Barbary Shore by Norman Mailer Page B

know I thought I was a turtle, can you make that out, Lovett?”
    “No.”
    “Boy, it was murder. I was a turtle, and there I was lying on my back, and I couldn’t get up again. You got any idea how that makes you feel? This morning I had to go out to the drugstore, and get myself a bromo.” She lit a cigarette and drew the smoke into her broad painted mouth.
    “Well, it was just a dream.” I was irritable this morning.
    “Yeah, but you didn’t have it. I can’t get over that, being a turtle.” Without altering her position, she shrieked suddenly, “Monina, you leave Mr. Lovett’s stuff alone.”
    The child paid no attention, but I do not think Guinevere expected any response. She merely groaned and turned to me. “That kid’s got hell in her blood. She takes after me. Honestly, Lovett, the things I’ve done.”
    I squinted at the sunlight lancing through the window, and made no answer. “You know when I was in Hollywood,” she told me, “I ruined my career just cause I was so wild.”
    “When were you in Hollywood?”
    “In the middle of my burlesque career. They gave me an option. You know about the time they were making stars out of burlesque queens. They took me on too, and if I’d had any sense, if I’d been smart about it, I’d be making five thousand dollars a week today.” She sighed and exhaled some smoke. “But I threw it away by being wild. You know I put out for everybody, not cause I figured they could do anything for my career, but because I’ve always had a good heart, and you got to realize there were a lot of handsome stiffs out there. I used to becrazy about making love in those days. And the fellows out there they really got whangs on them cause they use it so much.”
    She snuffed her cigarette, and turned to the child. “Monina, where’s the radio?”
    “Doutside.”
    “Well, go get it. What’s the matter with you anyway? If you leave it out there, somebody’s going to steal it.”
    Monina sighed impatiently, signifying she was weary of her mother, but she obeyed. Gone for a moment or two, she reappeared in the doorway staggering under the load of a portable radio which in proportion to her child’s frame must have been as unwieldy as a suitcase. “That’s a godsend,” Guinevere said. “On linen day it keeps me from going nuts.” She reached down and hefted it from the floor to the bed. As she played with the dials, she continued to talk.
    “You can understand, Lovett, being as you go for me, that for a lot of them out there I had It. You wouldn’t believe if I told you the names of some of the famous stars and producers who wanted to marry me, but I ruined my chances by being too nice to all of them. They knew about me, and even then a couple of them wanted marriage, but I loused up my career and that made it impossible.”
    “How?”
    “Well, by playing around so much. The breath of scandal can’t touch a luminary; if it does you’re cooked. And I mean I can see their side of it. They would have invested millions of dollars in me, and they never could have known when some jealous star would have bought off the police and had me framed in a love nest. So they didn’t renew my option.” She smoothed the sheets with her hand, and stood up, and without transition, looking at me with her head to one side, she said, “How would you like to dance, Lovett?”
    “I’m not very good.”
    “That’s all right. I can show you.” She had found somemusic on the radio, and now she closed her eyes, hummed to herself, and approached, arms outstretched. We drifted about the room in a slow shuffle, her body draped upon me in what was virtually an embrace. Leisurely we swayed, back and forth, the fresh warm air of summer morning eddying through my open window. “You’re not bad,” she murmured.
    Guinevere moved quite well, her body light, her rhythm sensitive. At heart, however, it was not a dance. She applied her body to me, coquetted, withdrew, her motions an