“You’re looking very Hollywood tonight!” I said with a smile.
She was immediately tense with anxiety. “I’ve worn all the wrong things, haven’t I?”
“Well, it’s a great neckline,” I said, still smiling at her, “and who cares about anything else?”
She flushed unexpectedly and pulled the facings of her mink coat together to hide her breasts. “Let’s go.”
“Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“No, it’s okay!” She smiled too in a frantic attempt to dispel the awkwardness between us, and as I searched without success for the words which would enable us to relax, I thought how bizarre it was that we should be forcing ourselves to adopt a program for the evening which was so much at odds with the intimate privacy we both wanted. However, I was determined not to alienate her by refusing to play the game as she apparently felt it had to be played. It was better to sit through a Daly play and a late-night supper at some over-priced restaurant than risk ending up in bed alone when the evening came to an end.
The trouble with Kevin Daly’s work was that he had nothing to say. He used to conceal the vacuum behind the lines of his plays by writing in an antiquated meter which appealed to those intellectuals who believe that a play written in verse must necessarily be worthy of critical acclaim, but this latest play was in prose. As far as I could judge, it was pointless, and I could well understand why it had been panned by the intellectuals who had finally been able to see how far they had been conned. I paid little attention to the story, which concerned a rich successful businessman who fell violently in love with his secretary and abandoned his fame and fortune to live happily ever after in impoverished obscurity, but the audience around me listened avidly and laughed a good deal. It occurred to me that this kind of comedy probably represented the limit of Kevin’s theatrical talent. He did have a certain facile wit and a knack of writing bright dialogue, even though he was incapable of achieving any creative depth on stage.
I stifled yawns, allowed my thigh to press hard against Vicky’s, and finally allowed my mind to drift away toward the future. I had Cornelius sewn up again even though we’d both scared each other out of our wits before I had managed to thread the needle and start stitching, and the truth was that so long as I went to London obediently, behaved impeccably, and displayed nothing but the most faultless loyalty for the next four years, I ran no danger of having my throat cut. All Cornelius needed was reassurance. He no more wanted to believe ill of me than he wanted to fire me. I was much too valuable to him from both a professional and a personal point of view.
I glanced surreptitiously at Vicky in the darkened theater and asked myself if Cornelius was glad he had had the chance to break up the affair. Almost certainly the answer was yes. If he trusted me, he could probably have accepted any relationship I might have with his daughter, but now that his trust had been temporarily undermined, he had no doubt decided it would be best if Vicky and I were kept apart.
However, fortunately for Vicky and myself, Cornelius had miscalculated the distance across the Atlantic in this new age of jets. He might pride himself on not being “square,” but if he thought sending me to London would automatically terminate my affair with Vicky, he was obviously out of touch with the facts of modern life. What was a few thousand miles these days between two lovers with money to burn? I would be returning to New York regularly on business, and there was no reason why she couldn’t pay equally regular visits to London. And then perhaps her visits would get longer and longer … Cornelius and Alicia would be on hand to take care of the children … Despite my initial fear that we might be heading for trouble, I now saw that, on the contrary, the future looked very promising.
I took Vicky’s hand in mine and under cover of the darkness I allowed it to graze lightly against my body. The pleasure was exquisite. When the lights went up a second later at the end of the first act, I felt as if I had been interrupted at a crucial point in the act of intercourse.
“Do you want to go?” said Vicky in a low voice.
“Yes, why don’t we?” I said before I could stop myself, but luckily she had misunderstood the cause of my restlessness.
“I don’t like the play much either,” she said as we moved up the aisle to the lobby. “I don’t think frothy comedy is Kevin’s métier.”
“At least the play wasn’t pretentious. All the other plays pretended to be so deep, but the truth was, their message was as blank as the verse.”
She stopped to stare at me. “But you’re missing the whole point!” she said. “I know very often the characters seemed to have nothing to say to each other, but Kevin was writing about the void of noncommunication!”
