29
IMMEDIATELY MORTIMER ENTERED POLLY MORGAN’S flat on Beaufort Street, already well fortified with Scotch, he was confronted by an outsize poster of Humphrey Bogart. “Play It Again, Sam.” The dimly lit entry hall was lined with bookshelves, bookshelves sagging with volumes on the cinema, but when Polly took Mortimer’s coat, disappearing briefly, and he stooped to pull out one of the books, he scraped his fingers. They were not books at all, but photographs of books pasted to the wall.
A framed black and white photograph of a Matisse hung over a mock fireplace, wherein plastic logs flickered red and orange, lit by a revolving light inside. Crackle, crackle, went the tape that was turned on automatically with the fire. There were other framed stills of paintings on the wall, all of them in black and white, but there was only one original. A first-edition color poster for Gone with the Wind, Gable scooping Vivien Leigh into his arms, Atlanta flaring red behind.
“V. Fleming,” Polly said. “Selznick, M-G-M. 1939. 41,200,000. Variety’s all-time grosser until Sound of Music.”
“What’s that?”
“Sound of Music. R. Wise. 20th. 1965. 42,500,000. What about a drink?”
“I’d love one.”
“You look sad,” she said, handing him a martini.
“Do I?”
“Don’t tell me.… Way back, a million light years ago maybe, you started out on a big white charger, waving a flag.”
Mortimer watched, agog, as Polly brushed the hint of a tear from her suddenly watery blue eyes.
“Now your arms are tired,” she continued, “the charger is in the glue factory and you’re sitting on a bomb, a ticking bomb …”
Mortimer emptied his glass. “Would it be possible to have another?”
“Let me.”
The candle-lit table was set for two. One red rose stood in a narrow vase and there was a bottle of champagne in a silver bucket. Polly put on a record, some Chopin from A Song to Remember. She looked fetching, maddeningly desirable, in her white mini-sheath, but Mortimer, even though he fed his imagination on pictures of lechery, felt no upspringing whatsoever. “You look absolutely gorgeous,” he said, tottering toward her.
“Don’t touch me,” she pleaded. “I shan’t be able to think, if you touch me.”
All the same, he kissed her, indelicately driving her body against him, trying to arouse himself.
“Oooo,” she moaned.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Sorry? No, no. I guess I’ve been wanting you to do just that for a long time.”
“Really?” he said, pleased, then, remembering his condition, was alarmed.
“I wish … oh, I wish,” she whispered.
“What?”
“I wish we had met ten years ago.”
A month ago would have done nicely, he thought bitterly.
“No,” she corrected herself. “Ten years ago, well, we were two different people, we wouldn’t have –” She stopped short. “Wrong again. I’d have loved you in any time, any place.”
“Loved me,” he exclaimed.
All the tenderness went out of Polly’s face. She seemed immensely irritated with herself. “Did I do that badly?” she asked. “Was I standing in the wrong place?”
“What’s that?”
“It’s just that this side of my face – yikes! My dinner!” she said, possibly to cover her embarrassment.
Mortimer followed her into the tiny planned kitchen. Testing his reactions, he kissed her hopefully on the nape of the neck.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she squealed pleasurably. “You just control yourself until after dinner.”
Until after dinner.
Taking him by the hand, Polly led him back into the living room, kissed him, and pushed him back on the sofa. “I won’t be long,” she said.
Mortimer’s hands began to tremble. Until after dinner. Oh God, he thought, to be offered Polly on a plate and – and – there’s no justice. Mortimer caught a glimpse of her through the kitchen porthole, poring over her Larousse, tapping her teeth with her finger. But who would have known, he thought, arguing with himself. After all, everybody’s had a go at her and nobody … I’m reading things into the situation. Why, she’s a virgin. There’s nothing to worry about, absolutely nothing. But, rising to pour himself another martini, he happened to peek into the bedroom and what he saw made his heart leap. On the bedside table there stood a bottle of wine and two glasses. Mortimer sank back on the sofa, closed his eyes, and prayed.
He had, it seemed to him, only rested for a minute, two at the most, when the next thing he knew … they were lying on pillows in front of the fire, she in his arms, a tray with coffee and brandy on the floor beside them.
“I’m sorry about the sauce,” she said. “It just didn’t work.”
“No, no, it was delicious.”
Craning his neck, Mortimer stared at the table. The candle had burned down to a flickering stump. The bottle of champagne floated overturned in the silver bucket. There was hardly any roast left on the meat board. And yet – and yet – Mortimer could have sworn he hadn’t eaten. Drunkenness made him forgetful, but not that forgetful. Besides, he was still hungry. He was bloody famished, in fact.
“What are we going to do,” Polly asked, running a long cool finger over his lips, “about us?”
“What do you mean?”
“I wouldn’t want to hurt … Joyce.”
He and Joyce, he explained, somewhat irritated, were no longer living together.
“You needn’t explain,” she said, running a hand down his side. “Um, one minute. Perhaps there’s something I should explain. About me.”
“But there’s no need. I know, I know.”
He had thought only Doug knew, and Ziggy, but obviously –
“You’ve been living in the same house, you and Joyce, strangers under the same roof. You’ve been sharing a bed, but there’s no love in your lovemaking.… Once you could talk to each other, but not any more.… Listen!”
Outside, somewhere in the night, a bird called to its mate. Then she was in his arms again, passionately this time, and Mortimer, his anguish total, began falteringly, “Wait, there’s something I must tell you … I’m sort of not well recently … unfit. I –” He feigned dizziness. “If I could only shut my eyes and rest, just for a minute, please.”
But when he opened his eyes she was gone.
“Polly?”
He found her luxuriating on the bed, nude, sleepy-eyed, satiated. She scooped up the sheet, covering herself, holding it coyly to her bosom. “It was super,” she said. “Absolutely super. Was it super for you too, darling?”
“Well, yes.”
“Was it never like this for you before?”
“No!”
“You’re such a bad liar. I love you for that.”
“But I’m telling the truth, God damn it.”
“Yes, you are. That’s exactly what I mean. If you were lying, I could tell from your face.”
He sat down on the bed beside her and reached for the bottle of wine. To his amazement, it was empty. The ashtray on the bedside table was full. He scrutinized the butts. Yes, they were his brand.
“Was life ever this good?”
But I’ve still got my clothes on, he thought, his head aching. “No,” he said.
“Am I your whole life to you, Mortimer?” He didn’t answer.
“No, my sweet,” she answered for him, “and I wouldn’t want to be.”
“Why the hell not?” he asked, irritation, bewilderment, ripening into anger.
“If I were your whole life,” she said, “that would mean you would die without me.” “Would I?”
“I couldn’t bear that responsibility.”
“Oh, my head, my poor head.”
“Let’s live for love, Mortimer, you and I,” she said, hugging him. “Let’s not die for it.” Then she fell away from him and was asleep almost immediately.
Mortimer tottered into the living room and stared once more at the table where they appeared to have eaten together. The champagne bottle, he saw, was truly empty but, in the kitchen, he was unable to find any used pots or pans or soiled dishes. In fact all he found in the kitchen was stacks and stacks of film scripts, shooting scripts complete with camera directions. Mortimer found his coat and let himself out of Polly’s flat. Outside, he noticed two black-suited men seated in a parked Rover. He stopped a taxi and clambered inside wearily. The Rover started up and followed, but at a distance.
Migod.