Brass Bed (2 page)

“Not much.”

“Well, it was, anyhow. She had run out of olives and wanted to know where to find some more, and I was telling her. Wouldn’t you like to have a martini?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Darling, are you going to be stubborn?”

“I hope so.”

“Would you like to know how it was that I suddenly decided that I couldn’t stand it any longer?”

“I’d rather not.”

“What I mean is, I was just sitting here with Sid and Fran, and we were drinking these martinis that Fran had made, and Sid was saying something perfectly ridiculous about just having one to be sociable, and all of a sudden it came to me that I couldn’t stand it any longer. It must have been some kind of insight or something, because I’ve been trying very hard not to think about you too much or let it disturb me because of the way you’ve been acting all nasty and virtuous about the way things are, about you and me and the way we really feel and all, and then I had this sudden feeling that I simply had to see you or die. You know?”

“Yes, I know.”

“Have you ever felt that way, darling? About me, I mean. That you simply had to see me or die?”

“Yes. It was an illusion. I didn’t see you, and I didn’t die.”

“Are you trying to make me unhappy?”

“By not dying?”

“You mustn’t joke with me, Felix. I’m much too miserable to be joked with.”

“I’m not joking. I don’t feel at all like joking.”

“Will you come have the martini?”

“No.”

“You may have something else if you’d rather.”

“I’d rather not have anything at all.”

“It would be very proper, darling. How could it be anything but proper with Sid and Fran all over the place?”

“It would not be proper. I’d sit and look at you and listen to your voice and what I’d be thinking would not be proper at all.”

“Thinking doesn’t count. What a person thinks doesn’t make any difference.”

“On the contrary, it makes a great deal of difference. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. That’s in the Bible.”

“Really? Well, even if it is, it’s a terrible thing to believe. If we really believed something like that, where would we all be?”

“I don’t know. Just where we are whether we believe it or not, I guess.”

“Wouldn’t you like to see me?”

“Yes, I would like very much to see you.”

“Will you come, then?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“If I came and saw you, I would have to start all over again getting used to
not
seeing you, and that is something I want to avoid.”

“Perhaps I’ll die after all, even if you don’t think so.”

“You won’t die. You’ll have another martini instead.”

“If I were to die, would you be sorry?”

“Goodbye, Jolly.”

“Really? Really goodbye?”

“Really.”

“All right. Goodbye, then.”

Her voice sounded very small and sad. I hung up and lay back across the bed and wanted to cry. It was hot in the room. It was a very hot July. Third week in July. I tried thinking about goliards in general and about the goliard I was trying to write a novel about in particular, but goliards seemed very dull, whether in general or in particular, even with a sexy duchess thrown in, and after a while I sat up and reached for the phone and called Jolly back.

“Are you dying or having a martini?” I said.

“Right now I’m having a martini,” she said, “but later I may die.”

“Dying is sticky business. You are wise to settle for a martini, and I’ve decided that I would like to have one too.”

“With me?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not at all sure that I still want you.”

“Well, do you or don’t you?”

“I do.”

“In that case, I’ll be right over.”

I hung up again and got off the bed and went downstairs to my Chevvie. The Chevvie was old and tired, and sometimes it ran, and sometimes it didn’t. This time it did, and I drove to Jolly’s in it.

S
HE LIVED
on a place. I don’t know why it is that a private street is almost always called a place, but I’ve noticed that it’s true, and it was true of the street that Jolly lived on. You entered the street through a stone gate with fancy ironwork added here and there for effect, and the street itself was a long ellipse. You drove down one side and made a U-turn and came back the other side, and on both sides were houses with a parking between. There were a lot of flowers and shrubs growing on the parking, and in the center was a white stone statue of a naked boy playing a flute, and from the holes in the flute came thin streams of water that went up into the air and down into a wide stone basin that the naked boy was standing in. The water sparkled in the sun and was quite pretty, but all in all the statue made very little sense so far as I could see. All the houses on both sides of the ellipse were big, and the house that Jolly lived in was bigger than some and not so big as others. It was a phony Tudor, with timbers and stuff, and had cost a lot of money.

