«Well, what is it?» Mara interrupted. «Why don’t you come out with it?»
«Give me a chance and I’ll tell you,» said Carruthers, patting her rump affectionately. «By the way,» turning to me, «won’t you pour yourself another drink? Pour me one too—that is, if you can get her permission. I have nothing to say around here. I’m just a general nuisance.»
This sort of banter and cross-fire promised to continue indefinitely. I had made up my mind that it was too late to go back to the office—the afternoon was shot. The second drink had put me in the mood to stay and see it through. Mara wasn’t drinking, I noticed. I felt that she wanted me to leave. The good news got sidetracked, then forgotten. Or perhaps he had told her on the sly—he seemed to have dismissed the subject too abruptly. Perhaps while she was begging him to spill the news she had pinched his arm warningly. (Yes, what is the good news? And that pinch telling him not to dare blurt it out in front of me.) I was all at sea. I sat on the other couch and discreetly turned up the cover to see if there were any sheets on it. There weren’t. Later I would hear the truth about the matter. We had a long way to go yet.
Carruthers was indeed a drunkard—a pleasant, sociable one too. One of those who drink and sober up at intervals. One of those who never think of food. One of those who have an uncanny memory, who observe everything with an eagle’s eye and yet seem to be unconscious, sunk, dead to the world. «Where’s that drawing of mine?» he asked suddenly, out of the blue, looking steadily at the spot on the wall where it had been hung.
«I took it down,» said Mara.
«So I see,» he snarled, but not too disagreeably. «I wanted to show it to your friend here.»
«He’s already seen it,» said Mara.
«Oh, he has? Well then, it’s all right. Then we’re not concealing anything from him, are we? I don’t want him to have any illusions about me. You know that if I can’t have you I won’t let anybody else have you, isn’t that so? Otherwise everything’s fine. Oh, by the way, I saw your friend Valerie yesterday. She wants to move in here—just for a week or two. I told her I’d have to speak to you about it—you’re running the place.»
«It’s your place,» said Mara testily, «you can do as you please. Only, if she comes in I move out. I have a place of my own to live in; I only come here to look after you, to prevent you from drinking yourself to death.»
«It’s funny,» he said, turning to me, «how those two girls detest each other. On my word, Valerie is an adorable creature. She hasn’t an ounce of brains, it’s true, but then that’s no great drawback; she has everything else a man wants. You know, I kept her for a year or more; we got along splendidly too— until this one came along,» and he nodded his head in Mara’s direction. «Between you and me I think she’s jealous of Valerie. You should meet her—you will if you stick around long enough. I have a hunch she’s going to drop in before the day’s over.»
Mara laughed in a way I had never heard her laugh before. It was a mean, ugly laugh. «That nit-wit,» she said scornfully, «why she can’t even look at a man without getting into trouble. She’s a walking abortion…»
«You mean your friend Florrie,» said Carruthers with a stupid fixed grin.
«I wish you’d leave her name out of this,» said Mara angrily.
«You’ve met Florrie, haven’t you?» asked Carruthers, ignoring the remark. «Did you ever see a more lascivious little bitch than that? And Mara is trying to make a lady of her…» He burst out laughing. «It’s strange, the trollops she picks up. Roberta —that was another wild one for you. Always had to ride around in limousines. Had a floating kidney, she said, but what it really was… well, between ourselves, she was just a lazy bum. But Mara had to take her under her wing, after I kicked her out, and nurse her. Really, Mara, for an intelligent girl, as you pretend you are, you do behave like a fool sometimes. Unless»—and he looked up at the ceiling meditatively—«there’s something else to it. You never know»—still gazing at the ceiling—«what makes two women stick together. Birds of a feather flock together, that’s the old saying. Still, it’s strange. I know Valerie, I know Florrie, I know this one, I know them all’—and yet, if you were to press me, I don’t know anything about them, not a thing. It’s another generation than the one I was brought up with; they’re like another species of animal. To begin with, they have no moral sense, none of them. They refuse to be house-broken; it’s like living in a menagerie. You come home and find a stranger lying in your bed—and you excuse yourself for intruding. Or they’ll ask you for money in order to take a boy friend to a hotel for the night. And if they get into trouble you have to find a doctor for them. It’s exciting but some times it’s a damned nuisance too. It would be easier to keep rabbits, what?»
«That’s the way he talks when he’s drunk,» said Mara, trying to laugh it off. «Go on, tell him some more about us. I’m sure he enjoys it.»
I wasn’t so sure that he was drunk. He was one of those men who talk loosely drunk or sober, who say even more fantastic things, in fact, when they are sober. Embittered, disillusioned men, usually, who act as if nothing could surprise them any more; at bottom however, thoroughly sentimental, soaking their bruised emotional system in alcohol in order not to burst into tears at some unexpected moment. Women find them particularly charming because they never make any demands, never show any real jealousy, though outwardly they may go through all the motions. Often, as with Carruthers, they are saddled with crippled, thwarted wives, creatures whom out of weakness (which they call pity or loyalty) they allow themselves to be burdened with for life. To judge from his talk, Carruthers had no difficulty in finding attractive young women to share his love-nest. Sometimes there were two or three living with him at the same time. He probably had to make a show of jealousy, of possessiveness, in order not to be made an utter fool of. As for his wife, as I found out later, she was an invalid only to this extent—that her hymen was still intact. For years Carruthers had endured it like a martyr. But suddenly, when he realized that he was getting on in years, he had begun tearing around like a college boy. And then he had taken to drink. Why? Had he found that he was already too old to satisfy a healthy young girl? Had he suddenly regretted his years of abstinence? Mara, who had vouchsafed this information, was of course purposely vague and clinical about the subject. She did admit, however, that she had often slept with him on the same couch, leaving me to infer that obviously he never dreamed of molesting her. And then in the next breath adding that of course the other girls were only too pleased to sleep with him; the implication was, of course, that he only «molested» those who liked to be molested. That there was any particular reason why Mara should not want to be molested I couldn’t see. Or was I supposed to think that he wouldn’t molest a girl who had his welfare so much at heart? We had quite a ticklish wrangle about it as I was taking leave of her. It had been a crazy day and night. I had gotten tight and had fallen asleep on the floor. This was before dinner, and the reason for it was that I was famished. According to Mara, Carruthers had grown quite incensed over my conduct; she had had quite a time dissuading him from breaking a bottle over my head. In order to mollify him she had lain down with him on the couch for a while. She didn’t say whether he had tried to «molest» her or not. Anyway he had only taken a cat nap; when he awoke he was hungry, wanted to eat right away. During his sleep he had forgotten that he had a visitor; seeing me lying oil the floor sound asleep he had become angry again. Then they had gone out together and had a good meal; on the way home she had induced him to buy a few sandwiches for me and some coffee. I remembered the sandwiches and the coffee—it was like an interlude during a blackout. Carruthers had forgotten about me with Valerie’s arrival. That I remembered too, though dimly. I remembered seeing a beautiful young girl enter and fling her arms about Carruthers. I remembered being handed a drink and falling back again into a torpor. And then? Well then, as Mara explained it, there had been a little tiff between herself and Valerie. And Carruthers had gotten blind drunk, had staggered out into the street and disappeared.
«But you were sitting on
