Two-Thirds of a Ghost

by Helen McCloy

“I do not own a TV set,” answered Lepton firmly. “I avoid TV whenever I can.”

  “Amos has had his own weekly program for the last six months,” explained Tony. “He interviews other authors about their books. He doesn’t criticize. Just draws the other guy out and gets him to talk about what he was trying to do when he wrote the book in question.”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t criticize,” said Lepton a little bitterly. “I’ve been told many times that there is no place for real criticism on TV.”

  Philippa had an inspiration. “If you really want to meet Amos, we could arrange it for this week end. We were just planning a small supper party for Amos when you came by. Sunday at our house at six o’clock. We’d love to have you come and bring the Shadbolts.”

  “That’s very kind of you indeed.” Lepton made another graceful little bow and Philippa wondered: why did critics always have much more charming manners than the wild, rough lot who called themselves creative writers?

  “I’m sure the Shadbolts would appreciate it, too,” went on Lepton. “But I’ve already told them I would have to leave Sunday afternoon, and they may have made other arrangements for the evening. Why don’t I just get a taxi to run me over to your place around six?”

  “I can run over to the Shadbolts in the Austin and pick you up,” said Philippa. “If you’re really coming.”

  “Of course I’m coming.” He smiled. “I’ve never been able to live up to the standard of that English critic who made a point of never meeting a writer in the flesh throughout his long and acidulous career.”

  The smile transmuted his monkey face into something Philippa found fascinating. She was reminded of an old story—an Edwardian rake who boasted: “I am considered the ugliest man in Europe, but give me half an hour alone with any woman and I can win her away from the handsomest man in the world.” What would half an hour alone with Maurice Lepton be like?

  The thought was pleasantly disturbing. She began to plan what she would wear tomorrow when she went over to the Shadbolts. Of course Maurice Lepton wasn’t really her type. Indeed she wasn’t sure she even liked him, but…

  Something feline in her nature enjoyed hunting for the sake of the hunt itself, without feeling either desire or hostility toward the quarry. Like a domestic cat, she managed her life so that she could enjoy both the civilized satisfactions of peaceful luxury at home and the savage excitements of the chase abroad. It was an ideal life, she thought—a life where all the prizes of a policed society were enjoyed without the repression of a single feral impulse. Philippa might have her faults, but she was entirely free of repressions. Sometimes she wondered if Tony had ever suspected the fact.

  When Lepton left the train at Norwalk, Philippa allowed her ungloved hand to linger a moment in his. Their eyes met and for an instant that feeling of sweet disturbance swept over her again more strongly than before. She was a little frightened. Pleasure she understood, but she had always avoided passion. She had always been mistress of herself.

  “Well, what do you think of Leppy?” asked Tony as the train rumbled on toward Westport.

  “I don’t know.” Philippa was as puzzled as she was fascinated by the unplumbed depths in those eyes. Out of sheer intuition she plucked a curious phrase. “I think he’s unscrupulous and dangerous.”

  “Dangerous? That poor little bookworm who hasn’t seen the sun for twenty years?” Tony laughed.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Sunlight woke Amos Cottle Sunday at noon. It streamed through the uncurtained picture window onto the vast double bed where he sprawled in a sweaty tangle of sheets and blankets. He rubbed his gummy eyelids and lay passive, half-awake, listening to the stillness of the empty house. A general uneasiness possessed him. For a few moments he could not particularize its source. Then he remembered: Vera. He had to meet her at the airport this afternoon.

  He rose wearily and groped for slippers and dressing gown. His eye caught his own movement in the wall mirror. He paused to survey his face coldly as if it were the mask of a stranger.

  The eyes were wide and lost. The eyes of a stray cur, he thought bitterly. The morbid mouth was a mute expression of pain. The weakly tapered jaw was mercifully veiled by the thin straggle of brindled beard. No wonder Meg Vesey mothered him. She was the sort who would mother any forlorn creature. But would a stranger, who didn’t know his name, ever suspect that he was considered one of the three or four most distinguished novelists of his period? Were his fans disappointed when they discovered that the author whose virile characters took rape, incest and torture in their stride looked as if he couldn’t say boo to a goose? A sudden inspiration consoled him: Van Gogh. The self-portrait. That was how he looked. Genius housed in a frail vessel. The idea of genius brought a wry smile to his lips.

