The Man Who Lived by Night (7 page)

“Kind of.”

“Been modeling long?”

“A few months. I was just in Paris.” She frowned. “How did you know I model?”

“I’m clairvoyant.”

She giggled. “Is that like being gay?”

“Better. You don’t have to take it up the … I’m sorry. I’m
very
sorry. I must be spending too much time with T. S.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about me. I’ve done everything.” She leaned against the bar and lit a cigarette, very blasé. “And then some.”

“Been around, have you?”

“Kind of.”

Chances were she had been. Women who hang around with rock stars have to be game for anything, such as sex with four guys at once, or having an array of objects rammed into various personal orifices, or sitting naked in tubs full of hot fudge, or all of the above. Writers, we don’t have female followers like that. Ours tend to be short, nervous copy editors named Charlotte or Rhonda who mostly want to talk about Pynchon and Coover.

“Ooh. I love your dog!”

Lulu was watching us disapprovingly from under the bar.

“She loves to be loved.”

Violet smiled at me. She liked me looking at her, and I was looking at her.

“I was expecting someone old and crawly with a beard, actually,” she informed me. “You’re cute for a writer.”

“It’s true. I was voted cutest American writer of the year in ’83. Joyce Carol Oates came in second.”

She frowned. Modern American literature didn’t seem to be one of her strengths. A point in her favor. “Would you be going into London?” she asked.

“No, I always dress like this for a quiet evening at home.”

“Can I come? It’s so bloody boring out here.”

“I’d be happy to give you a lift in, but I do have plans.”

“Oh. Forget it then—I thought we could go dancing.”

I checked my grandfather’s Rolex. “I’d best be off,” I said, racking my cue.

“Where are you living, anyhow?”

“Second floor, west wing, guest suite. End of the—”

“Ooh, the leather room?”

“The very one.”

“I’m directly down the hall in the blue room,” she said. “I love leather. Especially black leather.”

“Then I’m sure you and T. S. have a lot in common.”

“Oh, we do.”

Jack offered me my choice of the two, count ’em two, utility vehicles. These were kept apart from T. S.’s show cars in a small garage adjacent to Jack’s office and rooms.

One was a dinged-up ’79 Peugeot 504 diesel station wagon. The other was a gleaming twenty-year-old Austin Mini Cooper. I went for the mini.

“By the way,” I said, taking the keys from him, “I should be very cross with you.”

“Me, sir?”

“You didn’t tell me the other day you’re Jackie Horner, original drummer of the Rough Boys.”

His red face got redder. “That was a long time ago, sir.” He scruffed at the ground with his foot. “Boyhood stuff”

“Still, I really
am
going to interview you now.”

“About?”

“Your recollections. Your feelings about what it’s like to have gotten so close to it, but …”

“Missed it?” he demanded indignantly, puffing his chest out. “Didn’t miss it. Not at all. I’m right here. Got m’health, a few bob in the bank—that’s more than a lot of ’em can say, believe me.”

“You’re not bitter?”

He let out a short, humorless laugh. “Doesn’t pay to be bitter.”

“So why the words of warning the other day?”

“I have my reasons.”

“What are they?”

“You’re familiar with our right-hand drive?” he asked, changing the subject.

“I am.”

Lulu and I climbed into the mini. It had a burled walnut dash, a small fridge and a monster stereo system. The seats were upholstered in mink. Lulu settled into hers, immensely pleased.

I rolled down my window. “Say, this isn’t exactly factory issue, is it?”

“Customized by a chap in London who does Rolls work for the Arab sheiks. A little something extra under the bonnet, as well. You’ll go left at the main road. In five miles you’ll reach the A-Twenty-three. Follow that in.”

“Thank you, Jackie.”

“It’s Jack, sir. Please.”

“My mistake. How about that interview? I can work around your schedule.”

He smiled, reached in, and straightened my bow tie for me. It didn’t need straightening. “Have a good trip, sir.”

The mini kicked right over. I eased her slowly down the gravel drive toward the front gate, checking out the right-hand drive and Jack in the rear view mirror. He was watching me, hands on his hips. What was he hiding?

I found an ice-cold bottle of Dom Perignon in the little fridge, along with a chilled pewter mug. I helped myself. There was no current stuff among the tapes—only sixties soul music. No complaints here. I put on some Aretha Franklin very loud. The guards opened the front gate wide, and we were on our way.

