His bloodshot eyes appeared small and narrow because of the puffiness of the lids, but otherwise, wearing a collared and striped rugby sweater with shorts that displayed stocky, hairy, tanned legs, he brought into the stale air of the hospital room an almost unbearable reminder of normal, healthy masculine flesh.
“Gid,” Honora murmured, “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about Alexander.”
His Adam’s apple worked. After a pause he muttered, “I guess it’s always rough, losing a brother, but Alexander and I were so close in age. We spent huge chunks of time together, we were pretty much twins . . . .” His voice wavered.
Honora’s hands raised as if to embrace him, then fell to her sides: they had been strangers until yesterday, and her butterfly feeler delicacy informed her that she didn’t know this nephew well enough to intrude on his grief. “That’s the way Crystal and I were. How is she?”
“The doctor gave her a shot. She’s knocked out.”
“Poor Crystal . . . .”
“It’s very nice of you to drop by,” Joscelyn said gruffly. She had seen, as Honora had not, Gid’s unabashed sobbing over his brother’s body.
“I really appreciate what Mr. Ivory tried to do,” he said. “What’s happening?”
“He’s in the operating room,” Honora said thinly.
“Still? We’ve been worried about him, Anne and I.” He gave a funny little smile. “She’s here on the third floor—that’s maternity.”
“The baby’s coming?” Joscelyn asked.
“It’s a few weeks early. Not quite a month. In a way it’s good. We’re in New Guinea, and though the Talbott hospital facilities are great for there, better to be a preemie in Washington than at the Tasi.” His forehead creased in anxious wrinkles. “At least that’s what I tell Anne.”
“She’ll be fine,” Honora murmured. “But shouldn’t you be with her, rubbing her back?”
“She ordered me up here to see how Mr. Ivory’s doing.”
Honora sighed deeply, shaking her head. “We don’t know.”
“Not a word for hours,” Joscelyn said.
“There’s no way Mom and I can thank you enough for what he tried to do.”
“He saw the gun,” Honora said.
“Everybody says he was terrific. The thing I can’t figure is what the guy had against Alexander. All Anne and I can guess is that he’s a mental case—there’s an awful lot of unboxed nuts around, and—”
Honora returned to her chair. “Gid,” she interrupted, “it was dear of you to come, but I know you’re in a hurry to get back to the labor room.”
“Sure am.” He reached for the door handle. “I’ll check back later.”
After his jogging footsteps faded into the hospital night, Joscelyn ached to discuss the subject their nephew had raised: what had possessed Curt to lay his life on the line for a man he despised? Honora, hands tightly clasped, was absolutely still, her face white, her expression faraway. Joscelyn kept silent.
* * *
A half hour later a pair of surgeons slipped into the room’s tiny vestibule. They both wore bloodstained, wrinkled scrub suits and green paper boots over their shoes. The taller doctor moved into the room, his shoulders slumped wearily. In a low, sympathetic, southern accent, he explained that they had removed the bullet, repairing as much of the damage to the heart as was possible.
Honora’s eyes closed.
“How is he?” Joscelyn demanded.
“His condition’s critical.”
“How critical?” Joscelyn asked.
The shorter doctor sucked in his fleshy, wrinkled cheeks. “The prognosis is what we call guarded.”
“It can go either way?” Joscelyn asked.
“Yes.”
Honora gave a little cough. “When can I see him?”
“They’ll tell you upstairs in ICU, Mrs. Ivory.”
* * *
Joscelyn and Honora moved to Fourth Floor North. On the right of the elevators was the windowed reception desk of the Intensive Care Unit. A thin young woman in a white coat shuffled large, blue-covered charts while behind her an orderly was pushing an elaborate piece of equipment down an ominously bright corridor.
The ICU waiting room, a narrow L-shape with a telephone booth in the corner, was empty, but somebody had left a red down jacket on a coat hook.
Honora went to the dark window and stared out at the lit windows of the hospital wings.
When Joscelyn could no longer bear the silence, she said, “I cannot for the life of me imagine what possessed Curt to do it.”
