The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress (14 page)

Somewhere out in the black night Dr. Wheeler stood wait­ ing for her, trilby hat raised in greeting.

 

In sleep, Rose flung out an arm across Harold's throat, jolting him awake some time before dawn. He crawled from the camper and walked barefoot towards a stretch of grass beyond the provision store. He would have roamed about if he hadn't encountered two men sitting in deckchairs, smoking cigars. They nodded at him, but he walked on into the half light, his mind a confused mixture of resolution and indecision. It was, he realised, imperative he leave Newport as quickly as possi­ ble. It could be that his facial expression, the quiver of his hand when signing the receipt, had been noted and that already he was under scrutiny. As he hurried back to the camper, he was convinced that the deckchair men eyed him with more than casual interest. The sooner he got rid of his beard the better.

Returning, he found Rose up and packing her belongings. She told him she'd been disturbed in the night by the scurry­ ing of rats. He didn't tell her she was mistaken, that what she'd heard were raccoons. Conscious he'd been rough with her the day before, he made an effort to be civil, until, emp­ tying the rubbish and spying his shorts in the wastebin, she questioned him about his health. She seemed to think he had a problem with his stomach. She wasn't prying, she said, just concerned for his well-being. Incensed by her interest in his bowels, he reminded her about the woman in the woods. ‘Unlike you,' he snarled, ‘I dislike contamination.'

They left at first light, driving towards Santa Monica so fast that they twice skidded when rounding a bend. Both times Rose was jolted against the dashboard; she didn't cry out, merely scrabbled at her lip, a habit which infuriated him. He was so edgy it was a struggle not to smack her hand away from her mouth.

Anxious to seem normal he began to whistle. Then, aware she was staring at him, he drew her attention to a flowering weed in the hedgerow. She paid no heed, remaining sprawled in her seat. It was only when he pointed at the distant sun­ blurred spread of Malibu that she sat up and stared out of the window.

Santa Monica was perched on yellow bluffs bordering Palisades Park, a narrow strip of land studded with towering palm trees and tropical plants. On Third Street Promenade he found the place he was searching for and slammed on the brakes. Ordering Rose to stay put, he hurried inside.

He was in the chair, a towel about his neck, when a picture came to him of his mother, one eye shut, mouth open, plucking her eyebrows. She'd always done it at the kitchen table without bothering to remove the cloth, and when she put food in front of him hairs drifted along the rim of his plate. He saw the clip­ pings so clearly that he shook his head to be rid of the image, and felt the sharp edge of the razor scrape across his skin.

A tuft of cotton wool stuck to the cut on his cheek, he clam­ bered back into the camper and waited for Rose to comment on his changed appearance. She didn't. She just sat there, head down, pretending to study the road map.

Looking at her, clothes shabby, hair dishevelled, he decided she had to clean herself up. If she didn't and was still at his side in Los Angeles, he doubted they'd let him into the hotel. As soon as he started the engine she asked if they were at last going to Malibu.

‘Not yet,' he told her.

‘Why not?'

‘We both need a bath, you in particular.'

‘Americans are funny,' she said, ‘always going on about washing. I expect it's because you've always been used to con­ stant hot water.'

He paid for a room in a motel within walking distance of Palisades Park. The room didn't have a bathtub, just a shower. Glaring at him as if he'd deliberately planned to upset her, she ordered him to wait outside. He heard the water running, though only for a minute or so, and then she shouted that she was done. When he went back inside, she was already in her clothes, and as she bent to pull on her shoes he noticed her feet were still grubby. She swore she'd washed her hair, though when they returned to the camper the shampoo bottle was poking out of her bag, unopened.

Before setting off for Malibu he rang John Fury at the office in Los Angeles to make sure he'd be at the Ambassador Hotel on the fifth. Fury said the date was underscored in his diary, then relayed some gossip about the Kennedy campaign. Appar­ently Kennedy was so popular with the crowds they repeatedly ripped off his cufflinks, even tore away his shirt sleeves. ‘But he's in real danger,' Fury said, ‘and he knows it. A week ago, staying in Frankenheimer's beach house, some­ one asked him if he realised he was likely to be killed. “It's a chance I have to take,” he replied. “How many attempts were there on de Gaulle's life . . . six, seven? I guess we'll just have to put our hope in that old bitch, luck.”'

‘Hope my ass,' said Harold as he put down the phone. He didn't give a shit about Kennedy, only that Fury would secure him entrance to the hotel.