Lady Soul was hot. The mini was hotter. I found the highway and worked my way happily through the city-bound traffic and the champagne. Lulu rode sitting up so she could take in the foreign sights out of her window and, occasionally, snuffle at them.

We reached London in time to do some vital reconnaisance for later in the evening. Then I drove us over to the West End and ditched the mini around the corner from the theater. The Haymarket is a fine old stage—intimate, well-maintained, steeped in theatrical history and tradition. There used to be a few theaters like it left on Broadway, only they tore them down a couple of years ago to make way for a hotel complex that belongs next to an airport. In Atlanta.

Merilee had reserved a pair on the aisle. I let Lulu have the aisle seat so she could see better. She whimpered softly when the lights came up on Merilee. She wasn’t the only one. Merilee looked gorgeous that night, her waist-length golden hair and white dress aglow under the stage lights. Not that my ex-wife is conventionally beautiful. Her nose and chin are patrician to the point of mannish, and her forehead is much too high. Plus, she’s not exactly delicately proportioned. Her shoulders are broad and sloped, her back muscular, her legs big and powerful. She was, I realized, significantly taller than Anthony Andrews. She had to wear flat shoes and slouch into her hip to stay eye to eye with him.

They played it bright and peppy, like Barry is meant to be played. Her Tracy was steely control on the outside, a dithery, vulnerable mess on the inside. It’s hard to not think of Hepburn in the part—Barry did write it for her. But that night, on the Haymarket stage, Merilee made the role of Tracy Lord her own.

When it was over, Lulu and I worked our way through the opening night mob backstage to tell her. She was in her dressing room, surrounded by admirers and backers, laughing, giddy. I watched her from across the room until she spotted me. Her smile dropped. Her green eyes widened. We stared at each other for what seemed like hours. Then I smiled, and she smiled. And the other people in the room and the years and the bad times melted away.

“How was I?” she asked, accepting the dozen long-stemmed roses I’d brought her.

“It wasn’t the worst thing you’ve ever done.”

“Thank you, darling.”

“And you’ve never looked lovelier, but I suppose you already know that.”

“A gal only knows it if her guy says so.”

“Am I your guy?”

“Could be. I forgot how nice you look in a tux.”

“Careful, my head turns easily.”

She dabbed at my upper lip with her finger. “You shaved off your mustache.”

“Like it?”

“It reminds me of how you looked when we met.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“I gave it as a yes.”

Slowly, each of us became aware of this moaning sound originating from floor level. Lulu, ears back and tail thumping, was desperately trying to scale Mount Merilee.

“Oh, Lulu, sweetness! No, you’ll tear my costume!”

Merilee bent over and held Lulu down with her hands. These Lulu nuzzled and licked, all the while circling Merilee in a frenzy.

“You’d best take her out, darling,” Merilee said. “I’ll change.”

“Not too much,” I cautioned.

She laughed. It was one of our corny old jokes from back when we were falling madly in love, and I’d meet her backstage every evening.

She emerged a half hour later dressed in a Laura Biagiotti skirt and sweater of mocha brown cashmere, a blouse of white silk and Tanino Crisci boots. There was a trench coat over her arm and a first-class Worth & Worth Statler fedora on her head. The Statler had been mine, until she convinced me it was too small for me.

She liked the mini. Lulu liked sitting in her lap.

We went to the Hungry Horse, which is on Fulham Road in what was a hip South Ken neighborhood twenty years ago. Now there seemed to be a lot of places there offering American cheeseburgers and televised NFL football games. Certainly, this was not my idea of hip, but then neither is Pee-wee Herman.

They serve old-fashioned English food at the Hungry Horse. The dining room is a few steps down, and small, and you go in the back way through the kitchen. The tables are set against little settees. I let Merilee have the settee. I sat across from her, or I should say them. Lulu went right for her lap again. She had not paid me the slightest attention since we’d met up with Merilee.

“I’ve missed her,” said Merilee, scratching Lulu’s ears.

“I see it’s mutual,” I noted drily.

“She reminds me of us. The good part.”

“You like to be reminded?”

“From time to time.” Merilee flushed slightly, looked away. “When I’m feeling as if something is missing from my life. When I’m feeling … ordinary.”

