Donna Tartt - The Secret History

'He did that to me, too,' said Henry. 'He was always joking about calling the tips number in the newspaper, and the five of us splitting the reward money. Picking up the telephone.

Pretending to dial.'

'You can understand how thin that wore after a time. My God.

Some of the things he said in front of you – The terrible thing was, you could never tell when it was coming. Right before school let out he stuck a copy of that newspaper article under the windshield wiper of my car. "Mysterious Death in Battenkill County." It was horrible to know that he'd saved it in the first place, and kept it all that time.'

'Worst of all,' said Henry, 'there was absolutely nothing we could do. For a while we even thought of telling him outright, throwing ourselves on his mercy so to speak, but then we I realized, at that late date, it was impossible to predict how he'd react. He was grouchy, and sick, and worried about his grades.

And the term was nearly over too. It seemed that the best thing to do was to stay on his good side until the Christmas break take him places, buy him things, pay a lot of attention to him and hope it would blow over during the winter.' He sighed. 'At the end of virtually every school term I've been through with Bunny, he's suggested that the two of us go on a trip, meaning by this that we go to some place of his choosing and that I pay for it. He hasn't the money to get to Manchester on his own.

And when the subject came up, as I knew it would, about a week or two before school was out, I thought: why not? In this way, at least, one of us could keep an eye on him over the winter; and perhaps a change of scenery might prove beneficial. I should also note that it didn't seem to be such a bad thing if he were to feel a bit under obligation to me. He wanted to go to either Italy or Jamaica. I knew I couldn't bear Jamaica, so I bought two tickets for Rome and arranged for some rooms not far from the Piazza di Spagna.'

'And you gave him money for clothes and all those useless Italian books.'

'Yes. All in all it was a considerable outlay of money but it seemed like a good investment. I even thought it might be a bit of fun. But never, in my wildest dreams… Really, I don't know where to begin. I remember when he saw our rooms – actually, they were quite charming, with a frescoed ceiling, beautiful old balcony, glorious view, I was rather proud of myself for having found them – he was incensed, and began to complain that it was shabby, that it was too cold and the plumbing was bad; and, in short, that the place was completely unsuitable and he wondered how I had been duped into taking it. He'd thought I knew better than to stumble into a lousy tourist trap, but he guessed that he was wrong. He insinuated that our throats would be cut in the night. At that point, I was more amenable to his whims. I asked him, if he didn't like the rooms, where would he prefer to stay? and he suggested why didn't we just go down and get a suite – not a room, you understand, but a suite – in the Grand Hotel?

'He kept on, and finally I told him we would do nothing of the sort. For one thing, the exchange rate was bad and the rooms – besides being paid in advance, and with my money – were already rather more than I could afford. He sulked for days, feigning asthma attacks, moping around and honking at his inhaler and nagging me constantly – accusing me of being cheap, and so forth, and when he traveled he liked to do it right – and finally I lost my temper. I told him that if the rooms were satisfactory to me, they were certainly better than what he was used to – I mean, my God, it was a palazzo, it belonged to a countess, I'd paid a fortune for it – and, in short, there was no possibility of my paying 500,000 lire a night for the company of American tourists and a couple of sheets of hotel stationery.

'So we stayed on at the Piazza di Spagna, which he proceeded to transform into a living Hell. He needled me ceaselessly – about the carpet, about the pipes, about what he felt was his insufficient supply of pocket money. We were living just a few steps from the Via Condotti, the most expensive shopping street in Rome.,' was lucky, he said. No wonder I was having such a good time, since I could buy whatever I wanted, while all he could do was lie wheezing in the garret like a poor stepchild. I did what I could to placate him, but the more I bought him, the more he wanted.

Besides which, he would hardly let me out of his sight. He complained if I left him alone for even a few minutes; but if I asked him to come along with me, to a museum or a church my God, we were in Rome – he was dreadfully bored and kept at me constantly to leave. It got so I couldn't even read a book without his sailing in. Goodness. He'd stand outside the door and jabber at me while I was having my bath. I caught him going through my suitcase. I mean' – he paused delicately – 'it's slightly annoying to have even an unobtrusive person sharing such close quarters with one. Perhaps I'd only forgotten what it was like when we lived together freshman year, or perhaps I've simply become more accustomed to living alone, but after a week or two of this I was a nervous wreck. I could hardly bear the sight of him. And I was worried about other things as well. You know, don't you,' he said abruptly to me, 'that sometimes I get headaches, rather bad ones?'

I did know. Bunny – fond of recounting his own illnesses and those of others – had described them in an awed whisper: Henry, flat on his back in a dark room, ice packs on his head and a handkerchief tied over his eyes.

'I don't get them so often as I once did. When I was thirteen or fourteen I had them all the time. But now it seems that when they do come – sometimes only once a year – they're much worse. And after I'd been a few weeks in Italy, I felt one coming on. Unmistakable. Noises get louder; objects shimmer; my peripheral vision darkens and I see all sorts of unpleasant things hovering at its edges. There's a terrible pressure in the air. I'll look at a street sign and not be able to read it, not understand the simplest spoken sentence. There's not much that can be done when it comes to that but I did what I could – stayed in my room with the shades pulled, took medicine, tried to keep quiet. At last I realized I would have to cable my doctor in the States. The drugs they give me are too powerful to dispense in prescription form; generally I go to the emergency room for a shot. I wasn't sure what an Italian doctor would do if I showed up gasping at his office, an American tourist, asking for an injection of phenobarbital.

'But by then it was too late. The headache was on me in a matter of hours and after that, I was quite incapable either of finding my way to a doctor or making myself understood if I had. I don't know if Bunny tried to get me one or not. His Italian is so bad that when he tried to speak to anyone he would generally just end up insulting them. The American Express office was not far from where we lived, and I'm sure they could have given him the name of an English-speaking doctor, but of course that's not the sort of thing that would occur to Bunny.

'I hardly know what happened for the next few days. I lay in my room with the shades down and sheets of newspaper taped over the shades. It was impossible even to have any ice sent up – all one could get were lukewarm pitchers of acqua semplice but then I had a hard time talking in English, much less Italian.

God knows where Bunny was. I have no memory of seeing him, nor much of anything else.

'Anyway. For a few days I lay flat on my back, hardly able to blink without feeling like my forehead was splitting open, and everything sick and black. I swung in and out of consciousness until finally I became aware of a thin seam of light burning at the edge of the shade. How long I'd been looking at it I don't know, but gradually I became aware that it was morning, that the pain had receded somewhat, and that I could move around without awful difficulty. I also realized that I was extraordinarily thirsty.