Линда Ла Плант: Cold Blood

Jake gestured to Phyllis. ‘Do me a favour, Phyllis, she needs a bit of encouragement tonight. You’ve met, haven’t you?’

Phyllis nodded and peered towards the passenger seat. ‘Good evening.’

Rosie didn’t even acknowledge her as she delved into her bulging purse for a clean tissue. Jake raised his eyes to heaven and Phyllis gave him a reassuring smile.

‘You go in, I’ll stay with her. Go on, you can’t keep everyone waiting.’ Phyllis bent down to the car. ‘We’ve met a few times, I’m Phyllis Collins.’

Rosie glared. She had no recollection of ever meeting the woman before and she had no intention of getting out of the car.

‘Jake can’t not go in, he’s chairing tonight. You mind if I sit with you?’

Rosie shrugged, looking away, but she didn’t stop Phyllis from getting into the car. If nothing else, she was someone she could repeat the entire scenario to; she’d have spilled it all out to anyone, she was feeling so wretched.

‘My partner just dumped me.’

‘Oh, I am sorry, were you married long?’

‘My business partner. I’ve worked my butt off and tonight she just told me she had another job, just like that.’

Phyllis nodded, her thin, plain face concerned. ‘Oh dear, no wonder you’re not feeling good.’

Lorraine eased the wet iced cloth further over her sweating face. The heat in the sauna was so intense she could take only another few minutes. She was lying naked on the highest bench, two other women were flat out on the benches beneath her. No one spoke.

Lorraine was wondering if Rosie was okay but she figured if Jake was with her she wouldn’t do anything stupid. She decided to clear out the change in her purse and get a bottle of alcohol-free cider to cheer her up. It looked like champagne and tasted like gnat’s piss, but Rosie loved it.

‘Excuse me,’ Lorraine murmured as she swung her legs down to the lower bench and then eased her body past one of the prone women who leaned up on her elbow to allow Lorraine to pass. She remained half-upright, staring at the tall woman as she left the sauna. She envied the beautiful, straight, muscular body and then became curious when she saw the patched scars across Lorraine’s arms, the small jagged razor lines and round burn marks.

The same woman caught sight of Lorraine again in the changing room. Using a brush, she was blow-drying her fine silky blonde hair rather expertly.

‘I wish I could do that.’

Lorraine turned, slightly puzzled, wondering if the woman was talking to her.

‘Save a fortune at the hairdresser’s. I can never do the back of my head.’

Lorraine switched off the hair-dryer. ‘Oh, it just takes practice,’ she said politely, and concentrated on finishing her hair. When she walked out from the changing cubicle the nosy woman was talking confidentially to someone else, both their overweight bodies cushioned together in their white fitness club-issue towels.

‘She used to be a police lieutenant, drunk on duty, that was what I was told. She knows the gym instructor and he told me that...’

Lorraine let her cubicle door bang hard and they whipped round like startled hamsters. She would have liked to tell them where she would like to ram the hairdryer but she didn’t. She said nothing. And all the tension her exercise and sauna had relaxed from her body was back. By the time she passed through reception she was wired and angry.

Arthur, the gym instructor, gave her a friendly grin and called out, ‘Goodnight.’

Lorraine kept on walking.

Some friend he’d turned out to be. She decided she would not come back. She just knew she had better head directly for home instead of getting Rosie’s cider because that feeling of wanting a real drink was growing out of her control.

Three bottles of Evian water downed between them, Phyllis and Rosie were sitting in a small café. Only it wasn’t Rosie spilling out her tales of woe, it was Phyllis, and she had Rosie’s rapt attention.

‘I suppose in some ways I stayed on because it was all so dreadful and I keep on saying to myself, “When it’s all over, I’ll leave.” But it’s not over, maybe it never will be. Sometimes it gets so bad with her I just don’t think I can take any more of it. She is so demanding, expecting me to be ready to drop whatever I am doing any time of day or night. If she wakes up at four in the morning, she can’t be bothered to use the intercom, she just screams my name. Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat because I think I’ve heard her shrieking for me, and other times, when she’s very sick because she’s taken so many pills to sleep, I just get rigid with fear and all I do is feel her pulse to see if she’s still breathing. It’s a wretched, terrible time for all concerned, a tragedy really...’

Rosie took a big breath. ‘I used to see all her movies.’

Phyllis poured the rest of the Evian into her glass.

‘“Used to” being the operative words. She hasn’t made a movie for maybe fifteen years.’

Rosie leaned closer to Phyllis. ‘Why, why do you take it? Is it the salary? Oh, I’m sorry, that was rude, you don’t have to answer that, I’m sorry.’

Phyllis pursed her lips, becoming defensive. ‘No, no, it’s not the salary, believe me, and lately we’ve not travelled the way we used to, she’s hardly left the house.’

Rosie nodded. ‘Yeah, I guess it must be awful.’

‘It is, every time the phone rings. Not that she answers, just screams for me to do it, and so I get all tensed up, over and over again, hoping for news and afraid it will be bad, the worst... She was such a pretty girl.’ Phyllis started to sniffle, opening her purse to take out a small lace handkerchief. Rosie noticed it was a very expensive suede-lined purse, with a gold chain threaded with leather for a strap. ‘I’m so sorry to get like this, but I don’t have many friends, no one to really talk to. That’s why since I joined AA, it’s meant so much to me, you know. And Jake, he’s such a dear man, he’s been wonderful.’

‘Oh yeah, I know, he’s a godsend to me too. Would you like another glass of water, Phyllis? Or we could go on to something stronger, like apple juice?’

Lorraine was waiting to apologize to Rosie when she heard heavy footsteps on the stairs leading up to the apartment.

‘Rosie?’

Jake opened the screen door and then peered in. ‘Nope, it’s me. She’s not here then?’

‘Nope.’

‘I’ll drive around, see if I can find her. She took it hard about the business folding.’

Lorraine lit a cigarette. ‘Yeah, well, I’m not out celebratin’ myself, Jake, but one of us has got to earn the rent.’

‘You’re right, you’re right. So stay put, I’ll drive around.’

‘Was she at the meeting?’ Lorraine asked with just a tinge of concern.

‘Outside it, I left her with Phyllis whatever her name is. I just hope the two of them aren’t out some place tying on a load. See ya.’

Her heart sank when not long after Jake had left she heard a bellow from the street and then Rosie’s footfalls. The small apartment, which only had one bedroom, a tiny bathroom and a lounge with a kitchen crammed into a corner annexe, was on the second floor of an old house on Marengo Avenue. The apartment below was occupied by an ever-growing family of Hispanics. Luckily, they created much more noise themselves, their radio and TV sometimes turned up so loud you could hardly hear yourself speak; anyone else having to live beneath the thunder of Rosie’s footsteps would have had a nervous breakdown.

‘Hey! You won’t believe what I got to tell you.’ Rosie’s cheeks were flushed pink with the exertion of hurrying home. She gasped for breath.

‘Rosie, how much have you had?’