The Loving Couple Page 23

  Second, even if Fran did get Lee away from her, it would mean taking the milk train home, then a taxi and then inspection by the Riveredge gate keeper, who would undoubtedly blab. Fran feared gossip and sincerely believed that she misconducted herself so discreetly that no one ever thought or said anything true about her.

  Third, Fran continued thinking, if she did stay in town with Fletch tonight, and if tomorrow should be fair, then Fran could probably get Fletch to drive out to that fashionable mental institution on Long Island to visit Mamma. Fran disliked her mother and vice versa. The latter to a point where she had ceased recognizing Fran. But Fran hadn't been out to Mamma's looney bin since Easter and the family trustees kept sternly reminding her of a Daughter's Duty. So maybe she should finesse Dixieland tonight, but get his telephone number for another evening.

  Fourth, Fran thought, what the hell, Fletch—though dull—wasn't so bad and at least she knew who his people were. Yes, I’ll sleep with Fletch tonight and go see Mamma tomorrow, Fran concluded. Fran recognized Duty and bowed before it.

  "Well, here" Fletcher said irritably, "don't you want it?"

  "Oh! The brandy!" Then Fran was galvanized into action. "For God's sake, Fletch, do you expect me to drink it out of that eye-cup? Get me a decent sized glass, for God's sake."

  Fletch's face was a study of hurt pride and wounded bankroll.

  "Oh, wait, I'll come out and get a glass with you." There. Fran could always soften Fletch up in the pantry.

  Randolph Carter Lee did a rather remarkable thing. He went into Fletch's big, old-fashioned marble bathroom, locked the door, stripped off every shred of his clothing and observed his naked reflection in the full length mirror carefully and objectively.

  Standing at attention before the faintly clouded glass, he began, as always, examining his long, neat toes and worked up, past the firm thighs, the lean loins, the clean-shaven chest, the broad shoulders and well-muscled arms. Then he turned around and glanced over his shoulder to make sure that the buttocks were still firm, the back still strongly moulded, the skin clear. He turned again and examined the side view. His stomach was tending to bulge just a little, but that was the least of his worries. If he didn't land something soon, it would be concave.

  There was no vanity, no narcissism—a word which he wouldn't even have understood—in Mr. Lee's action. His face and his body and his pleasant manners were the only tangible assets which he possessed and he inventoried them with the detached air of a banker reviewing his holdings.

  Mr. Lee had moved sufficiently in wealthy circles to grasp the rudiments of barter and exchange, supply and demand. And he was just bright enough and just honest enough to realize that the supply of fine young bodies somewhat exceeded the supply of fine old fortunes in this day of surtaxes.

  Ten years ago he had been equally unconcerned with his body and rich people. But he had aged faster than most in a decade. He had learned enough of the foibles of the very rich now to be most critically conscious of his own resources for as long as they remained resources and not deficits. This evening, however, he was calmly satisfied with his physical balance sheet. His assets, current and fixed, were still there.

  It took Mr. Lee exactly ninety seconds to slip back into his clothes—rather good clothes, too, but showing signs of wear. He had had enough practice to dress and disrobe with the speed of a quick-change artist. He felt carefully into the secret pocket to make sure that his money was still there. It was; all sixteen dollars, plus a dollar-fifty in silver in his trousers pocket for tips and taxis and things. Then he sat down on the toilet seat and carefully replaced his darned cashmere socks and his new shoes. The shoes rather distressed him. They looked expensive, but they didn't feel expensive. Having become accustomed to spending forty dollars on a pair at Abercrombie & Fitch, he had been almost shocked last week when Grace gave him a ten dollar bill and directed him to Thom McAn's. But he had chosen well with his almost-innate good taste and there had even been enough left over for a good haircut—and a miserable tip—at Prince Gourielli's.

  He stood up now and gave his face a minute inspection in the mirror above the basin. It was an excellent face—strong, firm and symmetrical. It was even better than it had been ten years ago, when he had first capitalized on it. It was better boned, better fleshed, better groomed. It was a face that placed Mr. Lee at somewhere between thirty and thirty-six. Actually, he was just twenty-six, and rather ashamed of it.

  Then he turned on both taps and, with the water running loud enough to drown out any sound, opened Fletch's medicine chest. Experience had taught him that a medicine chest revealed more information than an F.B.I. report. Fletch's was no exception.

