The Designer(91)

‘Hello, Amory.’

‘Hello, Copper.’ He closed the notebook. ‘I guess it’s too much to hope that you’ve smuggled in a bottle of rye,’ he said when the nurse had left.

‘Only this.’ She handed him the book she had bought him at Shakespeare and Company, the English bookstore in Paris. ‘It’s the latest Steinbeck.’

‘Cannery Row. Another saga of hobos and idiots?’

‘I thought it was very good.’

He laid it aside. ‘I’ll give it a try.’

‘Amory, what have you done to yourself?’

‘I tried to blow my brains out, but I guess my hand was shaking too much. I removed the top of my skull instead. They’ve patched me up with a metal plate.’

‘Oh, God.’

‘You might think the operation would have let a little light in,’ he went on, ‘but that doesn’t seem to have been the case. Which is why they’ve dragged you here. You’re supposed to talk some sense into me. Please accept my apologies for spoiling your Saturday morning.’

‘Don’t say that. I wish I could help.’

They looked at one another. The gaze of those violet eyes was disconcerting rather than intoxicating now, the clear left one fixed on her intently, the bloodshot right eye wandering into the distance. She wondered if he had lost the sight in it.

‘I should never have married you,’ he said.

She grimaced. ‘Are you blaming me for this?’

‘Ultimately, yes.’

‘And you don’t think any of it is your fault?’

‘Oh, I do. And I’ve tried to administer a suitable punishment. It hasn’t worked very well. But don’t worry, I’ll do better next time. Third time lucky, they say.’

Copper rose to her feet. ‘If you’ve asked me here just to tell me you intend to kill yourself, I have better things to do.’

Unexpectedly, he gave her a lopsided smile. ‘See, now, that’s what I’m talking about. You always do that to me.’

‘What do I do to you, Amory?’

‘Make me feel foolish. Like a silly little boy throwing a tantrum. Sit down, honey.’

‘I never wanted to make you feel foolish,’ Copper said, sitting back down again.

‘But you did, right from the start. You were always more grown-up than me. More of an adult. Better at everything.’

‘I never said I was better.’

‘You didn’t have to. It was painfully obvious. I was pretending, but you were the real deal. Hell, you’re even a better writer than I am.’

‘That’s not true.’

He drummed his fingers on the notebook. ‘Know what used to burn me up? The way you took over from George. He’d just hand everything to you, and you’d do it effortlessly, like it was nothing. With your high school education.’

‘You know I had to save his bacon.’

‘You didn’t have to do it so damned well. I couldn’t stand you constantly showing me you were better than me.’

‘I didn’t know it was a competition.’

‘It wasn’t. You were way ahead of me from the start.’

‘Why are you telling me all this now?’

‘Because I’ve decided to be honest, if nothing else in my life. You made me see that I was a fraud. That’s why I had to hurt you.’

‘Are you still making excuses for your infidelities? You don’t have to anymore. They’re irrelevant.’

‘I’m not making excuses. It’s the truth. I tried to break your spirit.’

‘Well, you almost succeeded,’ she said.

‘You flatter me,’ he said dryly. ‘I never came close. I slept with every woman who came near me. It made you stop loving me, but it didn’t break you. You know what the problem was? I loved you.’ He paused. ‘I still do.’

This was a line of talk that she emphatically did not want to pursue. ‘A long time has passed, Amory.’

‘A long time,’ he agreed, nodding his bandaged head slowly. ‘After Brussels, I started work on my article again. I still thought the reason I had the breakdown was the horror I was witnessing. It wasn’t. It was the realisation that I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t up to the job. It was too big for me. I didn’t have the strength and I didn’t have the talent.’

‘I always had faith in your talent.’

‘Ah, the burden of that faith,’ he replied ironically. ‘We should never have come to France. My father offered me a job in the bank. But I wanted to spread my wings. All the way through college, they all told me how wonderful I was. The girls, the professors, you. It took marriage to you to show me that I wasn’t a genius.’

‘Because you claim I made you feel inferior?’

‘The term the shrinks use is “emasculated”.’

Despite her compassion for him, she felt anger burn inside her. ‘I never tried to emasculate you. I did everything I could to support you and encourage you.’

Amory’s gaunt face twisted in that crooked grin again. ‘You always had a temper to go with that flaming red hair.’

‘And you always had an excuse for everything you did wrong,’ she said bluntly. ‘I’m not going to sit here and listen to you put the blame on me for everything that’s gone wrong in your life. You made me very unhappy. The fact that you made yourself miserable in the process isn’t my fault. You want my advice, Amory? Go back to the States and take that job in the bank. It’s not too late.’