The Pacific Coast Highway was drenched in sunlight, the sea below rippling silver as it stroked the beach. Rose, now that she believed they were about to find Wheeler, became ani­ mated. Harold's generosity, she gushed, his selflessness, was overwhelming. Lots of people in her life had been kind to her, but none as kind as he. ‘You,' she vowed, ‘will be remembered in my prayers,' which made him grimace.

Half an hour later he brought the camper to a halt at the lower end of the Malibu Beach road, and explained they couldn't go further as everything ahead was privately owned. Rose, shielding her eyes from the dazzling whiteness of the detached houses fronting the ocean, wanted to know in which one they'd find Dr. Wheeler. He admitted he wasn't sure.

‘The people here must have money coming out of their ears,' she commented.

‘Bing Crosby has a place here,' he said, ‘and Cary Grant. It's not open to the public. I'll have to make a telephone call to gain admission.'

There was a parking lot at the back of a provision store with a children's roundabout flashing sunlight as it whirled in a circle. Rose stayed put, which suited him. He bought a candy bar and kept an eye on the camper, in case Rose came in search of him. When he returned with the news that Wheeler had again moved on, she looked as if she would burst into tears. He assured her they'd definitely find him in Los Angeles tomorrow, at the Ambassador Hotel.

She didn't want to go for a swim; he had to force her out onto the beach. When he waded into the sea, he was conscious of her slumped on the sands behind him, a hand shielding her eyes. As usual she'd forgotten to bring her sunglasses.

Floating on his back, eyes shut against the sun, he was blinded by an image in his head of that refined face, mouth curved in a superior smile. He tried to empty his mind of Wheeler, without success.

 

 

 

 

S
it up straight,' Washington Harold said. Leaning forward he slapped Rose's hand away from her mouth. He had reassured her often enough that there was nothing wrong with her lip, that it was all in her imagination. Rose blinked, then turned her head away and appeared to study the occupants of the Colonial Room. Her gaze was fixed on the young man with the funny name who, scratching the shoulder of his yellow sweater, was scribbling words into an exercise book with a red cover. From the Embassy Ballroom beyond came the plucking notes of banjos and voices raucously singing.

‘I'm sorry,' Harold said. ‘I didn't mean to slap you.'

‘That wasn't a slap,' she replied. ‘It was a blow.'

He remained silent for some minutes, gliding the tip of his forefinger round and round the rim of his wineglass. At last, he repeated, ‘I'm sorry. I guess all that driving has worn me down.'

‘I won't be a moment,' Rose said, and left the table. At the door she paused, tilting her head to catch the dying whine of the singing glass.

The lobby of the Ambassador Hotel was panelled in dark wood set with mirrors. The lamps were lit and whichever way she turned she caught her reflection fleeing across glass. The dazzle obscured the crumpled state of her polka-dot dress.

Yesterday, Washington Harold had booked them into a motel in Santa Monica to have a bath, only there wasn't one, just a shower. She couldn't abide showers; the water was either scalding or icy and standing up was a daft way to get washed. When he saw her emerge he'd said it was odd that her hair wasn't wet and she'd said it dried very quickly. She knew he knew she was lying, but no longer cared. It wasn't her fault they came from different backgrounds.

There was an iron in the room and if Harold hadn't been so impatient to get to his breakfast she might have attended to her dress. He'd ordered three eggs, a double portion of ham and a mound of fried potatoes. He cut up the ham and then did away with the knife and speared everything with a fork, the way children did. Although she was hungry she only asked for two slices of toast; she was determined not to cause him further expense.

After breakfast they'd got into the camper again and drove to Malibu. It was the place where John Fury had last seen Dr. Wheeler. It was windy and the waves bounced towards the clouds. Harold changed into bathing trunks and trotted down to the gusty sea on tiptoe like a bandy ballet dancer. From a distance he looked less podgy, more in proportion with the sky. He hadn't asked her if she would join him; by now he knew what her answer would be.

The beach was deserted save for some children and three men, one of whom wore bathing shorts and proceeded to chase the shrieking youngsters across the sand; leapfrogging into the furled waves, they dipped and rose like skimmed pebbles. Dressed in city suits, the two onlookers paced up and down, passing each other, sentry fashion.

Rose watched them rather than Harold; deep down she wished him drowned. Suddenly a wave spiralled up, sub­ merging one of the children, at which the suited men ran forward waving their arms and hollering. The buoyant adult plunged downward and scooped up the endangered water­ baby in one fist. Tossed on shore, the small figure was engulfed in a towel and slapped vigorously on the back. It wasn't cuddled.

