Sal was smart and a quick study. She could sing, she could dance; she had a strong vocal delivery. But she didn’t have the looks. She’d grown up in Iowa, although you’d never have guessed she wasn’t a girl from the city. With Mamie, you could still tell she was a country girl. If you listened hard to the accent, you could even place her: West Virginia. She hadn’t had many friends growing up. At her school the girls had either felt sorry for her because of her family, or despised her; or, later, been jealous because of the boys. And she’d had only two other close friends in the theatre besides Sal: one had married and the other had decided to stay with the telephone job she used to take between parts.
Mamie had been in hundreds of plays. She had even had lines in some of them. But neither she nor Sal had ever had the lead. They’d been in the company for five months while other girls had dropped out for various reasons: broken legs, proposals, suicide attempts, illnesses, parents who caught up with them, boyfriends who needed a girl who stayed put.
They’d studied cooking in Memphis, taken modern dance lessons in Peoria, attended a Japanese self-defence class in Kansas City. The Kansas City run had been the best. That was when Sal had asked Mamie to teach her the scream.
‘We’d better go somewhere out in the open,’ Mamie had said.
They’d taken a picnic to one of the places they’d seen on the way to their classes. They had plenty of time on their hands, since Sal was trying to be faithful to a drummer whose band was playing in Chicago, and Mamie had just broken up with a tennis instructor and thought she was falling in love with their self-defence teacher, whom they called Mr Moto because they kept disagreeing about his real name.
Before they ate anything, Sal wanted to hear the scream. Mamie stood away from the tree under which they’d spread their tablecloth. She screamed three times.
‘Now, you,’ she said.
But Sal’s screams had nothing special about them. They were either completely ordinary, or sounded false. Mamie screamed with an immediate, thrilling release of mindless terror.
‘How do you do it?’ Sal asked. ‘Where do you start?’
‘That’s just it. You don’t start. It comes all in one piece, from way down deep inside. It hurt my throat a lot in the beginning, but when I got used to it, I really started to enjoy it. Now it makes me feel good.’
‘It’s horrible to hear. It’s totally unnerving.’
‘If you practise, you’ll pick it up. You’ve got to think it, sort of. And then you just let her rip.’
‘Let’s eat first,’ Sal had said. And she’d never bothered with the scream after that. It remained the one thing Mamie could do better than other people.
Each of them had worked in companies where they’d been underpaid, not paid, and run out on. The costumes had gone astray between one town and another, the props had broken, someone had sold the scenery and disappeared with the proceeds. The troupe they were with now was pretty well organized and it paid promptly. Friday was always a big occasion. They still couldn’t forget the times when the funds had never come through. Mamie had even gone with men for money, although they hadn’t put it that way and she didn’t think of it like that. It had always been: ‘Can you lend me something till the end of the week?’ The answer would be, ‘Sure, and how about coming out for a meal?’ And afterwards, going back to their place with them and somehow forgetting to pay them back, which she knew they didn’t expect her to do anyway. She hadn’t worried about it. There weren’t many men she couldn’t make herself feel fond of after a couple of drinks. Once in a while an evening would turn out to be a lot more unpleasant than she’d imagined, but that could also happen with the ones who seemed to be quiet and well-behaved.
The main effect promiscuity had had on her was to make her more susceptible to the idea of love. True love, she was certain, would wipe out other experiences. Love was like gambling in that respect – the big win cancelled all your losses. And when true love came, she’d give up the stage. Love was the greatest role of all: everybody knew that.
*
Mamie came in late because she’d been trying to catch a last look at the man out front. She sat down opposite Sal and started to go over the menu, which she already knew by heart.
Luigi himself, whose real name was Harry, took their order. He winked at Sal. After he’d gone, Mamie whispered, ‘He’s got a thing about you.’ Sal made her horror-movie face and let it freeze for a couple of seconds.
Their wine arrived, and the cannelloni. Sal said softly, ‘He was there again tonight. Same seat, same row. Talk about having a thing about somebody.’
‘Probably came in to get out of the rain.’
‘It isn’t raining. You’re the one he keeps staring at.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘Well, can’t you? Anybody like that looked at me, I’d be able to tell.’
‘I’m half blinded by those lights,’ Mamie said.
She’d spotted him the first time he’d been to see the show. She noticed him because he looked just like the kind of man she’d always wanted to meet – the kind you saw in the movies and just as good-looking, except that he didn’t look like an actor. He looked more real.
The second time he turned up, all the girls started to talk about him. It wasn’t such a rotten show, but nobody could say it was My Fair Lady, either. The takings were low, the house was at least half empty. It was strange to find someone coming back for more, especially a young man. This Friday night would be his fourth time in two weeks.
‘I wish he’d make up his mind,’ Sal said. ‘If he’s a talent scout, he should have known on the first night. And if it’s anything else – well, I guess he ought to know that pretty quick, too.’
‘Do you get the feeling you’re playing up to it?’
‘Are you kidding? The whole back line of the chorus is knocking itself out. I’m exhausted. Aren’t you?’
‘I guess so.’