A tightening of Honora’s shoulders proved she had heard: she did not reply.
“I mean,” Joscelyn said, “why on earth would he shove Alexander out of the way of speeding bullets? It’s not as if he had any reason to cherish the saintly boy, even if he was his father. I’ve tried to figure it but I can’t.”
“It was Curt’s fate,” Honora said, still gazing into the darkness.
“Fate? Honora, in England have you taken to consulting with gypsies—or is it the druids over there?”
“You asked my opinion.”
Honora talking crazily was better than Honora silent, so Joscelyn said, “I don’t understand what you mean, fate.”
“They’re tied together.”
“Yes, as father and son.”
“It’s more complicated than an accident of sperm. Curt tried to reject his fate, but Alexander never did. It’s like a Greek tragedy, Sophoclean. Alexander knew he was born to be Curt’s nemesis.”
“Fate? Nemesis?” Joscelyn shifted uneasily on the lumpy tweed. “Isn’t that a bit far out, Honora?”
“Remember when I told you that Alexander admitted to coming to Marrakesh to break us up? It was almost as if he couldn’t help himself. You’ve told me yourself he’d do anything to get a contract away from Ivory. And then there’s the hearing.”
“That part is pure bull,” Joscelyn said loudly.
“Curt believes it.”
“Yes, I heard him. But Curt’s been under a huge amount of stress and pressure in Washington. Be reasonable, Honora. Nobody, not even our noble-hearted sonny boy, does anyone the dirty by setting up a Congressional hearing, especially when his own company’s money is so laundered that it’s faded to a light chartreuse.” Joscelyn scratched vehemently at her back. “So that’s your fate-nemesis theory?”
“I’ve often wondered why Crystal told him who his real father was, but once she did tell him, the wheels were set in motion—” Honora broke off.
A thin, boyish-looking man had come into the waiting room: purposefully avoiding looking at them, he pulled on the red jacket. After he’d gone down in the elevator Joscelyn tried to revive the conversation, but Honora shook her head wearily.
A sign proclaimed: NO VISITORS BETWEEN 12 P.M. AND SEVEN A.M. At midnight Joscelyn stretched on one of the couches, dozing intermittently. Honora never slept, leaving her chair only once to use the restroom.
* * *
A few minutes after seven, as the thin gray morning was oozing through the window at the long end of the waiting room, a chesty nurse wearing scrubs came to the door. “Mrs. Ivory, you can visit now.”
Honora was led down the brilliantly lit ICU corridor past glass roomlets where machines beeped noisily and monitoring screens bulged from walls and ceilings.
Her first impression of Curt was that a mad scientist had incarcerated him in a trellis of dripping plastic bottles and ticking robots. His bandaged chest rose and fell rhythmically, a thick, flexible tube strapped to his face disappeared into his mouth. The faint hint of rosiness infusing along his high cheekbones had the duplicity of a mortician’s cosmetics.
“He’s heavily sedated,” said the nurse with a firm tap at his bare shoulder. “Curt. Curt.”
Getting not even a flicker of response, she delivered an audible blow.
“Don’t,” Honora whispered.
The nurse ignored her. Another fly-swatting slap. “Curt, your wife is here.”
Honora leaned over the rail, kissing his forehead. “Darling,” she murmured.
His eyes flickered and became less dazed. She gripped his hand, which—lax and passive—didn’t feel like his hand at all.
The nurse shook one of the clear plastic bottles that dangled on what looked like a metal coatrack. “Four more minutes, no fudging, Mrs. Ivory,” she said pointing to a large Simplex clock that looked homey and familiar amid the proliferation of medical machinery. She moved across the corridor to another patient.
Curt’s chapped lips moved around the tube. “Operation . . . ?”
“It’s over. They got the bullet out,” she said.
He licked his lower lip and muttered, “Thirsty . . . .”
She glanced around but there was no glass. Anyway how could he drink with that tube in his mouth. “I’ll get the nurse.”
“. . . Stay . . . .” His eyes closed.
She stood holding his hand and did not weep until she emerged from the cubicle.
