He followed her silent into the house and up the stairs. Her long room was cool and fresh smelling.
“Ellie you’re not sore at me?”
“Of course not idiot child.”
She undid the sodden bundle of his clothes and took them into the kitchenette to dry beside the gas stove. The sound of the phonograph playing He’s a devil in his own home town called her back. Stan had taken off the dress. He was dancing round with a chair for a partner, her blue padded dressingown flying out from his thin hairy legs.
“Oh Stan you precious idiot.”
He put down the chair and came towards her brown and male and lean in the silly dressingown. The phonograph came to the end of the tune and the record went on rasping round and round.
V. Went to the Animals’ Fair
Red light. Bell.
A block deep four ranks of cars wait at the grade crossing, fenders in taillights, mudguards scraping mudguards, motors purring hot, exhausts reeking, cars from Babylon and Jamaica, cars from Montauk, Port Jefferson, Patchogue, limousines from Long Beach, Far Rockaway, roadsters from Great Neck ... cars full of asters and wet bathingsuits, sunsinged necks, mouths sticky from sodas and hotdawgs ... cars dusted with pollen of ragweed and goldenrod.