A Private Business by Barbara Nadel Read Free Book Online Page A

Your priest want a blow job, did he?
Maria laughs.
    No. Actually, Father Fernandez, God rest his soul, wanted to take me up the ass
. There’s laughter but also a few gasps of shock too.
Not real sex, is it? Can’t get pregnant doing the back door boogie, can you? Or can you?
Maria’s face changes, her smile drops a little. She forces a laugh.
Mind you, bit of a dated view these days, isn’t it. We’re all down with sodomy now, aren’t we?
The whole place becomes suddenly and strangely silent.
Can’t say that anything’s wrong any more, can we? However weird
.
    Someone in the audience yells,
Fuck you, bitch!
    Maria’s face twists with bitterness.
Not sodomy, not sadomasochism, not priests fiddling with children! It’s all just a laugh, or your “right” to do, because it makes you happy
… A sob brings her diatribe to a close and she runs off the stage, crying.
    â€œYou have to help me out here, Maria,” Lee said. “I can’t assist you unless you’re a hundred percent honest with me.” He passed her the glass of brandy she’d asked for and then sat down. They were in the now empty Green Room of the Comedy Ringside, the other performers, the audience, Betty Muller and Alan Myers having left over an hour ago. Maria took the brandy and downed it in one. She didn’t so much as wince.
    â€œI have to be honest,” Lee continued, “I know you’re holding back on me about something.” He failed to mention that had actually been Mumtaz’s notion. “So I’m sorry but I just don’t buy that you’re getting this upset about a
possible
invasion of your privacy just
glimpsed
out the corner of your eye. You can’t concentrate and your career’s going down the pan and you’re turning on your audience!”
    â€œI know.” She looked across at him with tears in her eyes. “I know.”
    Alan Myers had nearly lost his mind. He’d been the first one she’d bowled into when she ran off the stage.
You have one more chance and that’s it!
he’d growled at her.
Do this to me again and I’ll fucking finish you, darling!
Betty had been sympathetic but with an element of
I told you so
and so Maria had had to send her away. She’d offered to stay, of course, because she was a true friend but …
    â€œI have to know about any threats,” Lee said. “Real threats, not just some memory of some randy fan from 1989.”
    â€œI haven’t had any actual threats at all,” she said. “I used to get them years ago.”
    â€œWho from?”
    â€œI told you. But then there were also people who thought I should be censored,” Maria said. “Mary Whitehouse types, religious people. I offended everybody.”
    â€œYou still do, or you try to. That’s still the point of the act, isn’t it?”
    She looked down. “Yes.”
    â€œSo, you getting direct threats now, Maria, or what?”
    â€œNo! But I might do after tonight!”
    He moved in so that he could see her face. She was only a few years older than him and she was lovely. There was something of the Katharine Hepburn about her. Lee loved the old movie stars, they were so much more glamorous than modern people. But she still wasn’t telling him everything. Lee had been a good, instinctive copper and that hadn’t changed. “So if you’re not getting threats, then what is going on? Why are you intimidating your crowd? Why are you alienating your audience?”
    She looked into his eyes.
    â€œIs it simply your fear? About what you’re experiencing at home?” He didn’t use the word “imagine” or talk about what she “thought” she might be seeing. “That stuff you do about priests, is that true? Is it?”
    She said nothing. Lee, helpless, shrugged.
    And then she said, as if it were the most obvious explanation in the world,