“Maestro,” I say, kissing Gore on each cheek as I come into the room. He’s sitting in state, on an expansive couch in the alcove off the dining room: an Oriental feel to this chamber, with draping curtains that Diana Phipps rigged up decades ago. It’s a room fit for a sultan, and Gore seems very like one: wrinkled skin, wispy hair, fat belly, bossy as hell.
“Norberto! Drinks!”
Norberto rushes in with a glass of whiskey for Gore, a glass of Sancerre for me. He knows what everyone wants. I’ve never seen anyone so loyal and professional in this role of servant.
“I’ll be dead soon,” Gore says.
I can see no point in responding. It’s true enough.
“It’s not the drink that will kill me,” he says. “I’m eighty-five. I never thought I’d get to sixty, but we’re tough. My grandfather used to say about the Gores that we’re indestructible. You can’t drown us.”
He doesn’t sip, he gulps. It’s suicidal drinking, and I feel sorry for him. He has been trying to end his life since Howard died in 2003, but he can’t manage. It’s hard to watch a companion die, and harder to live alone like this.
“Listen to something,” he says, and puts on a tape of Howard singing old Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett hits. “You never believed me, did you? He could have been a star.”
“Two stars in one house? This would have been a very bright spot, visible from outer space.”
“I did what I could to help his career along, but he was lazy. I was never lazy.”
I agree that they will never say that about Gore Vidal.
“Sinatra was the greatest voice of our time,” says Gore. “When Tommy Dorsey played the trombone, he could hold the note. Let a little air in through the side of his mouth, he would say. Sinatra did that with his voice. Howard understood that, and he could hold a note so long! Of course the smoking ruined it. It ruined everything. You need lungs for singing, and Howard needed lungs for smoke. In his heyday, he could hit a high note—the A-flat. Sinatra could do that, did it again and again. But with Howard, it fell away too quickly. He didn’t practice. He gave up.”
“You loved Howard,” I say, “and you miss him.”
Gore looks into his drink. “Listen,” he says, after a few minutes. He plays Howard singing “Hello Young Lovers.” He almost swoons. His eyes are watery. I have never before seen him cry, but he’s crying now.