In fact, I’m so tired, I think I’m going to need some more of that cheesecake.’ She waited for Mamie to say something, but Mamie never made any comments about food on a Friday; that was their agreement.
*
Next day at the Saturday matinée he was sitting there again. And afterwards, as Mamie came out of the stage door exit, he was waiting for her. She could see him clearly for the first time, standing close and directly in the light. He looked so wonderful she couldn’t believe it: like an ad for something.
He said, ‘Miss Davenport? I hope you don’t mind my coming backstage like this, but I really did enjoy your performance.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘’Course I don’t mind. It’s nice when people come around to say they’ve liked the show. Makes us girls feel appreciated.’
He smiled, showing beautiful teeth. ‘My name’s Carter Mathews,’ he said. It sounded like a made-up name, but in her line of work she was used to that.
‘And you know mine,’ she said. ‘Rhoda Davenport. Hi.’
They shook hands. He asked her to come out for a cup of coffee, or a snack, a drink, or dinner, or anything at all. ‘Maybe supper after the evening performance?’
‘That would be best,’ she said. ‘We’re always kind of rushed on a Saturday.’
‘Fine. I’ll meet you here after the show and take you out for a big meal somewhere, put you in a cab afterwards. We can have a nice talk.’
She spent the break between performances with Sal. They went to their Saturday cafeteria. Sal ordered a salad without dressing. She said, ‘Look, Mamie, I’ve been thinking. You don’t want a salad?’
‘Just the sandwich. I’ve got a date. I’ve got a date like you never saw in your life.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Carter.’
‘His first name.’
‘That’s his first name.’
‘Hotsy-totsy. You’re in the big league now. I guess his last name’s George or something? The nurse read the certificate backwards?’
‘You wait till you see him.’
<
br /> ‘What’s he like?’
‘Delightful, delovely, de works.’
‘Hair and eyes?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Mamie, what does he look like?’
‘Hollywood smile. Very kind of alert-looking. You know. Sort of light brown hair. Grey eyes. Real nice. I mean, honest.’ Just to tease, she kept back the information that he was the man from the audience.
They talked for an hour about Carter and whether he was going to be The One. Mamie tended to jump into affairs with both feet flying and then to cry on Sal’s shoulder for weeks about what a bum she’d picked, again.
Sal broke down and ordered the Roquefort dressing and a couple of doughnuts. She said, ‘I’ve been thinking: that girl we met last spring. Well – not girl. Suzanne.’
‘That’s a cheerful subject.’
‘What I was thinking, was: I don’t want to end up like that.’
‘No reason why you should. Just don’t do it.’
‘I don’t mean killing myself. I mean before – how discouraged she was; never getting any good parts, sleeping around with guys that said they’d help her and didn’t. Hitting the bottle, taking sleeping pills, and a whole lot of other things too, I guess. Getting old, and nothing to show for it.’
‘It’s a hazard of the profession, that’s what they say. Never a dull moment, and no security. Isn’t it better than being stuck behind a sink all day?’
‘The older I get, the more I figure maybe the stove and the sink wouldn’t be so bad. Especially when I wonder about kids. I keep thinking, every once in a while, how nice it would be.’
‘Well, find a man first. After that, it’s up to you.’
‘Trouble is, I’m too used to thinking myself into a part.’
‘So, you might find out after about a year, you were sick of that part and wanted to try another one. Where would you be then?’
‘Stuck,’ Sal said.
*
He was there at the stage door, right on time, and took her out to dinner. Everything seemed easy and relaxed. Then he said, ‘I guess you know that what I was really interested in was taking you out like this and having some fun. You don’t mind?’
She giggled, a bit drunk. She’d shot up to the ceiling on half a bottle of white wine and felt great. She said, ‘Well, I did sort of suspect something like that.’
‘But now that we’re getting so friendly and I can tell what a nice girl you are, I wonder if you could help me out. See, that’s why I was going around looking at shows in the first place. I mean – not really, but I don’t usually get the time to enjoy myself like that, and I didn’t know how to begin. I was thinking of maybe going to a private detective.’
‘You’ve lost me,’ she said. ‘What are we talking about?’
‘A job. But it isn’t important. I’m just going to have to find somebody at some point.’
‘What kind of job?’
‘I guess you could call it impersonation, but there wouldn’t be anything shady about it. All completely straightforward.’
‘Guaranteed legit?’
‘Oh, definitely. Like I said. Maybe it could be described as entertainment; you know, sometimes a family gives big weekend parties and they need a girl to make sure it runs smoothly and looks good – sort of like being a receptionist.’
Mamie put her glass to her mouth again. She’d met one woman who had hired herself out as a go-go organizer for parties back in the late sixties, and even back then it hadn’t been above-board.
‘What I actually need,’ he said, ‘is just a girl who’ll pose as my fiancée when I go visit my cousins.’
She could see from his face that he didn’t mean anything weird, but she didn’t know what to answer.
He said, ‘I guess it sounds silly.’
‘Why? Why do you need the fiancée?’
‘It’s to take the heat off of somebody else.’
‘What?’
