Page 56 of Lost Souls

“Okay, Cleo, that weird woman in the bathroom, see, she’s the dame who’s got my soul – had it since we were born, same day, same minute, same moment; heavenly ball-up; don’t ask – and I need to make her fall in love with me ASAP to get it back, so we are ‘as one’, as the saying goes, and I can give hell a miss and just grab me a few more precious years down here. Only, she can’t genuinely tell me she loves meor– which is just as unlikely – me tell her the same thing, if I’m already a dead guy, which could happen, because I think Melisande has hired a very scary hitman of restricted growth but excellent fashion sense and God knows who else, maybe even Satan himself, to kill me and stop her from falling for me and getting mentioned in my will. Which is why I can’t go home right now. You see?”

Cleo stares at him for a moment. “You’re pathetic,” she says and stomps back into the kitchen.

Arnie slumps down in Cleo’s easiest chair. He can hear the tap running, so Noreen will be back again very soon and this whole dizzying, mad charade will continue and undoubtedly conclude. But, unlike his movies, more with a whimper than a bang.

What he can’t see from his chair, of course, is Noreenscrabbling around in the fascinatingly well-equipped bathroom for some carbolic soap. But when he catches her sudden yelp, followed by the sounds of objects cascading and clattering into the washbasin, he realises that the amenity’s current occupant must have discovered the cupboard where Cleo keeps her dildos, vibrators, love beads and, very graciously, Viagra. Sometimes Arnie Garth feels that if there is a God, he must be tuning in to the Arnie channel right now just to give himself a good laugh.

As soon as the bathroom noises tail off, Arnie hears Cleo in the kitchen banging cupboard doors and generally slamming around. He leaps up to mollify her.

“Cleo? Cleo, sweetie, please! You’ve got to help me!”

She begins to make herself a health drink with too many vegetables and unwarranted vigour, as Arnie looks back in concern towards the bathroom.

“Please!It – it’s too screwy to explain, but I got nowhere else to go. I need you to help me look after Noreen and – and she mustn’t knowanythingabout what you do for a living.Orwhat I do for that matter. Oh – or the little fact that I’mmarried. Okay? She… wouldn’t approve.”

The clattering only gets worse.

“Oh, well I’m so sorry your new girlfriend wouldn’t approve of me. Like I should be ashamed of having sex on camera with multiple partners and simulating incredible orgasms, just so that sad lonely guys all over the USA and elsewhere can…” She pauses here, because she doesn’t immediately feel that she has made the killer argument. From down the hall, we hear the bathroom door open.

“Please!Please!Cleo!” whispers Arnie, even more frantically. “Trust me. Hey, who turned your life around when you turned up at my little office, barely more than a kid, selling whatdyamacallits?”

“Bibles.”

Noreen arrives in the doorway of the kitchen and halts, as if she can sense some vestigial weirdness between the pair of them. Arnie looks nervously from one woman to the other and back again, twice, on tenterhooks.

“Hey, Noreen.” Cleo smiles. “You look like you could use a nice cool radish and lettuce and carrot and eggplant smoothie.”

Arnie shoots Cleo a look of supreme gratitude but then simply can’t help himself. “Lettuce? Radishes? Shit, Cleo – don’t tell me you’ve turned into a friggin’vegan!Not that there’s anything wrong with that!”

“I’m on a diet!” protests Cleo. “I’ve got to lose two inches off my ass. According to my prod—”

“Proctologist!” explains Arnie swiftly. “Okay. Okay. So, tell you what, I’ll go get food.Realfood. My treat. You guys sit tight. Noreen, whatever you want, name it.”

“Oohh, anything I want.” She closes her eyes.

“Anything. You name it.”

“Well, Arnie, my most favourite thing in the whole world, which I’m missing so much more than anything right now – except maybe my sheep, of course – is Kendal Mint Cake.”

“Uh huh. Whatever else you want, name it.”

Noreen’s face sags into a look of utter disappointment.

“Okay. Fine.” Arnie sighs. “There’s a British shop in Santa Monica that sells crappy English food. It’s only anhour. Each way.”

He turns to go, waiting for a ‘don’t be silly; pizza will do’. Instead, he feels a strong hand on his arm.

“Arnie… thank you.” Noreen kisses him on the cheek. “You’ve turned out to be a real friend.”

Noreen Millburn is surprised to watch Arnie’s face fall.

“Friend?” he moans. “What is with this friend shit? I don’t wanna be your friggin’ friend! Who has time for friends?”

He storms out of the apartment, seething with frustration. The angry bang from the door segues into an embarrassed silence.

Cleo smiles a bit uneasily at her new guest, feeling that it is all on her now to be a good hostess and lighten the mood.

“So, Noreen. Do they do hot-tub three-ways in England?”