Dinner Along the Amazon (33 page)

Tom Powell was a cold-eyed blond who had just come back from Nassau. He had one of those infuriating tans and an even more infuriating physique. He didn’t say much. The eyes said it all. They never left Fabiana, unless they were turned on Michael (perhaps ‘
through’
Michael would be more accurate) during the course of such questions as: “When was the last time we saw you?” and statements, such as the patently ridiculous: “You’re looking well, Mike.”

Betty Powell just sat on the sofa and rummaged in her pocket book for something she never found.

Fabiana, on the other hand, was radiant—as always. She carried with her—just as she had as a child—that wonderful and wondrous sense of someone always on the verge of imparting the secret of life, if only she could remember the wording. Her gaze would drift away towards the answer—beautiful and oddly heartbreaking—only to return yet again with the words; “no—that’s not it…” implicit in the wounded, blue confusion of her eyes. She had once been kidnapped and the ransom had been a million dollars. Lucien Holbach, her father, had refused to pay it—even though he had sixty millions and his wife twenty millions more. Fabiana had escaped, unharmed.

Or had she? Michael wondered.

At any rate, she had escaped and, shortly thereafter, she had been married to Jackman Powell—who was currently “abroad.” She claimed to have never seen her captors, having been forced to wear a blindfold the whole time. It was when, after hours of silence, she had discovered she was standing in the middle of an empty house that she made her escape. All of this had happened in Jamaica: a place to which Fabiana had never returned.

Years and years and years ago—when they were children—Conrad Fastbinder had fallen in love with Fabiana Holbach and, for a while—in later years, before the kidnap, it seemed that Fabiana might return his love. But three things had happened in rapid succession, dashing all those hopes forever: until now. Fastbinder’s father had died, leaving him penniless: Fabiana had been kidnapped and Jackman Powell—(“that son-of-a-bitch!”)—had married her.

Tonight, through some fortuitous twist of fate, she had turned up in Michael and Olivia Penny’s living room without her husband—and only her brother-in-law (“that other son-of-a-bitch!”) to watch over her.

Conrad waited for Cleo to begin singing “
Traces
” before he made his entrance.

“
A faded photograph
,

Covered, now, with lines and creases
…”

Fabiana claimed not to recognize him.

Michael, never having seen his friend in lacquer before, tended to agree with Fabiana. Conrad, decked out in summer whites and with his hair plastered back, looked like someone trying to escape from a Somerset Maugham short story. His tie was a florid pink (admittedly, in fashion, if you glanced at the right magazines) and he reeked of
Chanel 19
. As for the face—it was true. Conrad Fastbinder had descended from the upper reaches in a Chinese mask.

The trouble was, he couldn’t speak—whether because of all the scotch he had drunk in the afternoon, or because of the strictures of his ‘face-lift’ or, perhaps, because of both. As a consequence, he merely bowed over Fabiana’s hand, and kissed it—after which, they all went in to dinner.

Michael sat at the head of the table, leaning back in his chair. He was turned to one side in order to accommodate his foot which increasingly troubled him as the evening wore on. He watched his guests—or rather, Conrad’s guests, through a haze of pain and liquor.

Far off, he could just make out Olivia seated at the other end of the table. She was smiling—oh rare event—and, though the smile was somewhat fixed, it appeared to be genuine. What could she be smiling about? Michael regretted he had not begun to count as soon as the smile had turned up—just to see how long it would stay. It was rather like a visitor: another guest at the table: a stranger. He should keep a little book, like Hamlet: “My tables—meet it is, I set it down…Olivia smiled today for twenty seconds.”

Why?

Michael looked around the table.

See who’s here; he thought. All the bachelors. This is a bachelors’ dinner. Rodney, Conrad, me. And Tom Powell—he’s a bachelor. So’s his wife. Look at them! I bet they touch each other with tongs. Or perhaps they wear gloves. Louellen Potts is a bachelor. (Damn it.) So is Fabiana.

So is Olivia.

Every damn one of us, living alone.

Here we are on the hillside—having killed the pig—and about to fall beneath the spell of the magic dream, perhaps.

