by Edna O'Brien
‘These region,’ he said, pointing to her but not actually touching.
‘Male or female?’ she said, a little injured now.
‘The both.’
‘Well there’s a vagina,’ she said.
‘Vagina no gud,’ he said. He already knew that word. He wanted love words and pet words that would send Englishwomen rearing to the skies of abandon.
‘Cunt, I suppose,’ she said. He flicked the pages back and wrote it under C. He wrote each word, carefully, in block letters.
‘Though it can also be derogatory,’ she said, ‘if applied to a man.’ He looked at her suspiciously as if she were making a fool of him.
‘Cunt is all right for a woman,’ she said.
‘A woman is a cunt?’ he said.
‘A woman is a cunt,’ she said. What did it matter if he ran into trouble. He deserved a few setbacks. She felt a fool, first for having come, then for having feigned bleeding, and now for not knowing a whole dictionary of love words so that he could stock up towels and other gifts for when he retired.
‘May I have another drink?’ she said, holding the glass out. He filled it quarter-ways and then began to busy himself about the room, picking up instruments, putting them down again, looking into his camera, looking through the window, frowning. She drank it down and left. He was putting on his shirt as she went out and he twiddled his fingers, but she could not see his face because it was lost in the vest. She would never forget the whites of his eyes.
Down in her bedroom she locked the door and sat straddled on the bidet, too fearful to wash herself. Because of the awful heat and what she’d told him she really felt that she might be bleeding. She could see nothing from her position on the bidet except one of the palms with the huge conical top. No matter where she went she saw one. They were beginning to be the only thing she noticed, the trees with the long trunks and their tops thrusting out from the sheath of whittled palms. She recalled everything they said, and thought if all the people in the world were as desperate as they then the world was a desperate place to be in. She sat for a long time but did not soap herself.
By dinner time she felt too despondent to go downstairs and ordered a meal to be sent up. The room-service boy wheeled the trolley in shortly after seven. He lifted the plate covers triumphantly as if he had been responsible for cooking the veal and dressing the salad and buttering the tiny little string beans.
‘Mademoiselle, I fear I have mislaid my bus ticket,’ he said, beaming at her.
‘I fear I have too,’ she said wryly. She sat quite still before the trolley and offered no resistance as he unfolded the cone of the napkin, shook it apart and then pressed it inside her shirt collar under her chin. She thought he petted her neck but could not be sure.
‘Bon,’ he said looking at the shirt. She had put on another stiff white shirt and a black silk skirt slit at one side. It seemed a waste to be eating in her room by herself, but she had dressed up simply to give herself some occupation.
‘Merci,’ she said, and waited with the knife and fork held in the air, above the plate, until such time as he went out.
Chapter Eight
SHE APPLIED HERSELF TO her dinner. She gobbled everything together, tasting nothing, washing each mouthful down with the wine until her plate was suddenly and appallingly empty. It had taken seven minutes.
‘Oh,’ she said, as the door opened again and she leaped to her feet, thinking it was the chambermaid who had come to take off the outer bedspread. Her face was guilty from having eaten so fast.
‘Listen,’ she said then, the expression of guilt giving way to one of anger. It was him again. In plain clothes. Tight trousers. Open shirt. Wrist-watch. Hair on his arms.
‘I fear I have mislaid my bus ticket,’ he said, beaming because he knew the password, and delivered it so well. She took the tray, plonked it in his arms, and then walked towards the window, away from him. Foreign or not, he could not but perceive an insult like that. Behind her back she heard him open the door and place the tray outside, and then he said ‘Look’ very urgently as if disaster had struck. She turned towards him but saw the he was pointing to the window balcony and when she looked that way she saw that in the draught from the open door the pants hung there to dry had fallen down. Charged with shame she rushed across to pick them up and stuff them somewhere. When she stooped he came and put one hand on her breast and one lower down on her stomach. She straightened quickly and turned, but his face was upon hers in an attack of kissing. It took some seconds to realize what was happening.
As she rose he moved one hand to the butt of her back and helped her up and then laid her quickly on the bed. She thought ridiculously that if the chambermaid came in there would be a scandal, and through the onslaught of kisses she said, ‘I don’t want to do this,’ but it was heard only as a mumble.
‘How dare you,’ she said then, clearly, getting her mouth free. She was angry with herself for ever having been so friendly. She thought that he must have seen something licentious in her smile or the offer of a cigarette earlier on, and then she wondered if he’d been in touch with the violinist and if the entire staff were not a network of vice passing on the names of the loose women.
She said, ‘Control yourself,’ three times. Long enough for her to free herself, stand up and put her hand to her hair in a gesture of composure.
‘Five minutes,’ he said, holding up five fingers.
‘Five minutes,’ she said, ‘the entire population of women could be impregnated in five minutes if there were enough maniacs like you.’
He couldn’t understand a word. He stood there with the five fingers held up, pleading. Even his hands repelled her. Up to then they had been hands doing work, toiling, buttering beans, bearing tea, but they had been planning other uses all along. Deceiver.
‘I am a respectable woman,’ she said calmly, and he tried to embrace her again.
