Rich Man, Poor Man (13 page)

‘Look anyway you want,’ he said. Dressed, he was important and privileged again, a man to whom other men deferred. She felt diminished in her clothes. He criticised the things she wore, not harshly, but knowingly, sure of himself. If she weren’t afraid of her mother’s questions, she would have taken the eight hundred dollars out from between Acts II and III of As You Like It and bought herself a new wardrobe.

They went through the silent house and into the car and drove off. She asked no more questions. They drove through Port Philip and sped on down south. They didn’t speak. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking where they were going. There was a scorecard in her head in which she kept track of the points they gained against each other.

They went all the way to New York. Even if they turned back promptly, she wouldn’t get home much before dawn. There probably would be hysterics from her mother. But she didn’t remonstrate. She refused to show him that she allowed herself to be worried by things like that.

They stopped in front of a darkened four-storey house on a street lined with similar houses. Gretchen had only come down to New York a few times in her life, twice with Boylan in the last three weeks, and she had no idea of what neighbourhood they were in. Boylan came over to her side of the car, as usual, and opened the door for her. They went down three steps into a little cement courtyard behind an iron fence and Boylan rang a doorbell. There was a long wait. She had the feeling that they were being inspected. The door opened. A big woman in a white evening gown stood there, her dyed hair piled heavily on her head. ‘Good evening, honey,’ she said. Her voice was hoarse. She closed the door behind them. The lights in the entrance hall were low and the house was hushed, as though it was heavily carpeted throughout and its walls hung with muffling cloth. There was a sense of people moving about it softly and carefully.

‘Good evening, Nellie,’ Boylan said.

‘I haven’t seen you in a dog’s age,’ the woman said, as she led them up a flight of steps and into a small pinkly lit living room on the first floor.

‘I’ve been busy,’ Boylan said.

‘So I see,’ the woman said, looking at Gretchen, appraising, then admiring. ‘How old are you, darling?’

‘A hundred and eight,’ Boylan. said.

He and the woman laughed, Gretchen stood soberly in the small, draped room hung with oil paintings of nudes. She was determined to show nothing, respond to nothing. She was frightened, but tried not to feel it or show it. In numbness there was safety. She noticed that all the lamps in the room were tasselled. The woman’s white dress had fringes at the bosom and at the hem of the skirt. Was there a connection there? Gretchen made herself speculate on these matters to keep from turning and fleeing from the hushed house with its malevolent sense of a bidden population moving stealthily between rooms on the floors above her head. She had no notion of what would be expected of her, what she might see, what would be done with her. Boylan looked debonair, at ease.

‘Everything is just about ready, I think, honey,’ the woman said. ‘Just a few more minutes. Would you like something to drink, while waiting?’

‘Pet?’ Boylan turned towards Gretchen.

‘Whatever you say.’ She spoke with difficulty.

‘I think a glass of champagne might be in order,’ Boylan said.

‘I’ll send a bottle up to you,’ the woman said. ‘It’s cold. I have it on ice. Just follow me.’ She led the way out into the hall and Gretchen and Boylan climbed the carpeted stairs behind her up to a dim hallway on the second floor. The stiff rustling of the woman’s dress sounded alarmingly loud as she walked. Boylan was carrying his coat. Gretchen hadn’t taken off her coat.

The woman opened a door off the hallway and switched on a small lamp. They went into the room. There was a large bed with a silk canopy over it, an oversized maroon velvet easy chair, and three small gilt chairs. A large bouquet of tulips made a brilliant splash of yellow on the table in the centre of the room. The curtains were drawn and the sound of a car passing on the street below was muffled. A wide mirror covered one wall. It was like a room an a slightly old-fashioned, once-luxurious hotel, now just a little bit declasse.

‘The maid will bring you your wine in a minute,’ the woman said. She rustled out, closing the door softly, but firmly behind her.

‘Good old Nellie,’ Boylan said, throwing his coat down on an upholstered bench near the door. ‘Always dependable. She’s famous.’ He didn’t say what she was famous for. ‘Don’t you want to take your coat off, pet?’

‘Am I supposed to?’

Boylan shrugged. ‘You’re not supposed to do anything.’