The front door was open, and the screen was unhooked. I opened the screen and walked down the hall to the entrance to the living room, which was on the left, and I could hear Jolly’s voice in the living room. She sounded angry. I turned through the entrance into the room, and there were some dark beams overhead that probably didn’t support anything, and facing me in a chair was Fran Tyler with her legs crossed and a martini in her hand and an absorbed expression on her face. She had a lot of leg, and it was all good. This was very fortunate, because her face was long and mulish with prominent teeth, and so the legs had quite a bit to make up for. They did a pretty good job of it though. On the strength of her legs she got along extremely well, and there were times when her face didn’t seem to have much importance one way or another.

She was looking at Jolly and Sid, and Sid was standing so that I could see his face over Jolly’s shoulder, but all I could see of Jolly was her back, which was very much worth the seeing, so far as that goes. She was wearing a white sheath dress without any shoulders, and her skin was brown from the sun, and her legs were just as good as Fran’s, if not better, and it was pretty obvious that she didn’t have much, if anything, under the dress. I couldn’t see her face, as I said, but I remembered from other times that it was a good face with eyes a little long and cheeks slightly hollow, and as a matter of fact it wasn’t good at all, it was perfect, it was the loveliest face in the world. That was one big difference between Jolly and Fran, among others. On legs they may have been in a dead heat, depending on your prejudices, but when it came to faces, Jolly was way out in front and no question about it.

This was more than you could say for Sid’s face, even if you were a woman and had a bias toward men’s faces as opposed to other women’s. At its best it was only so-so as faces go, and at this moment it was not at its best. It was red and glossy, as if he’d been working up a sweat in a steam bath, and I could see that he was angry and had been hurt by something Jolly had said to him, which is just another way of saying that he was sullen. Whatever it was Jolly had said, he was doing his best to take it like a gentleman, and he was practically certain to succeed in this because being a gentleman was very important to him, and whenever his Id and his Ego got to raising hell with each other, you could count on his Ego coming out on top every time.

Fran saw me and smiled and waved her martini glass at me.

“Sid says he’s a social drinker,” she explained, “and Jolly says social drinkers are pigs.”

Jolly had a black eye. When she turned around I could see it, and it was probably the most beautiful black eye I had ever seen up to that time or have seen since. From a deep blue-black, it shaded outward to a shining purple on her cheek bone.

“So they are,” Jolly said. “Social drinkers are pigs.”

“Why?” Sid said reasonably. “Tell me why in God’s name social drinkers are pigs.”

“Yes,” I said. “I’d like to know myself. Why are social drinkers pigs?”

“They are,” Jolly said. “They’re absolute pigs.”

“You just keep repeating it,” Sid said. “You don’t say why.”

“It should be perfectly apparent why.”

“Well, it’s not apparent. It’s not apparent at all.”

Jolly walked over to me suddenly and kissed me, which meant nothing much in itself, because she frequently kissed all kinds of people.

“Hello, darling,” she said. “I was so upset by this pig that I almost forgot.”

“I am not a pig,” Sid said.

“Of course you’re a pig. You just said so.”

“I didn’t. I said I’m a social drinker, that’s all I said.”

“It’s the same thing. A social drinker is a pig.” She appealed to me. “Darling, don’t you think a social drinker is a pig?”

“Well,” I said, “I came in late and may have missed something. Why don’t you just explain it to us?”

“Certainly. I’ll be happy to explain it. A social drinker is someone who drinks your liquor when he doesn’t even like it or really want it, and he thinks he’s doing you a big favor by being compatible or something.” She glared at Sid, and her black eye gave her a very ferocious look. “Fran
likes
liquor. Felix does too. And here you are with your damn sense of sociability drinking it up from someone who would
enjoy
it. Who the hell do you think you are to be taking the liquor right out of Felix and Fran’s mouths? The truth is, you’re not a who at all. You’re a what, that’s what. You’re a pig.”

It was a devastating display of logic, and I was very relieved because now I could be on Jolly’s side logically as well as emotionally. Sid looked at her with his mouth open, and Fran looked at her with a kind of awe, and after a moment Sid lifted the martini he was holding and poured it into his open mouth.

