Gillyflower Read online

  “No name. Nothing.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Seven thirteen,” I said, looking at the huge clock that hung above us.

  “Ahhh,” said Hugh. “Why did you say I wasn’t here?”

  There was a good question. “I can’t say, Hugh,” I answered. “It was just a feeling.”

  “A marvelous feeling, Leon! A bull’s-eye-centered feeling; an inspired feeling; a scrumptious, serendipitous, scalawag feeling; a feeling worth more than gold to me, old boy, and I thank you, thank you!” Hugh rose from his chair and strode over to me. He put his long, strong arms around me and hugged. He laughed and laughed. He lifted me off the floor as I stood, swung me around in a circle, and carried me to the window. It was a gesture so odd, so un-English, so unexpected, that I could not respond. I was like a doll embraced too roughly by a three-year-old.

  We stood there at the window, looking out on the steel-blue Thames. Hugh kept hold of me with one arm (perhaps he was afraid I’d keel over from shock) and gestured grandly with the other. “All of this, Leon my boy,” he said, shaking me. “All of this and much, much more will be ours. We’ll travel together, we’ll conquer worlds. I think I can make a little money, Leon, and we shall be comfortable and famous and grow old among lovely women and drink rare wines and wear white jackets. And Leon, we shall sing, and recite the great poems, and waltz and waltz our days away.”

  At that he released me and began to dance around the room, crooning a three-four melody in some enchanted language of his own, snatching up an overcoat along the way and waltzing with it tenderly, as if it were a princess. I thought his singing voice was pleasant.

  I had turned to stone, and yet my heart was pounding. I did not know exactly what he was proposing, or whether he was drunk or drugged (or, it crossed my mind, perhaps even homosexual), or even if he meant a word of what he’d said, but I knew I’d been gathered in.I felt sincerely good. I watched Hugh dance around for a time until at last he alighted on a desk near the door.

  “To the streets!” he commanded.

  We went out and drank hard all night, and helped each other home toward dawn. At no point did the secrets of his afternoon tears or the mysterious telephone caller reveal themselves, but it did not matter. I knew Hugh would always have secrets from me.

  We worked side by side in Piss and Vinegar until we were joyfully discharged a year later, never again going out alone together in all that time. And yet I did not question our understanding. On the day we took off our uniforms for the last time, Hugh came to my room. He stood in the doorway and looked at me for some minutes.

  He smiled the child’s smile again at last. “I’m off to the country for a spell, to the soothing hills of Ireland,” he told me. “To . . . undigest . . . all this. I wish you would come.”

  And I did of course, and we’ve been together ever since.

  5. Rick

  When I first saw Nora I was looking for a job. She was working in a bookstore in Boston and I had applied for a part-time position there while I was finishing grad school. She was the strangest thing; I wanted immediately to kiss her. She was all wispy hair and angles and funny eyes, and her knit blouse clung to her small breasts like the icing on cupcakes. Later, after we’d become lovers, she told me she’d fallen for me that day too, so I guess it was really love at first sight, just the way people describe it.

  I got the job. We saw each other every day for four months, both at work and after, then moved in together. The fourth year we broke up. The fifth year we got married. So all in all we’ve known each other nine years, which seems incredible. I can’t imagine life without Nora, though I do sometimes. I guess she thinks about life without me too, but I know neither of us wants to be apart. She’s a pisser, though, to be truthful. A real pisser.

  The thing about her is, she’s a dreamer. She has this unstoppable imagination and she lives in it much of the time. I don’t mean she’s spaced out. On the contrary, if you asked any of her friends to name the most responsible, practical person they know, they would say Nora. She’s successful in her job and in almost everything she tries, but she’s never really happy about it. She’s cheerful, she’s positive, but she’s a positive pessimist, if you know what I mean. She keeps on going, but she isn’t sure why. What she sees in me is a mystery, but I’m glad she sees it. She sort of holds me together, and I guess I give her a kind of anchor in her life of dreams.