  With a sigh he ambled into the kitchen, got out a can of frozen orange juice, and made coffee. He sipped the cold drink and the hot one alone at the kitchen table. I’m always alone. I’ll be more alone than ever if Vera comes to live here. But she shan’t. I won’t let her.

  Abruptly he was overwhelmed by a great distaste for his whole situation in life. What am I doing here? How did I ever get into all this? His feeling of being trapped had grown with the success of each new book. What would Gus and Tony say if he told them this evening that he had decided to retire? What could they do to stop him?

  Still in gown and slippers he retrieved the Sunday Times and Tribune from the front door mat. No neighbors could see him. The house stood in its own five acres of woodland. In summer he took his sun bath naked beside the swimming pool.

  The house itself was modern, all on one floor, with many glass walls. Tony had chosen it for him. The fireplace, without a mantel, was set flush in a wall of whitewashed brick. The invisible chimney was divided into two branches so that an apparently impossible window could be set directly above the grate. This illogical window had always bothered him as something too surrealistic for comfort, and the glass walls made him feel exposed and unprotected. But Tony had insisted that it was the sort of house that people expected a man like Amos Cottle to live in and it was going cheap just at the time Amos got the money from his first movie sale, so—here he was, a prisoner in a house he didn’t like, close to Tony’s beautiful estate, where Tony could keep an eye on him.

  His own face greeted him from the first page of the Times Book Review section. A cleverly composed portrait. That guy really did look like an author. Amos relaxed as he read the Lepton review. The stuff must be pretty good after all or an egghead like Lepton wouldn’t take it so seriously. What was more, other people took Lepton seriously. This lush praise should be good for a second printing of forty thousand.

  He dropped the Times and picked up the Tribune. They had put that sickeningly romantic bilge of Shadbolt’s on the first page of their Book Review section with a photo of Shad that must have been taken at least twenty years ago.

  Amos turned the pages, but it was not until, he came to the fourth inside page that he saw a woefully smudged and diminished cut of his own picture, flanking a single column review.

  PASSIONATE PILGRIM. By Amos Cottle. 450 pp. New York: Sutton, Kane and Co. $3.75. Reviewed by Emmett Avery.

  And, farther down the column: “Mr. Avery is best known for his recent book, A Mess of Pottage, a provocative attack on current trends in the contemporary novel.”

  That was warning enough. The rattlesnake’s rattle. Amos didn’t want to read further, but he couldn’t help it. His gaze was glued to the page hypnotically.

  A conscientious reviewer hardly knows what to say when he is confronted with another book by the industrious, nay, indefatigable Mr. Cottle. All that is jejune and meretricious in contemporary letters is embodied in the verbose, pretentious prose of this incredibly popular novelist, overlaid with a slick-magazine varnish sticky enough to act as flypaper for book club subscribers. The appalling thing is that Cottle gets away with it. People actually buy and read these books. Yet Cottle’s characters are merely types, his principles are p
rejudices in fancy dress and his whole narrative creaks woodenly from the first contrived scene to the last musty artifice—a thing of lath and plaster made to look like steel.

  The only amusing thing about this sorry performance is the number of gross typographical errors, some as hilarious as “these Untied States.” The house of Sutton, Kane and Company needs some new proofreaders and, in the opinion of at least one reviewer, some new authors as well….

  Amos angrily threw the paper across the floor. It was absurd to care. Let Gus and Tony do the worrying. They never worried much about things like this. Gus always said that book club subscribers didn’t pay any attention to reviews. Besides, Amos had never had the slightest sense of personal identification with these books, and yet—and yet…

  He could not rid himself of the unpleasant feeling that his livelihood was being threatened. He was astonished at the strength of his own rage. At that moment he would have liked to get his hands around Emmett Avery’s throat and…

  A faint sound from the terrace startled him. That aloneness that was so important to his inner sense of security was about to be disturbed. He waited uncomfortably, listening.

