W. MAUGHAM - The Razor's Edge

I had noticed that the proprietor had his eye on us and now he came up.

'You know these people, Sophie?' he asked, addressing her in the familiar second person singular.

'Та gueule,' she laughed drunkenly. 'They're my childhood friends. I'm buying a bottle of champagne for them. And don't you bring us any urine de cheval. Bring us something one can swallow without vomiting.'

'You're drunk, my poor Sophie,' he said.

'To hell with you.'

He went off, glad enough to sell a bottle of champagne - we for safety's sake had been drinking brandy and soda - and Sophie stared at me dully for a moment.

'Who's your friend, Isabel?'

Isabel told her my name.

'Oh? I remember, you came to Chicago once. Bit of a stuffed shirt, aren't you?'

'Maybe,' I smiled.

I had no recollection of her, but that was not surprising, since I had not been to Chicago for more than ten years and had met a great many people then and a great many since.

She was quite tall and, when standing, looked taller still, for she was very thin. She wore a bright green silk blouse, but it was crumpled and spotted, and a short black skirt. Her hair, cut short and loosely curled, but tousled, was brightly hennaed. She was outrageously made up, her cheeks rouged to the eyes, and her eyelids, upper and lower, heavily blued; her eyebrows and eyelashes were thick with mascara and her mouth scarlet with lipstick. Her hands, with their painted nails, were dirty. She looked more of a slut than any woman there and I had a suspicion that she was not only drunk but doped. But one couldn't deny that there was a certain vicious attractiveness about her; she held her head with an arrogant tilt and her make-up accentuated the startling greenness of her eyes. Sodden with drink as she was, she had a bold-faced shamelessness that I could well imagine appealed to all that was base in men. She embraced us in a sardonic smile.

'I can't say you seem so terribly pleased to see me,' she said.

'I heard you were in Paris,' said Isabel lamely, a chilly smile on her face.

'You might have called me. I'm in the phone-book.'

'We haven't been here very long.'

Gray came to the rescue.

'Are you having a good time over here, Sophie?'

'Fine. You went bust, Gray, didn't you?'

His face flushed a deeper red.

'Yes.'

'Tough on you. I guess it's pretty grim in Chicago right now. Lucky for me I got out when I did. For Christ's sake why doesn't that bastard bring us something to drink?'

'He's just coming,' I said, seeing the waiter threading his way through the tables with glasses and wine on a tray.

My remark drew her attention to me.

'My loving in-laws kicked me out of Chicago. Said I was gumming up their f-- reputations.' She giggled savagely. 'I'm a remittance man.'

The champagne came and was poured out. With a shaking hand she raised a glass to her lips.

'To hell with stuffed shirts,' she said. She emptied the glass and glanced at Larry. 'You don't seem to have much to say for yourself, Larry.'

He had been looking at her with an impassive face. He had not taken his eyes off her since she had appeared. He smiled amiably.

'I'm not a very talkative guy.'

The music struck up again and a man came over to us. He was a tallish fellow and well built, with a great hooked nose, a mat of shining black hair, and great sensual lips. He looked like an evil Savonarola. Like most of the men there he wore no collar and his tight-fitting coat was closely buttoned to give him a waist.

'Come on, Sophie. We're going to dance.'

'Go away. I'm busy. Can't you see I'm with friends?'

' J' m'en fous de tes amis. To hell with your friends. You're dancing.'

He took hold of her arm but she snatched it away.

'Fous-moi lapaix, espece de con,' she cried, with sudden violence.

'Merde.'

'Mange.'

Gray did not understand what they were saying, but I saw that Isabel, with that strange knowledge of obscenity that the most virtuous woman seems to possess, understood perfectly, and her face went hard with a frown of disgust. The man raised his arm with his hand open, the horny hand of a workman, and was about to slap her, when Gray half raised himself from his chair.

'Allaiz vous ong,' he shouted, with his execrable accent.

The man stopped and threw Gray a furious glance.

'Take care, Coco,' said Sophie, with a bitter laugh. 'He'll lay you out cold.'

The man took in Gray's great height and weight and strength. He shrugged his shoulders sullenly and, throwing a filthy word at us, slunk off. Sophie giggled drunkenly. The rest of us were silent. I refilled her glass.

'You living in Paris, Larry?' she asked after she had drained it.

'For the present.'

It's always difficult to make conversation with a drunk, and there's no denying it, the sober are at a disadvantage with him. We went on talking for a few minutes in a dreary, embarrassed way. Then Sophie pushed back her chair.

'If I don't go back to my boy friend he'll be as mad as hell. He's a sulky brute, but Christ, he's a good screw.' She staggered to her feet. 'So long, folks. Come again. I'm here every night.'

She pushed her way through the dancers and we lost sight of her in the crowd. I almost laughed at the icy scorn on Isabel's classic features. None of us said a word.

'This is a foul place,' said Isabel suddenly. 'Let's go.'

I paid for our drinks and for Sophie's champagne and we trooped out. The crowd was on the dance floor and we got out without remark. It was after two, and to my mind time to go to bed, but Gray said he was hungry, so I suggested that we should go to Graf's in Montmartre and get something to eat. We were silent as we drove up. I sat beside Gray to direct him. We reached the garish restaurant. There were still people sitting on the terrace. We went in and ordered bacon and eggs and beer. Isabel, outwardly at least, had regained her composure. She congratulated me, somewhat ironically perhaps, on my acquaintance with the more disreputable parts of Paris.

'You asked for it,' I said.

'I've thoroughly enjoyed myself. I've had a grand evening.'

'Hell,' said Gray. 'It stank. And Sophie.'

Isabel shrugged an indifferent shoulder.

'D'you remember her at all?' she asked me. 'She sat next to you the first night you came to dinner with us. She hadn't got that awful red hair then. Its natural colour is dingy beige.'

I threw my mind back. I had a recollection of a very young girl with blue eyes that were almost green and an attractive tilt to her head. Not pretty, but fresh and ingenuous with a mixture of shyness and pertness that I found amusing.

'Of course I remember. I liked her name. I had an aunt called Sophie.'

'She married a boy called Bob Macdonald.'

'Nice fellow,' said Gray.

'He was one of the best-looking boys I ever saw. I never understood what he saw in her. She married just after I did. Her parents were divorced and her mother married a Standard Oil man in China. She lived with her father's people at Marvin and we used to see a lot of her then, but after she married she dropped out of our crowd somehow. Bob Macdonald was a lawyer, but he wasn't making much money, and they had a walk-up apartment on the North Side. But it wasn't that. They didn't want to see anybody. I never saw two people so crazy about one another. Even after they'd been married two or three years and had a baby they'd go to the pictures and he'd sit with his arm round her waist and she with her head on his shoulder just like lovers. They were quite a joke in Chicago.'

Larry listened to what Isabel said, but made no comment. His face was inscrutable.

'What happened then?' I asked.

'One night they were driving back to Chicago in a little open car of theirs, and they had the baby with them. They always had to take the baby along because they hadn't any help. Sophie did everything herself, and, anyway, they worshipped it. And a bunch of drunks in a great sedan driving at eighty miles an hour crashed into them head on. Bob and the baby were killed outright, but Sophie only had concussion and a rib or two broken. They kept it from her as long as they could that Bob and the baby were dead, but at last they had to tell her. They say it was awful. She nearly went crazy. She shrieked the place down. They had to watch her night and day and once she nearly succeeded in jumping out of the window. Of course we did all we could, but she seemed to hate us. After she came out of the hospital they put her in a sanatorium and she was there for months.'