Never Love a Stranger (38 page)

She turned to me and grinned mischievously. “I told you I was selfish, didn’t I? Well, I don’t want you away working all day when the weather is so beautiful, and you could really rest yourself and be with me.”

“You’re a witch!” I laughed. “But you forget, if I don’t work I don’t eat. We all haven t got rich folks to support us.”

“You don’t have to worry about that.” She smiled. “I’ve got more money than I know what to do with. Why don’t you quit? We could move out of this dump and over to the Towers and really have a wonderful time.”

I looked at her quizzically. “Just like that!”

“Just like that!” she answered, coming close to me. “Darling, there are so many things I want to do for you. I want to see you in the right clothes; yours are something terrible. You have a fine figure, and, in the right sort of things, you’d be a knockout. And I’d like to teach you the proper way to eat; you wolf everything down as if someone were going to snatch it away from you. I want to make you over and not change you a bit. I’m a perfectionist and I’m crazy about you.”

“So you want to change me and support me!” I said. “That’s bad. Just what are your intentions, madam?”

She grinned at me and pulled the towel off my waist. “Guess!” she said, coming into my arms.

Later in the store, when the evening rush had died down, Charlie asked me who the dame was.

“My girl,” I said. “She came down from the city to spend a few days with me.”

He whistled. “She’s O.K. She must have a bad case on you. With a doll like that no wonder you never chased the chippies around here. I was beginning to wonder if you were sick or something.”

I didn’t answer.

“You going to knock off like she wants?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said hesitantly. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.” But that was so much crap; I knew she had me jumping through the hoop right this minute, and that if she said quit, I’d quit.

And that’s just what I did—Monday night.

Chapter Ten

W
E
spent three weeks in Atlantic City. We moved to the Towers Hotel and took a suite of three rooms on the thirteenth floor, with a terrace overlooking the ocean. We had our meals sent up to us by room service; Marianne had an aversion to hotel restaurants, or so she said. It cost her plenty; I don’t know how much because she paid each bill promptly in cash from a seemingly inexhaustible supply of money she carried around with her.

I bought her a little sterling-silver novelty bracelet at one of the souvenir shops that lined the boardwalk. It cost eleven dollars, and I had it inscribed: “To Marianne, with love, Frank.” I gave it to her one morning about three o’clock. We were on the terrace, getting the cool breeze from the ocean. She was wearing a light, flimsy négligé, and I had on a pair of shorts and was smoking a cigarette. I had just remembered my gift and had been looking for an opportunity to give it to her. So I had gone inside and brought it out.

I felt rather funny as I gave it to her. I hadn’t given very many gifts before, and I didn’t know just what to say as I handed it to her. “This is for you, Marianne,” I said awkwardly, holding it out towards her.

She seemed surprised and took it with a little gleeful sound. “Frank, it’s lovely,” she said, reading the inscription aloud, “To Marianne, with love, Frank.” She looked up at me and smiled. “It’s sweet—and an original saying too.”

I thought I could detect a faint note of sarcasm in her voice and I felt a little hurt. I spoke quietly. “It is original. I’ve never said and meant anything like that before.”

She reacted quickly to the sound in my voice. “Oh, darling. I didn’t mean it that way. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry. I do love it and I’ll wear it always. Please put it on.” She held out her arm.

I took the bracelet and fastened it on her wrist. She had a ring on her small finger; it had a diamond offset with two small rubies. It sparkled in the moonlight, and I felt funny as I fastened it awkwardly on her wrist. It looked so cheap in comparison with the daintily simple expensiveness of the ring. I cursed myself for buying it. It only accentuated the difference between us. When I get back to town, I promised myself, I would make some real dough and get her something that wouldn’t suffer by comparison with what she already had.

We went back to New York on September 20th. I moved into her apartment and, after settling down for a few days, decided to go out and look for a job. Jobs were still hard to get, and I didn’t have very much luck the first few days.

