Westlake, Donald E - Novel 50 (15 page)

 
 
          
I
rock back and forth on my stinging rump, the heels of my hands pressed to my
stinging eyes. Oh, this just came over me, this just came over me,
I
must regain control.

 
          
I
regain control. I stop rocking back and forth. I lower my hands from my calm
face. I say, “Finally, I just had to go down there to the beach house
myself."

 
          
Jack, in Hush Puppies and chinos and polo shirt, paced back and
forth on the gray board deck of the
Malibu
house.
Through the glass doors of the living room,
Dad could be seen watching a bicycle race on television. Out of the curtained
glass doors of the bedroom
came
Mom, soaking wet,
furious, a crushed empty milk carton in her hand. She stomped across the deck
toward Jack, her shoes making squelching sounds. "So there he is,"
she snarled.
"The big man."

 
          
"Mom,"
Jack said helplessly, spreading his hands. "What do you
want
from me?"

 
          
"Airline
tickets," Mom snapped.

 
          
Startled,
not having expected this at all, Jack said, "What?
Where
to?"

 
          
"Home, of course."
Mom gave the house a look of
hate, gave the
Pacific
Ocean
a look of
hate,
gave
Jack a look of hate. She said, "What
is this cruddy place to Dad and me?
Nothing but sand and
faggots everywhere.
We want to go home to Grover's Corners, where we
belong."

 
          
"Mom!"
Jack cried, stricken. "You can't mean
that! You can't leave me!"

 
          
“The
hell I can't," Mom told him. “And I’ll knock you down if you get in my
way."

 
          
Bitter,
betrayed, deeply hurt, Jack raised himself to his full height and spoke with
slow, mature grief. He said, “You don't love me. You
never
loved me. You never loved
anybody.
You don't know
how
to love."

 
          
With
impatient asperity, Mom said, “Well, who ever said I did? I never wanted
children in the first place. It was
all your
father's
fault. He could never do anything right his whole entire life long. Though I do
have to admit he was right when it came to this."

 
          
“When
it came to what?" Jack asked.

 
          
“You,"
Mom told him. “We didn't have children, we had
you.
Mewling and puking, whining about yourself from the day you
were born.
A weakling and a coward.
You'll never
amount to
anything
."

 
          
“But—"
Jack stared at her, not knowing where to start. “I make millions!" he
cried. “I'm rich and famous! They write me up in magazines!" Madly, wildly
gesturing at the house, he cried, “Look what I bought you!"

 
          
“You'll
never buy
me,
Sunny Jim," Mom
said. She threw the empty milk carton at his feet, spun about, and marched back
into the house.

 
          
Jack,
devastated, slowly sank to his knees, staring through the glass doors into the
house. On his knees, he kept going, curving slowly in over his stomach, his
torso bending downward until his forehead touched the warm wood of the deck. He
stayed in that position, hands folded over stomach, forehead and knees and toes
touching the deck. A faint moaning sound came from him.

 
          
A
faint moaning sound comes from me. I close my mouth over it, and when that
doesn't work I close my throat. This time, that's all it takes. (Sometimes, I
have to close my hands around my throat and squeeze real tight to make it stop.
I'm glad I don't have to do that in front of Michael O'Connor, intrepid
reporter.)

 
          
Calm
again, I say, “Well, I felt I had to go along with Mom's wishes."

 
          
Sympathy
in his voice, O'Connor says, “She was a little rough on you, wasn't she?"

 
          
“We
all have our needs," I assure him, feeling how placid I am, how easy in my
mind. “I bought those airline tickets for Mom and Dad and said good-bye. Buddy
drove them to the airport. All that was left was to have Constanza stop the
milk deliveries, and it was as though the whole episode had never been."

 
          
“But—"
O'Connor says. “You wanted them there. That was the whole point, wasn't
it?"

 
          
“Their
needs were different from mine," I say, smiling and smiling. “Besides, it
all worked itself out, finally. It meant the house at the beach was available
soon after that when I needed it."

 
          
“Needed
it?"

           
“Yes." Remembered sunshine
floods my eyes. “Just around that time, you see," I say, “I fell in love
again."

