The Golden Goose

2

Prin tried to remember later just when it was that she last saw Uncle Slater alive. She finally decided that it must have been about two o’clock that fateful Friday afternoon.

Ordinarily Prin would have been slaving for her nylons behind one of the counters of Free’s Drug Store on Friday afternoon; but on this particular Friday she had screwed up her mutated face — really not a bad face as faces went, she always thought, although of course not an O’Shea face, which at its best ran to Black Irish handsomeness, as in Brother Brady’s case — and put a moan into her voice, the way they did on television commercials, and told Orville Free that she hadn’t wanted to mention it before, since it involved a condition peculiarly female connected with the moon, but the cramps were getting to be too terrible and she’d simply have to take the rest of the day off. The lunar reference was a lie. The truth was that Prin had enough O’Shea in her to get the feeling occasionally that she simply couldn’t stand working another second, and this had been one of those occasions. So that was how she came to be sitting in Uncle Slater’s living room at two o’clock on a Friday afternoon, nuzzling a gin and tonic and listening to Till Eulenspiegel on his hi-fi, when he came home in an obvious glow and waved to her cheerily on his way upstairs to his room. And she had never again seen Uncle Slater breathing, boozily or otherwise.

After a while Till was finished and so was the gin and tonic, so Prin had gone into the kitchen, dropped two ice cubes into her glass, leaned against the sink for a few minutes listening to Mrs. Dolan, the cook, then deserted Mrs. Dolan and returned to the living room and refilled the glass according to Uncle Slater’s recipe, which was equal parts of gin and quinine water. After that she had wandered out to the terrace. On the flagstones lay a sky-blue air mattress, and on the sky-blue air mattress lay Cousin Peet’s little belly, along with the rest of her.

Cousin Peet was wearing the hip sliver of a pink bikini, and nothing else. Even though Cousin Peet was on the small side as girls usually go, in the hip sliver of a pink bikini there seemed to be a great deal of her, all clearly superior. Her self-advertising tended to disconcert strangers, for she was given to lying about almost anywhere in almost nothing; and sometimes, in some places, in nothing absolutely. The only thing that shocked her was the continual rediscovery that practically all members of the male sex construed her innocent displays as invitations to finger the merchandise — that is, after they had got over being disconcerted. They could never seem to understand, as they dragged themselves away clutching their groins, that Cousin Peet’s sex drive was only slightly stronger than a flat-worm’s.

Cousin Peet’s habit of going about casually near-naked never seemed to put any notions into her head that could not have been freely discussed from the rostrum at a D.A.R. meeting. Prin’s own notions in certain circumstances were not so unimpeachable. In her view, poor Peet was a waste; and Prin felt no envy in conceding the quality of what was being wasted, for not only did she possess attributes that were just as good, but she also knew what to do with them, which apparently Cousin Peet did not.

“Hello, you Peet,” Prin said, drifting over to the umbrella-table. “Where’s anybody?”

Peet raised herself on her elbows and twisted from the dimpled gimbals, ignoring the absence of the upper sliver. Her large, light blue eyes seemed not quite focused. This gave them a kind of lovely vacancy reminiscent of Ophelia or some other tragic heroine who had lost her mind, but of course this was an illusion: as Uncle Slater said, she had no mind to lose.

“Well,” Peet said brightly, “here I am, and here you are.”

“Yes,” Prin said, “there’s no doubt about that. And Uncle Slater just went up to his room. But where are Aunt Lallie and Twig and Brady?”

“Aunt Lallie is taking her afternoon siesta. At least she says that’s what she does in her room after lunch, and she always goes upstairs, so I guess it’s true. I saw Twig drifting around a couple of times. And Brady was here a while ago, and then he went around back to hit some golf balls or something, and I’m glad.”

“Why?” asked Prin, knowing perfectly well why.

“Because he kept acting so peculiar, Prin.”

“For instance?” asked Prin unnecessarily, for there was nothing else to do.

“Well, he kept staring and staring at me the way he does. With the most threatening expression. And he sat down, and stood up, and up, and down, and up-and-down till I got most as itchy as he was. What do you suppose can be the matter with Brady?”

