Boys and Girls Together Read online

  ‘What are you laughing about?’

  ‘We’d better not be laughing when we see Lucretia and Oscar,’ Alice laughed. ‘Lucretia’s got her chance to suffer at last and Oscar’s scared to death of heart attacks. All his friends have had them.’

  ‘What about lunch?’

  ‘Lunch?’ the woman laughed. ‘How can you talk about lunch at a time like this? We’ve got to stay here until Oscar phones again.’

  ‘He’s been stuttering like mad,’ Alice said, trying not to laugh. ‘I never heard him stutter before. He wanted to know if he should telephone the Associated Press, and he kept asking if I knew who Leander’s mother is. He thinks everybody’s got a mother.’

  ‘I’d hate to be hanging since Leander had a mother,’ the woman said. ‘He was almost seventy, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Well, whatever he was,’ Alice said, ‘his mother would be at least a hundred if she were alive.’

  ‘What’s the schedule now? I’d like to get some lunch.’

  ‘Don’t leave us,’ Alice said. ‘Have lunch up here. I’ll call room service. What do you want?’

  ‘Onion soup and a sirloin, rare, but I don’t want to eat up here. They may be coming back in a little while.’

  ‘I’m going to eat, too,’ Alice said. ‘I’m starved. They won’t be back for hours. This is Lucretia’s big chance. And by the time Oscar gets through calling the Associated Press and L. B. Mayer and his own mother in New York it’ll be early evening.’

  ‘Well, order for me, too, then,’ Daisy said. ‘I’ll have the same, but I’d like a real nice dessert, too. We’ll pay for it.’

  The villain’s wife ordered lunch and when it came the man’s wife paid for it and tipped the waiter and waited for him to step respectfully out of the room in which the celebrated Leander Asp had had a heart attack. Then she began to laugh again.

  ‘He didn’t notice that we’ve been laughing, did he?’ Alice said. ‘Lucretia would never forgive us if she found out.’

  ‘He doesn’t know anything about it,’ the man said. ‘They all walk that way at the hotels where the rates are high. How much was the bill?’

  ‘Forty.’

  ‘The hell it was.’

  ‘Well, I want forty anyway,’ the woman said.

  The man gave her forty, they sat down, and began to eat. After lunch the man stretched out on one of the beds in the bedroom, but the woman said, ‘Not that one, that’s the one they stretched him out on.’ The man didn’t move, though, and the woman flung herself on the bed and hugged him.

  ‘We’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘We’re both young and healthy, anyhow.’

  ‘You’re young, and I’m healthy, but we’ll be all right all right just the same.’

  ‘What are we going to do about money, though? It goes so quickly. Is there some coming from England, or did you just say that?’

  ‘No, there’s some coming. It’s about due now.’

  He looked at his watch.

  They’re out on the track now, he thought, moving to the starting gate.

  The villain’s wife came into the room and said, ‘Nothing doing, you two.’

  The woman got up and she and Alice went into the other room. The man heard them talking softly now and not laughing any more. Valenzuela was just about the best boy at the track and he’d bring her in. His eyes closed and he fell into dreamless sleep. When he woke up the place was dark and he saw that it was after five. He reached over for the phone and heard his wife talking softly to Lucretia. It was about the funeral being day after tomorrow in San Francisco because, Lucretia said, he had always loved San Francisco. His lawyers were flying out with a lot of papers and things, and so was his secretary, Anthony. The man hung up, waited five minutes and then tried again. Leo answered the phone and the man said, ‘What did she pay?’

  ‘Eleven forty, seven eighty, and four forty,’ Leo said. ‘I haven’t figured out what it comes to yet. Will I be seeing you in a half hour or so?’

  ‘O.K.’ He hung up and fell back to sleep. When he woke up again, five minutes later, he believed he had dreamed it. He thought about it a moment and then remembered the woman talking with Lucretia, so he knew he hadn’t. Valenzuela had brought her in. And the horse had paid better than he had expected. The place-money was especially good. He got up and went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face.

  When he stepped into the other room he was not surprised to find the women talking and sobbing softly.

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘No,’ Alice said. ‘They’re coming in pretty soon.’

  ‘How’s Oscar?’

  ‘He’s pretty shaken up. I wish he hadn’t seen it. He doesn’t want to drink any more and he says he’s going to see about walking more. And he wants a thorough medical examination as soon as we get home. We’re staying for the funeral of course.’

