The Lady Who Liked Clean Restrooms

by J. P. Donleavy

  Her own background had only prepared her for telling at a glance the difference between the ormolu-mounted and floral marquetry of Louis the Fifteenth and Sixteenth. Perhaps the peasant European stock most of Americans descended from had got it right the first time and just made women beasts of burden and told their women to shut up, god damn it, shut up about facials and perfume and getting your hair done and get the fuck out toting that bale. Holy cow, dear dear granny, things are now getting rougher. They really are getting hard to bear. What do I do now. Having bankrolled my husband in the first place with your legacy and now being divorced without alimony. And she knew what Grandmother would say.

  ‘My dear, need you ask. You stay and remain as you always were, a lady. But of course reserving being always ready to kick a bastard who deserves it in the balls.’

  Along with dreaming of escape she even dreamt of marrying again. She still got distant letters and not that long ago, from the beau who was now a distinguished senator in Washington and who took her to his high school prom, wanting to know how she was and signed fondly with xs for kisses. But the truth was inescapable that the solution for women is to be not only filthy but disgustingly filthy rich sitting around in their boudoirs, bathing and nibbling on smoked salmon and chocolate from Paris. And to keep it a secret if they can from men. Who like to feel you need them. Because if you don’t need them, either you or they run a mile.

  She felt like a fallen woman who did nothing wrong. She had only let three other guys screw her during her whole marriage always restricting it to their being best friends of her husband. It was fast over in maybe twenty-eight minutes, the longest. She timed it on the watch Steve gave her for her twenty-ninth birthday. Now it was little consolation and comfort that even in her reduced circumstances other women, still married, were suspicious that their husbands might still want to jump her because, even with one slight sag in one tit she still retained with her daily sit ups her good figure backed up with her soberly attractive aquiline nose, blue eyes, high cheek bones and full lips.

  When she dressed up to attend Sotheby’s auctions downtown there was no end of attention she could still attract. And her best former girlfriends of which there were only two left from Bryn Mawr and whom she had only rarely seen, now felt like she might, being available, try to actually steal their husbands simply because the two times she was invited by both to dinner, vaunted vintages of wine were served.

  ‘Gee John always brings out one of those chateau bottled this or that and decants it two hours ahead of time. He must really think you have a palate.’

  ‘I do.’

  And despite martinis, she did. Which Steve was fond of saying cost more to educate than going to college. Neither wife liked it either when she ate with gusto and was slim. And she really did have better than a good palate. She also knew and knew both these husbands knew and were thinking that along with her wearing chaste cashmere twin sets and a string of real pearls, that she could give them the best of blow jobs, to set bells ringing in their ears. Which practice had made perfect and which blow jobs, were regarded as a diplomatic way of remaining a virgin at Bryn Mawr. And what’s more both husbands had already given her the eye, daring even to euphemistically mention a motel where they could meet for afternoon tea.

  But holy cow even she thought she had got far too ladylike eccentric for impromptu roadhouse fucks, the hygiene of which could leave you feeling what the hell have I done. Especially as she had now taken up reading modern poetry and none of these stupid bastards had even heard of John Betjeman never mind Hughes or Heaney. Which had now become her indelible way of testing people’s cultural quotient, finding out if, with all their vaunted degrees, they merely and really were only academic cultural numbskulls not ever having heard either of the architectural purist Adolf Loos.

  But now too, and growing by leaps and bounds with her fortnightly visits to New York and the galleries, was not only her knowledge but her love of art. It had in these past worst of years given her a routine to anticipate and to live by. Even to making her lunch of tomato, cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches to stick in her handbag which she would eat with a thermos of weak china tea on a bench in the park, and feeding her crumbs to the sparrows and squirrels.

  The lady at the membership desk of the Museum of Modern Art was so pleasantly encouragingly polite that even as impoverished as she was getting, she joined. And always enjoying to spend, especially on cold days, an hour at least in the lobby watching people go to and fro wearing their cultured expressions. The only slight disconcertance being that in the middle of looking at paintings she always found herself desperately needing to take a pee. And grandmother’s voice in her ear.

