The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress (12 page)

He wasn't going to give up, she could tell. It was Dr. Wheeler's opinion that those in need of answers were trying to deal with the darkness to come, Napoleon being an exam­ ple, though she couldn't remember why.

She said, ‘When I was a child I met a man who helped me into adulthood.'

‘What does that mean?'

‘He lifted the things that weighed me down.'

‘What things?' said Silver drily, lowering himself onto the step beside her.

From the yard below came a stutter of hooves as the riders returned. The black woman came out of the stables and helped Harold dismount. He was looking directly at Rose, his face angry. ‘Where the hell did you go?' he shouted.

She ignored him and ran towards Fury. ‘Your wife isn't well,' she blurted. ‘She's crying.' Fury looked at Silver, who nodded and pointed towards the side of the house. Harold seized Rose and shook her. He asked her again where she had gone. ‘Don't you realise what it looked like,' he thundered. ‘You could have been lying unconscious somewhere.'

‘But I wasn't,' she retorted, eyeing his sunburnt nose, ‘it wasn't my fault the horse got weary.' He would have jostled her again if Silver hadn't intervened; taking Harold by the elbow he propelled him up the steps.

She loitered in the yard, remembering what Dr. Wheeler had taught her about confrontation, particularly if one was in the wrong. ‘Become forgetful,' he'd advised, ‘especially if it's serious.' She stood there, the sun beating down on her head, imagining how it would be once they were reunited. Would he look the same? She stroked the photograph in her pocket, the one taken at Charing Cross station the day he'd left her. They'd shake hands, not kiss. She'd wear her polka-dot dress, even though she didn't think he'd ever seen her in anything other than slacks and a raincoat . . . she'd stuck to these because he said they suited her. Her slacks were new, but the raincoat was the same. Once, years ago, she'd tried to press her lips to his cheek and he'd pushed her away firmly, but not roughly. He hadn't said anything, but she'd realised she shouldn't try that again, not ever. She'd wear her raincoat with the dress . . . just in case his expression showed disapproval.

Fury came into the yard, his arm round Philopsona; she wasn't sobbing any more. Neither of them looked at Rose as they crossed towards the steps. She stayed where she was, her back to the house, fingers still touching the photograph, until Mr. Silver shouted from the window that Harold was in a better mood and that she should come up.

There were three bottles of wine on the table, two of them empty, and a packet of cigarettes nudging a silver lighter. There were no glasses, only tea cups. Harold was slumped in his chair, eyes shut. Philopsona wasn't there, nor the old mother, just the woolly rabbit, glass eyes ablaze under the window sunlight. Fury and Silver were talking about some man who had been murdered. Lots of people had been upset. Silver maintained that the dead man was a secondary rather than a primary target of a plot aimed to cause unrest. Colour, he asserted, didn't really come into it.

‘We learned about that at school,' interrupted Rose. ‘The first attempt didn't work and the chap who fired the gun gave up and sat down on the pavement.'

They stared at her. She thought they must be impressed by her knowledge of history.

‘Then, owing to some pile-up in the traffic, the car came back and the next shot worked—on the wife as well. They were archdukes. The Pope fainted when he heard the news. It turned out that the killer was backed by a secret society known as the Black Hand.'

Silver giggled. Fetching a cup, he poured her some wine. Fury rose and said he ought to see if his wife was all right. When he'd gone, Silver asked Rose if she was curious to know what was wrong with Philopsona. She said that she wasn't, that it was none of her business. He took no notice and launched into an explanation, not much of which she could follow. It had to do, he confided, with a substance, a kind of medicine which was pretty much in demand in the 1950s—underground, that is. MK-Ultra, the code name for a secret CIA interrogation project he'd been involved in, had planned to use it on the communists of North Korea who, backed by Russia, were advancing on Seoul. ‘It would have been dropped from the air,' he said, ‘a method of attack far less expensive than sending in troops. The Chinese and North Koreans were already using their own mind-control techniques on US pris­ oners of war and something was urgently needed by way of retaliation . . .' The substance had been tested on jailbirds and prostitutes, not that they knew it—here Silver smiled, the smile of a man recalling happier times. It didn't harm them, he reas­ sured her, merely rendered them incapable of doing much more than singing and reciting poetry.

‘Poetry,' echoed Rose.

‘Personally,' Silver said, ‘I'm glad they abandoned the idea and resorted to killing the bastards.'

‘I took part in a rally two months ago,' she recounted, ‘in Trafalgar Square, in support of North Vietnam. Three hundred people were arrested. I don't remember any poems.'

‘Fury,' Silver said, ‘being that sort of guy, had some of the stuff in his desk and unfortunately Philopsona, having heard how it reduced stress and violence in those exposed to child­ hood suffering . . .'