“It’s an itchy day. Take my advice, though, Peetie-girl, and don’t let Brady sweet-talk you into a dark corner to explain it.”

“Do you think he might be dangerous?” cried Cousin Peet, two of her attributes bobbing with agitation. “You ought to know, Prin. Your own brother and all.”

“Not as much as you’d think,” Prin sighed. “Brady ran away from home when he was fifteen and I was nine. I saw him only once between then and the time he turned up here.”

“Could something be wrong with him, do you suppose?”

“Nothing serious. Just the Peetis fornicatis itch.”

“Well, I hope so.”

“What?” said Prin. “Never mind, Peetie. I think I’ll go on back inside and nibble on another gin and tonic and do some itching of my own.”

Peet nodded as if she understood perfectly. She lowered herself to the blue mattress again with a happy little sigh, and Princess left her. Prin made another drink and went upstairs to her room, having suddenly decided to lie down for a while. Her head was spinning and lying down seemed the sensible preference to falling down, which she kept having the disturbing sensation she was about to do. In her room she kicked off her shoes and sat down on the bed and finished her third gin and tonic. The dizziness unaccountably increased, and she did what she had come up to the bedroom to do: she lay down and closed her eyes. This immediately made her think of Coley Collins, a young man of whom she had recently begun to think itchily.

She was engaged in this pleasant preoccupation when someone knocked on her door and opened it simultaneously. For a horrid moment Prin thought it might be Cousin Twig, against whom privacy could be reasonably assured only by a well-turned key, and she had forgotten to turn it. Her eyes flew open and she jerked her skirt down at the same instant; but then she saw that it was Brother Brady, and Prin murmured, “Thank God,” and shut her eyes again.

Brother Brady, not grasping the nuance of his sister’s piety, was pleased. “Hi, Princess,” he said heartily. “What are you doing home?”

“Lying down, as you see,” said Prin, stretched out like a newly arranged corpse. “And what I’d like to do next, Brady, is drift away with my thoughts into slumberland. So goodbye?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be working?” Brother Brady asked, with the virtuous concern of one to whom the phenomenon was of theoretical interest only.

“I got a convenient case of little-girl trouble and Mr. Free said I could go home.”

“Atta sis,” said Brady approvingly. “I don’t see why you waste your time on that crummy job, anyway. It’s so — so—” he groped for le mot juste “—unnecessary.”

“Oh, go away,” murmured Prin.

“You’re an idiot. I wish I had your in with Uncle Slater. Man, would I take him! Here you are, able to get anything you want from him if you’d only try—”

“What I want I already get without trying.”

“You’re a square, do you know that?” said Brother Brady; this time he stalked over and sat down hard on the bed. Prin opened one eye and quickly closed it again. His brief moment of good humor was gone; he had that ugly look again. Most people didn’t see the ugliness, especially women, but Prin could see it even when Brady was being agreeable and charming, and it always gave her a chill. Brother Brady, she was sure, was capable of anything, even murder, and he may have been guilty of that for all she knew — knowing him, after all, so little. Right now, sitting on Prin’s bed, he looked sullen and dangerous, and it meant that he had had some kind of unsettling experience.

“What’s the matter with you?” Prin said. “Has something happened?”

“What makes you think something’s happened?” he growled. “Not a damned thing’s happened.”

“Well, according to what Peet just said—”

Brother Brady’s body beautiful quivered. “What did Peet just say?”

“She said you kept staring at her and acting itchy.”

“How does she expect me to act,” snarled Brady, “when she’s always lying around without any clothes on? That damn Peet is crazy, that’s what she is! She’s the most deceptive female I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“I don’t think she means to be.”

“In my opinion she’s frigid. I’d bet on it,” said Brady excitedly.

“Not with me, brother. You’re surely right, and I don’t have the least doubt you’ve made every effort to prove it. Your own cousin, too. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“What I can’t understand is why she leads a fellow on,” muttered Brady. “It’s damn confusing.”

“Peet doesn’t lead anyone on. She just likes to go naked.”

“She ought to put some clothes on!”

