“Is there much warning?”
“Directly before the attack I have a dozen seconds, but there’s nothing I can do to stop it. However, long before the aura I can usually tell when I’m in danger and then I do everything I can to head off an attack. I’ve been very near an attack at least a dozen times since Jay died, but mostly the attacks have never happened—sometimes I think I merely imagine I’m close to one because I’m so afraid of it happening. It’s difficult to tell.” He rubbed his eyes nervously with his hands as if to erase the memory. “You can’t imagine what it’s like. You’re always wondering when it’s going to happen again, wondering where you’ll be, who’ll see you, who’ll find out, who’ll talk, who’ll laugh, who’ll sneer behind your back and say you’re insane. But my form of the illness has nothing to do with insanity—”
“Yes, I understand.”
“—and that’s what makes it all the more unendurable, to have a quick, sharp, clear mind and yet be unable to stop it from exploding, careering out of control—”
“Yes.”
“Those seconds of hallucinations, that terrible moment when you know you’re going to disintegrate, and in such a disgusting, repulsive, uncivilized manner—I’ve only to think of it and I feel unspeakably debased. I’ve never been able to tell anyone, never. Occasionally someone like Jay has found out, but—”
“And Elizabeth?”
“Yes. She was revolted. I could see. She was always so fastidious.”
“But surely—”
“Oh yes, she tried to hide it but I felt so humiliated, like some sort of animal.” He broke off again. “I can’t talk about it anymore.”
“I have only one more question: What can I do to help you avoid these attacks?”
He gave me a thin smile. “You already do all you can. Sex helps.” He winced as if the blunt words offended him, but when he spoke again I realized he was only afraid they had offended me. “I mean that the times when we make love are very important.”
“Yes.” I wanted to communicate to him that he could be as blunt as he wished so long as he told me the truth. “I understand—or at least I think I do. Anything which helps you relax is important.”
“Every case is different. What helps me may be of no use to others.” He started to talk about his father’s triumph in transforming him into a sportsman. “I always assumed that my physical fitness was responsible for my remission,” he said, “but perhaps that was merely a coincidence. However, it certainly seemed to help when I was a boy, and later when I was a man and discovered women …” He gave his thin tired smile again. “If I were in the mood to make jokes I could say I found sex the best sport of all. But it hardly seems the right moment for jokes, does it?” He stood up and began to roam around the room. I longed to beg him to sit down, but I knew that would annoy him. Presently he said, “I have to rest. You’d better cancel all our engagements for the next week, and whatever happens I’ll stay here and not allow myself to be dragged back to New York.”
I was greatly relieved. “Are you sure you shouldn’t see a doctor?”
He looked bitter. “There’s nothing they can do. They know so little.” As I watched he started to clench and unclench his fists in his agitation. “I’ll be all right. I’ve cured myself before and I’ll cure myself again. I just need a little time, that’s all.”
We were silent for some time, but at last he sat down beside me on the bed and put his arm around my shoulders. “I suppose it’s useless to hope this won’t make a difference to us.”
“It’ll make a great difference, yes. Now I shall find it so much easier to accept your infidelities. It’ll even make it easier for me to understand your attachment to Miss Slade. You were ill after Jay’s death and she helped you get better.”
His arm tightened around me. After a pause he said in a low voice, “I don’t know why I became drawn into such a foolish correspondence with her—no, that’s not true. I do know. Whenever I become exhausted with my New York life I think of her more often. She’s part of a romantic illusion— escaping to Europe, recapturing my lost youth, all those abominable middle-aged fantasies. I despise them, I don’t believe in them, yet occasionally I can’t resist indulging myself, with them. But I’m still a realist, Sylvia. You’re my reality, New York is my reality, and I know that, even when I’m writing silly letters to Dinah Slade.”
“Does she know about your illness?”
“Good God, no!” His arm slipped from my shoulders. He began to twist his hands together but I covered them with mine.
“Don’t, Paul. Everything’s going to be all right.”
“Of course. But what the devil am I going to do with O’Reilly? I can’t possibly fire him. He knows too much about me.” And at last I heard the full story of the Salzedo affair.
He talked for an hour. For a long time I managed to conceal my distress but when he said, “And O’Reilly knows I lied to the grand jury,” I gave an exclamation of despair.
“I’m a fool to be telling you all this,” he said at once. “I can see this is shocking you far more than my illness.”
“Yes,” I said, “but if you at last feel you can talk to me about it, that must be for the best. Paul, I’ve always felt able to cope with our marriage so long as I thought you were being honest with me. I could stand the truth; it was the lies which were undermining my feeling for you. I wanted to turn to Terence because I felt you’d duped me and made nonsense of the trust I had in you.”
“I’ll have to get him out of the house,” he said, wringing his hands again. “I’ll promote him. There’s nothing else I can do.” He turned to look at me. His face was white with strain and his dark eyes were feverish. “You’ll stand by me?”
“Yes. If we can be honest with each other.”
“But my illness …”
“What difference can that possibly make to me? You’re still Paul.”
He looked at me as if he would like to believe what I said but dared not for fear he had misunderstood. Knowing instinctively I must show no trace of a pity he would only find humiliating, I leaned forward and kissed him passionately on the mouth.