‘Childhood suffering . . .' echoed Rose.

‘. . . tried it. It had the opposite effect and for a time she was subject to fits, which only gradually subsided. For the past three years they've not been so regular.'

Rose wanted to ask if it was the medicine that caused Philop­sona to swear and give away money, but at that moment Harold opened dazed eyes and murmured that he was sorry . . . very sorry.

‘We ought to leave,' she urged, tapping the table. ‘We've got to get to Malibu.'

He nodded and dozed off again.

Silver said he understood that the guy she and Harold were searching for would probably be staying at the Ambassador Hotel. ‘I guess it won't be easy to gain entry,' he told her, ‘not with the Kennedy entourage waiting to hear the results of the primary.'

He was very kind. He promised he'd arrange to get them a couple of passes, either before they left or via Fury, who by that time should be back in his office.

When Fury returned from seeing to his wife he said he would be in Los Angeles on the fifth, Philopsona being on the road to recovery.

‘Goody, goody,' cried Rose.

Then a heated discussion began between the two men to do with Israel and the Arabs. Fury said that the Jews were out to extend their borders by force, that they wanted to unseat a man called Nasser because he was a lightning rod for Arab unity, and that they wanted the Cold War to con­ tinue. It was Israel who had killed President Kennedy, because nothing could be achieved as long as he remained in the White House.

‘Oswald wasn't a Jew,' shouted Silver.

Rose said, ‘My dad hated Jews . . . and Catholics . . . and the Salvation Army.'

‘The Senate is riddled with Jews, as you well know,' Fury persisted.

‘That's bullshit,' bellowed Silver, shaking a finger at Fury. ‘The assassination was the demented act of a disturbed individual, the victim of a shitty upbringing.' Rose was impressed by his acknowledgment of parental fault and nodded vigorously, but neither of them noticed. As far as they were concerned, she wasn't there.

She went and sat in the old mother's chair by the window, tugging at the ears of the rabbit and watching yellow sweater going in and out of the stables. She tried to put Dr. Wheeler in the yard but he stayed hidden in her head. Presently, Fury and Silver having abandoned the table in search of more wine, she got up, slid a cigarette out of the packet, pocketed the lighter and hurried out the door. Yellow sweater was standing in the open, looking up at the sky, arms outstretched.

He wasn't easy to talk to, nor was he all that grateful when she handed him the fag. She reckoned his unease was due to him being a foreigner, and asked if he liked looking after horses so far away from home.

‘This is my home,' he replied. ‘I came here twelve years ago, and I do more than look after horses. I am a jockey.'

‘Of course you are,' she affirmed. She would have said more but he stared at her so strangely the words faded.

‘I rely on the ethereal guidance of Al Hilal,' he said, and walked away; he was obviously a bit potty.

Harold didn't get to his feet for another two hours, by which time both Silver and Fury had lapsed into a tipsy sleep. He penned them a note thanking them for their hospitality, to which Rose added her name and a row of kisses.

 

 

 

 

L
eaving Santa Ana, Harold fretted over his inability to express himself. He hadn't shone in the company of Fury and Silver. When discussing the killing of Dr. King, they'd ignored his opinion, spoke over him, which was odd seeing that in his head he'd witnessed the blood spilling onto the floor. But then, with the exception of Shaefer, he'd often been thrust aside. Complaining to his mother all those lost years ago, her hair immaculately waved, eyes scornful, she'd said it was because he wasn't in command of his vocabulary. She was wrong because at college, sponsored by Shaefer, he'd once been up for president of the debating society.

Knowing that Wheeler would no longer be in Malibu, Harold quit the freeway and took the Pacific Coast Highway to Santa Monica. He kept the radio switched on to discourage Rose from chatting, without success. He had never met anyone so indifferent to nature. Blind to the pale blossoms of the paradise trees, the sugar-white sands edging the glitter of ocean, she fiddled with her top lip, her hair, the contents of her pockets, and gibbered mindlessly on about some medicine that had been used to combat foul language in Vietnam. She meant drugs, of course, in particular the lysergic acid which had affected the Philopsona woman.

He was annoyed with himself for having talked so freely to Fury. God knows why he'd spilled the beans about feelings for his mother, though he supposed the knitted rabbit on the chair had something to do with it. That and the drink. He'd droned on about his life before the arrival of a succession of step-fathers, the time when just the two of them had lived in a rundown apartment in Detroit, of the day when he was seven years old and she'd slapped his face because he'd left the soap in the washroom—it was communal, which accounted for his adult sensitivity to smells—and she'd feared it might get stolen. When he'd started to snivel she'd turned back and taken him in her arms. He remembered that hug because, ever after involved with men, it was the last time she'd shown him any affection. The telling of such childhood memories was embarrassing enough, but he feared he might also have gone on about Wheeler, perhaps even hinted at what he intended to do once they met.

