“I remember the name,” I said lamely. I did, too, and a faint, shapeless image was forming in the middle distance.
He held the door to the street open for me. The heat slammed us like an explosion in a Con Ed main. “Listen, if you can find out what’s got Sal acting so … well, so fed up with me—would you let me know?” He gave me a beseeching look and grinned. “Everything happens at once, right?”
I put on may dark glasses.
“Thanks for coming. And be careful, Belle. Not to worry, just be careful. We’ll get Jack straightened out. See you for opening night, sugar.”
We’d forgotten to have lunch. Just as well, actually.
Chapter Seven
NOT TO WORRY, JUST BE CAREFUL …
It seemed that everything he’d said had been carefully designed to make me worry. The idea of the shrine Jack had constructed worried me more than I could possibly have told Harry. It made Harry think of death. Everything he’d said at the theater was dancing around inside my head like a tribe of dervishes. The shotgun … the first Ruffian to die … I tried to work but I wasn’t accomplishing much of anything. All I could think of was Jack alone in the apartment with all the old snapshots and the shotgun.
Contemplating murder? Suicide?
I didn’t want to believe it. Harry was letting his imagination work overtime. After all, he was involved in getting his show up, hardly in the calmest state of mind himself. So why should I let his opinions bend me out of shape?
Obviously because he and Jack were so close.
But Jack and I were close, too, and I couldn’t believe things were so bad.
Still, by evening of that steamy, humid day, I’d had it with trying to paint. I haphazardly cleaned up my tools and the workplace and went to soak in a cold tub. Naturally the telephone rang and I pulled the bathroom extension across the tile. It was Harry again. He was calling from the theater. I could hear the murmur of the preview crowd behind him.
“Listen,” he said, “I let you down today.”
“You can say that again.” I sighed.
“I completely forgot to tell you a joke. Which I had specifically promised. What can I say, Belle? Too much on my mind—”
“Harry … It’s okay. I’ll live.”
“But I’m a man of my word—”
“I know, I know—”
“I can’t tell it to you now but I’ve got one for you. The one about the armless bell-ringer. You remember to ask me, promise?”
“Don’t you think you’d better attend to your show?”
“In a minute. Listen, you know what I told you about old Jack today?”
“Seems to have stuck in my mind.” Here it came, the disclaimer, the I-was-exaggerating routine, pay-no-attention-to-what-I-said. “Well, the more I think about it, the more concerned I become. Not just about the shrine, the shotgun, this kind of dark mood he projects. There was something else. Has Jack told you he’s writing again?”
“Not a word,” I said.
“Well, he is. I saw the manuscript on his desk. I sort of casually picked up the first page while we talked—I didn’t think I was prying—and he came at me like a madman, told me to leave his things alone, it was none of my business, why was I coming into his place and spying on him … Belle, it was like I was suddenly dealing with another man altogether, not the old Ruffian we know and love.” He laughed bleakly. “I don’t know what it is he’s writing … I just hope to God it’s not the world’s longest suicide note.”
“I really think you’re overreacting, Harry—”
“You haven’t seen his place, toots, so let me be the judge of what is and isn’t realistic. All I’m suggesting is that you might give him a buzz, just shoot the bull, try to get a feeling—”
“I don’t feel like calling him,” I said. “I’m sorry—”
“Okay, okay. Maybe he’ll call you—anyway, listen close, see if you can pick up anything. Look I’d better get into the house and see if I like this thing any better tonight—by the way, have you talked to Sal? Any word on what her current problem with me is?”
“None. I haven’t talked with her.”
“Well, Peter came in this afternoon and I suppose they’re renewing old acquaintance and whatnot. Keep your fingers crossed—maybe it’ll take the heat off me.” He laughed again, tiredly. “I’m no damn good for anything until this show is up and the verdict is in. Take care, Belle, and let me know if you come up with anything on Jack.”
Harry and Jack and Sally were driving me crazy.
I felt as if I had lost the normal ability to know at least vaguely what might be coming next. Nothing seemed to be what I expected. I was experiencing a kind of psychological vertigo, and the constant need to fiddle with the paintings and the incessant heat weren’t helping. The sense of disorientation sapped me, working with the heat and the nervous tension building inside me.