  ‘My dear, if you really have to, only clean, very clean rest rooms will do.’

  And as she discovered, the rest rooms of most of the galleries, always spotless, became in the case of an extended afternoon, to be simply overly used and not to her liking. All except for the great old mansion which housed the Frick, where there was something privately pleasant about the marble polished splendour of that building’s ladies’ powder room, albeit located in the basement but whose very lonely obscurity gave her unaccountable confidence.

  But she had carefully picked out her available options of all those rest rooms which she made a habit of to attend. Outside the Metropolitan there was an excellently kept ladies in the nearby hotel. Which however as the doorman got to recognize her nearly scheduled visits, did look at her in a way she found, if not unfriendly, was certainly quizzical enough to make him think he couldn’t remember her name and in return indeed made her pretend she was staying as a hotel patron. Although he and the other staff remained unfailingly courteous she did finally make a decision to seek other venues for taking her peaceful pee.

  And presto, as she navigated elsewhere around town and other galleries, ideal places did turn up such as the Plaza and Pierre hotels, the latter being the less trafficked and most discreet. But the best of all were two up market funeral homes. Which, with a bit of a walk, she could frequent on both sides of Central Park. These she found were wonderful places, curiously chastening and comforting. Subdued in lighting. Softly and richly carpeted, boxes of facial tissue for tears and utterly shiny immaculate in their rest rooms.

  And certainly life was becoming moderately tolerable on these days in spite of eking out her financial survival. Even if this was New York City, bourse of the world where even a smile has a price. And where so many of the dispirited wander. Where, too, so many of the unclaimed dead remain unknown, abandoned to Potters Field on Hart’s Island off the Pelham Bay shore. But she still lived, seated on the shiny wicker seats, whooshing downtown on the New York Central Express and as she sat, thinking her unexpurgated thoughts through Crestwood and Fleetwood and Woodlawn and realizing there was a lot of wood this and wood that in the names.

  She thought too that women didn’t know what to do with themselves these days which could turn them into harridans. Hardly a female friend she knew wasn’t miserable. Either mind dumb with children, or in the married condition married to an earnest toiler, or lonely unmarried in their successful career. And the misery of the feminist backlash over the whole god damn country was whipping everybody into bloody wretched minded submission either feminizing men or making them into bigger bastards than ever they were. And everybody desperate to diplomatically conform and afraid to call anything by its real name.

  Even the faded memories of her and Steve’s disaccord, seemed now not that bad at its worst. When she having moved the living room furniture around a bit which she knew would be to Steve’s dislike, she’d stand there and say if the fucking son of a bitch comes home from his trip and moves that ashtray back exactly one inch to the left again as he did last week and all the weeks previous, I’ll hit him over the god damn fucking head with a hatchet which with his psychopathic sexual obsessions, wouldn’t be the only thing she’d be hitting him for. And she would hope Granny in heaven didn’t hear her vulgar use of language.<
br />
  But now having descended into the working class she wanted to keep reminding herself that she had seen better days that still could linger at least in her imagination. And it was only money that made the difference. That she’d once roamed her grandmother’s great plantation by the sea and paddled her canoe amid the alligators and excitedly risked death from moccasins and hornet stings. But it was hard now to imagine that that same southern grandmother steeped her in her code of good breeding. And who always said if she said why can’t I do that.

  ‘Because my dear you were brought up to be a lady. A lady.’

  And she did, she remained a lady. But no longer to the degree described in the dictionary. She now felt prematurely dumped as though she were being added to the geriatric scrap heap piling up coast to coast all over America. And maybe even in Canada where a lot of your folk, not having to worry about doctors putting their stethoscopes over their wallets and purses, are in better physical condition. And she was tending to become very British and would refer to matters disagreeable as a load of old codswallop.

