Last Night (6 page)

She could see him very clearly, the gray of his muzzle there in the muted grass and when she was close the clear, tan eyes. In an almost ceremonial way she knelt down. The wind was blowing her hair. She seemed almost a mad person there in the fading light.

— Here. Drink something, she said.

His gaze, somehow reproachful, drifted away. He was like a fugitive sleeping on his coat. His eyes were nearly closed.

My life has meant nothing, she thought. She wanted above all else not to confess that.

They ate dinner in silence. Her husband did not look at her. Her face annoyed him, he did not know why. She could be good-looking but there were times when she was not. Her face was like a series of photographs, some of which ought to have been thrown away. Tonight it was like that.

— The sea broke through into Sag Pond today, she said dully.

— Did it?

— They thought some little girl had drowned. The fire trucks were there. It turned out she had just strayed off. After a pause, We have to do something, she said.

— Whatever happens is going to happen, he told her.

— This is different, she said. She suddenly left the room. She felt close to tears.

Her husband’s business was essentially one of giving advice. He had a life that served other lives, helped them come to agreements, end marriages, defend themselves against former friends. He was accomplished at it. Its language and techniques were part of him. He lived amid disturbance and self-interest but always protected from it. In his files were letters, memorandums, secrets of careers. One thing he had seen: how near men could be to disaster no matter how secure they seemed. He had seen events turn, one ruinous thing following another. It could happen without warning. Sometimes they were able to save themselves, but there was a point at which they could not. He sometimes wondered about himself—when the blow came and the beams began to give and come apart, what would happen? She was calling Brennan’s house again. There was never an answer.

During the night the wind blew itself out. In the morning at first light, Warren could feel the stillness. He lay in bed without moving. His wife’s back was turned toward him. He could feel her denial.

He rose and went to the window. The dog was still there, he could see its shape. He knew little of animals and nothing of nature but he could tell what had happened. It was lying in a different way.

— What is it? she asked. She had come up beside him. It seemed she stood there for a long time. He’s dead.

She started for the door. He held her by the arm.

— Let me go, she said.

— Ardis . . .

She began to weep,

— Let me go.

— Leave him alone! he called after her. Let him be!

She ran quickly across the grass in her nightgown. The ground was wet. As she came closer she paused to calm herself, to find courage. She regretted only one thing—she had not said good-bye.

She took a step or two forward. She could sense the heavy, limp weight of him, a weight that would disperse, become something else, the sinews fading, the bones becoming light. She longed to do what she had never done, embrace him. At that moment he raised his head.

— Warren! she cried, turning toward the house. Warren!

As if the shouts distressed him, the dog was rising to his feet. He moved wearily off. Hands pressed to her mouth, she stared at the place where he had been, where the grass was flattened slightly. All night again. Again all night. When she looked, he was some distance off.

She ran after him. Warren could see her. She seemed free. She seemed like another woman, a younger woman, the kind one saw in the dusty fields by the sea, in a bikini, stealing potatoes in bare feet.

SHE DID NOT see him again. She went many times past the house, occasionally seeing Brennan’s car there, but never a sign of the dog, or along the road or off in the fields.

One night in Cato’s at the end of August, she saw Brennan himself at the bar. His arm was in a sling, from what sort of accident she could not guess. He was talking intently to the bartender, the same fierce eloquence, and though the restaurant was crowded, the stools next to him were empty. He was alone. The dog was not outside, nor in his car, nor part of his life anymore—gone, lost, living elsewhere, his name perhaps to be written in a line someday though most probably he was forgotten, but not by her.

Such Fun

WHEN THEY LEFT the restaurant, Leslie wanted to go and have a drink at her place, it was only a few blocks away, a large old apartment building with leaded windows on the ground floor and a view over Washington Square. Kathrin said fine, but Jane claimed she was tired.

— Just one drink, Leslie said. Come on.

— It’s too early to go home, Kathrin added.

In the restaurant they had talked about movies, ones they’d seen and ones they hadn’t. They talked about movies and Rudy, the headwaiter.

— I always get one of the good tables, said Leslie.

— Is that right?

— Always.

— And what does he get?

— It’s what he hopes he’ll get, Leslie said.

— He’s really looking at Jane.

— No, he’s not, Jane protested.

— He’s got half your clothes off already.

— Don’t, please, Jane said.

Leslie and Kathrin had been roommates in college and friends ever since. They had hitchhiked through Europe together, getting as far as Turkey, sleeping in the same bed a lot of the nights and, except once, not fooling around with men or, as it happened that time, boys. Kathrin had long hair combed back dark from a handsome brow and a brilliant smile. She could easily have been a model. There was not much more to her than met the eye, but that had always been enough. Leslie had majored in music but hadn’t done anything with it. She had a wonderful way on the telephone, as if she’d known you for years.

In the elevator, Kathrin said,

— God, he’s cute.

— Who?

— Your doorman. What’s his name?

— Santos. He’s from Colombia someplace.

— What time does he get off is what I want to know.

— For God’s sake.

— That’s what they always asked. When I was tending.

— Here we are.

— No, really. Do you ever ask him to change a lightbulb or something?

Leslie was searching for the key to her door.

— That’s the super, Leslie said. He’s another story.