I was getting fed up with all the inner drivel I couldn’t seem to shake loose from the next day: finally I slammed down the brushes, mopped my forehead with a paint rag that was scratchy and stiff, and took off my jeans and T-shirt. I lay down on the floor in a pool of sunshine and did fifty leglifts to work off the frustration and energy. Then I took my four thousandth cold shower of the summer.
Letting the fan dry me off, I realized I couldn’t stop worrying about Sally. It was unlike her to fail to call me, but there hadn’t been a word since the gallery day. I didn’t want to be guilty of intruding, but I’d held off long enough. If she was having a tough time, I might be able to help. So I figure the hell with ladylike discretion and called her.
But it wasn’t Sally who answered. It was Peter Venables.
“Belinda!” he said as soon as I’d asked for Sally. “It’s so good to hear your voice. It’s Peter Venables. My God, you sound just the same … and I’ve got you first on my list to call.” I must have said something because he went on: “Are you all right? You sound nervy all of a sudden—”
“No, no, I’m all right, Peter. Just surprised. How are you?” I was calling him up out of my memory but it had been a long time ago and I didn’t have the best recollective powers anyway. Tall, thinnish, rather fine features. Yes, Sal had always said she found him handsome. Sort of actorish. Yes, that was Peter Venables.
“Great, just great. Dying to see you, Belinda. It’s been so long. Harry says you’re still a knockout—”
“Brace yourself for the ravages of eighteen years, Peter.”
“Nonsense, Harry’s a man of his word. I just got in yesterday from London. Sal and I went out on the town last night—no, that sounds too strenuous. But we did have dinner while I started catching up on everybody.” He’d picked up a slight British accent that was quite charming.
“We must get together soon,” I said, trying to come close to his enthusiasm and falling way too short. “But I really need to talk to Sally right now—”
“Well, that’s a problem. She seems to have gone out already—no forwarding address.” He chuckled.
“Do you know when she might be back?”
“I haven’t a clue. They keep pretty weird hours around here—listen, I don’t mean to pry, Belinda, but you do sound worried. Is everything all right?”
“I … well, I’ve been a little concerned about Sal lately. Just a mood she’s been in. I’m sure you’ve cheered her up immeasurably. And I’ll brain you if you mention my asking—”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” Venables said. “But as long as you brought it up, I might as well tell you, I was going to mention something along those lines to you. I’m rather worried about both of them. It’s a bit tense around here and I’m at a loss.”
“Oh, no …”
“Listen, meet me for a drink this afternoon. We can compare notes, if you feel like it. And I can feast my eyes on you once again. You up for it?”
I sighed. “Sure, Peter, why not?”
“Jolly good! Hollyhocks at six?”
“Where’s that?”
After
a moment’s pause he said: “I thought you might remember the place. It used to be quite popular in the old days.” He gave me an address on East Fifty-sixth. “It’ll be good to see you, Belinda.”
I hoped I was remembering the right guy.
Chapter Eight
WHEN I GOT TO HOLLYHOCKS I was sure I’d never been there before, whatever Venables might have thought. The crowns of the trees hung listlessly. The cabdriver’s radio had said it was ninety-six degrees in Central Park. A dog looked up from a fire hydrant and decided I wasn’t worth barking at, not in this heat. Ducking under the marquee, I descended a few steps and went through a polished brass door. At first the darkness and the cooled air both managed to be impenetrable. I stood blinking as the long bar took shape, the tables with white napkins, shining stemware, the long mirror in which I finally saw myself. Immediately I liked the place, all of its shining surfaces and lots of years built carefully, layer on layer, until character had been given form.
Peter Venables was waiting for me at a small table in a corner with his back to the wall so he could see the room. He waved. He was wearing a pink shirt and chinos and sneakers and a very old sailcloth jacket, and when he stood up, I was struck for a moment by how much he resembled Harry in the dim light. Tall, the same square shoulders, a trick of inclining the head. Closer, of course, he was dark, almost swarthy, and his eyes were large and dark and liquid. He shot me a darting smile and kissed my cheek.
“Belinda,” he said softly. I smelled his cologne. Nice.
