forward, lunging, off balance, hand barely reconstituted into a viable fist. Scramsfield at Zelli’s was Max Schmeling in comparison. And what would have been really regrettable for Loeser here was if he’d fallen into the nearby swimming pool as a result of his botched left hook. But he didn’t, because Gould grabbed his shoulder to steady him. Then Loeser, confused, embarrassed, not wanting Gould’s help, tried to push him away, overcompensated, slipped on a slice of lime that had defected from someone’s gin and tonic, and fell into the swimming pool as a result of that instead. He hadn’t even had a drink yet.
After he’d climbed out, Mutton suggested he go to the bedroom for a change of clothes. ‘Take anything you want.’
‘There’s no need.’
‘At least borrow a shirt.’
Loeser went dripping into the house, trying to ignore the stares and chuckles, and through into the main bedroom, where he selected a shirt and slacks from Mutton’s enormous wardrobe. Just as in Blumstein’s house, there was a bathroom off the main bedroom, and he decided to go in there to change so he could lock the door behind him. As he dried his hair with a towel, he noticed a pair of expensive pistachio-green French knickers lying on the floor next to the bath, and with all their lace and frills and bows they looked comically out of place, a pathogenic gland transplanted into this functionalist cuboid, ready to infect the whole structure with blisters of purposeless ornamentation unless it was annihilated first by some swift Loosian immune response. Loeser, who dearly loved underclothes with lace and frills and especially bows, and sometimes came close to tears when he saw some on a washing line because of the way they made his sexual longing twinge like an old bone fracture, found himself mesmerised for a while by the thought that this silk had only recently been soured and sweetened by the loins of a woman as ravishing as Dolores Mutton, and because of this unavoidable delay he was still buttoning his collar when he heard that same woman’s voice through the door.
‘No. You’re asking too much this time. He’s still my husband. What if he found out? I know you think he won’t, but he’s smarter than you’d like to believe. He might. He easily damn well might. And I’m not going to put him through that. It would finish him. I know you don’t care, but what if he divorced me? Where the hell would we be then? You don’t want that any more than I do. I’m not saying we have to stop this, of course I’m not, I know better than that, but there have to be limits. It’s no good making threats, Jascha. I just can’t. I’m sorry.’
‘Jascha’! Could it really be Drabsfarben? Loeser pressed his ear to the door, but if there was a reply, it was too low to hear.
‘Well, you picked a fine time to tell me that,’ said Dolores Mutton after a while. ‘It’s crazy that we’re even talking like this. You’re always saying I need to be more discreet. Come here on Thursday morning, Stent’s going to be out at the
Loeser heard the bedroom door open and close. Then the handle of the bathroom door turned until it clicked against the lock. ‘Is somebody in there? Hello?’ Loeser considered waiting until she went away, but that might turn into a siege. He unlocked the door. ‘Oh, hello, Mr Loeser,’ said Dolores Mutton. There was enough ice in her voice for a serviceable daiquiri. ‘Perhaps I should have mentioned that we prefer our guests to use the other bathroom.’
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Mutton, I was just changing my shirt.’
As he walked past her into the bedroom, she caught his arm, gripping hard. ‘I don’t know what you may have heard just now, but …’ She paused. Part of him was mindlessly excited that her warm skin was on his. ‘I don’t care for gossip, Mr Loeser, and neither does my husband. Not at our parties, not in our home. I hope you will think about that before you say anything you may come to regret.’ Then she released his arm, went into the bathroom, and slammed the door behind her. Loeser, shaken, decided to leave the party and walk down to the beach so he could think.
