Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 6, May 1961

“Not at all,” she said. “Sensitive, perhaps yes. The kind of thoughts that run through your mind run through the minds of all men, and they delight in them, they feel a masculine delight with themselves, they don’t feel they’re rotten, and they feel no guilt about it.” The small smile widened. “Kindly understand. This is explanation. Not encouragement.”

“But what I’m trying to say—”

“I know just what the heck you’re trying to say. I’m a woman, I’m an attractive woman, and if I wouldn’t — how shall I say? — stir the beast in a man, I’d be awfully disappointed, in myself, and the man. But we don’t live in a jungle, and I’m not — forgive me — an Evangeline Ashley. I have scruples, and principles, and morals, and all the rest of that bosh, except it isn’t bosh. Now, if you please, you don’t go home on Thursdays, do you?”

“No.”

“You may stay over here, if you wish.”

“But you—”

“Oscar, you’re a dear innocent, and like all dear innocents, more direct, more deadly, and more dangerous than the supposed sophisticates. Staying over here, sleeping here, does not mean sleeping with me. Kindly, dear innocent, get that straight. I have plans for you, and for the nonce, and probably for a long time to come, they are non-sexual. I like you very much. In my own way, as I had suspected I would, I may be falling in love with you, already.

“But, I repeat, I’m not — well, let’s not mention names. Let’s say I’m not of that ilk, not at all. Now, tonight, I’d like to do my first sketch of you. Tonight, your face, to me, the painter, is just wonderful, I love it. So, if you’re willing...”

“Yes,” he said. “I’d like to stay.”

“And you’ll sit for me?”

“Of course.”

“Now?”

“Yes,” he said.

“It’s tiring, especially at the beginning. But I’ll babble. I won’t talk about you, or any of your problems. I’ll talk about me.”

“I’m ready,” he said.

“Come with me, dearest innocent.”

X

They saw one another every day. They ate together, either in Washington Mews, or in restaurants that they kept “discovering.” They were deeply, quickly, in love. They went to theatre together, concerts, ballet, museums, art exhibits, jazz joints, coffee houses, and opera. They slept, frequently, under one roof, separately.

Oscar Blinney, quiet, reserved, laconic, and outwardly bland, but harried, suffering, miserably happy at odd moments and deeply despondent at others, had had the double experience — for the first time in twenty-nine years — and one within three months of the other — of the ecstasy and nadir-reaction of fulminating infatuation with one woman and the profound, humble, beatific, and expanding emotion of love with another, when, on the seventh day of June, the woman to whom he was married announced that she was pregnant.

He came home, perspiring, at midnight of a warm Friday, and Evangeline was waiting for him, cool and pony-tailed, in orange ballet-tights, orange slippers, and a tight orange sleeveless backless scoop-necked blouse.

“Hi, Dad,” she said. “Nice to see you once in a while.”

“Likewise,” he said.

“Nice to see you, Dad,” she said. “And the Dad ain’t jazz-type talk, Dad. The Dad is real Dad.”

“Oh, now, what the hell this time?” he said wearily.

“Dad, you’re going to be a father, Dad. Like I’m a little bit knocked up.”

He could not have predicted his reaction. Adrienne had called him an innocent and right then he knew, for all time, that he was. His heart leaped within him and the elixir of total forgiveness was part of his blood. Suddenly Adrienne Moore was an impropriety. Suddenly the salve of love was a blistering ointment. Suddenly the garish woman before him, hatefully attractive, was Mother, was the Mother-Of-All, was Eve, was Mary with Miraculous Child. Suddenly there was hope, transcendence, reformation of the accursed. The new-born, the young, the progeny would purify.

Suddenly there was hope, of child, children, family, purpose, a knitting together, a striving-forward, a balance, a meaning, a plan and design no matter how jaggedly fitted together. Now the edges would smoothen; life stirring in one would perform amelioration upon all. Suddenly perspiration was of emotion rather than climate. He thrust off his jacket, pulled down his tie, opened his shirt.

“Are you sure?” he said.

“Too goddamned sure,” she said.

And still the nirvana was upon him. “How do you know?”

“I went to a doctor, that’s how I know. I had the whole bit, the rabbit bit, everything. There’s a babe, no doubts, no angles, no anything else. Like no tumor, you know?”

“Now look, Eve, maybe this is it. Maybe this is what we needed. Maybe we settle down, you know? Kids, a family, little ones, something to punch for, something to get together about, something to give us focus, a reason, a meaning...”

“Rave on, McDuff.”

“No, Eve, seriously, this could be it.”

“In a pig’s eye it could be it.”

“No, Eve, listen—”