Boys and Girls Together (10 page)

‘Are you sure you wouldn't rather go?'

‘Yes, I am. I've got to see all of you every day.'

‘Not just the kids? Me, too?'

‘Yes, you, too. We'll plan it, the same as if I was going away. Tomorrow you go and see your friends, but the next day we'll go to work planning it, getting things straightened out and organised. We'll both have to work hard for three or four days getting things ready. I'll help you down here and take care of upstairs because, once we get started, we've got to keep going. You've got to have things all in order down here so you won't get too tired keeping things going. Once everything's organised and you know what you're doing, it won't be hard, it'll be fun.'

‘I'm sorry about what happened tonight. Are you?'

‘Yes, I am.'

The woman ran to him and he embraced her tenderly, because they were both so pathetic and helpless.

The woman came back from the kids' room and said: ‘They're both fast asleep. It's only ten o'clock. Couldn't we telephone somebody to come over?'

‘Is Rosey all right?'

‘Sound asleep.'

‘Has she got it stuck up?'

‘No. She's sprawled. Come and see.'

They went and saw the girl lying on her back, sprawled, relaxed and naked. The woman pointed to the part that made the child a woman and laughed softly because it was so pretty. The boy was sprawled face down, his arms out, his hands loose, his face dark and serious and unwinking.

The man turned from the boy and took the woman in his arms and held her.

‘They're good kids. They're both good kids. Better than we deserve.'

He held her head in his hands now to tell her he loved her. He said the words with embarrassment and hope, wanting to say them with more than his voice and mouth, wanting to say them with all of his life, even if he had to try to do it in the only language she understood, the absurd language of movie and play, novel and story, the meaningless language of the glib mouth, the glib heart and head and emotion, but hopeful
that she would know what he meant, hopeful that she would get it; it ought to be easy to get, why couldn't she get it? You
live
love, you don't talk it, you live it every minute, you work at it, you never let it get away, you live it because there's no other decent way to live. The saying of the words embarrassed him, for they stank, they lied, they had always lied, they over-simplified, they made a gag out of the only decent way to stay alive, loving, no matter what, loving in spite of the lies, in spite of the truth, in spite of the ugliness, in spite of the hatred, in spite of the madness, the damned unbalance, the incalculable difference, the alienations, the irresponsibilities, the malicious mischief, the arrogance, the scheming, the pretending, the deceiving.

He tried to tell her for the first time since they had met that it was so, hoping she would get it, not hear the words they had kicked around so much, but get it, know it, understand it, let it reach her. He looked into her eyes in nakedness and humility, then kissed her on the mouth, softly at first, to be the kissing of all of him, everything he was, and then slowly with pleasure, with passion, with lust, to be the kissing of his body. Her mouth was dry and sick at first, sick because she had had such a rough time, but after a moment it sweetened and seemed to smell and taste of milk, the milk of herself at peace, and glad. He loved that, and would not leave it, for he wanted her to be at peace,
and glad, always, not just when it was like this, but all the time.

‘Let's sit down and drink,' the woman said.

‘Sure.'

They sat at the table in the kitchen and began to drink.

‘I'm so excited. That's why I want to drink. I want to get drunk. You get drunk, too.'

‘Sure.'

‘I'm going to have so much fun seeing them tomorrow.'

For a moment the man believed she meant the kids, but then he remembered her friends and knew she meant them. He swallowed everything in his glass and poured more over the ice.

‘Was that straight?'

‘Yes.'

‘Let's get really pissed.'

‘Sure.'

‘I like you best when you're really gone.'

‘Here's to you, always.'

‘You're so attractive when you're gone. Shall we telephone somebody to come over?'

‘Who?'

‘Ellen and Charley?'

‘They were here last night.'

‘Who, then?'

‘I don't know. I'd just as soon not see anybody, but if you can think of somebody, call them.'

‘I could look in my book.'

‘O.K.'

