The Loving Couple Page 7

  "Yes, Excellency," the butler said. He put down an immense silver tray all but covered with Waterford decanters and Steuben glasses. Then he turned and left the room, his well-tailored back quivering with hatred.

  In his shock and disillusionment, in the noise and confusion, he was barely conscious of having said "Scotch" when the cumbersome, icy glass was thrust into his hand. Then Mr. Popescu was making all kinds of jolly—and probably indecent—toasts and in all kinds of jolly languages. Lillian was getting a good deal shriller and a good deal giddier. (Although Manfred disapproved of women who drank too much, Lillian displayed an ever-increasing tendency to leave the room "for just a sec, honey" only to return a trifle more unsteadily, a trifle more noisily, a trifle more slurringly, but indescribably refreshed.) And of course Toby's legendary social gift was rising to the fore. Well, it ought to, he thought, very few people are paid a thousand dollars for nothing except sitting around and being charming for ten minutes.

  He could hear Toby complimenting Lillian Popescu on the hideous red, white and blue knit dress she was wearing—"every stitch by hand, honey, done by these two French women that have a shop up on Madison, but strictly custom work, honey"—and on her fake-looking genuine ruby, diamond and sapphire bracelet with a Popescu Pulse-Beat watch concealed among the cabochons. Toby's tone was a bantering one—one of mocking insincerity. It suddenly occurred to him that Toby was trying the same line on Lillian as he had on the unattractive, unpopular girls whom he had chosen to thrill for five or ten minutes at dances or house parties back in college. In those days everyone had been in on the joke except the poor girls who were being treated to Toby's charm. Oh, Toby'd been a riot then. But Toby wasn't being quite such a riot today. Somehow the barbed and smiling ease of Toby's delivery that had made him so adult and witty as a college boy now made him seem immature and cruel as a man. John felt almost sorry for Lillian—so dumb and vain and befuddled—being patronized by this cunning, boyish Machiavelli whose patron, to the tune of a thousand dollars, she should have been.

  ". . . just can't get over it," Lillian was screeching. "Here Manny goes an' offers him this money and he don't even take it. Why, Manny thinks the world of 'im."

  "Well, he always was pretty much of the good little Boy Scout," Toby said, grinning at him. He didn't return the smile. In this room, at this moment, the Boy Scout movement, with its homely Christian credo looked pretty good.

  "Ya know, Toby, he's just like my little girl Besame," Lillian said. "Why, Besame won't take a thing from Manfred and I and she . . ."

  "Who's just like Besame?" a cool, crisp voice sounded from the doorway.

  John looked up and there stood Besame Bessamer, cool and detached and beautiful.

  He had seen Besame Bessamer only a few times before: first a week ago when she read for a part on Pulse Beat (as though Popescu's stepdaughter would have been turned down, even if she had a harelip and two heads); then at dress rehearsals; and then last night on the program.

  And he had to admit that his first impression of Besame had been mixed. When she came in to be interviewed—ordinarily he didn't bother to hear the stammered readings of inexperienced performers, but Popescu had naturally set up an appointment—she had been on time. That surprised him. Little else had. Besame Bessamer had looked like almost every other aspiring young actress—hair too long and too black; face too cold and too white; mouth too large and too red. They were all making up that way this year. Still she was dressed a good bit differently and a whole lot better than the other TV girlies in a go-to-hell tweed suit and a perfect menagerie of sable skins. Well, what the hell, he had thought, she ought to be better dressed than the rest of those poor, starving television tramps. Her outfit had been perfect—for, say, a Junior League committee meeting—and that had irritated him. Any other young actress would have had to do two half-hour shows a week and still sleep around all year to afford an outfit like that.

  He'd been politely civil to her, as he had to be, considering his hangover, and she had been more than politely civil to him, which was damned nice of her considering that she would undoubtedly get the job no matter how badly she read.

  The part she tried out for was a large one and a hard one in a perfect clinker of a story. The script had been a mishmash of cloak and dagger didoes concerning a gorgeous American actress (the alcoholic old movie star) and a dashing British agent (a broken-down matinee idol) harried by red spies in a mythical principality on the very hem of the Iron Curtain. Also involved were a top-secret bomb hidden in a hat box, a cocker spaniel, two dialect comedians, some torture, and the lovely young princess of the mythical country who gave her life to save the bomb recipe for the West. Besame was reading for the role of the princess.

