The Song of the Flea (18 page)

“Yes, if you like,” said Pym.

Rocky paid for the drinks with a new five-pound note. He flicked three florins and three sixpences out of the change and bellowed: “The seven-and-sixpence I owe you, old pal old pal old pal!”

Pym, with exaggerated irony, said: “Rocky, you are too kind.”

“Don’t be silly, don’t be silly; what do you mean—‘too kind?’ No more than just, old duck old duck old duck! I pay my debts! Jesus, Mary and Joseph know that Rockwell Gagan keeps his word. I said I’d let you have it back, didn’t I? And I did, haven’t I? All right, then, Johnny—see you at six. Remember the address. Got it? 62a, Brow House, South Street, Park Lane. Park
Lane
.”

On his way home Pym began to work out a horror story about a stray lamb caught on barbed wire. But when he squared up to his typewriter and began to batter it mercilessly with both hands, he wrote:

This, he decided, was a good, intriguing title for a story about Covent Garden Market. ‘Bloodshot Celery’ is Covent Garden for rhubarb, and ‘Naughty Boys’ are Savoys. Pym made it rich and slangy, racy and crisp, and finished it by five o’clock.

Then he pulled Mrs. Greensleeve’s box from under his bed and took out the typescript of her play. Looking at it, Pym shook his head and smiled a little. Upon its soiled manilla covers the dreary history of
That
We
May
Not
Weep
was written in blotches and stains: a guilloche of teacup-rings, a cuneiform inscription by someone who was cleaning a pen-nib, a black constellation of ink blots—one of them was shaped like a huge exclamation-mark—from an ejaculatory fountain-pen, and a cloud-bank of finger-prints … all the hieroglyphics and symbols of contemptuous rejection. Pym knew them well. He sighed, opened the typescript at random, and read:

Pym slapped the typescript shut and walked slowly to Park Lane. “The poor old lady,” he said. “Her and her poor old play.”

*

Sissy Voltaire was a little red-haired woman with feverish black eyes. She filled the drawing-room with a faint, pungent, disturbing odour that might have emanated from hot iron, dead flowers and pepper. Slender and, in the dim pink light, still beautiful, she came forward, dancing rather than walking, and took Pym’s hand in both of hers, crying: “And this is Johnny whom Rocky is always talking about! Sit down, Johnny dear, and have a drink. Darling! Give Johnny a drink. He’s terribly sweet,” she said, opening her mouth an inch and a half and clinging by suction to Rocky’s chin, hooking one sharp-nailed hand over his left ear so that he let out a yelp of pain.
“Mwa!
… that’s what I think of
you.
Kiss me.”

Rocky kissed her cheek.

“Properly! … That’s better. Now you can go and get Johnny a drink … He’s an awful idiot in many ways you know, Johnny, but so sweet in other ways. Ah! isn’t he
sweet,
then? Mmm? Little great big silly sweet? Mmm?” She bit Rocky’s finger. “I want to eat him, Johnny, he’s so sweet.”

“Hey!” cried Rocky, “that hurt!”

“Ah, darleeng, dar
leeng
!
Naughty Sissy bit naughty Sissy’s dray big Rocky Mountain? Bad,
bad
Sissy!” She slapped herself sharply on the wrist and pretended to cry. “Boo-hoo! … naughty Sissy sorry … Do you like your whisky like that, Johnny dear? He’s so thoughtless … but
so
sweet——”

“—No biting,” said Rocky. “Cigar, Johnny?” He wiped lipstick off his chin with a silk handkerchief and rubbed his bitten finger.

“Well, thank you, yes; I will have a cigar.”

“And I don’t blame you, Johnny, old boy old boy. Triple Coronas, by God! They cost——”

“Rocky!”

“Sorry, Sissy darling.”

“Who’s mummy’s dray big little tiny baby?
Silly
Rocky! … He’s an awful idiot, really, Johnny. But, you see, I happen to love him. Isn’t he a pet?”

“Oh yes, yes, indeed, Miss Voltaire. Certainly he is. A pet—that’s right.”

“I’m so glad you and Rocky are such good friends. There’s
something so lovely about true friendship. Tell me, Johnny, has he had an awful lot of women?”

“I couldn’t say, Miss Voltaire.”

“Call me Sissy, Johnny. No, on your word of honour now, tell me——”

“Cut it out, for Christ’s sake!” said Rocky. “Let’s have a look at that play, Johnny old pal.”

“Let us change the subject, by all means,” said Sissy Voltaire.

“I’ve got it,” said Pym, “but I don’t want you to imagine that I have anything to do with it. It was written by an old lady named Mary Greensleeve——”

“But that’s charming, Johnny dear! Mary Greensleeve! One thinks of a fluffy, pretty little blonde thing in a frilly flowery dress. Mary Greensleeve … how sweet!”

“I should imagine that’s exactly what she used to look like,” said Pym.

“Did you have an
affaire
with her?”

“Good God!” said Pym, “no!”

“I see you did. Nice Johnny! Go on.”

“Miss Voltaire! The old lady was over seventy years old, and not much over seventy pounds in weight——”

“The older the fiddle the sweeter the tune, eh? The nearer the bone the sweeter the meat, eh, Johnny?”

“Here’s the play,” said Pym, rising, “and that’s all there is to it. Now you must excuse me—I have to go.”

“No, by Jesus, no, you won’t,” said Rocky. “Pay no
attention
to Sissy. She likes to pull your leg. She likes getting your goat. The more she can hurt you the better she likes it. Sissy, you let my pal Johnny alone, do you hear? He’s a guest in my house.”

“A guest in
whose
house, darling?”

“He’s my guest,” said Rocky.

“In your house?”

