Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (37 page)

‘No, thanks.’

‘Rodney,’ he called, ‘get some benzedrine.’

He took me into the bedroom, an enormous bedroom, with an open fireplace and an over-sized bed, and Rodney came out of the bathroom with a bottle of tablets and a glass of water.

‘Take a couple,’ Jonah said. ‘I’ll finish dressing, Rodney,’ he said.

Rodney bowed and went out.

‘These’ll pull you through,’ Jonah said.

I took two of the benzedrine tablets and half the water, and he took the bottle and the glass and smiled at me.

‘Sit down,’ he said.

I sat down in a brocaded armchair.

‘Hell of a shock, wasn’t it?’ he asked. He smiled again. ‘A million dollars cash.’

There was that same phrase again. Just the mention of it and those light refractions went off in my head again. That goddamn decanter.

‘… Then I did hear him right?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’

‘You know about it?’

‘Knew about it? I suggested it…’

He stepped into his dressing-room and came out with a blue Brooks Brothers shirt, polo style, and a pair of black shoes. He dropped the shoes on the carpet and pulled the shirt over his head.

‘
You
suggested it?’

‘Mildred held out for a half a million – I held out for a million.’

‘Mildred?’

‘Margaret. Midge. Her name is really Mildred. She changed it. Numerology. One of the earlier phases of her mystic life.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ I said.

‘We’re quite a surprising family,’ he said, sitting down on the bed, taking the shoe-trees out of his shoes. They were wing-tipped Peal’s. ‘I probably don’t have to tell you that.’

‘I can’t get over it,’ I said. ‘I can’t get over if’

‘Why? What’s a million to him? He’s got a hundred or so – and she’s the closest thing to his heart.’ He stopped tying his black whaleskin shoe-lace and looked at me soberly. ‘She is to mine, too, I guess – even if we do sometimes say unpleasant things to each other. She needs help – and she needs it in a hurry. Maybe you’re the one to do it. I hope so.’

I shook my head. ‘This is the goddamndest thing I ever heard of,’ I said. ‘You people don’t know anything about me and yet you offer me a million dollars to take her over. How can I comprehend that? Things like this just don’t happen…’

‘Well, it did happen. Midge wants you. What the hell – we’ve tried everything else.’ He finished tying his shoes and picked up a pair of blue flannel trousers from the bed and slipped into them. ‘Funny thing,’ he said. ‘I got a feeling you two will hit it off together. Of course, when we had the meeting this afternoon, I was talking in the dark. I hadn’t even seen you. But now that I have met you, I think maybe she’s right. You didn’t get a chance to talk to the old man very long, did you?’

‘Long enough. Some officers came in.’

‘Yes. The strike. Well, he’d tell you. She doesn’t know that you’re supposed to break her away from the stuff. You’ll have to be clever take her away on a trip somewhere. But she mustn’t know. …’

‘The whole thing is crazy,’ I said. ‘It’s idiotic.’

‘Nothing idiotic about a million dollars. …’

‘I’m dazed …’

‘There’s something else that’s much more important,’ he said. ‘You bring a physical balance to Margaret that she’s found in no other man.’

I looked at him.

‘Do I have to be more graphic?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said. ‘But how do you know this?’

‘She told me. She told the old man. He didn’t quite know how to put it to you. Now, do you understand what you’ve got that we want?’

Yes. Now I understood. I got up. ‘You suppose I might have a drink?’ I asked.

‘I’d say you need one. Same thing?’

‘Straight, this time.’

He grinned. ‘Step into my office,’ he said.

I went behind him into the bathroom. The bathroom was almost as big as the bedroom. It had ultra-violet and infra-red lamps suspended from cables over a tile rubbing table, and in an alcove opposite the glassed-in shower was the bar. He picked up a bottle of House of Lords gin and started to measure some into a jigger.

‘Not gin,’ I said.

‘I thought you were drinking a martini. …’

‘I was. Vodka.’

‘Vodka! My God,’ he said. ‘Now, you’ve got me.’ He put the bottle down. ‘I’ll have to ring the bar. …’

‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’ll take gin. …’

‘I’ll get some vodka. It’ll only take a minute.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Gin is fine.’

‘Well…’

‘Really.’

He poured the gin into the jigger and poured water from a silver pitcher into a glass and handed them to me.

I tossed them off.

‘Vodka, eh?’ he said. ‘Is that the answer?’

