Pete Hamill - Forever

“Are you shocked that I’d want you to make love to my wife? Or that I suspect you already have? Or that I still want you to take up with her?”

Too many words. The daytime audience would now go to the refrigerator. But Cormac can feel anguish in those words. His hand trembles as he lifts a slice and lays it on his plate.

“No, I’m not shocked,” Cormac says. “The heart has its reasons….”

Warren smiles in a knowing way. He trims the point off the triangle of pizza. Spears it with a fork. Cormac does the same.

“So you see, your blank résumé doesn’t bother me,” he says. “It’s actually a plus.” A pause. “If I can’t find you, can’t prove you exist, then how can Page Six?” He chuckles, and then his face goes grayer and more troubled. “You see, I have a problem. I can’t, uh—well, let’s say, I can’t…”

He doesn’t finish and starts chewing his small wedge of pizza. Not looking at Cormac. Not looking at anything.

“I have a problem,” he goes on, the voice waxier now. “I love my wife. I think she loves me. But we can’t give each other what we need. I need other women. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know. I do know that I must have her in my life, even if we have no children, even if we have to create a public image, a double mask, that’s different from our private lives. The fact is, I need her. And she needs a man who can give her what I can’t. If I had to name that thing, it would be intimacy.”

Her word fills the air as Warren shrugs his shoulders hopelessly, and Cormac feels pity again make its treacherous move, as it did with the man’s wife. For Warren, this conversation might be worse punishment than any swipe with a sword.

“So I want you to know that I don’t mind if you, if she—if she takes a lover and that lover is you. I don’t really mean lover. That’s the euphemism. I mean if she has me for love and you for sex. I told her this. Told her that all I would ask is discretion, which I would guarantee in my own life with her. She could find a small apartment, in a building without a snoopy doorman or nosy neighbors. You could still love your girlfriend as I love Elizabeth. There would be certain, uh, material compensations for you. At the newspaper, where I’m known as a generous boss. But with my wife, it could be…”

Cormac thinks: The rich are all like this, God damn them. Even the best of them. From the end of the Revolution until now, they’ve been certain that money can provide the solution to every human imperfection. The men have whores or mistresses. The women find other cocks. I know: Across the years, I’ve provided my own share of these services.

Now sweat is blistering Warren’s brow and he tamps at it with a napkin. His voice trails off. He chews a second portion of pizza, looking defeated and sad. He stares at the portrait.

“She’s a beautiful woman,” Cormac says.

“And a beautiful person.”

“I’m sure,” Cormac says.

Warren chews another bite of pizza while Cormac now uses his hand to lift a full slice. It’s very good pizza.

“I do have my fears,” Warren said. “I just don’t know you, can’t find a line in your life that makes sense. You understand?”

“I do understand,” he said. “And I’m afraid I can’t do it, Mister Warren.”

Warren stares at Cormac, looking as if he realizes he has blundered.

“I’m sorry if I offended you.”

Fuck you, pal.

Cormac says, “I’m leaving on a long trip.”

Warren struggles to control the anger of a man accustomed to buying what he wants.

“I wish you would reconsider.”

“It’s a wonderful offer, Mister Warren. To take your money and fuck your wife. But I have other things to do.”

Warren stands up angrily. Cormac remains seated and lays a pizza crust on the plate.

“You can leave now,” Warren says, jerking a thumb at the door. “And you can take the pizza, if you like.”

Cormac reaches for the pizza but picks up the sword.

“Sit down,” he says, tapping the tip of the sword on the table. For the first time, Warren looks afraid.

“I want to tell you a little story,” Cormac says.

Warren sits down heavily, his eyes moving to the door, to Cormac, to the sword. A nerve twitches in his cheek.

“Once upon a time, almost three centuries ago in the north of Ireland, there was a boy who lived with his parents, their horse, and their dog,” Cormac begins. “The mother was dark-eyed and beautiful, a descendant of the daughters of Noah, a secret Jew among masked Christians. The boy’s father wore a mask too. He was Irish, not Christian, and his allegiance was to the old gods. He made this sword.”

Cormac raises the sword, admiring its beauty. Warren’s eyes don’t blink.

“But in this part of Ireland there lived a man named the Earl of Warren….”

Warren squints now.

“There also lived a woman named Rebecca Carson, whose real name was Rebecca O’Connor,” Cormac says. “She was killed by a coach belonging to the earl. She was crushed by its wheels and died in the mud of Ireland. Her son was raised by his father, a man called John Carson, whose real name was Fergus O’Connor. The false names were necessary because they were Irish, and suspected of being Catholics, which they were not. The boy loved his father more than life itself.”

“The earl was my ancestor?” Warren said quietly.

“Yes. He made money in the slave trade and entertained his friends by juggling. Smiling, laughing, proud of his skill. And one day, on a frozen road in Ireland, he confronted the boy’s father over a horse. He wanted the horse, whose name was Thunder, and the boy’s father resisted. One of the earl’s men shot him dead.”

Warren’s brow creased. He had obviously never heard this part of the Warren family saga.

“And what happened to the boy?”

“The boy escaped.”

“And then…?”

“And then followed the earl to America.”

“Where he killed him?”

“With this sword.”

Warren listens intently, elbows on knees, chin supported by thumbs. There’s a long silence. They hear distant thunder, a whisper of rain.

“I know some of that story,” Warren says in a sober voice. “Family legend and all that. Nobody ever found the earl’s body.”

“It’s out there,” Cormac says, pointing the sword west. “In the river.”

“An obvious question,” Warren says. “How do you know?” “I’m the boy.”

Warren’s eyes blink. Then he laughs.

“What a marvelous story,” he says.

“It’s not just a story,” Cormac says. “It’s history.”

Warren stares at Cormac as if he were a madman. His eyes move from Cormac’s face to the sword.

“But that was almost three centuries ago.”

“I know. I know better than you do.”

Warren stands, and so does Cormac, who holds the sword at his side. Warren jams his hands in his pockets.

“Would you like a brandy? The bloody pizza is cold.”

“No, thanks.”

He eyes the sword again. Now he squints, his eyes cold and clear.

“You came here to kill me, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“That would be truly stupid.”

“But necessary. At least to me.”

At the small wheeled bar Warren pours a brandy for himself, his hands trembling.

“Well, if you’re going to do it, can we go out to the terrace? Elizabeth would be very upset if there was blood all over the rug.”

Cormac thinks: God damn it, Warren. Stop making this harder than it will be. Warren drains the brandy, pours another. Then walks to the door opening out on the lower terrace. Cormac follows, holding the sword at the present-arms position. There’s a spray of rain, a rising wind. The shrubs flutter in their pots. All is dark in the west.