Preoccupied, he narrowly avoided scraping the open door of a white Chevrolet, abandoned at the side of the road. Moments later he braked and got out, muttering to Rose that he needed to stretch his legs. Absorbed in the contents of her pockets, she just nodded. Stupidly, he left his hat behind and the sun was cruel on his head.

To the left of the camper, a slope led down to a small wood and as he made for its blue shadows he heard himself moan aloud. If he'd drunkenly confided in Fury and Silver, spat out his intentions, then surely they'd tell someone? He wasn't afraid of being found out, as long as he was successful. Was it possible they'd told Rose? When he'd woken from sleep he'd heard Silver talking about violence and suffering, and she, eyes wide, had repeated the words.

He was loitering there, fingers tugging at his beard, when he heard the distinct and anguished noise of someone fighting for a last breath. He knew it was that because he'd been pres­ ent when Frederick Beckstein had gurgled into death. The name had remained in his mind because it belonged to his third stepfather, the one who had taught him the value of investments and left him money in his will. Without Beck­stein he might have been shoved into the boredom of earning a living.

Turning, he followed the direction of the sound and almost stumbled over a sprawled figure, hands pressed to a frag­ ment of green cloth sticking to bloodstained white trousers. The face was as pale as the silver bead clipped to its earlobe. Harold stood there until the gasping stopped, then, waiting until his own breath slowed, knelt and placed a finger against the side of the man's throat. There was no pulse. In standing up his left knee accidentally slid across the white trousers, pinkly smearing his shorts. Near his feet the blade of a kitchen knife flashed sunlight. Frowning, he kicked it into the undergrowth and returned to the camper. A woman was sit­ ting beside Rose, hands clasped as though in prayer.

‘She was hitchhiking,' Rose told him, ‘and the man who picked her up attacked her, so she hit him and ran away. I said we'd give her a lift. We will, won't we?'

He nodded, there being nothing else he could do. When he took the wheel the woman slumped against him, the skirt of her green dress brushing his leg. He drove off so quickly that she jerked forward, lank black hair spilling over her knees.

According to Rose, she was going to visit her brother in Newport, nine miles away. She had two brothers, the eldest of whom was away soldiering in Vietnam. The one she wanted to see—she needed to borrow money—had been born with a leg missing, which was why he was still at home. No, she didn't want to tell either him or the cops what had happened because then there'd be questions and she'd have to relive the horror. Besides, the brother with one leg was one of those ignorants who held that it was females who were to blame for sexual aggression, that men merely responded to signals. Rose agreed that not telling was sensible and said that once, when a man had pushed her down some stairs because she wouldn't have sex, she hadn't told anyone either. She'd injured her knee, not badly, just limped for a few days, but on account of her childhood she'd learned never to show hurt and that when in pain it was best to smile, seeing as an emotional reaction could often provoke another attack.

Appalled, Harold switched on the radio to shut her up, and above a Deanna Durbin love song heard an excited voice bursting out with the news that some woman had shot Andy Warhol, three times. Rose, tone truculent, asked him why Yanks kept shooting each other; was it because they were all allowed to own guns? It was obvious she'd never heard of Warhol.

Newport rose above the sandy shores of the Pacific, its main boulevard lined with palm trees. Ten years before, he and Dollie had come here to see a business acquaintance of hers supposedly recovering from a heart attack, a journey that turned out to be wasted, seeing the guy was dead by the time they arrived. Dollie hadn't cried, simply got drunk, which was O.K. by him, though she didn't bother to shower as it made her want sex.

He asked the woman in the green dress where he should go, but she ignored him and began whispering to Rose, who presently directed him to a street with a hash house on the corner, its glass front steaming smoke yellow in the heat. A man wearing a sombrero stood outside, staring at a child who was kicking a yelping dog tied to a traffic pole.

Rose helped the woman out, and embraced her. Deanna Durbin had begun singing again and he slouched there, watching as Rose smoothed down the woman's hair, exposing a blob of blood, either her own or that of the man she had just stabbed, stuck to her cheek. He felt neither curious nor judge­ mental, seeing as he himself was heading towards the ultimate sin. Rose was now confronting the kid with the dog, untying its leash from the pole before she returned to the camper. The animal didn't run off, just sat there.

The woman waved and mouthed gratitude as she climbed the steps of her brother's house, but he knew she only saw Rose; he had become invisible, lost to all. As he reached the end of the street he looked into the side mirror and caught sight of the woman, now back on the sidewalk, scurrying in the opposite direction.

‘It was a woman who shot Mussolini,' announced Rose, immersed as always in her own fantasies, ‘though she didn't kill him.'