Louellen Potts was sitting beside him: green eyed and green in tailored tweed. Breathtaking: youthful. Budding. Hair that falls—every hair in place and smelling of skin and flesh, no perfumes, only air and apples and sitting with one hand near his own, turned up—so innocent—or was that innocence? Maybe it was disdain. Knowing the harmless impotence of pockmarked hosts in their cups…

Not pockmarked
. No. Do not go cruel into that good face. Be kinder. Kinder to yourself. Be kind.

Then, on the other side of the table, next to that blazered booby—Rodney Farquhar, pal and pudendum to the fallen Conrad—there was someone weeping.

Fabiana.

Was it true? Was she weeping?

Tom had told the tale at dinner—the dinner just finished, the one whose little bones were scattered under the grape seeds even now mounting on the plates as the bachelors lingered over their wine.

Tom, without saying so, had made it clear that Fabiana was waiting for a divorce. Her husband, his brother Jackman, had disappeared. He was a civil engineer—or something—and, though Fabiana’s lawyers (working, of course for him) had told her he had “left her” and had gone somewhere, they would not say where. Not precisely. Only “into the Amazon region.” That was all. That was how they had put it to her: “Jackman has gone”—into roughly speaking one million square green miles of rain forest. Now, he had been gone eight months and the lawyers had said, “he is probably not coming back.”

So she could not get a divorce. She could only wait the mandatory seven years, after which she could declare herself a widow. Not that Jackman would be dead. He had gone there with her money. It was the money that was dead.

There was more, of course. Money. Enough for Conrad to cultivate, if he’d only take that egg off his face.

Michael watched Fabiana.

Just as Olivia’s badge was neatness, Fabiana’s badge was a restless wrist—her left—which she constantly massaged with her right hand, adjusting her watch and her bracelets and her bones, while the wrist turned slowly, this way and that. She also never looked at whoever was speaking, but set her eyes on those who were listening, watching perhaps for some clue as to the importance and meaning of what was being said. Now, it was Olivia who was speaking and Fabiana was watching Betty Powell, her sister-in-law. Betty Powell was cutting up an apple with a knife and there was blood on her napkin, of which she seemed to be entirely unaware.

Olivia was still smiling.

The subject under discussion had been famous mistresses and who had performed that function best in history. Olivia had just said something startling and amusing and even Michael was laughing.

Olivia had suggested that Antinous, the beloved of the Emperor Hadrian, had been the world’s greatest mistress.

“Why?” Louellen Potts had asked.

“Because,” Olivia had answered, “he couldn’t bear children.”

“Do you mean he couldn’t stand them?” Betty asked. “Or just that he couldn’t have them…”

She was ignored.

It was then that disaster struck, as it will out of silence.

Thinking he spoke in a confidential tone, and being quite drunk, Conrad turned toward Michael and reached out his hand as if to emphasize his words. As a result of the gesture, he knocked over Betty Powell’s glass. Wine and blood and an apple core.

But that was not the disaster. The disaster was in what he said.

What he said was, “There’s your answer, Michael. You and Olivia should have a baby.”

Michael said; “Thanks for the advice and shut up.”

Conrad said; “Oh, I see…” and he laughed. “You’re afraid Olivia will kill it.”

For a moment, there was only the sound of dripping wine and of someone breathing and then Louellen Potts turned down the table in Conrad’s direction and said, “Do you think that’s funny, Mr Fastbinder? Do you really think that’s funny?” Then she turned to Michael and she said, “Why don’t you hit him? If I were you, I’d hit him.”

“You are not me, Miss Potts,” said Michael. He was looking at Olivia, who looked away.

Now, Louellen turned to her and she said; “Mrs Penny? Don’t you want to be defended?”

Olivia didn’t answer her. She was looking at her napkin.

“Really, Professor Penny,” Louellen said—still standing—“I think it is outrageous. And if you won’t hit him, I will!”

“Sit down, Potts.” (Michael)

“I will not sit down! This appalling man has just said the most appalling thing about your wife and…”

“SIT DOWN!”

“Michael…” This was Olivia. “Leave her alone.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Michael, alarmed, his voice rising. “I beg your bloody pardon?”

“You heard her,” said Louellen—somewhat tipsy herself. “She says you’re to leave me alone.”

Michael said, “You condescending green-eyed bitch!”

