Clive Barker - The Great and Secret Show

"What are you saying? You're coming here?"

"You owe me dinner, for all the gossip on Vance," she said. "So find somewhere expensive."

"What time are you planning to be here?" he asked her.

"Oh I don't know. About—" With her in mid-sentence he put down the receiver, and grinned at the telephone, thinking of her cursing herself at the other end. The smile dropped from his face when he stood up, however. His head throbbed to beat the band: if he'd emptied that last half-glass he doubted he could have even stood up. He punched Suite Service and ordered up coffee.

"Any juice with that, sir?" came the voice in the kitchen.

"No. Just coffee."

"Eggs, croissant—"

"Oh Jesus, no. No eggs. No nothing. Just coffee."

The idea of sitting down to write was almost as repugnant as the thought of breakfast. He decided instead to contact the woman from the Vance house, Ellen Nguyen, whose address, minus a telephone number, was still in his pocket.

His system jazzed by a substantial caffeine intake he got in the car and drove down to Deerdell. The house, when he finally found it, contrasted forcibly with the woman's workplace on the Hill. It was small, unglamorous and badly in need of repair. Grillo already had his suspicions about the conversation that lay ahead: the disgruntled employee dishing the dirt on her paymaster. On occasion in the past such informants had proved fruitful, though just as often they'd been suppliers of malicious fabrications. In this case he doubted that. Was it because Ellen looked at him with such vulnerability in her open features as she welcomed him in and brewed him a further fix of coffee; or because when her child kept calling from the next room—he was sick with the flu, she explained—each time she returned from tending to him and picked up her story afresh the facts remained consistent; or simply that the story she told not only bruised Buddy Vance's reputation but her own as well? The latter fact, perhaps, more than any of the others, convinced him she was a reliable source. The story told spread the blemishes democratically.

"I was his mistress," she 'explained. "For almost five years. Even when Rochelle was in the house—which wasn't long of course—we used to find ways to be together. Often. I think she knew all along. That's why she got rid of me the first chance she could."

"You're no longer employed up at Coney, then?"

"No. She was just waiting for an excuse to dismiss me, and you provided it."

"Me?" said Grillo. "How?" .

"She said I was flirting with you. Typical that she'd use that kind of reason." Not for the first time in their exchanges Grillo heard a depth of feeling—in this instance, contempt— which the woman's passive demeanor scarcely betrayed. "She judges everyone by her standards," she went on. "And you know what those are."

"No," Grillo said frankly, "I don't."

Ellen looked astonished. "Wait here," she told him. "I don't want Philip listening to all this."

She got up and went to her son's bedroom, spoke a few words to him Grillo didn't hear, then closed the door before coming back to continue her story.

"He's already learned too many words I wish he hadn't, just in one year at school. I want him to have a chance to be...I don't know, innocent? Yes, innocent, if it's only for a little while. The ugly things come along soon enough, don't they?"

"The ugly things?"

"You know: the people who cheat you and betray you. Sex things. Power things."

"Oh sure," Grillo replied. "They come along."

"So I was telling you about Rochelle, right?"

"Yes, you were."

"Well, it's simple enough. Before she married Buddy she was a hooker."

"She was what?"

"You heard right. Why are you so surprised?"

"I don't know. She's so beautiful. There must have been other ways to make a buck."

"She has an expensive habit," Ellen replied. Again, the contempt, mingled with disgust.

"Did Buddy know when he married her?"

"About what? The habits or the hooking?"

"Both."

"I'm sure he did. That's part of why he married her, I guess. See, there's this thick streak of perversity in Buddy. Sorry, I mean there was. I can't quite get over the fact that he's dead."

"It must be extremely difficult talking about this so close to losing him. I'm sorry to put you through it."

"I volunteered, didn't I?" she replied. "I want somebody to know all this. In fact I want everybody to know. It was me he loved, Mr. Grillo. Me he really loved, all those years."

"And I presume you loved him?"

"Oh yes," she said softly. "Very much. He was self-centered, of course, but all men are self-centered, aren't they?" She didn't leave time for Grillo to exclude himself before heading on. "You're all brought up to think the world revolves around you. I make the same mistake with Philip. I can see myself doing it. The difference with Buddy was that for a time at least the world did revolve around him. He was one of the best-loved men in America. For a few years. Everybody knew his face, everyone had his routines by heart. And of course they wanted to know all about his private life."

"So he took a real risk, marrying a woman like Rochelle?"

"I'd say so, wouldn't you? Especially when he was trying to clean up his act, and get one of the networks to give him another show. But there was this streak of perversity, like I said. A lot of the time it was plain self-destructiveness."

"He should have married you," Grillo said.

"He could have done worse," she observed. "He could have done a lot worse." The thought brought a show of feeling that had been conspicuous by its absence through her account of her own place in this. Tears welled in her eyes. At the same moment the boy called from his bedroom. She put her hand to her mouth to stifle her sobs.

"I'll go," said Grillo, getting up. "His name's Philip?"

"Yes," she said, the word almost incoherent.

"I'll take care of him, don't worry."

He left her wiping the tears from beneath her eyes with the heels of her hands. Opening the door to the boy's room, he said:

"Hi, I'm Grillo."

The boy, in whose face his mother's solemn symmetry was much apparent, was sitting up in bed, surrounded by a chaos of toys, crayons and scrawled-upon sheets of paper. The TV was playing in the corner of the room, its cartoon show silent.

"You're Philip, right?"

"Where's Mommy?" the boy wanted to know. He made no bones about being suspicious of Grillo, peering past him for a glimpse of his mother.

"She'll be here in a moment," Grillo reassured him, approaching the bed. The drawings, many of which had slipped from the comforter and were scattered underfoot, all seemed to picture the same bulbous character. Grillo went down on his haunches and picked one of them up. "Who's this?" he asked.

"Balloon Man," Philip replied, gravely.

"Does he have a name?"

"Balloon Man," came the response, with an edge of impatience.

"Is he from the TV?" Grillo asked, studying the multicolored nonsense creature on the page.

"Nope."

"Where's he from then?"

"Out of my head," Philip replied.

"Is he friendly?"

The boy shook his head.

"He bites does he?"

"Only you," came the response.

"That's not very polite," Grillo heard Ellen say. He glanced over his shoulder. She'd made an attempt to conceal her tears but it clearly didn't convince her son, who gave Grillo an accusing look.

"You shouldn't get too close to him," Ellen told Grillo. "He's been really sick, haven't you?"

"I'm OK now."

"No you're not. You're to stay in bed while I take Mr. Grillo to the door."

Grillo stood up, laying the picture on the bed among the other portraits.

"Thank you for showing me the Balloon Man," he said.

Philip made no reply, but returned to his handiwork, coloring another drawing scarlet.