My Sister's Hand in Mine (15 page)

“Was the water cold?” asked the girl.

“Yes and no,” said Mrs. Copperfield.

“Did you swim in the water naked with your friend?”

“Yes.”

“Then there weren't any people around, I suppose.”

“No, there wasn't a soul there. Do you swim?” Mrs. Copper-field asked the girl.

“No,” she said, “I never go near the water.” The girl had a shrill voice. She had light hair and brows. She could easily have been partly English. Mrs. Copperfield decided not to ask her. She turned to the girl.

“I'm going to make a telephone call. Where is the nearest place with a phone?”

“Come to Bill Grey's restaurant. They keep it very cool. I generally spend my mornings there drinking like a fish. By the time it's noon I'm cockeyed drunk. I shock the tourists. I'm half Irish and half Javanese. They make bets about what I am. Whoever wins has to buy me a drink. Guess how old I am.”

“God knows,” said Mrs. Copperfield.

“Well, I'm sixteen.”

“Very possible,” said Mrs. Copperfield. The girl seemed peeved. They walked in silence to Bill Grey's restaurant, where the girl pushed Mrs. Copperfield through the door and along the floor towards a table in the middle of the restaurant.

“Sit down and order whatever you like. It's on me,” said the girl.

There was an electric fan whirling above their heads.

“Isn't it delicious in here?” she said to Mrs. Copperfield.

“Let me make my phone call,” said Mrs. Copperfield, who was terrified lest Mr. Copperfield should have come in a few hours ago and be waiting impatiently for her call even at this very moment.

“Make all the phone calls you like,” said the girl.

Mrs. Copperfield went into the booth and phoned her husband. He said that he had arrived a short time ago, and that he would have breakfast and join her afterwards at Bill Grey's. He sounded cold and tired.

The girl, while waiting anxiously for her return, had ordered two old-fashioneds. Mrs. Copperfield came back to the table and flopped into her seat.

“I never can sleep late in the mornings,” said the girl. “I don't even like to sleep at night if I have anything better to do. My mother told me that I was as nervous as a cat, but very healthy. I went to dancing school but I was too lazy to learn the steps.”

“Where do you live?” asked Mrs. Copperfield.

“I live alone in a hotel. I've got plenty of money. A man in the Army is in love with me. He's married but I never go with anyone else. He gives me plenty of money. He's even got more money at home. I'll buy you what you want. Don't tell anyone around here, though, that I've got money to spend on other people. I never buy them anything. They give me a pain. They live such terrible lives. So cheap; so stupid; so very stupid! They don't have any privacy. I have two rooms. You can use one of them if you like.”

Mrs. Copperfield said she wouldn't need to, very firmly. She wasn't fond of this girl in the least.

“What is your name?” the girl asked her.

“Frieda Copperfield.”

“My name is Peggy—Peggy Gladys. You looked kind of adorable to me with your hair all wet and your little nose as shiny as it was. That's why I asked you to drink with me.”

Mrs. Copperfield jumped. “Please don't embarrass me,” she said.

“Oh, let me embarrass you, adorable. Now finish your drink and I'll get you some more. Maybe you're hungry and would like some steak.”

The girl had the bright eyes of an insatiable nymphomaniac. She wore a ridiculous little watch on a black ribbon around her wrist.

“I live at the Hotel de las Palmas,” said Mrs. Copperfield. “I am a friend of the manager there, Mrs. Quill, and one of her guests, Pacifica.”

“That's no good, that hotel,” said Peggy. “I went in there with some fellows for drinks one night and I said to them: ‘If you don't turn right around and leave this hotel, I'll never allow you to take me out again.' It's a cheap place; awful place; it's filthy dirty besides. I'm surprised at you living there. My hotel is much nicer. Some Americans stay there when they come off the boat if they don't go to the Hotel Washington. It's the Hotel Granada.”

“Yes, that is where we were staying originally,” said Mrs. Copperfield. “My husband is there now. I think it is the most depressing place I have ever set foot in. I think the Hotel de las Palmas is a hundred million times nicer.”

“But,” said the girl, opening her mouth wide in dismay, “I think you have not looked very carefully. I've put all my own things around in my room of course, and that makes a lot of difference.”

