Gillyflower Read online

  He did ask me, several times, if I’d made reservations for the trip to Boston, and each time I assured him I had. Feeling in my bones that Hugh was going to need even more privacy than usual on this little jaunt, I had booked six seats on the airline shuttle (ours plus two empty ones in back of and in front of us); arranged for the most private of suites at the Ritz; informed the hotel management that Mr. Sheenan would only be in town for a very few hours, on a matter that required the utmost privacy, and cautioned them against leaking our arrival to the press (fortunately, hotel people seem to keep their lips fairly well-buttoned when the stakes are high); hired a reputable but unostentatious car and driver in Boston; and refilled all the prescriptions in my little black bag. When I went to close Hugh’s valise that morning I found he had slipped in two full bottles of bourbon, which I emptied down the drain.

  He had ceased, at last, to carry the drawing around with him—outside the hotel, that is. While at home, he would still transport it from room to room, almost absent-mindedly, as if out of lifelong habit. He was not sleeping well, and when he finally did struggle out of bed in the mornings he would slip on a pair of old reading glasses and go over to the bureau and examine the drawing, as if he suspected it had changed somehow in the night. Sometimes he’d touch it with one finger, tracing the gold-lit area and then looking at his hand as if he suspected the color would come off and stain him.

  The night before our trip to Boston he did not even attempt to go to bed until almost two in the morning. Ordinarily, I would have slipped off much earlier myself, but I thought I might as well stay up that night and see if I could learn anything. I had the feeling there was a lot I ought to know in order to be able to help Hugh through what promised to be, in one way or another, an exhausting tomorrow.

  He was sitting up in bed in his fuzzy old robe, chain-smoking, drinking quantities of cherry soda, and leafing aimlessly through magazines. Finally, I said to him, “Hugh, you’ve got to try to sleep. Our plane leaves La Guardia at seven, though God knows why we have to leave so early.”

  “Go to bed, Leon. I’ll be fine.”

  “Let me change the reservation to ten; surely that will leave us plenty of time.”

  He looked at me coolly. “I wish to depart on the seven o’clock, thank you. I would not care to be late for lunch—one never knows what kind of delays one will meet while traveling.”

  When Hugh said “I wish to,” there was no arguing.

  “All right then,” I told him, “I’ll call you at five,” and I headed for my room.

  “One thing, dear Leon,” Hugh called after me.

  I turned.

  “You may not think I know what I’m doing tomorrow, but I do. I am going to rid myself of a monkey on my back. The monkey is this Forrest woman. You must leave me to do that work alone.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that I do not wish you to join us for lunch, if you don’t mind.” He gave me what was no doubt supposed to be a fearsome stare.

  I did my best to look as though I concurred. “As you wish.” I had no intention of leaving him alone with a possible nutcase, but I would not let him know it.

  “Thank you, Leon. You and I will have a fine lobster dinner tomorrow evening in Boston.”

  I nodded and took myself off to my room, thinking how I would convince him that he really oughtn’t eat anything so rich as lobster, little knowing, of course, that that particular problem would not prove a vexing one for me the next day.

  I rose at four thirty, my eyes feeling like over-boiled eggs. At five precisely, after having had a quick cup, I knocked on Hugh’s door. No answer. I went in. He had pulled up the blinds and was sitting at a small table in the just-breaking sunlight, sipping a large coffee he must have ordered secretly from room service and reading The Boston Globe, which they must have obtained for him as well. He was fully dressed in a three-piece off-white linen suit with a pale blue shirt and white tie. His blue gloves lay on the table beside him.

  Curtains of sun-shot smoke hung in the air around him like a gauzy frame, and the weak early-morning light touched his black-grey hair and heavy eyebrows and illuminated the long bones of his face so that he looked like an El Greco. Although he was still too thin by far, and deep lines of fatigue were carved about his mouth and eyes, I had not seen him looking so handsome, so fine, in a very long time. He smiled at me, his eyes lit up the room, and in spite of myself, I had a little thrill, the effect was so unearthly. I knew that Hugh, like myself, had had almost no sleep at all the previous night, but somehow he had emerged from his evening vigil looking better than any mortal had a right to. The queer, ever-present drawing was leaning near him on the window ledge.

