‘No, you’re not wrong. That’s the way it is.’
That was the way it ought to be. One week. Only one week. Oh my God—
‘Worried about something, Scott?’
‘Only about my work. There’s a lot to be done before I go.’
‘Have lunch with me today and we’ll discuss how we can best take care of it.’
‘Okay. Thanks.’
‘Uh … Scott.’
‘Yes?’
‘I know it’s none of my business … and of course you don’t have to tell me anything … but … well, just why in God’s name did
you suddenly decide to seduce Vicky?’
‘But I didn’t seduce her,’ I said. ‘She seduced me.’
He gaped at me. He was flabbergasted. I had had the last word in
the conversation, but he had certainly arranged matters so that he could have the last laugh. Excusing myself from his presence
I somehow found my way back to my office and then I collapsed exhausted in the nearest chair.
[1]
When I finally reached my apartment that evening the telephone was ringing. I was so tired I could hardly reach it. Rubbing
my neck where the muscles were aching I slumped down on the recliner and picked up the receiver.
‘Yes.’
‘Scott?’
It was Vicky. Dimly I remembered that I had promised to phone her. I tried to picture her but she seemed too far away for
me to see her clearly. I closed my eyes in an effort to bring her back into focus.
‘Are you mad at me for being so upset this morning?’ she said nervously.
‘No.’
‘Oh. I thought that maybe that was why you hadn’t called.’
‘To be honest I hadn’t even thought about it. I’ve had a bad day at the office.’
‘Oh, I see. Well, I’ve had a bad day at home too – could we recuperate together this evening?’
My blurred memories sharpened abruptly at the thought of the night we had shared.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing I’d like better than to switch off my mind, get into bed and make love. But I’ve just got
to be alone for a while first. Get into your best negligée, turn down the bed and I’ll try to be with you around ten.’
She hung up with a bang which jolted me out of my exhausted stupor and made me curse out loud in exasperation. I had openly
displayed an attitude which women never failed to find offensive. For a moment I wished we were back on board ship where the
need for sex was treated as natural and not as some obscure practice requiring the maximum camouflage.
I called her back. She allowed the phone to ring eighteen times before she picked up the receiver.
‘Yes?’ she said coldly, mirroring my own opening response in the previous conversation.
‘Look, I’m sorry I implied you were no more than a bedroom amenity like some fully automated electric blanket. Why don’t we
have a quiet dinner some place? I can pick you up in half an hour. At least … aren’t you having dinner with Sebastian?’
‘He cancelled.’
‘Do you know why?’
‘I guess he just thought better of the idea. I was out when he called and my housekeeper took the message.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Now was definitely not the moment to explain what had happened to Sebastian. ‘Well, in that case—’
‘Scott, I’d love to have dinner with you, but there’s a complication. I’ve got tickets for the new play by Kevin Daly – I
bought them today as a surprise for Sebastian, but since I shan’t be seeing him …’ She paused, and when I said nothing she
added in a rush: ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you feel in the mood for the theatre?’
I wanted to tell her I felt in the mood for one thing and one thing only, but all I said was a cautious: ‘I don’t like Kevin
Daly’s plays.’
‘Don’t you?’ She sounded astonished.
There was an awkward silence. I realized I had put a foot wrong again, and again I was exasperated with myself. With a great
effort I made a new attempt to please her.
‘But maybe I’ll like this latest play,’ I said quickly. ‘It’s a comedy, isn’t it? Great! I feel in the mood for something
which requires no intellectual effort. I’ll pick you up at your apartment as soon as possible – let’s say in twenty minutes’
time. We don’t want to miss more of the first act than we have to.’
She was waiting in the lobby of her apartment building when I arrived half an hour later. She wore a white mink coat, a sky-blue
dress cut too low, thin-heeled shoes stacked too high, and a careless assortment of diamonds.
‘I thought you were going to stand me up!’ she said lightly. She was clutching her purse so hard that her skin was bone white
around the scarlet nails. ‘I was just about to get mad.’
‘I’m sorry. I had trouble getting a cab.’ I gave her a kiss, and knowing I should make some compliment about her appearance
I glanced again at the fur and jewellery I detested.
‘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 programme
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 overpriced 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 metre 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 towards 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 personal point of view.
I glanced surreptitiously at Vicky in the darkened theatre 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 his trust had been temporarily undermined he had no doubt decided it would be best
if Vicky and I were kept apart.
Fortunately for Vicky and myself, however, 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
mètier
.’
‘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 non-communication!’
‘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 by at Nedicks 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 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 later,’ 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 gruelling 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 notes 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 neutrally: ‘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.’