The Comedy is Finished (26 page)

“I shall. Good night, Lynsey. Don’t fret; there’s nothing to be done anyway.”

“That’s the worst of it,” Lynsey told him. She found herself for some reason less irritated by Barry than the other two. “I keep
needing
to do something.”

“Thus, one frets. Yes, I see. Well, try not to overfret yourself, then,” Barry said, with a faint hint of grin which made him look
for an absurd instant like Boris Karloff; then he nodded to his mother and Lynsey, no longer Karloff at all, and departed.

Lynsey had no choice; she
had
to fret too much. She said to Lily, “Even if what you say were true, and I don’t believe it for an instant, but even if it were, what’s the point
saying
such things?”

With another shrug, Lily said, “For that matter, what’s the point saying most things? Communication is almost always an option, Lynsey.”

Lynsey studied the older woman. “Are you suggesting I shut up, Lily?”

“Not at all. But you probably ought to give more consideration to the difference between us. I mean, the differences in our relationship with Koo.”

“You’re his wife and I’m his agent.”

“Oh, those words don’t mean anything, Lynsey,
you
know that. The difference is, you love him and I don’t.”

Lynsey found herself blushing to the roots of her hair. Displeased by such a reaction at her age—she was not, after all, some tremulous teenager—she said, angrily, “And did you
never
love him?

“I don’t remember,” Lily said, cool as ever. “Someone who once wore my name loved someone who once wore his. But it was unrequited and died, as such loves do. Except Dante, of course, but I’ve never been that sort of masochist. Or any sort of masochist. That was probably what went wrong with the marriage. But I shall not,” she went on, as Frank returned to the room with a tray containing three drinks, “give you the sordid details of my marriage in its active phase, even if I remembered them. You may merely assume that Koo and I had adequate reasons for living apart these last forty years.”

“Not quite that long, Mom,” Frank said, as though gallantly, giving her the flute glass of sherry.

“I can’t be bothered to keep trace of such an anniversary,” Lily said, with evident disgust.

“You came out here to see him die,” Lynsey accused, looking at Lily past Frank, who was offering her the Scotch and soda. “You hate him and you
want
him to die.” Distracted, she took the drink from Frank’s hand.

“I don’t
want
anything, where Koo is concerned,” Lily said. “Desire ceased a long long time ago.”

Frank having distributed the glasses raised his own, said, “Salud,” and drank. Then, smiling at Lynsey, he said, “Mom won’t defend herself, but believe me Lynsey, this thing was as much a shock to her as to anybody else.”

“Where Koo Davis is concerned,” Lily said, “I am one with the public. I would be distressed if he were killed. Surely you don’t expect from me anything more intimate than that? My relationship with the man is hardly as personal as yours.”

Which was the second reference to that subject; this time Lynsey answered it: “I’m not Koo’s mistress, if that’s what you mean. You know I’m not his type.”

“You mean those overblown blondes,” Lily said, with a faint smile. “Oddly enough, I was rather the type myself as a girl; without the cheapness, of course. But don’t tell me Koo
never
took you to bed; it’s not like him to pass up an opportunity.”

This time Lynsey managed to keep from reddening only by threatening her body with immediate self-destruction. Nevertheless, the three times—early in their business relationship, when she was still Max Berry’s assistant and Max was Koo’s agent—that she had spent the night with Koo still burned behind her eyes. Could Lily gaze at her with her own cool eyes and see the flames? Lynsey blinked, turning her face away, sipping in confusion at her Scotch and soda, only too late realizing that these gestures too admitted the truth.

Frank said, cheerfully, “Oh, there’s so much fuss all the time about who’s going to bed with whom. What does it matter? It plagues us in television, let me tell you, on
and
off the screen. After a while you just don’t care anymore.”

Lynsey understood that Frank was trying to ease her past this awkward moment, but though she was grateful she also knew that his assistance was really automatic; Frank went through life making the best of things, easing the rough spots for everybody else because he wanted no rough spots for himself. Television was the ideal arena for his talents, his capacity to take the blandest route to any goal. She said, looking at Frank but actually speaking to Lily, “The important thing now is that we care what happens to Koo. It doesn’t matter if we can
do
anything or not, it doesn’t even matter what Koo might have done wrong in the past. The point is that we
care
about him
now
.”

