‘That tattoo of yours must’ve been on seventeen different laps tonight. And why were you down on your knees in that alcove?’
‘Perfectly innocent. I’d accidentally spilt powder on Jean-Paul’s trousers. And I was just brushing it off.’
‘Oh, why d’you do it, Phoebe? What’s it for?’
‘What’s it for? I collected, oh I collected a whole wodge of phone numbers. So I’ll be a busy girl when you’re off with that little poof in…What’s his name?’
‘Truman Capote.’
‘Yeah. When you’re off oiling up to that little poof Truman Capote in New York.’
‘That’s not you,’ he said, and took a defiant pull on his (weak) whisky and water. ‘And stop going on as if this is like any other night. You just told me you were an escort girl for Christ’s sake.’
Phoebe smiled dangerously and said, ‘I heard you in there, turning on the taps. Sniffling and mewing…You want to go back in that bathroom, mate. And take Tycoon Tanya with you. And don’t have a weep, this time. Have a wank.’ She looked startled, and took a sudden step back – as if wanting a better distance to gauge the effect of her blow. ‘That’s what I’ve done. I’ve turned you into a wanker.’
She seemed about to laugh, and he flinched, and Phoebe’s hand flew to her mouth. As if remembering herself. He said as steadily as he could,
‘No, no laughter, Phoebe.’ He waited. ‘Jesus. Finally I see it. You want me to leave you, don’t you. Well instead of torturing me to death,*9 why didn’t you just say?’
‘Because it’s not in my power.’
‘Your power?’
‘That’s right. And it’s sad, it really is.’ She bowed down and bestowed a sisterly kiss on the side of his head. ‘It really is. And now, we two, you and I, must go to sleep…’
Aubade
At least an hour later in the dark he heard her sigh – and yawn – and he said,
‘Phoebe.’
‘What.’
‘A question…Tycoon Tanya.’ He was quite impressed to discover that his voice had cleared up – no longer the echoic croak. ‘Did Tycoon Tanya, did she get any other offers? Back in 1971?’
She half rolled over. ‘Oh, loads. Loads. Guccione, all of them. They wanted to fly me to the Playboy Mansion. First-class.’
‘Then why aren’t you driving down Rodeo Drive’, said Martin (who in 1985 – literary life continuing – would interview Hugh Hefner), ‘in a pink convertible?’
‘Yes, it’s baffling…Well. The thing is, they vet you. And they couldn’t have it come out, could they. That I was an escort girl.’
‘Bob Guccione couldn’t have it come out?’
‘Of course not. Are you serious? I’d be like one of those beauty queens who’re suddenly disgraced. Miss Paraguay, was it – the white-slaver? And around then I decided to go straight. I retired.’
‘You decided to become a retired escort girl.’
‘Yes,’ she said plainly. ‘A retired escort girl. It was a long time ago.’
‘In those far-off days, then, Phoebe, when you were an escort girl…How much did the agency pay you per date?’
‘The agency? Ess Es? Well, the blokes pay the agency direct, and you only get your seven and a half per cent.’
‘How much was seven and a half per cent?’
‘Oh, sod all. A fiver.’ She moved closer and he could feel her radiation on his back. ‘Now don’t be bloody insulting and say a fiver was all it took. Things didn’t work like that. You made your own arrangement with the client. If they were all right…And a few of them were all right. Now shut up and go to sleep.’
He lay there in the dark. ‘A tenner for a kiss.’
She gave a sigh of the weariest disgust.
‘Plus the flat-rate fiver of course. Okay. Twenty-five for a proper snog. With tongues.’
She violently resettled herself.
‘Okay. Fifty quid for a wank. With you doing it.’
‘…Hah. Go up to Soho, mate. Windmill Street. You’ll find an old trout who’ll give you a wank for fifty quid.’
‘Two hundred for a blowjob.’
Silence.
‘Five hundred for a fuck. Six hundred.’ He sensed a stillness. ‘Seven-fifty. Okay, a thou.’
‘…Done.’ The bedside light came on. ‘Now how long for, Martin?’ she said as she glanced at her watch. ‘And what else? I warn you. Extras are extra.’
During the act there were little shouts of laughter as the values dipped and climbed, like the price of crude.
—————
The bedroom curtains were only half drawn, and he could make out a streak of pale light against the rosy tint of the sky. That pale streak reminded him of the scar, the snag, he occasionally thought he saw somewhere in Phoebe’s face, a disequilibrium giving that lawless slant to her smile. Her smile, her sneer, her snarl, with its defiance, its pain, its grief…
Martin thought he was old friends with the sad animal, with the creature in its tristesse; but the animal had never been quite as sad as this. And for only the third or fourth time in his life, he felt like a dirty little bastard (and one whose recent exploits might very well spark interest in the papers, even in 1978). He prepared and put a match to a cigarette in the accumulating dawn.
A couple of seconds later Phoebe turned to him saying,
‘Now how much did that set you back…I make it fourteen hundred and twenty. You know, Mart, you reminded me of someone. Haggling away in bed nineteen to the dozen. If you do that, you’ll get this. Et cetera. You reminded me of someone.’
She reached for his handrolled burn, and dragged, and, for once, inhaled…
‘You know who?’ She expelled smoke. ‘He got around to money in due time, of course. But at first he used sweets. Father Gabriel.’
*1 Now, with a dictionary and a thesaurus on my lap, I scroll through the indulgent synonyms (‘captivate’, ‘tantalise’), seeing no connection at all
