Page 36 of The Business of Blood
He had secrets of his own.
“I’ll tell you mine, if you tell me yours.” I borrowed time with banter, one of Oscar’s favorite activities. “Just where wereyoureveling last night dressed in such sumptuous garb?”
“The Savoy, darling, where else? I’m tinkering with an idea for a play. It has everything. Obsession, lust, slaughter, you know, all the best parts of thegood book.”
“What’s this play called?” I queried, noting that the whites of his eyes were stained a dull pink.
“Salome.” He spread his fingers before him as he revealed the name. “She’s the perfect jezebel, isn’t she?”
I used a linen to remove a smudge from my spectacles. “Wasn’t Salome a virgin?”
“Exactly!”
I replaced the spectacles to peer at him curiously. “I don’t follow.”
“She danced for Herod Antipas, made him want her. Madeeveryonewant her. He, in turn, offered her whatever her heart desired. Half of his kingdom.”
“Right, I know that bit, I’ve read the Bible.” I made a gesture for him to err on the side of brevity.
“Though she’s a virgin, she used sex and treachery to bring about the macabre execution of John the Baptist,” he explained solicitously. “She is both virgin and whore.” He used his left hand to weigh the virgin, and the right hand, the whore.
We are all of us whores…
“She sold a dance for a death,” I whispered.
“And what a bargain.” He waggled expressive brows at me.
“They’ll never allow it on a London stage in your lifetime,” I predicted, as biblical characters were illegal to portray.
“I’ll have to write it in Paris, apparently. This city is growing too cold to stay the winter.”
I would have believed his insouciance had he met my eyes before producing a cigarette on the end of an elegant ivory holder along with a book of matches.
“Does Constance very much mind that you enjoy the lavish comforts of the Savoy while she remains at home?” I’d noticed of late, a particular distance between the playwright and his perfectly lovely wife. Speculation abounded throughout our bohemian district as to the state of Oscar’s affairs.
Not because he had affairs. Everyone hereabouts had affairs. The conjecture wasn’t confined to the name of his lover, but to the sex thereof.
“Constance minds Cyril and Vyvyan, and I mind how much noise those adorable miscreants of mine make whilst I’m writing.” He blew a puff of smoke into the morning and followed it with a sip of coffee.
We gazed at each other over our cups across the round mosaic table upon which I’d spread an expensive gold lace cloth.
I didn’t tell him that I suspected he’d not beenwritingat the Savoy.
And he didn’t tell me to mind my own business.
We offered each other closed-lipped smiles and sipped coffee strong enough to strip the need for sleep from our blood.
“Come now, Fiona,” he urged, tapping some ash onto the grass and resting his chin in his hand. “You very well know I subsist on absinthe and ado. You must tell me of your latest adventure in all its gruesome glory.”
I began with poor Frank Sawyer’s ripperesque murder and his lake of blood. I delighted in explainingpittura infamanteto him as Oscar was ignorant of the antiquated practice. I was relieved to discover I was not the only one.
For such a bombastic man, Oscar was a surprisingly attentive listener and made all of the appropriate noises as I spun the tale of my heart-stopping alleyway encounter with the Ripper into a simple mugging for his benefit. I did, however, loosen my collar to reveal the Hammer’s stitches, and was nearly out of coffee when I reached the part of the recounting where I’d been deposited at my doorstep by an infamous American assassin.
Releasing a low whistle, Oscar lit his second cigarette. “I’d call blarney on the entire narrative if it weren’t just absurd—nay,preposterous—enough to be accurate.”
“I wouldn’t blame you.” I released a sigh, feeling somewhat unburdened by the telling of my misadventures.
“A blouse ripped to shreds by the dusky hands of a handsome savage.” Oscar sighed romantically.