  ‘How’s Lucretia?’

  ‘She’s absolutely in despair,’ Daisy said. ‘I talked to her and she doesn’t know what to do or where to turn. I made her promise to stay at our house after the funeral. We’re going to take flowers to his grave every day.’

  ‘How long are you planning to do that?’

  ‘Oh, for two or three days, I guess. Or at least until the photographers get through taking pictures. They’ve been taking them all afternoon of course, but she says she looks like hell.’

  ‘Oh, Daisy,’ Alice said. ‘He was a great man. He got ten thousand dollars a portrait. He painted everybody in society.’

  ‘He didn’t paint my mother, and he didn’t paint yours, either. He’d have a nice time getting ten thousand dollars out of your mother for making her look like Garbo instead of garbage.’

  ‘Oh, Daisy, I miss my mother so. Don’t you?’

  ‘I’d have a nice time trying to get fifty cents out of my mother,’ Daisy said, ‘but I guess I miss her, too. I’ll be damned if I’m going to cry about that, too, though. I’ve already cried because my husband beat me again night before last, because I don’t have any clothes and don’t have any money and never have enough fun and never go anywhere, and because there’s a fly in this room. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to cry because I miss my mother, too. That would be going a little too far. What have you been crying about? Own up. Don’t tell any dirty lies.’

  ‘Things like that, too,’ Alice said.

  ‘I’m going to take a little walk,’ the man said. ‘Can I bring you anything?’

  ‘Just money.’

  He picked up a late afternoon paper at the hotel newstand and went to the Men’s Bar. He found the chart for the sixth and discovered that Valenzuela had brought her in by a nose over Makai who beat out Cold Roll by another nose. They had come down the stretch together, and then Valenzuela had pushed Pay Me out ahead of the others a few inches. Well, that made the difference. He figured out his winnings and found that it came to $4,120, net, so he figured it again because he hadn’t expected it to be half that much. But again it came to the same amount. He had another drink and walked to Leo’s and sat down at Leo’s work table, across from him.

  ‘Forty-one twenty, right?’ Leo said and brought out a roll and began to peel them off.

  He walked back to the hotel and when he went up to the room he found Lucretia and Oscar there. Oscar seemed pale, nervous and scared. Lucretia seemed thrilled.

  The man noticed that his wife was watching him carefully.

  ‘I’m awfully sorry, Lucretia,’ he said.

  Lucretia fell on his shoulder and began to sob, but there was only a moment of it, and then she began to walk around excitedly, talking softly to Daisy and to Alice about what a great man she had had the honour to be the wife of, as she put it, for twenty-two and a half months.

  The man was glad he hadn’t had to see him alive again, though, because he was so much more attractive dead, and made so many people so much more truly happy. His only real mourner was the retired villain, but of course he was in mourning for himself. He’d probably try
to get out of staying on for the funeral in order to get home and have the medical check-up.

  Chapter 24

  ‘You’ve all got to have dinner,’ Lucretia said, ‘but of course I can’t eat. I won’t be able to eat for days. I’m absolutely sick with grief. Do you know what I think? I think it isn’t true. …He was so alive until the moment it happened I just can’t believe it happened. I won’t believe it happened. I keep thinking he’s going to walk in here in the handsome way he always did and say in his wonderful voice, “Here I am, Peaches.” That was his name for me from the beginning, from before we were married, even. Poor Leander, where are you now, my darling, my poor wonderful darling?’

  She flung herself on the retired villain, who tried to comfort her without making his wife angry. He glanced at his wife fretfully, but the widow didn’t stay with him too long. Something more had occurred to her to say that might seem unique and original for one in mourning.

  ‘He was the youngest man I ever knew. There wasn’t an old thought in his head. There simply wasn’t an old thought in his head. There wasn’t an old emotion in his,’ she hesitated a moment trying to guess where emotions might be said to be, and then settled for, ‘body, his wonderful, young body.’

  ‘Oh, Lucretia,’ Alice said. ‘We couldn’t eat.’

  ‘You must, you must,’ Lucretia sobbed. ‘You mustn’t mind me. I’ll be this way for days. I’m absolutely desolated. Please let me order for you. Oscar darling, I can’t make sense over the telephone. Please order for everybody.’