71
Gid Talbott stood with Joscelyn in the waiting room. Their backs were to Honora and she considered sneaking across the hall and hiding behind the swinging door.
Joscelyn turned.
“Honora,” she called urgently. “Honora, how is he?”
Honora fought for control, ugly creases forming around her mouth. “He knew me . . . .”
She moved past them to the waiting room window and opened her purse for a handkerchief. “Sorry,” she said, looking down into the courtyard. “Gid, how’s Anne?”
“Great, fabulous. We’ve been parents of a son for”—he glanced at his watch—“twenty-nine minutes. Five pounds one ounce, quite a bruiser considering his early arrival. A very funny looking gent—well, he said the same about me.”
She used her wet Kleenex again, managing to bestow auntly blessings.
“Aunt Honora?” Gid coughed. “Aunt Joscelyn mentioned that you can only visit once an hour.” For reinforcement he glanced across the lobby. On the glass of the ICU window was a sign:
VISITORS ARE LIMITED TO IMMEDIATE
FAMILY ONLY
NO MORE THAN TWO FAMILY MEMBERS AT
ONE TIME
VISITS ARE PERMITTED FOR FIVE MINUTES
OUT OF EVERY HOUR
He continued, “I realize this is a monstrous imposition, but if I promise to have you back in less than an hour, will you come to the house?”
“Now?” The thought of being banished any further from Curt than this waiting room brought tremors to Honora’s thighs, and she sank into an armchair.
Joscelyn said flatly, “Impossible.”
“This hospital’s on Twenty-third, our place is on Twenty-eighth near Q.”
“Gid,” Joscelyn said sharply. “It’s out of the question.”
“We’re less than five minutes by car,” he said doggedly. “In the morning traffic, maybe eight.”
“Gid, I can’t,” Honora said. Looking at his face, she added uncertainly, “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Mother needs somebody. I can’t help her . . . I, well, I irritate her.” He coughed. “She often told us how close you were, and you said so yourself.”
“Back in the ice age,” Joscelyn put in.
“Until yesterday”—Honora wiped at her eyes, correcting herself—“until the day before yesterday I hadn’t seen her in forever.”
“The reason we called the doctor last night was because she was banging her head on the wall.”
Crystal hammering that gorgeous, sensible head against a wall? Honora’s mind balked at the vision, then she erupted in fury: how dare Gid Talbott keep up his attempt to tear her from this hospital now, when her every cell—her every molecule—must be focused on Curt?
“Gid,” Joscelyn asked, “hasn’t she had enough? Or did you bring some nails for her palms?”
Gid flushed, but continued to gaze at Honora. “I swear I’ll have you back here in less than an hour—before eight if you want.”
“Honora,” Joscelyn snapped, “if you’re even considering it, stop right now.”
“Gid, you don’t understand. He might . . .” Honora was unable to utter the word die.
Gid slumped into the chair next to hers. “I know how you feel. I’d never leave Anne,” he said. “It’s just that Alexander meant everything to Mother.”
Honora looked down at her nephew’s strong knees and saw the large hands dangling helplessly between them. Sighing, she went to take Joscelyn’s navy flannel suit jacket from the wall hook. “Is there a way out of the hospital with no reporters?” she asked.
* * *
On the uneven brick sidewalk between the smart, black painted boxes that held ailanthus trees stood a pair of men drinking coffee from large McDonald’s containers.
“Our new friends,” Gid said.
“Guards?” Honora asked.
“Advance scouts for a Network News car—see those motorcycles? Time for evasive maneuvers.” He drove around the corner, swerving down an unpaved alley to park in the rear garage, which was also built of that iron-rich red brick unique to the capital.
As he led Honora through a little garden (even in her helpless, itching impatience, she could not help noting that a row of lovely dogwoods had been atrociously pruned) the back door burst open and a tall, cadaverous man rushed onto the stoop. “Thank heavens you’re back!”
“What’s wrong, Mitchell?” Gid asked urgently. “Is she worse?”