  From the array of pills, potions, laxatives and suppositories, he deduced that Fletch was a hypochondriac and a constipated one—like so many rich people. He spotted sinus trouble and a bygone bout of athlete's foot. Cremalin, Anacin, Empirin, Bufferin and aspirin, both Alka- and Bromo-seltzer proclaimed that Fletch drank heavily and suffered accordingly. There were two kinds of body powder, four toothbrushes—an unusual number. (Randolph Carter Lee's bathroom explorations had led him to expect one, two, seven or, in rare cases, fourteen toothbrushes). He noticed some green dental cream, and a manfully packaged spray deodorant. There was a forty-nine cent razor, a dollar brush and a special-offer-sale tube of shaving soap. Behind a suspiciously large and suspiciously empty looking soap box, placed on its side, he found the evidence of an active sex life and also the evidence of considerable apprehension following it. He smiled understandingly. Well, that could happen to anyone.

  As he replaced the soap box, something unsoaplike rattled inside. He opened it carefully. There he found a half-emptied bottle of gooey dark nail enamel, four bobby pins, and a gold lipstick. That gave him pause. He wondered if Fletch could be queer? No. A.C-D.C? Unlikely. One of those twisted types who are manly all day and can't wait to get home and change to a frothy negligee? Possibly. Then he examined the lipstick. It was monogrammed F. van A. H. Fran Hollister. So that was the set-up.

  He put everything back exactly as it had been, shut the cabinet and turned off the water. Like Rodin's Thinker, he sat down again on the toilet seat, a stunning study in despondency.

  Mr. Lee had gone to Lisa's party only because it was a free evening, because Grace was visiting a cousin in New Jersey for the weekend, and because he smelled money. (Lisa had met him once at an actor's cocktail party where Grace had taken him. She'd found him attractive—as who did not—and invited him for this evening.) Since Lisa was interested in intellect, not sex, he'd seen no future there, but running into Fran Hollister had been a God-send.

  He'd heard enough about Fran to know exactly the sort of girl she was and almost exactly how much she had in the way of income. He also knew that Fran had the disposition of a mink—with all that it implied—and a pretty parsimonious mink, at that. Still, he had enough self-confidence in himself to feel that he might interest her long enough to bank a little something or at least to live out in that posh Riveredge Club in some degree of comfort until a new prospect turned up. But this more or less uxorious arrangement with Fletcher MacKenzie dashed his hopes. Mr. Lee had few qualms about other men's wives, but other men's mistresses could make for a most untidy relationship.

  He looked at his face in the mirror again, sighed, and wondered just how he had got into this situation in only ten years.

  Dressed or naked, Randolph Carter Lee was every inch the aristocratic Virginia gentleman. He was tall, well built, conservatively tailored, languid and spoke with an accent that was not quite Southern, not quite British. If pressed, he would recount for you how life was lived at Greenwood House, the gracious plantation of the Lee family. Unfortunately, he had never lived at Greenwood House, he was not an aristocrat, certainly not a gentleman and his real name was not Randolph Carter Lee. He did, however, come from Virginia.

  Randy Lee had been born Randolph Leroy Skaggs to a poor, ignorant farm woman. He never knew who his father was, except th
at his mother had once described him as a fine, handsome gentleman. That had been enough for Randy. From that day forward he set about to become the finest, handsomest gentleman possible, like his unknown father. In this he had not failed. He was exactly the sort of man his real father had been.

  To support herself and her son, Miss Skaggs had done washing. She had washed all day until her hands were worn and cracked and she had ironed until after midnight. On Mondays Miss Skaggs did for the judge's wife; on Tuesdays for the doctor's family; on Wednesdays for the Calhoun sisters; and the rest of the week for the Lee family who lived at Greenwood House.

  It had been Randy's duty to pick up the dirty laundry and deliver the clean. He had hated this, hated the lowliness of the work, hated to hear the Negroes in the kitchens laugh their soft, suggestive laugh and refer to him as "Miz Skaggs's love chile." Only when Randy had gone to Greenwood House to deliver the linen had he experienced anything like pleasure.