Gretchen kept her coat on, although it was warm in the room. She went over and sat on the edge of the bed and waited. Boylan lit a cigarette and sat comfortably in the easy chair, crossing his legs. He looked over at her, smiling slightly, amused. ‘This is a brothel,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘In case you haven’t guessed. Have you ever been in one before, pet?’

She knew he was teasing her. She didn’t answer. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

‘No, I suppose not,’ he said. ‘Every lady should visit one. At least once. See what the competition is doing.’

There was a low knock on the door. Boylan went over to it and opened it. A frail middle-aged maid in a white apron over a short, black dress came in carrying a silver tray. On the tray there was a bucket of ice with a champagne bottle sticking out of it. There were two champagne glasses on the tray. The maid set the tray down on the table next to the tulips without speaking. There was no expression on her face. Her function was to appear not to be present. She began to pry open the cork. She was wearing felt slippers, Gretchen noticed.

She struggled with the cork, her face becoming flushed with the effort, and a strand of greying hair fell over her eves. It

made her look like the ageing, slow-moving women with varicose veins, to be seen at early Mass, before the working day begins.

‘Here,’ Boylan said, ‘I’ll do that.’ He took the bottle from her hands.

‘I’m sorry sir,’ the maid said. She had betrayed her function. She was there, made noticeable by her failure.

Boylan couldn’t get the bottle open, either. He pulled, he pushed at the cork with his thumbs, holding the bottle between his legs. He, too, began to get red in the face, as the maid watched him apologetically. Boylan’s hand were slender and soft, useful only for gentler work.

Gretchen stood up and took the bottle. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said.

‘Do you open many bottles of champagne at the brick works?’ Boylan asked.

Gretchen paid no attention to him. She grasped the cork firmly. Her hands were quick and strong. She twisted the cork. It popped and flew out of her hand and hit the ceiling. The champagne bubbled out and soaked her hands. She handed the bottle to Boylan. One more mark on the scoreboard. He laughed. The working classes have their uses,’ he said. He poured the champagne as the maid gave Gretchen a towel to dry her hands. The maid left in her felt slippers. Soft, mouselike traffic in the hallways.

Boylan gave Gretchen the glass of champagne. ‘The shipments are now steady from France, although they tell me the Germans made important inroads,’ he said. ‘Last year, I understand, was a mediocre one for the vintage.’ He was plainly angered by his fiasco with the bottle and Gretchen’s success.

They sipped the champagne. There was a diagonal red line on the label. Boylan made an approving face. ‘One can always be assured of the best in Nellie’s place,’ he said. ‘She would be hurt if she knew that I called her establishment a brothel. I think she thinks of it as a kind of salon where she can exercise her limitless sense of hospitality for the benefit of her many gentlemen friends. Don’t think all whore houses are like this, pet. You’ll only be in for a disappointment.’ He was still smarting from the tussle over the bottle and he was getting his own back. ‘Nellie’s is one of the last hangovers from a more gracious era, before the Century of the Common Man and Common Sex engulfed us all. If you develop a taste for bordellos ask me for the proper addresses, pet. You might find yourself in terribly sordid places otherwise, and we wouldn’t want that, would we? Do you like the champagne?’

‘It’s all right,’ Gretchen said. She seated herself once more on the bed, holding herself together rigidly.

Without warning the mirror lit up. Somebody had turned on a switch in the next room. The mirror was revealed as a oneway window through which Boylan and Gretchen could see what was going on next door to them. The light in the next room came from a lamp hanging from the ceiling, its brightness subdued by a thick silk shade.

Boylan glanced at the mirror. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘the orchestra is tuning up.’ He took the bottle of champagne from the bucket and came over and sat down on the bed beside Gretchen. He set the bottle on the floor next to him.

Through the mirror, they could see a tall young woman with long blonde hair. Her face was pretty enough, with the pouting, greedy, starlet expression of a spoiled child. But when she threw off the pink, frilly negligee she was wearing, she revealed a magnificent body with long, superb legs. She never even glanced towards the mirror, although the routine must have been familiar to her, and she knew she was being watched. She threw back the covers on the bed and let herself fall back on it, all her movements harmonious and unaffected. She lay there, waiting, content to let hours go past, days, lazily allowing herself to be admired. Everything passed in utter silence. No sound came through the mirror.

