell of tobacco, on account of it bringing back happy memories of col­ lege days with Shaefer. She was warming to him when, about to start the engine, he said, ‘I need to give you your plane ticket, in case we lose each other, and money for a cab. I guess it’ll be pretty crowded in the hotel with Kennedy in town. We might get separated.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’ll need it,’ she told him. ‘Dr. Wheeler may ask me to stay on.’

  ‘Take it,’ he ordered, face tightening. ‘One never knows what could happen. There might be a disturbance.’

  ‘Disturbance?’ she echoed.

  ‘The Republicans will be there in force. There could be a full-scale riot.’

  He plonked the ticket and some dollars into her lap. As she attempted to stuff them into her pocket he seized her arm and demanded she put them somewhere safe. His tone was so authoritative that she ferreted under the seat for her bag and did as she was told. Inwardly she cursed him for being so bossy.

  ‘That zip doesn’t work,’ he snapped, taking a length of string from the shelf beneath the dashboard. ‘Use this to tie up the top.’

  She felt there was something bothering him, bigger than the possible loss of a ticket. Several times on the journey he’d com­ plained of a dicky tummy; maybe it was playing up again. Even so, he had no right to treat her like a child. She slumped back and fiddled with the piece of string. As he drove off she pushed the bag under her feet, then, greatly daring, asked him how long it would take them to reach Malibu. He said they weren’t going to Malibu, not tonight. He was too tired, and in any case he needed to go to Santa Monica. He had something important to
do.

  ‘But you promised.’

  ‘I’d have gone there yesterday,’ he told her, ‘if you hadn’t got us mixed up with that woman who’d had a fight in the woods.’

  They drove through a mist, salt-laden, borne upwards from the sea, and suddenly he asked if she’d been telling the truth when she’d said Dr. Wheeler had a wife. It was an unexpected question. Again she described the woman on the bicycle she’d seen when visiting the chip shop as a child.

  ‘I’ve heard all that,’ he interrupted. ‘I want to know how old she was, what nationality . . . did you ever hear her called Mrs Wheeler?’

  ‘Lots of times. The man in the chippie knew her, and so did my dad.’

  ‘But it could have been his sister,’ he argued, ‘she could have been a Miss not Mrs.’

  So she told him about the time she’d spied on Dr. Wheeler through the lounge window of his house and how she’d seen the two of them writhing about on the couch, she with her knickers around her ankles and he with his bottom in the air. That shut him up. She didn’t tell him that she’d stayed there, watching as Dr. Wheeler poured himself a drink, watching as his wife, skirt pulled down, sat on the couch with a magazine on her lap, lips moving as she read, sandalled feet planted firmly on the carpet. There’d been no change in the woman’s sensible face, no transfiguration of joy or bliss, and the eyes Dr. Wheeler turned to the window were empty and dry.

  They parked in an area of ground above a beach. As it was dark she could see nothing beyond a chain of bobbing lights, which she reasoned must belong to fishing boats anchored in the bay. When she licked her lips she tasted the sea. She wanted to ask if they were still in Newport, but he looked so severe she didn’t dare.

  It was a posh campsite, each plot separated from the next by a row of trees, and each illuminated by a lamp on a pole. Nearby was a wooden gate leading to a provision shop and a row of washrooms. She’d reckoned Harold would want to start cooking right away, seeing as they hadn’t eaten since Mrs Fury’s chicken; instead he muttered that he wasn’t hungry and was going straight to bed. She supposed she’d been right about his stomach. For once he didn’t change into his dressing gown and march off with towel and toilet bag, just tossed his shoes out of the van and half closed the doors. She could hear him talking to himself. Walking away, she listened to the sounds filling the shadows, a tinkle of radio music, the smack of an axe chopping wood, the hum of the sea as it danced across the sands.

  Somewhere out in the black night Dr. Wheeler stood wait­ ing for her, trilby hat raised in greeting.

  In sleep, Rose flung out an arm across Harold’s throat, jolting him awake some time before dawn. He crawled from the camper and walked barefoot towards a stretch of grass beyond the provision store. He would have roamed about if he hadn’t encountered two men sitting in deckchairs, smoking cigars. They nodded at him, but he walked on into the half light, his mind a confused mixture of resolution and indecision. It was, he realised, imperative he leave Newport as quickly as possi­ ble. It could be that his facial expression, the quiver of his hand when signing the receipt, had been noted and that already he was under scrutiny. As he hurried back to the camper, he was convinced that the deckchair men eyed him with more than casual interest. The sooner he got rid of his beard the better.

  Returning, he found Rose up and packing her belongings. She told him she’d been disturbed in the night by the scurry­ ing of rats. He didn’t tell her she was mistaken, that what she’d heard were raccoons. Conscious he’d been rough with her the day before, he made an effort to be civil, until, emp­ tying the rubbish and spying his shorts in the wastebin, she questioned him about his health. She seemed to think he had a problem with his stomach. She wasn’t prying, she said, just concerned for his well-being. Incensed by her interest in his bowels, he reminded her about the woman in the woods. ‘Unlike you,’ he snarled, ‘I dislike contamination.’

  They left at first light, driving towards Santa Monica so fast that they twice skidded when rounding a bend. Both times Rose was jolted against the dashboard; she didn’t cry out, merely scrabbled at her lip, a habit which infuriated him. He was so edgy it was a struggle not to smack her hand away from her mouth.