“How long have you been living there?” asked Mrs. Copperfield. She was completely puzzled by this girl and a little bit sorry for her.

“I have been living there for a year and a half. It seems like a lifetime. I moved in a little while after I met the man in the Army. He's very nice to me. I think I'm smarter than he is. That's because I'm a girl. Mother told me that girls were never dumb like men, so I just go ahead and do whatever I think is right.”

The girl's face was elfin and sweet. She had a cleft chin and a small snub-nose.

“Honestly,” she said, “I've got lots of money. I can always get more. I'd love to get you anything you like, because I love the way you talk and look and the way you move; you're elegant.” She giggled and put her own dry rough hand in Mrs. Copperfield's.

“Please,” she said, “be friendly to me. I don't often see people I like. I never do the same thing twice, really I don't. I haven't asked anyone up to my rooms in the longest while because I'm not interested and because they get everything so dirty. I know you wouldn't get everything dirty because I can tell that you come from a nice class of people. I love people with a good education. I think it's wonderful.”

“I have so much on my mind,” said Mrs. Copperfield. “Generally I haven't.”

“Well, forget it,” said the young girl imperiously. “You're with Peggy Gladys and she's paying for your drinks. Because she wants to pay for your drinks with all her heart. It's such a beautiful morning. Cheer up!” She took Mrs. Copperfield by the sleeve and shook her.

Mrs. Copperfield was still deep in the magic of her dream and in thoughts of Pacifica. She was uneasy and the electric fan seemed to blow directly on her heart. She sat staring ahead of her, not listening to a word the girl was saying.

She could not tell how long she had been dreaming when she looked down and saw a lobster lying on a plate in front of her.

“Oh,” she said, “I can't eat this. I can't possibly eat this.”

“But I ordered it for you,” said Peggy, “and there is some beer coming along. I had your old-fashioned taken away because you weren't touching it.” She leaned across the table and tucked Mrs. Copperfield's napkin under her chin.

“Please eat, dearest,” said Peggy, “you'll give me such great pleasure if you do.”

“What do you think you're doing?” said Mrs. Copperfield fretfully. “Playing house?”

Peggy laughed.

“You know,” said Mrs. Copperfield, “my husband is coming here to join us. He'll think we're both stark raving mad to be eating lobster in the morning. He doesn't understand such things.”

“Well, let's eat it up quickly, then,” said Peggy. She looked wistfully at Mrs. Copperfield. “I wish he wasn't coming,” she said. “Couldn't you telephone him and tell him not to come?”

“No, my dear, that would be impossible. Besides, I don't have any reason to tell him not to come. I am very anxious to see him.” Mrs. Copperfield could not resist being just a little bit sadistic with Peggy Gladys.

“Of course you want to see him,” said Peggy, looking very shy and demure. “I'll be quiet while he's here, I'll promise you.”

“That's just what I don't want you to do. Please continue to prattle when he's here.”

“Of course, darling. Don't be so nervous.”

Mr. Copperfield arrived as they were eating their lobster. He was wearing a dark green suit and looking extremely well. He came over to them smiling pleasantly.

“Hello,” said Mrs. Copperfield. “I'm very glad to see you. You look very well. This is Peggy Gladys; we've just met.”

He shook hands with her and seemed very pleased. “What on earth are you eating?” he asked them.

“Lobster,” they answered. He frowned. “But,” he said, “you'll have indigestion, and you're drinking beer too! Good God!” He sat down.

“I don't mean to interfere, of course,” said Mr. Copperfield, “but it's very bad. Have you had breakfast?”

“I don't know,” said Mrs. Copperfield purposely. Peggy Gladys laughed. Mr. Copperfield raised his brows.

“You must know,” he murmured. “Don't be ridiculous.”

He asked Peggy Gladys where she was from.

“I'm from Panama,” she told him, “but I'm half Irish and half Javanese.”

“I see,” said Mr. Copperfield. He kept smiling at her.

“Pacifica's asleep,” said Mrs. Copperfield suddenly.

Mr. Copperfield frowned. “Really,” he said, “are you going back there?”

“What do you think I'm going to do?”

