A Lovesong for India (14 page)

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Authors: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

BOOK: A Lovesong for India
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‘And I don’t want you coming to the studio either.’
‘Oh but I
have
to.’
‘Why? Why do you have to?’
‘To see you.’
He had no time or inclination to be kind to a crazy girl. ‘I’m going to tell everyone not to let you in so you’d better not try.’ When she was silent, he said, ‘When I’m ready, I’ll send for you. Till then, stay away from me. You understand?’
She shivered with awe and pleasure. ‘You’re so cruel.’
‘Yes, and I’m getting wet too, so I’m going in and you’re going home, wherever that may be.’
‘I’m staying with your cousin but I want to stay with you. I want to sleep with you. I mean, only to sleep near you. In the same room and hear you breathe.’
He put his hand in his pocket and took out some notes to give her for her cab fare. She held them carelessly in her hand, where they got wet. He tried to wave down a cab, but they had all turned on their Off Duty signs and swiftly slithered past, one of them so close that it splashed him.
‘Your suit’s getting spoiled,’ Ellie said. She touched it admiringly – Ellie knew nothing of men’s clothes, or any clothes, but she recognised quality when she saw it.
‘I don’t have to stand here with you,’ he said. ‘You can get your own cab.’
‘I can walk.’
‘Or walk, or whatever you want.’
‘I’ll see you tomorrow then.’
‘What did I just tell you?’ Already half turned towards home, he stood still to look down at her sternly. She was so wet by now that she looked stringy, half drowned, pitiful, but the way she looked back at him, smiling slightly in a superior way, it was as if she pitied him – for being unaware of the situation that had arisen between them.
 
