her sudden flinch caused the python to contract his coils, and she had to coax him out a little in order to stay comfortable. Very soon, once she was sure everything was as before, Clint could go back in his basket.
She was handed the more ladylike glass, filled to within a splash of the brim.
“To you, Eve!”
“Ta. And to you.”
They drank.
“Is that your proper name? Eve?”
“Can you think of a better?”
He dimpled and shook his head.
“Put it this way,” she added, finding she had almost downed the lot. “It’s not what they’ll put on my tombstone.”
Why that sent a shudder through her as she said it was the booze for you. She was young, fit and healthy, and never really did anything dangerous.
“Goose walk over?” he asked, grinning.
“Pardon?”
“Too late! Not bad stuff-didn’t know we had decent bubbly here. You and I should have started earlier on it.”
He was beginning to assert himself. Beginning to feel more at home, perhaps, than he ever did in his own place, from what she had heard of it. The woman sounded a right bitch. Poor little chap.
“The whitewash will come off on your jacket.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ve got more-this isn’t my only one.”
She had noticed; a different suit practically every night-as if less-regular customers would ever notice.
“But let’s talk about you for a change,” he said. “Why not do more with yourself? Take this act to Lesotho and go the whole hog?”
“In front of natives? That’ll be the day! Besides, what’s this ‘nude’ rubbish? I thought you were the one who appreciated the psychological way I use-”
“Please, please. I was only wanting things better for you, the sort of-er-contracts you really deserve. You’re a real artist and it’s high time you realized it! What’s Trekkersburg? There’s a limit here on what it could ever do for you. And, I agree, the same applies really to Maseru. But have you ever thought of London? Hamburg? Vegas?”
“I see-and you could be my manager?”
“Why’s this making you angry?”
“ Ach, because every five minutes some bugger tries that lot of smoothie talk on me. I’m sick and tired of it!”
“Is that how it sounded?”
“Yes!”
“Then I’m sorry, really sorry to have said the wrong thing, although I promise you that I meant it. Come on, have another drop.”
Typical. Do what you like, say sorry, and everything was fine again. All men stayed babies, when you came to think of it. Bit your finger and then went goo-goo. She was saddened but not surprised to find it all turning sour. Such was life.
But at least the champagne had not lost its sweetness. It must have cost a bomb retail. Sweet and tickly and gone in an instant down into a tummy kept empty for the more difficult positions. And from there, moving on to make her sore limbs feel better than a warm bath would have done, which the boardinghouse didn’t seem to own anyway, and her head so pleasantly muzzy that the bare light no longer hurt her eyes.
She let him refill her glass.
“There-watch it doesn’t spill! Can’t let any go to waste. You know what I’ve decided to do? Take a little holiday on my own.”
Plan B was being put into operation.
“Oh, ja?”
“Do you ever take a holiday?”
“Sometimes. When Clint has eaten a big meal.”
His eyes became fixed on the python.
“Clint doesn’t like being stared at,” she said, then finished the line from her family show: “He thinks you’re trying to hypnotize him.”
He laughed loudly. “What does he feel like, Eve?”
“Smooth and nice-not slimy.”
“How strong is he, really?”
“One his size can kill a duiker-even a buck much bigger. Touch him.”
His free hand went into his pocket, and he raised the other to show it held the mug. Baby didn’t want to.
“What’s the matter-do you want your mummy?”
“That isn’t like you, Eve,” he said, very hurt.
Then the fingers, with their bitten-down nails, reached out and just dabbed at the scales. Clint tried to escape from her shoulders. She pulled him back
“Not so cold,” he said. “Super.”
“Room temperature.”
“I see. And you feed him on…?”
“Guinea pigs.”
“Dead or alive?”
“I just chuck them in his basket. Sometimes nothing happens for hours, then you hear the squeaking. Only I don’t give him them often or he’d get even lazier. Wouldn’t you, you old bastard?”
And she held the python’s head with deceptive firmness as she nuzzled noses with him.
“Can I see him eat one?”
“Not feeding time.”
“ Please. ”
That was another of his magic words, like sorry.
“I’ll pay for it. Clint can have one on the house, so to speak.”
I’ll pay.
“If you can tear yourself away from this club some night, come down and see us in Durban. I’ve got a spitting cobra that eats when he likes.”
“Come off it, Eve! You know you’re the real attraction!”
Double meanings next-he was doing well.
“Oh, ja? I fascinate you, do I?”
“Well, in a way, yes-yes, you do.”
“And why?”
He shrugged, looking more thoughtful than she had expected.
“Because I play with snakes?”
“That might have been it to begin with-I thought it would be interesting talking to you-but I’ve also had this funny feeling…”
His sentence seemed to quite genuinely tail off, and his eyes left her as he frowned and bit his thumbnail. There was a job for him in show business as well, no doubt of that.
“My God, you’re not going to sulk, are you?” she said.
“Me?”
And he laughed softly, topping up her glass again, returning it to her with a flourish. The professional charm was switched on and off so suddenly you could almost hear the click.
“What exactly did you want to thank me for? I get paid for doing it, don’t I?”
“You. Your show. All of it.”
“Turns you on?”
