Chocolates for Breakfast (14 page)

They were able to crash the party successfully, as Eric had promised. They avoided the front door, where a man with a list of guests was standing guard and checking invitations. Pete surveyed the setup of the country club while they stood by the car. He came back triumphantly from his reconnaissance and announced that he had found a side entrance. They opened the door, Pete in the lead, Janet and Eric following, and Courtney standing uneasily behind. Pete pushed aside a preoccupied waiter and they found themselves behind the bar.

“Pardon me,” Pete said to the astonished bartender.

“Feeling a little sick,” Eric explained to the man, who stared after them, absently rubbing an empty glass. Someone called for another drink, and he dismissed the incident as he answered the order. “Young people these days,” he muttered wonderingly to one of the waiters. “We used to get such a different group at coming-out parties.”

They danced and they drank until dawn came to Long Island and the band, exhausted, retired from the floor. Reluctantly the last remaining guests left and stumbled into their cars. On the way back to New York, Courtney was vaguely concious that Pete was driving on memory and luck, and she distinctly felt that, once they got to the city, they traveled many blocks going the wrong way on a one-way street. A policeman stopped them, but decided not to hold them when Eric rose with great dignity from the back seat and announced that he would drive the rest of the way. The policeman was soon to be relieved and had no desire to be detained, so he left them with a warning. Somehow they got back to their homes, and Courtney was left off at her house. Her mother had been informed that she was going to a deb party and would be home late, and was asleep when Courtney made her way to bed as New York rose to another working day.

Courtney was awakened late in the afternoon by her mother.

“Courtney, someone on the phone for you. Some young man—he had his secretary make the call.” This had impressed her mother.

“Who is it?” she said sleepily. “Tell him I'll call him back.”

“Mr. Neville, I think she said.”

“Anthony!” Courtney reached for her bathrobe, tying it as she went to the phone.

Chapter 17

A
nthony took her to dinner at Chambord. She was pleased at being with him; she liked the obsequious attention of the waiters and the glances of women at other tables. He was wearing a powder-blue tie with a white dinner jacket and dark trousers which fit tightly at the legs, although Edwardian trousers had not yet come into fashion. He was a striking young man, with his challenging face and his slim, athletic body. She felt more at ease with him now, after what she had decided about him last night. He didn't seem so extraordinary, in the conventional and familiar setting of the restaurant.

“I know almost nothing about you,” Courtney was saying. “You don't seem to have any relation to any group or any background. It's almost as though when the lights came on full I found you on stage, in a careful pose, without any explanation of why you were there.”

He smiled. “What is this passion for categorization?”

“I'm curious, that's all.”

“Very well,” he said. “I shall tell you about myself. My father's family is from Boston, although he dislikes the fact as much as I. He is an architect, and when he finished college he went to study in Rome. My mother is from a vaguely aristocratic Italian family. After they were married they went to Florence, where I was born. I was sent to school in France as soon as possible, since my only talent as a child was disrupting my parent's lives, and I suppose I was rather a bore. I ran away from school at seventeen and became a steeplechase jockey. I've always liked to risk my life,” he added. “I really don't know why. Boredom, perhaps. In a few months I was broke, and I didn't like that, so I was reconciled with my family. I lived with them for a while in Florence, and when I was eighteen I came into my own money and fled to New York.”

“I'm not sure that I believe you,” said Courtney.

“That's your privilege. What I say is in substance true.” He shrugged. “I don't know why I feel prompted to tell you this much, but somehow I like to talk to you. You actually seem interested in me,” he said reflectively. “Perhaps that's why.”

“What are your parents like?”

“What is this, a cross-examination? Really, my dear, you must be careful or you will be a great
bore
. My parents are wealthy, of course. More of the money comes from their families than my father's work. Some land in Italy, and a great many excellent investments. That's what I live on. The parents are charming, well-educated people, and,” he added, “terribly busy. I was always sort of a nuisance to them, so I left as soon as possible. And that, Courtney, is as much as I care to tell you.”

Courtney studied him in silence. She had felt an ease and companionship in the easy morality which seemed to pervade Janet's group. With Anthony she sensed an amorality, a greater freedom from the criticism of society and the Catholicism which she had been born to and had betrayed. She envied him his ease, his ability to function, as she saw it, apart from society in his own foreign world, safe from the rejection which she had found whenever she tried to join society. She liked being with him; she was only a little ill at ease now.

“What thoughts could be so solemn?” Anthony asked with a smile.

“I was thinking about you,” she said.