  Nora enjoys her heroes more than most people; she seems to almost “know” them personally, she takes such an interest in them. I can only think of a few just now, and in no particular order: Jane Goodall, Oscar Wilde, David Bowie, Edith Wharton, a radio talk-show host named Jerry Williams, Kevin McHale of the Celtics, her college psychology professor, and that actor Hugh Sheenan. There are others too, but I think I’ve hit the main ones. Hugh Sheenan occupied her spotlight recently when she went to see him in a play in New York City. She came home that night slightly dazed and glassy-eyed and . . . quiet. The way she acted made me wish I’d gone with her, but I didn’t think much about it. I like the guy too, but I’d had other plans that weekend. She was behaving oddly, but I was glad she’d had a good time.

  6. Nora

  We went to dinner after the play, at a Japanese restaurant full of happy-looking people, a very nice place. I made a big show of trying to find out who had won the Celtics game that afternoon, but of course we were in New York, not Boston, so I didn’t have much luck. Here and there my sister and I were able to exchange a few sensible words. My mother was happy with her appetizer of crabsticks in a seaweed cone. The whole time I wondered what I was doing with these people; or, to be more precise, I wondered if I really was with these people. My body was, certainly; it had just downed, in speedy fashion, a huge, sizzling meal and two beers. But I felt ridiculously like someone who had just been to Lourdes and seen the Virgin: calm and blessed, with a heart full of secrets and visions no one would ever believe.

  I sat in the back seat of Belinda’s car on the way home and pretended to sleep so no one would bother me. The air-conditioning lulled me, and the conversation and music from the tape deck seemed as far away as Mars. My mind circled endlessly around the last few minutes of the play, the minutes when Hugh had, as I thought of it, touched me. Something had certainly happened, something privileged and intangible, but I could not put a name to it—I guess I was still too “shocky.” I wondered how long it had taken Hugh to forget the incident; I had no doubt that it had affected him too but imagined, reasonably, that he had other fish to fry and would pass it off as a momentary annoyance, albeit an unnerving one. Also, I had more than an inkling that this sort of thing probably happened all the time. I wasn’t really special; I just felt that way.

  By the time Belinda dropped us off at my mother’s it was quite late, but I felt I had to call Rick. I hadn’t talked to him since the morning I left, and I was anxious to hear his voice. I wanted to tell him about the play, but, more than that, I think I hoped his voice would bring me down to earth a little. I have always been a little scared of heights.

  When I say it was quite late I mean it was probably around eleven. Rick is a night owl; I had no fear of waking him. In fact, I thought he’d be waiting for my call. But although he was nice as pie, it was as if I’d only been gone an hour. We talked for a couple of minutes, he inquired about everyone and told me about his day, but he never asked me about The Lion’s Share. I couldn’t believe it. I finally said, “Aren’t you going to ask me if I had a good time in the city?”

  “Of course,” he said. “I was just going to. How was it?”

  So I told him it was great and gave a few details to be polite, and we signed off in our usual way, with I love yous on both sides. I was slightly pissed. I thought he hadn’t inquired about the play on purpose; after all, The Lion’s Share had been the whole reason for my trip. Before I left for my mother’s he’d teased me about Hugh, seeming to take it all in spirit of good fun. And hadn’t I put up with all sorts of little obsessio
ns of his over the years? Was he suddenly starting to take things too seriously? It bothered me a little, but I must confess it didn’t bother me long. I went right to bed. I hoped I would dream of Hugh, but whether I did or not I can’t recall. I slept deeply and the next morning I was eager to be on my way and greedily alone with my thoughts, like a child intent on being alone with a bag of candy.

  It was a perfect day to drive four hours: partly cloudy, on the cool side, and not too many people on the road. I felt as if I could drive forever, and though I kept the radio on to check out the talk shows in the states I passed through, I hardly heard a thing. I relived the play, going over all the lines I could remember and vividly picturing the cast as they spoke them—especially Hugh, of course. Partly I did this for the sheer pleasure of it, but mostly I did it to keep that afternoon alive in my mind by cutting its groove in my memory deeper and deeper. I knew if I “practiced” I had a better chance of keeping things clear.