  “Leon! Many happy returns of the day!” he said, rising and pulling out a chair for me. “Have a seat, old chap; join me for a moment on this marvelous morning.”

  “Happy returns?” I muttered. “It’s not my birthday, is it?”

  “Just an expression, Leon, that’s all. It means ‘may the day bring you many happy returns on whatever you care to invest in it’ . . . or something like that. What does it matter? Who knows? Who cares? Here, have at a section of this funny foreign newspaper the maid brought me.” He handed me the sports section of The Globe.

  “You will see, Leon,” he went on, “that it is baseball season in Boston. The paper says the local team is chock-a-block full of promising rookies . . . ‘promising rookies,’ Leon! Isn’t that a marvelous phrase? Pity we will not be here longer; I think I should like to go out to the ball field—or what do you call it? —and take a look at these ‘promising rookies,’ wouldn’t you?”

  “You hate sports, Hugh,” I reminded him. His memory could be quite selective.

  Hugh roared at me in his Lear voice: “Dost thou call me fool, boy?”

  I wasn’t fazed. “You do hate them, though.”

  “Ah. But Leon, that is not precisely true. What about my short but brilliant career in polo?”

  He was speaking of a post-navy obsession that had lasted only a month. I think he admired the drinking capacity of the players much more than their prowess on the field. They’d liked him too.

  “You broke both ankles,” I said.

  He laughed that head-back laugh for which he was famous. “So I did. I am clumsy. I was not a ‘promising rookie,’ I suppose.” He laughed again. “You’re right, Leon, it’s the indoor life for me. Give me a comfy chair, a cozy fire, a glass of Guinness, and a beautiful woman on my lap any day! ‘Promising rookies,’ indeed!”

  We conversed for another five minutes or so, or I should say Hugh conversed, for I was becoming increasingly sullen in inverse proportion to his rising spirits. I deeply resented his mood. I’d barely had two winks of sleep and I knew I had a hard day ahead, made harder by the fact that I knew not what would be required of me.

  But at last it was time to go. I gathered up what we needed, Hugh took his old trench coat out of the closet, and then he went to the window, removed his glasses from his pocket, placed them precariously at the end of his nose, and looked fiercely into the drawing.

  “Is it coming with us?” I asked.

  No, he said, he would not require the drawing, and he took it and stashed it facedown beneath the bed. “It should be quite safe there,” he said, smiling. “I’ve noticed that in most hotels my undies can repose there quite undisturbed for days.”

  We left for the airport in a cab. As luck would have it, the driver was a stunningly beautiful red-haired teenage girl with a dreadfully thick Bronx accent, and Hugh chatted her up incessantly for an hour in heavy traffic, handed her a fifty-dollar tip at the airport, and kissed her fondly on both cheeks. When I looked back, she was sitting on the bonnet of her cab with a stunned, lifeless expression on her face, looking like a person gravely in need of medical attention.

  17. Nora

  I got off the subway at Copley, walked down Boylston, then Dartmouth, then Newbury, and continued down Newbury Street to the park. I deliberately walked past th
e Ritz without looking at it. Once safely in the Public Garden, I took a bench facing the hotel and tried to think how best to enter the building. I guessed I looked presentable enough for the place, because many of the people going in looked pretty ordinary. They’ve got a lot of money, I told myself, but they’re just people.

  I decided to enter on the Arlington Street side, where a grandfatherly-looking doorman stood, as opposed to the Newbury side, where a young Sylvester Stallone type stood with his arms akimbo. I wanted to be precisely five minutes late—not to be fashionable, but to increase my chances of not having to wait alone in the dining room for Hugh Sheenan. Of course, that could still happen. Weren’t all famous people always late? Or maybe he wouldn’t show at all, which would definitely be best. I crossed my fingers. I crossed the street. I wanted to get hit by a car, but not a single one was coming.

