“Oh please. Just because you’re bloody maladjusted doesn’t mean we all have to be.”
I gulped, and holding on to my now almost empty purse, I ran to the apartment door.
In the lift, I said the word over—maladjusted. Then I laughed hysterically. Of course I was maladjusted. So what? I got out of the lift hysterically laughing and greatly surprised a heavily Rejuvinexed couple waiting to get in.
Life was a shambles. I mustn’t hesitate now. If I paused, I’d be afraid, or recognize my fear for what it was. But how interesting, a month ago I’d have shriveled with shame if anyone had found me laughing alone in a lift—or anywhere, for that matter. I’d hit Clovis, but he was right. I had changed.
I had to ride the ferry across to The Island because the bridge was shut for repairs. Otherwise I’d have walked the thirty minutes it takes on foot.
The basin of water that surrounds The Island used to be a reservoir, and trees grow out from the waterline, that the ferry has to curve around. Maybe you know it, my unknown, would-be, nonexistent reader. And the concrete platform rising on its pylons, with the rich people’s towers standing amid their landscaped gardens.
Egyptia has the top floor, and therefore a private roof-garden, with miniature ten-foot palm trees at the center, and a pool. Floating up to her oval, gilded doorway in the external lift, it all seemed suddenly unbelievable after the rental block on Tolerance. Or was it that the rental block seemed unbelievable? Surely this was just a social call, and I’d be going home directly to Chez Stratos.
(Is Jane with you, Clovis? Do you know where she might be? She’d have called Egyptia, too. And Jason and Medea. And Chloe. But not Davideed. He’s at the equator, Mother. And it will only have taken Egyptia to tell my mother about Silver, what Clovis had probably revealed. Silver. I don’t want to call him that. It’s a registration—Am I going to have to fight with Egyptia?) The lift stopped adjacent to the gilded oval door and let me out in the high-walled enclosure before it. Egyptia’s pot plants are dying. She forgets to turn on the hose. When they lie there in brown husks, she weeps for them. Too late.
I touched the door panel.
“Who is here?”
The door-voice is Egyptia’s voice, reproduced, velvety, carnal.
“Jane.”
“One moment, Jane.”
He must love her voice. He’s a musician. Her voice is so musical, has such a variegated tonal inflexion. He’s here. I can feel it. I’m going to make a fool of myself. I’ve sold my world, and if Egyptia says “No,” I’ve lost everything. And she’ll say “No,” won’t she? Yes, all right. I supposed Clovis lied about Egyptia demanding him back. But Clovis, to be perverse, having—enjoyed, that’s the word, enjoyed him—sent him back to Egyptia, just as he implied he had to. A sort of neat, spiteful tying up of ends. And Egyptia, having received her lover, has been with him all night again. Or part of the night. The fact that she owes the price of him to someone, now me, isn’t going to stop her from being overwhelmed and playing her ace card, her legal ownership. She’ll say No.
After ten minutes, I touched the panel again.
“Who is here?”
“Jane. I’ve already told you.”
“I am still signaling Egyptia, Jane. Please wait.”
She’s in bed with him right now. That’s why she won’t answer, won’t let me in. She’s locked against him, she’s crying out in ecstasy, just as I did. His face is poised above her, or buried in her long dark hair. She’s so beautiful. And the apartment is so rich. He appreciates artistry.
What can I give him to appreciate? That ghastly room. Me. I ought to go away.
I didn’t.
And suddenly the door swung open.
At once I heard a tremendous, unexpected noise, which alarmed me. I shrank away from the door involuntarily, then moved forward, then stood indecisively on the threshold, not allowing the door to close.
As I did so, Lord slunk down the long, much-mirrored corridor. I remembered it was Lord, limp-handed Lord who’d guided me through the Gardens of Babylon that night I saw Silver again. And Lord remembered me.
“Oh hell, it’s you,” he said, striking a pose.
“Oh hell, it’s me,” I said. I amazed myself, for it sounded clever, even though I was only repeating what he’d said. (A trick worth keeping?) “Well, you’d better come in. We’re in the throes of Peacock.”
He must mean the play.
“Normally, we rehearse at that Godvile theatre,” he added, looking into a mirror at himself. “But darling Egyptia brought us here. Then we’re going to lunch at Ferrier’s. You’re not coming, are you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I shall always recall you, I’m afraid, as the girl who gets drunk and throws up.”
I’d have liked to say something to that, but I couldn’t think of anything. Then I did.
“That must happen to your girlfriends a lot,” I said, “but are you sure it’s because of the drink?”
I walked past him and down the hall into Egyptia’s vast salon, my brain singing and ringing. I couldn’t quite believe in myself, and I stood there, stunned, intoxicated, and looked for him and found him not. Instead, I saw how the floor had been cleared and five male actors were on it, viciously fighting each other, while three women actors stood to one side, their heads tilted back, their eyes veiled, their hands and arms outstretched. Six or seven others of all sexes stood on the edge, or lay over the pushed-back chairs. One had swathed himself in an Indian tiger skin. A man with a small machine by him sat cross-legged on the coffee table, checking the script. Thin and handsome, he once or twice called out, in a thin, handsome voice, “No, Paul, to the groin, dear, the groin. Corinth, you look as if you’re selling him ice cream, not trying to disembowel him.”
“You eaten any of my ice cream?” Corinth, a young man in glint-stitched jeans, yelled back.