“So the critics said, yes. But I couldn’t see it myself.” We were outside in the street. The air was cold, and to our left the arid neon desert of Broadway lit the tawdry landscape in a harsh glare. I felt myself sinking into a wasteland, the wasteland which Browning’s hero Roland had journeyed through for years during his endless quest, and suddenly the isolation seemed more than I could endure. Taking her hand again, I held it tightly in my own. “Let’s go back to your place.”
“Don’t I get anything to eat?”
“Sure! I’m sorry. I often forget about eating.” I looked at her mink and diamonds and wondered where I could possibly take her. I felt like stopping at Nedick’s for a hot dog and an orange juice.
A cab halted in response to my signal. “The Four Seasons, please,” I said as I opened the door for Vicky.
“Wonderful!” exclaimed Vicky. “I just love the Four Seasons! What a great idea!”
At last I seemed to have done something right.
When we reached the restaurant Vicky had a large martini, which made her relax sufficiently to face first oysters and then a Dover sole. She also drank half a bottle of champagne. I had some soda water with a lime twist, half of a plain grapefruit, and a filet mignon with a green salad. I found eating difficult.
I was just wondering if we could leave without lingering over dessert when I was aware of someone approaching our table, and the next moment Vicky gave an exclamation of delight.
“Kevin, what a lovely surprise!”
“Vicky darling, how incredibly glamorous you look!” He glanced in my direction and gave me a brief nod.
I nodded back. Kevin and I had never had much to say to each other. He had long ago sensed that I was unimpressed by his work, and naturally his vanity had been wounded. Sometimes he still made catty remarks about me to Cornelius. I knew this because Cornelius always repeated them to me in the correct belief that I would be amused rather than upset by this childish display of pique. In a way I felt sorry for him. It couldn’t be much fun to be an elderly homosexual, and he now looked and acted just like the aging queer that he was.
“How are you, Kevin?” Vicky was saying affectionately. “What’s your news?”
“Darling, I’m so glad you asked that question. I’m so outrageously happy that everyone takes one look at me and turns away in disgust. Life begins at fifty-five, my dear, and don’t let anyone tell you you’re all washed up at twenty-one—or however old you happen to be these days! Come over to my table for a moment and meet Charles. He’s a British friend of mine and he’s over from London for a couple of weeks on business. By a most extraordinary coincidence, I met him through Sebastian when I was visiting London last summer, and … Hell, that reminds me, listen, I was just wiped out by Sebastian’s news. I think Neil must have finally taken leave of his senses.”
I was on my feet at once. “Vicky, it’s time we were on our way. Excuse us, please, Kevin.”
“But, Scott … wait a minute!” Vicky was baffled. She turned back to Kevin. “What’s all this? What’s happened?”
Kevin looked surprised. “Hasn’t Scott told you? I thought that since he was one of the principal actors in the morning’s drama at Willow and Wall—”
“What drama?”
I stepped forward. “I was planning to tell you lat
er,” I said to Vicky. I tried to hide my anger, but it was difficult. “I didn’t want to spoil our evening.”
“Tell me what? What is this? For God’s sake, what’s happened?” Vicky was now both alarmed and upset.
I turned angrily to Kevin. “You tell her. It’s obvious you can hardly wait to do so. I don’t know why guys like you are always so addicted to gossip.”
“Guys like me?” said Kevin. “You mean guys who have a genuine concern for people as opposed to guys like you who are all wrapped up in a world from which people have been deliberately excluded?”
I lost my temper. I had had a grueling day, my patience was stretched to its limits as I waited for the moment when Vicky and I could be alone together, and at that point Kevin’s malign interference was more than I could tolerate.
“No,” I said, “I mean guys like you who can’t fuck properly and get vicarious thrills listening to stories about the guys who can.”
“Scott!” gasped Vicky.