  Then, when I was about an hour from Boston, I allowed myself to take out the best, which I’d been saving hungrily for last. I could still call up that sickly “shot” feeling just by thinking about my eyes and Hugh’s fastening upon each other outside of time—for that was what our “encounter” seemed to have been. I pictured the scene as if it were a painting or drawing executed from a vantage point in the rear of the theater: the audience in near darkness, the stage and the players alive in light, and Hugh standing off to the left of the set, looking down into the audience with a startled, incredulous gaze. I thought of it as the kind of old-fashioned picture you might see illustrating a Wilkie Collins novel: millions of tiny, finely etched lines, people’s gesticulations frozen as if they were playing a game of statues, and ardent shafts of light illuminating the vital centers of action. One of these shafts of light went directly from Hugh to me.

  And then I pictured it from other angles, close in and far off, and even from the stage. I tried to see myself from Hugh’s eyes, sitting there with my pale dress and my ceaseless stare, but I couldn’t really imagine my face: the strange, ageless woman I’d seen in the bathroom was always sitting in my seat.

  Lastly, when I had led myself slowly up to this final delight, I played back the moments Hugh looked at me, and each time I shivered with the wonder of it. Like making love, it left me feeling both strong and lightheaded.

  When I was weak from remembering, I tried to examine a small, gnawing feeling of dissatisfaction that had cropped up along the way, and I realized that I felt guilty; I had received so much that Sunday afternoon, and I had returned not a thing to the giver.

  I knew this was absurd, but I had been a guilt-freak from childhood. Once, for example, we were given a wonderful treat in school (it couldn’t have been later than second grade): we were allowed to see a film in the auditorium in the middle of the day, a film purely for pleasure, unrelated to any studies, and as I sat there, I was entranced and excited, yes, but I also couldn’t erase from my mind the feeling that the experience would only be perfect if my mother and father, who worked so hard all day, could be there too. Perhaps this is an experience common to children, but I’ve never heard anyone else confess such a memory, and I have always attributed this syndrome to a neurotic inability to enjoy myself for my own sake.

  At any rate, it was then I decided to write a letter. At first I thought a simple thank-you to Hugh would do, but then I tried to think of something I could send him. Naturally I knew this was no original idea: a star of his brilliance must receive oceans of fan mail, all sorts of gifts. I also knew the chances of his ever seeing my own humble missive were remote, but I had to try. What could I send him? A book, perhaps? A box of home-baked cookies? Ha.

  Everything I thought of seemed fantastically stupid, and for the first time on that blissful drive I began to get annoyed. I could send him a pair of gloves (he always wore pale blue ones, no matter what the season—some kind of lucky symbol for him), but that seemed presumptuously personal and not even original. I imagined a storeroom somewhere in his house full of boxes of blue gloves fans had sent him. There was nothing for it; I simply couldn’t think. And anyway, by that time I was heading into the underpass on Huntington Avenue. It was time to face reality, and Rick.

  7. Hugh

  As I said, in those days I was a man in a trance. Life was going nicely, but I hardly heeded it. For once, I lived quietly, and was given to long, leisurely walks in Central Park (Leon trailing a discreet half-block behind), where I would give myself over to the contemplation of pigeons, leaves, and the avoidance of dog poop on the paths. For several days I seriously considered trying to market a special type of comfortable walking shoe my imagination had devised: shoes that felt like clouds but looked like shoes, not like the ubiquitous American footwear meant originally for leaping hurdles and running races. Nothing quite hurt my aesthetic sense as much on those walks as seeing a lovely woman in a smart summer suit with huge, rubber-boat-like tennies at the end of her shapely legs. This imaginary project held my interest for some time.

