The Brass Bed
- Автор: Флора Флетчер
- Год: 1956
- Язык: английский
- Год: Lion Books
- Жанр: Романы для взрослых
Электронная книга - «The Brass Bed». Краткое содержание книги:
...and the root of it all lay hidden in the secret of THE BRASS BED.
“Well, teachers are of necessity about as good at stretching clams as it is possible to be. If we can’t do it, it can’t be done.”
“You have expressed yourself tersely, lucidly and with truth, and it is a pleasure to be in your company. Shall we go to Sylvester’s? It is now seven-thirty, and it will take us a good half hour to get downtown.”
“In your car, it may even take longer.”
“That’s true. I admit that even with a ring job and new spark plugs, my car is capable of no more than an adequate performance.”
“It was rude of me to mention it.” I waved a finger at him.
“Not at all. Truth is truth, and adequate is adequate. I understand that you meant no offense, and none is taken.”
We got up and went over to the cash register and paid for our steaks and said goodbye to Nick. He said he was sad to see us go and would be looking forward to our return. Irene was busy waiting on a man and two women at a table and did not see us leave.
“Tell Irene goodbye for us,” Harvey said. “Tell her it was much easier this way.”
Nick laughed at the little joke and held his sides.
“Much easier,” Harvey said.
We went out to Harvey’s car and got in, and it performed adequately and got us downtown to Sylvester’s in forty minutes. It was getting dark, and the lights were on, all the neons and fluorescents and incandescents, and there wasn’t really much to what we were doing or intended doing, but there was a kind of excitement in it nevertheless.
14
“Having had two of them,” Harvey said, “I am prepared to say that the drinks are adequate.”
“At a clam per,” I said, “they can afford to be adequate.”
“That’s true,” Harvey agreed. “There is no question that we are paying dearly for reputation and atmosphere, to say nothing of the possible improvisations of Gloria Finch.”
“Diddle Gloria Finch,” I said.
“Well,” Harvey said, “I’ve heard that it can be done, but it would undoubtedly cost more than the fifty clams we have agreed to spend between us.”
We sat at the bar, which was a very fancy bar with extremely efficient bartenders, and all around us was a lot of glass and leather and stuff that may have been made of bronze, and there was a kind of period effect to it all, lush and regal and sort of modified Victorian or something, and the report was that Sylvester was a guy who prided himself on not going too far over on the modern side. This distaste for the modern did not extend, however, to modern prices, and Sylvester’s was a poor place to go looking for a two-bit beer or a four-bit shot, and in fact you would have grown old and gray and eventually quite dead before you ever found them.
There had not been many patrons there when we first came, but we had nursed the two drinks over a considerable period of time, which is only good economics at a clam per, and people had kept coming in and dispersing along the bar and among the tables, and now there were quite a few of them. There was a small orchestra that played smoothly and softly and without distinction, and a number of the men patrons danced with an equal number of women patrons on a small dance floor that required minimum movement and maximum contact. I watched the dancing patrons in the mirror behind the bar, and I began remembering the poem I had recited to Jolly and Fran and Sid at Jolly’s house, the one about the medieval university student who had gone down among the maidens and the dancing feet, but there was a gaiety and abandon in the poem that was lacking in the present reality, and all in all the comparison was unfortunate and did little or nothing to support the spirit of celebration. I ordered third drinks for Harvey and me and kept watching what went on in the glass, and there all of a sudden, was Fran getting closer and closer.
“There’s Fran,” I said.
“Where?” Harvey said.
“In the glass behind the bar.”
He looked and found her and nodded.
“You’re right,” he said. “It’s certainly Fran. Do you think she’s seen us?”
“I do.”
“Would you say that she is merely approaching the bar, or would you say that she is approaching us specifically and the bar incidentally?”
“Us specifically.”
“That’s what I thought myself,” he said. “What a shame that I’ve shaved off my whiskers.”
We continued to watch her, and she got up to us and put one arm around Harvey’s neck and the other one around mine.
“Hello, you guys,” she said.
“Greetings,” I said.
“And salutations,” Harvey said.
She turned her head one way and kissed Harvey on the right cheek, and then turned it the other way and kissed me on the left cheek.
“It’s impossible for me to say how happy I am to see you,” she said.
“We are happy to see you too,” Harvey said. “At least I’m happy, and I’m sure I speak truthfully for Felix also. Is it true that you are happy to see Fran again, Felix?”
“I’m happy and delighted,” I said.
“Well,” she said, “I must say that you guys seem very gay.”
“We are,” I said. “We resolved to be gay, and that’s what we are.”
“In fact,” Harvey said, “we are celebrating the temporary termination of bondage.”
“Bondage?” Fran said. “Are you out on bail or something?”
“Not at all.” Harvey spoke with dignity and drained the glass that had contained his third drink. “What I mean is, school is out, and this is a happy occasion that is generally celebrated one way or another by all concerned. When I was a kid, I used to celebrate it by taking off my shoes. Now I celebrate it in the company of a true friend by submitting my throat to Sylvester’s painless butchery.”
Fran snorted, “Well, come and submit it across the room. Jolly’s waiting for us there.”
“Do you mean that you and Jolly are here at Sylvester’s by yourselves?” I asked her.
“Of course not, Felix. It wouldn’t be proper for Jolly and me to come here unescorted, and moreover Sylvester wouldn’t permit it. Sid has come with us, and I can’t understand, anyhow, why you have to be so curious. The point is, you are invited to come and sit with us at our table, and I am here to deliver the invitation.”
“We accept with pleasure,” Harvey said.
“Speaking for myself,” I said, “I decline with regret.”
“Well, that makes no sense whatever,” Fran said. “If you decline with regret, why decline at all?”
“It may have slipped your mind,” I said, “that Jolly has only recently buried a husband, and it is my opinion that a new widow is no asset to a celebration.”
“But you are absolutely mistaken,” she said. “As you surely remember, Kirby never contributed much to a party, and things are likely to go much better and livelier without him.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Isn’t it? Perhaps you would be good enough to tell me what the point is.”
“I’ll be happy to. The point is, it seems damn indecent for a live widow to be cavorting around so soon after burying a dead husband.”
“As one who may himself become a dead husband in the future,” Harvey said, “I am inclined to be rather sympathetic to that view.”
“Oh, poop!” Fran said. “I’ve never before heard such nonsense in all my life. If you want my opinion, Kirby has had all the mourning he deserves, and I myself urged Jolly to come out on a party and be gay.”
“Come to think of it,” Harvey said, “Kirby was certainly a fellow who went around hitting far too many people, and I am now in sympathy with your point of view, Fran, as opposed to Felix’s. I am definitely in favor of joining Jolly and Sid.”