Women In The Shadow. Ann Bannon

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      Beebo threw a wet dishcloth at him.

      “I’m going to bed,” Laura announced abruptly.

      “What’s the matter, baby, can’t you take it?”

      “Enough is too much, that’s all.”

      “Enough of what?”

      “Of you!”

      Beebo turned a cynical face to Jack “That means I can sleep on the couch tonight,” she said. “Too bad. I was just getting used to the bed again….” She hiccuped, and smiled sadly. “Don’t you think we make an ideal couple, Laura and me?”

      “Inspirational,” Jack said. “They should serialize you in all the women’s magazines. Give you a free honeymoon in Jersey City.”

      “Knowing us as well as you do, Doctor,” Beebo said, and Laura, her teeth clenched, stood waiting in the doorway to hear what she was going to say, “what would you recommend in our case?”

      “Nothing. It’s hopeless. Go home and die, you’ll feel better,” he said

      “Don’t say that.” Suddenly Beebo wasn’t kidding.

      “All right. I won’t say it. I retract my statement.”

      “Revise it?”

      “God, in my condition?” he said doubtfully. “Well … I’ll try. Let’s see … My friends, the patient is dead of the wrong disease. The operation was a success. There is only one remedy.”

      “What’s that?” Laura asked him.

      “Bury the doctor. Oops, I got that one wrong too. Excuse me, ladies. I mean, marry the doctor. Laura, will you marry me?”

      “No.” She smiled at him.

      “I’m an alcoholic,” he offered, as if that might persuade her.

      “You’re damn near as irresistible as I am, Jackson,” Beebo said. She said it bitterly, and the tone of her voice turned Laura on her heel and sent her out of the room to bed. Beebo went to the open kitchen door and leaned unsteadily on it.

      “Laura, you’re a bitch!” she called after her. “Laura, baby, I hate you! I hate you! Listen to me!” She waited while Laura slammed the door behind her and then stood with her head bowed. Finally she looked up and whispered, “I love you, baby.”

      She turned back to Jack, who had finished the coffee and was now drinking out of the whiskey bottle without bothering with a glass. “What do you do with a girl like that?” she asked.

      Jack shrugged. “Take the lock off the bedroom door.”

      “I already did.”

      “Didn’t work?”

      “Worked swell. She made me sleep on the couch for five days.”

      “Why do you put up with it?”

      “Why did you? It was your turn not so long ago, friend.”

      “Because you’re crazy blind in love.” He looked toward her out of unfocused eyes. Jack’s body got very intoxicated when he drank heavily, but his mind did not. It was a curious situation and it produced bitter wisdom, sometimes witty and more often painful.

      Beebo slumped in a chair and put her hands tight over her face. Some moments passed in silence before Jack realized she was crying. “I’m a fool,” she whispered. “I drink too much, she’s right. I always did. And now I’ve got her doing it.”

      “Don’t be a martyr, Beebo. It’s unbecoming.”

      “I’m no martyr, damn it. I just see how unhappy she is, how she is dying to get away from me, and then I see her brighten up when she’s had a couple, and I can only think one thing: I’m doing it to her. That’s my contribution to Laura’s life. And I love her so. I love her so.” And the tears spilled over her cheeks again.

      Jack took one last drink and then left the bottle sitting in the sink. He said, “I love her too. I wish I could help.”

      “You can. Quit proposing to her.”

      “You think I should?”

      “Never mind what I think. It’s unprintable. I’m just telling you, quit proposing to her.”

      “She’ll never say yes,” he said mournfully. “So I don’t see that it matters.”

      “That’s not the point, Jackson. I don’t like it.”

      “I’m sorry, I can’t help it.”

      “Jack, you don’t want to get married.”

      “I know. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”

      “What would you do if she did say yes?”

      “Marry her.”

      “Why?”

      “I love her.”

      “Drivel! You love me. Marry me.”

      “I could live with her, but not with you,” he said. “I love her very much. I love her terribly.”

      “That’s not the reason you want to marry her. You can love her unmarried as well as not. So what’s the real reason? Come on.”

      If he had not been so drunk he would probably never have said it.

      “I want a child,” he admitted suddenly, quietly.

      Beebo was too startled to answer him for a moment. Then she began to laugh. “You!” she exclaimed. “You! Jack Mann, the homosexual’s homosexual. Dandling a fat rosy baby on his knee. Father Jack. Oh, God!” And she doubled up in laughter.

      Jack stood in front of her, the faintest sad smile on his face. “It would be a girl,” he mused. “She’d have long pale hair, like Laura.”

      “And horn-rimmed glasses like her old man.”

      “And she’d be bright and sweet and loving.”

      “With dames, anyway.”

      “With me.”

      “Oh, God! All this and incest, too!” And Beebo’s laughter, cruel and helpless, silenced him suddenly. He couldn’t be angry, she meant no harm. She was writhing in a net of misery and it eased the pain when she could tease. But the lovely child of his dreams went back to hide in the secret places of his heart.

      After a while Beebo stopped laughing and asked, “Why a girl?”

      “Why not?”

      “You’re gay. Don’t you want a pretty little boy to play with?”

СКАЧАТЬ