  Since it was a foregone conclusion that Miss Bessamer would be hired, he turned right to the princess' longest speech in the script to hear the worst.

  It went something like: "Mon dieu!” (The script writer had tucked in scraps of easy French to give the mythical nation sufficient foreign flavor.) "How can it be that since all the people in the world are taught to love one another in the" . . . pause . . . "church, still they wish to kill their brother-men with the secret bombs . . ." Well, it went on in that vein.

  He had seen enough inexperienced actresses to dread any kind of attempt at a foreign accent. Either they went all out in the best Irene Bordoni tradition—"Moan dooo! 'ow can eet be zat seence oil zee-peep-hole een zee wore-old lairn to loaf wan annozer een zee cherche . . ." or, in the case of the rich-bitch Besame Bessamer type, they played it like a Foxcroft girl ordering lunch at the Tour d'Argent—"Maw dyerr! Haow con it be thot sinnss ull the pople in the wold lon to love one anothah in the choch . . ."

  But Besame had given that dreary line neither the Gay Paree nor the hot potato delivery. Instead she had read with an engaging ingenuous dignity, pausing occasionally as if actually groping for the right words for the right thoughts. In fact, her reading of the princess lifted the less-than-mediocre story up to the level of the scripts he had first written for Pulse Beat.

  When she had finished she looked up at him.

  "Turn the page and go on," he had said calmly. "I'll read the part of Eric. Now. Down at the middle of the page where Eric says, 'But we of the Free World are fighting for peace and liberty . . ."

  In the end, she read the entire part, standing calmly in his office while he fed cues and stage directions to her.

  "Well?" she said, shutting the script.

  "Well, you were swell. Perfectly swell. The part is yours—needless to say."

  She looked up at him sharply. "You're not just doing this because my mother is married to the boss? If you are, you can forget . . ."

  "Believe me, I'm not," he said. "I was asked to hear you, not to hire you. If you hadn't been good I'd have thrown you right out." This hadn't been entirely true. His instructions were to find something for Lillian's little girl; even if it was only a walk-on. Well, he'd done his duty and, luckily enough, the girl had talent.

  "You're not kidding?"

  "Of course I'm not. Take it easy now or you'll talk yourself right out of a part." Then he smiled at her, not that he either liked or approved of her as a person. Bosses' daughters and stepdaughters just rubbed him the wrong way. "Tell me, what have you done before?"

  "Nothing."

  "Nothing?"

  "Well, nothing really professional. At Bennington there was Antigone . . ."

  "In modern dress?"

  "In modern dress. And The Doll's House and Saint Joan—the usual stuff. Then two seasons of summer stock . . ."

  "I get the picture—Sabrina Fair and Autumn Crocus and Springtime for Henry?"

  "Exactly. And Private Lives and Blithe Spirit. Terribly sophisticated stuff and at least one guest star per week—two for the Fourth of July and Labor Day."

  He supposed that he would have got to like kidding with Miss Bessamer if she hadn't been who she was. Instead, he cut the interview short by scratching a note to the director an
d shooing her off to rehearsals.

  Since then he'd been of many minds concerning Besame Bessamer. He'd disapproved of her for taking advantage of her position to get a job. On the other hand, he'd approved of her as an actress. But then he'd doubted her frankness—phony, he felt to this minute—in saying that she had to be hired on merit alone, when she knew damned well that . . . Then again, she'd been the best thing at the dress rehearsal and the only member of the cast to have memorized any lines. Still, he'd suspected her of noblesse oblige when she demurely and good-naturedly allowed her part to be cut because the star complained that the ingenue and the cocker spaniel were stealing great gobs of scenes. (A simple word from her would be enough to send the falling star back to another season of unemployment in Hollywood.)

  But neither Besame nor the cocker spaniel had growled about having their parts slashed to the bone and that made him uncomfortable and distrustful. And, after all, the newcomer Besame Bessamer had been the only capable performer on the show.