The man’s long upper lip drew back, showing an unfortunate bite. “Anina heard her toilet flush. Since then we’ve heard her crying and things bumping around, but she keeps the door locked. She didn’t even answer when I told her about the baby—”
Gid bolted into the house. Honora followed his pounding footsteps up a fine Federal staircase.
Gid slammed his palm against a door. “Mom, it’s me, Gid. Mom, open up.”
No sound.
“Anne’s had a little boy,” he shouted more loudly. “She’s fine, and the baby’s over five pounds, doesn’t need to be in an incubator.”
No reply.
“Mom, he’s a terrific baby, he has these tiny fingernails.” Gid’s voice rose, wavering, then cracked like an adolescent’s, and he closed his eyes.
Honora made a peculiar little sound, as if gristle were caught in back of her throat.
“Crystal!” she shouted. “It’s me. Honora. You let us in, do you hear?”
“Go away!” Crystal shrilled.
“Not before I see you.”
“Leave me alone!”
Honora’s rapping shuddered against the door. “I have to be back at the hospital in a few minutes.”
There was a stirring sound. “Just us,” Crystal said.
“Just us,” Honora repeated their old catchphrase that ensured privacy and secrecy.
The lock clicked and the door opened. Honora slipped inside and gasped.
Every drawer had been yanked open and the contents strewn. The long, louvered closets had been emptied. The clothing had been ripped or cut, then tossed in rich, random heaps across the spacious bedroom. Here an opulence of dismembered silks, there a strew of ripped white organza, on the unmade bed a tender pile of shredded lingerie. Tatters of magnificent blue moiré lay wadded on the dressing table to form nesting places for enormous, glowing, South Sea pearls that had been cut from their knotted string. White sequins were scattered like snowflakes, heels had been pried from tiny, dainty shoes. The deep red of a Cartier purse showed pale, fresh gouges.
Perfume hung heavy in the air, as if it had been thrown like gasoline to ignite a bonfire.
Crystal leaned against the door, pressing the bolt home. The front of her loose, blue satin robe was splotched with perfume, the hem had come undone. Her yellow hair hung in lank strands over her blotched cheeks; her eyes were swollen almost shut, with garish red lines marking the lower lids.
“Well, what’s the big deal?” she demanded panting. �
�What do you have to tell me?”
“You really were rotten just then,” Honora said. “Cruel.”
“He has a baby, who cares?”
“What a stinking thing to say. He’s so dear and proud.”
“Shut your stupid face.”
“The baby’s your own grandchild.”
“Are you too soft in the head to understand I don’t give a damn!” Crystal shouted, and ran to the bed, one toe catching in a narrow silk strap so she trailed a dismembered froth of lace after her. She flung herself stomach down on the rumpled blanket cover, her extended foot still dangling the delicate web. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“Gid asked me to come. He’s worried sick—”
“Well both of you can just butt out.”
“I should be at the hospital.”
“Then go!”
“Will you just look at this room. A bomb could’ve struck. You’ve gone around the bend, Crystal. You’re bats.”
“In all these years haven’t you learned to mind your own beeswax?”
As the lingo of their childhood bubbled to their lips, grief was pulling at their faces.
All at once Crystal pushed up on her elbow, staring around with a bewildered expression. “What have I done? You know how careful I am with my things. Oh God, God, God, who cares about clothes!”
Honora flopped onto the heap of torn lingerie next to her sister, hugging her. “Crystal . . . my poor, darling Crystal . . . .”
“Honora, last night . . . they asked me what to do about the body.”
“The body?”
“I went all crazy.”
“Of course you did, poor darling.”
“You’re the only one who understands . . . . My beautiful, brilliant Alexander . . . .”
Both women were sobbing convulsively.
“My beautiful boy . . . .”
“Ahh, Crystal, humans are so terribly fragile.”
“There’s never been anybody like him.”
“We never realize how fragile until it’s too late. When I think how I’ve wasted these years away from Curt.”
“I lived for him.”
“Poor, poor Crys . . . .”
“There’ll have to be a funeral, an important one, and I don’t know how to plan it. I’ll ask Alexander; he’ll tell me what to do.”
Too Much Too Soon Page 52
