Флетчер Флора - Take Me Home

“I didn’t come on a social call. Maybe, after you’ve heard me, you won’t want to give me a cocktail.”

“You sound very grim. Is something wrong?”

“Something’s wrong, all right, but I’m not sure what it is. That’s what I’d like to find out.”

“Do you know what I think? I think you really need a cocktail, and so do I. I like a martini myself. Will that do for you?”

“Whatever you like.”

“I’ll get some ice. Excuse me, please.”

She went into the kitchen, which he could not see, and returned shortly with ice. She mixed gin and vermouth in a tall frosted glass and stirred it briefly with a glass rod. After pouring the martinis and handing him one, she sat down on a sofa and crossed her knees, holding her own glass with the fingertips of both hands so that it brushed her lips below her nostrils, as if it were a snifter of brandy and she were breathing the aroma.

“I wish you would sit down and quit looking so angry,” she said. “You look on the verge of attacking me. I imagine Ivy has been telling you the most terrible things about me, however, and so it’s quite understandable. Isn’t that right? Hasn’t Ivy been telling you things?”

He sat down facing her, feeling in his joints an unusual awkwardness. The glass he held seemed so fragile in his thick fingers that he had the notion that he must handle it with the greatest care to avoid crushing it inadvertently. “What do you think she’s been telling me?” he said.

“I think, for one thing, that she probably told you that I tried to kill her. Did she?”

“Yes. Did you?”

“Do you think, if I did, that I’d be fool enough to admit it?”

“No.”

“Of course not. But, to answer your question, I didn’t. Not that there’s any point in saying so. You’ll believe whatever you wish.”

“What made you assume at once that she told me you tried to kill her?”

“Because she accused me of it when she returned. Truly a fantastic story. I was supposed to have given her an overdose of sedative, and she was able to save herself only by walking and walking in the streets until she was exhausted. It was an exceptionally brilliant bit of fiction, even for Ivy. Is that the same story she told you, or did she develop a variation?”

“That’s the one.”

“Do you believe it?”

“I don’t know.”

“I shan’t blame you if you do. Ivy can be very convincing. I’ve been deceived myself many times.

“Do you mean that it’s only her imagination? That she has delusions?”

“No. I don’t mean anything of the sort.” Lila tipped her glass against her lips and smiled at him across it. She was clearly in perfectly good humor. “I mean that she’s a deliberate liar. She’s one of the most accomplished and conscienceless little liars that it’s possible to imagine.”

“On the other hand, perhaps it’s you who are the deliberate liar.”

“Think as you wish. I’m only trying to warn you. If you are determined to get yourself involved with Ivy, as you seem to be, you had better know her for what she is.”

“Why should she accuse you of trying to murder her if you didn’t, or if she didn’t at least think you did?”

“Because she’s malicious. She wanted to say the most damaging thing about me that she could think to say. I’m trying to tell you that she’s a psychopathic liar. A psychopathic personality. Do you know what a psychopathic personality is? If you do, you know what Ivy is. She has no more sense of moral values than a cat. She is absolutely incapable of love or gratitude or responsibility or remorse. She would do anything or say anything without regard for any person on earth, so long as it suited her purpose. She can also be extremely ingratiating when she pleases, as you have surely learned. Would you like another martini? Why don’t you mix another for each of us?” He looked with surprise into his glass to see that it was empty. He had not been aware of drinking, and he thought he must have spilled the contents without knowing it, but there was no sign of it on himself or the carpet. He had drunk the martini, all right, and he did badly want another, and so he got up and mixed more gin and vermouth and filled his glass and hers.

“It would make it much easier for us to talk if you sat beside me on the sofa,” she said. “Don’t you agree?”

“Not particularly.”

“Oh, please. There’s nothing to be gained by being antagonistic. You obviously didn’t come here to accuse me of anything. You can’t make up your mind about Ivy, and you think I might be able to help you. If we’re going to be confidential, we may as well get into position for it.”

He sat down beside her, and she smiled and reacted over with her free hand and patted him on the knee in a gesture of approval. It seemed to him now entirely incredible that this serene and lovely woman had ever even considered killing anyone, let alone attempting it, and it seemed equally incredible that she had been a partner in a deviant relationship. Quite the contrary, allowing for the influence of his second martini, he thought that he could sense beneath her serenity a readiness to respond to the normal incitements to love.

“Are you willing to tell me the truth?” he said.

“Well, I’m resigned to it. What do you want me to say?”

“I warn you that I’m in no mood for euphemisms.”

“Neither am I. I never am. I prefer to speak plainly, and I know very well what’s on your mind. After all, you’re quite obviously neither an innocent nor a pervert. You could hardly have taken Ivy to stay with you without learning what she is.”

“She told me in the beginning.”

“Really? How clever of Ivy. And knowing this, you allowed her to stay? You must be either an unusual man or a fool.”

“She was in trouble and had no place to go. I felt sorry for her.”

“I see. You’re compassionate. Genuine compassion is rare in this world, I think. However, don’t believe that Ivy will feel any gratitude for what you do for her, or that it will prevent her from hurting you any way she can if you offend her. You’ve let yourself get into a situation that could become pretty ugly. Or perhaps it already has. I haven’t asked you yet what happened to your face.”

“I cut it shaving.”

“All right. It’s your affair. But if you expect me to tell the truth, you should be willing to do the same.”

“The truth is, Ivy clawed me. The circumstances were probably not quite what you’re thinking, but let it go.”

“Whatever they were, she must have been disturbed by them.”

“She thought I was trying to make love to her, and how disturbing that would be is something you should know.” He thought he saw a glitter of fury in her eyes, but it was so quickly gone, if it had existed at all, that he couldn’t be sure.

“Do you think I’m that way? Did Ivy tell you I was?”

“Did she ever actually say? I don’t believe she did. Anyhow, it was implicit in your relationship.”

“Was it? Is it implicit in yours?”

“Although it’s really none of your business. I don’t mind telling you that that was the source of our trouble. It’s the reason she finally came to hate me. She hates me for rejecting her.”

“In that case, why did you let her stay?”

“Why did you take her in? After all, my responsibility is greater than yours. She’s my cousin. I knew her as a girl. She had no one else to turn to who could understand her and try to help her, and she was better off here than she would have been in some sordid place with her own kind.”

He had eaten little that day, only lunch, and the two martinis were having a strong effect. As if she knew this and approved it, or had perhaps planned it, she got up and mixed a third. When she sat down again beside him, her thigh was brushing his, and he waited for her to move out of contact, but she didn’t. She smiled and lifted her glass in a slight salute. He responded, and they drank together.