Take Me Home

Chapter 8

When he came out of the bathroom he had washed his face and stopped the seepage of blood with a styptic. Without looking at her, he removed his pajamas and stood before her naked, which was something he had not done before, and she thought that he did it now as an expression of contempt or indifference. Which of the two was worse she didn’t know, but either was bad enough, and she watched him steadily in his nakedness as a kind of submission. He began to dress for the street, dressing slowly, not speaking, not looking at her, and he did not speak or look at her until he was ready to leave. Then he looked at her levelly, with no discernible animosity, and spoke in the same dry, precise voice with which he had cursed her.

“I’m going to work,” he said. “When I get back this evening, I’d be happy to find you gone. I was a fool to bring you here in the first place, and I’ve been a fool ever since to let you stay, and I hope to God I never see you again. I treated you decently, you’ll have to admit that, and I’ve respected you for what you are, but then you crawl into my bed like a whore when I’m asleep, and you scream and claw me like a goddamn violated virgin when you wake up to find yourself where you came of your own will. You’re crazy, that’s what you are. You’re psycho. I don’t believe your cousin tried to kill you at all. Maybe it was just the other way around, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was, but more likely it was just something you dreamed up to try to get someone into trouble. Trouble’s all anyone will ever get from you, that’s plain enough but I’ve had enough, thank you, and that’s all I’ve got to say. There’s twenty dollars in the top drawer of the chest. You’re welcome to take it when you go.”

He went out and downstairs and began to walk in the direction of the building in which he worked. It was still dark, and far earlier than he ordinarily left in the morning, and he had plenty of time to walk the entire distance, over three miles, rather than having to take the bus as usual. He was glad of this, for he needed the physical action, and he was grateful for the cold air that stung his face and carried a threat of snow. He could not remember having been angrier in his life than he was now, and his anger was not because of the little pain he had suffered, the scratches on his face, but because of the shame ht had felt and was still feeling, almost a sense of degeneracy. Waking to find her sleeping beside him, her slender body warm and lovely and inciting in its thin gown, he had not touched her until she asked for it, and the violence of her repulsion had made him feel irrationally like a rapist at least, although he was not.

Well, he had told her the truth. She was psycho. Queer. Trouble. He couldn’t imagine what had possessed him to expose himself to her in the way he had, except that he was a little crazy himself, and if she did not leave voluntarily while he was gone, then he would send her away tonight when he returned, and that would be the end of it. His anger had made him physically ill, on the verge of vomiting, but walking and cold air began to clear his head and reduce the angry fever in his flesh, and when he reached the building in which he worked, he was feeling much better.

As the morning passed, Henry’s anger diminished, and he began to wonder if, after all, he had been fair. Reviewing the sordid episode in the clearer climate of his lessened anger, he thought he could understand Ivy’s intent, which had been good, and its failure, which was understandable. Last night, after the impromptu party, they had achieved in their conversation a warmth and compatibility greater than any they had achieved before, and they had even mentioned for a moment the chance of love. Waking early, at it must certainly have happened, she had thought of him and wanted him, or had at least wanted to try him, and so she had come in to find him sleeping and had lain down beside him on the bed. She had acted rashly, that was true, but there was in the action, just the same, a kind of pathetic courage.

Once he had considered it dispassionately, this seemed so obviously the truth that he was tempted, when it was time for lunch, to take a taxi home and talk with Ivy again. But perhaps she was already gone, and perhaps it would be better, regardless of the truth, to leave matters as they were. They had established a precarious relationship, and it would be foolishness, maybe dangerous foolishness, to try to save it under the illusion that it might be the saving of her. People like her did not change. The basic fault they shared must be organic and irreparable. The only sensible thing to do with one of them, he thought, was to turn and walk away.

He lunched alone in a cafeteria in the basement of the building. Afterward, upstairs, he could not dismiss a feeling of uneasiness and guilt that had replaced his anger. If he did not regret his position, he at least regretted the brutality with which he had assumed it. For the first time since knowing Ivy, he felt a need to make some kind of personal contact with her past, to meet and talk with someone who had known her before him. It was then, in the development of this need, that he began to think of Lila Galvin, and sometime during the afternoon he made up his mind definitely that he would see her and talk with her that evening if possible.

