The Swans of Fifth Avenue(86)

He looked down at his knees; they were knocking, hitting each other, and he thought, How odd. Then he plopped down on a chair, licked his lips, and reached for the ever-present vodka.

Then he bit his lip. He rubbed his forehead, which had begun to throb. He picked up the telephone. He began to dial. And dial. And dial.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Agnelli is out.”

“I’m sorry, Lady Keith is unavailable.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Guinness is away.”

“I’m afraid Mrs. Harriman isn’t in.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Paley is resting.”

He hung up, drank more, watched the clock; concentrated on the second hand, ticking away steadily, and he decided to take a small sip of vodka with every tick, until he grew dizzy and gave it up. But an hour had gone by, and so he dialed again.

“No, Mrs. Agnelli is still away.”

“No, Lady Keith is not available.”

“No, Mrs. Guinness is still out.”

“No, Mrs. Harriman isn’t in yet.”

“No, Mrs. Paley is still resting.”

Two more hours; two more tumblers of vodka, no ice, and Truman was now shaking from head to toe, his chest constricting, tightening, so that he felt his face growing more and more purple, he knew it, even if he didn’t look in a mirror. He imagined himself this violet, pulsating monster, and then he took another drink and dialed again.

“Mrs. Agnelli asks that you please stop calling.”

“Lady Keith says to tell you to go to hell.”

“Mrs. Guinness has requested that you no longer call.”

“Mrs. Harriman would like you to stop phoning.”

“Mrs. Paley is—is no longer taking your calls.”

And that’s when Truman began to cry; he rolled off the chair, threw himself on the carpet, threw himself a tantrum that splashed over him like a hallucination from his childhood, drowning him with its force, and he was alone again, all alone in the dark, and the door was locked and Mama was gone, and when would she be coming back? What if she never came back? What if he died here, alone?

And then he vomited into the thick shag carpet of the tacky Beverly Hills apartment he had rented; his stomach spasmed, his throat burned as he puked vile, pink-tinged liquid all over the white carpet, and soon his face was covered in his bile, and he started to roll around in it, slathering himself with shame.

And then he passed out.





CHAPTER 20


…..

OCTOBER 17, 1975, NEW YORK





Earlier that morning, Babe put the magazine down. Or, rather, it slipped from her trembling fingers, falling to the carpeted floor.

Her mouth was dry, her body shaking. She had the curious feeling of falling, even though she was sitting up, straight-backed in an armchair. She gazed down at her feet; they were solidly on the ground. But still the room seemed to loom up at her, and she felt herself being weighed down by gravity so palpable she could see its mist.

When she’d heard the whispers about Ann last week—that she’d swallowed cyanide pills—she hadn’t believed them. Even when Elsie told Slim, at the wake, “Well, Ann killed Billy, and now Truman killed Ann. So I guess that’s that”—still, Babe hadn’t believed it.

That a woman, even tattered, self-destructive Ann Woodward, would kill herself simply because of a story? A story written by Truman? Babe couldn’t comprehend it. For Truman wrote fiction, or serious nonfiction, like In Cold Blood. Why on earth would Ann Woodward kill herself over something he’d written?

Babe understood now. She understood humiliation and betrayal, as well, but these were familiar to her.

What was unfamiliar—unbelievable—was that Truman could be the one to humiliate and betray.

She sat for a long while, her ears ringing with the whispers of all New York outside her window. Finally she sipped some water, until she felt she could speak in a normal tone. She would not allow her voice to quaver; she would not dissolve into tears. She was Barbara Cushing Mortimer Paley—her mother’s daughter, after all. When she finally felt composure settle over her like a silk shawl, she picked up the phone.

“Slim? Slim, have you read the new issue of Esquire? And Truman’s story?”

“No.” Slim sounded sleepy, and Babe realized it was rather early in the day. But first thing this morning, after another restless, sleepless night, she’d had an urgent need to read the story, and so she’d asked her maid to go out and buy an issue, hot off the newsstand.

Odd, she had thought at the time, that Truman hadn’t sent a copy himself, as he always did. But then, he was away in California, preparing to make a cameo in a movie. Absurd, to think of it—Truman in a movie! But then so many things were absurd these days.

“Slim, go out right now and buy it. Then read it and call me. Call me right away.”

“Babe, are you all right?”

“Just do as I said.”

Babe hung up the phone, bit her lip, reached down for the magazine, and read the thing again. It was not easy to read; she grimaced through it as she’d never grimaced through the carnage of In Cold Blood. The Clutter family’s gruesome wounds had nothing on what was dripping from the pages of Truman’s latest—story.

And the thing was—oh, the damnable thing was—Babe could hear Truman’s voice in every word. Absolutely in every word, phrase, inflection. As if he were seated at her dinner table, or they were gathered around the terrace of Round Hill, or the two of them were curled up with Slim in a private cove in the garden at Kiluna with a thermos of martinis snuck out of the house, laughing like naughty schoolchildren. Always listening to Truman talk and talk and talk, outrageous, hysterical, but just to them. Only to them.