  Sometimes, standing in the kitchen while the housekeeper counted the laundry, he would see the pantry door swing open to reveal the elegant oval dining room with its silver, its gleaming furniture, its damask hangings. Almost always he would see the cook at work on some undreamed-of-delicacy—a rosy roast of beef, a pink ham, a golden turkey or an unbelievable flower garden of a cake. Another time he found the butler polishing all the household silver. Randy had been almost blinded by the array of candlesticks and platters and hairbrushes and inkpots that were made of solid silver.

  Once during a damp spell the Lees' laundry had refused to dry and it was evening when Randy delivered it. "Boy, Ah thought you never would come," the housekeeper had screamed at him. "We got twenty people here an' all they dawgs an' hosses an’ I doan know what-all. Ah need all the sheets Ah kin git!"

  "Twenty people stayin' here?" Randy had gasped.

  The pantry door swung open and Randy could see the candlelight, hear the gentle laughter from the dining room beyond. Once out of the kitchen, he tiptoed around the wide verandah and peered through the dining room window. There were the fine ladies and gentlemen seated around the big table. He stood shivering in the cold dampness for hours, watching the Lees and their guests. It was after midnight when he got home.

  "Son where've uh bin?" his mother cried. "I bin worrit naff ta death, son. I bin prayin' for yuh, son!"

  "Leave me alone," Randy had sobbed. "I hate it here!"

  From that day on, Randy couldn't see enough of Greenwood House or its occupants. Every free moment was spent spying the place out. When Miss Sally made her debut Randy was a vicarious guest, invisible in the shrubbery. In the same capacity he attended two dances, three hunt balls and Miss Sally's wedding. In his world of fantasy, he was Randy Lee, just like the real Randy Lee who was off at a rich man's school in the North. Greenwood House was his house and the Lees' elegant guests were his guests.

  When he was eleven a great stroke of luck came his way. He was delivering the wash on a torrid Saturday afternoon when he heard a woman's voice say: "My stars, who is that beautiful child?"

  "That's the laundress's boy, Ah believe," another woman said.

  "But he's, he's perfectly gorgeous. I want to talk to him. May I? I mean you won't mind or anything, will you?"

  "Why of course not, Elizabeth. Wait, I'll call him. Boy!" she shouted. "You, boy! Come up here a minute, would you?"

  Randy knew it was Mrs. Lee, herself. With the shy smile that was later to stir so many hearts, he slowly mounted the verandah steps. "Yes, Miz Lee, ma'm?"

  In his presence Mrs. Lee's guest had made it amply clear that he was beautiful, that his manners were quite charming, that she'd like to take him back up North with her, and that he looked like a regular little prince. "Even in those rags and tatters," she added. Randy blushed angrily.

  "Elizabeth, please," Mrs. Lee had said. Then she smiled warmly at Randy and said: "Ah have a boy named Randy, too. Randolph Carter Lee. He's a few years older than you, but I wonder, maybe you'd like to take some of his clothes home with you so your mother could fix them over. He's outgrown them and it's silly letting perfectly good things go to waste. If you could use them . . ."

  Randy had never come into such a windfall. There were things from Thalheimer's in Richmond, Woodward and Lothrop in Washington, Brooks Brothers in New York. The sweaters all said "Made in England" or "Made in Scotland" and they were of a softness that Randy never believed possible. In each garment was a Cash's Woven Name Tape with "Randolph Carter Lee" stitched on it in red.

  It had been a big day in Randy's life. He had learned for the first time from intelligent people—rich people—that he was good looking. He had learned that he was a little gentleman, almost a prince. And he had acquired enough clothes to make him look the part. From then on many of his hours were spent in front of the cracked, dim mirror in the shanty Miss Skaggs chose to call her house.

  His mother had spelled out a pathetic note of thanks to Mrs. Lee and sent it around with the washing to Mrs. Lee at Greenwood House. Randy dressed himself carefully for this visit in his Lee clothing. It was too hot, really, to wear one of the beautiful foreign sweaters, he simply tied it around his neck, as he had seen the Lee boy do. He was terrified at having to go in through the big front door and deliver the note to Mrs. Lee, but he needn't have been. Mrs. Lee and her garrulous house guest were on the lawn surrounded by hounds and Miss Sally's babies.

  "Hello, theah, boy!" Mrs. Lee called, as he approached with the wagonload of laundry, "My how spruce you look. So they did fit?"