She, meanwhile, was very busy. She had several jobs to do, and was in a constant state of energy and work and effervescence. When she was working she was an entirely different person. She would give me some money and chase me out of the house, telling me to go to a movie or some place and not to come back until later. At first it was all new to me. The queen could do no wrong. I loved to watch her paint; she had such a curious air of concentration about her. Her head and eyes and body would appear tense and

pointed towards her work. If I spoke to her she would answer in monosyllables or not at all, and very often would go about the studio as if I weren’t there. When she actually was painting, she would dab furiously at the painting and mutter curses under her breath if some effect was particularly difficult to get, and blotches of paint would appear on her face and forehead from her hands as she lifted them to brush away her hair from her eyes.

But if a day went well and she was satisfied with her painting, she would appear at night sweet and loving with a sort of childish gaiety. She would joke, and we would drink champagne and I would make her some nice things to eat. I did most of the cooking, for she said she was a horrible cook and never could eat anything she herself prepared. And occasionally some of her friends would come in to visit—artists like herself, writers, men and women of a varying intellectual capacity that seemed to live in a world of their own. When I was introduced to them, they would look at me politely and inquire what I did. When they found out I was not one of them, so to speak, they would politely turn from me and ignore me and exclude me from their small talk, unless they wanted another drink, and then they would call me as if I were a servant.

But I was hopelessly, madly, crazily in love. The queen could do no wrong. The queen took me out shopping with her and spent about three hundred dollars on me for new clothes. I had suits and coats and shirts made to order. I wore underwear of an unaccustomed luxury and had silk pyjamas. At first, I tried to get a job, and when there was a chance of getting one and I had come home all excited and told Marianne about it; she frowned and asked: “How much does it pay?”

“Nineteen a week,” I told her confidently.

“Only nineteen dollars!” she cried out, flinging her hands into the air dramatically. “What on earth would you do with that kind of money? It wouldn’t even be enough to keep you in cigarettes.”

“It’s a job,” I said stubbornly. ‘’‘It’s better than nothing.”

“It’s worse than nothing,” she retorted emphatically. “It’s an insult to your intelligence, to your brains, to your ability to do things. You’re worth much more than that. Besides, darling, why work for that kind of money when you don’t have to? I can give you twice that each week if you want it.”

I began to lose my temper. “But I can’t go on like this all the time. It just isn’t right, that’s all. And besides I feel funny asking you for money all the time,” I ended up rather weakly.

“You don’t have to feel funny about it, darling.” She came over and kissed me. “If you had the money and I hadn’t, I wouldn’t feel funny about taking it from you.”

“But that’s different,” I protested.

“No, it isn’t,” she said. “We’re in love, and everything we have is to share between us.” There was no arguing with her about it when she made up her mind to be sweet. And that was the way it went on for a while. It was easy living, and I liked easy living. I had had too much of the other kind, and besides I felt that sooner or later I would get a break

and get a decent job. So I let it ride.

About a month later, as I came over to the small table where I kept my cigarettes for

a smoke—it was the table where Gerro’s picture had stood—I looked down and saw that Gerro’s portrait had gone. It was replaced with one of me. I looked at it. It was all right, I guess. I didn’t know very much about those things. Somehow, in looking at it, I felt it didn’t seem as if it were me. I was too relaxed, too casual, too at ease. I had a vague feeling it was wrong.

“Like it, darling?” I heard Marianne’s voice behind me. I turned to her. “It’s very nice,” I said politely.

“It’s for you——a present; for being what you are: wonderful, and making me happy.” She came over and kissed me.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Don’t thank me,” she answered. “I wanted to do it. The hard job was getting it done so you wouldn’t know I was doing it. I had to paint you at the oddest moments.”

“I guess so,” I said.

“You don’t sound happy?” she asked, concern in her voice. “What’s wrong?” “Where’s Gerro’s picture?” I asked.

“Oh, that!” she said, turning and sitting down in a chair. “The agent saw it and said he could get a good price for it, so I gave it to him to sell.”

“Get it back,” I told her. “I want it.”

She looked at me, her eyes widening. “What on earth for?”

“I just want it,” I said. “Get it back.” I didn’t know myself why I wanted it.

She was beginning to get angry. “Give me one good reason and I’ll do it,” she said heatedly. “But why the devil you should want it is more than I can see!”

