"It is not H.G. who fears flying-"
"Repeat, it is I, John, who fear the d.a.m.ned black night sea and fog on the ferry from Dun Laoghaire to Folkestone!"
"All that, kid, all that. Agreed."
"Are you under, John?"
"I"m sunk, kid."
"When you wake you will remember nothing, except you will no longer fear the sea and will give up flying, John."
"I will remember nothing." John closed his eyes, but I could see his eyeb.a.l.l.s twitch behind the lids.
"And like Ahab, you will go to sea with me, two nights from now."
"Nothing like the sea," muttered John.
"At the count of ten you will waken, John, feeling fine, feeling fresh. One, two . . . five, six ... ten. Awake!"
John popped his pingpong eyes wide and blinked around at us. "My G.o.d," he cried, "that was a good sleep. Where was I? What happened?"
"Cut it out, John!" said Jake.
"John, John," everyone roared. Someone punched me happily in the arm. Someone else rumpled my hair, the hair of the idiot savant.
John ordered drinks all around.
Slugging his back, he mused on the empty gla.s.s, and then eyed me, steadily.
"You know, kid, I been thinking-"
"What?"
"Mebbe-"
"Yes?"
"Mebbe I should go on that d.a.m.ned ferryboat with you, ah, two nights from now . . . ?"
"John, John!" everyone roared.
"Cut it out," shouted Jake, falling back, splitting his face with laughs.
Cut it out.
My heart, too, while you"re at it.
How the rest of the evening went or how it ended, I cannot recall. I seem to remember more drinks, and a sense of overwhelming power that came with everyone, I imagined, loving my outrageous jokes, my skill with words, my alacrity with responses. I was a ballet dancer, comically on balance on the high-wire. I could not fall off. I was a perfection and a delight. I was a Martian love, all beauteous bright.
As usual, John had no cash on him.
Jake Vickers paid the bill for the eight of us. On the way out, in the fog-filled rainy street, Jake c.o.c.ked his head to one side, closed one eye, and fixed me with the other, snorting with mirth.
"You," he said, "are a maniac"
That sound you hear is the long whistling slide of the guillotine blade rushing down through the night . . .
Toward the nape of my neck.
The next day I wandered around without a head, but no one said. Until five that afternoon. When John unexpectedly came to my room at the Royal Hibernian Hotel.
I don"t recall John"s sitting down after he came in. He was dressed in a cap and light overcoat, and he paced around the room as we discussed some minor point to be revised before I sailed off for England, two days later.
In the middle of our Arab/Whale discussion John paused and, almost as an afterthought, said, "Oh, yeah. You"ll have to change your plans."
"What plans, John?"
"Oh, all that bulls.h.i.t about your coming to England on the ferryboat. I need you quicker. Cancel your boat ticket and fly with me to London on Thursday night. It"ll only take an hour. You"ll love it."
"I can"t do that," I said.
"Now, don"t be difficult-"
"You don"t understand, John. I"m scared to death of airplanes."
"You"ve told me that, kid, and it"s time you got over it."
"Maybe sometime in the future, but, please forgive me, John, I can"t fly with you."
"Sounds like you"re yellow, kid."
"Yes! I admit it. You"ve always known that. It"s nothing new. I am the d.a.m.nedest shade of yellow you ever saw."
"Then get over it. Fly! You"ll save a whole day at sea."
"G.o.d," I moaned, falling back in my chair. "I don"t mind being at sea all night. The ferry leaves around ten p.m. It doesn"t get across to the English port until three or four a.m., an unG.o.dly hour. I won"t sleep. I might even be seasick. Then I take the train to London, it gets in Victoria at seven thirty in the morning. By eight fifteen I"ll be in my hotel. By eight forty-five I"ll have had a quick breakfast and a shave. By nine thirty I"ll be at your hotel ready to work. No time lost. I"d be busy on the white whale as soon as you-"
"Well, screw that, son. You"re coming on the airplane with me."
"No, no."
"Yes, you are, you cowardly b.a.s.t.a.r.d. And if you don"t-"
"What, what?"
"You"ll have to stay in Dublin!"
"What?" I yelled.