The gin was going down like a slowly turning live ember. ‘Most curious thing,’ I said. ‘Nobody has yet asked me what I think of Margaret. Or does that matter?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I suppose not…’

‘Another drink?’

‘No, thanks.’

‘I’ll finish dressing then.’

He went out into his dressing-room. I went with him. He picked a lemon-colored knitted tie from a long rack of many ties, Charvet’s and Sullka’s, and tied it in a tight Windsor knot and buttoned down his collar. The door to his shoe closet was open and on racks that reached from the floor to ceiling were at least fifty pairs, and on a shelf with a built-in ladder were his boots and bluchers and walkers, – all fine English leather, and all glossed and not shined. On the dressing-table was an open jewelry box of gold collar pins and money clips, and in another jewelry box were half a dozen gold watches, strap and pocket.

‘You got a hell of a lot of stuff here,’ I said.

‘Moth’s Paradise, I call it,’ he said.

He took a blue-flannel jacket off a hanger, and slipped it on, and I saw now that his trousers had no belt loops, but little tabs at the hips. He buttoned his jacket and from the handkerchief drawer he took a handkerchief of sheerest linen, twenty-four inches square, and monogrammed J.D. in plain block letters, one letter blue, one letter yellow, opened it, punched a teat in the middle, took it by the teat, shook it, gathered it in the palm of his other hand and stuffed it into his upper pocket. Then he opened a big gold humidor that was lined with purple velvet and selected one of seven or eight gold lighters, flipped it to see if it would ignite, which it did; and picked up a gold cigarette-case damn near as big as a brief case. He snapped this open. It was filled with sixty cigarettes.

‘I smoke a lot,’ he said, almost self-consciously.

‘I see you do,’ I said.

In my whole life I had never seen anything that remotely approached his wardrobe. I had never even dreamed of anything like it. Here was the finest in everything, the ne plus ultra, and he fitted it perfectly. He knew, of course, that I was watching him, all eyes, and he also must have known that I was fascinated, but he did not show off, he was not affected, he was perfectly natural, perhaps a little embarrassed, which was also proper. …

‘I didn’t mean to ogle,’ I said.

‘I don’t mind. …’

‘It’s beautiful – all of it.’

He seemed pleased. ‘You like clothes?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Only I’ve never been able to afford anything like this.’

‘Well, you will now,’ he said. ‘You’ve now got a million dollars.’

A million dollars … I fought off the memories, excited, asking myself: Can I? Can I? Can I fight my way out of this trap? Here is what I’ve always wanted, now created especially for me and offered to me alone it never could be offered to anyone else, it would be too fantastic, it is being offered to me, this world, because the axis of it is the symbol of my guilt and the tempting God dares me to face it because He knows it is but a short cut to destruction. But why should it be? Myth and memory retreat before the intellect…

‘You know,’ he was saying, ‘I’m just beginning to realize that we’re practically the same size. If my hair were a little darker, we might even be twins. …’

‘I’d noticed that,’ I said.

‘Tomorrow, if you’d care to, I’ll take you down to see Piggott. He’s in town.’

‘Piggott?’

‘The Peal man from London.’

‘Oh! Shoes…’

‘Yes. He comes around once or twice a year.’

‘I think I’d like that,’ I said.

‘Good. Shall we see if Midge is ready? We’re all going out together. …’

‘Out where?’ I asked.

‘To the club. Midge said she’d like to go. Do her good. You may as well start meeting the gang.’ He looked at me, frowning. ‘She said you were free tonight. …’

‘I’m free,’ I said. ‘I’m free as a bird. …’

T
HE CLUB WAS ONLY
a few blocks from the Dobson house – a rectangle of almost solid light against the blackness of the thick fir trees. The friction hum of the tires of Jonah’s car changed keys now as we turned off the paved street into the driveway of macadam, a driveway lined with Lombardy poplars through which I could see in the reflected light the contours of the golf course and the ghost-like spray from the greens sprinklers; and I could smell it too, the smell of foliage and damp grass that comes with night-time watering: and now sounds came in through the lowered window on my side of the car, from the funnel of poplars: sounds of people talking and sounds of music noises, gay and wonderful party noises … The kind I used to hear at our old club on a fall Saturday night after the football team had won a game, any game: and one fall, my senior year, when there were no victories to celebrate, we celebrated touchdowns – and once even a safety. That was the best party of all, that one… My heart went up with the rising euphony of elation and my spirit soared and touched ectasy, touching it lightly, in flight, as the tips of a kingfisher’s wings touch a remote lake, no more than this a flash, a single instant’s release, and the color of it was blue. This is for me, I thought, son-of-a-bitch, this is for me. I’ll make this work, he’s got me, but I’ll make it work. Myth and memory retreat before intellect. Oedipus is dead…