All day Magda had been looking forward to an evening alone with Ellie. She took care to get home first, which gave her time to dress up – she chose the black and gold kaftan again – and lay the table very nicely with candles and silver and cloth napkins. She heard a key in the lock and called out: ‘Is that you?’
‘Yes it’s me, darling.’ It was Lottie, her mother, the only other person with a key to the apartment.
‘Oh, you look gorgeous! Stunning!’ exclaimed Lottie at the sight of Magda dressed up. Next moment she was thrown into even greater astonishment, for not only Magda but the apartment was transformed. Instead of the former mess, it was as clean and fragrant as a bower where two virgins lived. Lottie’s eyes fell on the table laid for two. ‘I see I’ve come on the wrong day,’ she said coyly and seemed completely prepared to depart immediately.
Magda muttered, ‘You can sit down for a bit.’ It
was
the wrong day, but her mother came rarely. She was very discreet about spacing her visits, though she must have had many lonely hours by herself at home.
‘Are you sure, darling?’ Absolutely delighted, Lottie unpinned her little hat from her golden coiffure. Lottie was always turned out perfectly and could be viewed any hour of the day, or even night except for her hairnet. ‘I haven’t seen you for such ages – and you haven’t been calling, darling, but now I see you’re otherwise engaged.’ Her eyes twinkled at the laid table again, and from there at Magda, who remained expressionless. ‘And you didn’t get to Hannah’s party – lucky you! It was the usual disaster. What I find disgusting is the way she trumpets her age around. So all right – you are whatever you are – but you don’t have to write it in pink icing all over your birthday cake. Next she’ll have that many candles – if there are that many candles to be had . . . Is it someone you just met?’ she could no longer refrain from asking about the table laid for two.
‘It’s a client.’
‘Oh. A client.’ Lottie was pleased, excited. ‘Anyone very famous? Would I have heard of him?’
Magda hesitated for only a moment. ‘It’s a she.’
If it hadn’t been so irritating, she might have been amused by the way her mother’s face fell. Since Ellie would be home any moment – and why wasn’t she already? – Magda thought it best to continue: ‘She’s living here. Only for now. She’s got nowhere to stay.’
‘Why not?’
‘What do you mean, why not? Not everyone has a ten-room duplex on Fifth Avenue, you might be surprised to hear.’
‘But she’s your client. I thought they were all rich and famous. That’s what Robert says,’ she defended herself against Magda’s response. ‘He said it again the other day – he told Hannah, “Don’t worry about Magda, she has all these rich and famous clients.”’
‘And why should Hannah be worrying about me?’
‘Oh you know, her usual.’ Lottie squirmed, partly embarrassed, partly indignant. ‘“What’s wrong with your Magda? I don’t hear any mention of a boyfriend and why isn’t she getting married?”
She
should talk,’ said Lottie, indignation winning out. ‘But of course she has her line about Robert: “He’ll never get married and it’s no one’s fault but my own for making it too cosy for him at home.” As if she didn’t know, along with the rest of the world.’
Ellie had slipped in so quietly that Lottie had a shock when she was suddenly in the room with them. Magda was used to Ellie’s stealthy movements, and anyway had been waiting for her. ‘This is Ellie,’ she said to Lottie, who acknowledged her with a gracious inclination of her coiffure. She mistook Ellie for the maid and was about to congratulate her on the unwonted neatness of the apartment when Magda said, ‘She’s my client I’ve been telling you about.’
‘
She
’s your client!’ exclaimed Lottie with an amazement that bordered on scorn, and it took her a moment before she could come up with an apology. ‘I was expecting an older person.’
‘I’m nearly twenty,’ Ellie said.
Lottie measured her up and down, not in appreciation: ‘You look younger.’
‘I could go on the bus half-fare till I was eighteen,’ Ellie said.
‘I’m not surprised. You’re English, aren’t you. I love the English accent, I could listen to it all day. Sid and I had some very memorable vacations in London. We always stayed at the Savoy; it’s so central and you can get to all the theatres. We saw some great shows. Sid was interested because he had money on Broadway.’
‘You never told me your father was in the theatre,’ Ellie said to Magda.
‘No, dear,’ Lottie said. ‘My husband was in the refrigeration business but he had money in Broadway shows – what they call an angel and that’s exactly what he was: an angel. He was a wonderful human being and Magda takes after him completely, bless her.’
Ellie said, ‘I can see she doesn’t take after you.’ That made Lottie laugh, though as usual at the mention of her late husband she had become tearful. ‘I mean like she doesn’t look like you,’ Ellie went on, not because she felt she had been tactless but to be more explicit. It was true that mother and daughter, though both large, could not have been more different. Magda was dark and chunky, muscular, whereas Lottie was soft, fat, pastel.
‘No, she’s dark like her daddy. I’m the only blonde in the family. The one thing Magda has from me, unfortunately, is a weight problem. We should both go to that place in Florida again, darling, I’ll treat you for Christmas and we can get rid of some of this,’ she said, playfully poking herself in both hips. But aware of her daughter’s mounting impatience, she said, ‘Well, I guess I should be going and leave you two girls to talk about your business.’
‘Why don’t you eat with us?’
This invitation came from Ellie, and after waiting a fraction too long for Magda to second it, Lottie gathered herself for departure. ‘Thank you, dears, but I’d better go see my sister Hannah or she’ll start feeling sorry for herself. I tell her, we all have to face it, being on our own, it comes to all of us in the end.’
‘But she’s got Robert living with her,’ Ellie said.
‘Oh, you know Robert? She knows Robert?’ Lottie asked Magda and continued: ‘These days he’s working very late at the studio and anyway he has his own life to lead – young people do, they should.’ She finished pinning on her little hat and said to Ellie, ‘I hope you’ll come visit with me, if you can spare a little time. I know you have a very busy schedule.’
‘I’ve got lots of time. When should I come?’
Ellie spent most of her days at Robert’s house. She drifted there slowly, stopped on the way to look into boutique windows – there were several selling funky antique clothing, with fringes and trailing skirts and pointed satin shoes, the kind she might have liked to own if she thought about clothes or had money to buy them (later, when she did have money, that was what she bought, not second-hand but made specially for her by designers). She hopped over the sidewalk on one leg and in the same way up the stoop to the restored Federal entrance of Robert’s house.
It was always Fred who let her in, and one day he said, ‘He’s been asking for you.’
‘Oh my God,’ said Ellie.
‘Says he needs you upstairs.’
‘Oh my God. How do I look?’
‘Same,’ Fred said.
Nervously smoothing her cotton frock, she went upstairs. Robert was working at the piano, but he nodded for her to stay and finally he told her to sing something he pointed out to her. She got it wrong a couple of times. ‘Oh shit,’ she said, but he was patient and told her to try again, and then again. When she did get it right, it was like nothing on this earth.
He took his hands off the piano keys and shut his eyes, indicating fatigue. When he opened them again and saw her still standing there, he said, ‘Thanks, that’s all.’ She didn’t move, so he said ‘Thank you’ again, more sharply.
‘She’s thrown me out,’ Ellie said. He didn’t react, so she continued: ‘Because of you. She said I wasn’t to come and see you and I said I’ll come and see you till I’m dead.’ She corrected herself: ‘Even after I’m dead.’
That made him laugh, if not quite in amusement. But next moment he drew in his breath and then blew it out again, as if trying to blow something away. She continued undeterred: ‘I’ve got nowhere to stay.’
‘So what am I supposed to do?’
‘I could stay here.’ He exclaimed in a way that made her urge: ‘You’re not here at night so it wouldn’t be all that horrible for you. I could sleep on that thing there – look,’ she said, nimbly getting on his chaise longue. ‘It’s quite OK for me, I can almost stretch out.’
‘For heaven’s sakes! And with shoes on! Have you any idea what I paid for that fabric?’
She got up. ‘I could stay with Fred,’ she offered. ‘Not in his room but in the kitchen. Why
not
? I’m very clean.’
‘Don’t you have any friends?’
‘Only you and her. If you are my friend. And she’s thrown me out, so where am I?’
‘I could give you money for a hotel.’
‘All right.’
She sat with her hands patiently folded, while he got his chequebook out. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘Ellie.’
‘I think I knew that – your other name?’
‘Ellie Sprigge.’ He was about to write it when she asked him to make the cheque out to ‘Cash’ because she didn’t have an account. ‘Do you think I ought to change my name? For the stage? So they don’t make up rhymes like Ellie Sprigge is a pig, or worse, like they did at school.’
‘Sprigge is perfect. Part spring, part sprig.’
‘Is that how you think of me?’
‘What makes you think I think of you at all?’
He gave her the cheque, which was for a large amount; money was the one thing Robert was generous with. She hid it in her knickers, and when he told her to leave, she did, not wanting to push her luck any further that day. Usually she walked everywhere, always having plenty of time on her hands, but now she treated herself to a bus-ride uptown. She felt it was time to follow up on the invitation Magda’s mother had extended to her.
Lottie’s apartment was on a high floor, with plenty of light and air, and the rugs were white and the furniture white and gold. Lottie loved company and nowadays didn’t have anywhere near enough. And it was a special treat for her to have a friend of Magda’s interested in seeing all her photos. She brought out albums that started from the day of Magda’s birth: Ellie peered in eagerly, but all she saw was Magda and Lottie and Sid and their friends, and just once – ‘There’s Robert, my nephew.’

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