She went back inside to say farewell on behalf of herself and Gentle. Taylor was back in his chair. She caught sight of him before he saw her. He was staring into middle distance, his eyes glazed. It wasn’t sorrow she read in his expression, but a fatigue so profound it had wiped all feeling from him except, maybe, regret for unsolved mysteries. She went to him and explained that she’d found Gentle and that he was sick and needed taking-home.
“Isn’t he going to come and say goodbye?” Taylor said.
“I think he’s afraid of throwing up all over the carpet, or you, or both.”
“Tell him to call me. Tell him I want to see him soon.” He took hold of Jude’s hand, holding it with surprising strength. “Soon, tell him.”
“I will.”
“I want to see that grin of his one more time.”
“There’ll be lots of times,” she said.
He shook his head. “Once will have to do,” he replied softly.
She kissed him and promised she’d call to say she got home safely. On her way to the door she met Clem and once again made her apologies and farewells.
“Call me if there’s anything I can do,” she offered.
“Thanks, but I think it’s a waiting game.”
“Then we can wait together.”
“Better just him and me,” Clem said. “But I will call.”
He glanced towards Taylor, who was once more staring at nothing.
“He’s determined to hold on till spring. One more spring, he keeps saying. He never gave a fuck about crocuses till now.” Clem smiled. “You know what’s wonderful?” he said. “I’ve fallen in love with him all over again.”
“That is wonderful.”
“And now I’m going to lose him, just when I realize what he means to me. You won’t make that mistake, will you?” He looked at her hard. “You know who I mean.”
She nodded.
“Good. Then you’d better take him home.”
The roads were as empty as he’d predicted, and it took only fifteen minutes to get back to Gentle’s studio. He wasn’t exactly coherent. On the way, the exchanges between them were full of gaps and discontinuities, as though his mind were running ahead of his tongue, or behind it. Drink wasn’t the culprit. Jude had seen Gentle drunk on all forms of alcohol; it made him roaring, randy, and sanctimonious by turns. Never like this, with his head back against the seat, his eyes closed, talking” from the bottom of a pit. One moment he was thanking her for looking after him, the next he was telling her not to mistake the paint on his hands for shit. It wasn’t shit, he kept saying, it was burnt umber, and prussian blue, and cadmium yellow, but somehow when you mixed colors together, any colors, they always came out looking like shit eventually. This monologue dwindled into silence, from which, a minute or two later, a new subject emerged.
“I can’t look at him, you know, the way he is. . .”
“Who?” Jude said.
“Taylor. I can’t look at him when he’s so sick. You know how much I hate sickness.”
She’d forgotten. It amounted to a paranoia with him, fueled perhaps by the fact that though he treated his body with scant regard for its health he not only never sickened but hardly aged. Doubtless the collapse, when it came, would be calamitous: excess, frenzy, and the passage of years taking their toll in one fell swoop. Until that time he wanted no reminders of his physical frailty.
“Taylor’s going to die, isn’t he?” he said.
“Clem thinks very soon.”
Gentle gave a heavy sigh. “I should spend some time with him. We were good friends once.”
“There were rumors about you two.”
“He spread them, not me.”
“Just rumors, were they?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you’ve probably tried every experience that swam by at least once.”
“He’s not my type,” Gentle said, not opening his eyes.
“You should see him again,” she said. “You’ve got to face up to falling apart sooner or later. It happens to us all.”
“Not to me it won’t. When I start’to decay, I’m going to kill myself. I swear.” He made fists of his painted hands and raised them to his face, drawing the knuckles down over his cheeks. “I won’t let it happen,” he said.