“Women are showing themselves practically naked in public wherever you look.”

“But does she have to do it in private?” cried Brady. He inhaled his rage and said with formidable quietude, “She better quit is all I’ve got to say. She don’t, she’ll be in for one hell of a surprise one of these days.”

“My advice, Brady,” sighed his sister, “is to start taking cold showers. You might be the surprised one. I can’t give you an authoritative opinion for obvious reasons, but it’s my hunch Peet would turn out to be as exciting a conquest as a cold mashed potato sandwich.”

Kindly and sound as this advice was, Prin could see that Brady was not impressed by it. He lit a cigarette and puffed at it moodily for a while, seeming to be thinking about where to go. To Prin’s relief he finally rose from the bed and left the room. Her head was still spinning, and she thought a nap might help it run down. So she turned over and went to sleep. The nap did in fact stop the spinning, although she felt rather gummy when she awoke — which was, to her surprise, at six o’clock.

It was halfway to seven before she went downstairs. Everyone was in the living room except Mrs. Dolan, who was muttering in the dining room as she set the table, and Uncle Slater, who had not yet made his appearance for a reason still generally unknown. Aunt Lallie, smoking a cigarette in a long onyx holder, was looking prettily regal (if you could ignore her hands) in a severe black gown. Cousin Twig was torturing a tune on the piano with one steel-nailed green-brown finger. Cousin Peet, draped over the sofa, had slipped into skintight red velvet pants and a sheer white silk blouse that suggested with curious effectiveness what she had fully displayed earlier. Brother Brady, slouched tigerishly in a chair, was watching Cousin Peet with an expression at once carnivorous and incredulous.

“Princess, my child,” chirped Aunt Lallie, “where is your Uncle Slater?”

“Search me,” Prin said; and at Cousin Twig’s evil side-glance from the piano she immediately regretted her choice of words. “I thought he’d surely be down by this time.”

“If he’s in the house, child. No one’s seen him since morning. He certainly didn’t show up for lunch.”

“Well, I saw him come home about two o’clock and go upstairs. So he must be in his room, unless he went out again.”

“Uncle Slater this, Uncle Slater that,” said Cousin Twig from the piano. “To hell with Uncle Slater. Why can’t we eat without him?”

“Because it’s his food, and his house,” Prin said. “That’s why. The least we can do is to pay him the courtesy of waiting for him.”

“But Princess,” Aunt Lallie said anxiously, “if he’s in the house, why isn’t he down here? You know how disagreeable Mrs. Dolan becomes if anyone is late to her table.”

“To hell with Mrs. Dolan, too,” said Cousin Twig. He stabbed a sad little B-flat with his claw, and it shrieked in protest. “Anyway, the old shtunk is probably up there sleeping off a toot.”

Prin glared at the back of Cousin Twig’s tall, pale head. She did not think Twig ought to refer to Uncle Slater as a shtunk, not because Uncle Slater hadn’t been one in his time, but because it seemed unfair for an ex-shtunk to be called a shtunk by a practicing one.

“A toot,” frowned Aunt Lallie. “Princess, would you say the condition of your Uncle Slater when he came home at two o’clock justifies Twig’s charge?”

“I only saw him for a few seconds from a distance, Aunt Lallie. But he looked all right to me — maybe a little cheerful — and anyway he didn’t have the least trouble getting up the stairs.”

“That’s not necessarily indicative, child. I’ve known your Uncle Slater to carry a quart of Irish in him without showing it. You know how he is — drinks with both hands the live-long day without a sign and then, whup! down he goes.”

“Well, I’m not very bright or anything like that,” Cousin Peet said, in one of her unexpected exhibitions of intelligence, “but it seems to me that the question of whether Uncle Slater is in his room, drunk or sober, could be settled in a minute by somebody’s going up to see.”

She sat up on the sofa and yawned and stretched. Brother Brady stirred in his chair and muttered something under his breath that no one could hear, which was probably just as well. Aunt Lallie looked at Peet with an expression of surprise and pride.

