The Dud Avocado - Elaine Dundy [100]
It was impossible to resist such a night. No one tried. Peace and harmony, as I said, prevailed throughout a ludicrously happy, ludicrously expensive meal at the Relais de Something near Hendaye. Then we went back to the Club de Caveau, where we’d first met Stefan and where, you might say, it all began. The little Englishman there remembered us kindly. Further celebration. Then we drove up to Béhobie to that other bar and I found I was so mellow I was even able to think about Wheero with hardly a twinge of bitterness.
Then we went up to that great suave hotel on top of Ascain (three star, crossed forks, crossed eyes, the works), and cavorted among the dead dummies.
Then we decided to drop into the Spanish flamenco boite. The lights were down when we got there and the singing and dancing had begun. Undistracted by Wheero, Angela, and the whole hideous holocaust of that other night, I found myself really concentrating on the flamenco. The dancers were very young and supple and sensuous, and the singers, passionately declaiming what the young folk were up to, middle-aged and fat and richly experienced. The contrast was delicious. Sexy beyond words—beyond wahrds, as Angela would say.
I was interested to discover I could be so roused by a floor show. I was beginning to think there must be something wrong with me. I mean I simply don’t know what to do about a Nude Show. I just can’t seem to behave naturally in front of them. The thing is, I don’t get much of a charge out of them in the first place, so any act I put on is bound to be a phony. But I still haven’t discovered what you’re supposed to do. I mean if you stare straight ahead with a bright smile pasted across your face you’re being a prig, and if you look at it critically and say “They’re really not so hot are they?” you’re being jealous, and if you fling yourself into it and say “Oh, golly, doesn’t she have a lovely body” someone looks at you very peculiarly and says “Hmm. You like her do you? That’s very interesting,” and if you just relax and look bored, you’ve committed the greatest crime of all; like looking bored at a bullfight, I imagine. So it was wonderful not to have to worry about whether I was acting sufficiently moved by the flamenco. I was sufficiently moved all right; stirred to the depths of my erotic soul.
The lights went up. We all sighed and smiled and ordered ourselves another round of chartreuse. And then, just as everything was so absolutely apple-jack dandy, our old buddy-buddy the Contessa, that perennial glad rag doll, disentangled herself from the cackling crew at a nearby table and came over to us and sat down. A warm greeting to Larry, brief appraising glances at Bax and Mac, blank stares for Missy and myself, and she was off—jabbering away at Larry exactly as if we weren’t there. Comme d’habitude. Like ole times.
“Does she write?” Mac whispered to me eagerly.
“Only on bathroom walls,” I replied in a perfectly normal tone. “No,” I corrected myself. “As a matter of fact she sculpts. Bathroom sculpture.” I’d found a word for it, anyway.
“You are making a great mistake about that girl friend of yours,” the Contessa was saying tensely to Larry. She might have been talking about me. In fact I thought she was talking about me; I wouldn’t put it past her. “One always enjoys making the acquaintance of any friend of yours, dear boy, but that girl is simply impossible. She is a Professional, no?”
“Don’t be silly,” snapped Larry with a vigor that made me want to cheer. “She’s what they call a crazy mixed-up kid. There’re millions of them. Haven’t you met any before?” I still thought they might be talking about me. “What’s the matter with her anyway?” he asked. “What did she do? I told her to look you up because she didn’t know anyone in Paris and I thought you might help her.” (Naïve,