  The villain tried to make asking everybody what they wanted to eat a thing of mourning but they kept saying rare sirloin with lyonnaise potatoes and a green salad (that was the woman getting back at Lucretia for going too far with the performing), or roast beef rare with a baked potato, and a lobster cocktail first, though.

  ‘Yes, darling,’ Lucretia screamed and wept at the villain’s wife.

  ‘A lobster cocktail first, Daisy? A lobster cocktail first?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Do you love lobster, too?’ Lucretia wept. ‘I could live on lobster. My poor Leander, if you were only here, we’d all eat lobster. He loved lobster. Dick? Lobster cocktail first?’

  ‘O.K.’

  The villain went to the telephone and had a rough time stuttering the order.

  During dinner the widow walked about, reminiscing (as she said) and watching the others. At last Daisy forced her to sit at the table, and then to have just a taste of the lobster, and then just a taste of the roast beef, and then just a taste of the green salad. The widow had tastes for a while, and then a plate was made for her, and she settled down to just chewing her food sadly but with relish. She didn’t try anything fancy in her manner of drinking coffee, though, and just drank it like a healthy factory girl at lunch.

  After dinner a thought occurred to her that she felt no one should dare resist: room service should bring up a bucket of ice, two glasses, and a bottle of Scotch for the boys, and a bottle of champagne for the girls, but of course nothing for her. No one resisted this idea and when the stuff came, the villain said he would have one drink in memory of Leander Asp. But Daisy and Alice didn’t attach any strings to their drinking of the champagne and soon finished the whole bottle, so that by the time Lucretia began to be adequately coaxed there was only Scotch, which she accepted and drank with a mixture of unbearable unhappiness and pleasure.

  By one in the morning the girls were all drunk and talking honestly. The villain was sober, exhausted and frightened. He wanted to get to his room and bed, but he didn’t dare bring the matter up. He didn’t know what to make of their talk, either.

  The man wasn’t sure he didn’t admire the manner in which the widow was mourning, but that, he knew, may have been because Pay Me had come in and because he had so much money now.

  ‘How about some sleep?’ the man said, more for the villain than for himself.

  ‘Oh, not yet!’ Lucretia said. ‘I’ll be this way for days. I’ll sleep out here on this sofa, but of course I won’t sleep. And Daisy and you can sleep in the bedroom, but not yet. Don’t stop now. I want to drink myself into insensibility. I must. Otherwise I don’t know what I’ll do.’

  ‘Maybe it would be better if just Daisy and Alice stayed with you tonight. Oscar’s in the hotel, and I could go home.’

  ‘Yes,’ the villain said. ‘I’m just down the hall.’ He got to his feet.

  ‘Oh, not yet, Oscar, please,’ the widow said. ‘Please drink again to the memory of Leander.’

  ‘I’ve got to take it easy on that stuff,’ Oscar said. ‘Did he like it?’

  ‘Never touched it,’ the widow said. ‘Just wines. He cooked with wines. We often had it at breakfast. I’ve been drinking different kinds of wines for twenty-two and a half months. It isn’t the Scotch that does it, Oscar darling. It’s—’

  The words she probably had in mind were old age.

  ‘Fate,’ she said. ‘It’s God calling home a favourite. Leander was a favourite. God called him home. I’m very religious. Oh, please drink another to Leander’s memory, Oscar.’

  ‘Well, a nightcap, then.’

  He poured himself a small one, drank it, embraced his wife, whispered to her, said good night, and went along.

  ‘He’s scared to death,’ his wife said.

  ‘What’s he scared of?’ the widow said.

  ‘What happened to Leander,’ Alice said.

  ‘Oh, that won’t happen to him,’ the widow said. ‘He doesn’t drink wines, does he? It’s them damn wines that did it. I warned him about them, but you know how he was. Had to have his way in everything. Christ, he put curry in everything. I hate curry. What the hell’s Oscar got to be scared of? He doesn’t put curry in everything, does he?’

  ‘No, but he’s sixty-two just the same.’

  ‘That’s got nothing to do with it. Lots of nice people are sixty-two.’

  The woman went to the man suddenly.

  ‘Don’t you dare leave me,’ she whispered.

  ‘Well, let’s go home, then. Marta’s made the beds upstairs and cleaned the place. Alice can stay with Lucretia.’

