I remember being in Henry's car, and lights and people bending over me, and having to sit up when I didn't want to, and I also remember someone trying to take my blood, and me complaining sort of feebly about it; but the first thing I remember with any clarity was sitting up and finding myself in a dim, white room, lying in a hospital bed with an IV in my arm.
Henry was sitting in a chair by my bed, reading by the table lamp. He put down his book when he saw me stir. 'Your cut wasn't serious,' he said. 'It was very clean and shallow. They gave you a few stitches.'
'Am I in the infirmary?'
'You're in Montpelier. I brought you to the hospital.'
'What's this IV for?'
'They say you have pneumonia. Would you like something to read?' he said courteously.
'No thank you. What time is it?'
'One in the morning.'
'But I thought you were in Rome.'
'I came back about two weeks ago. If you want to go back to sleep I'll call the nurse to give you a shot.'
'No thanks. Why haven't I seen you before now?'
'Because I didn't know where you lived. The only address I had for you was in care of the college. This afternoon I asked around at the offices. By the way,' he said, 'what's the name of the town where your parents live?'
'Piano. Why?'
'I thought you might want me to call them.'
'Don't bother,' I said, sinking back into my bed. The IV was like ice in my veins. 'Tell me about Rome.'
'All right,' he said, and he began to talk very quietly about the lovely Etruscan terracottas in the Villa Giulia, and the lily pools and the fountains in the nymphaeum outside it; about the Villa Borghese and the Colosseum, the view from the Palatine Hill early in the morning, and how beautiful the Baths of Caracalla must have been in Roman times, with the marbles and the libraries and the big circular calidarium, and the frigidarium, with its great empty pool, that was there even now, and probably a lot of other things besides but I don't remember because I fell asleep.
I was in the hospital for four nights. Henry stayed with me almost the whole time, bringing me sodas when I asked for them, and a razor and a toothbrush, and a pair of his own pajamas – silky Egyptian cotton, cream-colored and heavenly soft, with HMW (M for Marchbanks) embroidered in tiny scarlet letters on the pocket. He also brought me pencils and paper, for which I had little use but which The suppose he would have been lost without, and a great many books, half of which were in languages I couldn't read and the other half of which might as well have been. One night – head aching from Hegel -1 asked him to bring me a magazine; he looked rather startled, and when he came back it was with a trade journal (Pharmacology Update) he had found in the lounge. We talked hardly at all. Most of the time he read, with a concentration that astonished me; six hours at a stretch, scarcely glancing up. He paid me almost no attention.
But he stayed up with me on the bad nights, when I had a hard time breathing and my lungs hurt so I couldn't sleep; and once, when the nurse on duty was three hours late with my medicine, he followed her expressionless into the hall and there delivered, in his subdued monotone, such a tense and eloquent reprimand that the nurse (a contemptuous, hard-bitten woman, with dyed hair like an aging waitress, and a sour word for everyone) was somewhat mollified; and afterwards she – who ripped off the bandages around my IV with such callousness, and poked me black and blue in her desultory search for veins – was much gentler in her handling of me, and once, while taking my temperature, even called me 'hon.'
The emergency room doctor told me that Henry had saved my life. This was a dramatic and gratifying thing to hear – and one which I repeated to a number of people – but secretly I thought it was an exaggeration. In subsequent years, however, I've come to feel that he might well have been right. When I was younger I thought that I was immortal. And though I bounced back quickly, in a short-term sense, in another I never really quite got over that winter. I've had problems with my lungs ever since, and my bones ache at the slightest chill, and I catch cold easily now, whereas I never used to.
I told Henry what the doctor had said. He was displeased.
Frowning, he made some curt remark – actually, I'm surprised I've forgotten it, I was so embarrassed – and I never mentioned it again. I think he did save me, though. And someplace, if there is a place where lists are kept, and credit given, I am sure there is a gold star by his name.
But I am getting sentimental. Sometimes, when I think about these things, I do.
