Джеймс Кейн - Root of His Evil [= Shameless]

I had served rush orders in a crowded cocktail bar with drunks elbowing me from every side and I assure you it is almost impossible to make me drop anything or do something clumsy like spilling a cocktail. That grip on my arm was like iron and it was deliberate. But there was nothing for me to do but get down and begin dabbing at her dress with my handkerchief, then call for a napkin and dry her off as best I could. All that time she talked a mile a minute, loudly proclaiming that it was all her fault, and that I mustn’t mind, as the dress was an old rag anyhow, but there I was, stooped in front of her, making a holy show of myself when I wanted to be at my best.

It was Mr. Hunt who rescued me. He lifted me to my feet, patted my arm and drew me aside. Then for the first time Mrs. Harris became shrill. “But, Bernie, I’m wringing wet! Just look at my dress!”

“That’s what we have dry cleaners for.”

“And that’s what we have such dresses for.” It was Mrs. Hunt who said this, very grimly. “That’s the third cocktail that’s been spilled on it this year. Or was it a Tom Collins last time?”

Mrs. Harris’ answer to this was to make a speech in which she said she didn’t know what people were coming to, the ill-bred way they got drunk and spilled drinks all over her, but Mrs. Hunt took me to another part of the room and that seemed to be the end of it. She gave me a cocktail and mumbled: “Don’t worry about her dress. It’s last color, quick-drying crepe, bought especially to have cocktails spilled on it and get women down on their knees and make them feel foolish. You behaved very well and you needn’t give it a thought.”

The man who had been passing cocktails came up just then and said: “She’s here, Mrs. Hunt.”

“Oh. Then you’d better take out some of those glasses and tell her to wash them up as quickly as she can, but don’t wait for her to get through with them. You come back to keep things moving here, and have her bring them in as soon as they’re ready.”

“Yes, Mrs. Hunt.”

She turned to me. “I did something I rarely do. I borrowed a maid from Mrs. Norris, but of course the children had to be taken to the park as usual and she has only now arrived — when it’s almost all over.”

“It’s all been going beautifully.”

“It’s been going somehow, but I hate that clutter of used glasses at a cocktail party. The very idea that I might have been drinking out of somebody else’s glass makes me squirm, and I don’t see why my guests should feel differently.”

It seemed like a trifling thing at the time but only too often in the weeks that followed I wished bitterly that one of the children had got lost in the park so that maid never arrived.

Mr. Hunt had disappeared, and now came up from downstairs and hurried over to his wife. “What do we do now?”

“What is it, Bernie?”

“The reporters and photographers. They’re lined up outside of the house three deep trying to get in and Gus is having a hard time to keep them out.”

“You’d better call an officer.”

He thought a moment, then said: “I wonder...”

She looked at him very intently and he rubbed his chin and thought a few moments. Then he said: “If that angelic mother of yours could be induced to pose for a few pictures with Grant and Carrie I have an idea this thing could be washed up right now.”

“That’ll never work.”

“What the hell? Are you going to keep it up forever? She’s married to him, she’s been a perfectly delightful guest, she’s all right. The thing to do is to tap this newspaper stuff and let some of the pressure off. Having all three of their pictures taken will turn the trick and then these headlines will die off so fast it’ll amaze you.”

Mrs. Hunt rather absent-mindedly put her arm around me and shook her head. “I’m not thinking about her. She’s been fine, and I take back all I said about her and—” with a little pat to me — “to her. But you can’t trust mother. She’ll pull something—”

“What can she pull?”

“She can pull nonsense you and I could never think of, and I’m warning you, you may be starting something that’ll be dreadful before you get through with it.”

“In these things I have a gift.”

He went over to Mrs. Harris, who by now had decided to be in a gay mood again, and said something to her. She turned and came over to me, her arms outstretched, which seemed to be her regular way of approaching anybody. “But, darling, I’d simply love to. Why, of course — I had no idea the photographers were out there or I would have suggested it myself.”

So Mr. Hunt went downstairs and next thing the photographers and reporters were trooping in, all very noisy and impudent, and a buzz of excited talk was going around the room and Mr. Hunt was asking everybody to stand back a little to give the photographers a chance. So then Grant came over and put his arm around his mother and had tears in his eyes and I didn’t believe for a second that she was as sweet as she pretended to be, but I was like Mr. Hunt: even if she didn’t like me, having the picture taken would probably end all these terrible things in the newspapers, because if she accepted me, at any rate publicly, there couldn’t be much left for the newspapers to say.

So we all lined up. At first the photographers wanted me in the middle, then they changed their minds and put Mrs. Harris in the middle, and then finally they decided it would be better with Grant in the middle, his arm around each of us. So then they told us to smile and yelled “hold it,” and I was standing there with the grin pasted patiently on my face, when all of a sudden there was the most awful crash and everybody jumped and looked around.

It seemed a year before my mind could comprehend that who I was looking at was Lula Schultz, the girl who had shared the room with me at the Hotel Hutton and who had disappeared after we had the big quarrel over my staying out with Grant. She was the maid who had arrived late, and I found out later that after she quit her job at Karb’s she had taken a place as a servant with Mrs. Norris. However, I didn’t know any of that then, and all I was aware of was the mess on the floor and Lula staring at me and all the rest of them staring at the two of us. Then a reporter seemed to sense something, for he held up his hand to the photographers and for a moment there was absolute silence. Then Lula contributed her brilliant remark: “Well, for crying out loud, Carrie, where did you come from?”

Then the photographers woke up and for a minute or more it was like a madhouse, with the cameras clicking first at Lula, standing there with the tray, the glasses all over the floor in front of her, then at me, then at Mrs. Harris and Grant, and it later turned out that one or two of them had got over into a corner to shoot the whole scene. All while they were taking pictures they were yelling at us in the most disrespectful way. Then Mr. Humt tried to take command and get Lula out of there and the mess cleared away, but all she would do was stand and gape and gabble at me that she seen all about it in the papers but she hoped she’d drop dead if she had any idea it was the same party she had been sent over to work at. She spoke terrible grammar, which is something I have always tried to avoid.

I was furious enough to break the tray over her head, but there was only one thing for me to do and I gritted my teeth and did it. I went over and shook hands with her as calmly as though it were nothing at all. That was when Mrs. Harris screeched: “Isn’t she simply a dear! And mustn’t she be thrilled! Imagine — an old friend from the slums and meeting her here! It’s such a small world!”