Lily, with a kind of amused wonder, said, “Lynsey, I’ve always admired you, I think you know that. If Koo can arouse such tremendous loyalty from a person like you, there must be more to the man than I’ve given him credit for. I suppose my vision is still colored, even after all these years.”

This combination of sincerity, condescension and naked self-analysis was too complex for Lynsey to encompass. She could only fall back to a safe position: “Whatever he’s done, Koo doesn’t deserve what’s happening to him now.”

With only the slightest hesitation Lily nodded, saying, “I agree.”

“The poor guy,” Frank said, and for once his smile seemed actually clouded. “It must be rough on him. All we can do is hope the FBI can get him out of there.”

Looking at Frank, Lynsey thought with some surprise,
Koo never was his father, his or Barry’s. The marriage broke up too early. Naturally the boys aren’t responding the way I’d expect. How
complicated and melancholy this must be for them, having to hope for the return of a father who had never been there in the first place.
Turning her head to glance at Lily, she wondered who had taken the father’s role with these boys.
Was
there a father? Had this straitjacketed woman ever taken lovers?

Lily heaved herself out of the chair, saying, “We should dine. I come from a background where even at funerals one eats.” With a meaningful look at Lynsey she added, “And this isn’t a funeral.”

The knocking at the door woke Larry from a light doze; when he opened his eyes in the mirrored room he thought he was still asleep, in a dream, and that he had nothing to do but passively observe. But the knock was repeated, more insistently, and he sat up, groaning. He’d fallen asleep in one of the armchairs, in an awkward position, and was now stiff and sore.

He looked over at the bed, where Koo slept on, under the fur throw with which Larry had covered him. Poor man, he was still weak from his illness and kept nodding off. Larry pushed himself out of the chair and crossed the room to unlock the door, wanting to get it open before the knocking disturbed Koo’s rest. But then, remembering Koo’s terror, he hesitated with his hand on the knob, and when he did open the door, just a few inches, he kept both hands on it and his left foot braced against it, so he could slam it again if the person outside were Mark.

But it was Joyce’s worried face that peered at him through the crack. “Larry,” she said. “I have to talk to you. Come out of there. Why are you staying in there all the time?”

“Ssshhh. Koo’s asleep.”

“Come
out
.”

So he stepped through, closing the door behind himself, standing close with Joyce in the small areaway at the head of the stairs. The house was designed with most of the living quarters downstairs, at the rear for the ocean view, leaving the double garage and the utility room at the featureless windowless front, facing the Pacific
Coast Highway. The bedroom in which they’d put Koo was over the garage, with another suite of rooms behind it, facing the ocean, opening onto a large deck built on the roof over the living room.

Her voice low and hurried, Joyce said, “Did you watch it?”

“I don’t understand,” Larry said. “How could they all...give up like that?”

“You should talk with Peter. He’s closed himself in downstairs with that man Ginger, I don’t know what’s going to happen.” Looking over her shoulder at the stairs extending downward, she said, “I don’t like Ginger. I don’t trust him.”

“He’s all right. He just didn’t expect to be dragged into this, that’s all.”

“Go talk to Peter, Larry. Find out what he wants to do.”

“I can’t,” he said. “I promised Koo I’d stay with him.”

“For heaven’s sake, why?”

“He’s afraid of Mark, and I think he’s right.”

“Mark’s outside somewhere,” she said. “He didn’t even come in to watch the program.”

“He’s going crazy; Koo’s right. Also, I think there’s something else between them, some problem Koo won’t tell me about. He was going to tell me, but then that program came on and all he’d say was, ‘I’m done for now.’ ”

Joyce reached out to hold his forearm in both hands, looking up at him with an intensity he found disquieting. She said, “Larry, what’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s all gone wrong. Mark’s gone crazy, Liz just stays inside her shell down there—”

“The Eric Mallock thing; that must have been hard for her to take.”