The woman fetched her book and began to read the names in alphabetical order. They were people who were mainly in New York and Hollywood. Every time she came to a name of somebody in San Francisco, it was somebody like Ellen and Charley, and the woman held her nose. He didn't blame her much, either, because they weren't very interesting. They were people they had met accidentally at the Top of the Mark, or at Vanessi's or at The Fairmont, or at one or another of the places people in San Francisco go to when they want to celebrate, as they put it. The other people, the ones in New York and Hollywood, were mainly famous people, but they weren't very interesting, either. They were less interesting than the people in San Francisco, as a matter of fact. Some of them were a little on the monstrous side, too.

She came to the name of a man who had been a villain in movies for thirty years but was lately more or less retired, devoting himself to his fifth wife, a girl thirty years younger than himself, and their adopted son and daughter.

‘You like them, don't you?' the woman said.

‘I don't mind them.'

‘We had such fun with them when we were in New York. They're such fun and they admire you so much. Why don't we call them and tell them to fly up for a drink? They're not far from Eurbank and the planes
leave every hour. They'd be here at one or two and we could drink until four or five. They could sleep upstairs or go to a hotel. You could drive to the airport and bring them here. I won't be afraid. The gate's locked. Let me call them.'

‘O.K.'

The woman brought the telephone from the hall into the kitchen and set it down in front of her on the table. After a moment she was talking to the girl. It seemed that the retired villain was tired, but it also seemed that his wife might be able to win him over to the idea.

‘She's asking him. I
do
hope they'll do it. It'll be such fun and we've got three more bottles of Scotch.'

The retired villain didn't think he was up to it, so then the woman mentioned that her friends in New York were flying in in the morning and they could all meet for lunch and shopping and cocktails, then dinner and a lot of drinking and talking somewhere. The wife of the retired villain took the matter up with him again, and then she said they'd telephone the airport and a hotel in San Francisco and call right back.

‘They'll come,' the woman said. ‘I know they will. I'll wear my new dress and you shave and put on your dark suit. Don't get too drunk to drive to the airport. Maybe you'd better start shaving now, so I can get in there and bathe. We'll start drinking when they get here.'

‘O.K.'

He finished his third drink and went into the bathroom to shave. He was in the shower when the woman said: ‘They're coming. They'll be at the airport at one-fifteen. If they miss that plane, they'll be there at two-fifteen. Now hurry, so I can get in there.'

‘O.K.'

He was driving to the airport to get them, shaved, in his dark suit, and just beginning to feel the three drinks he'd had before the shower and the two after. He felt pretty good.

The way I'll do it is this, he said, almost out loud. I've got the money I won this afternoon. I'll bet half of it back tomorrow. If I lose, I'll bet the rest of it back. If I win, I'll stop for the day. The next day I'll do the same. I think I'll win. All I've got to do is guess right. I'll bet them across the board, so if I don't guess
exactly
right, I'll still win, or break even. I was always lucky and I'll be lucky tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, too. I'll never stop being lucky. I always liked to write but I didn't like it any more than I liked having fun. I know I ought to work harder, but why should I? I don't feel like it. A lot of the boys who
work harder but aren't lucky don't do as well as I do. They just work harder and get less because they're not lucky. Most of them show it, too. They look like hell and you know they feel worse. They never have any real fun, either. They never have the time or energy to have any. They get serious about their work when they aren't lucky and they get old fast and die without
ever
having any real fun. What for? So a handful of critics who aren't lucky and probably never took a chance on anything in their lives can sit down and say their writing stinks. Not that it doesn't. What else could it do, written by writers who aren't lucky, who never took a chance on anything? It stinks all right, but they worked hard at it, hoping it wouldn't stink, or maybe that it would stink so badly somebody would invent a new scheme of measurement and come to the conclusion that because it stinks so badly it
is
great. A writer who isn't lucky can probably find comfort in thinking like that. Maybe the stuff will be so ungame, so dull, so tiresome, so hopeless as to be great. Any unlucky writer can ask, What's greatness? And answer to suit himself. I'm lucky, though, and I don't have to do that. All I've got to do is stop worrying about the kids. They're hers and they're mine and worrying isn't going to do them any good. All worry can do is spoil my luck. It's been spoiling it for seven years as it is, but it's not too late. All I've got to do is stop worrying. Forget the kids. Forget the writing. Forget the marriage. Forget the other kids I want.
I'll have them soon enough if I stop worrying. Forget the fights. Forget everything and just be lucky. Just look at the entries, telephone Leo, make the bet, win and collect. I can't expect Daisy to go along the way the wives of the writers who
aren't
lucky do. Why should she? She's a beautiful girl who knows by instinct what's important and what's not. She knows by instinct what's phoney. Why should she try to live the way the wives of the unlucky writers do? They sit on floors and sip sherry and talk. Their husbands are always tired from overworking their small energies. Their kids have got to be psycho-analysed before they're nine. I'll go along with Daisy. I'll let her be. I'll let everything be. I'll stop worrying and get my luck back. I got some of it back today even though I was worrying at the time. I got it back, though. I can't get along without my luck. The only way I can get it back is not to worry.

