Morrison glanced around the suite, lushly decorated in Louis XIV style, a European fantasy in powder pink. Martin Egan had left subtle but unmistakable signs of his presence: a necktie here, a bottle of shaving lotion there, a pair of socks and garters, and even a signed copy of Call of the Wild. Morrison wondered if this was happenstance or a tomcat’s spray, or perhaps mines left floating in the sea.
He made a tentative move in Mae’s direction but she stepped back, an apologetic half-smile on her face. Indicating that he should sit on the chaise longue, she settled her skirts over a chair. ‘Ernest, darling, I am so glad we have this chance to talk.’ She twirled a ribbon around a finger. ‘We’ve had some high old times, haven’t we?’ Her eyes searched his for confirmation.
He yearned to touch her. The chasm that yawned between chaise and chair seemed unbridgeable.
‘It’s been most agreeable,’ Morrison concurred between clamped teeth.
‘So perhaps we should leave it at that. Oh, look at me, honey.’
‘I thought we could…especially after…you know. I don’t understand why you told Mrs Ragsdale that it was Egan’s,’ he said under his breath.
She leaned forward and put a finger on his lips. He sucked it into his mouth and she laughed—her true, free, natural laugh—for the first time since they’d seen each other this time. ‘Ernest, honey, you know I’m crazy for you. But I know that in your heart you were never comfortable with the idea of marrying me. You’re an ambitious and important man.’
‘You mock me.’ His voice was choked.
‘Not at all. But I know my own concerns often strike you as frivolous, even dull.’
‘Frivolous, perhaps, at times. Dull is the last word I’d ever use to describe you.’
‘Thank you for saying that. You say it—the word “dull”—of so many people, I did occasionally fear for myself. It’s true. Ever since I’ve known you, you’ve complained that so-and-so is an insufferable dullard and so-and-so is a terrible bore, that this dinner party was damnedly dull and that luncheon disagreeably stupid. Every day you dine with men you consider irksome or insipid—you cannot deny it. The only exceptions are Molyneux and Dumas, and you still cavil at the former’s lack of discretion and the latter’s dearth of ambition. As for your associates, I have heard an entire litany of complaint. James is fractious, Menzies fawning, Granger inept, Bedlow vexatious.’
‘You have a point about the others, but Maysie, you are not dull, and no dinner at which you have been present has ever been dull on your account. Good God, woman, if there have been dinners and luncheons this past few months that have not been dull, it’s only thanks to you.’
Maysie toyed with the buttons on her sleeve. ‘I don’t wish to get stuck on this matter of dullness.’ A smile played over her lips. ‘It is true that I have never been accused of it before.’
‘You do have a talent for enjoyment—and for sharing it.’ That did not come out quite as I intended.
Her lips pursed. ‘I know you’ve never approved of my seeing other men.’
‘It’s not about approving or disapproving, Maysie.’
‘Although I must accept a certain decorum for my family’s sake, modesty is not in my nature. And, as you know, I cannot countenance hypocrisy, even if that means that some of my deeds, and not a few of my words, must give those around me pain.’
‘Any pain you may have given me has been more than compensated for by pleasure. I do think we have more in common than you think. I detest hypocrisy too, Mae. With all my soul.’
‘So you have said to me many a time, but do you really, Ernest, honey? For all of your scathing comments about people, do you ever tell them what you really think? I have heard you express different opinions in private than you do in your telegrams, on the way the war is going, for example. You don’t always write what you think; you write what you think needs to be said. I think you love your place in society more than you detest the hypocrisy it requires to maintain it.’
Though his mouth opened, Morrison had no words with which to answer her. She had hit her target squarely.
‘Oh Ernest, honey,’ she murmured, ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t meant to be so harsh and I don’t wish to quarrel.’
Morrison, miserable, stood and held out his arms. ‘If you don’t despise me, hold me.
She pressed the back of one hand to her forehead in a gesture worthy of the stage. ‘I can’t. I’ve given my solemn promise to Martin to be faithful.’
I will perish on the spot. ‘Why did you ask me to come to see you? Simply to torture me?’
‘Of course not, darling. It’s because I love you.’
‘Why Egan then?’
Mae’s voice fell to a whisper. ‘He does not put my heart in danger the way you do.’
‘Then I was wrong about you.’
She stiffened. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Remember our conversation that day when we visited Shanghai’s native city? You told me that you embraced risk, that you abhorred the idea of a life lived timidly and in thrall to others. I believed you, but now I wonder if that was just an act.’
She went limp, like a marionette whose strings had been severed. ‘Touché,’ she said in a barely audible voice. ‘But it wasn’t an act. I meant every word. And yet,’ she wavered, ‘I don’t know what to do. I promised Martin, you see.’
‘Yes, but you also promised—’ He was about to say that she’d previously promised him such things as well when it struck him that she never had.
‘No, I never did,’ she said, reading his mind. ‘I try not to make promises I can’t honour. And I try to honour the promises I do make. Perhaps some might scoff but that’s my way of being a moral person.’
Morrison took a moment to absorb this. ‘Are you marrying him?’
‘No. Yes. Maybe. I am not all that eager. But he is.’
Tied up in the ribbons and bows of her preposterous logic, Morrison could offer no argument. He was contemplating his exit, the better to retain his dignity, when she jumped up, threw herself around his neck and whispered, ‘Oh honey, you and me, we’re a bit hopeless, aren’t we? Anyway, Martin isn’t back from Tokio until tomorrow.’
A boat’s horn sounded in the port. The electric fan creaked as it traced slow circles overhead.
What a type it is! One moment she is the tragedienne, the next the temptress and provocatrix! She incites me and plays me for her own pleasure and with only the present in her mind, the past erased, the future unconsidered. She is Diana, goddess of the hunt, though no virgin. Her wit is her bow; her charm, her arrow. There would scarcely be a white man in all of China or Japan by now, I should imagine, who has not been wounded by that exquisite barb. She is as honest as whisky, as direct as a shot across the decks. I kiss her and am intoxicated. Her candour is breathtaking, admirable, enviable. She promises me nothing more than fleeting joy and surely that is enough. She will not be owned, and Egan will learn that to his detriment, poor sod. I kiss her and she folds herself around me until I can scarcely breathe. She moans, she sighs, she creates drama wherever she goes; I still don’t know if the baby was real, a hallucination or just a clever twist in her script. What is certain is that the world is her stage, hers is the limelight and we poor men but her supporting cast. She was right that I would not be long content with such a role. I understood her John Wesley’s reluctance, his vacillations, more than I cared to let on. For whilst Mae Ruth Perkins is absolutely, eternally, true to herself, she will never be true to anyone else. And though she does not actively seek scandal, it falls like the rains of June in Japan on those around her. As much as I detest the thought that C.D. Jameson ever laid his vile hoary paws upon her, I must admit that he was right. She is a nymphomaniac of the highest order and proves it with every action and indeed every breath. And yet…Her capacity to communicate happiness is unparalleled. Her buoyancy, her mischievous humour, her theatrical extravagance, her sensuality. Her wetness. Her plump breasts. Her heavy-lidded gaze. Her welcoming thighs. Her cunt. Her natural, indefatigable joie de vivre is a great wellspring from which we all drink. Or perhaps, like her fathomless eyes, it is a pool where we kneel, only to fall in love with our own reflections. Whatever it is, it is deep and seductive and liquid. And it is what keeps me chained to her, on my knees, my face towards Heaven.
Mae’s voice, kittenish, small and breathless, broke into his thoughts as her hand grabbed his hair, pulling him upwards. ‘Honey, you’re making me crazy. I need you inside me now.’