‘Look here,’ she said, pushing him away, pointing to the telephone as a threat. He put his hands to his eyes and mimicked tears as if he were a small boy.
‘You have the biggest cheek of anyone I ever met,’ she said.
‘Désolé,’ he said in the crying voice.
She warned him that he would have to go, waited for a second and then opened the door wide. She held it like that until he went out and then with her back to the closed door she stood, taking short breaths, thinking of the shame of it, her eyes on that part of the counterpane which they’d ruffled. Quickly she began to smooth it.
‘I’ve made two enemies,’ she said, going back to the door. She felt something being put through the letter-box and thought it another English paper. Early that morning a paper had thudded through and she read about the country she had come away to forget. Without turning she put her hand down and started, not knowing what the soft thing was. A flower. A red carnation. Not exactly fresh. Not withered either. She took it in and let the letterbox snap. The stem dripped in her hand. Straight from the hotel vase he’d taken it. He had nice instincts. And was ashamed of himself. She held it and smelt it, pouching its face the way he had pouched hers and she thought how foolish he’d been and she was not angry any more. At least the incident had livened her up. She was ready to go out now and wondered where to. She’d change again.
Half in and half out of the orange button-through dress she saw her door being abruptly opened for the second time that evening.
‘God almighty,’ she said as he came in with a plate bearing two apples and an ivory-handled peeling knife. He brought the plate towards her, offering it, like an apology. If it had been one apple she might have accepted.
‘You’re going too far,’ she said as she finished buttoning her dress, then picking up her handbag she walked out of the room and left him standing in the middle of the floor with the peace offering at arm’s length.
She went to the bathroom to repair her face, then walked down the two flights of wide, carpeted stairs and across the main hall to the lounge where she ordered a Bl
oody Mary to steady her nerves. The bar was empty as most people were at dinner. From the dining-room came the clatter of dishes lost in the murmur of talk, and behind the talk the thin syrup music of a violin.
‘Mer?,’ she said when the man brought the drink and the dish of almonds. She sampled it and licked the red juice from her upper lip and wished that she were meeting the violinist for the first time and that he were a different sort of person. The lights were in the trees as they had been the previous night, except that this time she noticed the cable wire running up along the trunks and the lights did not seem so magical any more. Before each sip of drink she took an almond and chewed it slowly and then she drank slowly, holding each mouthful and tasting it fully. There was all the time in the world.
‘Isn’t it great, great,’ the only other person in the room said as she wriggled her shoulders and then stretched the upper half of her body to suit the drawn-out chord of music. Her torso was long and fluid and she wore a flowered dress of green silk that seemed to cling without being tight. She moved freely inside the dress and her movements were effective. Ellen pretended to listen to the quieter music. There were two sounds, one very loud from the barman’s radio and the orchestra music farther away. She and the girl were the only people drinking and they looked a little unreal and diminutive in the big mirrored room with chandeliers above them and the empty wicker chairs and the empty circular tables repeated over and over again because of the many mirrors.
‘Don’t you love it,’ the other girl said, snapping her fingers and letting her head loll from side to side. Although she flirted with the barman she kept looking towards the arch that led to the dining-room as if she expected someone to come through. The barman put the radio right up on the high counter and indicated that she should dance.
‘I’m wild,’ she said, and turning to Ellen finished the sentence, ‘about that tune.’
‘It’s nice,’ Ellen said.
‘It’s great,’ the girl said. Her voice was purposely low and she stretched each word as if by stretching she would put emphasis into them. She was American. Her face was thick and sensual and not at all like her body, and her lips were thick too and fruity, stained with a lipstick the colour of blackberry juice. She wore no jewellery except a charm bracelet, and now and then she raised her wrist and shook it so that all the little charms fell in the same direction. They were like medals really.
‘Are you here long?’ Ellen said, wondering if this was another face which looked different down on the beach.
‘I gotten here late this afternoon, and who is the first person I meet in the elevator and he thought he knew me!‘ She mentioned a well-known movie actor and said he was having dinner at that moment.
‘Thought he knew me,’ she said again. ‘And he did the wildest thing. He beat his chest and he said, “Me a cowboy, me a cowboy, me a Mexican cowboy.” ’ She laughed and clicked to the barman to bring two more drinks. Ellen had already put the note down to pay for hers. She felt reluctant about taking drink from a stranger.
I’m fine,’ she said.
‘No, you’re not,’ the girl said and repeated the order for two more Bloody Marys. She came and sat at Ellen’s table but looked towards the dining-room and did not even respond when the barman brought the two new drinks, more nuts and her bill. He also brought Ellen’s change from the previous drink.
‘I stopped off in Paris to get some pants, and then made right for this place,’ she said, pushing one arm ahead of her to show her drive. The charms on the bracelet rattled when she did that.
‘No, you have them, baby,’ she said pushing the plate of nuts back to Ellen, She spanned her waist then and said, ‘Not that I think food is fattening, I think it’s all to do with your metabolism.’ But Ellen had heard that from other women and knew that it was a dodge to make everyone but themselves gross.