“Michael!” said Olivia.

“Don’t you ‘Michael’ me—you down there in the dark! What the hell right has she to put herself in my shoes?”

“She’s only expressing her feelings, Michael. And whether or not they’re valid, she has a right to express them.”

“Not at my table, she hasn’t!”

“This is our table, Michael. Not your table. Ours.” Olivia did not even raise her voice.

Michael snapped. “Well she’s sitting at my end!”

And Louellen said, with great vehemence, “Standing!”

And suddenly, everyone was laughing. Everyone, that is, except the Powells. They did not seem to know what to do in the presence of laughter.

Louellen Potts sat down and there was then a second, but minor disaster. Her hand had fallen onto the table rather near Michael’s. And now, unthinking, Michael took it—merely as a gesture of forgiveness. Except that he did not let go.

Louellen looked at the table, not quite focusing on her upturned fingers resting under Michael’s hand. Her main awareness was of Olivia’s eyes.

Michael felt the reverberation and he, too, became aware of Olivia’s eyes. He turned his hand away slowly and withdrew it all the way back to his head, where he pushed back his hair.

“Conrad,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” said Conrad.

“Tell us about the time you got lost in that hotel and ended up in Princess Diana’s bedroom.”

In the living room, Conrad was lying on the rug, smoking a cigarette and staring at the ceiling. Michael, limping as unobtrusively as possible, was going about the room and bestowing second brandies into upheld glasses, including Conrad’s.

Beyond them, the dining room glowed in the flickering light of its guttering candles. The table was an ordered ruin, with its eight distinct place settings, each distinctly destroyed by a separate pair of hands; the eight plates marred with the elegant parings of apples and cheese and pears; the wine glasses emptied to an exact degree, each one a signature; and the napkins, folded or thrown down and the chairs pushed back, reflective or violent or simply dispensed with—and the low, silver bowl of freesia, the flowers drooping as if they had been assaulted—and the mirrors that reflected mirrors that reflected mirrors—each one holding its perfect image a further remove, like sign posts down a road that led into darkness.

Rodney was playing the piano.

Otherwise—silence.

Olivia returned from the hallway, having opened the front door to let in some air. Outside, there was a spring rain and the strong smell of budding. She picked up her glass—allowed Michael to fill it—touched him with her pensiveness as he passed—and leaned against the door jamb, neither here nor there.

It was warm—and Fabiana’s wrist was moving.

Slowly—it was imperceptible at first—as if a butterfly had entered the room and caught their attention only by degrees—Fabiana began to talk. She began in the middle of some interior monologue that perhaps had occupied her for some time—which yet seemed pertinent to the monologue of each of the others; one long sentence describing their mutual apprehension, whether it be about the past or the present or the future; arising out of that common literature which is the mind, peopled with common characters, moving over a common landscape, like a book they had all read—from which now one of their voices began to quote aloud:

“…I know he went there without me in order to escape me. And yet I never bothered or pursued him. I was always standing still, it seems. I hadn’t wanted him at first; but only let myself be wanted. The way a dog will let itself be wanted, not understanding why, except that out of being wanted—wanting comes. And out of being chosen—choosing. And out of being longed for—longing. Con knows. I never gave my loving. Never trusted myself to give. Never let it happen. I was always the little sister—sitting in the front seat, watching in the mirror. Until I met him—Jackman Powell. He was like a drug you take at a party, for fun. And then you wonder what it was. And then you ask for more. And then you realize you’re hooked. And you never stop to think they’ve hooked you on purpose. You only think what a lovely feeling it is—and all you want is more. Until one day, they refuse.
There isn’t any more
. Or worse,
there is
—
but I’m not going to let you have it
. And then they hold it up—they keep on holding it up where you can see it—and saying to you:
no; no more, Fabiana. Never any more
. And then they shoot it into the air, they waste it before your eyes. And they walk away—and they leave you with this empty syringe—and nothing to fill it with. And nothing to fill your veins with. And they haven’t told you what it was—so you don’t know how to ask for more. Because it was unique; it was
theirs
—they grew it, manufactured it or conjured it out of the air. And then they get on a boat and they don’t even wave good-bye. And they’re gone. And then you get a message—telling you they’ve disappeared forever.”