Sins of the Fathers (34 page)

‘Yes, sir?’ said my chauffeur as I returned from the Dakota seconds after leaving the car.

I thought quickly. I had to talk to someone but whom could I possibly confide in without losing face? I was back with the
old problem that there were so few people I could trust. This time I couldn’t even talk to Scott or Jake; I couldn’t let anyone
who worked on Wall Street know that Sam had wiped the floor with me. Perhaps Kevin … Kevin might cheer me up although of course
I couldn’t have a serious conversation with a homosexual. But at least he knew the circumstances surrounding my acquisition
of Teresa so I wouldn’t have to embark on long explanations of Sam’s behaviour.

The thought of no explanations was immensely appealing.

I set off for Greenwich Village.

[5]

Kevin’s kitchen was warm and cosy, reminding me of the farm where I had been born. I could just recall sitting on my Negro
nurse’s lap in front of the kitchen range while Emily played with her dolls and my mother, her needlework forgotten, browsed
through a huge book which I later assumed was the Bible and later still found out was a novel in French by Balzac. I always
felt very secure in kitchens, and was pleased when Kevin invited me to drink not in his formal living-room but at the kitchen
table.

‘It’s the ultimate compliment I pay my guests!’ he said laughing as he uncapped the Wild Turkey bourbon. ‘Drinks in the kitchen
is the Kevin Daly equivalent of Louis XIV giving audiences on the john!’

Kevin was a tall slim dark man who looked as normal as those guys Sears Roebuck pick to model denims for their catalogues.
When he wasn’t smiling he could look both obstinate and tough, the sort of person who might start a fight in a bar after a
few drinks, although in fact Kevin abhorred violence and as a conscientious objector had spent
the war years working for the Red Cross. He drank too much, but then he was an artist so I made allowances for him. His plays
were getting more obscure but then he would insist on writing that blank verse which I privately thought was an intellectual
affectation. You don’t go to the theatre to hear poetry – unless the play’s by Shakespeare, and any impresario can tell you
that Shakespeare’s bad box office. However the critics thought highly of Kevin and since the critics can make or break a play
in this town his plays usually did well. A couple of the early ones, written before he had developed the unfortunate taste
for blank verse, had been filmed successfully, and certainly I had always done everything I could to support his work, even
now when it was becoming less commercial.

‘… and imagine Sam screwing you like that!’ he was saying, sounding sympathetic but not one bit surprised. ‘No wonder you
look exhausted. Have another drink.’

‘Thanks.’ I was feeling better. It made all the difference to be able to talk frankly to someone. ‘The worst part,’ I added
in a fresh burst of confidence, ‘is not that I’ll be cut off from Vicky and Eric. There’ll be regular visits and I think that
if I’m smart I’ll get them back in the end. The worst part is that I’ve lost Sam for good. It’s probably hard for you to understand
how much my three Bar Harbor friends mean to me, but—’

‘It must be a question of relaxation.’

‘Right, Sam was the one person I could relax with at the office. I didn’t have to play the role of big tycoon with Sam, but
that’s all finished now. It’s going to be lonely at Willow and Wall in future, and I’m going to feel very … isolated. Yeah,
that’s the word. Isolated. Hell, I feel isolated already! I feel so cut off from people.’

‘Your position at the bank must surely make a certain amount of isolation inevitable. But what about your private life? You’ve
still got your wife to talk to. And your mistress.’

I thought of myself retreating from Alicia that evening. I thought of myself being unable to face Teresa. The silence lengthened.
I looked at Kevin but he was gazing at the picture of the wild turkey on the bottle of bourbon. A lump of anguish hardened
in my throat and suddenly my depression seemed no longer diffuse but concentrated, a despair which demanded immediate verbal
expression. ‘Kevin—’

‘Uh-huh?’

But I didn’t know what to say.

‘Things are okay with Teresa, aren’t they?’ said Kevin carelessly as the silence lengthened again. ‘Or are you getting tired
of her?’

‘Hell, no! It’s just … I don’t know. Nothing. At least …’

‘Christ, communication’s hard sometimes, isn’t it,’ said Kevin. ‘It’s like being in a pit and shouting for help but finding
you’ve lost your voice. Or it’s like getting lost and asking the way and finding no one speaks your language. Or it’s like
climbing into a suit of armour to protect yourself and then finding you can’t get out.’

‘Suit of armour?’