  She wished too that everyone in the country would wipe the phony smile off their faces. But to now attempt to change and struggle to again be a happy faced matron avoiding an au blet corpulence and gummy build up in life, simply was another humiliation she did not feel she could bear. Better to become reclusive and be shunned. Plus she found she was getting satisfaction out of avoiding people she used to know and felt it was at least an amount of satisfaction equal to the amount of guilt folk endured in avoiding her. But one thing she never expected to find was that money could end up meaning so devastatingly much in her life, and end up accounting for the mere fact of providing a roof over her head. Her now reduced circumstances had changed her life overnight from a brave busy existence of having been proud of who she was to now feeling apologetic. And then having sold her Jaguar and now her third hand Volvo, which corroded her independence further, reducing her to the demeaning condition of having to be seen standing in the rain to take a local bus. Her only consolation being as she got wet, that her grandmother had said.

  ‘Ah my dear some of the very best people take buses. But perhaps in New York, only on Madison and Fifth Avenues.’

  However, a husband or two weren’t shunning her and a wife or two were getting nervous. But at least her company could be better than having gone to investigate orgies going on in the back room of one of the notorious road house motels she’d heard of along the highway where briefcase carrying respectable members of the community were known to let more than their hair down. But a recent murder cured some of that notion. Plus the expectation of catching some filthy disgusting disease.

  But could any multipopulated spree of debauchery be worse than moments when she got so low sinking in her loneliness that she merely sat as she did tonight, sipping an iced vodka and playing Mahler over and over again. Then at the last chord holding her hands clutched in her hair and sobbing at her plight. And so to put herself to bed. And good lord at twelve thirty a.m. reading and nodding off to sleep that sound she just woke to, was not Mahler but the noise of the door bell.

  It had happened a few times before when she wouldn’t answer. But her light was still on. And a couple of times when she did guardedly answer it at least produced an hour or two of companionship becoming a matter of suffering the embarrassment of silent panting desperateness of the only available guys who were always somebody elses husband, and always appearing too late at night when she was already abed under the covers trying to read for a while instead of masturbating herself to sleep. She could tell by the way the bell was ringing that whoever it was, was already tipsily losing their balance drunk at her door.

  ‘Hey Joy, it’s me Clifford.’

  And if she now stupidly answered it after being plaintively begged to do so, he’d nearly be unable to climb the stairs. But with her light on he was bound to yell again and her nearest neighbour, a refined elderly woman through the wall whose husband had recently died, might have a stroke. Then she knew, after having admitted him half heartedly welcomingly, that she would then find herself belligerently and uncontrollably accosting him and trying to send him home. Wondering, too, when he started trying to embrace and kiss her, if she might have to revert to under a small pillow where she now always kept hidden, one of her remaining prize possessions, a not so small 38 caliber Smith & Wesson Stainless Steel M67 revolver sporting very upmarket marvellous looking gold plated bullets in the cylinder. A minute later as he stood on her living room rug after small inane pleasantries she let him have a gold plated piece of her mind.

  ‘What are you after. Why are you here. At this time of night. What are you looking for.’

  ‘Hey gee sorry I didn’t know I got you out of bed. It’s a bit late, what is it one a.m. I’m just here I guess because I want to be here.’

  ‘Well that’s swell for you suddenly deciding you’ve found a place to go after midnight. But for me that’s not enough to provoke my hospitality. Why don’t you go home to your wife.’

  ‘Hey gee, Joy, I don’t want to sound trite this time of night but it’s the god damn truth, she doesn’t understand me.’

  ‘And you think I do. Well you’re right I do. But you won’t be flattered to hear about it, especially expressed in an unbiased opinion.’

  ‘Well gee, Joy, shoot.’

  ‘I’m going to. My understanding of you is that you’re married to the most gruesome bitch this nasty world could ever have invented.’