‘It’s so dumb. There’s this girl who was the girl next door when I was growing up. They kept trying to push us together all the time. And she’s all right, just – we aren’t interested in each other. Well, for a while I used to go out with her because it kept our parents happy and we could both go where we liked and do what we liked, and we’d just give each other alibis. Then she got mixed up with a married man, so she needed me as a cover. And I had my eye on somebody else too, so it was convenient for both of us. You see how the thing worked?’
‘Sounds pretty good.’
‘Now she wants to get married to this guy, but her parents aren’t going to accept it while I’m still on the loose. I know them.’
‘What about your parents?’
‘They died three years ago.’
‘Both of them?’
He nodded. He looked so sad all of a sudden that she didn’t want to ask him any more.
He took her back to her room and kissed her at the door. As he said goodnight he made her laugh, and, while she was still laughing, he walked over the threshold with her and kicked the door shut behind them.
‘You’ve left the cab downstairs,’ she told him.
‘Maybe you’d better come to my place,’ he suggested. ‘I could tell you all about how to be my fiancée. I’m too drunk to be dangerous. In fact, I’m kind of shy anyway. But I don’t want to have to say goodnight yet.’
She said OK. They got back into the taxi and went to his hotel. She marched straight to the side stairs and he met her on the landing after he’d picked up the key.
As soon as they got into his room it turned out that he wasn’t drunk at all. Everything started to go a lot faster than she’d had any idea it would. They were in bed and she could see her clothes on the chair and on the floor. He wasn’t a bit shy or even very nice. He was actually a little rough. She was still high enough not to be scared, but she bruised easily, and he was pinching and scratching and biting her.
‘You’re bruising me all over,’ she said.
He told her to shut up.
‘You’re hurting me.’
‘Shut up,’ he said, ‘or I’ll hit you.’
That shut her up. She turned her head to the side. She should have known better. It didn’t happen often that she was completely wrong about a man, but every time it did, it seemed that it was the kind of stupid mistake she always made, and always her fault. The number of men, she thought, she’d said yes to just because she was lonely; and afterwards you could tell they didn’t even like you much. She was nearly ready to cry.
He lit a cigarette and put his left arm behind his head. He said, ‘You’re very inhibited for an actress.’
‘What did you think I was – a professional?’
‘I just thought, most of the actresses I know are into everything.’
Including impersonation, she thought. Who knew what the story was there? He was obviously a good liar and better at acting than she was. His whole bedroom technique was worked out like a part: a solo part. A star part. He could screw for the Olympics.
She began to feel worse and worse. She reached down, found her slip, slung her legs over the side of the bed and put the slip on over her head.
‘What are you doing?’ he said.
‘I think I’d better be going.’
‘What for?’ He pulled her back and tried to turn her around. She didn’t want to look at him.
‘What’s the matter? I thought you were having a pretty good time. Stick around. I’ll introduce you to the whole of the repertoire.’
She tried to stand up again, saying, ‘I think I might be too amateur.’
‘Come back here. I want to talk to you about being introduced as my fiancée.’
‘Oh? That’s for real?’
‘I told you.’
‘I thought maybe you’d just made it up.’
‘Why would I do that?’
‘I don’t know. People make things up sometimes.’ Sometimes they even said they loved you when you didn’t need to hear it. That was a thing he hadn’t done.
Maybe he’d figured that with a girl like her, he wouldn’t have to bother.
He said, ‘You’ve got the feeling you’re being used, huh?’
‘That doesn’t worry me. That usually works both ways.’ What worried her was the lack of friendliness. It had reminded her of auditioning: when she’d be afraid that her performance was breaking up, and would become aware of the contempt aimed at her from out in the darkness where the judges were sitting, watching her go through her paces.
‘Come back over here,’ he told her. ‘We’ll get acquainted.’
All of a sudden he was sweet and loving to her. He said he was sorry he’d upset her; he hadn’t been with a woman for so long that he’d forgotten how to behave. She didn’t believe that. And then she didn’t care. She didn’t even care that she was giving too much away. She knew all at once that he was The One, as she and Sal used to call it; so, everything was all right, even though she didn’t know him very well yet.
They laughed about the job of posing as his fiancée. And he asked her about the other shows she’d been in. They laughed over them, too. He told her something about himself and his work; he was a lawyer. That impressed her. He’d come to town on business, to get someone to sign a paper for his firm; she kept forgetting the real name of the place because he liked to refer to the partnership as Eargerm and Stripling: the names had something to do with an office joke. They were the ones who had paid for the hotel the first time, when he’d been to see the show and decided that he wanted to have another look.
She told Sal everything, naturally. Sal said, ‘How you land yourself in these situations. He sounds like a real firecracker.’
‘He’s great. He sort of took me by storm. I didn’t think he was very nice at first. But he was just nervous. Can you imagine?’
‘No,’ Sal said seriously. ‘He doesn’t look in any way, even remotely, like the nervous type. Are you sure he’s OK?’
Of course she was sure. She was sure for six weeks. And at the end of four, she was pretty sure she was pregnant. When he asked her to come back to his home town to meet his relatives, she walked out on her job straight away. ‘And afterwards,’ she said, ‘I’ll move, so you won’t have to keep travelling back and forth. I could move in with you.’
Mrs Caliban and other stories Page 37