 
          
The
living room of the beach house looked much as it had before, except that now
the walls were completely lined with bookcases filled with heavy serious tomes.
These bookcases caused the furniture to be moved inward, cutting down on party
space, making the room cozier but less open. The television set was gone. The
fire in the central white-brick fireplace was the same as before, a neat
construct of large logs, burning slowly with lovely dancing flames in orange
and red that gave more beauty than heat.

 
          
Lorraine
Morriswood entered the room. A tall, slender, beautiful, brainy young woman in
tailored tweeds and dark-rimmed glasses,
Lorraine
moved with a kind of horsy assurance that
was simultaneously elegant and very erotic. She circled the room, obviously
looking for something, and just as obviously not finding it. Finally she
stopped, raised her head, and called, "Darling?"

 
          
From
somewhere else in the house, Jack's voice answered, calling, "Yes,
darling?"

 
          
"Darling,"
called
Lorraine
, "where's Kierkegaard?"

 
          
Jack
strolled into the room, wearing black loafers, dark slacks, tweed jacket with
leather elbow patches, and a paisley ascot. “Gosh, darling,” he said, “I
haven't seen it.” Pointing to a nearby end table,
Lorraine
said, “I'm sure, darling, I left it right
there.”

           
Jack looked around, then snapped his
fingers and said,
¹¹
1
know, darling. I bet Constanza put it away when she was in here cleaning.”

 
          
Lorraine
turned in a slow ironic circle, on her face
an expression of mock despair as she gazed helplessly at all the bookcases.
“Oh, dear, darling,” she said. “And Con- stanza's hopeless when it comes to the
alphabet. Lord knows where poor old Keirkegaard's got to.”

 
          
Jack,
with a merry laugh, took her by the elbow, stopping her steady circling motion,
turning her toward him. “I tell you what, darling,” he said. “Let's let poor
old Kierkegaard just go hang for a while.”

 
          
“Why,
darling,”
Lorraine
said, with an arch look, “
whatever
can you mean?”

 
          
“You
know,
darling,” Jack told her, and
his hand stroked slowly up and down her arm.

 
          
She
laughed, a rich throaty sound, her head thrown back. Removing her glasses, she
dropped them on the table from which Kierkegaard had disappeared, then reached
up and back to remove the barrettes holding her rich full hair. Auburn waves
shook loose, framing her face, reflecting deep reds from the fireplace. She
threw her long arms around Jack, and passionately they embraced. Laughing,
kissing, fondling, licking, murmuring, stripping the clothes away from each
other, they descended toward the fur rug stretched before the fire. A warm musk
filled the air. . . .

 
          
There.
See? There
are
happy memories. In
isolation, there are moments in one's history one can look back upon with
pleasure, saying to oneself, of oneself,
“Then
it was good to be alive."

 
          
I
smile at Michael, who will never in his drab life know even
one
moment like those evenings in front
of the fire with sweet
Lorraine
. "This is how we met," I say. "Lorraine Morriswood was
doing her doctoral thesis at
Chicago
on Post-Camp Male Nonaggression in the
Popular Arts. Naturally, I was one of the people she had to interview."

 
          
"Sure,"
O'Connor says.
"Makes sense."

 
          
"Just
like you're interviewing me now, Michael," I say. "Only, that time it
led to greater things."

 
          
"She
was your second wife," O'Connor says. The brilliant researcher
struts
his stuff again.

 
          
"That's
right," I agree. "
Lorraine
and I sensed right away we were meant for
each other. It was a whirlwind romance, taking us both out of our mundane
concerns, our everyday affairs."

 
          
"I
guess you figured you were due for some happiness right around then/' O'Connor
says. *

 
          
"Very
good, Michael," I say, smiling upon him, pleased to find in him this
unexpected capacity for the dramatic
mot.
I may even read the piece he writes on me. "Anyway," I say, "we
had,
Lorraine
and I had, a small private wedding at the London Registry Office."

 
          
"I
remember," O'Connor says, "the news footage of the two of you coming
out of there, protected by the
bobbies
, with the big
crowd of fans in the street."