  The noise and general commotion surged up once again as Besame strode smartly into the hideous living room. He was conscious of standing up and grinning vacuously while Lillian kissed her daughter and introduced Toby. Then he was somewhat more aware of Manfred pawing and embracing his stepdaughter like a grizzly bear in mating season. He also sensed, rather than saw, the shudder that passed through the young actress as she broke away from Popescu.

  Well, who could blame the girl for that? Manfred's greeting had been one of those wet, hairy, groping lurches more appropriate to the Dirty Old Man than to the indifferent Stepfather.

  When his turn came, he took her long, firm hand in his and smiled at her. "Hello," he said. "You were great last night. I really mean it. You were the only decent thing on the show."

  She looked at him long and hard with her fine, dark eyes. Then she decided that he meant what he said and answered, "Thank you. Thank you very much. But I'm glad to say that the competition wasn't very stiff."

  "You're right," he said. "It was a real rout."

  "Oh, it was a beauty-full program!" Lillian screamed. "The best one ever! Manny an' I hustled back from the Plaza—we always have dinner in the Rondyvoo Room on Fridays so's we can come back to our little home an' watch Pulse Beat—an' we saw it on color TV. Oh, it's gorgeous in color!"

  "I'll bet she is," Toby said, giving Besame his famous old blue-eye treatment.

  "Honestagod, Toby," Lillian said, drinking deeply, "I jus' sat in the Fun Room an' cried. There was my own little baby right there in fronta my eyes an' so real that I thought fer a minute she was a forrun princess being murdered by the Commyunusts. Oh, I tell yuh, I was so duppressed that poor Manny had to take me right back to the Plaza. Dinchew, Manny honey?"

  "And what does my little Sarah Bernhardt want to drink, hein?" Mr. Popescu said, giving Besame's arm a pinch.

  "Nothing, thank you," she said coldly. "I just stopped in to return Mother's furs. Thanks for letting me borrow them," she added, unwinding the great scarf of nine perfect sables and holding it out toward Lillian.

  "Oh, Besame!" Lillian cackled. "You don't have to bring them pussycats back—I always call my fur pieces pussycats, Toby, Manny gets such a laugh out of it. I told you you could have them. I got some lovely new ones anyways. They're mutation—almost blue and very shick. You can have these old . . ."

  "No thank you, Mother. They're just a bit too grand for a working girl."

  "Tcha! Now isn't that the silliest thing you ever hear of, Toby? Just like I been telling you, John and Besame are igzackly alike. They won't take anything! Why, Toby, I remember back in Milwaukee when I was married to Mr. Bessamer an Besame was just a little girl, I yoosta take her down to the Boston Store and . . . Say, I bet I never told you how I happenda call her Besame, did I?"

  "Please, Mother," Besame said.

  "No. Now that you mention it, I don't think you did," Toby said maliciously.

  "Well, it's kine of a cute story. When I had her—an' oh what a time I had with her. It was a breech delivery an' I nearly yelled the roof off of the hospital. Anyways, when I saw my precious little baby girl, I wanted to name her after the two most precious people in the whole wide world: my mom, who was named Bessie an' my little sister Mae. Poor little Mae. She always had terrible trouble with her ovaries. It killed her. Cancer, I said, but do you think I could get that dumb doctor ta bulieve me?" Mrs. Popescu's eyes filled with tears. She took another enormous swallow of her drink and plunged bravely on. "But anyways, the two names Bessie an' Mae seemed so kind of old fashion' that I put 'em together and called her Besame. That means 'Kiss me' in Spanish, yon know."

  "Does it now," Toby said. "Well, I'd be delighted."

  "And I've been stuck with the name ever since," Besame murmured.

  "Hahahaha! Arnchew cute! But, like I was saying. Here Besame is an' she won't take anything from Manfred and I. All she's got is a couple of acting jobs every now an' then and what her uncle—Mr. Bessamer's late brother—left her. She could be living here with us but instead she lives in a slum way over on the East Side . . ."

  "Mother," Besame said a bit tensely, "I don't think Sutton Place is exactly a slum area, or that—even if it is—Mr. Wentworth cares."

  "Oh, but I do care," Toby said lightly. "In fact, I can't imagine a man alive who wouldn't care about your exact name, age, address, telephone number and availability this evening."