“A very excellent occupation,” he said, “but it's not advisable to take me too seriously. I might have a corruptive effect on the mind of an innocent young girl like you.”

“Not so innocent,” Courtney smiled.

“No?” He appraised her leisurely and boldly. “How is your dinner?” he said abruptly.

“Oh, excellent,” she said. “And I like the wine.”

“Not so harsh as Scotch,” he smiled. “Not as coarse and abrupt. I do like subtlety,” he said looking at her steadily. “Americans tend to overlook the value of subtlety.” He was silent, and he did not take his eyes from hers.

“What would you like to do after dinner?” he said softly. “We will do anything you like.”

“Oh, I don't know. You make a suggestion.”

“We could go somewhere amusing for a drink,” he said. “I know some iniquitous little caves in the village. Or, if that doesn't appeal to you, one of those brightly lit, communal places where mirrors and heavy wood pass for elegance. Or, we could go back to the Pierre and have some wine brought to the room. Whatever you choose.”

She didn't really think before she answered him, it was almost as though the decision had been made when she didn't realize it, some time ago, in timelessness. In the back of her mind she thought, I don't need to be afraid. I refused him before, and he is not the sort to press the matter—there are too many women for him. I can handle him, and I would like to talk to him, and find out more about him. At the same time she was not really convinced of this, but somehow it didn't matter. There were no crises, no decisions, with Anthony. Everything just happened.

The question was raised so simply, as the cab took them to the Pierre. They were silent as they were driven along Park Avenue. Courtney was looking out the cab window, and thinking of that first day when she had looked out the cab at New York, so strange and unknown to her, and had wondered what the city would hold for her. She could never have imagined that it would hold Anthony, that she would be driving this same route with him. He was studying her in silence. He put his hand on her thigh. She didn't object to the gesture, it was only casual, not compromising.

“When did it happen?” he said softly.

“When I was sixteen,” she answered. Why did she tell him so easily, without hesitation?

“Sixteen,” he repeated. “How marvelous. Like the Greeks.”

Not so marvelous, she thought wryly. Not so romantic as all that. A little desperate, perhaps.

“How many?” he went on.

She was embarrassed. She didn't want to tell him that it was only one, that she was that young.

“That many?” He smiled.

“Oh, no,” she said hastily. “It isn't that, it isn't that I can't count them, or something.” Now she had blundered, but she didn't go on. She was so damned young.

He smiled, but he said nothing else. Nothing else needed to be said. It was decided so simply; there was no crisis.

It happened so simply; it happened so easily in the natural course of the evening. She still did not know how it happened, and she did not bother herself with the question of why it had happened, as she ran her hand languorously along her arm. She was conscious of his eyes upon her, watching her silently as he lay beside her. She looked around the bedroom of his suite, furnished in conventional hotel elegance. His white robe was tossed carelessly, like discarded virginity on the floor beside the bed. She lay back against the pillow. He got up and turned on the victrola. He put on a record of Bach, listened to it for a moment, then took off the record.

“No,” he said to himself. “Not Bach. My God, not Bach.”

He put on a record of Gregorian chants sung by Benedictine monks. He listened a moment and smiled.

“Yes,” he said. “That pleases me.” He turned to her. “If you will excuse me, darling, I shall take a cold shower.”

He returned, rubbing a towel across his shoulders.

“What a beautiful body,” she said.

“Of course,” he said. “It is immoral not to be beautiful.”

“Immoral?”

“Yes,” he smiled. “The morality of the body.”

“Pagan,” she said.

“Not necessarily.” He stood before the mirror, running a comb through his abundant black hair. “It is embodied in your Catholicism. You know,” he added, “I was born Catholic. Of course,” he went on, “the morality of the body was overshadowed by the monastic denial of the body—flagellation and abuse of it. But the theme still exists in Catholicism. Even in the fact that suicide is a mortal sin. Abuse of the body is discouraged. You see,” he said, “I have simply cut the head off religion. I cannot divorce myself from all of its teachings. I have simply rearranged those which I have salvaged. The morality of the body,” he repeated.

“In rearranging them, you have necessarily perverted them.”

“What is your preoccupation with perversion? Why do you insist that I am perverted in my view of life?”

“You are,” she said, suddenly angry. “You make love to yourself.”

“To myself?”

“Yes. You're not able to make love to another human being.”

He sat down beside her on the bed, his body young and graceful.

“Of course,” he said. “I can't love. You're very right.”

“I don't ask for love,” she said angrily. “I'm not talking about love. I'm talking about making love.”