“
My
guest in
your
house.
Your
house, but
my
guest … I’m sorry, Johnny. She’s got one of her moods on. Sissy, cut out the drinking for to-night,” said Rocky.

She half-filled a tumbler with whisky, drank most of it in three gulps, and threw the dregs into Rocky’s face. He wiped
himself with his silk handkerchief and said nothing; sat back in a velvet easy-chair and looked sullenly at his feet, while Sissy Voltaire refilled Pym’s glass and her own. She was still smiling wistfully: her expression had not changed.

“Rocky was telling me about your lady-friend’s play,” she said coolly in a measured voice. “I adore the plot, you know, for certain reasons. Certain reasons. Do you believe in Fate, Johnny? Or God—call it God. Do you?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Johnny, you know that my husband is a Baptist, I suppose?”

“No, I didn’t know. But——”

“A tobacco-broker, a millionaire. Does that convey
anything
to you, Johnny?”

“I’m sorry: I’m afraid it doesn’t.”

“I left him for
that,
” she said, pointing.

“Oh, cut it out,” muttered Rocky.

“—Because I love him, love him!” screamed Sissy Voltaire. “Oh, Rocky, lover of mine—oh, Rocky!” She threw herself down and wept on Rocky’s knees, untying his shoelaces with wild fingers, and caressing his ankles. “Take everything, only forgive me!”

“Sure, sure, sure I forgive you. Only be a darling girl and cut it out.”

“Be a what?”

“Darling girl.”

She got off her knees, laughing. “No, no, don’t go, Johnny,” she said, pulling Pym back from the door. “Rocky—dearest, darling Rocky—get us all another drink and let’s look at this.”

Sissy Voltaire opened the typescript and, after a quick, narrow-eyed glance, started to read the play aloud. At first she read perfunctorily; but soon, having involved herself in the adultery of the vicar’s wife and her passionate love for the worthless actor, she melted and changed shape like wax in a mould; and at last, when she—sick at heart and forsaken—said:
“Oh
dear
me—poor
Edward!
If
only
he
could
see
me
now,
I’d
have
made
him
happy.
‘In
the
gutter,’
he
said.
Edward
is
among
the
prophets
…
But
oh!
I
have
been
so
happy
…” Rocky shook open another silk handkerchief and cried like a
boy, snuffling and gulping, gasping and protesting: “I couldn’t hold back any longer, Sissy darling—you broke me down.”

“But what does Johnny say?” she asked.

Pym said: “I never thought much of the play, as a play, until I heard you read it. You make it sound wonderful.”

“But what’s the matter with the play as a play?” said Sissy Voltaire.

“Well, frankly, I don’t know. People don’t talk like those people talk.”

“I suppose,” she said, “you know how a vicar talks when his wife tells him that she’s going to run away with a small-time comic?”

“Well, no, I don’t.”

“Or what wives say when they die in gutters?”

“Yes,” said Pym, “I know what they say then. They say:
Designer
infinite!
Must
thou
then
char
the
wood
ere
thou
canst
limn
with
it?”

“Johnny could hot up the dialogue in places,” said Rocky.

“Of course he could. He must, you clever darling!” cried Sissy Voltaire, gnawing at the lobe of Rocky’s right ear. “Eh, Johnny dear?”

“You don’t really mean to say you
want
this play, do you?” asked Pym.

“An option, certainly,” said Sissy Voltaire.

“But, Miss Voltaire … Rocky … I didn’t write the wretched thing!”

“Shut up, Rocky! Tell me, Johnny darling, whose is it, then?”

“It’s my property, I suppose,” said Pym.

“—In which case we’d negotiate with you for an option, eh, Johnny darling?”

“Will you forgive me?” asked Pym. He had drunk too much whisky. “I am somewhat overwhelmed. If we could talk about this to-morrow, or the next day . . You were so wonderful, Miss Voltaire, that I can’t quite gather my thoughts just now. So——”

“—Take your own time,” said Sissy Voltaire, making a little pink almond-shaped mark on Rocky’s throat with her lips;
“—take your own time, Johnny darling … Oh, Johnny, doesn’t he taste nice?”

“I don’t know, ma’am: it must be a matter of taste. I never tasted him,” Pym said, while Rocky grinned and winked from his stuffed chair.

“What’s your address, Johnny darling?”

“I’d rather ring you, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“She’s jealous, eh? I daresay she has good cause to be. Rocky would ask for you, you know.”

“If I may I’ll ring you.”

“Aha, aha! It’s you who are jealous, is it?” said Sissy Voltaire. “Oh, men, men! But this other woman—Greensleeve: tell me something—have another drink before you go and tell me something. Was she awfully good in bed?”

“I couldn’t possibly know, Miss Voltaire; and even if I knew I couldn’t possibly answer such a question,” said Pym, stiffly.

Kneading the loose flesh of Rocky’s forehead, Sissy Voltaire said: “Would you terribly much mind going now, then, Johnny? We’ve got to dress, if you’re sure you really don’t terribly mind.”

“Johnny’s a bohemian, like me,” said Rocky, starting to get up. But Sissy, who had unbuttoned his shirt and was exploring his ribs, said:

“No, don’t move, Rocky.”

“Give us a tinkle, then, Johnny, old pal old pal old pal, okay?”

“Yes; and thank you so much,” said Pym.

Half-turning as he closed the door, he saw that Sissy Voltaire had let herself slide supine on the thick carpet between Rocky’s feet. She was kicking off her slippers and Rocky was anxiously running his fingers through her hair, doing something to his nose with his disengaged hand.
“Say
something—
do
something!” said the woman’s voice.
“Tell
me something! Oh, love, love!”

“Look, wait just a minute,” said Rocky.

The servant closed the street door, and Pym was sucking in the comparatively healthy petrol-vapours and dust-clouds of the sooty, dung-strewn street.