He found a place to park, went to the airport bar, gulped down half his drink and laughed, the way he had laughed when he had had his luck and never needed to
believe
in it.

‘Sierra Fox,' he said to the bartender. ‘Is Sierra Fox running tomorrow at Bay Meadows?'

‘I'll see,' the bartender said.

‘Third race, I think.'

He remembered the horse and liked the picture its name made: a fox in the Sierras, alone and laughing.
He guessed that if it would be in
any
race it would be the third: no reason.

‘I don't see it anywhere.'

‘Well, if he were running, and if it turned out that he was running in the third, I'd bet him. I'd bet him if it turned out that he was running in the first or fifth, too, but not so much.'

‘What distance?'

‘Any distance. Is that the one-fifteen coming in from Hollywood out there?'

‘Yes, I think it is.'

‘Give me one more quick one, then, please.'

He gulped the second drink down and went out. He saw them and went to meet them, laughing lucky.

They looked fine, and they said they had never seen him looking better.

‘Wait till you see the kids,' he said, and then, although he was still laughing that way, there was a congestion of agony in his soul and he thought he might puke. He didn't stop laughing, though, and didn't let them stop, either. They laughed almost all the way back because everything was actually that funny: appearances, voices, words.

And then they were there, home.

The retired villain was past sixty and heavy now instead of lean and hard the way he had been when he had been most famous and had leered at and handled some of the most beautiful women in the movies.

‘I was always meant to be fat,' he said. ‘It was just that I was so determined to be famous.'

‘Oh, you're not fat,' the woman said. ‘Is he?' she said to the villain's wife. ‘You know best.'

The actor's wife said: ‘He's fat and I love it. What's more,
I'm
fat, too.'

‘You're not at all. I'm the one who's fat. You're just voluptuous. Isn't she just voluptuous, darling?'

‘What?' the man said. He'd been thinking about Sierra Fox, loping up the slope, alone and laughing. He was feeling no pain and was glad they'd come up. They were just about the nicest people in the world.

‘
Alice
,' the woman said to her husband. ‘Alice Murphy, from hunger, no background, who married Oscar Bard for his money. I just said, Doesn't she look horrible?'

‘Oh Daisy, you'll never change,' Alice said. ‘You're just jealous because I live in Hollywood and have famous people to my house every day. Just because I've got better clothes than you have. But don't worry, I've made up my mind to be more thoughtful of the
needy from now on, and I'm going to send you one of my old things, a Christian Dior that I wore once. I never wear any of them more than once unless poor Oscar can't get romantic unless I wear a certain dress, and then, of course, I wear it in the morning, I wear it at lunch, I wear it in the evening, and I wear it to bed. Don't I, darling?'