Donna Tartt - The Secret History

I said: 'You like him a lot, don't you?'

I don't know what made me say this. Francis didn't blink. 'I don't know,' he said coldly, reaching for a cigarette with his long, nicotine-stained fingers. 'I like him well enough, I suppose. We're old friends. Certainly I don't fool myself that it's more than that.

But I've had a lot of fun with him, which is a great deal more than you can say about Camilla.'

That was what Bunny would have called a shot across the bow. I was too surprised to even answer.

Francis – though his satisfaction was evident – did not acknowledge his point. He leaned back in his chair by the window; the edges of his hair glowed metallic red in the sun. He said: 'It's unfortunate, but there it is. Neither one cares about anybody but himself- or herself, as the case may be. They like to present a unified front but I don't even know how much they care about each other. Certainly they take a perverse pleasure in leading one on – yes, she does lead you on,' he said when I tried to interrupt, 'I've seen her do it. And the same with Henry. He used to be crazy about her, I'm sure you know that; for all I know he still is. As for Charles – well, basically, he likes girls. If he's drunk, I'll do. But -just when I've managed to harden my heart, he'll turn around and be so sweet. I always fall for it. I don't know why.'

He was quiet for a moment. 'We don't run much to looks in my family, you know, all knuckles and cheekbones and beaky noses,' he said. 'Maybe that's why I tend to equate physical beauty with qualities with which it has absolutely nothing to do. I see a pretty mouth or a moody pair of eyes and imagine all sorts of deep affinities, private kinships. Never mind that half a dozen jerks are clustered round the same person, just because they've been duped by the same pair of eyes.' He leaned over and energetically stubbed out his cigarette. 'She'd behave a lot more like Charles if she were allowed to; he's so possessive, though, he keeps her reeled in pretty tight. Can you imagine a worse situation? He watches her like a hawk. And he's also rather poor – not that it matters much,' he said hastily, realizing to whom he was speaking, 'but he's quite self-conscious about it. Very proud of his family, you know, very well aware that he himself is a sot.

There's something kind of Roman about it, all this regard he puts in his sister's honor. Bunny wouldn't go near Camilla, you know, he would hardly even look at her. He used to say that she wasn't his type but I think the old Dutchman in him just knew she was 5i6 bad medicine. My God… I remember once, a long time ago, we had dinner at a ridiculous Chinese restaurant in Bennington.

The Lobster Pagoda. It's closed now. Red bead curtains and a shrine to the Buddha with an artificial waterfall. We drank a lot of drinks with umbrellas in them and Charles was horribly drunk – not that it was his fault, really; we were all drunk, the cocktails are always too strong in a place like that and besides, you never know quite what they put in them, do you? Outside, they had a footbridge to the parking lot that went over a moat with tame ducks and goldfish. Somehow Camilla and I got separated from everyone else, and we were waiting there. Comparing fortunes.

Hers said something like "Expect a kiss from the man of your dreams," which was too good to pass up, so I – well, we were both drunk, and we got a little carried away – and then Charles barreled out of nowhere and grabbed me by the back of the neck and I thought he was going to throw me over the rail. Bunny was there, too, he pulled him off, and Charles had the sense to say he'd been joking but he wasn't, he hurt me, twisted my arm behind my back and damn near pulled it out of the socket. I don't know where Henry was. Probably looking at the moon and reciting some poem from the T'ang Dynasty.'

Subsequent events had knocked it from my mind, but the mention of Henry made me think of what Charles had told me that morning about the FBI – and of another question, this one regarding Henry too. I was wondering if this was the time to bring up either of them when Francis said, abruptly and in a tone suggestive of bad news to follow, 'You know, I was at the doctor's today.'

I waited for him to go on. He didn't.

'What for?' I finally said.

'Same stuff. Dizziness. Chest pains. I wake up in the night and can't get my breath. Last week I went back to the hospital and let them run some tests but nothing turned up. They referred me to this other fellow. A neurologist.'

'And?'

He shifted restlessly in his chair. 'He didn't find anything.

None of these hick doctors are any good. Julian gave me the name of a man in New York; he was the one who cured the Shah of Isram, you know, of that blood disease. It was in all the papers.

Julian says he's the best diagnostician in the country and one of the best in the world. He's booked two years in advance but Julian says maybe if he calls him, he might agree to see me.'

He was reaching for another cigarette, and the last, untouched, was still smoldering in the ashtray.

The way you smoke,' I said, 'no wonder you're short of breath.'

That has nothing to do with it,' he said irritably, tamping the cigarette on the back of his wrist. That's just what these stupid Vermonters tell you. Stop smoking, cut out booze and coffee.

I've been smoking half my life. You think I don't know how it affects me? You don't get these nasty cramping pains in your chest from cigarettes, nor from having a few drinks, either.

Besides, I have all these other symptoms. Heart palpitations.

Ringing in the ears.'

'Smoking can have totally weird effects on your body.'

Francis frequently made fun of me when I used some phrase he perceived as Californian. 'Totally weird?' he said maliciously, mimicking my accent: suburban, hollow, flat. 'Rillyf I looked at him slouching in his chair: polka-dot tie, narrow Bally shoes, foxy narrow face. His grin was foxy too, and showed too many teeth. I was sick of him. I stood up. The room was so smoky that my eyes watered. 'Yeah,' 1 said. 'I've got to go now.'

Francis's snide expression faded. 'You're mad, aren't you?' he said anxiously.

'No.'

'Yes you are.'

'No, I'm not,' I said. These sudden, panicky attempts at conciliation annoyed me more than his insults.

'I'm sorry. Don't listen to me. I'm drunk, I'm sick, I didn't mean it.'

Without warning I had a vision of Francis – twenty years later, fifty years, in a wheelchair. And of myself – older, too, sitting around with him in some smoky room, the two of us repeating this exchange for the thousandth time. At one time I had liked the idea, that the act, at least, had bound us together; we were not ordinary friends, but friends till-death-do-us-part. This thought had been my only comfort in the aftermath of Bunny's death. Now it made me sick, knowing there was no way out. I was stuck with them, with all of them, for good.

On the walk home from Francis's – head down, sunk in a black, inarticulate tangle of anxiety and gloom – I heard Julian's voice saying my name.

I turned. He was just coming out of the Lyceum. At the sight of his quizzical, kindly face – so sweet, so agreeable, so glad to see me – something wrenched deep in my chest.

'Richard,' he said again, as if there were no one on earth he could possibly be so delighted to see. 'How are you?'

'Fine.'

'I'm just going over to North Hampden. Will you walk with me?'

I looked at the innocent, happy face and thought: If he only knew. It would kill him.

'Julian, I'd love to, thanks,' I said. 'But I have to be getting home.'

He looked at me closely. The concern in his eyes made me nearly sick with self-loathing.

'I see so little of you these days, Richard,' he said. 'I feel that you're becoming just a shadow in my life.'