“God, what fun!” exclaimed Kevin. “How can I possibly resist such a challenge? Let me buy you some soda water or something, Scott—soda water at the Four Seasons! How chic can you get!—And then you really must explain to me how you would define the word ‘properly’ when used in conjunction with the word ‘fuck.’ ”
“Some other time.” I was already furious with myself for playing into his hands. Tossing some bills on the table, I moved closer to Vicky. “Come along, honey,” I said, putting my hand on her arm. “I’ll take you home.”
Vicky wrenched her arm away. “I want to know what’s happened to Sebastian.”
I kept a tight hold on my self-control and said naturally, “He was fired today from Van Zale’s. It was his own fault. He tried to tell your father how to run the firm.”
“Oh, pardon me,” said Kevin, smooth as glass, “but don’t you think Vicky should know the whole truth instead of your highly biased version of the facts?”
I whirled round on him. “You stay out of this! What the hell do you know about the truth of this particular situation anyway?”
“Damned nearly all there is to know, I’d say. Sebastian and Neil visited me in rapid succession today and drank me clean out of Wild Turkey bourbon.”
“Then in that case you’re probably too drunk to listen to my side of the story!”
“I’m never too drunk to listen, but I suspect you’ll always be too buttoned up to talk. A pity. I feel sorry for you in a way. Vicky darling, do you fully realize what kind of problems you’ve taken on along with this guy?”
“Why, you goddamned bastard—”
“Scott, please! Kevin—”
“This guy’s trouble, darling. He’s too mixed up to relate properly to anyone—all he can relate to is his ambition. If he weren’t so dangerous, he’d be pathetic.”
“You bastard, you son of a bitch, you miserable fucking queer—”
“Let’s skip the sex angle, shall we? It’s so boringly irrelevant.”
“What gives you the right to sit in judgment on me? What makes you think you’ve got some God-given gift for analyzing people and making an unqualified, pseudopsychological diagnosis when you’re not even in possession of all the facts? You know nothing about me, and nothing, nothing, nothing about my situation! Now, get the hell out of my way and leave us alone or I swear I’ll knock your teeth down your throat and smash your face to pulp!”
I had been speaking in a low voice, but gradually it sounded louder and louder, and when I stopped talking at last, I realized why. Our quarrel had called attention to our corner, and everyone had turned to stare at us. The maître d’, fearing trouble, was watching us with dread.
There was a silence. I had a fleeting impression of Vicky’s gray eyes dark in her white tense face, but I was only wholly aware of Kevin. I could see now what a long way he was from being sober, but he held his liquor so well that there were no obvious signs of drunkenness. He was motionless; there was no swaying on his feet. His speech was clear and incisive; there were no slurred consonants. Only his manner betrayed him; his characteristic debonair spontaneity had fallen apart to reveal the tough-as-nails bitchy bedrock of his personality, and for a moment this bizarre unveiling was revealed in his face. The dimple in his chin seemed very deep, his long-lashed, liquid brown eyes very bright, his square jaw very hard. He looked ready to take a swing at me, but I knew he never would. That kind of guy never does.
“But how violent!” said Kevin at last in a pleasant voice, retreating behind the veil again. “I detest violence. But perhaps violent behavior makes you feel more masculine. Good night, Vicky. I’ll withdraw before Scott can turn the scene into a barroom brawl. I’m sorry if we’ve upset you.”
He walked away. I sat down abruptly.
“Some dessert, sir?” murmured the maître d’, anxious that the scene should immediately return to normal. “Coffee? Brandy?”
Brandy. Courvoisier, Remy Martin, Hennessy. Dark brown brandy, warm brown brandy, rich bitter brandy, I could smell it, taste it on my tongue, and suddenly I was back in that Mediterranean port again and the gray warship was waiting in the bay for me to return from shore leave. I saw the smashed bottles and the smashed furniture; I heard the ship’s captain saying, “Guys like you are always trouble”; I felt the pain as the ship’s doctor dressed the cut on my head; and worst of all I remembered the shame of waking next morning and telling myself I was unfit to live.