His response was painful in its fervor. I saw he had finally allowed himself to believe I might love him despite his illness, and although every instinct I possessed urged him not to make love to me when he was still in a state of exhaustion, I said nothing. If he thought I was rejecting him our relationship would never recover.
I did everything I could, but when his failure became intolerable to him he rolled away from me without a word and began to dress. His face was very still. He did not look at me, and after saying he was going for a walk before lunch he left the room without a backward glance.
I was alone. I had the terrible feeling I had lost him forever, just as Elizabeth had lost him nine years before, and, burying my face in the pillows, I sobbed until I lay limp with exhaustion. Our troubles seemed endless. The desolation stretched ahead of me as far as the eye could see.
III
He stayed well while we remained at Bar Harbor, but when we returned to New York he had another seizure. Again we were alone together, discussing household matters before his departure to the office, but the recurrence after such a brief remission terrified him and he became obsessed with the fear of collapsing in public. That was when he went back to the doctors. He saw the most famous specialists and was tested for a multitude of illnesses, but the doctors diagnosed only the epilepsy and there was nothing they could do. He was told to live quietly, avoid the pressures of the business world and take only moderate exercise so as not to overtax his strength. He was also exhorted to take his medication regularly, but Paul hated the drug he was prescribed and said it deadened his wits, rendered any exercise an effort and made him feel unwell. He had never taken the drug regularly before for any prolonged length of time.
“But you should at least try to do what the doctors say!” I pleaded with him, but he said it had been his father, not the doctors, who had cured
him long ago. With great courage he abandoned his pills and began a rigorous routine of exercise. I saw his mind focus on his health in a mighty effort to subjugate his physical weakness, and soon, contrary to the doctors’ expectations, he began to improve. He returned to the office, he permitted me to arrange a few social engagements, and in late October he tried to make love to me for the first time since that disastrous morning at Bar Harbor.
The second failure was very difficult for us both. At Bar Harbor he had said later that day, “When I’m better everything will be well,” and because this statement had seemed both obvious and sensible I had recovered quickly from my despair. But the second failure, occurring when he was physically fit and rested, shattered me almost as much as it shattered him. We tried to discuss it but could not. He found he had nothing to say, and I have never been one of those outspoken women like Caroline Sullivan who can discuss such matters as easily as they discuss the weather.
The rift between us widened. I was just wondering if I had ever felt so unhappy when Paul had his next seizure.
He was swimming in the pool, and had it not been for Peterson’s strength and speed in pulling him from the water he might well have drowned.
Terence had long since been promoted, but his replacement Herbert Mayers rushed to my room to tell me the news.
“No one must know about this. It’s not to be discussed,” I said strongly when I reached the pool, and Peterson, white-faced, said, “Yes, ma’am,” while Mayers added without expression, “Of course, Mrs. Van Zale.”
I tried to deny to myself that it would be only a matter of time before the rumor was spreading over New York.
“Why don’t we go away for a while?” I suggested to Paul. “Have the captain sail the yacht down to Florida, and then we can join the ship at Fort Lauderdale. It’s not the rainy season in the Bahamas, is it?”
“Nobody goes to the Bahamas at this time of year,” he said desperately. “Everyone will say I’m having a nervous breakdown if I go away so soon after that long absence from the office in September. I refuse to run away from New York now.”
But he did. We spent November idly cruising in the Bahamas, and again he began to improve although we had separate cabins and he never once suggested we sleep together. When we stopped at Nassau he spent three evenings ashore on his own, but I did not mind that and only hoped that the unknown women who spent time with him managed to restore his confidence. Yet when we left Nassau he did not approach me. The sun shone, the exquisite cays shimmered in the sparkling sea but they were remote from us. I felt as if we were seeing them through barred windows, and eventually, realizing there was no alternative, we returned with reluctance to New York.
In early December, on his first day back at the office and in full view of all his partners, he had the worst seizure of all and was rushed to the hospital.
When I arrived I found his two greatest friends among his partners, Steve Sullivan and Charley Blair, waiting in the lobby.
“Sylvia, we’re so sorry … thought we ought to discuss what we’re going to say … the press …”
“High blood pressure,” I said. “He fainted and now has to undergo treatment.”
“Sylvia’s right,” said Steve, and I left them debating together while I went up to Paul’s room.
He had drawn the curtains and was not resting in bed as he should have been, but sitting on the edge. His right arm was in a sling and there was a dressing on his head. His feet were bare. He wore only the hospital gown, thin, white and cold.
He looked at me but did not speak. Closing the door, I gave him a kiss and sat down beside him on the bed.
“Is your arm broken?”
“Fractured.”
“What did the doctors say?”
“ ‘Take drugs, lock yourself up and throw away the key.’ ” When he swallowed awkwardly I saw that his eyes were bright with tears and I got up at once to look out of the window. He would never have forgiven himself if I had seen him break down.
At last I said, “There must be something we can do. I can’t accept that there’s nothing.”
“There’s nothing you can do. But if I could—” He broke off.