How could Jascha Drabsfarben have allowed himself to get tangled up with Dolores Mutton? In Berlin, a lot of girls had lusted after the composer, and, as far as Loeser could tell, it was because they knew that nothing they did could ever make him lust back. Hannah Czenowitz had once drunkenly confessed a fantasy in which she was on her knees sucking Drabsfarben’s cock while he was composing at a grand piano and he was so absorbed in some complex non-standard key signature that he didn’t even notice. There was some debate over whether he masturbated, and the consensus was that he probably did, about once a month, for reasons of psychological tidiness, but quickly, so he could get back to his music. Therefore occasional utilitarian intercourse didn’t seem out of the question — but a furtive affair with a married woman would be far too distracting. Drabsfarben would never tolerate the drain on his time.
Then again, Loeser had heard that a lot of foreign writers found themselves blocked when they came to Hollywood. So perhaps Drabsfarben had lost his inspiration out here too, and for the first time he was trying to use a woman as a muse. You could certainly write symphonies about Dolores Mutton; you could write at least a scherzo about her cleavage alone. And however implausible it all seemed, Loeser knew what he’d just heard. The real question was whether to tell Stent Mutton. Yes, the man was a loathsome fraud. He’d lied to Loeser, albeit in a way Loeser couldn’t really explain. But Loeser still loved his books. Knowing the truth about Mutton didn’t make Mutton’s characters feel any less real; in fact, maybe they seemed more real now, because if they couldn’t be understood as mere analogues of their creator, then they could only be spontaneous births with a sort of mystifying independent life. And there was no question about what a Stent Mutton hero would do about all this. He would just walk over. Say what had to be said. In very short sentences.
Loeser went back to the house and found Stent Mutton on the patio next to the big barbecue grill.
‘I see you found something to fit you all right.’
‘Yes. Look here, Mr Mutton, I need to talk to you in private.’
‘About what?’
‘It’s very important.’
Mutton followed him a short distance up the hill, away from the guests, into a forum of crickets.
‘Well?’
‘Just now, while I was changing, I overheard a conversation in your bedroom. It was between your wife and Jascha Drabsfarben, who’s an old friend of mine from Berlin. I think they’re having an affair.’
‘What?’
Loeser was already beginning to realise that this was going to cause even more trouble than the last time he’d eavesdropped on Drabsfarben, but it was too late to turn back. Also, there was something about a conversation of this kind that made him feel enjoyably authentic and masculine. ‘Your wife is being unfaithful to you with Drabsfarben,’ he said. ‘I heard enough to be sure and I thought you deserved to be told.’
‘Is this another comedy routine?’
‘No, Mr Mutton. I’m perfectly serious.’
Mutton sighed. ‘This is the trouble with marrying a girl like Dolores. Most men realise they wouldn’t know what to do if they had all that beauty to themselves, so they can’t believe I do, either. They think I must let her share it around a little. But actually, Mr Loeser, my wife is devoted to me. She’s not perfect and neither, goodness knows, am I. But we love each other as deeply today as we ever have. Nothing, and I mean nothing, could persuade her to betray me sexually with another man. If I know anything, I know that. You’re wrong. And I strongly suggest you leave this party before you do any more eavesdropping.’
Probably Wilbur Gorge was just as confident, thought Loeser, and meanwhile Rackenham was ploughing his wife. If life up to this point had taught him anything, it was that everyone else was having sex with anyone they wanted, all the time, and it was naive ever to hope otherwise. ‘If you’d heard what I heard—’
‘I don’t care what you think you heard. Please get off my property. I’m perfectly serious, too.’
Loeser hesitated.
‘What now?’ said Mutton.
‘It’s just that I don’t have a car and your wife said your butler could drive me back to the Chateau Marmont.’
‘Goodbye!’ Mutton growled. Then he turned and went back to his party.
It was nearly ten. Loeser knew he couldn’t walk back to Hollywood, unless he wanted to spend the rest of his life confined to a wheelchair, so he decided to go up to the corner of Sunset Boulevard and hail a cab. He’d left all his cash in his wet trousers, which were still hanging over the towel rail in the Muttons’ bathroom, but he could pick up some more at the Chateau Marmont. However, after a long wait, he still hadn’t seen a single vacant taxi,