  ‘We can’t leave her at a time like this, but don’t you dare get up and go. We can sleep out here on the sofa and they can sleep inside.’

  ‘Daisy, do you know why he liked curry so much?’ the widow said.

  ‘Some people like broccoli,’ Daisy said.

  ‘I hate it, don’t you, Dick?’ the widow said.

  ‘I don’t mind it. Listen, Lucretia, I’m going to take Daisy home. We’ll be out there any time you want us. You’ve got the upstairs phone number, haven’t you?’

  ‘Oh, Daisy,’ the widow said. ‘You can’t leave me now. You wouldn’t dare. If your husband dropped dead, you know damn well I wouldn’t leave you, so why are you trying to leave me?’

  ‘I’m sick,’ Daisy said. ‘Honest I am. I’ve got to go home and take care of myself. I think I’m pregnant again.’

  The widow leaped on Daisy and embraced her.

  ‘Oh, darling,’ she said. ‘How wonderful! It’ll be your third. Think of it. Three kids and only twenty-three. But you can take care of yourself here, darling. Oh, please don’t go.’

  ‘Phone me when you wake up in the morning,’ Daisy said.

  On the way home the man said, ‘What do you mean, take care of yourself?’

  ‘I thought I’d take a very hot bath. We can’t afford another.’

  ‘Let me decide what we can afford or can’t afford. Take care of yourself, but not that way.’

  ‘Maybe I’m not pregnant. Maybe I’m just late. I’ve been feeling pregnant all day, though, and I did want to get away.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? She flirted with you from the time you arrived to the time we left, that’s why. Don’t tell me you didn’t know.’

  ‘Was that supposed to be flirting?’

  ‘It certainly was, and you know it. Why should I have another kid for you?’

 
‘Because you’re pregnant, for one thing, if you are pregnant. And because whether she was flirting or not has got nothing to do with it for another. I see these people because they’re your friends and because you’re miserable unless you can see them and give me no peace unless I see them, too. They’re your friends, that is, until they drop dead, as she said.’

  ‘You encouraged her all night.’

  ‘I was there all night. I didn’t encourage her any more than I encouraged Alice or you. I wish to God I didn’t have to see any of them any more.’

  ‘Lucretia’s impossible. I never saw anybody so phoney.’

  ‘She’s your friend. You telephoned her in New York and made her come out here. If you’d left them alone that poor bastard would probably be still alive.’

  ‘Let’s drive somewhere. Let’s drive all night. Let’s drive to Reno. You’re not drunk.’

  ‘No, I’m not drunk, but I am tired, and maybe you’re pregnant. We’re going home. You’re going to bed in your bed and I’m going to bed in mine. We’ll drive somewhere after you’re pregnant for sure, or not, but as long as there’s a chance that you are, I want you to take care of yourself. I want you to stay in bed very late tomorrow. I have in mind another boy.’

  ‘What are we going to do for money?’

  ‘I’ll take care of the money. You take care of yourself.’

  Chapter 25

  ‘Don’t read,’ the woman said. ‘Turn off the light and let’s talk.’

  ‘Just let me finish this.’

  ‘The whole book?’

  ‘Just a couple more pages.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Dostoevsky telling about the time he met Turgenev.’

  ‘Who cares about that?’

  ‘I read it twenty years ago. Dostoevsky got sore at Turgenev for hating Russia and loving Germany. I want to find out how it happened.’

  ‘Well, read it aloud, then.’

  ‘Goncharov [the man began to read] talked incessantly about Turgenev. I kept putting off my visit to him—still, eventually I had to call. I went about noon, and found him at breakfast. I’ll tell you frankly—I never really liked the man. The worst of it is that since 1857, at Wiesbaden, I’ve owed him fifty dollars (which even today I haven’t yet paid back!). I can’t stand the aristocratic and pharisaical sort of way he embraces one, and offers his cheek to be kissed. He puts on monstrous airs; but my bitterest complaint against him is his book, Smoke. He told me himself that the leading idea, the point at issue, in that book, is this: “If Russia were destroyed by an earthquake and vanished from the globe, it would mean no loss to humanity—it would not even be noticed.” He declared to me that that was his fundamental view of Russia. I found him in irritable mood; it was on account of the failure of Smoke.’