I looked angrily round the big sitting room, knowing that I could not bear the idea of spending day after day caged in these four walls. I would go mad. It was not as if I could settle down with a book as I did in the old days. Hollywood had made me restless and the thought of being alone, even for a few hours, was intolerable.
I glanced at my watch. It was eleven forty-five. Then I thought of Eve. She would be in bed — probably asleep. I knew what I was going to do. I would call on her and persuade her to have lunch with me. As soon as I had decided to do this, I felt a great surge of relief. Eve would be the solution to my loneliness. As long as I had her I did not care what happened.
I reached Laurel Canyon Drive a few minutes after noon. I pulled up outside Eve’s house, left the car and walked quickly down the path. I knocked and stood waiting.
The door was opened almost immediately and Eve stood there, blinking in the strong sunlight. She stared at me. “Clive!” she said and giggled. “I thought you were the milkman.” She had obviously just got out of bed. Her hair was ruffled and she was without make-up. “What on earth are you doing here at this time?”
I smiled down at her. “Hello, Eve,” I said. “I thought I’d give you a surprise. Can I come in?”
She pulled her dressing gown about her and yawned. “I was just going to take a bath. Oh Clive, you are the limit. You might, at least, have phoned.”
I followed her into her bedroom. The room smelt faintly of perfume and stale perspiration. She went over and jerked open the windows.
“Phew! It stinks in here, doesn’t it?” she said, sitting on the bed and scratching her head. “Oh I’m tired.”
I sat on the bed close to her. “You look as if you’ve had a hectic night,” I said. “What have you been up to?”
“Do I look awful?” she asked, rolling back on the pillow and stretching. “I don’t care. I don’t care about anything this morning.”
“I feel like that too. That’s why I came to see you,” I said, looking down at her white, pinched face. There were smudges under her eyes and the two lines above the bridge of her nose were very pronounced. “Let’s be bored together. Come and have lunch with me.”
She screwed up her face. “No,” she said, “I can’t be bothered.”
“Now, don’t be obstinate,” I said. “We’ll have an early lunch and then you can come back here if you want to. Come on, don’t be a crab.”
She looked up at me and there was hesitation in her eyes. “Oh I don’t know,” she said, a sulky expression darkening her face. “It’s such a bore to get dressed. No, Clive, I don’t think I will.”
I reached down and took her hands, pulling her up so that our bodies were close. “You’re coming,” I said firmly. “I want to see you in your clothes for a change. Now, what will you wear?”
She pulled away from me and slouched over to the wardrobe. “I don’t know,” she said and yawned again. “Ooh I’m tired and I don’t want to go out.”
I opened the wardrobe. Hanging from the centre rail were a half a dozen tailored suits from various patterns.
“Why not wear a dress?” I asked. “Why must you always dress so severely? I’d like to see you in something flimsy and feminine for a change.”
“At least, Clive, let me decide what suits me,” she said, pulling a pin head grey suit off the hanger. “I’ll wear this. All right?”
“Sure, now go ahead and take your bath,” I said, sitting on the bed. “I’ll smoke a cigarette and wait for you.”
“I won’t be long,” she said, closing the cupboard.
While she was upstairs in the bathroom, I wandered around the little room. I opened drawers, glanced inside, then closed them. I moved the glass animals and in doing so I thought about her husband. There was a dark secret atmosphere about the room and I could not help thinking of the many men who came here. Secretive, furtive men who would be ashamed if their friends knew where they had been.
I was worried by these thoughts and I began to feel angry and frustrated. I hated to think that so many men shared Eve with me. The whole atmosphere of the room finally became so unbearable that I went into the passage and called to her to hurry.
“I’m coming,” she said. “Don’t be so impatient!”
At this moment I heard the front door open and Marty came in.
She gave me a quick, surprised look and then she smiled. “Good morning, sir,” she said. “It’s a lovely morning, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I returned, not looking at her.
I hated seeing her. I hated her servile, knowing expression. I wondered if Eve told her about me. I wondered if these two women discussed the men who came to this little house and whether they sniggered about them. I could not stay in the same room with this woman, suspecting that sometimes she sniggered about me.
“Tell Miss Marlow I’ll be in the car,” I said curtly and let myself out of the house.
Eve joined me in less than half an hour. She was smart and trim, but in the hard sunlight I thought she looked older and a little tired.
I opened the car door and she slid in. We looked at each other.
“Do I look all right?”
I smiled at her. “Wonderful.”
“Don’t lie. Do I really look all right?”
“You could go anywhere, Eve, and with anyone.”
“Do you really mean that?”
“Of course. The trouble with you is you’re ashamed of what you do,” I said, stubbing the self-starter. “That’s one of the reasons for your inferiority complex. You want it both ways, don’t you? Well, so far, it’s all right. You have nothing to worry about.”
She looked searchingly at me, decided that I was telling the truth and sank back against the cushions. “Thank you,” she said, with a little nod. “Where are we going?”
“Nikabob’s,” I said, turning into Sunset and going in the direction of Franklin. “All right?”
“Mmmm, I suppose so.”
“I tried to call you yesterday at two o’clock, but Marty said you were engaged.”
She grimaced, but did not say anything.
“You must work all day and all night,” I said, secretly torturing myself.
“Don’t let’s talk about it,” she said shortly. “I wonder why you men must always talk about it.”
“Sorry . . . I was forgetting it was shop to you.” I drove in silence for a couple of blocks and then said, “You puzzle me, Eve. You’re not really hard, are you?”
She pursed her mouth. “Why do you say that?”
“I think you could easily be hurt.”
“But, I’d never let you know,” she countered quickly.
“You’re an oddity. You’re always on guard against an unkind word. You think everyone is your enemy. I wish you’d relax and accept me as a friend.”
“I don’t want friends,” she returned impatiently. “Anyway, I never trust men. I know too much about them.”
“That’s because you know only the rottenness in men. Won’t you let me be your friend?”
She looked at me indifferently. “No, I won’t and do stop talking such nonsese. You can never mean anything to me. I keep telling you, so why don’t you stop?”
It seemed pretty hopeless to me. Again I felt the dark stirring of frustrated anger against her. If there were only something I could do to move her, to get behind that cold, completely indifferent attitude she hid behind.
“Well, you’re blunt enough,” I said. “At least, I know where I am.”
“I wish I knew what you were up to,” she said, giving me a searching look. “There’s something going on behind all this smoothness. What do you want, Clive?”
“You,” I said simply. “I like you. You intrigue me. I want to feel that I’ve a place in your life. That’s all.”