There was a silence, but I thought of all he had told me about his illness, how he had kept it at bay for so many years with such complete success, and I knew what he had wanted to say.
I said tentatively, “Those evenings in Nassau …”
“It was no good. I’ve got so little self-esteem left. That kind of expedition wiped it out altogether.”
I thought for a moment. My mouth was dry and my nails were digging into the palms of my hands. “It would make a difference, wouldn’t it,” I said slowly, “if you could see someone you liked, someone who admired you, someone who knew nothing about all this.”
He did not answer, only leaned forward and stared at the floor. I sat down beside him again but before I could speak he said haltingly, “If I can get over this I know we can be together again. But you yourself can’t help me get over it.”
“Then we must find someone who can.”
The silence seemed to go on and on. In a bizarre moment of fancy I felt as if every step I had ever taken in my marriage had led up to this point, and that now my entire future depended on what I said next. For a second I panicked. I thought I would never be able to decide what to do, but then my mind cleared, just as one’s mind so often does in moments of extreme crisis, and the solution seemed obvious. Either I loved him enough to do anything to make him well or I didn’t love him at all. It was as simple as that.
I said firmly, “Send for her.”
He raised his head. As he turned to look at me I saw the expression in his eyes.
“It’s all right,” I said quickly. “There’s no need to answer. There’s nothing you have to say.”
“Oh yes there is,” he said, and taking my hands in his he said with all the passion I had waited thirteen years to hear, “I love you.”
PART THREE
Dinah: Losing
1926
One
I
THE BRUTE SENT FOR me in 1925, just before Christmas. God, how angry I was! I damned nearly tore up the letter and jumped on it, but I made the mistake of reading it again and before I had even finished the first paragraph I felt myself weakening beneath the onslaught of his charm.
“Monster!” I said aloud, grabbing a cigarette to steady my nerves, and my poor secretary who chose that moment to walk into the room sniveled threateningly. “Oh, for God’s sake, Miss Jenkins, I wasn’t talking to you! Fetch me some more tea, would you, please?”
“Yes, Miss Slade.” She fled. Next door on my left Harriet was saying in dulcet tones, “Oh yes, Lady Uppingham, we would be delighted. … Yes, we have acted as cosmetic consultants to a number of brides lately. …” While next door on my right Cedric was screaming into the telephone, “Who the ruddy hell do you think we are? Peddlers of paste to ruddy Woolworth’s?”
I was hunting for a match. I wished I had never started to smoke. The telephone rang again and beyond the open door of my office Mavis intoned through her nose, “Diana Slade Cosmetics—may I help you?”
I found a match, lit the cigarette and remembered I had been wanting to go to the lavatory for half an hour. I was just sneaking purposefully through the doorway when Cedric rang off with a crash, shot out of his office and blocked my path.
“Honestly, Dinah, those bloody people from Gorringe’s!”
“Goodbye, Lady Uppingham!” crooned Harriet behind us.
“Miss Slade!” called Mavis from the reception desk. “Mr. Hurst on the phone for you!”
“Oh, Lord. Coming, Mavis! Hold on, Cedric! Harriet, I hope you told that old trout that we have to have carte blanche with the facial.”
“Darling, the carte is absolutely blanche and I’ve doubled the price of the wax treatment! Cedric, did you talk to Gorringe’s?”
“Miss Slade …”
“All right, Mavis.” I sped back into
my office, saw Paul’s letter still sitting on my desk and felt more in need of the lavatory than ever. I yanked the telephone towards me. “Yes?”
“You’re throo-oo,” sang Mavis.
“Dinah? Geoffrey here. Look, I’m up in London unexpectedly. Can you meet me for dinner tonight?”
“Lovely, Geoffrey. Eight o’clock?”
“I’ll pick you up at the flat.”
“I’ll be ready. Thanks. Excuse me if I dash now, but …”I extricated myself, grabbed Paul’s letter and raced to the cloakroom. There in the peaceful gloom of my favorite end cubicle I had the chance to read the letter again without interruptions.
When I emerged I looked at myself in the glass above the basin. I was white with some emotion which I wanted to believe was still anger but which I strongly suspected was now a mixture of excitement and fright.
“ ‘Once more into the breach, dear friends!’ ” I quoted to my reflection, and wished I did not have such an urge to add, “ ‘Ave Caesar, te morituri salutant!’ ” I could not remember Tiberius Caesar’s exact reply to the gladiators’ assertion that they were about to die, but thought he had given some cynical retort such as “Or not, as the case may be,” whereupon the gladiators had taken great offense. Doubtless they had derived a morbid pleasure from their situation, just as I was now deriving a morbid pleasure from mine. I laughed in an attempt to be debonair. After three years of innumerable cold business letters and studiedly unemotional personal correspondence, Paul was graciously allowing me another bite of the legendary apple of temptation. Well, if that was what he wanted, that was what he was going to get, but one day, I thought fiercely, one day Mr. Paul Cornelius Van Zale was going to discover that he had got one hell of a lot more than he had bargained for.
II
I loved him. I had never loved any man before and had never loved any man since. By the December of 1925 I was secretly afraid I would never love any man again.
The Rich Are Different Page 28