Dark on the Other Side (2 page)

He settled back in his chair, nursing his glass between
his hands and smiling. His eyes were remarkable, Linda thought; they
mirrored his feelings candidly, without evasion or concealment.

“And,” she added, “you did it without resorting to the
psychological jargon that’s so popular today.”

“It’s hard to avoid,” Michael said. “It has become part
of our unconscious thinking.”

Gordon said interestedly, “A person untrained in
psychology—which includes most of us, I suppose—doesn’t even use the
jargon accurately. If a psychiatrist speaks of paranoia, he is trying
to pinpoint a specific syndrome. Whereas a writer, and the majority of
his readers, get a much more generalized, and probably wildly
inaccurate, picture of behavior.”

“That’s true,” Michael agreed. “But I was thinking more
in terms of the way vocabulary reflects changing cultural patterns.
Words don’t convey a single specific image; they suggest a vast complex
of ideas, emotions, and states of knowledge. When we speak of ‘guilt,’
for instance, we’re using the same word that occurs in—oh, St.
Augustine, let’s say, and Sophocles. But for each of them the word had
implications which a modern jurist no longer considers.”

“A better example might be the word ‘mad.’”

The voice was soft and gentle. There was no reason why it
should have startled Linda so badly that the glass almost fell from her
hand. She drained its contents. Briggs, rising to refill it, continued
in the same mellifluous voice.

“The medieval world, assured of the reality of God and
the devil, regarded madness as possession by an evil spirit. We have
murdered God by reason; we try to deny the powers of evil by inventing
new terms to explain the aberrant behavior that men of the Middle Ages
attributed to demons.”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I meant,” Michael said.
“Vocabulary reflects the accepted world view of the period.
Psychological terminology, however badly used, indicates our rejection
of the cruder superstitions of the past.”

There was silence when he stopped speaking. Linda sat
upright in her chair, feeling, but not responding to, the intense
anxiety of Gordon’s regard. Belatedly, Michael seemed to sense the
change in the atmosphere.

“I try to avoid jargon of all kinds in my writing,” he
said awkwardly. “Just as I try to avoid strained interpretations of
human relationships based on the standard perversions.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” Gordon said heartily, and
Michael laughed. Linda’s hand clenched around the glass Briggs handed
her. The secretary went to refill the other glasses.

“Gordon’s dying to know what you’ll say about him,” Linda
said. “But of course he’s too smart to ask outright.”

Gordon started to speak, but Michael anticipated him, so
smoothly that perhaps no one except Linda noticed how he used the words
like a barrier, to shield Gordon from the malice of the speech.

“I don’t know myself, yet. What I’m doing now is soaking
up atmosphere, if you’ll pardon the expression. And very pleasant it
is—thank you.”

He lifted his glass with a slight bow that was aimed,
impartially, at a spot midway between his host and hostess.

“We’re trying to prejudice you,” Gordon said, smiling.

“I’m always prejudiced right from the first. I’m in favor
of people.”

“How nice of you,” Linda murmured.

This time it was Gordon who came to the aid of his guest.
The two of them, Linda thought irritably, worked together as smoothly
as Laurel and Hardy. The flush on Michael’s face subsided as Gordon
talked, blandly and inconsequentially, of words and their meanings, of
books and authors and libraries.

“I covet your library,” Michael said, looking
appreciatively around the room. “When I was an impractical college
student I dreamed of having a place like this.”

“It’s copied from a library in an English country house,”
Linda said. She smiled sweetly at Gordon. “Volume for volume.”

She finished her drink, and Briggs waddled over to take
the empty glass.

“I don’t think we have time for another, do we?”

The pause, before Gordon spoke, was just long enough to
underline the fact that the mistress of the house should have made this
comment. “Didn’t you order dinner at eight, darling? Ah, yes—here’s
Haworth.”

The butler’s quiet “Dinner is served” brought the men to
their feet. Linda rose more slowly.

“I’ll take my drink with me—darling,” she said.

Taking the glass Briggs handed her, she led the way to
the dining room.

