The Courtney Entry by Max Hennessy
Author:Max Hennessy
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788636872
Publisher: Canelo Digital Publishing Ltd
Published: 2019-06-30T16:00:00+00:00
* * *
The visit to Coney Island after the formality of Courtney’s party seemed at first like sheer inspired lunacy and, with Alix leading the way, they rode the merry-go-rounds, took in the sideshows, ate popcorn and hot dogs and had their photograph taken together by a boardwalk photographer. But, just when they seemed easy at last – and for the first time – in each other’s company, with all the doubt buried for once, they ran into a large woman with dyed hair and pearls trailing three bored small boys.
‘Another flyer, Alix?’ she said loudly as Ira was introduced. ‘You should be careful. Remember the last one. They’re all the same.’ She patted Ira’s aim condescendingly, beaming at him. ‘You can’t be trusted, can you? You aviators are too used to taking risks.’
Alix’s excited eager look faded immediately and was replaced by the old wary unwillingness, and the evening changed at once. The laughter went out of her abruptly as if it had never been there and she ended the outing by trailing Ira round a selection of drab smoky places where he was inspected through peepholes by blue-jowled men before being allowed to enter. She was suddenly tense and harsh-voiced, and gestured cynically at the noisy crowds standing at the bar drinking concoctions of poisonous liquor while a brassy blonde tap-danced to an orchestra crowded on a dais about as big as a table top.
‘The unspeakable knocking back the undrinkable,’ she said. ‘It’s the smart thing these days to get stewed.’
She was suddenly in a dangerous mood and ready for anything. ‘Sin’s out of date,’ she pointed out. ‘Freud says so, and anything goes. It’s OK to get into the back of a car with a boy or drink gin from a hip flask.’
The pleasure had gone from the evening suddenly and her abrasive desire for excitement managed to take away all the joy they had managed to get from each other’s company. They parted uncomfortably outside her hotel.
She seemed a little at a loss as she said goodnight. ‘It’s been a lousy evening,’ she admitted brusquely. ‘I guess it’s my fault. My generation’s an unhappy bunch. We’ve destroyed too many values without producing anything to take their place.’ She sighed. ‘I guess I must be a brass-bound idealist, because it never works out with me.’
Ira stood on the pavement for a while as she vanished inside the hotel, watching with his brows down, uneasily remembering her bitter philosophising and aware of an uncomplicated concern for her. He suspected she’d lived so long and unnaturally with some obsession about men, there was no longer much room in her life for kindness and affection and she was now seeking them both with a fierceness that was angry and abnormal.
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