  Anxious to seem normal he began to whistle. Then, aware she was staring at him, he drew her attention to a flowering weed in the hedgerow. She paid no heed, remaining sprawled in her seat. It was only when he pointed at the distant sun­ blurred spread of Malibu that she sat up and stared out of the window.

  Santa Monica was perched on yellow bluffs bordering Palisades Park, a narrow strip of land studded with towering palm trees and tropical plants. On Third Street Promenade he found the place he was searching for and slammed on the brakes. Ordering Rose to stay put, he hurried inside.

  He was in the chair, a towel about his neck, when a picture came to him of his mother, one eye shut, mouth open, plucking her eyebrows. She’d always done it at the kitchen table without bothering to remove the cloth, and when she put food in front of him hairs drifted along the rim of his plate. He saw the clip­ pings so clearly that he shook his head to be rid of the image, and felt the sharp edge of the razor scrape across his skin.

  A tuft of cotton wool stuck to the cut on his cheek, he clam­ bered back into the camper and waited for Rose to comment on his changed appearance. She didn’t. She just sat there, head down, pretending to study the road map.

  Looking at her, clothes shabby, hair dishevelled, he decided she had to clean herself up. If she didn’t and was still at his side in Los Angeles, he doubted they’d let him into the hotel. As soon as he started the engine she asked if they were at last going to Malibu.

  ‘Not yet,’ he told her.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We both need a bath, you in particular.’

  ‘Americans are funny,’ she said, ‘always going on about washing. I expect it’s because you’ve always been used to con­ stant hot water.’

  He paid for a room in a motel within walking distance of Palisades Park. The room didn’t have a bathtub, just a shower. Glaring at him as if he’d deliberately planned to upset her, she ordered him to wait outside. He heard the water running, though only for a minute or so, and then she shouted that she was done. When he went back inside, she was already in her clothes, and as she bent to pull on her shoes he noticed her feet were still grubby. She swore she’d washed her hair, though when they returned to the camper the shampoo bottle was poking out of her bag, unopened.

  Before setting off for Malibu he rang John Fury at the office in Los Angeles to make sure he’d be at the Ambassador Hotel on the fifth. Fury said the date was underscored in his diary, then relayed some gossip about the Kennedy campaign. Appar­ently Kennedy was so popular with the crowds they repeatedly ripped off his cufflinks, even tore away his shirt sleeves. ‘But he’s in real danger,’ Fury said, ‘and he knows it. A week ago, staying in Frankenheimer’s beach house, some­ one asked him if he realised he was likely to be killed. “It’s a chance I have to take,” he replied. “How many attempts were there on de Gaulle’s life . . . six, seven? I guess we’ll just have to put our hope in that old bitch, luck.”’

  ‘Hope my ass,’ said Harold as he put down the phone. He didn’t give a shit about Kennedy, only that Fury would secure him entrance to the hotel.

  The Pacific Coast Highway was drenched in sunlight, the sea below rippling silver as it stroked the beach. Rose, now that she believed they were about to find Wheeler, became ani­ mated. Harold’s generosity, she gushed, his selflessness, was overwhelming. Lots of people in her life had been kind to her, but none as kind as he. ‘You,’ she vowed, ‘will be remembered in my prayers,’ which made him grimace.

  Half an hour later he brought the camper to a halt at the lower end of the Malibu Beach road, and explained they couldn’t go further as everything ahead was privately owned. Rose, shielding her eyes from the dazzling whiteness of the detached houses fronting the ocean, wanted to know in which one they’d find Dr. Wheeler. He admitted he wa
sn’t sure.

  ‘The people here must have money coming out of their ears,’ she commented.

  ‘Bing Crosby has a place here,’ he said, ‘and Cary Grant. It’s not open to the public. I’ll have to make a telephone call to gain admission.’

  There was a parking lot at the back of a provision store with a children’s roundabout flashing sunlight as it whirled in a circle. Rose stayed put, which suited him. He bought a candy bar and kept an eye on the camper, in case Rose came in search of him. When he returned with the news that Wheeler had again moved on, she looked as if she would burst into tears. He assured her they’d definitely find him in Los Angeles tomorrow, at the Ambassador Hotel.

  She didn’t want to go for a swim; he had to force her out onto the beach. When he waded into the sea, he was conscious of her slumped on the sands behind him, a hand shielding her eyes. As usual she’d forgotten to bring her sunglasses.

  Floating on his back, eyes shut against the sun, he was blinded by an image in his head of that refined face, mouth curved in a superior smile. He tried to empty his mind of Wheeler, without success.

  SEVENTEEN

  Sit up straight,’ Washington Harold said. Leaning forward he slapped Rose’s hand away from her mouth. He had reassured her often enough that there was nothing wrong with her lip, that it was all in her imagination. Rose blinked, then turned her head away and appeared to study the occupants of the Colonial Room. Her gaze was fixed on the young man with the funny name who, scratching the shoulder of his yellow sweater, was scribbling words into an exercise book with a red cover. From the Embassy Ballroom beyond came the plucking notes of banjos and voices raucously singing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Harold said. ‘I didn’t mean to slap you.’

  ‘That wasn’t a slap,’ she replied. ‘It was a blow.’

  He remained silent for some minutes, gliding the tip of his forefinger round and round the rim of his wineglass. At last, he repeated, ‘I’m sorry. I guess all that driving has worn me down.’