Read Online August Is a Wicked Month by Edna O’Brien - Free Book Online

she said in a whisper and then in her low, calculating drawl she spoke, ‘I just love olives, I went right across America once and I lived on three things, beer, avocado pears and olives. Right across the country. I ended up in a little town called – I forget what ‘twas called but you have no idea how beautiful our country is.’ It was well and professionally timed and he halted under one of the chandeliers and did the ‘Me a cowboy’ again, beating his chest over-humbly. He was with a large group, the men stood when he stood and older women filed behind, linking and talking earnestly. There were a few young girls walking straight with their stomachs held in. Ellen registered no face except his. She’d never seen him in the films, but he had a striking presence. He had the look of the gutter about him. She thought of men in lorries who whistle at girls’ legs and have bare dolls as mascots on their windshields. He was common and wild and undeniably handsome.
    ‘How about asking them to join us for a drink?’ one of the men said, and Denise let out a gurgle of shock as if an electric current had been passed through her. Ellen went on racing her coins, but careful now to put a hand at the other edge of the table to save them from falling off.
    ‘Girls, pretty girls,’ one of the older women said. She had a fur stole on with tassels of fur at the end of it, which made the stole itself look silly.
    ‘It so happens we would like to ask you ladies for a drink,’ the actor said, loudly. Ellen and Denise looked at each other, hesitated and then Denise said, ‘It’s very funny that you should ask us because we’re actually having a drink.’ She had moved forwards, though, in her chair.
    ‘Hey…’ he said.
    ‘Hey yourself,’ she said and got up. Ellen rose almost immediately. The first thing she ought to make clear was that they weren’t sisters, they weren’t even friends.
    ‘We just struck up a conversation,’ she said.
    ‘Tell me,’ said an older man guiding her politely towards the door, ‘have I seen you somewhere before?’
    ‘Not that I know of,’ she said, looking at him. His face was yellow from the heat and his eyes were light blue and he must have been handsome once upon a time. His name was Sidney.
    Within minutes they were in cars swooping down the drive towards the main part of the town where the activity was. Ellen sat in the back of a chauffeur-driven Bentley between Sidney and the woman with the fur-tipped stole. The tips brushing her legs had the stealth of an animal sneaking up on her and she wondered how much it had cost. The movie actor was in front, talking to Denise about muscle. He believed in fights.
    ‘I don’t know anyone’s name,’ Ellen said to the two people she sat between.
    ‘She doesn’t know anyone’s name,’ said the woman who called herself Gwynnie. ‘Isn’t that cute?’
    ‘That’s terrible,’ the actor said in a false voice of sympathy, and turning he patted her knee and said, ‘Do me a favour, call me Bobby.’ She was a little embarrassed and did not know what to say.
    ‘Go on,’ he said.
    ‘Bobby,’ she said. Then he smiled and said she had the sort of voice he could listen to all night and he did not seem insulting at all.
    ‘Stick around,’ he said, giving her a friendly pat and then putting Gwyn’s fur stole back on her bare knees. There was not only luxury but security in being covered by the fur. She thought perhaps this response was first caused by having seen a couple make love within a belted beaver coat, in an alleyway, in childhood, years before. They’d shooed her away as if she were a dog, when in fact she’d wanted not to spy but to behold.
    They converged on a night-club that was so dimly lit that it was like going into a cinema. The manager welcomed Sidney, and three tables were put together for them and a pile of chairs brought. They sat wherever they happened to have been standing. She was between Sidney and another man who