He left the offices at five and stopped in a telephone booth in the lobby below. Checking the directory, he found Lila’s name and address listed, and he considered calling to see if she was at home, but he decided against it. If he were to speak with her on the telephone, she might refuse to see him, which would make his calling on her all the more difficult. If he were simply to appear at her door without an invitation, he would at least not have the disadvantage of an expressed denial of one.

On the street outside, he caught a cab and was driven to the address he gave. The apartment house was impressive enough to exert a kind of preliminary intimidation over most trespassers, but Henry was in no humor to be intimidated, and he paid off the cab and entered the lobby. It was then that he remembered that he didn’t know the number of Lila Galvin’s apartment, and there was no doorman, no directory, no one in the lobby to answer questions. He supposed that he could check the floors until he came to the door with the right name on it, provided there was a name on it at all, but this did not seem to be a very sensible solution, and he was trying to think of another when a thin, dehydrated man came in from the street behind a Pomeranian on a leash. The man gave the impression of being dragged by the dog.

“I beg your pardon,” Henry said. “I have an appointment with a Miss Lila Galvin in this building, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten the number of her apartment.”

The Pom did not stop, and neither, consequently, did the man. Passing, he spoke over his shoulder.

“Five-o-three. My floor. If you’re going up, come along.”

Henry followed the dog and the man into the self-service elevator and rode up five floors. As soon as the elevator doors were open, the Pom departed, turning right.

“You’re the other way,” the man said, again over his shoulder. “Just look for the number.”

Henry did and found it. Pressing a pearl button beside the door, he listened to a bell. He was about to press the button a second time when the door was opened without any prelude of sound, and he found himself staring at a young woman whom he took to be Lila Galvin, and who was, whoever else she was, one of the loveliest women he had ever seen. Her hair was a shimmering black cloud, gathering and holding the light, parted cleanly and drawn back sleekly into a knot on the back of her neck. The severe perfection of her face was relieved by a sensual mouth, and her body, in a black wool dress of beautiful simplicity, possessed the lean seductiveness of a high fashion model. Which was, he recalled, what she was.

“Yes?” she said. “What is it?”

“I’m looking for Miss Lila Galvin,” he said, certain that he was speaking to her.

She acknowledged her identity and continued to watch him with cool serenity tinged by a faint amusement implicit in slightly arched brows. Her loveliness and serenity and implicit amusement had altogether the effect of making him sound truculent.

“I’m Henry Harper,” he said, and waited.

“Oh?” Her brows arched, if possible, a little higher. “Is that supposed to mean something? Should I know you?”

“Probably not. There is someone else, however, whom we know in common. Ivy Galvin, your cousin.”

“I see.” Her brows descended, and she no longer looked amused, but neither did she look angry or to any degree distressed. “You’re the man she told me about when she returned for her things. She’s been staying with you.”

“That’s right. I’d like to talk with you.”

“No more than I would like to talk with you. Please come in.”

He walked past her into the living room that had a clean, modern look. The furniture, low and heavy but achieving in its simplicity an effect of lightness, was covered with a tweedy material that looked expensive. On the wall that Henry faced there was a good copy of a Van Gogh. Against the wall near a door to another room, there was a bleached console phonograph. It must be the one, he thought, to which Ivy had listened the night she meant to die. If the whole story was not, as he suspected it might be, a lie at the worst or a delusion at best.

“I just got home a few minutes ago,” Lila Galvin said. “I was about to fix myself a cocktail. Will you join me?”

“I didn’t come on a social call. Maybe, after you’ve heard me, you won’t want to give me a cocktail.”

“You sound very grim. Is something wrong?”

“Something’s wrong, all right, but I’m not sure what it is. That’s what I’d like to find out.”

“Do you know what I think? I think you really need a cocktail, and so do I. I like a martini myself. Will that do for you?”

“Whatever you like.”

“I’ll get some ice. Excuse me, please.”