‘Some more champagne, pet?’ Boylan asked. He lifted the bottle.

‘No thank you.’ Gretchen found it difficult to speak.

The door opened and a young Negro came into the other room.

Oh the bastard. Gretchen thought, oh the sick, revengeful bastard. But she didn’t move.

The young Negro said something to the girl on the bed. She waved a little in greeting and smiled a baby-beauty-contest-winner’s smile. Everything happened on the other side of the mirror in pantomime and gave an air of remoteness, of unreality, to the two figures in the other room. It was falsely reassuring, as though nothing serious could happen there.

The Negro was dressed in a navy-blue suit and white shirt and a dotted red bow-tie. He had on sharply pointed light-brown shoes. He had a nice, young, smiling ‘Yes, suh’ kind of face. ‘Nellie has a lot of connections in night clubs up in Harlem,’ Boylan said as the Negro began to undress, hanging his jacket neatly on the back of a chair. ‘He’s probably a trumpet player

or something in one of the bands, not unwilling to make an extra buck of an evening, entertaining the white folk. A buck for a buck.’ He chuckled briefly at his own mot. ‘You sure you don’t want some more to drink?’

Gretchen didn’t answer. The Negro started to unbutton his pants. She closed her eyes.

When she opened her eyes the man was naked. His body was the colour of bronze, with gleaming skin, wide, sloping muscular shoulders, a tapering waist, like an athlete at the height of training. The comparison with the man beside her, made her rage.

The Negro moved across the room. The girl opened her arms to receive him. Lightly as a cat, he dropped down on to the long white body. They kissed, and her hands clutched at his back. Then he rolled over and she began to kiss him, first on the throat, then his nipples, slowly and expertly, while her hand caressed his mounting penis. The blonde hair tangled over the coffee-coloured gleaming skin, went down lower as the girl licked the tight skin over the flat muscles of the man’s belly and he tautened convulsively.

Gretchen watched, fascinated. She found it beautiful and fitting, a promise to herself that she could not formulate in words. But she could not watch it with Boylan at her side. It was too unjust, filthily unjust, that these two magnificent bodies could be bought by the hour, like animals in a stable, for the pleasure or perversity or vengeance of a man like Boylan.

She stood up, her back to the mirror. ‘I’ll wait for you in the car,’ she said.

‘It’s just beginning, pet,’ Boylan said mildly. ‘Look what she’s doing now. After all, this is really for your instruction. You’ll be very popular with the …’

‘I’ll see you in the car,’ she said, and ran out of the room and down the stairs.

The woman in the white dress was standing near the hall doorway. She said nothing, although she smiled sardonically as she opened the door for Gretchen.

Gretchen went and sat in the car. Boylan came out fifteen minutes later, walking unhurriedly. He got into the car and started the motor. ‘It’s a pity you didn’t stay,’ he said. ‘They earned their hundred dollars.’

They drove all the way back without a word. It was nearly light when he stopped the car in front of the bakery. ‘Well,’ he said, after the hours of silence, ‘did you learn anything tonight?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I must find a younger man. Good night.’

She heard the car turn around as she unlocked the door. As she climbed the stairs, she saw the light streaming from the open door of her parents’ bedroom, across from hers. Her mother was sitting upright on a wooden chair, staring out at the hallway. Gretchen stopped and looked at her mother. Her mother’s eyes were those of a madwoman: It could not be helped. Mother and daughter stared at each other.

‘Go to bed,’ the mother said. ‘I’ll call the Works at nine o’clock to say you’re sick, you won’t be in today.

She went into her room and closed the door. She didn’t lock it because there were no locks on any of the doors in the house. She took down her copy of Shakespeare. The eight one hundred dollar bills were no longer between Acts II and III of As You Like It. Still neatly folded in the envelope they were in the middle of Act V of Macbeth.

There were no lights on in the Boylan house. Everybody was downtown celebrating. Thomas and Claude could see the rockets and roman candles that arched into the night sky over the river and could hear the booming of the little cannon that was used at the highschool football games when the home team scored a touchdown. It was a clear, warm night and from the vantage point on the hill, Port Philip shimmered brightly, with every light in town turned on.