  A light step came across the flagstones to the glass door. Through the glass he saw a lissome figure in gray slacks and a green sweater with green shoes. The pale, oval face smiled and the russet lips moved, but he couldn’t hear anything through the soundproof glass. Reluctantly he went to the door and pulled it open.

  “Amos!” She threw her arms around his neck. He had to hold her. Their lips met. After a decent interval, he drew back.

  “Phil, does Tony know you’re here?”

  “Of course not. I’m supposed to be walking his boxer. I left the brute tied up outside.”

  “Gosh, you’ve used that dodge for the last two years—almost every time you come over here. Doesn’t Tony have any idea what’s going on?”

  “I’m sure he hasn’t. …Oh, Mos, what are we going to do about Vera?”

  “I don’t know.” He sat down heavily on the edge of the sofa. The affair with Philippa had bothered him from the beginning. He had been afraid to refuse her. There was no knowing what tale she might have carried to Tony if he had. Now he was afraid to break with her. But his sense of guilt was intensified every time he saw Tony and as he saw Tony a great deal, the whole thing was becoming intolerable, for guilt bred fear.

  “Tell me, Phil. Are you quite sure Tony doesn’t suspect us?”

  “Of course not. Every time he mentions you now I tell him I think you’re an awful little man and I hate your writing. He believes it. He’s actually afraid you’ll find out I don’t like you. He just begs me to be nice to you.”

  Amos sighed. “Not very subtle, are we?”

  Philippa laughed. “Subtlety is wasted on Tony. He’s as bothered about Vera as we are. He’s afraid she’ll drive you to drink.”

  “If anyone could, it’s Vera.’’

  She sat beside him, leaning her shoulder against his. “Amos, is it true you used to be an alcoholic?”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “Tony told me Friday night. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Most men like to confide in their women. It’s another form of intimacy.” She turned her head toward him and their eyes met within a few inches of each other. “Why is Vera coming back? Have you any idea what she wants?”

  He drew back, and looked away.

  “I think she’s broke, and I’m a lot more successful now than I was when she left me. Maybe she got wind of Lepton’s review at the studio before it was published and decided that I was worth cultivating. If that’s it, Avery’s review in the Tribune this morning should scare her off again.”

  “If not, what are you going to do?”

  Amos shrugged. “What can I do? I’ll meet her at the airport this afternoon and drive her to your house. I owe her that much. When the party’s over, I’ll come back here and leave her there. No need to see her again. Tony and Gus, between them, should be able to keep her out of my hair.”

  Philippa eyed him curiously. “Why are you so passive, Amos? Already you’re letting Vera push you around. Why do you have to meet her at the airport? Why not let Tony do it?”

  “He wanted to, but I said no. I want her to see me once so she can see for herself how utterly indifferent I am to her now.”

  “If I were you, I’d hate her.”

  “You probably would. I—well, as the young people say, I couldn’t care less.”

  “Maybe that’s the best attitude. Hate is a compliment, like love, but indifference is devastating. If you can really make Vera believe you don’t care, she may leave you alone. I’m beginning to feel almost sorry for her.”

  “Sorry? For Vera?”

  “I feel sorry for any woman who has to do with you, Amos.” A sudden recklessness came into her eyes. “You don’t really care for me, do you?”

  “I enjoy being with you,” he answered cautiously.

  “But you don’t love me, do you?”

  Their eyes met again. His were honestly puzzled. “Phil, what in God’s name does a woman like you see in a man like me? I’m not young or strong or gay or gallant. I’m not even good-humored and lovable. Sometimes I think you’re more in love with my writing than you are with me. There are a few clever women who unconsciously seek greatness of mind in their men just as the dull majority unconsciously seek greatness of fortune or strength of body. Is that what you’re looking for? The extra kick of being loved by a man with a great intellect? It would explain why your conscience doesn’t bother you. Historically, genius has always palliated adultery.”

