The Swans of Fifth Avenue(82)
But were she and Truman as close as before?
Babe would have answered yes, unhesitatingly. Truman would have declared, “Of course we are, I love Babe more than anyone in the world, she’s my dearest, dearest friend!” But it was an affirmation based on the past, not the present. The present wasn’t recognizable or palatable to either of them; she was too ill, he was too self-destructive. Like so many, they chose not to recognize themselves in the mirror, but in old photographs, scrapbooks, shared memories.
That summer of 1975 was one of relative peace. Saigon had fallen in April, so the war was over. Nixon had been gone almost a year. Already people were talking about the Bicentennial; the swans were on numerous committees charged with planning the upcoming galas.
Slim had divorced her dull English lord, had absolutely no money, but still managed to enjoy life, peering at it through her ridiculous, outsized glasses, living in hotels and at friends’ country homes and yachts. All her friends were sympathetic, although one time Babe shocked Truman by saying, “Slim really never made it, did she?” And Truman knew exactly what she meant; Slim had wasted her assets, never really married well—or, rather, wasn’t quite able to stay married well—and now she was in her sixties, firmly in the “kooky aunt” category, sad to say.
Marella and Gianni were still married; Marella had pulled away from Truman, ever so slightly, in recent years, cloaking herself in her princess robes, no longer inviting him to stay or dine. So, of course, he told anyone who would listen all about Gianni’s affairs with Italian starlets. He didn’t even bother to see if this was true or not; he just told everyone it was. And people simply lapped it up! Same way they lapped up what he’d started saying about Ann Woodward, that sow, who still hung around at the tattered edges of his world, popping up, soused to the gills, at parties now and then. He’d started telling people that she’d been married before Billy, poor dead Billy, and so she was a bigamist as well as a murderess.
Well, it might have been true! And it just made the whole thing more interesting—really, nobody cared any longer that the woman had gotten away with murder—and served Ann right; he’d never forgiven her for calling him a “garden-variety fag” all those years ago.
Gloria and Loel still did enjoy their Truman, when he wasn’t drunk or stoned or carting around some dock boy. Which meant—they really didn’t enjoy him at all, but then, neither did he enjoy them. God, they were becoming tedious, Loel looked like he’d been pickled in brine, and Gloria was so obsessed with her fading looks that she wouldn’t even come out of her bedroom before three in the afternoon, when the light was best.
C.Z. was as ever: irreverent, yet surprisingly prissy at times unless Truman called her on it—“Oh, dear, it’s Miss Boston Brahmin again. Or has she forgotten she has a nude Diego Rivera of herself hanging over the basement bar?” She—like Babe—professed to worry about him, but then she’d forget about him as soon as he left; she’d go off and write another gardening book or smell a horse, and put him completely out of her mind. But she always welcomed him with her sunny smile the next time they met.
Lady Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward was now Mrs. Averell Harriman—Christ on a cracker, Harriman was old, older than Methuselah, but he had so much money!—and had reinvented herself once more. Now she was a Washington hostess, the queen Democrat with Republican tastes. She claimed she did not own a “television machine,” and so she regretfully missed a lot of Truman’s more delightful appearances. Although she was still happy to include Truman in her fund-raising dinners and parties, if he promised to behave himself. Sometimes he did.
Old habits die hard. Particularly among the wealthy.
And the storytellers, gossips, and snakes.
After “Mojave” was published, Esquire begged Truman for more. And more was what they got.
“What do you think of this? Isn’t it just delicious? Brilliant in every way?” And Truman handed the piece to Jack. Dear, unsuccessful, bitter Jack; he still loved him, always would, even if Jack could barely stand to look at him these days when he was foggy and bloated with drink from ten in the morning on. But still, the two of them could never really sever the tie. And they still trusted each other’s opinion.
“Truman,” Jack had said, aghast, after he’d read the story. “Are you sure about this?”
“What do you mean? Isn’t it good?” Truman, reclining on a rubber raft in a pool, dabbled a pudgy red hand in the cool water. He was on his fifth “glass of sunshine”—a tumbler of vodka with a splash of orange juice.
“To be frank, no, it’s not. Not your best work, my boy.”
“I know someone who’s j-e-a-l-o-u-s,” Truman sang, splashing the water after each letter.
“You know that’s not true. No, it is. It is true. I’ve always been jealous.” Jack met Truman’s triumphant gaze head-on, not flinching. “And you know that. You also know that I’ve never let my jealousy cloud my professional admiration of your work.”
Truman pursed his mouth, took another sip of vodka. “I know,” was all he said.
“But this isn’t very good. And that’s not even the most disturbing thing. Truman, don’t you think they’ll all be upset? All your goddamned swans? The Paleys, especially? Won’t they be furious?”