‘Do you like olives?’ she said. Ellen said yes and set the two francs she’d been given as change on a race, like bicycle wheels across the table. One dropped off the edge and the barman rushed over to pick it up for her. She took it from him and started a new race and said very idly to her friend, who was called Denise, ‘After the rich, the most obnoxious people in the world are those who serve the rich.’
‘Boy, you’ve got problems,’ Denise said, then stopped short because an exodus of people came through the arch. Hitching her dress up she lay back in the chair and stretched her legs full length. With the mirrors it was unlikely that she could be missed.
‘Here they come,’ she said in a whisper and then in her low, calculating drawl she spoke, ‘I just love olives, I went right across America once and I lived on three things, beer, avocado pears and olives. Right across the country. I ended up in a little town called – I forget what ‘twas called but you have no idea how beautiful our country is.’ It was well and professionally timed and he halted under one of the chandeliers and did the ‘Me a cowboy’ again, beating his chest over-humbly. He was with a large group, the men stood when he stood and older women filed behind, linking and talking earnestly. There were a few young girls walking straight with their stomachs held in. Ellen registered no face except his. She’d never seen him in the films, but he had a striking presence. He had the look of the gutter about him. She thought of men in lorries who whistle at girls’ legs and have bare dolls as mascots on their windshields. He was common and wild and undeniably handsome.
‘How about asking them to join us for a drink?’ one of the men said, and Denise let out a gurgle of shock as if an electric current had been passed through her. Ellen went on racing her coins, but careful now to put a hand at the other edge of the table to save them from falling off.
‘Girls, pretty girls,’ one of the older women said. She had a fur stole on with tassels of fur at the end of it, which made the stole itself look silly.
‘It so happens we would like to ask you ladies for a drink,’ the actor said, loudly. Ellen and Denise looked at each other, hesitated and then Denise said, ‘It’s very funny that you should ask us because we’re actually having a drink.’ She had moved forwards, though, in her chair.
‘Hey…’ he said.
‘Hey yourself,’ she said and got up. Ellen rose almost immediately. The first thing she ought to make clear was that they weren’t sisters, they weren’t even friends.
‘We just struck up a conversation,’ she said.
‘Tell me,’ said an older man guiding her politely towards the door, ‘have I seen you somewhere before?’
‘Not that I know of,’ she said, looking at him. His face was yellow from the heat and his eyes were light blue and he must have been handsome once upon a time. His name was Sidney.
Within minutes they were in cars swooping down the drive towards the main part of the town where the activity was. Ellen sat in the back of a chauffeur-driven Bentley between Sidney and the woman with the fur-tipped stole. The tips brushing her legs had the stealth of an animal sneaking up on her and she wondered how much it had cost. The movie actor was in front, talking to Denise about muscle. He believed in fights.
‘I don’t know anyone’s name,’ Ellen said to the two people she sat between.
‘She doesn’t know anyone’s name,’ said the woman who called herself Gwynnie. ‘Isn’t that cute?’
‘That’s terrible,’ the actor said in a false voice of sympathy, and turning he patted her knee and said, ‘Do me a favour, call me Bobby.’ She was a little embarrassed and did not know what to say.
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘Bobby,’ she said. Then he smiled and said she had the sort of voice he could listen to all night and he did not seem insulting at all.
‘Stick around,’ he said, giving her a friendly pat and then putting Gwyn’s fur stole back on her bare knees. There was not only luxury but security in being covered by the fur. She thought perhaps this response was first caused by having seen a couple make love within a belted beaver coat, in an alleyway, in childhood, years before. They’d shooed her away as if she
were a dog, when in fact she’d wanted not to spy but to behold.
They converged on a night-club that was so dimly lit that it was like going into a cinema. The manager welcomed Sidney, and three tables were put together for them and a pile of chairs brought. They sat wherever they happened to have been standing. She was between Sidney and another man who told her he was Bobby’s understudy. Opposite was Bobby, Denise, and a pretty boy with a less pretty boy, joined to each other by two gold bracelets that were clipped together with a little gold padlock. She tried to smile at them but they were very aloof. There were about twenty people in all: a wide-shouldered man called Jason, whose wife had the fur-tipped stole, and some oriental girls with slit skirts, who never spoke, and the older women chirping like birds, and a platoon of people who said, ‘Isn’t that marvellous?’ whenever the actor, Sidney, or Jason, the powerful element of the group, opened their mouths.
‘I definitely dig her, she is a law unto herself,’ the man Jason kept saying of some woman who lived on the East coast of America and wrote for movies.
‘How do you mean?’ Sidney said.
‘I mean she’s a law unto herself,’ Jason said, and his wife told the group that this girl came to stay with them one week-end when the temperature was in the nineties and wore pretty blouses all the time with sleeves that came right down to the wrist, and then she discovered the girl having a shower in the bathroom and found that she had this big growth on her arm with hair on it. The story sent a shiver through the gathering and Bobby said for God’s sake to get the drinks before they all went to sleep or something. At the word sleep Denise put her head on his shoulder and basked there for a second.
‘Don’t forget we’ve a date, I’m twenty-five at midnight,’ she said, pretending to be drunker than she was.