  ‘What. Hey hold it. Holy Christ those are pretty strong words, Joy. She’s the mother of two nice kids. Yeah holy gee. No kidding. OK, so maybe that’s true. I’m too drunk to deny it anyway.’

  ‘But her bottomless trust fund helps keep you together in holy matrimony.’

  ‘Hey come on. That’s way below the belt. OK, Celia’s rich, but it ain’t her fault she got trust funds. But I got a good job and salary. But I got to be away a lot with long hours. And I guess that’s why maybe she doesn’t understand me. Plus Celia just god damn outright doesn’t like sex.’

  ‘And you want somebody else to supply the traditional standard home comforts of getting laid.’

  ‘Hey no.’

  ‘And if not that then getting a blow job. And that’s why you’re here.’

  ‘Hey wait a second Joy. Jesus Christ I’m here to come to see you. Not to get laid or blown. I really mean that.’

  ‘Well actually I really mean that I might consider it.’

  ‘What.’

  ‘Yeah really, don’t faint. Giving you a fuck or blow job. If you put five hundred dollars on the table. And provided you don’t take more than twenty minutes. Maybe we’ll make that twenty-five minutes. However, that is only when I see the five hundred dollars. And only then that I’ll consider it.’

  ‘Hey holy cow. Hey come on Jocelyn, you’d do this. What are you doing. Hey what kind of girl have you become. Holy cow. Do you need help.’

  ‘More to the point, and holy cow, do you need or want a fuck or a blow job. Because if you don’t and don’t have five hundred dollars I’m going to go back to bed. It’s late.’

  ‘Gee you went to the best schools for Christ’s sake. Bryn Mawr. Five hundred dollars.’

  ‘What has Bryn Mawr got to do with my price. Or is it too low.’

  ‘They didn’t teach girls there that kind of arithmetic at Bryn Mawr.’

  ‘How do you know.’

  ‘Why would you do this Jocelyn. Right here in Scarsdale for Christ’s sake. Tell me why.’

  ‘Well to be geographically correct, it’s not Scarsdale. It’s Yonkers.’

  ‘Hey well at least you’re right on or near the borderline.’

  ‘Well whether it’s Scarsdale or Yonkers I’m offering you a fuck because I need the money. And you’re not getting into me or anything from or out of me without it.’

  ‘Gee, hold it a second. I mean Jesus this is kind of a shock. Mind if I sit down. I got to re-evaluate this. Gee I’d be buying you pure and simple.�
�

  ‘That’s right. Maybe not so pure, but damn simple. Five hundred for twenty minutes. Sorry I do believe I did say twenty-five minutes. So I’ll give you fifteen seconds to think it over. But don’t make yourself at home. Or maybe I better make that five seconds. Since I’m here in my pajamas. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.’

  ‘Gee Joy, you look good in your pajamas. You really do. Your figure still shows you’re a real athlete.’

  ‘I said five seconds. Are you in the market.’

  ‘Yeah. OK, OK. Gee and I always thought you were a lady.’

  ‘Well that’s what my ole mother, my grandmother and my governess taught me to be. And included with such tutelage was the tenet to be gracious to gentlemen, which perhaps is no longer the proper designation for men. However I can’t see that in my directness I’m being in any way otherwise than gracious. Except that my present circumstances force me to make a gentleman pay for it.’

  ‘No. No. That’s true. If you need the money. But gee five hundred bucks.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But well the truth is, Joy, I’m kinda short.’

  ‘Well gee, I’m sorry, Clifford. But the market truth is that in being a lady or pretending to be one, one does have a high price. Goodbye. I want to go to bed. I’m going down to the city first thing by an early train tomorrow.’

  ‘Gee, maybe can’t you give me a shot of something. Just a jigger of that Jim Beam or vodka you’ve got there. And a little bit of ice. Then let me count out how much I got.’

  ‘If it’s not five hundred dollars don’t bother. And drinks are extra at five dollars. And just don’t try to make yourself at home.’