‘Keep in touch, fella,’ Dave said.
‘Sure,’ I answered again, meaning it as little: and we rang off.
Curled opposite in a tomato armchair, Eunice said gloomily, ‘I gather we’re stuck with that bloody Allyx.’
‘Only if we find him.’
‘Oh, you’ll do that, blast you.’ Her bitterness was so marked that Lynnie stared at her. Too young to understand, I thought, that it wasn’t me particularly that Eunice wanted to hurt, but life in general.
They went upstairs shortly afterwards murmuring about California in the morning, and I switched off the light and sat in near darkness, finishing the fourth of Eunice’s massive ideas on drink and working out the questions I would ask the next day. I could find Allyx on paper, if I were lucky: but he could hardly turn up loose after three years. Three weeks had been strictly the limit. The whole thing might have to be more orthodox, more public. And I wouldn’t again, I decided mildly, put myself within accident reach of the murderous Clives.
After a while I deserted the last half of the drink and wandered upstairs to the spacious air-conditioned room Eunice had given me. With a tired hand I switched on the light inside the door, and yellow pools in frilly shades shone out on brown and gold and white furnishings.
One splash of jarring bright pink. Eunice herself, in a fluffy trimmed wrapper, was lying on my bed.
I walked slowly across the thick white carpet and sat beside her on the white spotted muslin coverlet.
‘What do you want?’ I said gently.
‘What do you think?’
I shook my head.
‘Does that mean no?’ Her voice was abruptly matter of fact.
‘I’m afraid it does,’ I said.
‘You said you weren’t queer.’
‘Well... I’m not.’ I smiled at her. ‘But I do have one unbreakable rule.’
‘And that is?’
‘Not to sleep with the wives... or daughters... of the men I work for.’
She sat bolt upright so that her face was close to mine. Her eyes had the usual contracted pupils of the quarter drunk.
‘That includes Lynnie,’ she said.
‘Yes. It does.’
‘Well, I’ll be damned. You mean that night you spent in New York with her you didn’t even try...’
‘It wouldn’t have been much good if I had,’ I said, half laughing.
‘Don’t you believe it. She never takes her eyes off you, and when you were away she talked about nothing else.’
I stared at her in real surprise. ‘You must be wrong.’
‘I wasn’t born yesterday,’ she said gloomily. ‘She has two photographs of you as well.’
‘What photographs?’ I was staggered.
‘Some her brother took. That day on the river.’
‘But she shouldn’t...’
‘Maybe she shouldn’t,’ Eunice said dryly. ‘But she does.’ She swung her legs carelessly around to sit on the edge of the bed beside me and I saw that for someone bent on seduction she had come well wrapped up.
‘You expected me to say no,’ I said.
She made a face. ‘I thought you might. But it was worth a try.’
‘Eunice, you’re nuts,’ I said.
‘I’m bored,’ she said explosively, and with an undoubted depth of unbearable truth.
‘That puts me into the golf and bridge category.’
She was still playing games.
‘At least you’re goddam human,’ she said, her mouth cracking into a smile. ‘More than you can say about most men.’
‘What do you like best about moving to California?’ I asked.
She stared. ‘Your mind’s like a bloody grasshopper. What has that to do with sex?’
‘You tell me, and I’ll tell you.’
‘For God’s sake...’ But she made some effort at concentrating, and in the end came up with the answer I had been most expecting.
‘Fixing up the rooms, I guess.’
‘You did all these...’ I waved my hand around, embracing the house.
‘Yeah, I did. So what?’
‘So why don’t you start in business, doing it for other people?’
She half laughed, ridiculing the idea, and half clung to it: and I knew she’d thought of it in the past, because I hadn’t surprised her.
‘I’m no bloody genius.’
‘You have an eye for colour. More than that: for mood. This is the most comforting house I’ve ever been in.’
‘Comforting?’ she said, puzzled.
‘Yeah. Laugh, clown, laugh. That sort of thing. You can fill other people even though you feel empty yourself.’
Tears welled up in her grey-green eyes, and she shut the lids. Her voice remained normal.
‘How do you know?’
‘I know.’
After a pause, she said, ‘And I suppose what it has to do with sex is that interior decorating would be a suitable sublimation for a middle-aged woman whose physical attraction is fading faster than her appetite...’ The bitterness came from long acquaintance with the jargon and its point of view.
‘No,’ I said mildly. ‘The opposite.’
‘Huh?’ She opened her eyes. They were wet and shiny.
‘Playing games is easier than working.’
‘Spell it out,’ she said. ‘You talk in goddam riddles.’
‘Sex... this sort of casual sex...’ I patted the bed where she’d lain, ‘can be a way of running away from real effort. A lover may be a sublimation of a deeper need. People who can’t face the demands of one may opt for passing the time with the other.’
‘For Christ’s sake... I don’t understand a bloody word.’ She shut her eyes and lay flat back across the bed.
‘Thousands of people never try anything serious because they’re afraid of failing,’ I said.
She swallowed, and after a pause said, ‘And what if you do bloody fail? What then?’
I didn’t answer her, and after a while she repeated the question insistently.
‘Tell me what you do if you fail?’
‘I haven’t got that one licked myself, yet.’
‘Oh.’ She laughed weakly. ‘Oh God. The blind leading the blind. Just like the whole bloody human race.’
‘Yeah.’ I sighed and stood up. ‘We all stumble along in the dark, and that’s a fact.’
‘I don’t know if you’ll believe it, but I’ve been utterly bloody faithful to Dave... except for this...’
‘I’m sure of it,’ I said.
She got to her feet and stood swaying slightly.
‘I guess I’m tight.’
‘Better than loose,’ I said smiling.
‘For God’s sake, spare me goddam puns at one o’clock in the morning. I suppose if you’re looking for that so and so Allyx there’s no chance of you coming to California?’
‘I wish there were.’
‘Goddam liar,’ she said vaguely. ‘Goodnight.’
She made straight for the door and didn’t look back.
I drove them to the airport in the morning. Eunice had lent me her car and the house for as long as I needed them, and had passed off her overnight visit with one sarcastic dig at breakfast.
‘Better undersexed than sorry.’
‘What?’ said Lynnie.
‘Eunice is offering a solution to the population explosion,’ I explained.
Lynnie giggled. Eunice showed me a double row of teeth and told me to pass the cream.
When I’d seen them off I followed a local road map and Eunice’s inaccurate directions, and eventually arrived at the Perry Stud Farm, home of Jefferson L. Roots, chairman, among other things, of the Bloodhorse Breeders’ Association. A houseboy in a spotless white coat showed me through the house and on to the patio: a house made of large cool concrete boxes, with rough-cast white walls and bare golden wood floors. The patio was shaded by a vine trained across a trellis. There was a glass and metal table, and low comfortable lounging chairs around it. From one of these Jeff Roots extricated himself and held out a welcoming hand.