“Then I don't know what you mean, angel.”

She ran her tongue along her lower lip. “I mean you're crippled. I mean you loathe yourself, and that makes everything backwards.”

“Oh, dear,” he said. “This isn't the way it should be at all. You should be lying back in marvelous ease, and all that. You certainly shouldn't be angry with me. No, this just isn't right.”

“You fancy yourself a lover,” she said.

He looked steadily at her, her body pale and lovely against the pillows.

“My dear Courtney, have you ever been beaten?”

“It's all a great farce, you know,” she continued. “A pose. You're incapable of living up to it. I imagine, invariably, you fail.”

The mask of composure left his face. He looked as though he had been struck.

“Why are you trying to hurt me?” he asked softly.

“Because there's the ugliness,” she said hopelessly, turning her face into the pillow. “The ugliness, the dead leaves, they've followed me. Because I can't escape them.”

His face was hurt and boyish as he looked at the girl. He put his hand on her softly molded shoulder. The body was so very young, and she was so very lost.

“It's not ugly,” he said quietly. “There's nothing ugly in it. Believe me. There's only beauty in making love. It may be the only beauty, and it may be of brief duration. But there is no ugliness.”

He took her hands in his.

“Get up a moment, Courtney. I want to show you something.”

She looked at him. His face was solemn and tender, and for the first time she trusted him. She got up and followed him to the side of the room. He took off his robe and let it drop on the floor.

“Look,” he said. “Look into the mirror.”

“No.” She buried her head in his shoulder. “No, I don't want to. Don't make me look.”

He put his hand on her back and ran his fingers along her neck.

“I said, look.” His voice was stern.

She turned obediently and looked into the mirror.

“What do you see?” he asked.

“I see myself. And I don't like what I see.”

“That's not what I see,” he said. “I see two beautiful young bodies. I see no ugliness in the mirror. It's a simple reflection, you know, and there is no ugliness in the reflection.”

He put his arm around her and led her hack to the bed. She put her head against his chest and he held her to him.

“Poor darling,” he said. “Poor, moral child.”

She smiled to herself.

“You know, I didn't undertand you when I met you. Now I understand a little. You dislike yourself so.”

“I do dislike myself,” he said. “And you were right when you accused me of being crippled. It is impossible for me to love, because I don't love myself. You know,” he said thoughtfully, “I can ride a horse at top sped over a dangerous course, and not be afraid. But being alone at night, and in the dark, terrifies me.”

“I have to go soon,” she said. “And I'll be frightened when I go, because I betrayed myself again, and I know I can't trust myself. For a little while, I thought I could. Then I met you, and I wanted you, because I thought you had a secret world, a world without ugliness, that you could take me into. But you don't, and I was wrong.”

“We'll have some wine,” he said. “And promise me you'll forget the ugliness for a little while. You know, as long as you remember the ugliness, you might as well live in oblivion, because there's nothing for you in life. The ugliness is everywhere, and you just have to overlook it.”

“Someone else said that to me once,” she said.

“It's quite right,” he said. “And you have to face that truth before you can live with yourself even for a short time. Otherwise you will be in constant search of escape.”

“I know,” she said quietly.

He got up and poured the wine. He handed her a glass.

“That's what I love about Janet,” he went on. “She has no compunction. She is totally unable to love,” he added. “You, even though you are her closest friend, couldn't know that. I am in a position to realize it. Nonetheless, even if she is conscious of ugliness, even if she dislikes herself, she never lets any one know it. She is perpetually gay, she visits her unhappiness or dissatisfaction upon no one. That wretched home she has. The group of boys she goes out with, who laugh behind her back at what an easy lay she is, while she thinks she has found in them a respite from a loveless home.”

“I probably shouldn't have said all this to you,” Courtney said soberly. “I suppose I had no right to let you know, and to hurt you because I was unhappy with myself.”

“No, darling, that isn't what I meant. You and I talk to each other, even a little. She talks to no one. I don't even think she talks to you.”

Courtney shook her head.

“And she certainly doesn't talk to her lovers. I would make a prediction, with absolute certainty, that within a year she will have a serious nervous breakdown.”

“Janet?” Courtney smiled. “No, not Janet. She's so terribly gay and courageous. She has life a little under control.”

“Well, that is only my unprofessional prediction. Nonetheless, we were talking about you. I want to see you tomorrow. If I could help it, I wouldn't let you go now. I may not have much to give you, but I don't want you to be alone when you're feeling like this. I feel vaguely responsible.”