  The grandfather-doorman smiled and opened the door for me and I stepped inside. Everything looked smaller than what I’d expected. The foyer was dark and grand, a richly appointed parlor atmosphere, complete with cozy lighting and armchairs, and several older women sat here and there paging through magazines and checking their expensive watches. I walked as slowly as I could toward the desk, and then, just when I would have had to ask about the dining room, I saw a sign indicating its location.

  A lovely woman at the door, dressed as if for a cocktail party, looked at me pleasantly and asked, “Luncheon for one?”

  This was the hard part. Oh no, I said, I was meeting someone, and craned my neck to look past her into the dining area. Only three tables were filled. Hugh was not at any of them.

  He was unmistakably absent. I turned to the woman with all the aplomb I could muster and said, “He’s not here yet.” I wondered if she would have me removed for loitering; had she done so, I would have been profoundly grateful.

  At that very moment I felt my left arm being very nearly wrenched from its shoulder. Hugh Sheenan had come up behind me, taken hold of my elbow with one of his enormous hands, and pulled me forward a good three feet beyond the hostess. She looked a little put out.

  “Not to worry, darling,” he told her. “We’ll sit in the back.” And he pulled me, tripping and running (he was merely strolling, his legs were so long), to a table behind some tall potted plants. He practically pushed me down in a chair, remained standing himself, waved across the room to a waiter, and called in a booming voice, “Bourbon, neat, a double,” before flopping down in the chair across from me with a smirk on his face.

  It was the first chance I’d really had to look at him.

  The room was darkish for midday, but Hugh gave out his own light. He had on an off-white suit and vest, and a white tie against a light blue shirt that brought out all the fire in his incredible eyes. The whites of his eyes were slightly bloodshot, but the irises shone out like searchlights, ignited by some inner, invincible spark. His jacket hung loosely about him; he was ethereally thin, and so tall that even as he slumped back in his chair my eyes were only on a level with his shoulders. There was a pale blue handkerchief in his pocket that matched the shirt, and, out of keeping with all his splendor, what looked like newspaper grime all along his sleeves and cuffs. As he pulled off his pale blue gloves and laid them on the table, I thought how his long, thin fingers looked like wind chimes dangling from his wrists. His hair was a mess, and needed cutting badly, but it cast a dark shadow over his forehead that only added to the mystery of his eyes.

  He was still smirking at me when the waiter came with his drink. It suddenly hit me that Hugh had recognized me—or was it only the yellow dress he’d been told to expect and the “lost” air I must have radiated in the lobby?

  The waiter lit the cigarette Hugh had placed in a long black holder, and handed us some menus. “What may I bring you?” he asked me.

  “She’ll have a very-cherry Coke.” Hugh said this in an exaggerated way, trilling the r’s like a snotty butler. “A double.” He laughed.

  It really pissed me off. “I don’t drink Coke,” I said. “Vodka and tonic with lime.” The waiter nodded and left.

  Hugh’s expression changed slightly. “Very good,” he said, “I suppose you cannot be as young as you look. Or act,” he added grimly.

  “I’m over thirty-five,” I said, idiotically. I wanted to crawl under my chair.

  He grimaced. “As. Am. I.”

  My drink arrived.

  “Look here,” Hugh said. “Miss Forrest. I don’t intend to beat about the bush. I invited you to lunch here today to look you over, to satisfy myself that a witch would eat real food and wouldn’t speak in riddles. Let us order, so I can at least be sure of the former.”

  He called the waiter back and, without even glancing at me, ordered a veal dish for both of us.

  I stopped him. “I don’t eat meat,” I said, and quickly scanned the menu for something that wouldn’t make me instantly ill. I needed some protective padding in my stomach. “I’ll have the pasta.”

  The man went away.

  “You don’t drink Coke and you don’t eat meat,” Hugh said menacingly. “What is it you do do? When you’re not trotting around going to plays and drawing funny pictures, that is?”

  He was more than beginning to get to me. I could feel tears starting to clog up my nose and make my neck as rigid as a golf club. I was determined not to cry, so I said nothing.