“I’m afraid of what Peter and Ginger might decide together. That’s why I want you to go down there.”

“I can’t leave Koo.”

“Oh, it’s getting so hopeless. Maybe we should just let him go.”

“Peter wouldn’t agree, that’s one thing certain.”

She sagged forward against his chest, putting her arms around him, sighing, “Nothing’s going the way we thought.”

He stroked her hair, remembering this feel and smell of Joyce, surprised to realize how long it had been since they’d physically touched. “I know,” he said. “I know.”

“We aren’t a family anymore.” She was holding him tighter and tighter, burying her face in his chest, her words muffled. He felt the trembling of her shoulders beneath his hand. “We aren’t together anymore.”

“After this is over—” But there was no way to end that sentence; it had become impossible to think about life after this was over.

She raised her head, and he saw tears on her cheeks. “Make love to me,” she whispered.

He wanted to, suddenly, overpoweringly; she had to be aware of the physical manifestation. But he turned his head toward the closed door to Koo’s bedroom: “Where—”

“In here,” she whispered, leading him by the hand to the bedroom on the opposite side of the landing. “We’ll leave the door open, you’ll be able to see that door.”

The bedroom was in darkness, with the view of the ocean a kind of unfinished empty diorama seen through the wall of glass doors on the opposite side. Low massive furniture, indistinguishable in the dark, hulked like sleeping beasts on the wall-to-wall carpet. The room was large, muffled, quiet.

Larry wanted her achingly, demandingly, in waves of concupiscence; his hands trembled with the need of her. He’d been away
from active thoughts of sex for such a long long time, and now sexual desire was like a revelation. He touched her breasts through her clothing, the shape of her body exciting him further. “Take everything off.”

“Yes. Yes.”

They pulled off their clothing with great haste, but then stopped and looked at one another, smiling slowly together, like old acquaintances unexpectedly meeting, who learn they can still be friends. Joyce was surprisingly voluptuous naked, with a long-torsoed body and full breasts, mysterious in the dim indirect illumination from the small chandelier at the head of the stairs. Larry cupped the side of her right breast with his hand, touching the hard berry of nipple with the ball of his thumb. Her face was wide-eyed and solemn in the shadows. He pulled her close, kissing her, rubbing himself against her.

“Yes. Oh. Don’t hurt me.”

“Down,” he whispered.

He held her hand, helped her lower herself to the carpeted floor, then knelt between her legs. Memory now only increased the novelty of this desire; had she always been so serious, so grave, and yet so open and warm and pliant in her lovemaking? Penetrating her, he would have lowered onto her breast but she held him up with her forearms under his shoulders, whispering, “I want to see you.”

“Yes. Good.” The posture was awkward for him, hands splayed on the floor, but he maintained it. Below, their bodies moved together, rolling in the tidal motion, while their somber faces remained still. He watched her in wonder, the shadowed eyes, the soft smooth skin of her face, the parted lips, stray shards of light glinting from her moist teeth, her hair fanned on the carpet beneath her head and curling around her small ears. A door was opened in his mind,
and he saw that for all these years he had been in love with Joyce. In personal exclusive demanding love with one individual human being; as though nobody else existed. He had spent years denying it, refusing to distract himself from his concern with all of humanity, refusing to recognize the awful jealousy in the early days when she would go to bed with Peter or Mark or any of the others who were still with them then; and all this time had successfully hidden from himself the truth.

Years ago, in college, he had memorized a portion of Pope’s
An Essay on Man
, thinking it expressed his own beliefs better than he ever could, and only now understanding he had always misunderstood it. In a murmuring voice, slowly, in time with their lovemaking, he recited:

“Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, the proper study of mankind is man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, a being darkly wise, and rudely great: with too much knowledge for the skeptic side, with too much weakness for the stoic’s pride, he hangs between; in doubt to act or rest; in doubt to deem himself a god or beast; in doubt his mind or body to prefer; born but to die, and reasoning but to err; alike in ignorance, his reason such, whether he thinks too little or too much.”

“Don’t think,” she whispered, and the hint of a smile touched her lips in the semi-dark. “Larry, don’t think at all.”