“There isn't any point in staying here much longer. I thought we'd pack. I've made arrangements in Panama. We can sail tomorrow. I have to phone them tonight. I've found out a lot about the various countries in Central America. It might be possible for us to stay on a kind of cattle ranch in Costa Rica. A man told me about it. It's completely isolated. You have to get there on a river boat.”

Peggy Gladys looked bored.

Mrs. Copperfield put her head in her hands.

“Imagine red and blue guacamayos flying over the cattle,” Mr. Copperfield laughed. “Latin Texas. It must be completely crazy.”

“Red and blue guacamayos flying over the cattle,” Peggy Gladys repeated after him. “What are guacamayos?” she asked.

“They're tremendous red and blue birds, more or less like parrots,” said Mr. Copperfield. “As long as you are eating lobster I think I shall have ice cream with whipped cream on top.”

“He's nice,” said Peggy Gladys.

“Listen,” said Mrs. Copperfield, “I feel sick. I don't think I can sit through the ice cream.”

“I won't take long,” said Mr. Copperfield. He looked at her. “It must be the lobster.”

“Maybe I'd better take her to my Hotel Granada,” said Peggy Gladys, jumping to her feet with alacrity. “She'll be very comfortable there. Then you can come after you've eaten your ice cream.”

“That seems sensible, don't you think so, Frieda?”

“No,” said Mrs. Copperfield vehemently, clutching at the chain she wore around her neck. “I think I'd better go right straight back to the Hotel de las Palmas. I
must
go. I must go immediately.…” She was so distraught that she rose from the table, forgetting her pocketbook and her scarf, and started to leave the restaurant.

“But you've left everything behind you,” Mr. Copperfield called out after her.

“I'll take them,” exclaimed Peggy Gladys. “You eat your ice cream and come later.” She rushed after Mrs. Copperfield and together they ran down the suffocatingly hot street towards the Hotel de las Palmas.

Mrs. Quill was standing in the doorway drinking something out of a bottle.

“I'm on the cherry-pop wagon until dinner time,” she said.

“Oh, Mrs. Quill, come up to my room with me!” said Mrs. Copperfield, putting her arms around Mrs. Quill and sighing deeply. “Mr. Copperfield is back.”

“Why don't you come upstairs with
me?
” said Peggy Gladys. “I promised your husband I'd take care of you.”

Mrs. Copperfield wheeled round. “Please be quiet,” she shouted, looking fixedly at Peggy Gladys.

“Now, now,” said Mrs. Quill, “don't upset the little girl. We'll have to be giving her a honey bun to quiet her. Of course it took more than a honey bun to quiet me at her age.”

“I'm all right,” said Peggy Gladys. “Will you kindly take us to her room? She's supposed to be flat on her back.”

The young girl sat on the edge of Mrs. Copperfield's bed with her hand on Mrs. Copperfield's forehead.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “You look very badly. I wish you wouldn't be so unhappy. Couldn't you possibly not think about it now and think about it some other day? Sometimes if you let things rest … I'm not sixteen, I'm seventeen. I feel like a child. I can't seem to say anything unless people think I'm very young. Maybe you don't like the fact that I'm so fresh. You're white and green. You don't look pretty. You looked much prettier before. After your husband has been here I'll take you for a ride in a carriage if you like. My mother's dead,” she said softly.

“Listen,” said Mrs. Copperfield. “If you don't mind going away now … I'd like to be by myself. You can come back later.”

“What time can I come back?”

“I don't know; come back later; can't you see? I don't know.”

“All right,” said Peggy Gladys. “Maybe I should just go downstairs and talk to that fat woman, or drink. Then when you're ready you can come down. I have nothing to do for three days. You really want me to go?”

Mrs. Copperfield nodded.

The girl left the room reluctantly.

Mrs. Copperfield started to tremble after the girl had closed the door behind her. She trembled so violently that she shook the bed. She was suffering as much as she had ever suffered before, because she was going to do what she wanted to do. But it would not make her happy. She did not have the courage to stop from doing what she wanted to do. She knew that it would not make her happy, because only the dreams of crazy people come true. She thought that she was only interested in duplicating a dream, but in doing so she necessarily became the complete victim of a nightmare.