Dead Babies Read Online Free PDF Page B

but soon got not to mind it), told her about his life, and made high-powered love to her two or three times a night. And for two months Lucy paid no rent.
    On the fifty-sixth evening Mitzi and Serena were waiting by the intercom when Andy let himself in. "Who're you seeing tonight—Louis Quinze?" he said, sweeping past them into the sitting room, where he was hushedly informed by Lucy that her flatmates' plans for the evening might well have fallen through and that he wasn't to vex them further, particularly in view of the fact that she was a little bit behind with the rent. But Adorno, biting the screwtop from a double liter of wine as he flicked off the television and picked up the guitar, wasn't listening; he had seen "the plastic trio" (his sobriquet for Lucy's friends) only once or twice and had betrayed no interest in them whatever. Ten minutes later the intercom whined, there was renewed activity in the hall, and Andy peered round to see a tiny Burmese gentleman dressed in gray military uniform. "Fucking with : soldiers now, are they?" he said. The midget relayed to Mitzi and Serena someone's compliments and apologies and held up a huge floral wreath over which the two girls fluttered apathetically.
    Swearing and grumbling, the girls staggered in from the hall. Mitzi made for the telephone as Serena flopped down splay-legged in an armchair. "What's with the midge?" Andy asked. "Here, try this wine." Serena shook her head. "Euch," said Mitzi. Andy looked curiously at Lucy before dipping his head in fierce accompaniment to his guitar.
    "Look," Mitzi told the telephone, "if you don't want to fuck just say so. It'll be a good fuck. It'll be a very good fuck." The telephone replied but Mitzi, who was in the process of accepting a cigarette and a light from Serena, could respond only with an angry hum of negation. "No—no—no cash! Two good fucks just for something to do. Yeah, Serena's here, so are there any, you know, is that . . . Heimito, or whatever the hell his name is . . . ? Oh no, oh no—you send a cab. . . ." Mitzi appeared to be on the point of authentic fury when something the telephone said calmed her. "Okay, okay, hon. Come get us. Ciaow." She hung up, spreading her palms at Serena, who shrugged.
"Everything together?" asked Lucy.
Mitzi must have caught irony in Lucy's tone. "Yeah," she said, "and you better get yourself together pretty soon. This place doesn't run on buttons."
A faraway murmur quite suddenly became a roar as the sound of a low-flying helicopter battered against the windows before receding again into the distance.
"Who was that?" snapped Mitzi. "Bob?"
Parting the curtains, Serena consulted her watch. "Uh-uh. Too early. Must be Gary."
"Right. He said he'd be going late this weekend. Christ, that Jap."
"No, he was from Burma, wasn't he?"
"Yeah, well what the fuck difference does it make?" asked Mitzi.
"Not a hell of a lot."
Simultaneously the girls became aware that Andy's strumming had ceased, that Andy was staring at Lucy, that Lucy had curled up on her chair and was swaying from side to side with her arms wrapped tightly round herself. Mitzi and Serena stirred, but Andy directed his gaze at them with such venomous contempt that they were both silenced by a rush of physical fear.
Andy shuddered. Then, with a relaxed, almost negligent wave of his arm, he splintered the guitar on the steel coffee table in front of him. "Lucy," he said, when the silence had quietened, "is this the way you are? Are you like this?" He sighed. "Lucy, go upstairs and pack a bag and come home with me. If you owe these dogs money, I'll pay it. If you're in trouble, I'll take care of it. Pack a bag and let's get the fuck out of here."
Lucy crumpled a bit into her chair, of course, saddened perceptibly and grew smaller and shook her head in token distraction; but she knew she wasn't going anywhere. She shook her head.
Awed as much by his offer as the fact that Lucy had refused it, Andy stood up, toyed momentarily with