“Peet darling, that’s clever of you! Prin dear, you’re Slater’s favorite — you’ll run less risk of abuse if he wakes up in a bad humor. Please go upstairs like a good girl and see if he’s in his room.”

“I’ll go with you, if you want me to,” Cousin Twig said suddenly.

“No, thanks,” Prin said. “I don’t want you to.”

She went upstairs to Uncle Slater’s room and knocked. There was no answer. She knocked again. There was still no answer. So she tried the doorknob. It turned, and she pushed softly.

The room was on the dim side, it now being nearly seven o’clock, but Prin saw Uncle Slater immediately — at first glance he appeared to be asleep. But at second glance she noticed a couple of oddities: He was sleeping on his face instead of on his back, and on the floor instead of his bed. Considering the peculiar disposition of his arms and legs, he looked not so much like a man sleeping off a drunk as like a drunk who had had an accident.

It was disturbing, finding Uncle Slater like that, and for a moment Prin stood still in the doorway with a large hot rock in her throat. Her mind continued to function, however, and it told her coldly that Uncle Slater was (A) drunk, or (B) ill, or (C) dead. She tiptoed over to the bed and knelt beside him. It was at once evident that Uncle Slater was neither (A) drunk nor (B) ill, because he was not breathing. That meant he must be (C) dead.

Prin kept kneeling beside her uncle. Her position seemed just right for prayer, so she tried to think a little prayer, but it simply wouldn’t come. Then she tried to cry, with equal lack of success. Uncle Slater was dead, and nothing was going to change that, not the saying of prayers nor the shedding of tears, nor anything. All she could do was go away. So Princess O’Shea left the quiet bedroom on tiptoe, leaving part of herself with Uncle Slater, who looked so all used up on the floor.

The family was still in the living room downstairs, but someone new had been added. Mrs. Dolan was standing there with her club-like forearms jutting out from her prodigious hips. Dinner was getting stony, she was saying, and if anyone thought she was going to wait around half the night to do the dishes they could find themselves another cook, and anyway cooks oughtn’t to have to do dishes. The only thing that kept Mrs. Dolan going was the lure of the TV set in her basement room; everyone knew that the best programs were in the evening, so in Mrs. Dolan’s view any delay was by malice aforethought.

“Well,” sniffed Mrs. Dolan at sight of Prin. “And is himself going to come down for my dinner, or ain’t he?”

Prin said in a voice that she had difficulty recognizing as her own, “No, himself is definitely not coming down for your dinner, Mrs. Dolan.”

“Then the devil take him,” cried Mrs. Dolan, “and the rest of you, too. You can roust your own dinners!” and off she stamped to her own nether region and the television set.

“What did I tell you?” chuckled Cousin Twig. “He’s dead to the world, eh, Prin?”

“That,” said Prin tremulously, “he is.”

“Shut up, Twig,” growled Brother Brady. “Can’t you see something’s wrong? She’s the color of mud. What is it, Prin?”

“Uncle Slater’s dead.”

There was a considerable silence. Everyone seemed to be trying to digest Prin’s statement except Cousin Peet who, while her lips were moistly parted as usual, seemed unable even to swallow it. Cousin Twig swung the short legs hanging from his long shanks around to the room side of the piano bench, and he stared at Prin with a stare that for once had no slaver in it. Brother Brady was frowning preparatory to some powerful action, like striding over to the bar and perhaps drinking a toast to Uncle Slater’s memory. As for little Aunt Lallie, she became so agitated that she actually stopped looking at the wall and gestured at Prin with the smoldering cigarette holder in her big hairy hand.

“Now Prin,” said Aunt Lallie. “It’s in the worst possible taste to make a remark like that. Shame on you!”

“Yes,” snarled Cousin Twig, “there are some things that are just not funny. You know perfectly well I’m depending on Uncle Slater to live forever. So stop making with the dirty jokes.”

“I repeat,” said Prin O’Shea wearily. “Uncle Slater is lying up there dead on the floor of his bedroom, and one of us had better call his doctor to make it official.”

There was another, this time stricken, silence.

“Well,” said Cousin Peet, slithering off the sofa. “Anyone for dinner?”