“No brandy,” I said aloud in that smart New York restaurant twenty years later. “Nothing.”
“No beer,” I had said to the landlord of the pub at Mallingham after I had visited my father’s grave in 1946. “Just ginger ale.”
Vicky was standing up. “I want to go now, please,” she said in the Four Seasons in 1963.
“Take all the time you want,” said Death to Bergman’s knight in the world of my fantasies, “but if you take one false step, I’ll be waiting for you.”
So vivid was that image of Death that I found myself looking around for him, but all I saw was the blazing hulk of the Pan Am Building as we stepped out onto Park Avenue, and the next moment I was flagging down a cab, opening the door, hesitating over the address.
“Will you come to my place?” I heard myself say to Vicky.
“Your place!” she said in a hard offhand voice. “God, I thought no one ever got invited there!”
“I want you to see it.”
Her eyes filled with tears, but all she said was, “Thank you. I’d like that,” and when I reached for her hand again she didn’t draw it away.
The cab set off uptown. For some time we were silent, but at last I said, “I’m sorry. Forgive me. I don’t know what happened. It’s been such a terrible day.”
“Is that all you’re going to say?”
“I …”
“Was Kevin right? Are you always going to be too buttoned up to talk?”
“Well, I … Vicky, you mustn’t listen to him. …”
“No, you’re the one I want to listen to. I’m listening right now. But I can’t hear anything.”
“I … Look …”
“Yes?”
“I want to talk,” I said. “I do want to. That’s why I invited you to my place. I … didn’t want to be alone there anymore … cut off …”
“Yes, I understand that. It’s all right. I do understand. Let’s wait till we get there.”
I kissed her, and then in a moment of panic, which was all the more terrifying because it was so unexpected, I wondered if I’d be crippled again once we got to bed. Kevin seemed to have severed Vicky from me, with the result that she was now drifting steadily beyond my reach. I felt desperate, knew I would do anything to get her back. The thought of being forced back into my former isolated half-life was now far more than I could endure.
The quality of the silence in the cab changed abruptly, and I realized with a shock that the driver had switched off his engine. His next words confirmed that we had been stationary for some time outside my apartment b
uilding.
“Do you folks want to get out?” he inquired. “Or should I get some blankets and pillows to make you comfortable?”
I paid him and without a word took Vicky up to my apartment.
II
Yet in the end it was Vicky, not I, who halted the drift and brought us back together again. I couldn’t have done it. For a while I thought she couldn’t do it either, but when I saw how determined she was, I became determined too, and my determination gave me the strength to help her.
She began to talk as soon as we entered the apartment.
“Kevin was wrong, wasn’t he?” she said. “He was wrong to imply the driving force in your life was your ambition—as if you only cared about money and power and success. You don’t really care about all that, do you?”
“No.”
“And Sebastian was wrong too, wasn’t he, when he decided the driving force in your life was the desire for revenge. You’re not a hero in a play by Middleton or Tourneur.”
“Right.”
We were standing by the window of the living room, and before us stretched the lights of Queens. I was holding her hand very tightly and wishing I could talk more, but my throat hurt too much and my head was throbbing with pain.
“Nobody’s ever understood, have they?”
I shook my head.
“It’s guilt, isn’t it?”
The lights of Queens began to blur.
“You’re like me,” said Vicky. “I recognized the likeness in the end. The driving force in your life is guilt. You feel horribly, overpoweringly guilty. But why? What did you do? Can you tell me about it?”
I nodded. She waited. But I was dumb.
“Something happened back in the thirties?”
I nodded again.
“Between you and my father?”
I shook my head. Then I said, “My father.” A second later I wasn’t sure whether I had spoken the words aloud, so I said them again. “My father,” I said. “Mine.”
“Something happened between you and your father? I see. What was it?”
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