III

It was a good many years before Michael could think of
his first dinner with the Randolphs without a reminiscent shudder. His
host was too nervous to eat, his hostess steadily drank herself, not
into a coma but into sharp-tongued virulence, and the pallid secretary
stealthily gobbled enormous quantities of food.

When Linda Randolph first entered the library, he
realized that she had been drinking; but that fact seemed irrelevant in
the presence of such unusual beauty. Her hair was the rare, true black,
with a sheen like that of silk; its heavy masses framed a face modeled
with a precise delicacy that he had, up till now, seen only in a few
masterpieces of sculpture. It was not a conventional type of beauty;
many people would think it flawed by the character which gave the
features their final definition—a character too strong, too individual
for a woman’s face. She would never get past the semifinals in a Miss
Wheat Cereal contest. But the Wheat Cereal queens didn’t have the kind
of face that launched ships or burned towers. Linda Randolph did. Helen
and Cleopatra probably hadn’t been conventional beauties either.

He knew why he had thought of Cleopatra. Linda…what an
insipid name for that dark, exotic girl. The heavy, gold-trimmed dress
emphasized the Egyptian look, but it didn’t suit her; stiff with
embroidery and gold thread, it stood away from her body and made her
look like a well-dressed doll. Her shoulders seemed bowed under the
weight of it. She was too thin.

How thin he didn’t realize until she came nearer and sat
down in a chair only a few feet away. The contrast between the
splendid, remote figure in the doorway and the same woman at close
range was a little shocking. Michael assumed she was painted and
powdered, as all women were, but the best cosmetics in the world could
not conceal the underlying pallor and tension of her face. Her hands,
dwarfed by the wide sleeves of the robe, looked like little white claws.

He had known a lot of people who drank too much, and some
who were genuine alcoholics. Linda Randolph wasn’t an alcoholic yet.
Not quite.

She held her liquor well, he had to admit that. She’d
probably had a few before she came down, but her conversation in the
library had been reasonably coherent, even bright. Those digs at her
husband…Well, married couples did that, especially after a few drinks.
In
vino veritas
—and, apparently, the closer the relationship,
the nastier the truth. Parents and children, husbands and wives…Maybe
that was why he’d chosen to remain a bachelor.

During the meal she finished her drink and then started
on the wine—a superb Montrachet, too good to be swallowed down like
water. The silent butler kept her glass filled. Well, Michael thought,
what else can he do? She spoke to the man sharply once, when he was a
little slow. Gordon, who would probably behave like a gentleman on his
way to be hanged, couldn’t object without risking a scene. But his
conversational abilities declined noticeably. Finally, in desperation,
Michael broke the rule he had made, about discussing business during
social hours, and started asking questions.

“Athletic career?” Gordon smiled, and shrugged. “I quit
while I was ahead. Never had the necessary motivation to become a
professional. That takes concentration. I was interested in too many
other things.”

He broke off, to sample the wine that was being served
with the next course, and Michael brooded. Motivation? Lack of
interest? That was the obvious answer to the enigma of Gordon
Randolph—athlete, writer, politician, teacher—who had abandoned, of his
own choice, each of the professions in which he was expected to excel.
The man who had everything—and who wanted nothing. But lack of ambition
was too facile an answer.

“Anyhow,” Randolph went on, with a nod at the butler, “I
was never an all-round athletic type.”

“Tennis and swimming,” Michael said. “You know, I’d have
thought you’d be a good quarterback. You have the build for it, and the
coordination.”

Gordon grinned.

“I’m a coward,” he said amiably. “Didn’t care for the
prospect of being jumped on by all those big, booted feet.”

“No contact sports,” Michael said thoughtfully. “And no
team sports.”

“That’s rather perceptive. Even if it does make me sound
like a cowardly snob. Or a snobbish coward.”

“Maybe just a man of sense,” Michael said, smiling. “I
can see why those activities might have bored you eventually. What a
lot of people hold against you is your failure to write another book.”

“Again, I stopped while I was ahead. They say, don’t
they, that everyone has one good book in him? But how many people have
two?”