‘Yes – God, it happens all the time! We all try and hide from one another. I think it’s because life’s so fantastically complicated
that we all get scared shitless and can’t face it without a suit of armour – or at the very least a nice old-fashioned mask.
But it’s terrible to get trapped behind a mask. I’ve been there. I know.’

‘What do you mean? When were you ever trapped?’

‘When I was pretending to be a heterosexual, of course! When did you think! The worst part was not being able to have an honest
conversation with anyone. It’s difficult enough to talk anyway about a personal problem, but when that problem’s sexual in
origin—’

I thought incredulously: he knows. He understands. No, he can’t possibly understand. And how can he possibly know? Shall I
talk to him? No, I can’t. How can I talk to a homosexual? But I
am
talking to a homosexual. No, I’m not. I’m silent. There’s nothing I can bring myself to say, nothing. I’m trapped, just as
he said. Trapped behind my suit of armour, trapped behind my power.

‘Kevin.’

‘Uh-huh?’

‘My personal life’s all mixed up. Alicia’s the one I love. She’s the one I really want. I only go to Teresa because—’ I stopped.
I felt as if I’d sprinted a hundred yards at top speed. I’d run out of breath.

‘In that case,’ said Kevin comfortably as if it were the most natural thing in the world, ‘I guess you go to Teresa because
for some reason you can’t have Alicia.’

‘Yes. But …’ I found some more air, breathed it, picked up my glass and gulped the rest of my bourbon. ‘But none of this is
Alicia’s fault,’ I said rapidly. ‘That’s why it’s such a nightmare. None of this is Alicia’s fault. I don’t mean—’ I put the
glass to my lips again but it was empty ‘—I don’t mean I’m impotent. Of course I’m not. I can get it up as well as any other
guy. Teresa proves that. I mean – what I’m trying to say is—’

‘I understand.’

‘—what I’m trying to say is I’m all right, I’m okay, I’m fine. It’s just—’ To my horror I found I couldn’t go on. I couldn’t
tell more lies and I couldn’t tell the truth. I was aware of the bottle of bourbon but I dared not reach for it in case my
hand shook and I betrayed
how upset I was. Kevin would think me pathetic. A homosexual pitying
me
! God, what a nightmare. I had to pull myself together, had to—

‘Jesus, isn’t sex hell sometimes!’ exclaimed Kevin suddenly. ‘Impotence, frigidity, premature ejaculation, adultery, sodomy
and lust – how on earth do we all tolerate it? I think I’ll write my next play about how wonderful it is to be a eunuch. Have
another drink.’

I nodded. Fresh bourbon glinted in my glass and there was a splash as he added an ice cube.

‘Of course any psychiatrist would tell you,’ said Kevin, ‘that these problems are all stupefyingly common. It’s because no
one ever talks about them that one assumes one’s going through some uniquely horrific experience.’

I drank half my bourbon straight off. Then I said cautiously: ‘Do you believe in psychiatrists?’

‘I guess they may help some people. But like God and the Pope they’ve never been much use to me.’

‘You mean they couldn’t tell you why you’re homosexual?’

‘Oh, they told me! They told me in excruciating, interminable, conflicting detail! All I can say is, Neil, that after hours
wasted confiding in priests and fortunes wasted talking to psychiatrists I’m not convinced there’s any one reason for my sexual
preferences. And I’ll tell you this too: contrary to what all the smart people think on the cocktail circuit these days, Freud
doesn’t have all the answers. I suspect the human mind is like a version of the street directories of the five boroughs, and
that although Freud ploughed his way through Manhattan and the Bronx he never reached Brooklyn, Queens or Staten Island.’

‘Hm,’ I said. ‘Well, I’ve never believed in psychiatrists myself, of course—’

‘One good thing you can learn from observing them is how to listen. Do you listen, Neil?’

‘
Listen
?’

‘Yes, do you listen to Alicia? Do you listen not only to what she says but to all the things she leaves unsaid? Do you know
exactly what’s going on in her mind?’

‘I thought it was my mind that was important here!’

‘But don’t you see,’ said Kevin, ‘that what goes on in your mind depends on what you think is going on in hers? Have another
drink.’