“This is a great place,” I said, sitting down. “One of those New Yorky bars everyone is always talking about—”
“Do you remember it?” He looked at my blank expression, then laughed ruefully when I shook my head. “It’s funny. I was so sure it would all come back to you. You’ve been here at least once, Belinda, because I was with you—”
“You’re kidding! It must have been ages ago.”
He got the waiter’s attention and I practically begged for a gin-and-tonic. I was trying to summon up memories of Peter Venables but it wasn’t going to work. I recognized the face but there weren’t any little anecdotes that went with it.
“Seems like yesterday to me,” he said. “It was spring break, the day Sally’s parents had that incredible party at Sag Harbor. We were all supposed to meet here and a limo was coming to pick us up—her dad laid on the whole thing for us. You and I got here first, and when I realized that, I was suddenly scared to death, absolutely tongue-tied. I suppose we were twenty-one. And I’d never been alone with you before, you know—responsible for holding up my end of the conversation. God, it was so different from being in a group with everybody talking. Anyway, it was a disaster, you must have been bored half to death—”
“Peter,” I interrupted, “let me ask you something—why were you scared of being alone with me? Give me a candid answer.”
He stroked his chin and thought. “You had a kind of mystique, I guess—”
“But why? I wasn’t so bright, I certainly wasn’t an intimidating wit. I wasn’t a snotty bitch, was I?”
He shook his head. “No, you’re on the wrong track. It was …” He took a deep breath. “Okay, it was entirely physical. The way you looked. Beautiful.”
“Oh, God! The delusions of extreme youth!”
“It was the look … I wondered if you’d look the same way now.” He leaned back, smiling at me as if he knew something I didn’t know and could never find out. Suddenly I wished I hadn’t let the conversation take this turn, hadn’t paid any attention to the accusations Jack had thrown at me the other night. Watching that funny smile as Peter Venables watched me, I wished I hadn’t come to Hollyhocks at all. “You don’t. The years have made some changes—”
“Just as well. Don’t be disappointed.”
“Oh, no, Belinda. You misunderstand. Your beauty has deepened, taken on definition. It’s like one of my investments, with interest accumulating over twenty years.” He lit a cigarette while I hoped I wasn’t blushing and wished I were back at the loft working. Where I should have been. “You were lovely and sexy and unattainable then,” he said. “The years seem to have made you less remote, more confident with yourself … and that makes you more human, somehow. Everything that’s changed has changed for the better.” He smiled at me again, through the smoke, almost as if it were the smoke of a postcoital cigarette. “You asked,” he said. “You wanted to know.”
“So I did,” I whispered, mostly to myself. “I just wish it made more sense. None of what you’re talking about ever crossed my mind. It’s funny to think that you were looking at me in this strange way and I was so unaware. I was shy of boys, really. I used to make Sally give me topics of conversation a guy might find interesting. I thought we were all just kids …”
“Oh, we were in a way, but not entirely. I remember when you gave Harry the gate and he was pretty bitter about it. That was the night Harry told me that if he couldn’t have you, he was sure as hell going to have Sally. The thing was, Harry had never known anyone with that kind of money and he just couldn’t get over it … and, by God, he was good as his word. He married her and now he’s a big producer and he’s made a great deal of money on his own.” Peter tapped his glass with a forefinger and the waiter scurried away for two more gin-and-tonics. “Life worked out so well for Sally and Harry, and where’s the happy ending? She cries all the time and Harry just gets up and leaves the house.” He ran his fingers along the line of his jaw, long, thin fingers. I suddenly remembered those fingers on a piano’s keys, so long ago, somewhere I’d forgotten.
“Is it really that bad?” I said. “I didn’t have a clue—” The vertigo was sending me spinning. Sally had never said a word until the other day. Yet, we’d told each other everything. What was going on? Who could I go to and ask?
“Well, she’s had to be tolerant of all his girls on the side—”
“What? Harry? No, you must be mistaken.”
“Oh, Belinda, grow up.” The smile reappeared. It was hard imagining he’d ever been shy and tongue-tied, watching me and wanting me and being afraid. “These things happen, they’re commonplace—”
“Not with us! Not with Harry and Sally and Jack and me.”