Her return plane ticket was in his wallet. He must remem­ ber to give it her before they reached the hotel. She mustn't be with him when he encountered Wheeler . . . he had to be alone when the man who had ruined his life turned to face him, cold eyes flashing recognition . . .

Telling her he needed a drink, he drove until he came to a sign advertising beer. Sitting at the bar and observing her reflection in the mirror, eyes puffy, mouth tight, he said, ‘Sorry to be irritable. I guess I'm tired.'

‘It's normal,' she replied, ‘for people who come from dif­ ferent backgrounds to find it difficult to get on. It's because we're programmed by the people who brought us up.'

It was disconcerting the way she often came out with an intelligent observation, and irritating when, as always, she quickly ruined it, suggesting that if they were squirrels, the very first ones without parents, knowing how to find nuts would be a matter of luck, not inheritance. ‘If we didn't see our mothers scrabbling beneath a pine tree, how would we know what to do?' she enquired absurdly.

He ordered a large gin and concentrated on how to lose her when the opportunity came. As Wheeler was the only reason they were together she would obviously kick up a fuss if he stopped her accompanying him to the Ambassador Hotel. Worse, if she was in one of those moods which enabled her to see things clearly, she might interfere with his plans. They'd be in Los Angeles in two days' time and it sure would be easier if she got into the habit of going places on her own.

He said, ‘I guess I've kept you on a leash, haven't I? I've been a shade controlling.'

She said, ‘A shade, yes.'

‘Well,' he said, ‘there's a rather interesting museum not far from here. You could go there on your own, if you want.'

She frowned at the word museum, until he explained that it wasn't the usual sort, that it had a large section on the lives of authors and painters.

‘Which authors?' she asked.

‘Robert Louis Stevenson, Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck, Raymond Chandler . . .'

‘Steinbeck,' she cried, ‘I like him . . . I've read
Tortilla Flat
. What did the Chandler man write?'

‘Crime novels,' he told her. ‘He turned to writing when booze got him sacked from his job as an oil executive.'

‘Drink,' she said, ‘is a necessity for people who write. It makes the words come.' She then launched into a story about a woman she'd known who had always drunk whisky before writing short stories, but as she'd never got them published she'd turned to stealing library books, hundreds of them, which she sold to secondhand bookshops. It was very prof­ itable and gave her a good life.

‘I guess she ended up in jail,' he ventured.

‘No,' she said. ‘She ended up in a mansion in Somerset.'

After a second gin he escorted her round the block and gave her instructions on how to find the museum. She needn't hurry as he had some phone calls to make. He'd be in the bar in roughly an hour.

‘Goody, goody,' she said, and ran off.

Returning to the camper, he wrote a letter to Shaefer express­ ing gratitude for his friendship and enclosing the address of the lawyer in charge of his will. Reading it over he tore it into pieces and penned another that didn't mention money.

Then he began scribbling a note to Polly and Bernard to thank them for introducing him to Rose, but he abandoned it halfway through the first sentence, irritation at the mere inking of her name drying up the words. And fond though he was of her, he didn't think it would be a good idea to write to Mirabella—plunged into depression, she'd wish him in hell for being the cause.

There being nobody else in his life who warranted either a goodbye or gratitude, he pocketed the pen and began to fold up the newspapers strewn across Rose's seat, at which he uncovered a bag with a broken zip. Stuffed inside was a grey jersey, a spotted dress, a pair of soiled panties and a purse con­ taining two English pound notes and four dollars. Beneath was a lipstick, a toothbrush still in its wrapping, and a pocket diary without entries until the middle of May, and then each page blank but for the word ‘Soon' written with a capital S. Blank that is, save for one line on March the twenty-eighth, ‘Wash­ington Harold is a very kind man,' and ‘God how much longer,' on the thirtieth. As he dumped the bag under the seat, a cigarette lighter fell to the floor. It was made of silver and engraved with the initials JF.

He felt he deserved another drink. As he pushed open the camper door a blast of hot air took away his breath. Above him, a sweep of black cloud swallowed the blue of the sky. By the time he had a glass in his hand the world had turned dark and thunder cracked overhead.

The rain being heavy he expected Rose to be delayed, even though she permanently wore that crumpled raincoat. Then, as the downpour ceased and a further hour went by, he became uneasy. It was now eight o'clock and the museum was most likely shut. Hurrying along the damp sidewalk he began to cough from an inhalation of smoke, and on the next block encountered a noisy crowd halted by a line of policemen erect­ ing barriers. The distant heavens were still dark, but now streaked with orange flame. A man tugged at his arm, looked into his face, asked if he knew what was burning, and for a moment he felt a surge of exhilaration at being noticed. Then an image of Rose, mouth open in a scream, shocked him into trembling reality.