  "Yes, ma'm. Thank you, ma'm. My mother sent you this." Almost with repugnance he thrust the flyblown envelope toward Mrs. Lee.

  "Oh, but doesn't he look divine!" the northern woman cried. "Just like a little English boy off the, the playing fields of Eton or something. I simply must have a picture of him. Son, if I give you twenty-five cents will you let me take your snapshot?"

  For once in his life, Randy's vanity overruled venality. "Ah don't want no money, ma'm," he said politely. "Ah'll be happy to let you take mah picture, ma'm."

  "The darling!" the woman shrilled. "Just you wait, now, till I run up and get the Kodak."

  He still had the photograph—Randy in the foreground, the west portico of Greenwood House and a rakish Rolls-Royce in the background—it served as proof that he really was Randolph Carter Lee.

  And indeed, he became Randolph Carter Lee at the age of sixteen. Like his father before him, Randy got a girl in trouble—a girl with three big brothers whose sense of virtue was matched only by their viciousness. Immediate departure was essential and two hours after the girl had whimpered her gynecological information to him, Randy and a cardboard carton filled with Randolph Carter Lee's cast-off clothing were bound for parts unknown.

  The milk truck that carried Randy away from a severe beating and/or matrimony set him down a hundred miles away in a Virginia resort town famous for its medicinal baths and it was in a fashionable spa where Randy spent the only two days of his life in gainful employment. The sign Boy Wanted in front of the Roman Baths—Men Only—We Never Close—started Randy on his present career.

  Scared and starving, Randolph Leroy Skaggs was employed as a bath attendant under the name of Randolph Carter Lee, a pseudonym that made the proprietor of the Roman Baths whistle in amazement. The work was as simple as it was dull, which was fortunate because Randy was lazy. The salary was commensurate, but that didn't matter because Randy didn't stay at the Roman Baths long enough to collect his first week's pay envelope.

  Clad in a breech clout, it was Randy's duty to pass out cold towels and hot mineral water to naked, sweaty old men. It was also his duty to hose down the tile floor, to clean the toilets, to time the customers under the sun lamp, to summon them for their massages and to guide them to their resting rooms after they had been steamed, sweated, dunked in the curative waters and slapped and pummeled by the masseurs.

  The first day had been most uneventful, except that the head masseur had given him a bologna sandwich. The first night Ra
ndy slept on a pile of dirty sheets and towels. The second day had been most eventful, for on that day Mr. Bessamer favored the Roman Baths with his patronage.

  "Watch out for that one, sonny," the masseur had muttered. "He's queer."

  Randy hadn't the faintest idea what he was talking about. Mr. Bessamer had looked quite ordinary—short and bald with a flabby, white, hairless body. Randy was only conscious of being followed by Mr. Bessamer's watery blue eyes as he performed his duties around the baths. But when Mr. Bessamer had finished his massage and Randy shepherded him to a bedroom, Randy came to understand what the masseur meant. The second night Randy slept in Mr. Bessamer's hotel suite—and the third and the fourth and the fifth. He never returned to the Roman Baths, for Mr. Bessamer had offered him steady employment of a more specialized nature.

  Life as Mr. Bessamer's companion—for that was the euphemistic title by which Mr. Bessamer called him—was, at least by Randy's none-too-stringent standards, easy, uncomplicated and almost pleasant. Sixty and impotent, Mr. Bessamer derived his pleasure mainly from two things—looking at Randy's body and being gently slapped on the stomach with a tortoise shell comb, duties which Randy felt were not especially taxing and certainly adequately paid.

  Mr. Bessamer was very rich. A bachelor, he derived his income from a Milwaukee brewery which his younger brother ran. Since Mr. Bessamer hated Milwaukee, his brother and his common sister-in-law, and since a lot of people were buying Bessamer Beer, he was quite content to spend his life elsewhere, happy traveling, collecting Faberge cigarette boxes, sitting on the board of a community house for underprivileged boys, blowing Bach dismally into a recorder, admiring Randy's physique and gurgling ecstatically under the rhythmic thwack-thwack-thwack of the tortoise shell comb. Milwaukee and his brother were just as glad to have him elsewhere, so the arrangement worked out perfectly.