  "Hahahahaha! Isn't he cute!" Lillian shrieked. "I'll betchera devil with all we poor girls! Here, Manny, get Toby an' I another lildrinkie."

  "He's simply adorable," Besame said coolly. "Well, thanks for lending me your furs, Mother, I think I'll be running along."

  There was a great clamor for her to stay and have just one drink. Toby even managed to be louder in his demands than Mr. and Mrs. Popescu.

  Besame cast a helpless look toward John.

  He heard himself saying "Please don't go just yet. Stay and talk to me about doing more work on the show." If he hadn't quite liked Besame at first, he certainly did now. He felt that she was a goddess descended into a sty filled with swine—himself included.

  "Very well," she said and sank to the sofa beside him. "Scotch and plain water, please, Manfred."

  The sky was lavender over Central Park when he and Besame finally slipped away from the Popescu penthouse.

  "I hope I wasn't rude to your friend," Besame said in the elevator.

  "He isn't my friend," he said calmly and the speech shocked him so much that he was unable to speak another word all the way down. Either something had happened to Toby or something had happened to him, but whatever it was, this afternoon spent in the company of his oldest and dearest comrade—and with Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus—had been a nightmare. In fact the whole day had been cataclysmic. In less than twelve hours he had seen the crack-up of his marriage; the disintegration of those symbols of gilded and eternal youth, Teddy Edwards and the Bacchus Club; the disillusionment and humiliation of his secretary; the true, mean, shoddiness of Toby, his idol and—most unsettling of all himself.

  This was a new self, far different from the hundred selves he saw passing through the mirrored reception room on the Executive's Floor of the Popescu Building. That self had been a talented, vital young man, slim and trim in well-cut clothes. It was a man on the way to the top because of his God-given gift as a writer and an administrator. Today the self was just an English suit with a genius for toadying to a fat, ignorant pig of a man and his fat, ignorant slut of a wife. If he had ever had talent, if he had ever been able to write he had exchanged it all for twenty-five thousand a year, plus bonuses, plus tips, plus free food and liquor as the official sycophant and court jester of Manfred and Lillian.

  The quiet afternoon in the penthouse had decayed rapidly into one of the smaller, but noisier Popescu bacchanales. After her second public—and third private—drink, Lillian had become her old kittenish self and moved the party into what was misnamed the Fun Room, a chamber of horrors decked out in brass and leopard, t
eakwood and vinyl tile, a pseudo Dali, two double-image paintings, alleged to be terribly naughty if one stood close enough, and lots of photographs of Manfred and Lillian grinning cheek by jowl with whatever second-rate celebrities they had been able to lure into their web.

  "Mamma loves mambo!" Lillian had screeched. With that, she had set into action a machine that looked like Univac, but actually played records, and began lurching across the floor with Toby, her great breasts jouncing obscenely, the blubbery buttocks gyrating, the abundant flesh of her thighs quivering beneath the tautness of her knit dress.

  Toby was a good dancer, a clever dancer, with a bloodhound's sense of direction when it came to manipulating his partner round the floor. That afternoon he had diabolically gone out of his way to make the most of Lillian's awkwardness, her drunkenness, her rotundness. Accompanied by sly smiles, he had done everything possible to make Lillian even more ludicrous than ever.

  Toby had spun her, swung her out, encouraged her to perform. Lillian may have thought that she was the belle of the ball, but this afternoon she had looked like nothing quite so much as the pathetic, fat, old, drunken slattern she was, cavorting about with a partner who may have thought that he was the college cut-up, but who looked like nothing quite so much as the cruel, seedy, middle-aged, drunken adventurer he was. Neither made a very inspiring sight.

  Then there had been a rather taxing scene while Lillian had gone off to revive her sagging face and lagging spirits. Toby had sprung to Besame's side, grabbed her wrist in that boisterous, boyish fashion that had set so many young girls' hearts to beating faster, and begged her to dance.

  "No thank you, Mr. Wentworth," Besame had said.

  Toby had been dumbfounded. He seemed not to have heard, had taken a pull of his drink, stared at her glassily and said: "Oh, come on, Bessie. Get up and dance."