Alison Lurie - The Truth About Lorin Jones

“I’m sorry,” Polly said; yet she seemed to know intuitively why Lorin Jones had wanted to escape from Garrett and his intrusive sympathy. Over the centuries, always, the artist has had to flee the critic. And yet, how awful for both of them! She imagined the long silent evenings in this house; Lorin shut in her studio, staring at an empty canvas; Garrett pacing the other rooms.

“I never thought... I should have given her more space, maybe. Or I should’ve tried harder to talk to her. Christ knows she was unhappy. Must have been. She must have hated her life here. Hated me too, probably till she died.”

No, that didn’t sound right, Polly thought. “Not necessarily,” she said, forgetting the rule that an interviewer must not offer contrary opinions.

“You think not?” Garrett stared at her tipsily, as if she knew the answer.

“Did she ever say she hated you?”

Garrett shook his head. “Just said, when I finally had a letter from her — wasn’t a letter, really: only a couple of lines on half a piece of drawing-paper — just said, she had to go away. Said she was sorry.”

“She didn’t hate you,” Polly declared, transported, possessed. She didn’t need to ask any more questions; she knew everything about Lorin Jones: how long and in what distress she had stared at that piece of drawing-paper; how hard it had been for her to write those few words.

And she knew, too, how Lorin must have felt the day she left Wellfleet forever. She raised her eyes and imagined looking around this room for the last time, unable to speak all her regret, all her resolve. Then, struck by his silence, she glanced back at Garrett. His eyes were closed again; his broad chest under the checked shirt rose and fell in a slow rhythm.

“Well, guess I’d better be going to bed,” she said, reaching over the arm of the sofa to turn off her tape recorder. “It’s been a long day.”

Garrett’s pale blue eyes blinked open. “Tired, are you, child?”

“Mm. Rather.” Polly began to get up; a wave of dizziness came over her. The brandy, she thought, sitting down again on the edge of the sofa.

“Wait a sec. Don’t go yet. I want to say —” Garrett put his hand on hers again in what no longer seemed a paternal manner. “Having you here, talking to you. It means a lot to me.” His voice was thick with emotion.

“I’m glad I could come,” she replied almost at random, listening still to her own — or Lorin’s? — voice.

“Y’know I can’t speak to Abigail about Laura. She still gets jealous.”

“Mm.” Well, she might, Polly thought. Abigail is just an ordinary woman, and Lorin was unique, beautiful, a genius —

“Having you here — it’s as if she’d come back to me in a way, y’know?”

“I know,” Polly said, feeling the blaze of consciousness again.

“You’re a good girl. Do a good book, I bet.” Garrett squeezed her hand again. “Give me a goodnight kiss.”

She hesitated. But after all, why not? “All right.” She aimed for the red, mottled surface of his cheek, but Garrett turned his head at the last moment and landed a warm and definitely sensual smack directly on her mouth, at the same time pulling her against him.

For a moment Polly let it happen; she felt and gave warmth and pleasure. It had been over a year since she’d given any man more than a peck on the cheek. Then, recollecting who and where she was, she pushed Garrett away and stood up fast; the room spun.

“Aw. Don’t go yet.”

“Got to,” Polly insisted through a dizzy blur. “I’m really tired. Uh, well, thanks for everything. See you later.”

“Pleasant dreams,” Garrett called, raising himself with an attempt at courtesy, then falling back among the cushions. He gave her a woozy wave and smile, and closed his eyes.

Polly listened as she made ready for bed, but there was no sound from below. Probably Garrett Jones had passed out on the sofa. She felt drunk and confused, angry at herself, angry at and sorry for him. She remembered Jeanne’s warnings, her own cautions to herself. For Christ’s sake, she was here as a researcher, she was supposed to be cool, impartial, detached. To sympathize with Garrett, to see him as in some ways a tragic figure, that was forgivable. But to kiss him was muddling, unprofessional, unseemly.

Brushing her teeth over the bathroom sink, where Lorin Jones must so many times have stood to brush her own teeth, Polly emitted a cross, confused gargling sound, and spat.

Never mind, Lorin said suddenly in her head. It was I who kissed him, not you.

Yes, Polly thought. That’s how it was. She lifted her eyes to the mirror, and saw there a kind of double image. In the dim backlight she seemed paler, her hair darker, her eyes enlarged and shadowed, as if Lorin’s last photo had been superimposed on the reflection of her face.

You’re drunk, she told herself. It’s only because you’re wearing a dark sweater, and haven’t had your hair cut since August. She snapped on the fluorescent tube above the glass; the resemblance vanished. Again she was stocky, round-faced, short-haired. But it had been there, for a moment.

As Polly climbed dizzily into bed, she realized that her distrust and fear of Garrett Jones were gone. She felt instead only what Lorin’s ghost must feel: pity and affection for her handsome, self-centered, insensitive husband, now a famous elderly man who — too late — blamed himself bitterly and longed for his child bride. Yes; but now, through Polly’s intercession, Garrett knew that Lorin had cared for him; she had kissed and forgiven him.

“Is that right?” she asked aloud in the dark. “Is that what you wanted?”

There was no answer. But as she sank into an alcoholic drowse, Polly’s final sensation was that Lorin approved and was there; that the whisper of the bare trees outside the window was her whisper, the cold breath of the wind against the clapboards her breath.

7

AT FIRST POLLY THOUGHT she was having a nightmare. There was a heavy weight on her, a smothering heat and constriction.

“Wha! Help!” she choked out, and half woke in the half-dark to an unfamiliar room where someone much larger than Jeanne was lying on top of her, nuzzling at her neck.

“Darling. Don’ be afraid.” The weight and the moist searching kisses, smelling of drink, continued. It was, it must be, Garrett Jones.

“No! Get the hell off me!” she shouted, shoving the resistant bulk aside with all her strength. She struggled upright, fumbling for the mock-kerosene lamp, then finding it and switching it on.

“Polly, my sweet.” It was Garrett; he was sitting heavily on the double bed beside her. He had changed his clothes again and was wearing white silk pajamas and a red damask robe with satin lapels, like someone in a thirties comedy of high life.

“Please; go away.”

“I startled you, little one; f’give me.” He reached to pat her arm, but missed. “Were you ’sleep already? I’m sorry I took so long to come to you; must’ve dozed off.”

“Wha’d’you mean? I didn’t —”

“You look so lovely, all warm and tousled.” Garrett swayed toward Polly, feeling for her breast with one heavy red hand. She batted it away and slid to the other side of the mattress.

“What a charming costume. Always have thought men’s pajamas were awfully sexy on a girl.”

“Listen, Garrett, goddamn it,” Polly was almost shouting again. “I don’t want to make out with you.”

“I thought you ’ere waiting for me.” Now his tone was hurt and aggrieved. “I thought, surely —”

“Well, I wasn’t.” Reminding herself that her host was drunk, Polly tried to speak quietly and with authority. “Please, get out of my room now, okay?”