Page 20 of Lost Souls
“Er… yeah. Right. You got it. How freaky is that? Oh – and I have a prostate problem. PSA up the kazoo!”
The young, rejected wannabe star is clearly offended. Wrapping the sheet back firmly and semi-modestly around her, she turns away.
“Fine. Fine. I have no idea what that is, probably something American, but I’ll go then. Oh, Arnie…”
“Yeah?”
She leans into him again, and he can smell the intoxicatingly cheap, mass-produced scent in which she appears to have drenched herself. “If you change yourmind…?”
“Yeah?”
Rosie, a woman and artiste scorned, deftly picks up the heavy brass coal scuttle from the olde English fireplace and hangs it where his designer-pants are tightest. He winces in pain.
“Light your own fire.”
“Good line!” he manages to grunt, before collapsing at the side of the newly vacated bed.
Chapter Ten
We learn the value of things more in their loss than in their enjoyment.
(Latin proverb)
The two elderlygentlemen lean on their walking frames outside the geriatric ward of the hospital, passing the time of day. Sadly, their bodies have long since begun to let them down. Yet it is their eyes that they believe are particularly betraying them this sunny California morning when they glimpse the apparition moving towards them at some speed down the long corridor. Statuesque, clad head to toe in defiant scarlet, the woman walks purposefully past them on her extraordinarily high heels, a swaying, short-skirted hip just clipping one of the men’s metallic corners.
“Hey!” cries the frailer of the two patients in delight. “Weren’t you Melisande?”
“Still am, pops!” she replies, without breaking stride.
The old men smile, relieved that whilst the flesh may be dormant, the horny mind never sleeps.
When Melisande arrives in Arnie’s room, the bed is neatly made-up and patently untenanted. The same nurse who had the pleasure of meeting her a couple of days earlier is straightening the pillows. For a moment, Melisande pauses, just staring around her. It seems like the right room, but don’t they all look the same? It’s hardly the Beverley Hills Hotel, and even porn goddesses can make mistakes. No, she tells herself, this is definitely the same room in which she last saw the little rat all tubed-up and ready to go.
“Oh my God!” she cries, sinking to her knees, which isn’t the simplest posture to manage, in her figure-clenching dress and all those years of bodily wear and tear.
“Arnie… my husband. He…”
“He’s gone,” says the nurse, whose name tag readsEndora. “Checked out.”
“Gone? Checked out?” The megastar grips the woman with both talons. “Oh, Encino. H-he… can’t have…”
“Day before yesterday. And it’s Endora. Like inBewitched.”
“Whatever… my eyes are too full of tears.” Melisande suddenly goes into full grieving-widow mode, which curiously involves a certain amount of nifty unbuttoning, as if the venue – so resonant of earlier triumphs – has sparked off a Pavlovian response. “My poor, sweet Arnie! The love of my life! The man to whom I owe everything. Thank God I’ve got the entire portfolio of his assets toremind me of him.” She is already speed-dialling on her phone – “Lazlo, he’s dead; get the will into probate now!” – when the nurse stops her.
“No, honey. Sorry to break this to you, but he’s not dead.”
“You said he’s gone. Checked out, you said. I friggin’ heard you!”
“Of the hospital.”
Melisande grabs the woman with both of her famously dexterous hands. “You heartless bitch… don’t you get any ‘bad-news’ training? What happened to his clinging-to-life-by-a-thread diagnosis?”
“Musta decided to cling somewhere else.”
Melisande begins to shake the poor nurse vigorously. “So where the fuck is he?”
“How would I know?” says the nurse, unravelling herself. “I’m not married to the poor guy. The doctors did tell him it was against their best advice.”
