An Idol for Others (4 page)

Walter left the next course almost untouched. He never ate much at midday, so nobody would find it odd. Emile kept his wineglass full. The wine helped ease the cramped feeling in his arms and chest. For a while Walter felt almost integrated into the group, responding easily, concentrating his charm on the boys, smiling and laughing readily. It wasn’t till during a lull, while Emile was clearing away again, that alarm struck.

What if his calculations had been wrong? What if Tom had only one suitcase after all? “Before the rush” could mean anything. It could mean 3. He cursed himself for not carrying a watch, but his highly developed sense of time assured him that it couldn’t be past 2:30. There was still time.

For what? To see Tom again? That was all settled. He had his address and telephone number. Once he was back in California, Walter could be with him in a matter of hours if it came to that, although nothing in his experience prepared him to take for granted that he would cross a continent to join a lover; he had never allowed his interest in a young man to become an obsession–except once. His memory of it enclosed some of the most thrilling moments of his life. Others he had tried to overlook in order to go on living with Clara. Perhaps a touch of obsession was needed to awaken him from the deep sleep of his life with Clara.

He managed somehow to remain quiet in his chair while salad and cheese were consumed. As Emile prepared to serve dessert, he slapped the table lightly. “Damn. I promised to call Henry an hour ago. Excuse me. I’ll be back.”

“Henry? Emile can tell–” Clara began, but Walter was already up and heading out of the room. She sat back, curbing an impulse to follow him. Could he still surprise her after all these years? She doubted it, but she knew all the danger signals of his fascinatingly unpredictable temperament. Leaping up from the table in the middle of a meal was very unlike him. She wondered.

He took the stairs two at a time and rushed to the library telephone. His buzz was answered by a male voice, probably the pretty youth he had been beguiled into hiring a month ago. Jesus. “Call the–no, put me through to the Gladwyn Hotel, please,” he directed. He didn’t want the young man to know anything about this. There were an unusual number of clicks and pops while Walter fumed–the pretty youth’s job hung in the balance–but a voice eventually identified the hotel in a singsong coo. “I want to leave a message for Mr. Jennings, please,” Walter said quickly.

“Mr. Jennings?”

“Thomas Jennings. I want to leave a message.”

“Just a moment, please. Mr. Jennings? Room 617? I’m sorry, sir. I believe he’s already checked out.”

Walter’s heart stopped. “What do you mean, you believe? Don’t you know?”

“One moment, sir. I’ll give you the desk.”

A man came on the line, cool and efficient. “Mr. Jennings? That’s Room 617. Yes, sir, we’ve got his bill ready. We expect him to check out shortly. I’ll put you through.”

“No. Wait.” Walter was able to breathe freely again. He shifted the instrument from one sweating palm to the other. “Just tell him Walter Makin is coming by the hotel in less than three quarters of an hour. Tell him to wait. It’s urgent. Make sure he gets the message right away.”

“Certainly, sir. Walter Makin. Before 3:30. Urgent. It’s a pleasure, Mr. Makin.”

Walter hung up with an audible exhalation of breath, feeling as if he’d narrowly escaped being hit by a truck. He wiped his forehead and palms with a handkerchief and buzzed below again. “Tell Mike to stand by, will you? I’ll be going out in a little while.”

He stood for a moment to recover his balance. Now that he was reasonably sure of seeing Tom shortly, what exactly did he think he was doing? Even if he were on the verge of falling in love, what then? He could go to California for a week or two, possibly a month, but people often stayed in love for years. What was he supposed to tell Clara? He burst into laughter. He wanted to have some fun with a guy. It was as simple as that. After 30 years of marriage, he should be able to tell her that and get on with it, but he knew he couldn’t. Why? Because she wouldn’t like it, or because he still didn’t like the idea of giving himself away? Both probably. It had taken him a long time to learn that the debt of gratitude he owed her and had acknowledged right from the start could be paid only in deception.

The game must go on. Henry. Who in hell was Henry? The first name that had come into his head. He returned to the party below, all ease and charm once more.

“Who is Henry?” Clara asked as soon as he was seated. “Isn’t that who you said you were calling?”