We stopped in front, beside a white marquee on which was emblazoned in red the crest of the club (and which I remembered seeing on many of Jonah’s trophies), and an attendant in a white jacket with red piping and the same red crest over his heart took the car, and an elderly man in an identical jacket swung open the screen door. ‘Good evening, Miss Dobson, good evening, Mister Dobson,’ he said. ‘Miss West is waiting for you in the grill-room.’

‘Thank you, William,’ Jonah said. ‘Sounds like the joint’s jumping....’

‘A fine crowd, sir,’ William said. ‘Never saw people so happy. Nice to see you again, Miss Dobson. …’

‘Thank you, William,’ she said, almost cautiously.

I took her arm and followed half a step behind Jonah as he led us past the coat-room and down the stone steps to the grillroom, from which noise and music were now vortexing upwards.

The grill-room was like the grill-room in any country club, perhaps larger than most, the walls hung with caricatures of the members and mounted game fish and antlers and other trophies of the hunt. It was filled with people, nice-looking people, gay people, and before we had reached the bottom step a girl had seen us and was coming through the crowd towards us, waving her hand. She was a tall girl, with long legs, bareheaded, with blonde hair that fell to her shoulders, unribboned. She had obviously been watching for us to arrive. She had an old-fashioned in her hand. ‘Hello, Margaret,’ she said.

‘Hello, Martha,’ Margaret said.

‘Fine thing,’ Jonah said. ‘I call for you like a dutiful date and you’re not there. Come here, you …’ He took her by the arm, warmly. ‘I want you to know Martha West…’

‘Hello,’ she said to me.

‘How do you do,’ I said.

She smiled at Jonah. ‘I hope you’re not too put out with me,’ she said. ‘I didn’t even get home to change. I got caught in a bridge game and I was trying to get even.’

‘Did you?’ Jonah asked.

‘No.’

‘Then I am put out with you.’ He touched the old-fashioned glass in her hand. ‘How many are you up on us?’

‘Two – only…’

‘Shall we catch up standing or sitting down?’ Jonah asked.

‘I have a table,’ Martha said. ‘I
did
have…’

Jonah held her arm, moving through the crowd that welled out from the bar like breakers off a rocky point. Everybody, men and women, knew him and greeted him with familiar affection; and a great many of them knew Margaret and greeted her too, but with less cordiality, with no cordiality at all, actually with some coldness; and I understood then what Jonah had meant when he had said she seldom got to the club. It was very evident from their looks and their attitudes that they regarded her not only as a stranger, but as a curiosity. She gave me a little grimace of annoyance.

‘Is it that bad?’ I asked.

‘It’s worse,’ she said, quite loudly, I thought.

I smiled at her reassuringly, telling myself that there was a lot of work to be done with her, but that I’d do it, son-of-a-bitch, this was for me. I wanted to think of one million dollars, but I dared not, and then I thought: what the hell, I may as well start licking this thing right now, it is certainly audacious enough to appeal to me; and I moved my mind along to the thought of one million dollars, carefully and stealthily, to get a look at one little corner of it, and I saw one little corner and it stabbed me, but not too painfully, and I said to myself: See? Myth and memory retreat before intellect. …

Martha stopped us at a small round table in the corner and we sat down and ordered cocktails, all but Margaret. She ordered ginger ale. Here the music was predominant, we were sitting against the rear wall and opposite us was a wide corridor that led to the ballroom where the music was, where people were dancing. It was a well-rehearsed band for a local band, but it was talentless.

‘Well, Margaret,’ Martha said, ‘it’s nice to see you again.’

Margaret started to reply, she had it on the tip of her tongue, and I knew from her eyes that it would be something caustic and I gave her a frozen smile and she altered the thought, saying: ‘I must say the place hasn’t changed much. …’

Martha and Jonah both had observed my look, and Jonah nodded thankfully to me. Martha must have realized that she had had a narrow escape from a snotty remark, although I was sure that what she had said was not intended to be bitchy, because she turned to Jonah and said with some embarrassment: ‘Speaking of changes, what is this petition you’ve started?’