‘Have it your own way. I’m going to bed. I’m tired.’
I made to pass her but she blocked my exit.
‘Tired! I bet you are!’ she shrilled. ‘Working until now! Do you think I’m that wet behind the ears? I bet you’ve been screwing that whore!’
I shouldn’t have drunk so much whisky. I did something that was completely out of character and beyond my control.
I slapped her face so hard she went staggering into the living room, overbalanced and sat down hard on the floor.
She sat there, staring up at me, her mouth open, her eyes dazed.
I stepped around her and went into the bedroom. I was shaking and sick with myself. I sat on the bed and put my hands to my face.
After some minutes, she came in and keeping away from me, she began to undress. Every now and then a dry little sob escaped her.
These sounds didn’t touch me. I was too absorbed in my own despair. The fact that I now fully realised I couldn’t make love to Val in Vidal’s house and that I would have to plot and plan to get her somewhere safe where I could, gave me such a feeling of suffocating frustration that Rhoda just didn’t exist.
Suddenly she said in a snivelling little voice, ‘I shouldn’t have said that Clay. You were right to hit me. I deserved it.’
I suppose I should have taken her in my arms then and told her I was also sorry, but I didn’t. Instead I said wearily, ‘Let’s forget it,’ and getting up, I began to undress.
‘You did hurt me. Really you did.’
‘Do you imagine you didn’t hurt me?’ Reaching for my pyjamas, I moved to the bathroom. ‘Let’s forget it.’
Later, when we were lying side by side in the dark, she reached for me, but I pushed her hand away.
‘Go to sleep,’ I said. ‘I’m tired even if you’re not.’
A callous thing to have said, but I was still smouldering with frustration and I didn’t give a damn if I hurt her or not.
I didn’t sleep much that night. I thought with dread of the work to be done tomorrow, of Val’s pecking and hunting, of looking at her and not being allowed to touch her.
Rhoda was soon asleep. The soft little snorts she always made when sleeping got so badly on my nerves I was tempted to wake her, but I didn’t.
At 06.30, I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake her. I took my clothes into the bathroom, shaved, showered and dressed. She was still sleeping when I tiptoed into the kitchen. I made myself a cup of coffee. There was no bread for toast. I saw a pack of cigarettes on the table. She hadn’t forgotten her cigarettes.
As I was putting the cup and saucer in the sink, she appeared, looking doleful and in a mess.
‘Why are you up so early?’ she asked.
‘I’m going to the office. I have a load of work still to do. Will you try to remember to get in some bread and cream? If I’m going to be late, I’ll call you.’
‘Oh, Clay, I wish you hadn’t taken this job. I really do. I’m sure it is a mistake.’
I had a sudden uneasy feeling she was right, but I was committed.
‘You like your car, don’t you? See you tonight,’ and I left her.
Val didn’t come to the office until 10.15. There was a guilty expression in her eyes as she shut the door.
‘I’m sorry to be so late, darling,’ she said and quickly sat down behind her desk. ‘I had a hell of a night with those two old bores and I overslept.’
I had been working steadily since 07.30. In that time I had completed six briefs, typed the schedules, arranged the flights, but I had four visas still to cope with.
‘We’re back on the visa problem, Val. Will you call Lucas and tell him we must have a leg-man pronto?’
Her eyes widened.
‘I can’t do that. I have no authority.’
‘Okay, then we’ll get one without authority.’ I called an Employment agency I had dealings with, told them I needed a boy to run messages and I wanted him fast. They said they would send someone over within the hour. The cost would be sixty dollars a week. They had a student on vacation who would welcome the work.
I then went over to the telex machine and sent a telex to Vidaclass="underline" Need your authorisation for messenger at sixty per week. Essential, Burden.
Val just sat there, listening and watching.
‘Well, that fixes that,’ I said, returning to my desk. ‘If your husband kicks, then I’ll pay the boy.’
‘He won’t like it.’
‘Too bad. Tell me, Val, who are all those people travelling at his expense?’
‘People who work for him. People he has to bribe. He’s too smart to give them money. They get their vacations free.’
‘Why does he have to bribe them?’
‘To get information. He lives on other people’s information.’
‘Do you know his credit is being cut from six months to mm month everywhere? Is he in trouble?’
She stiffened.
‘Trouble?’
‘I heard his empire could crash. It’s no more than talk, but might it?’
She passed the tip of her tongue over her lips.
‘He’s worth millions.’
‘Other men have been worth millions. That doesn’t mean a thing. Has he said anything to you? I’m not being curious, Val. I’m thinking of you. If there is a crash, what will you do?’
‘He won’t crash. He is far too evil.’ She shook her head. ‘The devil looks after his own.’
At this moment the intercom buzzed and Dyer told me he was sending up three briefs that were immediate.
She had heard what he had said so I didn’t have to repeat it.
‘Let’s get on.’ I began on another brief.
She began her peck and hunt routine. After a girl had brought up the briefs and I had studied them, Val’s slow tap-tap-tap stretched my nerves to snapping point.
Finally, I could stand it no longer.
‘Val! This can’t go on! I must have a fast typist! You can see that, can’t you? You’re so out of practice we just can’t go on like this. I don’t mean to be unkind...’ I broke off as I saw her face crumple in utter despair and she put her arms across the typewriter and her head on them. Her body began to shake with sobs.
Alarmed, I went to her, only just restraining myself from taking her in my arms.
‘Val, forgive me!’ My frustration and irritation gave way to remorse and pity. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you. Don’t be upset, darling. Let’s talk about it. There must be a solution. Come on, darling, don’t give way.’
She straightened up. The haunted, desperate expression in her eyes shocked me.
‘Can’t you understand what is happening?’ She pressed the palms of her hands hard against her eyes. ‘Do you really believe I have forgotten how to type? Can’t you see the battle that is going on before your eyes?’
I stared at her.
‘Battle? Forgive me but I just don’t know what you are saying.’
She dropped her hands into her lap with a gesture of despair.
‘I’ve explained and explained. You just don’t understand.’ She leaned forward, staring up at me. ‘He is punishing me! The moment I put my fingers on the keyboard, I feel him taking over, forcing me to make mistakes, paralysing my fingers so every time I touch a key, it is a struggle. It was he who forced me to oversleep this morning so I would be late. It was he who forced me to go to Palm Beach yesterday to buy a dress I didn’t want. He is destroying the confidence I once had in my efficiency deliberately, gleefully to punish me.’
Trilby and Svengali: devils and spirits... they were all back again. Helplessly I stared at her, trying to understand, willing myself to understand.
‘But why, Val? Why should he want to punish you?’