“Yes. You know Henry. I never remember his last name. That man at
The News
who’s been helpful. He’s been after me to find out if Richard and Elizabeth are going to be there tonight.”

“Of course they are. Richard’s on the list of speakers.”

“Henry heard they might not show. I promised to get the inside dope from Roger.”

“Did you?”

“I checked earlier. They’re all set.”

“Who in the world do you ask for when you call
The News
?”

Walter laughed. Now that he was getting in deep, he felt as expectant and exhilarated as he had that night 30 years ago when she had saved him from wrecking his life. “You may well wonder. I just ask for the city desk. Everybody there knows Henry.”

“I must say I’d never forgive those two if they didn’t turn up. They owe you a lot.”

“They might forget their debt of gratitude, but they wouldn’t miss the chance to shine at a high-class cultural event, poor loves.” Walter glanced at David and caught a quizzical look in his eye. He slitted his up-tilting eyes at him in a sort of wink.

The boys were finishing extravagant cake and ice-cream confections. When they started scraping their plates, Clara rose. “That will do. It’s likely you’ll get another meal tonight.”

They went upstairs to the living room, where Emile brought them coffee. The spacious room, the twin of the dining room, overlooked the garden and was ablaze with paintings. It was further enriched by a casual and heterogeneous collection of 18th- and early 19th-century furniture, mostly French and English. The room was done in cool pale shades of beige and green and blue, with a few touches of gold–a stage drawing room, designed by Walter. An antique ivory chess set was laid out on a game table in front of a window, and Nat tried to draw his father to it.

“A little later, old son,” Walter countered. “Chess is for the long late-afternoon hours. I want to discuss something with David.”

The boys slumped with magazines into the sofa. Clara was going through the morning papers on another. Walter and David stood at the table where coffee had been served. The room was spacious enough for privacy. Walter turned his back on the others and faced David.

“You’re going to have to stand in for me, pal. I’m going to disappear for a while. When I’m missed, act mysterious. Drop hints about my having to arrange something special, for her tonight. There’ll
be
something special, so you can play it up all you like.”

David’s eyes and teeth flashed at him. He tilted back his golden head. “I thought so. I have an idea we’re in for some surprises.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’ll leave you to your wicked thoughts.” Walter chortled with laughter. He was feeling keyed-up and pleased with himself. He touched David’s arm and slipped unobtrusively from the room.

He ran upstairs to his bedroom and went to the bath to freshen up. He didn’t look at himself. He was afraid that what he saw would strike him as ridiculous–a mature man distraught with desire for another man almost young enough to be his son. He went to the bedroom telephone and sent word to Mike that he was on his way. The bedside clock told him it was just 3. He was on time. He went down the hall and took the elevator again to avoid unwelcome encounters. “Back to the Gladwyn, hunh?” Mike said after he had settled into the back of the car.

“Right, Mike.”

“That’s sure where I’d be if I were you,” Mike said.

“All right, Mike, try to keep your mind above your belt,” Walter said, then told himself to remember this good advice. “When you drop me, you can take off. I think I’m still capable of finding a taxi.”

“Let the doorman get one for you. You don’t want to be wandering around the streets. You don’t know what it’s like.”

“I appreciate your solicitude, Mike.”

“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about, Walter; but it sure sounds classy.”

Walter unfastened his tie, pulled it off, and folded it away into a pocket. He slipped off his jacket and put it over his arm. He unbuttoned his shirt, exposing the froth of hair on his chest and turned back his cuffs. Better. He was no longer a magazine illustration of the impeccable Walter Makin. If things went the way he intended, the less there was to take off the better. When Mike pulled up in front of the hotel, he leaned forward. “This is strictly between ourselves, Mike. If anybody asks, say you left me at the corner of 53rd and Lexington. You have no idea where I was going.” Did he have any idea himself? He felt his old exhibitionistic urge to strip. Would that be enough to make Tom his? He suspected that it would take time, and time was lacking. Tom was determined to leave. Why not leave with him? He had been waiting for years to do something outrageous. At least, so it seemed to him now. He had a chance at last to break loose with a hell of a yell. He would give a great deal to see Clara’s face if she discovered that she had been left to accept the award for him. Clear out. Disappear for a week. The imp came strikingly to the fore, a wickedly gleeful imp. Anything might happen.