 
          
"They're
there all the time,” I say modestly. "I believe they camp out there. Some
say they've been there since the Paul McCartney wedding, others that it goes
back as far as Elizabeth Taylor. Some scholars suggest a Druid connection, but
I myself don't go that far. In any event, as you may have surmised,
Lorraine
introduced me to a world I'd never known, a
world of the mind. Through
Lorraine
, I met some of the foremost thinkers of our time, men and women who
could understand a universe in a grain of sand. And
Lorraine
. . .
Lorraine
understood me more deeply and truly than
anyone ever before, or since."

 
          
The
beach along here, in the fog, was empty, untouched,
timeless
.
It wasn't even possible to guess the time of day, except to know that it
was
day, the sun far off somewhere
creating a luminous pearl- escence in the haze, so that every drop of suspended
moisture in the air was distinct and separate, another silver-gray perfect
beryl. In this gauzy light, the broad tan beach was as clean as the evening of
the first day of creation, while the modestly murmuring sea was a textured
charcoal gray with highlights in streaks of white, lapping along the shore.
Visibility was down to perhaps eight or ten feet, so it was possible to think of
oneself as being alone on the planet; or not even a planet, but some small
asteroid, far from the trials of life.

 
          
Jack
and his
Lorraine
came striding easily through the luminous
fog, dressed in similar laced boots and baggy corduroy slacks and windbreakers
with the hoods up around their faces. They walked hand in hand, and the fog
condensed on their cheeks, sparkling there. "Gosh, darling," Jack
said, "it's almost as though it's the beginning of the world, as though
we're the first humans ever. Do you suppose we'd make the same sort of
mistakes?"

 
          
Laughing
at him with friendly familiarity,
Lorraine
said, "But, darling, how could you be
the first man? You're so much closer to the last."

 
          
Jack's
smile grew blank. "I don't think I follow, darling," he said.

 
          
Lorraine
shook her head, lovingly amused. "You
know," she said, "it's fascinating sometimes to see how unaware you
remain of your symbolic relationship with the mass audience."

 
          
"Unaware?"
Jack asked. "Do you think so?"

 
          
"Yes,
of course, darling,"
Lorraine
told him. "Do you have any idea who you really are?"

 
          
"I'm
a movie star, darling."

 
          
"Yes, but why
you'?”
Lorraine
asked him. "Why do millions of people
spend money to see
you
in the
movies?"

 
          
"Gosh,
darling," Jack said, open-eyed and clear-browed, "I don't know."

 
          
"You
are, of course, wonderfully talented, darling,"
Lorraine
said, "but honestly, you know, so are
others. From the pool of talent in the world, the mass audience always chooses
that one person, that tiny group of individuals, who represent the ethos of the
age, its quintessence, its spirit and vitals.
You
are of that band, darling. Your talent launched you, but now
it's the age itself that drives you. Another pilot is at the wheel. You are no
longer under your own control."

 
          
"Sounds
almost frightening," Jack said, with a light but respectful laugh.

 
          
"The
symbolic freight you carry, darling,"
Lorraine
assured him, "would crush a lesser
man."

 
          
Pleased,
smiling like a puppy, Jack said, "Do you really think so, darling?"

 
          
"Darling,"
Lorraine
said, holding tightly to his hand as they
strode along the beach, "in many ways you're a monster, a statement of
infantile voracious appetite. And yet at the same time you are God's holy fool,
the sacred monster, the innocent untouched by the harshness of reality. You can
be the hero, incredibly strong, and yet even I don't know the depths of your
vulnerability."

 
          
Jack
loved to hear talk about himself. He listened as they walked together, nodding,
absorbed in what she was saying. "Tell me more," he said.

 
          
Lorraine
was willing. "And yet, darling,"
she said, "
in
some ways you can represent evil as
well. The innocent and the slayer of innocence all commingled together in one
powerfully attractive package.
And yet, how lightly you bear
this burden."

 
          
With
a brave laugh, looking at his
Lorraine
, Jack said, "Gosh, darling!"

 
          
The
two walked on, along the beach, beside the whispering ocean, into the fog.