On Monday morning I was able to leave at last, with a bottle of antibiotics and an arm full of pinpricks. They insisted on pushing me to Henry's car in a wheelchair, though I was perfectly able to walk and humiliated at being rolled out like a parcel.
'Take me to the Catamount Motel,' 1 told him as we pulled into Hampden.
'No,' he said. 'You're coming to stay with me.'
Henry lived on the first floor of an old house on Water Street, in North Hampden, just around the block from Charles and Camilla's and closer to the river. He didn't like to have people over and I had been there only once, and then only for a minute or two. It was much larger than Charles and Camilla's apartment, and a good deal emptier. The rooms were big and anonymous, with wide-plank floors and no curtains on the windows and plaster walls painted white. The furniture, while obviously good, was scarred and plain and there wasn't much of it. The whole place had a ghostly, unoccupied look; and some of the rooms had nothing in them at all. I had been told by the twins that Henry disliked electric lights, and here and there I saw kerosene lamps in the windowsills.
His bedroom, where I was to stay, had been closed off rather pointedly during my previous visit. In it were Henry's books – not as many as you might think – and a single bed, and very little else, except a closet with a large, conspicuous padlock. Tacked on the closet door was a black and white picture from an old magazine – Life, it said, 1945. It was of Vivien Leigh and, surprisingly, a much younger Julian. They were at a cocktail party, I glasses in hand; he was whispering something in her ear, and she was laughing.
'Where was that taken?' I said.
'I don't know. Julian says he can't remember. Every now and then one runs across a photograph of him in an old magazine.'
'Why?'
'He used to know a lot of people.'
'Who?'
'Most of them are dead now.'
'Who?'
'I really don't know, Richard.' Then, relenting: 'I've seen pictures of him with the Sitwells. And The. S. Eliot. Also – there's rather a funny one of him with that actress – I can't remember her name. She's dead now.' He thought for a minute.
'She was blond,' he said. 'I think she was married to a baseball player.'
'Marilyn Monroe?'
'Maybe. It wasn't a very good picture. Only newsprint.'
Some time during the past three days, Henry had gone over and moved my things from Leo's. My suitcases stood at the foot of the bed.
'I don't want to take your bed, Henry,' I said. 'Where are you going to sleep?'
'One of the back rooms has a bed that folds out from the wall,' said Henry. 'I can't think what they're called. I've never slept in it before.'
'Then why don't you let me sleep there?'
'No. I am rather curious to see what it is like. Besides, I think it's good to change the place where one sleeps from time to time.
I believe it gives one more interesting dreams.'
I was only planning on spending a few days with Henry – I was back at work for Dr Roland the following Monday – but I ended up staying until school started again. I couldn't understand why Bunny had said he was hard to live with. He was the best roommate I've ever had, quiet and neat, and usually off in his own part of the house. Much of the time he was gone when I got home from work; he never told me where he went, and I never asked. But sometimes when I got home he would have made dinner – he wasn't a fancy cook like Francis and only made plain things, broiled chickens and baked potatoes, bachelor food – and we would sit at the card table in the kitchen and eat it and talk.
I had learned better by then than to pry into his affairs, but one night, when my curiosity had got the better of me, I asked him: 'Is Bunny still in Rome?'
It was several moments before he answered. 'I suppose so,' he said, putting down his fork. 'He was there when I left.'
'Why didn't he come back with you?'
'I don't think he wanted to leave. I'd paid the rent through February.'
'He stuck you with the rent?'
Henry took another bite of his food. 'Frankly,' he said, after he had chewed and swallowed, 'no matter what Bunny tells you to the contrary, he hasn't a cent and neither does his father.'
'I thought his parents were well off,' I said, jarred.
'I wouldn't say that,' said Henry calmly. 'They may have had money once, but if so they spent it long ago. That terrible house of theirs must have cost a fortune, and they make a big show of yacht clubs and country clubs and sending their sons to expensive schools, but that's got them in debt to the eyebrows. They may look wealthy, but they haven't a dime. I expect Mr Corcoran is about bankrupt.'