She went into the kitchen, which he could not see, and returned shortly with ice. She mixed gin and vermouth in a tall frosted glass and stirred it briefly with a glass rod. After pouring the martinis and handing him one, she sat down on a sofa and crossed her knees, holding her own glass with the fingertips of both hands so that it brushed her lips below her nostrils, as if it were a snifter of brandy and she were breathing the aroma.

“I wish you would sit down and quit looking so angry,” she said. “You look on the verge of attacking me. I imagine Ivy has been telling you the most terrible things about me, however, and so it’s quite understandable. Isn’t that right? Hasn’t Ivy been telling you things?”

He sat down facing her, feeling in his joints an unusual awkwardness. The glass he held seemed so fragile in his thick fingers that he had the notion that he must handle it with the greatest care to avoid crushing it inadvertently. “What do you think she’s been telling me?” he said.

“I think, for one thing, that she probably told you that I tried to kill her. Did she?”

“Yes. Did you?”

“Do you think, if I did, that I’d be fool enough to admit it?”

“No.”

“Of course not. But, to answer your question, I didn’t. Not that there’s any point in saying so. You’ll believe whatever you wish.”

“What made you assume at once that she told me you tried to kill her?”

“Because she accused me of it when she returned. Truly a fantastic story. I was supposed to have given her an overdose of sedative, and she was able to save herself only by walking and walking in the streets until she was exhausted. It was an exceptionally brilliant bit of fiction, even for Ivy. Is that the same story she told you, or did she develop a variation?”

“That’s the one.”

“Do you believe it?”

“I don’t know.”

“I shan’t blame you if you do. Ivy can be very convincing. I’ve been deceived myself many times.

“Do you mean that it’s only her imagination? That she has delusions?”

“No. I don’t mean anything of the sort.” Lila tipped her glass against her lips and smiled at him across it. She was clearly in perfectly good humor. “I mean that she’s a deliberate liar. She’s one of the most accomplished and conscienceless little liars that it’s possible to imagine.”

“On the other hand, perhaps it’s you who are the deliberate liar.”

“Think as you wish. I’m only trying to warn you. If you are determined to get yourself involved with Ivy, as you seem to be, you had better know her for what she is.”

“Why should she accuse you of trying to murder her if you didn’t, or if she didn’t at least think you did?”

“Because she’s malicious. She wanted to say the most damaging thing about me that she could think to say. I’m trying to tell you that she’s a psychopathic liar. A psychopathic personality. Do you know what a psychopathic personality is? If you do, you know what Ivy is. She has no more sense of moral values than a cat. She is absolutely incapable of love or gratitude or responsibility or remorse. She would do anything or say anything without regard for any person on earth, so long as it suited her purpose. She can also be extremely ingratiating when she pleases, as you have surely learned. Would you like another martini? Why don’t you mix another for each of us?” He looked with surprise into his glass to see that it was empty. He had not been aware of drinking, and he thought he must have spilled the contents without knowing it, but there was no sign of it on himself or the carpet. He had drunk the martini, all right, and he did badly want another, and so he got up and mixed more gin and vermouth and filled his glass and hers.

“It would make it much easier for us to talk if you sat beside me on the sofa,” she said. “Don’t you agree?”

“Not particularly.”

“Oh, please. There’s nothing to be gained by being antagonistic. You obviously didn’t come here to accuse me of anything. You can’t make up your mind about Ivy, and you think I might be able to help you. If we’re going to be confidential, we may as well get into position for it.”

He sat down beside her, and she smiled and reacted over with her free hand and patted him on the knee in a gesture of approval. It seemed to him now entirely incredible that this serene and lovely woman had ever even considered killing anyone, let alone attempting it, and it seemed equally incredible that she had been a partner in a deviant relationship. Quite the contrary, allowing for the influence of his second martini, he thought that he could sense beneath her serenity a readiness to respond to the normal incitements to love.

“Are you willing to tell me the truth?” he said.

“Well, I’m resigned to it. What do you want me to say?”

“I warn you that I’m in no mood for euphemisms.”

“Neither am I. I never am. I prefer to speak plainly, and I know very well what’s on your mind. After all, you’re quite obviously neither an innocent nor a pervert. You could hardly have taken Ivy to stay with you without learning what she is.”

“She told me in the beginning.”

