‘I think I did say that. I have a feeling…’
‘You’re sure,’ asked the senator, reaching for the brandy, ‘that you won’t have more of this?’
‘No, thanks,’ said Harrington.
And suddenly he was thinking of another time and place where he’d once gone drinking and there had been a shadow in the corner that had talked with him – and it was the first time he’d ever thought of that. It was something, it seemed, that had never happened, that could not remotely have happened to Hollis Harrington. It was a happening that he would not – could not – accept, and yet there it lay cold and naked in his brain.
‘I was going to tell you,’ said the senator, ‘about that line on destiny. A most peculiar circumstance, I think you will agree. You know, of course, that one time I had decided to retire.’
‘I remember it,’ said Harrington. ‘I recall I told you that you should.’
‘It was at that time,’ said the senator, ‘that I read that paragraph of yours. I had written out a statement announcing my retirement at the completion of my term and intended in the morning to give it to the press. Then I read that line and asked myself what if I were that very man you were writing of. Not, of course, that I actually thought I was.’
Harrington stirred uneasily. ‘I don’t know what to say. You place too great a responsibility upon me.’
‘I did not retire,’ said the senator. ‘I tore up the statement.’
They sat quietly for a moment, staring at the fire flaming on the hearth.
‘And now,’ said Enright, ‘there is this other thing.’
‘I wish that I could help,’ said Harrington, almost desperately. ‘I wish that I could find the proper words to say. But I can’t, because I’m at the end myself. I am written out. There’s nothing left inside me.’
And that was not, he knew, what he had wished to say. _I came here to tell you that someone else has been living in my mother’s house for more than fifteen years, that the name on Cornelia’s headstone is not Cornelia’s name. I came here to see if this room had changed and it has changed. It has lost some of its old baronial magic…_
But he could not say it. There was no way to say it. Even to so close a friend as the senator it was impossible.
‘Hollis, I am sorry,’ said the senator.
It was all insane, thought Harrington. He was Hollis Harrington. He had been born in Wisconsin. He was a graduate of Harvard and – what was it Cedric Madison had called him – the last surviving gentleman.
His life had been correct to the last detail, his house correct, his writing most artistically correct – the result of good breeding to the fingertips.
Perhaps just slightly too correct. Too correct for this world of 1962, which had sloughed off the final vestige of the old punctilio.
He was Hollis Harrington, last surviving gentleman, famous writer, romantic figure in the literary world – and written out, wrung dry of all emotion, empty of anything to say since he had finally said all that he was capable of saying.
He rose slowly from his chair.
‘I must be going, Johnson. I’ve stayed longer than I should.’
‘There is something else,’ said the senator. ‘Something I’ve always meant to ask you. Nothing to do with this matter of myself. I’ve meant to ask you many times, but felt perhaps I shouldn’t, that it might somehow…’
‘It’s quite all right,’ said Harrington. ‘I’ll answer if I can.’
‘One of your early books,’ said the senator _’A Bone to Gnaw’_, I think.’
‘That,’ said Harrington, ‘was many years ago.’
‘This central character,’ said the senator. ‘This Neanderthaler that you wrote about. You made him seem so human.’
Harrington nodded. ‘That is right. That is what he was. He was a human being. Just because he lived a hundred thousand years ago -‘
‘Of course.’ said the senator. ‘You are entirely right. But you had him down so well. All your other characters have been sophisticates, people of the world. I have often wondered how you could write so convincingly of that kind of man – an almost mindless savage.’
‘Not mindless,’ said Harrington. ‘Not really savage. A product of his times. I lived with him for a long time, Johnson, before I wrote about him. I tried to put myself into his situation, think as he did, guess his viewpoint. I knew his fears and triumphs. There were times, I sometimes think, that I was close to being him.’
Enright nodded solemnly. ‘I can well believe that. You really must be going? You’re sure about that drink?’
‘I’m sorry. Johnson. I have a long way to drive.’
The senator heaved himself out of the chair and walked with him to the door.
‘We’ll talk again,’ he said, ‘and soon. About this writing business. I can’t believe you’re at the end of it.’
‘Maybe not,’ said Harrington. ‘It may all come back.’
But he only said this to satisfy the senator. He knew there was no chance that it would come back.
They said good-night and Harrington went trudging down the walk. And that was wrong – in all his life, he’d never trudged before.
His car was parked just opposite the gate and he stopped beside it, staring in astonishment, for it was not his car.
His had been an expensive, dignified model, and this one was not only one of the less expensive kinds, but noticeably decrepit.
And yet it was familiar in a vague and tantalizing way.
And here it was again, but with a difference this time, for in this instance he was on the verge of accepting unreality.
He opened the door and climbed into the seat. He reached into his pocket and found the key and fumbled for the ignition lock. He found it in the dark and the key clicked into it. He twisted, and the engine started.
Something came struggling up from the mist inside his brain. He could feel it struggle and he knew what it was. It was Hollis Harrington, final gentleman.
He sat there for a moment and in that moment he was neither final gentleman nor the man who sat in the ancient car, but a younger man and a far-off man who was drunk and miserable.
He sat in a booth in the farthest, darkest corner of some unknown establishment that was filled with noise and smell and in a corner of the booth that was even darker than the corner where he sat was another one, who talked.
He tried to see the stranger’s face, hut it either was too dark or there was no face to see. And all the time the faceless stranger talked.
There were papers on the table, a fragmented manuscript, and he knew it was no good and he tried to tell the stranger how it was no good and how he wished it might be good, but his tongue was thick and his throat was choked.
He couldn’t frame the words to say it, but he felt it inside himself – the terrible, screaming need of putting down on paper the conviction and belief that shouted for expression.
And he heard clearly only one thing that the stranger said.
‘I am willing,’ said the stranger, ‘to make a deal with you.’
And that was all there was. There was no more to remember.
And there it stood – that ancient, fearsome thing – an isolated remembrance from some former life, an incident without a past or future and no connection with him.
The night suddenly was chilly and he shivered in the chill. He put the car in gear and pulled out from the curb and drove slowly down the street.
He drove for half an hour or more and he was still shivering from the chilly night. A cup of coffee, he thought, might warm him and he pulled the car up to the curb in front of an all-night quick-and-greasy. And realized with some astonishment that he could not be more than a mile or two from home.
There was no one in the place except a shabby blonde who lounged behind the corner, listening to a radio.
He climbed up on a stool.
‘Coffee, please,’ he said and while he waited for her to fill the cup he glanced about the place. It was clean and cozy with the cigarette machines and the rack of magazines lined against the wall.
The blonde set the cup down in front of him.
‘Anything else?’ she asked, but he didn’t answer, for his eye had caught a line of printing across the front of one of the more lurid magazines.
‘Is that all?’ asked the blonde again.
‘I guess so,’ said Harrington. ‘I guess that’s all I want.’