What's Better Than Money

‘While we are on the subject,’ I said to her, ‘I don’t reckon to have attachments. I can’t afford them.’

She stared at me blankly.

‘Well, you’re frank even if you are stingy.’

‘That’s the idea. Frank Stingy, that’s the name, baby.’

I began to play Body and Soul.

Since I had got that lump of shrapnel in my face, I had lost interest in women the way I had lost interest in work. There had been a time when I went for the girls the way most college boys go for them, but I couldn’t be bothered now. Those six months in the plastic surgery ward had drained everything out of me: I was a sexless zombie, and I liked it.

Suddenly I became aware that Rima was singing softly to my playing, and after five or six bars, I felt a creepy sensation crawl up my spine.

This was no ordinary voice. It was dead on pitch, slightly off-beat on the rhythm as it should be, and as clear as a silver bell. It was the clearness that got me after listening for so long to the husky torch singers who moan at you from the discs.

I played on and listened to her. She stopped abruptly when Sam came with the coke. When he had gone I swung around and stared at her.

‘Who taught you to sing like that?’

‘Sing? Why, nobody. Do you call that singing?’

‘Yes, I call it singing. What are you like with the throttle wide open?’

‘You mean loud?’

‘That’s what I mean.’

She hunched her shoulders.

‘I can be loud.’

‘Then go ahead and be loud. Body and Soul. As loud as you damn well like.’

She looked startled.

‘I’ll be thrown out.’

‘You go ahead and be loud. I’ll take care of it if it’s any good. If it isn’t, I don’t care if you are thrown out.’

I began to play.

I had told her to be loud, but what came out of her throat shook me. I expected it to be something, but not this volume of silver sound, with a knife edge that cut through the uproar around the bar like a razor slicing through silk.

The first three bars killed the uproar. Even the drunks stopped yammering. They turned to stare.

Rusty, his eyes popping, leaned across the bar, his ham-like hands knotted into fists.

She didn’t even have to stand up. Leaning back, and slightly swelling her deep chest, she let it come out of her as effortlessly as water out of a tap. The sound moved into the room and filled it. It hit everyone between the eyes: it snagged them the way a hook snags a fish. It was on pitch; it was swing; it was blues; it was magnificent!

We did a verse and a chorus, then I signalled to her to cut it. The last note came out of her and rolled up my spine and up the spines of the drunks right into their hair. It hung for a moment filling the room before she cut it off and let the glasses on the bar shelf settle down and stop rattling.

I sat motionless, my hands resting on the keys and waited.

It was as I imagined it would be. It was too much for them. No one clapped or cheered. No one looked her way. Rusty picked up a glass and began to polish it, his face embarrassed. Three or four of the regulars drifted to the door and went out. The conversation started to buzz again, although on an uneasy note. It had been too good for them; they just couldn’t take it.

I looked at Rima and she wrinkled her nose at me. I got to know that expression of hers: it meant: ‘So what? Do you think I care?’

‘Pearls before swine,’ I said. ‘With a voice like that you can’t fail to go places. You could sing yourself into a fortune. You could be a major sensation!’

‘Do you think so?’ She lifted her shoulders. ‘Tell me something: where can I find a cheap room to live in? I’m nearly out of money.’

I laughed at her.

‘You should worry about money. Don’t you realise your voice is pure gold?’

‘One thing at the time,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to economise.’

‘Come to my place,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing cheaper, and nothing more horrible. 25 Lexon Avenue: first turning on the right as you leave here.’

She stubbed out her cigarette and stood up.

‘Thanks. I’ll go and fix it.’

She walked out of the bar, her hips swaying slightly, her silver head held high.

All the lushes up the bar stared after her. One of them was stupid enough to whistle after her.

It wasn’t until Sam nudged me that I realised she had gone without paying for the coke.

I paid for it.

I felt it was the least I could do after listening to that wonderful voice.

CHAPTER TWO

I

I got back to my room just after midnight. As I unlocked my door, the door opposite opened and Rima looked at me.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘You see: I’ve moved in.’

‘I warned you it wasn’t much,’ I said, opening my door and turning on the light, ‘but at least it’s cheap.’

‘Did you really mean that about my singing?’

I went into my room, leaving the door wide open and I sat on the bed.

‘I meant it. You could make money with that voice.’

‘There are thousands of singers out here starving to death.’ She crossed the passage and leaned against my door post. ‘I hadn’t thought of competing. I think it would be easier to make money as a movie extra.’

I hadn’t been able to work up any enthusiasm about anything since I had come out of the Army, but I was enthusiastic about her voice.

I had already talked to Rusty about her. I had suggested she should sing in the joint, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He had agreed she could sing, but he was emphatic that he wasn’t having any woman singing in his bar. He said it was certain to lead to trouble sooner or later. He had enough trouble now running the bar without looking for more.

‘There’s a guy I know,’ I said to Rima, ‘who might do something for you. I’ll talk to him tomorrow.

He runs a night club on 10th Street. It’s not much, but it could be a start.’

‘Well, thanks…’

Her voice sounded so flat I looked sharply at her.

‘Don’t you want to sing professionally?’

‘I’d do anything to make some money.’

‘Well, I’ll talk to him.’

I kicked off my shoes, giving her the hint to go back to her room, but she still stood there watching me with her big cobalt blue eyes.