'Bunny seems to live pretty well.'
'Bunny's never had a cent of pocket money the entire time I've known him,' said Henry tartly. 'And he has expensive tastes.
That is unfortunate.'
We resumed eating in silence.
'If I were Mr Corcoran,' said Henry after a long while, 'I would have set Bunny up in business or had him learn a trade after high school. Bunny has no business being in college. He couldn't even read until he was about ten years old.'
'He draws well,' I said.
'I think so, too. He certainly has no gift for scholarship. They should've apprenticed him to a painter when he was young instead of sending him to all those expensive schools for learning disabilities.'
'He sent me a very good cartoon of you and he standing by a statue of Caesar Augustus.'
Henry made a sharp, exasperated sound. 'That was in the Vatican,' he said. 'All day long he made loud remarks about Dagos and Catholics.'
'At least he doesn't speak Italian.'
'He spoke it well enough to order the most expensive thing on the menu every time we went to a restaurant,' said Henry curtly, and I thought it wise to change the subject and did.
On the Saturday before school was to begin, I was lying on Henry's bed reading a book. Henry had been gone since before I woke up. Suddenly I heard a loud banging at the front door.
Thinking Henry had forgotten his key, I went to let him in.
It was Bunny. He was wearing sunglasses and – in contrast to the shapeless, tweedy rags he generally wore – a sharp and very new Italian suit. He had also gained about ten or twenty pounds.
He seemed surprised to see me.
'Well, hello there, Richard,' he said, shaking my hand heartily. 'Buenos dias. Good to see ya. Didn't see the car out front but just got into town and thought I'd stop by anyway. Where's the man of the house?'
'He's not home.'
'Then what are you doing? Breaking and entering?'
'I've been staying here for a while. I got your postcard.'
'Staying here?' he said, looking at me in a peculiar way. 'Why?'
I was surprised he didn't know. 'I was sick,' I said, and I explained a little of what had happened.
'Hmnpf,' said Bunny.
'Do you want some coffee?'
We walked through the bedroom to get to the kitchen. 'Looks like you've made quite a little home for yourself,' he said brusquely, looking at my belongings on the night table and my suitcases on the floor. 'American coffee all you have?'
'What do you mean? Folger's?'
'No espresso, I mean?'
'Oh. No. Sorry.'
Tm an espresso man myself,' he said expansively. 'Drank it all the time over in Italy. They have all kind of little places where you sit around and do that, you know.'
'I've heard.'
He took off his sunglasses and sat down at the table. 'You don't have anything decent in there to eat, do you?' he said, peering into the refrigerator as I opened the door to take out the cream. 'Haven't had my lunch yet.'
I opened the door wider so he could see.
'That cheese'll be all right,' he said.
I cut some bread and made him a cheese sandwich, as he showed no inclination of getting up and making anything himself.
Then I poured the coffee and sat down. 'Tell me about Rome,' I said.
'Gorgeous,' he said through his sandwich. 'Eternal City. Lots of art. Churches every which way.'
'What'd you see?'
'Tons of things. Hard to remember all the names now, you know. Was speaking the lingo like a native by the time I left.'
'Say something.'
He obliged, pinching his thumb and forefinger together and shaking them in the air for emphasis, like a French chef on a TV commercial.
'Sounds good,' I said. 'What does it mean?'
'Tt means "Waiter, bring me your local specialties,'" he said, going back to his sandwich.
I heard the slight sound of a key being turned in the lock and then I heard the door shut. Footsteps went quietly toward the other end of the apartment.
'Henry?' bellowed Bun. 'That you?'
The footsteps stopped. Then they came very rapidly towards the kitchen. When he got to the door he stood in it and stared down at Bunny, with no expression on his face. 'I thought that was you,' he said.
'Well, hello to you, too.' Bunny, his mouth full, reared back in his chair.