“By God, that was wonderful!” Fran said. “Besides all that other nice stuff, this girl has
brains!”

“Yes,” I said. “Sometimes it frightens you a little.”

“Just the same,” Sid said, “I am not a pig.”

“Oh, please don’t be so stubborn,” Jolly said angrily. “It has been explained to you quite clearly that you are a pig, and you just keep saying that you’re not.”

“All right, all right,” he said. “I’m sorry I drank the God-damn martini.”

“You needn’t swear,” she said. “It isn’t necessary to swear.”

“You swore. You said I have a damn sense of sociability, and you asked me who the hell I think I am.”

“That’s different. I had sufficient provocation. I only swear when there is sufficient provocation.”

“Don’t you think I have any provocation, for God’s sake?”

“Provocation! You? You behave like a pig and persist in denying it, and for some strange reason you seem to think this gives you the right to swear at other people. I simply can’t understand how your mind works, Sid. You must be paranoid or something.”

“Well, I give up. I absolutely give up.”

“That’s a sensible attitude. Now you are being reasonable. Why don’t you just pour yourself another martini and behave decently?”

“No, thanks,” he said bitterly. “I have no wish to be a bigger pig than I’ve already been.”

“Oh, I have no objection to your being a pig. I just don’t want you to deny it. It’s for your own good, you know. Everyone should face reality. That’s what all the psychologists say, and it’s true. If you persist in denying things, you wind up with a lot of repressions and things, and it’s very bad for you.”

“How about me?” I said. “Do I get a drink?”

“Darling, I’m so sorry.” Jolly was contrite. “Can you ever forgive me?”

“If you will give me the drink, I’ll see about it,” I said.

“Of course. Is there some left in the shaker, Fran?”

“Yes,” Fran said, “there’s quite a lot left.”

She uncrossed her legs and stood up and began to pour a martini for me, and I went over to get it. Jolly turned on Sid again.

“I hope you’re satisfied,” she said. “You’ve positively made me forget all my manners.”

Sid opened his mouth to say something, but then he must have considered the possible consequences, and he closed his mouth again and came over to get another martini for himself. I had the feeling that he wasn’t getting this one just to be sociable.

“The trouble is,” Fran said, “Sid’s in love with Jolly. He subconsciously enjoys having her give him hell about things. It’s a pleasure to him, I mean. I wonder if it’s a sexual pleasure. I’ve been wondering about that, and I’d like to know. Is it a sexual pleasure, Sid?”

“Cut it out, Fran,” Sid said.

“I’m only asking for information. I really feel very clinical about it. Sort of like Kinsley.”

“Kinsey,” Jolly said.

“Really? Is it Kinsey? I thought it was Kinsley.”

“No, it’s Kinsey. I’m quite sure of that.”

“Well, anyhow, I’d like to know. Is it, Sid?”

“Cut it out,” Sid said.

Fran poured another martini for herself and drank some of it. While she was drinking, she stared at Sid judicially.

“You know,” she said, “I believe this is significant. Your refusing to answer, I mean. I ask you a scientific question, and you refuse to answer. It shows that, under all that pretense of drinking to be congenial and everything, you are really quite antisocial. It is the duty of every good citizen nowadays to be scientific, and anyone who refuses is surely antisocial.”

Jolly was looking at Sid with interest. She looked as if she might be inclined to forgive him a little for being a social drinker.

“Are
you in love with me, Sid?” she said. “It simply never occurred to me.”

“Of course he’s in love with you,” Fran said. “He’s simply wallowing in the filthy stuff. Couldn’t you tell? Actually couldn’t you? Even from the way he keeps looking at you and following you around and everything? It’s really rather disgusting, if you want to know the truth. Take the way he got so angry and all about your black eye. Didn’t you think that was really rather disgusting?”

“Speaking of the eye,” I said to Jolly, “I’ve been wondering about it.”

She smiled happily and touched it proudly with finger tips.

“Isn’t it beautiful?”

“It certainly is. It’s the most beautiful one I’ve ever seen. Where did you get it?”