Vivaldo sighed. “There’s a hell of a lot that Richard doesn’t know and that’s too bad but it’s not my fault. And he’s being dishonest. He knows that we haven’t really been friends for a long time. And I won’t be made to feel guilty.” Then he grinned. “I’ve got enough to feel guilty about.”
“Do you feel guilty?”
They stared at each other for a moment. Vivaldo laughed. “That wasn’t what I had in mind. But, no, I don’t feel guilty and I hope to God that I never feel guilty again. It’s a monstrous waste of time.”
Eric looked down. “Yes, Cass says that Richard may try to see you today.”
“Sounds just like him. Well, I’m not at home.” Suddenly, he laughed. “Wouldn’t it be funny if Richard came here?”
“And found you here, you mean?” They laughed, rolling in the bed like children. “I wonder what he’d think.”
“Poor man. He wouldn’t know what to think.”
They looked at each other and began to laugh again. “We certainly aren’t giving him an awful lot of sympathy,” Eric said.
“That’s true.” Vivaldo sat up and lit two cigarettes, giving one to Eric. “The poor bastard must really be suffering; after all, he doesn’t know what hit him.” They were silent. “And I’m sure Cass isn’t laughing.”
“No. Not at Richard, not at anything. She sounded half out of her mind.”
“Where was she calling from?”
“Home. Richard had just gone out.”
“I wonder if he really did go to my house. Maybe I should call and see if Ida’s there.” But he did not move toward the phone.
“It’s all just about as messy as it can possibly be,” Eric said, after a moment, “Richard’s talking about suing for divorce and getting custody of the children.”
“Yes, and he’s probably gone out shopping for a brand with the letter A on it and if he could, he’d arrange for Cass to peddle her ass in the streets and drop dead of syphilis. Slowly. Because the cat’s been wounded, man, in his self-esteem.”
“Well,” said Eric, slowly, “he has been wounded. You haven’t got to be — admirable — in order to feel pain.”
“No. But I think that perhaps you can begin to become admirable if, when you’re hurt, you don’t try to pay back.” He looked at Eric and put one hand on the back of Eric’s neck. “Do you know what I mean? Perhaps if you can accept the pain that almost kills you, you can use it, you can become better.”
Eric watched him, smiling a strange half-smile, with his face full of love and pain. “That’s very hard to do.”
“One’s got to try.”
“I know.” He said, very carefully, watching Vivaldo, “Otherwise, you just get stopped with whatever it was that ruined you and you make it happen over and over again and your life has — ceased, really — because you can’t move or change or love any more.”
Vivaldo let his hand fall. He leaned back. “You’re trying to tell me something. What is it that you’re trying to tell me?”
“I was talking about myself.”
“Maybe. But I don’t believe you.”
“I just hope,” said Eric, suddenly, “that Cass will never hate me.”
“Why should she hate you?”
“I can’t do her much good. I haven’t done her much good.”
“You don’t know that. Cass knew what she was doing. I think she had a much clearer idea than you — because you, you know,” and he grinned, “you aren’t very clear-headed.”
“I think I was hoping — perhaps we were hoping — that Richard would never find out and that Yves would get here — before—”
“Yes. Well, life isn’t ever that tidy.”
“You’re very clear-headed,” Eric said.
“Naturally.” He grinned and reached out and pulled Eric to him. “And you must do the same for me, baby, when I’m in trouble. Be clear-headed.”
“I’ll do my best,” said Eric, gravely.
Vivaldo laughed. “No one could ever hate you. You’re much too funny.” He pulled away. “What time are you meeting Cass?”
“At four. At the Museum of Modern Art.”
“God. How’s she going to get away? Or is Richard coming along?”
Eric hesitated. “She isn’t sure that Richard’s coming back today.”
“I see. I think, maybe, we’d better have a cup of coffee—? I’m going to the john.” And he leapt out of bed and slammed the bathroom door behind him.
Eric walked into the kitchen, which was only slightly less disordered than he now felt himself to be, and put coffee on the stove. He stood there a moment, watching the blue flame in the gloom of the small room. He took down two coffee cups and found the milk and sugar. He returned to the big room and cleared the night table of books and of urgently scrawled notes — nearly all of which, beneath his eyes, as he wrote them on small scraps of paper, had hardened into irrelevance — and emptied the ashtray. He picked up his clothes, and Vivaldo’s, from the floor, piling them on a chair, and straightened the sheets on the bed. He put the cups and the milk and sugar on the night table, discovered that there were only five cigarettes left, and searched in his pockets for more, but there were none. He was hungry, but the refrigerator was empty. He thought that, perhaps, he could find the energy to dress and run down to the corner delicatessen for something — Vivaldo was probably hungry, too. He walked to the window and peeked out through the blinds. The rain poured down like a wall. It struck the pavements with a vicious sound, and spattered in the swollen gutters with the force of bullets. The asphalt was wide and white and blank with rain. The gray pavements danced and gleamed and sloped. Nothing moved — not a car, not a person, not a cat; and the rain was the only sound. He forgot about going to the store, and merely watched the rain, comforted by the anonymity and the violence — this violence was also peace. And just as the speeding rain distorted, blurred, blunted, all the familiar outlines of walls, windows, doors, parked cars, lamp posts, hydrants, trees, so Eric, now, in his silent watching, sought to blur and blunt and flee from all the conundrums which crowded in on him. How will I ever get to the museum in all this rain? he wondered: but did not dare to wonder what he would say to Cass, what she would say to him. He thought of Yves, thought of him with a sorrow that was close to panic, feeling doubly faithless, feeling that the principal support of his life had shifted — had shifted and would shift again, might fail beneath the dreadful, the accumulating and secret weight. Faintly, from the closed door behind him, he heard Vivaldo whistling. How could he not have known what he was capable of feeling for Vivaldo? And the answer drummed at him as relentlessly as the falling rain felclass="underline" he had not known because he had not dared to know. There were so many things one did not dare to know. And were they all patiently waiting, like demons in the dark, to spring from hiding, to reveal themselves, on some rainy Sunday morning?
He dropped the blind and turned back into the room. The telephone rang. He stared at it sourly, thinking More revelations, and picked up the receiver.
His agent, Harman, shouted in his ear. “Hello there — Eric? I’m sorry to bother you on a Sunday morning, but you’re a pretty hard man to reach. I was thinking of sending you a telegram.”
“Am I hard to find? I’ve just been staying home, it seems to me, curled up with that lovely script.”