No, Roz is agreed—reading Boyce’s tidy notes in the margins of the proposal, he has real talent, that boy—that they should opt for time travel, some history, the big H, via the river names tiein. Women always find it easier to visualize themselves as having a romantic fling of it in some other age, an age before flush toilets and jacuzzis and electric coffee grinders, an age in which a bunch of tubercular, prematurely wrinkled servants would have had to wash the men’s undershorts, if any, by hand, and empty the slop pots and heat up. the water in big cauldrons, in filthy ratinfested kitchens, and trample the coffee beans underfoot like grapes. Give Roz appliances any day. Appliances with warranties, and dependable household help that comes in twice a week.
As for the ads, she wants a lot of lace in them. Lace, and a wind machine, to blow the hair around for that burning-ofCharleston dramatic-crisis look. It will help to shoot the models on an angle, with the camera slanted up. Statuesque, monumental, as long as you can’t see up their nostrils, which is the problem Roz has always had with bronze heroes on horseback. She’s thought of another river name too, another colour: Athabasca. A sort of bronzed pink. Frostbite crossed with exposure. How you get in the North without sunblock.
The phone rings and Roz practically falls on it. “Harriet,” says Harriet. “It’s the Arnold Garden for sure, Room 1409. I went there myself and pretended to be a chambermaid with towels. No doubt about it.”
“Great,” says Roz, and jots down the room number. “There’s one other thing you ought to know,” says Harriet. “Before you rush in:”
“What, where angels fear to tread?” says Roz impatiently. “What is it?”
“She appears to be having an affair, or something, with ... well, with a much younger man. He’s been with her in her room almost every day, according to our source:”
Why is Harriet sounding so coy? thinks Roz. “That wouldn’t surprise me,” she says. “Zenia would rob anything, cradles included. As long as he’s rich:”
“He is,” says Harriet. “So to speak. Or he will be:” There’s a hesitation.
“Why are you telling me this?” says Roz. “I don’t care who she’s screwing!”
“You asked me to find out everything,” says Harriet reproachfully. “I don’t know quite how to put it. The young man in question appears to be your son:’
“What?” says Roz.
After hanging up, she grabs her purse and hits the elevator and then the sidewalk at a fast trot, the nearest she can get to a run, what with her wicked shoes. She makes it to the nearest Becker’s and buys three packs of du Mauriers and tears one open with trembling fingers, and lights up so fast she practically sets fire to her hair. She’ll kill Zenia, she’ll kill her! The effrontery, the brass, the consummate had taste, to go after small helpless Larry Larry son of Mitch, after doing away with his father! Well, as good as doing away. Pick on somebody your own size! And Larry, a sitting duck, poor baby; so lonely, so scrambled. Probably he remembers Zenia from when he was fifteen; probably he had a jerk-off crush on her, back then. Probably he thinks she’s glamorous, and warm and understanding. Zenia has a good line in the glamour and understanding department. Plus, she’ll tell him a few hard-luck stories of her own and he’ll think they’re both orphans of the storm together. Roz can’t stand it!
Smoke percolates through her, and after a while she feels a little calmer. She walks back to the office, her head sizzling slowly. What exactly, what the fuck, is she supposed to do now? She knocks on Boyce’s door. “Boyce? Mind if I pick your brain for a minute?” she says.
Boyce stands up courteously and offers her a chair. “Ask, and it shall be given you,” he says. “God.”
“Don’t I know it,” says Roz, “but I haven’t been getting such great results from God lately, in the answer department.” She sits down, crosses her legs, and takes the cup of coffee Boyce provides. The part in his hair is so straight it’s almost painful, as if done with a knife. His tie has tiny ducks on it. “Let me put a theoretical case to you,” she says.
“I’m all ears,” says Boyce. “Is this about Oral Glues?”
“No,” says Roz. “It’s a story. Once upon a time there was a woman who was married to a guy who used to fool around:”
“Anyone I know?” says Boyce. “The guy, I mean.”
“With other women,” says Roz firmly. “Well, this woman put up with it for the sake of the kids, and anyway these things never lasted long because the other women were just wind-up sex toys, or that’s what the man kept saying. According to him our heroine was the real thing, the apple of his eyes, the fire in his fireplace, and so on. Then one day, along comes this bimbo—excuse me, this person about the same age as the woman in question, only, I have to admit it, quite a lot better-looking; though between you and me and the doorpost her tits were fake.”
“She walks in beaury, like the blight,” says Boyce with sympathy. “Byron:”
“Exactly,” says Roz. “She was smart, as well, but if she was a guy you’d have to call her a prick. I mean, there is no female name for it, because bitch doesn’t even begin to cover it! She tells some story about being a half-Jewish war orphan rescued from the Nazis, and our heroine, who is all heart, falls for it and gets her a job; and Ms. Dirigible-chest pretends to be our pal’s grateful buddy, and gives the husband the cold shoulder, implying by her body language that she finds him less attractive than a lawn dwarf; which turned out to be the ultimate truth, in the end.
“Meanwhile our two girl chums have a lot of cosy networking lunches together, discussing world affairs and the state of the business. Then the lady starts having it off with Mr. Susceptible, behind Ms. Numskull’s back. For Ms. Lollapalooza it’s just a thing—worse, a tactic—but for him it’s the real item, the grand passion at last. I don’t know how she did it, but she did. Considering it was him, and thousands before her had failed, she was nothing short of brilliant:”
“Genius is an infinite capacity for causing pain,” says Boyce sombrely.
“Right,” says Roz. “So she cons everyone into putting her in charge of the business in question, which is a medium-hefty enterprise, and before you know it she’s moved in with Mr. Sticky Fingers, and they’re living together in the Designer Lovenest of the Year, leaving the wee missus to gnaw her stricken little heart out, which she does. But passion wanes, on Vampira’s part, not his, when he finds out she’s been having nooners with some stud on a motorcycle and fusses up about it. So she forges a few cheques—using his signature, copied no doubt from countless drool-covered mash notes—and disappears with the cash. Does that cool his ardour? Do chickens have tits? He goes raving off after her as if his pants were plugged into the light socket.”
“I know the plot,” says Boyce. “Happens in all walks of life.”
“Ms. Lightfmgers disappears,” says Roz, “but next thing you know, she turns up in a metal soup can. Seems she’s met with a nasty accident, and now she’s cat food. She gets planted in the cemetery, not that I—not that my friend shed any tears—and Mr. Sorrowful comes creeping back to wee wifey, who stands on her hind legs and refuses to take him in. Well, can you blame her? I mean, enough is enough. So, instead of getting his head shrunk, which was long overdue, or picking up some new little sex gadget, as he has done many times before, what does he do? He’s dying of love, not for Mrs. Domestic but for Ms. Fiery Loins. So he goes out on his boat in a hurricane and gets himself drowned. Maybe he even jumped. Who knows?”