  “What a nasty word!”

  “Genius or adultery?” Amos sighed again. “All right, I’m conceited, but I believe that’s it. You’re in love with the idea of loving a man of genius, the way some women are in love with the idea of loving a man of great wealth or power. Would you care for Amos Cottle if he were a garage mechanic? I doubt it.”

  “You don’t care about money or ordinary power because you’ve been familiar with those things all your life in one form or another. But you do care about intellectual power. It’s an unfamiliar mystery that inspires wonderment. Women always love the thing that overawes them. Isn’t that the real clue to your feeling for me?”

  “Does it matter?” Her voice was husky. She leaned toward him, the green sweater molding the firm lines of her breasts, her lips parted, her eyelids drooping. Desire took sudden possession of Amos.

  “No. It doesn’t matter.” His hands shook as he fumbled with her clothing.

  Afterward Amos was appalled at the risk they had taken. “Tony might have walked in at any moment!” Philippa was amused. “You do feel guilty about Tony, don’t you?”

  “He’s done a lot for me.”

  “Just because he published your first book? He didn’t lose anything by that.”

  “But he’s so unsuspecting. It would be such a shock to him if he ever found out. No knowing what he’d do. That bothers me and it ought to bother you.”

  “It doesn’t, but then I’m not analytical. Most writers analyze their own emotions too much, but now and then they forget they are writers and remember they are human beings. You never do. You’re always the observer, never the participant. Always the audience, never the actor. Even in your own love scenes part of you is detached—damnably detached. It’s as if—as if you weren’t all here. As if some part of you were missing. Why don’t you ever tell me anything about your early life? Your mother and father and things you did at school and the first girl you ever kissed. Most men like to talk about themselves. You don’t. Tell me something: has Vera any hold over you? Could she blackmail you, if she wanted to? That would explain why you don’t talk about your past and why Vera seemed so sure in that newspaper interview that she could come back to you.”

  “No. Vera couldn’t blackmail me.” His voice was even, but she saw a sudden uneasiness in his eyes. Somehow the shot had
gone home and he was trying to conceal it. He got up and walked over to the window.

  “Is there anyone else who could blackmail you?’’ she probed. “Come to think of it, you never talk about your early life.”

  “It’s all on the jacket of my latest book.” He picked up a copy and tossed it at her. She caught it deftly and laughed.

  “Tony writes all those jacket notes.”

  “But I gave him the material,” retorted Amos. “Do you know it’s nearly three? Mix yourself a drink while I take a shower. Then I must be off to the airport.”

  But Philippa didn’t walk over to the bar. When water gushed in the bathroom beyond, she sat on the bed reading the jacket note on the back flap of Passionate Pilgrim.

  Amos Cottle was born in China in 1918 where his father was a Methodist missionary. He attended mission schools and was graduated from the University of Peking. Then began a rolling-stone existence that gathered moss—a rich treasure house of varied experience for his future writing career. Cottle has been a sailor, a bartender, a Hollywood press agent, a cattle rancher, a chemist, a construction engineer and a barker for a carnival show. During World War II he served with the Seabees in the Pacific. Out of that interlude came his memorable first novel Never Call Retreat. He is married to Vera Vane, Hollywood actress, but he spends most of his time in a modern house in Connecticut where the walls are either all window or all bookcase.

  Philippa put the book down thoughtfully. Tony’s glib, hackneyed phrases really told very little about Amos as a man, and Amos had never talked about his childhood in China or his rolling-stone period. She was not a sensitive woman but now she was overwhelmed with desolation as she realized how purely physical their intimacy had always been. Amos was inaccessible. She didn’t really know him at all. Now that Vera was precipitating a crisis in their lives, Amos’s responses would be utterly unpredictable.

  Suddenly she was aware of a tiny seed of distaste for Amos. His remoteness, his fatalism, his fear of Tony’s suspicions, his indifference to Vera’s onslaught—was this really the sort of man for her to love? She knew the seed would grow. Once again she was on the verge of falling out of love, as she had fallen out of love with Tony himself, long ago….