name, his true name.
Then I looked at Jules, and I swear the feathers on the eagle's
wings were ruffled as the face beneath contracted.
"You'll come again?" she asked Learoyd eagerly.
"Sure"
"Soon."
"I'll be around"
I knew that he was lying. Learoyd had his story. There was
only stale meat here.
When I looked at Jules, I saw that he knew also. He turned to
take up the brush and the comb and there was pity in his eyes.
As he moved to her I knew it was time for me to go, so I followed
Learoyd.
Outside the booth, he lit a cigarette and drew on it as if he'd
been without for several weeks.
"Revolting, isn't she?" he said. And shuddered. . .
It was over breakfast in Liverpool where I had a Christmas
show that I read his story. It was brilliantly graphic, the tale of
the cat man who became a tattooed freak and loved a bearded
lady. I guessed Learoyd had made a packet. The Sunday papers
pay well.
But suddenly for some reason I wanted to see Jules again, so I
skipped Leeds and caught the midday express back to London.
I found him with his love. Today the little bow was white and
there was candy in front of her, there was perfume, there were
long silk gloves, and there was even a flotsam of black nylon lace.
"You're spoiled," I told her. And the sight sickened me.
She put her head down on the table and sobbed. I said that
Learoyd's story would be wrapping fish in a week, then I saw how
Jules looked at her down-bent head and spread his varicolored
fingers helplessly.
"She misses him," he stated simply.
I guessed that the ugly printed words had passed him by. He
was lost in the greater tragedy of her craving for the man who
wrote them.
"Learoyd's a busy man," I announced quite loudly. "He hasn't
forgotten you. It's work that keeps him away."
She raised her head. Sharply. Fiercely. The hair was all about
her face, thick round her brows as well as on her chin.
"It isn't work," she spat. "It's this. This beast."
And she tore at the beard as if it were alive, apart from her, a
separate thing.
Jules moved quickly, taking away her hands. "No, no, no!" he
cried, as if the black silky strands she tugged trailed from his own
chin.
Suddenly she quieted and I saw the pointed teeth holding her
lower lip, before she pulled away from Jules's rainbow hand and
screamed at both of us, "Leave me, leave me!"
Taking his arm, I drew him toward the exit. But I looked back
and marked the small ugly hands with their brightly painted
