The Dud Avocado - Elaine Dundy [82]
So then Larry said, “Christ, the trouble with you, Gorce, is that you’ve got no inner peace.” So I said, he was a fine one to talk. I said it was all right for him to have inner peace, in the circumstances, but what about me? I could go drown myself for all he cared. And then I lost my temper and said that he’d got me into this and he was damn well going to get me out of it. So then he turned wearily to Bax and said, “O.K. Take her to Biarritz. Give her the bright lights.” And Bax said quickly sure, sure, he’d be glad to, anything, anything, and I felt like such a fool, but anyway I went upstairs and got out of my jeans and put on a dress.
Then Bax and I drove over to Biarritz; and we almost didn’t get into the Casino because I hadn’t got a passport. We finally signed a paper both swearing that I was over twenty-one and they let us through.
I’d never gambled before.
Christ, it’s boring. I don’t know what I thought it would be like, but I thought it would at least be more convivial. I mean you just sit there putting down chips and nobody speaks to anybody else. I played roulette because that was the only one I could understand. I lost all the time. Bax, standing around making all kinds of disapproving noises, only had the effect of egging me on to further disasters. So now I’ve lost my whole allowance for this month and will have to ask Bax for money every time I want to buy something, even if it’s only something cheap like sun-tan oil.
Yes! Sun-tan oil! That’s what I said. Because—miracle of miracles—the sun has finally come out.
I can’t help feeling that it’s entirely due to me that our luck has broken. I mean the whole episode at the Casino had such a discouraging effect on Bax that he just wanted to slouch on back to the villa as quickly as possible. But now that I’d really really hit rock bottom I found myself full of bounce.
So I talked him into taking me to a night club and we found this divinely sympathique little cave, all barrels and dripping candlewax, called the Club de Caveau. It was practically empty when we came in, and the proprietor, a gnarled little Englishman who’s lived in France so long he speaks Cockney with a French accent, was terribly sweet to us. Asked us who we were and what we were doing down there, and so on. Promised us that the rain would stop the next day (it did). Said it was off season, of course, so nothing much was going on for the time being, except for a couple of American battleships anchored off the coast for maneuvers, and an Anglo-American-Franco-Spanish company, who was setting up to shoot a film about a Bullfighter right near us in a little village. He said the Co-ordinating Director and the Art Director came into the club every night along about this time and as I was an actress, he’d sort of see that I got to meet them if I liked. I almost fell off the bar stool for joy.
Sure enough, dead on schedule, who should come rolling into the place but the Art Director (Italian) and the Co-ordinating Director (Hungarian) of this Anglo-American-Franco-Spanish film company. Gosh, they were nice. The Co-ordinating Director especially—Stefan Something-or-other—is a great charmboat in a twinkling, gray-haired, pink and paunchy way. I just love sexy fat men. I really do. They make me feel so—oh gosh I don’t know—so feminine. Anyway, he’s a real jazzy kid, this Stefan. Full of beans. And we hit it off right away. Almost before we’d maneuvered ourselves into position, he said he was sure there’d be something in the film for both Bax and me. Bax said firmly that I was the one that acted, not him, but Stefan wouldn’t hear of it. He said naw, we were both to come down to the village in exactly ten days time to meet the Casting Director, and he’d have it all sewn up for us. Made us promise we would. He uses this mock-American accent, makes fun of himself and everyone the whole time, but I know he means it about the movie. Anyway, I’m going to show up. “I’m crazy about these two kids here. A couple of real sweet youngsters,” he confided to the proprietor