Robert Stone - Children of Light

The thuggish musicians played their way into darkness. A pair of violinists stepped out of the void into which the mariachis had vanished and commenced to stroll. Freitag went off to speak with Lise Rennberg and the attendant circle dissolved.

“Let’s go talk,” Axelrod said to Lowndes. The novelist was disposed to remain beside Lu Anne. He gazed at her with drunken ardor. Lu Anne returned his look, pitying his flayed face, his sores and fecal eyes.

“Is it important?” Lowndes asked, without disengaging his gaze from Lu Anne’s.

“Not exactly important,” Axelrod said. “Scummy.”

He slid his hand under Lowndes’s arm and drew the man aside. Ann Armitage was asking Lu Anne how she was. Lu Anne stared at the old actress blankly.

“Line!” she called.

“A little tired,” Walker told her.

Lu Anne smiled confidentially. An expression of weariness passed across her face.

“The truth is,” she told Ann Armitage, “that I’ve been feeling a little tired.”

Ann Armitage did the double take for which she had once been famous.

“What are you two? An act?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lu Anne said.

Miss Armitage looked them up and down, world-wearily.

Before the guests could make their way to the seating, young Helena stood on a wooden bench and raised her hands for silence.

“We don’t want you sitting with your worst enemy or your ex-spouse or their lover,” she told the guests. “So as some of you may have noticed, we’ve had lovely little place cards with your many famous names inscribed thereon. So — sorry about the milling. Wherever your card is — after you’ve helped yourself to the buffet — that’s where you’ll sit. And you may in fact want to take note of your place before you fill your plates with all this delicious food.”

There was some smattering of applause punctuated by a harsh raspberry. Joy McIntyre had made her way, unerringly but unsteadily, to Charlie Freitag’s side.

“I mean,” she demanded in a nasal croon, “I mean, what is this, Charlie? High tea with Rex?” She seized his dinner gong and marched off to accost the violinists.

“Who is that woman?” Charlie Freitag demanded of those nearest him. He was told she was Lee Verger’s stand-in.

People walked about carrying their western-style metal plates, colliding with each other and adjusting their spectacles, trying to see in the light of tiny table lamps or flickering torchlight.

“Bang bang went the trolley!” Joy McIntyre sang at the top of her voice. The strolling violinists backed away from her like a pair of ornamental fowl. Charlie returned to his guests.

“That woman,” he said to Walker, “is she actually a stand-in?”

Before Walker could answer, the patio echoed to a horrendous screech.

“My God,” Freitag said. “It’s her again.”

It was Joy again. Bill Bly, uninvited but on watch, was attempting to relieve her of the dinner gong. Joy declined to surrender it.

“Get your bloody hand off me fucking wrist, you great fucking poofta bastard!” she protested. The guests had fallen silent. Joy’s struggle, the crackling of cooked meat and the violins, sweetly paired to “Maytime,” were the only sounds in the patio.

“The press is here,” Freitag said. “This looks like hell.” He looked about him in the dimness for Dongan Lowndes and saw the man squared off with Axelrod as though the two of them were at the point of blows.

“Jesus wept,” the gentleman producer cried. Walker took the opportunity to slip away.

Lu Anne sat at the head of one of the buffet tables playing with people’s name cards. Maldonado and Miss Armitage had attempted to enlist at a more congenial sector of the party but, encountering outbursts and angry voices at every turning, had been driven back into the shadows. In the shadows Lu Anne ruled. She had discovered that she, Miss Armitage and Maldonado, Walker and Lowndes, Charlie, Axelrod and the Drogues were all seated together at the very table beside which Charlie had introduced them.

“Do you think,” she asked the couple, “that some table game might be played with these? Something along the order of Authors or Old Maid?”

Miss Armitage smiled sweetly.

“Yes, I do,” she said. She seized the stack of place cards from Lu Anne’s grasp until she had her own and her escort’s, and put them on the next table. “It’s called Switcheroo.”

She picked up two place cards from the same adjoining table and handed them to Lu Anne.

“I’m too old to sit still for silly women, Miss Niceness, just as you’re too old to be one. I’m going to leave you to the luck of the draw.”

Maldonado replaced their cards.

“I want to sit here,” he said heavily. Miss Armitage pursed her lips and looked at the ground. The Mexican took his chair and slowly undid the knot of his dress black tie.

“You’re welcome here, Mr. Maldonado,” Lu Anne said.

Maldonado looked at her.

“Am I?”

“Oh yes,” Lu Anne said. “You and your companion are both welcome. You have the good opinion of my friends.”

Maldonado graciously inclined his head. Ann Armitage gave a comic grimace. “Well, praise God and shut my mouth. If that’s not …”

The painter raised a flabby hand, bidding his friend to silence.

“You all are admired in secret places,” Lu Anne told them. “In quarters that you mustn’t imagine, they think well of you and they give good report.”

“How very mysterious,” Maldonado said. “What does it mean?”

Lu Anne was at a loss to explain. Never in her life had she seen the Long Friends so unafraid of sound or light, almost ready, it seemed, to join her in her greater world and make the two worlds one. Seeing them gathered round, shyly peering from between their lace-like wings, murmuring encouragement, she could only conclude that they approved of her new acquaintanceship with Charlie’s two friends. Moreover, they were beautiful, the two, the elegant old actress and the sad-faced handsome man who had removed his dinner jacket. They were as beautiful and charged with grace as Lowndes was hideous and unclean.

Charlie Freitag came to their table like a man seeking refuge from the field of defeat. There was a meager ration of salad and beans on his plate. He looked sweaty and unwell. Lu Anne, who loved him as her friend, was concerned.

“What’s this?” Charlie asked. “No one’s eating?”

“Charlie,” she asked, “Charlie, dear, aren’t you well, my poor friend?”

He took her by the hand. “Me? I’m fine. I’m thinking of you.”

“I’m well enough, Charles.” She smiled. “A little tired.”

“You must be wiped out, for Christ’s sake,” Charlie said. “We have you in and out of the water thirty times a day. You’re living on hotel food and missing your family.” He looked about the torchlit patio uneasily. “Everyone’s overworked. But I thought, what the hell, we’re over the hump. I thought since Gordon was coming down and we had this man from New York Arts … and I thought we could all use a lift.”

“Indeed we could,” Lu Anne said. “And it’s my birthday.”

Charlie was surprised. “Well, for heaven’s sake,” he said. “But I thought your birthday was last month.”

Lu Anne gave him a conspiratorial wink. Ann Armitage stared at her, unblinking.

“Where is Gordon?” Charlie asked quickly.

“Well, he was just here,” Lu Anne said. She could not remember his leaving; she was suddenly anxious. “I don’t know.” To her horror she saw Dongan Lowndes approaching the table, followed with a vigor bordering on pursuit by Axelrod.

“Isn’t anyone going to eat?” Charlie asked them in mounting distress.