The doorman was waiting. Walter nodded as he emerged from the car and was amused to note the rapid play of reactions on the man’s face–recognition, an impulse to participate in glee, the disciplined return to duty, his hand touching his cap. Walter crossed the sidewalk and swept across the hotel lobby to the elevators without having himself announced. Tom was expecting him. Tom must have known he would come.

As he stepped into an elevator, thoughts of Harry were with him, offering highly suspect guidance. Perhaps he was about to find out at last who Walter Makin was, although he had an uneasy suspicion that the deeper he probed, the less he would find. His life wasn’t a detective story in reverse, leading back to the scene of the crime. No crime had been committed, unless sins of omission could be so severely categorized. So much had happened at the beginning that there had been no time for second thoughts or self-doubts. Besides, Clara had no use for such weakness. Clara had almost known how to make him forgive the unforgivable. Magic. She had her own. The point of magic was that it evaporated if too closely scrutinized. He thought of Tom’s eyes and wondered if he should let the elevator carry him down again.

Harry was the beginning. Before Harry, Walter had been a cautious, brilliant, studious youth, tall and gangling, with the face of an androgynous woodland sprite. He was a year ahead of himself at school so that he was younger than his classmates and was shy and awkward with them. He had no friends. He was at the head of the class, but the only unusual thing he knew about himself was his infatuation with the theater. He kept it to himself because he had been taught to suppress manifestations of individuality.

Walter was an only child. His father was a dentist, and his mother was a loud, harsh, passionate woman. When he was old enough to start talking about a career, he decided to say that he was going to be an architect as a safe compromise to conceal his secret aspirations. The inhabitants of the world he knew barely took into account the existence of the theater, certainly not as an acceptable field for a normal, healthy man.

Harry was his god, the star athlete of the second-rate private prep school they both attended in Morristown, New Jersey. He had the head of Adonis and a body to match, which Walter tried not to look at when they were all naked in the shower room after compulsory games.

He couldn’t understand why he had chosen Harry to worship. They had nothing in common. Sports bored Walter; Harry wouldn’t know anything about the theater or books. He probably wouldn’t even be able to discuss a movie. This was only a supposition since they had never exchanged more than a few words at a time.

In their senior year the range of Walter’s reading widened, including a grueling attack on Proust; and for the first time he began to consciously question the values and attitudes that he had been taught to cherish. There was a great deal more to life than was contained in Morristown. He had nobody with whom to share his dreams; but even if he had, he would never have dared express the revolutionary thoughts that were stirring in him.

Harry inexplicably remained his god. Walter supposed he represented some childish schoolboy idea, a vision of what he had been taught he ought to be but had no intention of becoming. As school drew to a close, Walter began to feel that whatever he felt about him, he must end it. When he masturbated, the image of his fantasy partner always dissolved into Harry’s at the moment of climax. He never quite admitted to himself that this happened; but deep in the back of his mind, he knew that it involved something odd and forbidden. He was barely 16, and he told himself he sure needed to get himself a girl.

He knew his worship of Harry couldn’t have anything to do with sex. He had read and heard things that he didn’t understand, but he was aware of perversions and criminal sexual acts that he shrank from even imagining. These acts could have nothing to do with him or anybody he knew.

Still, his thoughts of Harry bothered him to the point that he began to take advantage of his position as editor of the school paper to skip athletics as often as possible to avoid the shower room. On other days he rubbed himself down with a towel and went home without a shower.

One spring afternoon, with only a month of school remaining, Walter was sweating over the dummy of the paper in the cubbyhole assigned to him as an editorial office when he decided he had to cool off. It was mid afternoon. He knew the shower room would be deserted for another hour, so he decided to take a shower. He was surprised to encounter Harry in the hall near the library as he went down through the building, but he only nodded and hurried on. Even such a brief brush with his god made his heart race and sweat break out on his body. He found the lockers in ghostly silence, as he expected. His sense of privacy was so complete that as the rush of water soothed his body and filled it with sensual cravings, soaping himself became a dangerous temptation to give himself an erection. The soap leaped from his hand, and he froze at the sound of the worshiped voice directly behind him.