As they went in, she said,

— I don’t think there’s anything here but scotch. That’s OK, isn’t it? Bunning drank up everything else.

She went to the kitchen to get glasses and ice. Kathrin sat on the couch with Jane.

— Are you still seeing Andrew? she said.

— Off and on, Jane said.

— Off and on, that’s what I’m looking for. On and off is more like it.

Leslie came back with the glasses and ice. She began to make drinks.

— Well, here’s to you, she said. Here’s to me. It’s going to be hard moving out of here.

— You’re not going to get to keep the apartment? Kathrin said.

— Twenty-six hundred a month? I couldn’t afford it.

— Aren’t you going to get something from Bunning?

— I’m not going to ask for anything. Some of the furniture—I can probably use that—and maybe a little something to get me by the first three or four months. I can stay with my mother if I have to. I hope I don’t have to. Or I could stay with you, couldn’t I? she asked Kathrin.

Kathrin had a walk-up on Lexington, one room painted black with mirrors on one wall.

— Of course. Until one of us killed the other, Kathrin said.

— If I had a boyfriend, it would be no problem, Leslie said, but I was too busy taking care of Bunning to have a boyfriend.

— You’re lucky, she said to Jane, you’ve got Andy.

— Not really.

— What happened?

— Nothing, really. He wasn’t serious.

— About you.

— That was part of it.

— So, what happened? Leslie said.

— I don’t know. I just wasn’t interested in the things he was interested in.

— Such as? Kathrin said.

— Everything.

— Give us an idea.

— The usual stuff.

— What?

— Anal sex, Jane said. She’d made it up, on an impulse. She wanted to break through somehow.

— Oh, God, Kathrin said. Makes me think of my ex.

— Malcolm, said Leslie, so, where is Malcolm? Are you still in touch?

— He’s over in Europe. No, I never hear from him.

Malcolm wrote for a business magazine. He was short, but a very careful dresser—beautiful, striped suits and shined shoes.

— I wonder how I ever married him, Kathrin said. I wasn’t very foresighted.

— Oh, I can see how it happened, Leslie said. In fact, I
saw
how it happened. He’s very sexy.

— For one thing, it was because of his sister. She was great. We were friends from the first minute. God, this is strong, Kathrin said.

— You want a little more water?

— Yes. She gave me my first oyster. Am I supposed to
eat
that? I said. I’ll show you how, she said, just throw them back and swallow. It was at the bar in Grand Central. Once I had them I couldn’t stop. She was so completely up front. Are you sleeping with Malcolm? she asked me. We’d hardly met. She wanted to know what it was like, if he was as good as he looked.

Kathrin had drunk a lot of wine in the restaurant and a cocktail before that. Her lips glistened.

— What was her name? Jane asked.

— Enid.

— Oh, beautiful name.

— So, anyway, he and I went off—this was before we were married. We had this room with nothing in it but a window and a bed. That’s when I was introduced to it.

— To what? Leslie said.

— In the ass.

— And?

— I liked it.

Jane was suddenly filled with admiration for her, admiration and embarrassment. This was not like the thing she had made up, it was actual. Why couldn’t I ever admit something like that? she thought.

— But you got divorced, she said.

— Well, there’s a lot beside that in life. We got divorced because I got tired of him chasing around. He was always covering stories in one place or another, but one time in London the phone rang at two in the morning and he went into the next room to talk. That’s when I found out. Of course, she was just one of them.

— You’re not drinking, Leslie said to Jane.

— Yes, I am.

— Anyway, we got divorced, Kathrin went on. So, now it’ll be both of us, she said to Leslie. Join the club.

— Are you really getting divorced? Jane asked.

— It’ll be a relief.

— How long has it been? Six years?

— Seven.

— That’s a long time.

— A very long time.

— How did you meet? Jane said.

— How did we meet? Through bad luck, Leslie said—she was pouring more scotch into her glass. Actually, we met when he fell off a boat. I was going out with his cousin at the time. We were sailing, and Bunning claimed he had to do it to get my attention.

— That’s so funny.

— Later, he changed his story and said he fell and it had to be
some
where.

Bunning’s first name was actually Arthur, Arthur Bunning Hasset, but he hated the Arthur. Everyone liked him. His family owned a button factory and a big house in Bedford called Ha Ha, where he was brought up. In theory he wrote plays, at least one of which was close to being a success and had an off-Broadway run, but after that things became difficult. He had a secretary named Robin—she was called his assistant—who found him incredible and unpredictable, not to mention hilarious, and Leslie herself had always been amused by him, at least for several years, but then the drinking started.

The end had come a week or so before. They were invited to an opening night by a theatrical lawyer and his wife. First there was dinner, and at the restaurant, Bunning, who had started drinking at the apartment, ordered a martini.

— Don’t, Leslie said.

He ignored her and was entertaining for a while but then sat silent and drinking while Leslie and the couple went on with the conversation. Suddenly Bunning said in a clear voice,

— Who are these people?

There was a silence.

— Really, who are they? Bunning asked again.

The lawyer coughed a little.

— We’re their guests, Leslie said coldly.

Bunning’s thoughts seemed to pass to something else and a few moments later he got up to go to the men’s room. Half an hour passed. Finally Leslie saw him at the bar. He was drinking another martini. His expression was unfocused and childlike.