  “Cat got your tongue?” he asked airily, waving his cigarette around like a wand.Everything he said sounded like Shakespeare. He paused so long on the final “t” of “cat” and “got” that even the cliché was unexpected.

  It was too much. “I’m leaving,” I said, pushing the chair back. The tears started. “I don’t know why I came here. I don’t know why I’ve liked you so long. You’re stupid, you’re rude, you’re cruel, and you’re vulgar. You asked me here to make a fool of me—I suppose I should have suspected.”

  I left all dignity behind. “What was my crime?” I said to him, now crying openly, enormous tears splotting all over the front of my dress. “What was my crime, that I admired you? That I wrote you a letter, that I sent you something precious to me? You’re beautiful and brilliant and talented, and I found that inspiring, is that so wrong? Why didn’t you leave it alone?” I sputtered. “And let me tell you something else: you don’t frighten me with your Irish-macho temper—I’ve been around Irishmen all my life. You’re not such a big deal in that department.”

  I was so angry my entire body hurt.

  Hugh handed me a glass of water. “Sit back,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re not,” I said. “You’re just surprised. You thought I would be a pitiful little twit you could have some fun with, and I’m not. I’m not fun. I’m not an idiot. And I’m going home.” I got up and started to walk out of the room, amazed to see that no one was particularly looking at me. At least my outburst must have been on the quiet side, though it seemed to me as if I’d been screaming.

  Hugh came after me and steered me by the elbow in another direction. “The loo is just down that aisle,” he said, close to my ear; his breath felt hot as a furnace. “Don’t be long.”

  So I washed my face and dried it on the soft, plushy hotel towels. I gave a dollar to the matron and hoped that was all right. I brushed my hair off my forehead and saw in the mirror that a little of my own face was being won back from the alien, ageless woman who had been there.I took my time, then walked carefully back to the table.

  There was a small bouquet of tiny yellow roses on my plate. Fast work, I thought; the rich could manage anything. Hugh stood up. He looked like a giant boy. At his plate, a tall glass of milk stood next to the bourbon.

  He held my chair and helped me to sit down. I picked up the roses and smelled them. I tried to manage a smile.

  “Truly,” he said, “I am sorry. I’ve behaved like a bastard. Since you have been honest, let me try to be honest as well.” He took a swig from the milk glass, then one from the bourbon. “I have been terrified of you. I have carried yo
ur drawing about with me since I received it, and I have not understood why. Let me tell you, Miss Forrest, I am not in the habit of inviting perfect strangers to lunch, and I may be quite as uncomfortable as you are, you know, though I’m sure you will not believe it.” The anxious smile he gave me then was quite genuine and disarming.

  “I’m sorry I called you vulgar,” I said.

  He laughed. “But not sorry about ‘stupid,’ ‘rude,’ and ‘cruel’?”

  “No,” I said, also laughing, “Or ‘beautiful,’ ‘brilliant,’ or ‘talented.’”

  “Thank you, kind lady,” he answered, bowing his head. It was like a lion’s. Then he tossed it back and guffawed loudly.

  “I must say, however,” he said, “I don’t recall ever being labeled ‘Irish-macho’ before.”

  I felt a little silly. “Well.” I grinned. “It’s a category I invented.”

  “I see,” he said, eyeing me suspiciously, but still with a teasing gleam in his eye.

  “Yes,” I said stupidly, trying not to lose sight of reality; I realized Hugh was, deliberately or not, charming me into a state of high distraction. “But I really would like to know why you asked me here,” I said. “What’s all this about witches and riddles?”

  “I had a dream about you,” he said.

  This surprised me, but apparently not enough, because Hugh was looking at me so searchingly, with such an expression of utter personal confusion on his face, that it took me aback. I tried to make light of it.

  “You mean you dreamed of a person you thought I would be like,” I said, like some patronizing pop-psychologist. Fear had made me lie. I’d known all along that something like this was brewing, but, like a coward witnessing a street-crime, I was determined not to become involved. Something unthinkable in the back of my mind was creeping forward on strong little legs, getting ready to clobber me with a flatiron from behind.