  I suppose I was fortunate I had nothing more serious to worry me. Even my health was on the upswing, physically at least. Leon had not felt the need to dose me in weeks, and I was often sleeping more than four hours a night and waking more or less rested. I amused myself with the notion that I was “re-growing” my heart. My long walks had refreshed me, had taken the old, familiar, weary stiffness from my limbs, and I found this new resiliency was even making my work on stage easier: traveling from right stage to left no longer seemed like a breathless trek across the Sahara.

  But the morning after I dreamed of that odd young woman I did not feel rested at all. I did not get out of bed until noon, and I felt cranky enough to call Leon to task for forgetting to take a spot out of my new linen suit. Leon in turn felt insulted enough (after all, I had at least four identical linen suits) to revenge himself by offering me coffee. I was happy to drink it; I felt I needed to be punished for the dream, and while the coffee did not wreak its usual vengeance on my innards, it did accelerate my metabolism to a truly frightening degree. My pulse was pattering madly.

  I was dressed in a flash, and though the matinee was more than two hours off, I made haste for the theater. I did not take the blue car, and I did not take Leon. I walked. And I was not in disguise. I walked down Sixth Avenue that May afternoon with my foolish head held high and the most arrogant expression on my face that I could muster. That is to say, I felt exceedingly bold, and I sailed along at top speed with my trench coat flapping and my arms swinging like twin scythes. Several people stopped dead in their tracks, but none dared approach me.

  I walked so quickly, in fact, that upon reaching the theater, I suddenly realized I’d arrived far too soon, and I turned briskly into the first tavern I saw that did not have those tiny high windows set into a blank facade. Americans are so ashamed of their drinking that they board up many of their public houses so no one can see inside. Ridiculous, hypocritical, unhealthy habit. I chose a place with plate glass windows and lots of white furniture visible from the street, sat at a comfortable table in the rear, and ordered a double whiskey. I knew I could not drink it, but the very size of the thing would afford me time to brood. The waiter asked me for my autograph and I obliged, signing the name of another actor (of whom I was often jealous)—but he, poor, star-stricken dolt, was too befuddled to notice. I asked for a glass of water, drank half, poured a thimbleful of whiskey into the tumbler, positioned my Galoises and lighter for easy access, and sat back to think.

  What was this feeling that bloody dream had produced in me? I had never put much stock in dreams, but I had to admit this one was bothering me mightily. I had not wanted it to be over—that accounted for my grisly mood upon wakening—and I felt at that moment that if I could be assured I’d enter that particular dream again, I would lay my head down on the table in that bar and give up that day’s performance or anything else. Some of the details had become fuzzy, but I could call up the pull of that young woman’s eyes at will, and t
he feeling it gave me was at once a puzzle and a comfort. Was she someone I actually knew, but had forgotten? Was she merely the creation of my addled old brain? Or, worst of all, was she the embodiment of all the comfort my soul now desired but would never find?

  That was it. I knew it. The small solace dreaming that dream had bestowed upon me was dashed; I was convinced all at once I was doomed to live the rest of my besotted life like a man who could never obtain the one thing he wanted: silent—and instant—understanding. It was worse than simple loneliness, closer to despair.

  And a fat load of rubbish, I did realize. I told myself I was merely having a belated reaction to my more or less recent divorce, and that it was only natural that I would have to face the music sooner or later. It had been my second marriage. My first, embarked upon rather early in youth, had endured over twenty years, and although its ending had been difficult and sad, I remained on excellent terms with my first wife, and time had long since mellowed regret to a comfortable wisdom. When that first marriage was over, I had immersed myself in my work for a number of years, and traveled the world over, picking up the most fantastic women here and there but never staying with any of them very long. There had been scores of them. I say this not boastfully, but with gratitude. They were beautiful, they were sexually all I could desire, and they had, for the most part, been terribly kind to me. For if, those days in New York, I was a man in a trance, in the days after my first marriage dissolved I was a man intent on hell. I could feel a sick brilliance within me breaking the surface of my skin like some terrible itching disease, and I drank and womanized and worked like a bloody bastard at a string of exhausting (and not terribly successful) theatrical projects and film roles.