When Rose, voice quivering, told Washington Harold what she'd seen, he said it didn't do to focus on what might have happened, better to rejoice at a fortunate result. Most deaths, he opined, were accidental, even the vicious ones. He'd then spent some minutes, all the time energetically towelling him­ self, relating the fate of a child in Chicago who was in the habit of ringing doorbells and then running away. Mrs Fantano, a widow, had been subjected daily to this annoyance by a nine-­ year-old girl living in the apartment above. One teatime Mrs Fantano had lain in wait, and, opening the door the instant the buzzing sizzled the air, had seized the delinquent by the hair, at which the child turned blue in the face and expired. Terrified, Mrs Fantano had inserted a broom handle into the girl's anus and dragged the body onto the fire-escape. She hadn't known the offender had a weak heart.

Rose would have liked to ask questions, but the word anus put her off. It was just like Harold not to refer to that part as a bottom.

She was thinking about words while standing in the lobby of the hotel, in particular ‘Cocoanut Grove', the name of the famous nightclub she'd been told had real palm trees growing between the tables and stuffed monkeys hanging from the branches. The interior had been used by James Cagney in the film
Lady Killer
. ‘I hate him,' she said out loud, but she was thinking of Harold; she liked Cagney, even though he was undersized and frowned a lot.

She asked a bellboy to show her the entrance to the club. There was a stout man shouting into a walkie-talkie outside the glass doors. ‘Please,' Rose said, ‘I want to see the ceiling embedded with stars.'

He said, ‘Come again?'

‘I'm from England,' she elaborated. ‘I've just come to peep at the monkeys.'

‘No can do,' he said, and turned his back on her.

She retreated into the nearby powder room and attempted to comb her hair. The sea air that morning had made it sticky. She was tugging away when two women entered; one wore a cheeky boater encircled with a band of stars and stripes, the other clutched a bald baby. Posturing at the mirror, a licked finger moistening an eyebrow, the boater woman said, ‘I guess he's home and dry, Connie,' to which the other retorted, ‘It don't do to get too confident. Time sure has a way of altering things.' Wide-eyed, the baby stared at Rose, waiting for a smile of love. She turned away.

When the women had gone she looked at her face in the mirror, at the tear balanced on her cheek. I won't always be unhappy, she reassured herself, and flicked it into the basin. Soon Dr. Wheeler would take care of her, and then everything would be different.

Washington Harold was no longer at the table when she returned to the Colonial Room. He was standing in a crowd of people massed outside the propped-open doors of the ball­ room. Above the noise of the banjos, voices were screaming, ‘We want Bobby . . .' followed by tumultuous applause and the deafening shrill of whistles.

John Fury joined her. He looked buoyant. ‘He's in,' he said. ‘Time for a new America.'

Fury was a good man; it was he who had located Dr. Wheeler and confirmed that he was part of the Kennedy entourage. He'd even discovered that Wheeler had spent the previous night in the house of a film man called Frankenheimer, who was entertaining Robert Kennedy to dinner.

The man in the yellow sweater had leapt onto a chair, the better to see over the heads at the door. Rose took her shoes off and did the same, and watched as a youngish man with floppy hair mounted the steps onto the stage. He patted the air with his hand in an attempt to quell the noise and spoke into the microphone, to little effect. The crowd screamed even louder. ‘You can't hear,' he shouted. ‘Can we get something that works . . . Can we . . .' Now his voice became stronger, though he had to bellow to be heard above the continuing uproar. Often his words were lost.

‘What I think is . . . what I think is quite clear is that we can work together in the last analysis . . . the violence, the disen­ chantment with our society . . . the division, whether between black and white, between the poor and the . . . over the war in Vietnam . . . We are a great country, a compassionate . . . and I intend to make that my basis . . . we can start to work together.'

Harold moved away from the door and gestured to her to get off the chair. She hadn't the confidence to defy him. He held out a hand to help her, but she wouldn't give him the sat­ isfaction. Without his beard he lacked authority. Abruptly, he told her to stay where she was and not to follow him. He had something important to do; he wouldn't be long. Then he leaned close to John Fury and whispered something in his ear.

She sat very still and watched him go. He turned back and clumsily patted her shoulder. He said, ‘You look really great in that dress. Did I tell you that?'

‘No,' she said, ‘you didn't.'

‘Really great,' he repeated, and then, fingers piercing her arm, hissed, ‘I'm only doing what's best. We're all looking for something.' Then he walked in the direction of the service doors to the left of the ballroom.

‘Or someone,' she murmured. A star of blood, delicate as a snowflake, melted upon her upper lip.