‘Thanks. No, I’d better not. I don’t want to arrive home drunk.’ I was thinking of Alicia’s crushing pity and rigorously suppressed
contempt and her loss of sexual desire for me. I knew what went on in her
mind all right. It was no mystery. It was all too painfully obvious. ‘Well, like I said, Kevin, I don’t truly believe in all
this psycho-analysis crap – it’s just like a religion, and how can a religion ever work for you unless you’ve got faith in
it? Anyway, there’s no miracle-cure for this situation, I just have to live with it, I’m powerless to do anything else … Powerless.
Yes, that’s it. That’s why I get so upset. It seems so wrong that I should have so much power at my fingertips yet in this
one area of my life … It’s all a question of power, isn’t it? Power’s communication. Do you remember Paul saying that to us
once at Bar Harbor?’

‘Ah, Mephistopheles!’ said Kevin, dividing the dregs of the bourbon between us. ‘How could I ever forget Paul Van Zale and
all his dangerous crypto-fascist bullshit!’

‘Kevin!’

‘Ah come on, Neil! Don’t tell me you still have any illusions about Paul!’

‘I’ve no illusions but I still respect him. He made a success of his life.’

‘I think he wasted it. I think he was a deeply dissatisfied, perhaps even a tormented man. Has it never occurred to you that
it was a damned odd thing he did, appropriating the four of us like that and converting us to the Van Zale way of life? In
retrospect I think it was not only extraordinary but sinister. I’m surprised our parents allowed it. Well, my father was probably
glad to get me off his hands for the summer and Sam’s parents were no doubt blinded by the prospect of social advancement
and Jake’s father was as bad as Paul, but I wonder what the hell your mother thought. I’ll bet she had mixed feelings.’

‘She didn’t want me to go. But Kevin, why should you think Paul’s habit of picking out protégés meant he was dissatisfied
and tormented? He just liked to do it because he had no sons of his own!’

‘That was the excuse he allowed to be circulated but I don’t believe it, not now. I think the whole thing was an exercise
in power and also an attempt to justify himself. If he could convert a bunch of bright young men to his way of thinking, then
maybe his way of thinking wasn’t so goddamned rotten as he secretly suspected it was.’

‘But—’

‘Don’t get me wrong. In many ways I liked Paul, and I certainly enjoyed my time at Bar Harbor. But a lot of what he said was
not only nonsense but dangerous nonsense. For instance, “success at any price” is certainly an attractive slogan. But
his
idea of success? And at
any
price? I tell you, Neil, that’s not a recipe for real living! That’s a
prescription that puts you in hock till you die. Shall I open another bottle of bourbon?’

‘No. Oh hell, okay, why not? Let’s get drunk. Kevin, I know what you’re trying to say about Paul, I’m not dumb, but you see,
Paul’s philosophy was never meant to apply to someone like you. You’re an artist. You’ve got your own special power which
sets you apart and makes you independent of the kind of power Paul was talking about. When Paul talked about power and success
he was really talking to people like me – and Sam and Jake too, of course, but especially to me because he knew I’d never
be happy until I’d made his world my own—’

‘And are you happy, Neil?’

‘Sure I am! Oh, I know I have a problem or two, but only a fool would expect life to be a hundred per cent perfect. I’m really
very happy indeed. Life’s great.’

‘Wonderful! In that case you can sit back and look smug while I tell you how I’m currently sunk in gloom and think life’s
fucking awful.’

‘Is this something to do with—’

‘No, relax, this has nothing to do with my sex-life! It’s all about being what you’re pleased to call an artist. If you’ll
keep your mouth shut for a minute I’ll try and explain what it’s like to be a successful American playwright who’s nearly
cutting his throat because he’s not as good as Eliot and Fry—’

‘I’ll bet you make more money than those two put together!’

‘But can’t you see that’s the crowning awfulness? If I had the guts to write the kind of play I really want to write, nobody
would touch it. But sometimes I think I’d rather be a first-class failure than a second-rate success.’

‘But you’re not a second-rate success! I like you better than Eliot and Fry. I never understood
The Cocktail Party
and as for
The Lady’s Not For Burning
—’

‘Neil, you’re wonderful. Come and drink here more often.’

Some unknown time later I heard myself say emotionally, ‘Kevin, I’m sorry I was such a sonofabitch to you after you let everyone
know you were a homosexual. I’m sorry I took you out of address book number one and put you in address book number five and
wouldn’t go to your parties. I’m very, very sorry – yes, I truly am – but I want you to know, Kevin, that I’m not a sonofabitch,
not really, not underneath.’