“Sally’s like a lot of women—she can make an accommodation on the issue of fucking a few girls for fun so long as the girls don’t become just one girl, so long as the fucking doesn’t become an emotional attachment.” He shrugged, watching me. What he said sounded like what Sally had said that day. Treat me like an adult … “So, I don’t know what’s gotten into Sal all of a sudden. Up until now she must have thought the marriage was worth Harry’s little amusements—but now she’s not so sure, I guess.” He leaned back, sipped his drink, watching me over the rim. “You wouldn’t know what’s going on, would you?”
“No dammit! Why can’t he just behave himself? She’s such a good wife. And Harry, he’s the best, a really good soul.” His gaze made me feel simple-minded, hopelessly naive, but he’d been away for eighteen years, he didn’t know the way we’d been. “He and Jack have been inseparable over the years.” Something inside me registered the weight of what Venables had told me and my arms felt heavy and my stomach wasn’t quite right.
“You want to know what’s the trouble with Harry? It’s his age, but not just his age—it isn’t that he’s feeling old. He’s still feeling young, but he doesn’t know how long it will last and he’s scared time is running out. He’s still looking for the Holy Grail and its name isn’t Sally, I’m afraid—”
“Drop this,” I said. “Please.”
“Let’s eat, Belinda. You look weak from hunger.”
I went rather numbly, felt his hand on my arm. I should have made an excuse, gone home, but I wasn’t thinking. Well, I was thinking. But I was thinking about all the wrong things, all the things that had seemed so safe but were suddenly blowing up in our faces.
He knew a little Italian place not far away and we strolled through the lengthening shadows. Ov
er dinner I watched his confidence—about what, I wasn’t absolutely sure—grow, his nervousness fade. I felt myself undergoing precisely the opposite reaction, but he was interesting on the subject of life in England and the Persian Gulf and the Arab emirates and other places I knew nothing about. He’d obviously made a great deal of money and seen more of the world than I ever expected to. As well, he’d raised a daughter by himself though he made no mention of her mother. Over coffee I lapsed into what he apparently thought was an unhappy silence.
“What’s the problem, Belinda? Have I been babbling on and leaving you out of the evening?”
“Not at all. I’ve been fascinated. Such a life you’ve led. No … it’s just that I got to thinking about Sal and Harry again, about his infidelities. That really bothers me. And the way you reacted. It seems so cynical …”
“I think I’m just being realistic. I’m not here to judge others, you know. Tough enough being me. I’m sure Sal has accustomed herself to it—”
“I hate that,” I said. “She shouldn’t have to—”
“There are lots of things in life we shouldn’t have to do.” He smiled languidly, bemused at my attitude. “You doubtless shouldn’t have to put up with the end of your marriage …” He shrugged.
“Sal told you?”
“Of course. However, bad luck for you is good luck for someone else. That’s the way life works, in my experience, anyway. Indisputable truths and so on.” He gave me an angled glance, pursed his lips as if contemplating a method of approach. “Do you feel up to the truth about old Harry, then?”
“I don’t know what’s true and what’s just a comfortable illusion,” I said softly.
“Well, you’re not going to like it, I’m afraid. Perhaps I should just keep my mouth shut—”
I shook my head, tried to laugh. “Should have thought about that several hours ago.”
“I think Harry’s problem goes all the way back to Ruffian days. He never got over losing you to Jack—no, come on, sit down, relax.” He put his hand over mine, held me in my place. “I’m not kidding, Belinda, so please don’t make faces. Hear me out.” I sat, waited, wanting to pitch my coffee cup past the flowers into the mirror. “I think once upon a time Harry wanted to marry you more than he has ever wanted another thing. Then one day he looked up from his latest deal and realized you were gone. Jack had made off with you. Now, my own theory is that Harry has been looking about for another you ever since. It’s one of life’s little jokes, isn’t it? Sally’s still your best friend, she married Harry—he couldn’t get his hands on another you so he married the exact physical opposite … and your chum! Don’t you love the symmetry of it? I mean, it has an appeal, if you look at it dispassionately.” He gave me another slow, dark handsome smile, this one tinged with a world-weariness. “My guess is, Harry’s finally found himself another Belinda and Sally’s figured it out, some of it anyway, and doesn’t know what to do about it.
Guilty Parties Page 4
