“Goes with the nightcap or not,” she called to me. “Whatever you choose, my good man.”
And in she went, in a flat sleek slapping racing dive.
Well, you came down here, fella, to find out about Bix Bowie. And, by God, no sacrifice is too great once a fella gives his solemn word, right? And the way you get to know a country is by getting to know the people, right? And even though there’s a pretty good size to that pool, what with the pool lights and all, you ought to be able to catch her sooner or later. So I think the answer ought to be that if it really goes with the nightcap, then…
But I discovered I was already trying to pull the trousers off with the shoes still on, so I sat down again and untied the shoes, thus solving that problem with hardly any trouble at all.
She clung, sweat-misted, still breathing deeply, and ground the scratchy ruff of her tawn-crisp hair into the side of my laboring throat; she gave her small crow-caw of delighted laughter.
“You do have to say something, you know,” said Lady Becky. “Some observation. Some passing comment. I rather like to remember the better ones.”
“Okay. Passing comment: Quote. Holy Mackerel. Close quote.”
She rolled up onto an elbow. “I think you are very nice; McGee. I think I will tell you what you just enjoyed.”
“I wouldn’t want to try to describe it myself.”
“I have to confess how ancient I am, darling. I am terribly old. I was married before the Battle of Britain. I was in London for the whole bit. Dreadfully earnest and devoted and valiant. Family tradition. All heroes. Volunteer nursing service. Stiff upper lip. So my beloved husband was in Spits, and they pranged him early on. And the others went, bit by bit. The chums and brothers, the family, and the sister. Stiff upper lip, lass. Strive on. So it ended, you know. And peace came, and two days later some damned delayed action thing went off, and it was my last duty call. Collapsed a row of flats and they burned. And I held two screaming tots, one after the other, on my lap, charred little things, trying to pop morphine into them before they died. Managed with one and didn’t with the other. Dreadful stench. Total pointlessness. Walked all night, said odd things. They put me off to rest. I was expected to pick up the loose ends of my life and start over, somehow. Do good works. But there were no loose ends, lamb. And I had a bellyful of good works.
“So one makes an accounting of sorts. I had, God knows, money enough, and time, and a strong body. And I was in a world that charred tots, and I wanted no more of it. What I had most adored with Robin was all the lovely free marital fornication. Never could get enough. He used to say I had great natural talent. So I vowed solemnly, ducks, to be come the jolly best piece of Anglo-Saxon ass in all Christendom. It is sad and remarkable that people really know so little about it. They sort of fumble about and trust to luck. I knew ‘that all I had to work with was my body. I had to keep it as enticing as possible, because one must arouse intense desire, or the game is lost before it is begun, what? I haven’t changed an inch or a pound in twenty years, my dear. I stay on the most strict routine of diet and exercise. And I go twice a year to a Swiss clinic for hormone balance, and there is a clever little Japanese doctor in California who does clever little operations when they’re needed. To know how to use the body, one must go to Yoga. God, how I labored, and then suddenly it fell into place. I have absolute and independent control now of every muscle in my body, even all those reactions that are supposed to be involuntary responses to erotic stimulus. And all this time, my dear, I was studying all the books on the arts of love that I could find. Hindu, Arabic, Ancient Egyptian. I am now a repository of all that learning and skill. And I know some astonishing things, luv. It is a responsibility, actually. I had to learn a great deal about anatomy, neurology, glandular functions, all that. So you see what’s in store, my good man? You’ve had a taste. And now I shall destroy you, bit by delicious bit. Because you shall respond again and again after you are quite certain you are finished. I need merely do some odd thing like… this?”
And as I was tumbled back into my role of awed participant in the second strenuous, virtuoso performance, I realized I had come upon a prime example of that uniquely English- phenomenon, the true eccentric. Some of them build cathedrals out of bits of matchstick., Some of them count the number of stalks of hay in the average haystack. Some write a hundred letters a week to the London Times. Some catalogue all the birds in fifty meadows. They are all quite mad, but do not know that they are mad, since they find a socially acceptable outlet for their monomania. This woman had been driven mad in a mad war, and had retained one little ledge of sanity and built the rest of the structure of her life upon it. But I could not carry my realizations any further, because something hitherto unknown had begun to happen, and it felt as if my head were starting to fry at the hair roots. I thought I heard her laughing, but then all I could hear in some far corner of the most primitive part of my mind, was myself roaring, atavistic and lonely.
There was another time of respite when, halfheartedly, I asked about Bruce Bundy and Rockland. She told me that they had met on the veranda of the Marques del Valle many weeks ago, and that Bruce knew Rockland had let himself be picked up. Bruce had told her that Rockland was not exactly inexperienced. He had then begun to ask Bruce to lend him money. Some large amount. Ten or fifteen thousand. It was to be some sort of investment scheme. Rockland had hinted that it was illegal but quite safe. He would double Bruce’s money. He then got very surly when Bruce said he would not cash in perfectly good securities in order to lend money to an animal off the streets. Then apparently Rocko had to leave the trailer park. Bruce let him bring the truck and camper and put it in the shed beyond his wall where Bruce garaged his little English Ford. There was room for both. He had moved into Bruce’s house on an apparently permanent basis. But he had spent Thursday, the last day of July, away from the house all day and a good part of the evening. When he came back he had asked Bruce to lend him a smaller amount. Three thousand or even two. When Bruce refused, Rockland had accepted it too calmly. In the small hours of Friday morning, Bruce had heard the distant sound of Rocko trying to start his truck. Bruce put his robe on and hurried out. She said Bruce had taken something out of the motor and hidden it. Rocko got out of the truck and tried to hit Bruce. But Bruce had won some sort of belt for some sort of way of fighting, and he kept in splendid shape, and so he had hit Rocko and knocked him unconscious, but when he fell he had hit his nose on the stone floor and bled, and it had made Bruce ill. When Rocko could walk, feeling very weak and shaky, Bruce had helped him into the house and into bed, and then he had gone back and searched the truck and found his little Picasso bronzes, and the solid gold amulets from Yucatan, and the prints and drawings by famous Mexican artists, and some of his better silverware.
Out of an increasingly hazy state, I interrupted her at this point in her narrative to ask her what she was doing.
“Dearest, don’t tighten up like that. Trust your Becky. There. Turn just a little bit more this way. That’s a dear. This will rest and relax you. It’s something Japanese women used to know, thousands of years ago. Just don’t think about me. Don’t think about anything. Just let your mind drift.”
So, though curious, it was restful, relaxing, soothing. It was indeed. For quite a while. And then it began to have quite another effect. And when that effect was sufficiently and unmistakably evident, Lady Rebecca Divin-Harrison swung triumphantly and exuberantly aboard, with spurs, whip, checkrein, and posted tirelessly and happily across the endless moors.