I turned to my portrait and picked it up. “This is a very nice portrait. But that’s all it is

—a very nice flattering portrait. It tells you nothing. It’s my exterior, my outside. Maybe there isn’t anything to me inside to put on canvas, but there was in Gerro. You caught it in him. And if you couldn’t face what you caught in that painting, and tried to replace it with this soporific thing of me, you’re mistaken. You just don’t bury things like that. And if you don’t want it, I do.”

She stood up suddenly, violently. Her chest was heaving. I could tell from the way she acted that, as little as I knew about painting, I had hit the nail on the head. “I won’t get it back.” Her voice was loud, and she shouted: “Who do you think you’re telling what to do? You’re in no position to be giving orders.”

I took the small frame off my painting. Slowly I began to tear it into small strips. “Stop shouting like a fishwife,” I said to her quietly, though I was boiling inside.

She came at me when she saw I had torn the painting; her hands were small fists, striking and scratching at my face; she was screaming, shouting, crying all at once. “You ignorant fool! Because I cater to you and play up to you, you think you own me. Why I’ve a mind to throw you back in the gutter where I found you!”

Suddenly something exploded inside me. I hit her across the side of the face with my hand. She fell back across the couch, her hand to her face as if she didn’t believe what had happened, and looked up at me.

I towered over her, my voice was as cold as ice. “You get that portrait of Gerro back, or I’ll beat you within an inch of your life!”

Suddenly the expression on her face changed; it became soft and her eyes grew smoky in colour. “You’d do it too!” she said, her voice familiarly husky. “I believe you really mean it.”

“I mean it,” I said easily. “I want that portrait.”

She put her arms around me and drew me down beside her. “My lover, my strong, wicked, simple darling, of course you shall have it back. I’ll give you anything you want.”

She kissed me, and her lips were burning flames that turned the world all upside down for me. But the next morning Gerro’s picture was back on the table.

Chapter Eleven

I
T
was while I was sitting in the big easy chair in the corner of the room, smoking the pipe Marianne had given me, that I made up my mind. I took the pipe from my mouth and looked at it distastefully. Some of the bitter soup from its bowl had come back into my mouth. I don’t know why I smoked the damned thing anyway. I didn’t like it. I would never like it. But Marianne had said: “Darling, why don’t you smoke a pipe?”

And I had answered: “I don’t know. I never tried one.”

“There’s something about a pipe that’s so manly,” she smiled. “It has a definitely masculine touch to it. It’s one thing no woman would smoke. Would you like one?”

“No,” I said, “I don’t think so. I’ll stick to Camels.”

But the next day she went out and bought me not one but a set of four matched pipes and a humidor and rack. She also bought some specially blended aromatic tobacco to go with it, and made quite a ceremony over giving it to me. She couldn’t wait until I had filled it with tobacco and put it in my mouth.

“Let me light it for you,” she said, standing over my chair, her head tilted charmingly to one side, a packet of matches in her hand.

She held the match to the pipe while I sucked and drew the tobacco to a flame, and then she backed off and looked at me. The pipe was bitter. I knew I had to break it in before it would taste good, and shuddered at the enthusiasm that had given me four pipes to break in. I drew a deep breath of smoke and blew it out.

Suddenly she sat down on the floor and looked up at me. “You look marvellous,” she said, staring up at me with an adoring look on her face like a little child. “You were meant for a pipe.”

After all that there was nothing I could do but smoke it. I didn’t want her to know I didn’t care for it, that it made me sick. So I continued to use it, but as time went by I cared for it less and less; many were the times I put it down and would light a cigarette to take the taste of the pipe out of my mouth.

As I looked at the pipe in my hand, it became a symbol to me a symbol of all the things I had become. Here was I, young, strong, healthy and filled with the desire to do something and not doing it. It wasn’t that I cared particularly for work—I liked that no more than the next man—but suddenly I felt my uselessness. I was content to let things drift along just as they were; content to live, to be close to Marianne, to make love to her and let her make love to me, content to give in and let things drift, because I was too lazy to do anything about it.