“That’s one thing you’ll never be.”

We ordered blood-rare roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and a bottle of Medoc. And two martinis, very dry.

“Nothing to start with?” asked the waiter.

“Just extra olives in our martinis,” I replied.

He frowned. “How many would you like?”

“Bring the jar,” Merilee said. “Please.”

For Merilee Nash he’d gladly have tangoed with a sheep. He returned a moment later with our martinis, very dry, an ornate bowl brimming with cocktail olives, and an autograph book, which he held before her shyly. She signed it.

I held my glass up. “To a successful run.”

“To
then.”
She clicked my glass with hers. “The good part.”

We drank.

“How are the parents?” she asked, dunking an olive in her drink and devouring it.

I come from one of those families where no one speaks to each other. Merilee they loved. “Alive, last I heard. Yours?”

Merilee comes from one of those families where everyone speaks to each other. Me they never liked. “Well.”

I dunked an olive in my drink. I was about to swallow it when I saw her gazing at it longingly. She’d always insisted mine tasted better than hers. I let her have it. Then I had one of my own. “And Zack?”

She looked down into her drink. “Zack is having serious problems with his second play.”

It had been several years now since Zack had made his Broadway splash. He was overdue. “What’s it about?”

“Us, apparently. Him and me. It’s caused him to withdraw from me. And to get churlish.” She sipped her martini. “Also to drink too much.”

“Say, this sounds mighty familiar.”

She smiled ruefully. “Doesn’t it?”

“It’s so unlike you. Truly. I mean, you’re such a perfect person except for this one teeny little flaw of yours.”

She stiffened. “Flaw? What flaw?”

“I hate to be the one to break it to you, Merilee, but you have terrible taste in husbands.”

She covered my hand with hers and looked dreamily into my eyes. “You noticed.”

We tore into our food when it came. Merilee eats like a sophomore nose tackle and never gains an ounce. It drives her friends crazy. Her women friends.

“So is it over?” I asked. “You and Zack?”

“It’s acrid.”

“Acrid?”

“Tell me about T. S.,” she said, gently but firmly steering us elsewhere. I let her do so.

“Haven’t figured him out yet. He’s moody. Self-centered. Cooperative, but evasive when he wants to be. A tough nut, no question.”

She helped herself to some of my roast beef. “And the novel? What’s it about?”

I cleared my throat. “The last couple of years.”

“I see,” she said, the weather on her side of the table getting noticeably chillier. “And I’ll play a featured role in it?”

“I’m trying to deal with what happened.”

“From your point of view.”

“It’s my book.”

“That’s right, it is,” she agreed, sharply. “I’m going to write a book myself. I’ll call it
I Keep Marrying Men Who Blame Me For Their Problems.”

“Not true, Merilee.”

“Not fair! I do the best I can! Why do I deserve this?”

“Look, I don’t blame you. But I do have to write about us. That’s how I work things out. The thing that drove us apart was I
couldn’t
write.”

“All of which makes it okay—even if I get trashed in print.”

“You won’t get trashed.”

“But I will get undressed!”

“If you insist. Shall I blindfold the waiter?”

“Not funny,” she snapped, glaring at me.

Lulu shifted restlessly in Merilee’s lap and looked from Merilee to me, then from me to Merilee.

“It appears,” I said, “as if this isn’t going to work out very well. I suppose it was unrealistic to expect it would.” I looked around for our waiter.

“No,” she said, placing her knife and fork down on her plate. “Wait, Hoagy. Let’s not do this, okay? Let’s not talk about the past, the future, any of it. Can’t we just enjoy now? Enjoy each other?”

I got lost in her green eyes for a second. “We can sure try.”

“Good. But first I have something very serious to ask you.”

“Yes, Merilee?”

“What are we having for dessert?”

We had a positively immoral concoction of cake topped with whipped fresh cream, and finished it off with coffee and port.

Then we walked, Merilee’s hand on my arm, her gait as long and loping as my own. Lulu ambled happily a few feet ahead of us, so busy showing us off to the passersby that she didn’t notice we were being followed. Nor did Merilee. I wasn’t absolutely sure myself—I’m not exactly what you’d call an expert on trench-coat surveillance—but I swore I sensed somebody walking a careful half block or so behind us, staying stride for stride with us, measuring us.