As soon as they had been served coffee, Polly opened a spiral notebook containing a list of prepared questions, ranged in decreasing order of harmlessness according to the advice given her by a friend who was a professional journalist. Then she set her tape recorder on the plastic placemat with its view of Warwick Castle. Lennie, like all her previous interviewees, flinched slightly at the sight. He sat back and straightened his spine, confronting her more squarely.
For a while everything went well enough. Lennie answered the easy questions without hesitation, supplying dates, addresses, and the names of relatives and schools. But when Polly started to ask about Lorin Jones’s parents he began to speak more slowly and give short, unhelpful replies. (“Sorry, I don’t recall... I don’t remember, really ... It’s a long time ago.”)
“Can’t you tell me any more?” she asked as persuasively as she could. “You said just now that you visited your father’s new family fairly often.”
“Not all that often. It was a long trip from Queens, and my mother wasn’t all that keen on my making it.” He smiled sourly.
“But you must remember something of what it was like there.”
Lennie smiled briefly sideways, not exactly in Polly’s direction, and shook his head.
“Really?... I find that hard to believe.” She waited, but he merely shrugged and took another sip of espresso. “I’m beginning to get the feeling that you don’t want me to write about your sister,” she said finally, not quite in control of her tone for the first time.
“I don’t want you to write the kind of personal things you’ve been asking for; no. In my view, it’s far too soon for anything like an analytic biography.”
“But you said — you agreed —” Remembering what had happened with Paolo Carducci, she tried to keep the indignation out of her voice. Jeanne was right; she wasn’t going to get anywhere that way.
“I agreed to the idea of a book on Laura, yes. But what I assumed you had in mind was a study of her paintings — an extension of what you wrote in the catalogue.”
“Well, of course I’m planning to discuss the paintings,” Polly said, trying to remain calm.
“I think you should concentrate on that.” Lennie smiled in an irritating way. “On the professional side of her life.”
Don’t tell me what to concentrate on, Polly thought angrily. But she feigned docility and began to ask about Lorin Jones’s early years. Did she show artistic talent as a child, did she win prizes, did her parents and her teachers recognize her ability and encourage her? “Yeah, I think so,” Lennie kept saying; but he wouldn’t provide any details.
“You’re not helping much, you know,” she told him finally.
“I know. I’m trying, but you’ve got to remember we grew up apart, and I was nearly five years older than Laura. It wasn’t until she’d finished college and was studying in New York that we really got acquainted.”
“So you didn’t know her all that well as a little girl,” Polly said, trying to give the appearance of believing this.
“No. But I don’t think anyone did. Laura was extremely shy, you know. Especially with older people. When I visited my father’s house, most of the time she’d be up in her room, or out in the garden playing with her dolls under the lilac bushes. Or making up stories and singing them to herself, or drawing — yeah, I do remember her drawing sometimes.”
“And would you say she was a happy child?”
“Happy?” Lennie squinted past Polly and the bleached brick wall of the restaurant, into some lost space.
Now he’s going to tell me, Polly thought; making an effort, she said nothing more. But when Lennie looked back at her, his jaw was set. “As I believe I mentioned before,” he said, heavily ironic, “I don’t see the point of questions like that. Who knows what happiness is for anyone else?”
“Mmh,” Polly agreed, disagreeing.
“Anyhow, it’s unimportant, in my view, whether or not an artist was happy as a child. Or as an adult, for that matter.” He gave a harsh laugh. “Suppose Laura wasn’t happy? Telling everyone about it now won’t do her any good. And people who are still alive could be hurt.”
“People who are alive?” Polly asked, thinking at once of Lorin Jones’s principal persecutors. “Do you mean her dealer, or Garrett Jones? Or do you mean Hugh Cameron?”
“I don’t mean anyone. That was a general comment.”
Lying, you’re lying, Polly thought with rage, but managed with great effort not to say. “I see.”
Lennie laughed sourly. “If you want to know, I wasn’t thinking of any of them. I suppose I was thinking of myself. I’m in no hurry to read about how mean I was to my little sister.”
“And were you mean to your little sister?” she asked as casually as possible.
“About as often as most boys, I expect.” Again he gazed past Polly. Give them enough rope, Jeanne’s voice whispered inside her head, and they’ll hang themselves.
“Well, go on,” Lennie said abruptly, using the rope she had given him as a lash rather than a noose. “What are you waiting for?”
“Nothing — I —”
“If you’re expecting some sensational tale of child abuse, forget it.” He grinned mockingly at her. “That’s what you were hoping for, wasn’t it? Your eyes were positively popping.”
Polly’s hands tightened on her notebook, becoming fists. “If you don’t want to answer a question, then don’t,” she said as politely as she could manage, which was not very politely.
Lennie stopped grinning. “Let me make my position clear, okay?” he said in a weary lecturing voice. “I’m not principally concerned for my own reputation.” (The hell you’re not, she thought.) “But I really despise the current fashion for exposing the private lives of artists and writers. Nothing is gained for literature when we learn that someone cheated on his taxes or his wife. That’s not the point; the point is the text, the work.”
“But what we know about an artist’s life can usually tell us something about the work,” Polly protested.
“So you say. But how often does it really? If you want to know what I think —”
“Yes, sure,” she lied.
“I think this passion for revealing the most intimate and embarrassing details about well-known people is a byproduct of envy. They must be exposed as flawed or unhappy, to deflect the rage we feel against them for their gifts, their fame. We can only stand the idea that van Gogh, or Virginia Woolf, say, was a genius and we’re not, if we keep reminding ourselves that they were miserable most of the time. Psychotic even.”
“You may be right,” Polly said, employing the all-purpose phrase suggested to her for such moments by Jeanne. In her own mouth it sounded thin and phony, but Lennie seemed not to notice.
“And it’s not only artists and writers. It’s the same with all celebrities. We want to hear how beautiful and brilliant and rich and successful such people are; but we also want to hear what terrible childhoods they had and how they’ve been wretchedly poor or ill, or alcoholic, or frustrated in love. There’s always going to be a residue of envy though, even so, unless the celebrity comes to a bad end. So what we really want is for them to kill themselves, or get themselves murdered, or die horribly of drink or drugs or cancer. Then our envy and hatred are satisfied, and our love can be pure.”
“Maybe,” Polly said, silently rejecting his theory. She didn’t envy or hate Lorin Jones; she loved and admired her. Maybe that’s the way it is for people like you, she thought. “But that’s not what my book’s going to be like,” she added aloud.
“No? What will it be like, then, Polly?” Lennie leaned across the table, fixing his bright dark eyes on hers, and giving her a penetrating smile. “I know,” he said, grinning. “It’s going to be a no-holds-barred indictment of the patriarchal system. Isn’t that right?”