5 5You could pick out Constantine de Rham from a block away when he walked up or down Madison Avenue. His enormous head with its black beard and hooded eyes had a kind of reptilian magnificence. He was taller by far than most people and walked with such great strides that strollers on the avenue stepped aside as he passed and turned to stare after him at his aristocratic swagger. In fall and spring he wore his topcoat over his shoulders like a cape.
He had that day, in what was for him a rare burst of generosity, given a dollar to a beggar on the street, and, then, not ten minutes later, returning the same way, was offended and irritated that the same beggar held up his hand for more, having already forgotten him, rather than rewarding him with a smile of recognition and gratitude that he felt his previous contribution to the fellow’s welfare deserved.
Augustus Bailey and Constantine de Rham sighted each other from a block away and passed each other without speaking, each aware of the other and each aware that the other was aware of him. An unpleasant feeling stirred within Gus Bailey, as he turned to peer into the window of the Wilton House Bookshop, pretending to concentrate on the display of copies of Nestor Calder’s latest novel, Judas Was a Redhead, until Constantine de Rham had passed. Sometimes Gus felt prescient, and he felt in that moment of passage that he was sometime going to have to play a scene, as he used to call it in Hollywood, with Constantine de Rham. Concentrating on Nestor Calder’s book, Gus did not see Elias Renthal pass behind him and enter a coffee shop, carrying a briefcase.
Inside the bookshop he could see Matilda Clarke, looking at the latest books with Arthur Harburg, the proprietor. He walked in.
“I’m sick, sick, sick to death of reading about the Mitfords,” said Matilda.
“There’s Judas Was a Redhead,” suggested Arthur.
“I’ve read that. I even went to Nestor Calder’s publication party at Clarence’s.”
“Have you read Inspired by Iago?”
“Heavens, no!”
“It’s not what you think. It opens in a trailer park.”
“Right away you’ve lost me. A little trailer park goes a long way with me.”
“What do you like?” asked Arthur Harburg, patiently. He was used to dealing with his spoiled clients.
“I like a book with short chapters,” said Matilda. “I love to be able to say. ‘I just want to finish this chapter,’ and do it. Such a feeling of accomplishment. What have you got with short chapters, about rich people?”
“There’s always Trollope,” said Gus, breaking in. “He writes short chapters.”
“Gus Bailey,” said Matilda, with a laugh. “Trollope indeed. You missed such a good weekend in the country.”
“Sorry about that.”
“How was your mystery weekend in the other direction?”
“Oh, okay.”
“This man leads a mystery life, Arthur.”
In Gus’s bathroom, Matilda went through his medicine chest. It interested her to know what men kept in their medicine chests. To her surprise, behind the boxes of his English soap and talcum powder, she found a package of Ramses, a prelubricated prophylactic, according to the copy on the box. She had not thought of Gus Bailey in terms of sexual pursuits. There was always that wife somewhere in his past whose photographs were in his apartment, and the tragedy people talked about, whatever it was. Opening the package of three, she saw that two were missing and was consumed with curiosity to know the kind of women who came to his apartment. She placed the remaining prophylactic in her evening bag and returned to Gus’s living room.
There was classical music on the stereo, and Gus was settled into the chintz-covered chair that was obviously his regular chair, leafing through a copy of Judas Was a Redhead. For the first time she noticed him in a different way and wondered what he was like as a lover.
“Did you find everything?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied, not taking her eyes off him. With both hands she patted the back of her hair. Nearing fifty, she still wore her hair in the same pageboy style that she had worn as a debutante of eighteen. “Find your style and stick with it,” she was often quoted as saying when the fashion pages of the papers were still quoting her, before Sweetzer died.
“Drink?” Gus asked, sensing a change in the atmosphere. He rose.
“I’ll have a whiskey, with a splash of water,” she said. She looked around the sitting room. “Well, how nice this is, your little apartment. It’s so chic.”
“Hardly chic,” said Gus.
“Well, cozy. I meant this run-down look you have. It’s so English-second-son sort of thing.”
Gus laughed. In the kitchen he made her a scotch with a splash of water. Gus was precise in all things. He refilled the ice tray, put it back in the freezer, and sponged the wet off the kitchen counter before returning to his sitting room.
“It’s my first drink since New Year’s Eve,” she said, taking it from him. “Spirits, that is. Only wine since then, but I don’t count wine. What are you having?”
“Oh, bottled water, I suppose. I keep a variety to choose from.”
“Bottled water? That’s all?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t drink?”
“No.”
“Ever?”
“No.”
“Did you ever?”
“Yes, but I stopped.”
“Why?”
“I just did.”
“By yourself, or with help?”
“With help.”
“Oh, so you’re a drunk!” she chortled, feeling better about herself.
“No more. Cured in Minnesota,” said Gus, smiling. He returned to his chair. “There are several options for the evening,” he said. “I called Chick Jacoby, and we can get a table at Clarence’s. Or we can go around the corner and see the new Woody Allen movie. Or we can go to the Marty Leskys’ who are having a party with a lot of movie stars.”
“A veritable olio,” she replied.
“Do you have a preference?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Let me see how you look with this on,” she said, opening her bag and tossing the rubber across the room to him.
“You are surprising, Gus,” she said thirty minutes later.
“How so?”
“I mean, you look like and act like you have no interest in this sort of thing whatsoever, and, actually, you’re terribly good at it.”
“But everybody knows about me, so I’m no surprise. Do you always wait for the lady to make the first move?”
“I suppose.”
“Are you, as they say, involved at the moment?”
“I’m more for the quick encounter than for romance,” said Gus. “I have been a failure at romance.”
“Is that a nice way of telling me no repeats?”
“No, no. It just means, let’s wait until we bump into each other at the bookshop again.”
She lay back against the pillows, opened her bag, took out a gold mirror, and examined herself. “Look, my color’s marvelous. I always feel so much better after a good fuck.”
He laughed.
“You should laugh more, Gus,” said Matilda. “You sound nice laughing. Sometimes I think that beneath that very calm veneer of yours, you are exploding with thoughts that none of us know anything about.”
Dressed, they moved from the bedroom back into the living room. Matilda looked at the photographs on one of Gus’s tables.
“May I suggest something to you?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“Why don’t you remove those pictures of your dead child from your apartment? It’s just a constant reminder.”
There was a silence before he replied. “May I suggest something to you?” he asked.
“Of course,” she answered, unaware of the steel in his voice.
“Mind your own fucking business.”
Matilda, scarlet, replied, “But I just meant—”
“I understand what you meant.” He breathed deeply. “Now, about tonight. What will it be?”
“You’re livid with me,” she said.
“I’ll get over it.”
“I think I should just go back to the country.”
“No, you shouldn’t just go back to the country. We have had a misunderstanding. There is a part of my life I do not share, that’s all, just as I’m sure there is a part of your life that you do not share. We are people of a certain age. We should be able to deal with a crisis. Right?”
“I suppose.”
“Now, about tonight, what will it be?”
“You’re not just being polite because we had a sort of date?”
“Of course not.”
“Let’s go to Marty Lesley’s movie-star party. I’m so glad you know all those Hollywood people, Gus. I read in Mavis Jones’s column that Faye Converse is going to be there.”
“Perfect.”
“You know Faye Converse, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I read the story you wrote about her.”
“I like her.”
“You’re strange, Gus.”
“How?”
“You listen to all of us talk, but you never say anything about yourself.”
Gus looked at Matilda but did not reply.
“I better keep my mouth shut and quit when I’m ahead,” she said, and they both laughed.