“Most people don’t even have one. And very few have a
book as good as
The Smoke of Her Burning
. It’s a
good title.”

“Rather unsubtle, I’m afraid.”

“The allusion is to Revelations?”

“Yes. The destruction of the whore of Babylon. Very
theatrical.”

The conversation had degenerated into a dialogue. Michael
preferred it that way. Briggs never had his mouth empty long enough to
frame an intelligible comment, and Linda had relapsed into a silence so
profound that she might not have been there at all. Only the dress,
holding its own shape, sitting empty at the foot of the table…It was a
gruesomely vivid image, and when his hostess spoke, Michael flinched.

“You haven’t read Gordon’s masterpiece?”

“Not yet.”

“Dear, dear. How inefficient of you.” Her voice wasn’t
slurred; only the extra precision of her enunciation betrayed her
condition.

“Well, you see, I have a theory. This is the first time
I’ve tried a biography of a living person. I thought I’d get a
personal, overall impression first, like a quick outline sketch. Then
I’ll start filling in details.”

“But you already knew some of the details. Like the
tennis.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t start with a clean slate in the
case of a man like Gordon. I knew most of the basic facts; a lot of
people know them. He is a well-known figure.”

“Was,” Gordon corrected.

At the same moment, his wife said, “The famous, brilliant
Gordon Randolph.”

Most wives could have said that, in the right tone and
with the right kind of smile, and made it sound like an affectionate
little joke. Michael thought he had never heard an obscenity that
sounded quite as vicious. He said quickly, “That’s quite true. Of
course I have a certain personal interest. You were one of my father’s
students in college, weren’t you, Gordon?”

“Yes. And going back to that word ‘brilliant,’ which we
use so freely these days, your father was one of the few teachers who
really merited the adjective.”

“Thank you. I was an uncouth high school brat at that
time, but I seem to recall his speaking of you.”

“Then you can’t claim to have approached me without
prejudice,” Gordon said pleasantly.

“Yes, I can. I was only interested in two things then—one
of them was basketball—and I’m afraid I didn’t pay much attention to
the conversation of the over-thirty crowd.”

“Over thirty or under thirty, they were all the same,”
Linda said. Her voice had become a little thick. “Members of the fan
club. The St. Gordon fan club.”

Gordon gave his wife an anguished look, and Michael burst
into speech.

“Speaking of my father reminds me of something I’ve been
wondering about. Call it idle curiosity. But I know you haven’t
permitted an interview for many years. What I wondered was—why me? Sam
Cohen, my agent, said you’d specifically mentioned my name. I’m not the
most modest member of the Author’s Guild, but neither am I the most
famous. Was it because of Dad?”

He had meant to insinuate that question at some point,
but it came out sounding a good deal more gauche than it might have
under other circumstances. He could feel his face getting red as
Gordon’s quizzical eyes studied him, and he was painfully aware of
Linda’s unconcealed amusement. She wasn’t too drunk to be unaware of
his embarrassment.

“What are you doing, fishing for an insult?” Gordon asked
with a smile. “Naturally I followed your career with more interest than
I would have done, because of your father. But that career itself
impressed me with your ability. I like the way you approach your
subjects; Linda summed up my feelings exactly. There’s warmth and
sympathy in your interpretations, and you always see both sides. And,
lest your vanity get too swollen, I might add that I mentioned several
names. Yours was one.”

Michael hadn’t gotten that impression; but then, he
thought, a good agent—and Sam was one of the best—automatically
administered periodic doses of ego booster. Writers needed compliments.
The ones who said they welcomed criticism were liars; what they wanted
was praise—the more effusive, the better. But then, he thought, who
didn’t? Probe deeply enough, under the slickest façade of
confidence, and you tapped a vein of self-doubt or a hidden fear.
Irrational fears and baseless doubts, many of them, but that was
precisely why constant reassurance was necessary to the human animal.
Maybe, if you reduced the thing to its simplest terms, that was the
secret of his success as a biographer. Find the Hidden Fear. Well, at
least he didn’t sneer at other people’s weaknesses, even if they were
not his own.