For an instant, she flinched and closed her eyes, thinking he was going to strike her, but what he did was jerk the towel from around her, so that she stood before him, naked.
Her breasts were heavier than when he had first seen her, the skin across her belly less taut, but there was nothing to deflect from the fact that she was still a beautiful woman; more beautiful as she stood there now, unclothed, than in her boots, bright shirts and jeans. Most women Frank knew, the reverse would be true.
'Well?' Cathy gave him a look that said, what now? and he didn't know. She held out the glass towards him and automatically he reached to take it. Swiftly, she stepped back inside the bathroom and shut the door, flicking the bolt across.
Mollie Hansen was sitting in the Broadway Cinema Cafe Bar nibbling at a portion of cabbage stuffed with peppers and drinking Red Raw ginger beer. Slides of scenes from various forties films nows were being projected on to the far wall, and she was idly checking them off as she ate: Mildred Pierce, Gilda, The Lady from Shanghai.
'Hi. Mollie.' Susan Tyrell was standing at her shoulder, an empty glass in one hand, a bottle ofCabemet- Shiraz in the other.
'Okay if I join you?'
'Sure.'
Susan pulled out a chair and sat down.
'In for a long wait?' Mollie said with a grin, indicating the bottle.
Susan's eyes rolled upwards.
'David's just getting going on Hollywood femmes fatales. Stepping out of the shadows in tight black dresses with guns in their hands.' She filled the glass to within a quarter-inch of the rim and brought it to her mouth without spilling a drop.
'Once he gets started on that little fantasy, I might as well be invisible.'
Mollie forked up some more stuffed cabbage. Larger than life on the wall, Joan Crawford, in poor lighting and a fur coat, stood over the dead body of Zachary Scott.
'You see what I mean?' Susan asked,
'Who ever paid any attention to her when she was just plain old married Mildred, wearing an apron morning till night and baking pies?'
Mollie waited for the laugh, but it didn't come.
'That's a movie,' she said.
'Not real life.'
Susan drained her glass and began pouring another. 'Try telling that to David.'
Mollie looked at her seriously.
'Then maybe it's time to get out of the kitchen?' she said.
Susan looked away.
'Yes, well, I'm afraid that time is long past.'
And then she did laugh, but it was loud and forced. 'listen to me, carrying on. Complaining about David to you of all people. '
Mollie leaned closer and covered Susan's hand with her own.
'If you feel this bad, you've got to sit him down and talk to him. Make him listen.'
'Really. And when did you last succeed in doing that?'
Marius Gooding had let himself back into the hotel suite he had been sharing with Dorothy En-dwell and locked the door. Pulling the blinds, he stripped down to his under- shorts and vest.
'Bitch!' he said, as he pulled out drawer after drawer of her neatly folded clothes and spilled them across the floor.
'Bitch!' as he jerked her satin and taffeta dress from its padded hanger and tore it neck to hem. Bitch! he scrawled across the photograph in the back of her new book. Bitch! in black felt-tip on the centre of the sheet. Bitch! on the wall above the bed. Bitch! along one arm, the inside of his legs, across his face, and all around his head. Bitch! Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!
Marius curled up on the floor, knees to his chest, head in his arms, and cried.
Thirty-seven Frank didn't recognise the woman sitting up at the bar; no reason that he should. It was early yet, early for serious drinking, and the place, long and narrow with stairs leading to a high balcony at the rear, was quiet. Music which he recognised as Joe Sample, Frank having been a major fan of the Crusaders since seventy- two,
'Street Life* one of his favourite records of all time, the one he always instructed DJs to play when he and Cathy hosted parties of their own – was pumping quietly from large speakers suspended from the ceiling.
The barman, fresh- faced and possibly as young as he seemed, set aside the newspaper he was reading and asked Frank what he wanted. The answer was a whisky sour, large, a little salt on the glass; iced water on the side. And something to pick on. He hadn't eaten since lunch and reasoned this was the start of what might prove a long night.
'Nachos,' the barman suggested.
'Chicken wings? Potato skins? Onion rings?'
'Forget the nachos and the onion rings. Let me have the chicken and the potato skins, okay?'
'Sir.' The barman passed Frank's order through to the kitchen and began to slice the lemon, fresh, for his whisky sour.
Frank toyed with the drink when it came, checking the temptation to swallow it right down; ever since the talk with Cathy down by the canal, he'd felt like he was walking on the proverbial eggshells. He laughed and the woman four seats along turned her head; never understood 208 what that meant before, eggshells, what it was like. Now he thought if it was going to crack and let him tumble through, why not take a hammer to it, smash it first himself? Do unto others instead of being done to.
He finished his drink and called along the bar for another. The woman, sipping what Frank thought was some kind of rum cocktail, rum collins, cuba libra, one of those, glanced at him again. Not giving it too much. Still light outside, in the bar it was cool and dark.
There were rings on the fingers of both the woman's hands, Frank noticed; dark hair which fell past her face due to the way she was sitting, partly shielding her from his gaze. Thirty- five, Frank thought, forty. Waiting for a friend. Nothing to get worked up about.
'Your whisky sour, sir.'
'Sure,' Frank said.
'Thanks.'
When Cathy arrived outside the main convention room for her interview, she had managed to patch up most of the damage, though the skin around her eyes was darker than usual and her face was pinched as if she were suffering from too little sleep. Which was partly the truth.
'You okay?' Mollie asked, concerned, stepping forward to greet her.
Cathy nodded: fine.
And from anything other than close up, she did look good: a cream linen suit with wide lapels, a green satin shirt and, poking out from beneath slightly flared trousers, the ubiquitous boots.
'Cathy, I think you know Sarah Dunant.'
'Sure. We met at the Edgars last year.'
The two women smiled and brushed cheeks and set off towards the platform, Mollie leading the way.
'So which part of the States are you from?' the woman was saying.
Ana, 'how long are you over for?' And,
'Oh, interesting.'
Frank all the while hearing Cathy's voice / wonder if that isn't long enough? Eight years. Close to. Saying it, it didn't seem so long. But living it. He shook his head. Some days he could scarcely remember when there had been anything else.
'Sorry,' Frank leaned sideways towards the woman's stool. 'I didn't catch what you said.'
'I said, do you want another drink here or are you ready to move on somewhere else?'
The music had shifted again, back from some guitar band that reminded Frank of the Byrds, back to the Crusaders, the album they made eighty-one, eighty-two? – with Joe Cocker.
'I'm okay here,' Frank said.
