Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld [65]
“We’d be delighted, wouldn’t we, dear?” Mrs. Meloney asked Colette.
“Look at Samuels,” said Brighton, vexed. “He wants me, as usual. Will you excuse me, ladies?”
“What a prepossessing man,” declared Mrs. Meloney as Brighton went to his secretary, who draped a coat over his employer’s shoulders and whispered in his ear. Most of the women in attendance remained in the church, trading information about which radium products they liked best. “He has his eye on you, my dear,” Mrs. Meloney added.
“On me?” said Colette. “No—on you, surely, Mrs. Meloney.”
“Tush—what am I? An old lady. Look at the watch he gave you. It’s diamond. Have you any idea what such a thing is worth?”
“I can’t keep it,” confided Colette.
“Why on earth not?” the excitable Mrs. Meloney replied.
“It’s very wrong to use radium on a watch face, Mrs. Meloney. And please, you mustn’t encourage these women to use radium cosmetics.”
“Don’t tell me you’re a radio-skeptic, dear. My husband is a radio-skeptic of the worst sort, but I assure you my Radior night cream has taken a decade off my face. I can see it, even if he can’t.”
“It’s the cost,” said Colette. “Companies like Radior have made radium unaffordable to scientists.”
“Tush—my night cream is only ninety-nine cents.”
“Of course, Mrs. Meloney, but because so many women pay that ninety-nine cents, a gram of radium now costs over a hundred thousand dollars.”
“I’m afraid you scientists rarely have a firm grasp of economics, dear. The cost of radium determines the price of my Radior night cream, not the reverse.”
“No, Mrs. Meloney. Think of all the people buying radium cosmetics and radium watches. The more those products are sold, the less radium there is in the world, and the more precious it becomes.”
“You’re making my head spin, Miss Rousseau. All I know is that our Fund is off to a flying start. Let’s concentrate on that, shall we?”
“I can’t tell you how important this is,” said Colette. “There’s so little radium. Companies like Mr. Brighton’s consume over ninety percent of it. They leave next to nothing for science and medicine. What they do leave is too expensive to afford. Thousands of people dying from cancer today will never be treated with radium simply because of the cost. These companies are killing people—literally killing people. I tried to explain that to Mr. Brighton when we visited his plant, but I don’t think he was listening.”
“I certainly hope not,” said Mrs. Meloney. “He’ll withdraw his donation. Can’t you be a little nicer to the dear man? Why, I daresay he’d fund the entire gram of radium himself if you would just be kind to him.”
A jovial Mr. Brighton returned to bid them adieu, bowing this way and that. “Samuels says I must be off. Don’t forget, Miss Rousseau: you’ve promised me Washington.” He extended his elbow to the older woman. “Will you escort me to the door, Mrs. Meloney?”
“Why, Mr. Brighton—people will think we’ve just been married,” said Mrs. Meloney.
“Very well,” said Brighton, “then both you ladies must escort me.”
Colette tried to decline this invitation, but Mrs. Meloney wouldn’t hear of it. Descending from the chancel by a short flight of steps, the three made their way down the central aisle of the nave, at the far end of which Brighton’s assistant, Samuels, was handing out products to a small crowd of appreciative, departing ladies.
“You uttered the nefarious name of Radior,” Brighton explained to Mrs. Meloney. “I couldn’t let the competition be advertised without a response. We’ve just started our own line of eye shade. Luminous, of course—as you can see.”
A number of ladies had tried on the shadow and mascara they had received, creating paired circles of phosphorescence that turned the dark portal of the church into a kind of grotto from which nocturnal birds or beasts seemed to peer out. Mrs. Meloney apologized to Brighton: she’d had no idea that his company had entered the cosmetics line; she would be sure to mention