"You won"t get your vacation. No final weeks in London."
"After seven months! "
"That"s right! No vacation."
"You can"t do that!"
"Yes, I can. And not only that, Lorry, our secretary, she won"t get her vacation. She"ll be trapped here with you."
"You can"t do that to Lorry. She"s worked twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for six months!"
"Her vacation"s canceled unless you fly with me."
"Oh, no, John! John, no!"
"Unless you change color, kid. No more yellow."
I was on my feet.
"You"d really do that to her? Because of me?"
"That"s the way it is."
"Well, the answer is no."
"What?"
"You heard me. Lorry goes to London. I go to London. And we go any d.a.m.n way I please, as long as I don"t interfere with our writing, my finishing, the script. I"ll travel all night, and be on time at your room at Claridge"s Friday morning. You can"t fight that, argue that, I"ll be there. I"m going on the ferry. You can"t force me into flying on any G.o.dd.a.m.n plane."
"What?"
"That"s it, John."
"Your final word?"
"The ferry for me. The plane for you. That"s it."
John whirled, flung an invisible cape or scarf about his neck, and stormed out of the room, stalking, striding, making an exit like Tosca about to leap off the castle wall. The door slammed.
I fell down in my chair in horrible despair.
"Christ!" I yelled at the wall. "You d.a.m.ned fool! What have you donel"
For the next day and a half John refused to talk to me. We were at a place in the script where a vacation seemed convenient if not absolutely necessary. I was about forty pages from the end, and we were taking a breather, but only breath went back and forth between us. When I entered a room, John would about face and talk only to the other people present. At lunch or dinner or traveling around Dublin in a car or cab, he laughed and joked with Jake but addressed not a word or a glance at me. I did not exist. I was the rejected lover, the forever-to-be-forgotten and never-forgiven wife. The wonderful marriage had turned sour. I was to be repaid for my hypnotic magic act, though I did not immediately guess at this, with stones, rocks, and old razor blades. But not even that. He did not pick up and hurl anything at me. I had simply melted into thin air. I was not in the room. If his gaze swiveled, it sliced right through me, like an X-ray, and rushed on to some far point. I half expected to hear him speak of me in the past tense.
After a day of this, I took Jake Vickers aside in the lounge room of the Royal Hibernian.
"Jake," I whispered, for John was heading into the dining room nearby with five or six friends. "What the h.e.l.l is going on?"
"Whatta you mean?"
"Am I or am I not here? When"s John going to speak to me again!?"
Jake laughed quietly. "It"s all a joke."
"Joke?" I cried. "Joke!"
"Pretend not to notice."
"Pretend!" I did everything except sing soprano.
"Keep your voice down. If he hears you getting hysterical it"ll make him happy. Then you"re really in for it."
"Christ, I"m in for it already. I can"t take this! Does he know I"m going on the ferryboat, in spite of him?"
"I think so. You"ve ruined his joke, do you see?"
"He threatened Lorry, too. Is she going to fly with him?"
"Yeah, she"s going."
"Thank G.o.d. He said he was going to penalize her, make her stay here, cancel her vacation-"
"She"s going. Relax."
"I would, if I could get this iron anchor out of my stomach."
"Play it cool. Ignore him, too. Don"t look at him. He"s got to see, finally, you don"t care, you"re not riled."
"You"re asking me to be Laurence Olivier."
"Act it out, anyway, buster," said Jake.
I acted. I laughed. I chatted with everyone. I even had the nerve to say out loud how great John thought my script was, so far. But John spooned his soup and b.u.t.tered his bread and cut his steak, staring off at the ceiling or at his friends, while my gut settled in cement.
And then, the miracle happened that finished the script and got John to talk to me again.
32.
It was seven o"clock in the morning.
I awoke and stared at the ceiling as if it were about to plunge down at me, an immense whiteness of flesh, a madness of unblinking eye, a flounder of tail. I was in a terrible state of excitement. I imagine it was like those moments we hear about before an earthquake, when perhaps the dogs and cats fight to leave the house, or the unseen, unheard tremors shake the floor and beams, and you find yourself held ready for something to arrive but you"re d.a.m.ned if you know what.