“You haven’t read Gordon’s masterpiece?”
“Not yet.”
“Dear, dear. How inefficient of you.” Her voice wasn’t slurred; only the extra precision of her enunciation betrayed her condition.
“Well, you see, I have a theory. This is the first time I’ve tried a biography of a living person. I thought I’d get a personal, over-all impression first, like a quick outline sketch. Then I’ll start filling in details.”
“But you already knew some of the details. Like the tennis.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t start with a clean slate in the case of a man like Gordon. I knew most of the basic facts; a lot of people know them. He is a well-known figure.”
“Was,” Gordon corrected.
At the same moment, his wife said, “The famous, brilliant Gordon Randolph.”
Most wives could have said that, in the right tone and with the right kind of smile, and made it sound like an affectionate little joke. Michael thought he had never heard an obscenity that sounded quite as vicious. He said quickly, “That’s quite true. Of course I have a certain personal interest. You were one of my father’s students in college, weren’t you, Gordon?”
“Yes. And going back to that word ‘brilliant,’ which we use so freely these days, your father was one of the few teachers who really merited the adjective.”
“Thank you. I was an uncouth high school brat at that time, but I seem to recall his speaking of you.”
“Then you can’t claim to have approached me without prejudice,” Gordon said pleasantly.
“Yes, I can. I was only interested in two things then-one of them was basketball-and I’m afraid I didn’t pay much attention to the conversation of the over-thirty crowd.”
“Over thirty or under thirty, they were all the same,” Linda said. Her voice had become a little thick. “Members of the fan club. The St. Gordon fan club.”
Gordon gave his wife an anguished look, and Michael burst into speech.
“Speaking of my father reminds me of something I’ve been wondering about. Call it idle curiosity. But I know you haven’t permitted an interview for many years. What I wondered was-why me? Sam Cohen, my agent, said you’d specifically mentioned my name. I’m not the most modest member of the Author’s Guild, but neither am I the most famous. Was it because of Dad?”
He had meant to insinuate that question at some point, but it came out sounding a good deal more gauche than it might have under other circumstances. He could feel his face getting red as Gordon’s quizzical eyes studied him, and he was painfully aware of Linda’s unconcealed amusement. She wasn’t too drunk to be unaware of his embarrassment.
“What are you doing, fishing for an insult?” Gordon asked with a smile. “Naturally I followed your career with more interest than I would have done, because of your father. But that career itself impressed me with your ability. I like the way you approach your subjects; Linda summed up my feelings exactly. There’s warmth and sympathy in your interpretations, and you always see both sides. And, lest your vanity get too swollen, I might add that I mentioned several names. Yours was one.”
Michael hadn’t gotten that impression; but then, he thought, a good agent-and Sam was one of the best-automatically administered periodic doses of ego booster. Writers needed compliments. The ones who said they welcomed criticism were liars; what they wanted was praise-the more effusive, the better. But then, he thought, who didn’t? Probe deeply enough, under the slickest façade of confidence, and you tapped a vein of self-doubt or a hidden fear. Irrational fears and baseless doubts, many of them, but that was precisely why constant reassurance was necessary to the human animal. Maybe, if you reduced the thing to its simplest terms, that was the secret of his success as a biographer. Find the Hidden Fear. Well, at least he didn’t sneer at other people’s weaknesses, even if they were not his own.
With an effort Michael brought his mind back from one of the peripheral, fascinating side tracks in which it was only too prone to get lost. He was neglecting his duties as guest. With his withdrawal from the conversation, a heavy silence had fallen. Gordon had turned to look at his wife, and the expression on his face, momentarily unguarded, was a graphic and pitiful example of what Michael had been thinking about. He knew what Gordon Randolph’s hidden weakness was. Linda was as unresponsive as a Sphinx. (That Egyptian motif again!) She had withdrawn into her own thoughts (and what a hell that world must be), and again Michael had the grisly impression that the far end of the table was occupied by an empty gold-trimmed dress.
He stared blankly down at his empty plate. What the hell had he been eating? The others were finished, except for Briggs, who was methodically chasing down a last fragment of meat. What a pig the man was. Not a fat, healthy, pink pig; a dead pig, already soft with incipient corruption…
Michael made a voiceless movement of disgust and protest; and Briggs, having captured and subdued the last bite, looked up.
“Dear me,” he said mildly. “I’m afraid I’m keeping you. Gordon’s cook is marvelous. And gluttony is, I fear, my abiding sin.”
He passed the tip of his tongue over his pale lips, and Michael forced a stiff smile. Taking his secretary’s words as a sign that he had finished, Gordon pushed back his chair. Michael understood his need for haste. The man wanted to get his wife into the drawing room, and some coffee into his wife, while she could still walk. His eyes on his hostess’s blank, perspiring face, Michael suspected that Gordon had waited too long.
Briggs was closer; he reached Linda first, moving with a scuttling speed that brought another unpleasant zoological comparison to Michael’s mind. There was a sly violence in the way he jerked at her chair; and the readiness with which his pudgy hands caught at her, as she staggered, filled Michael with distaste. She turned on him like a cat, her lips drawn back in a snarl, and struck at his hands. Briggs retreated; and Gordon, reaching the foot of the table in two long strides, caught his wife just as she toppled ungracefully forward toward the plates and silverware. His face was a mask of controlled tragedy; but even in that moment of supreme humiliation he had grace enough left to throw a mechanical apology in Michael’s direction:
“…not feeling well.”
He carried his wife out; and Michael closed his hanging jaw and looked at Briggs. The little man spread his hands and gave Michael a wistful smile.
“She doesn’t like me. It hurts me so much. I have such enormous admiration for the dear lady. And I do try to spare Mr. Randolph all I can.”
“I’m sure you do,” Michael said.
“You can find your way to the drawing room, can’t you? I’ll just run along and see if I can be of any help.”
Making his way down the interminable corridor, Michael wondered whether Randolph really meant to reappear that evening, much less sit and talk calmly about the projected story of his life. What a life! Didn’t the poor devil have any friends, any associates who were comparatively decent and normal? Michael found himself, on that first evening of his visit, filled with a profound pity for the man who had everything.
Chapter 2
I
MICHAEL CAME DOWN LATE THE NEXT MORNING TO find the breakfast room unoccupied. Gordon had explained that they followed English country-house habits in the morning; he considered it a tyranny to demand that his guests appear at a specified hour for a meal as trying as breakfast.
One of the servants, a well-stacked blonde with skirts so short they took Michael’s mind off coffee for several minutes, had shown him the way to the “small dining room.” It was a sunny, pleasant room with a table in a circular bay window and silver chafing dishes set out along a sideboard. Michael surveyed the effect approvingly. He wished he knew more about furniture, and all that sort of thing. This stuff was what they called Provincial, he supposed-light in design and color, with flowered drapes and blue-and-white delft pots filled with blooming branches standing around. It was very different from the somber large dining room, with its heavy dark furniture and velvet hangings and family portraits. He wondered how much Linda had had to do with the decoration of the house, and which, if either, of the two styles represented her taste.