“Really? How clever of Ivy. And knowing this, you allowed her to stay? You must be either an unusual man or a fool.”

“She was in trouble and had no place to go. I felt sorry for her.”

“I see. You’re compassionate. Genuine compassion is rare in this world, I think. However, don’t believe that Ivy will feel any gratitude for what you do for her, or that it will prevent her from hurting you any way she can if you offend her. You’ve let yourself get into a situation that could become pretty ugly. Or perhaps it already has. I haven’t asked you yet what happened to your face.”

“I cut it shaving.”

“All right. It’s your affair. But if you expect me to tell the truth, you should be willing to do the same.”

“The truth is, Ivy clawed me. The circumstances were probably not quite what you’re thinking, but let it go.”

“Whatever they were, she must have been disturbed by them.”

“She thought I was trying to make love to her, and how disturbing that would be is something you should know.” He thought he saw a glitter of fury in her eyes, but it was so quickly gone, if it had existed at all, that he couldn’t be sure.

“Do you think I’m that way? Did Ivy tell you I was?”

“Did she ever actually say? I don’t believe she did. Anyhow, it was implicit in your relationship.”

“Was it? Is it implicit in yours?”

“Although it’s really none of your business. I don’t mind telling you that that was the source of our trouble. It’s the reason she finally came to hate me. She hates me for rejecting her.”

“In that case, why did you let her stay?”

“Why did you take her in? After all, my responsibility is greater than yours. She’s my cousin. I knew her as a girl. She had no one else to turn to who could understand her and try to help her, and she was better off here than she would have been in some sordid place with her own kind.”

He had eaten little that day, only lunch, and the two martinis were having a strong effect. As if she knew this and approved it, or had perhaps planned it, she got up and mixed a third. When she sat down again beside him, her thigh was brushing his, and he waited for her to move out of contact, but she didn’t. She smiled and lifted her glass in a slight salute. He responded, and they drank together.

“Do you know something?” she said. “You’re a very attractive young man, and I suspect that you could be very nice if you chose to be. I’m glad you came to see me. It would be too bad if you were to have the wrong idea about me.”

“I’m not sure,” he said, “what the wrong idea is.”

He drained his glass and set it aside, as she did hers. Then, because he wanted to and because her words and expression seemed to invite it, he put his arms around her and kissed her, and her response was immediate and warm. Her body arched inward, her head fell back, and her lips parted slowly under his. When he released her and looked down into her upturned face, her eyes were open and clouded with desire, and she was breathing rapidly with excitement that could not possibly, he thought, be simulated.

“Was that a test?” she said with the slightest inflection of mockery. “Were you trying to find out?”

“Maybe.”

“If it was, it’s not enough. It proves nothing. Any man can kiss.”

“What would be enough?” he asked.

“I can show you. Would you like me to show you?”

Henry grinned. “Yes. Show me.”

A dark glint of feeling roiled up the depths of her eyes. Her red mouth curled and suddenly she slid close to him, pressing her body urgently against him. She put her moist, open mouth against his, grinding her lips back and forth in a frenzy of passion, while her hands clawed at his back and his flanks.

Somehow the zipper of her dress was down and she drew away from him long enough to clamber out of it. A twist of her hand behind her back freed her bra so that the burgeoning richness of her full, rounded breasts came free. Then she put his hand to her breast, surging against him. When his hand groped for the elastic of her panties she arched her body to help him so that all of the glowing white riches of her flesh were yielded up to him.

There was fire in her, fire in her hard-nippled breasts, her quivering loins as she pulled him down upon her. He was fumbling to get out of his own clothes now and when he was free of them she crushed her body against him, writhing in a hoarse, panting rhythm. She was all eager, yearning, devouring flesh and her hands upon his chest and thighs and belly were bold and daring, seeking to rouse him to a frenzy that matched her own.

“I’ll show you,” she breathed once, as she pulled her moist, avid mouth away from his. “This way... And this... And this...”

Her surrender was so complete and so adept that Henry did not fully understand until later that it was not surrender at all, but aggression, and that the suspiciously easy seduction of a practical stranger was hers, not his, and that its purpose was deception, not pleasure.