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When I came home to West Egg that night I was afraid for a moment that my house was on fire. Two o’clock and the whole corner of the peninsula was blazing with light, which fell unreal on the shrubbery and made thin elongating glints upon the roadside wires. Turning a corner, I saw that it was Haywood’s house, lit from tower to cellar.
At first I thought it was another party, a wild rout that had resolved itself into “hide-and-go-seek. But there wasn’t a sound. Only wind in the trees, which blew the wires and made the lights go off and on again as if the house had winked into the darkness. As my taxi groaned away I saw Ryan walking toward me across his lawn.
“Your place looks like the World’s Fair,” I said.
“Does it?” He turned his eyes toward it absently. “I have been glancing into some of the rooms. Let’s go to Coney Island, old sport. In my car. What do you say, Michael?”
“It’s too late.”
“Well, suppose we take a plunge in the swimming-pool? I haven’t made use of it all summer.”
“I’ve got to go to bed.”
“All right.” He waited, looking at me with suppressed eagerness.
“I talked with Mr. Ramsey,” I said after a moment. “I’m going to call up Gavin tomorrow and invite him over here to tea.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” he said carelessly. “I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”
“What day would suit you?”
“What day would suit you?” he corrected me quickly. “I don’t want to put you to any trouble, you see.”
“How about the day after tomorrow?” He considered for a moment. Then, with reluctance:
“I want to get the grass cut.” he said.
* * *
The evening had made me light-headed and happy; I think I walked into a deep sleep as I entered my front door. So I didn’t know whether or not Haywood went to Coney Island, or for how many hours he “glanced into rooms” while his house blazed gaudily on. I called up Gavin from the office next morning, and invited him to come for tea.
“Don’t bring Meg,” I warned him.
“What?”
“Don’t bring Meg.”
“Who is ‘Meg’?” he asked innocently.
The day agreed upon was pouring rain. At eleven o’clock a man in a raincoat, dragging a lawn-mower, tapped at my front door and said that Mr. Haywood had sent him over to cut my grass.
The flowers were unnecessary, for at two o’clock a greenhouse arrived from Ryan’s, with innumerable receptacles to contain it. An hour later the front door opened nervously, and Ryan, in a white flannel suit, silver shirt, and gold-colored tie, hurried in. He was pale, and there were dark signs of sleeplessness beneath his eyes.
“Is everything all right?” he asked immediately.
“The grass looks fine, if that’s what you mean.”
“What grass?” he inquired blankly. “Oh, the grass in the yard.” He looked out the window at it, but, judging from his expression, I don’t believe he saw a thing.
“Looks very good,” he remarked vaguely. “One of the papers said they thought the rain would stop about four. I think it was the Journal. Have you got everything you need in the shape of — of tea?”
I took him into the pantry. Together we scrutinized the twelve lemon cakes from the delicatessen shop.
“Will they do?” I asked.
“Of course, of course! They’re fine!” and he added hollowly, “ . . . old sport.”
The rain cooled about half-past three to a damp mist, through which occasional thin drops swam like dew. Ryan looked with vacant eyes through a copy of Clay’s Economics, and peering toward the bleared windows from time to time as if a series of invisible but alarming happenings were taking place outside. Finally he got up and informed me, in an uncertain voice, “I’m going home.”
“Why’s that?”
“Nobody’s coming to tea. It’s too late!” He looked at his watch as if there was some pressing demand on his time elsewhere. “I can’t wait all day.”
“Don’t be silly; it’s just two minutes to four.” I reassured.
He sat down miserably, as if I had pushed him, and simultaneously there was the sound of a motor turning into my lane. We both jumped up, and, a little harrowed myself, I went out into the yard.
Under the dripping bare lilac-trees a large open car was coming up the drive. It stopped. Gavin’s face, beneath his brown-blonde hair, looked out at me with a bright ecstatic smile.
“Is this absolutely where you live, Michael? Are you in love with me,” he said low in my ear, “or why did I have to come alone?”
“That’s the secret of Castle Michael. Tell your chauffeur to go far away and spend an hour.” I said to Gavin.
“Come back in an hour, Ferdie.”
“Does the gasoline affect his nose?” I asked to try to forget his question from earlier.
“I don’t think so,” he said innocently. “Why?”
We went in. To my overwhelming surprise the living-room was deserted.
“Well, that’s funny,” I exclaimed.
“What’s funny?” He asked.
He turned his head as there was a light dignified knocking at the front door. I went out and opened it. Ryan, pale as death, with his hands plunged like weights in his coat pockets, was standing in a puddle of water glaring tragically into my eyes.
With his hands still in his coat pockets he stalked by me into the hall, turned sharply as if he were on a wire, and disappeared into the living-room. It wasn’t a bit funny. Aware of the loud beating of my own heart I pulled the door to against the increasing rain.
For half a minute there wasn’t a sound. Then from the living-room I heard a sort of choking murmur and part of a laugh, followed by Gavin’s voice on a clear artificial note: “I certainly am awfully glad to see you again.”
A pause; it endured horribly. I had nothing to do in the hall, so I went into the room.
Ryan, his hands still in his pockets, was reclining against the mantelpiece in a forced boredom. His head leaned back so far that it rested against the face of a mantelpiece clock, and from this position his distraught eyes stared down at Gavin, who was sitting, frightened but peaceful, on the edge of a stiff chair.
“We’ve met before,” muttered Ryan. His eyes glanced momentarily at me, and his lips parted with an abortive attempt at a laugh. Luckily the clock took this moment to tilt dangerously at the pressure of his head, whereupon he turned and caught it with trembling fingers, and set it back in place. Then he sat down, rigidly, his elbow on the arm of the sofa and his chin in his hand.
“I’m sorry about the clock,” he said.
“It’s an old clock,” I told them idiotically. I think we all believed for a moment that it had smashed in pieces on the floor.
“We haven’t met for many years,” said Gavin, his voice as matter-of-fact as it could ever be.
“Five years next November.”
The automatic quality of Ryan’s answer set us all back at least another minute. I had them both on their feet with the desperate suggestion that they help me make tea in the kitchen.
Amid the welcome confusion of cups and cakes a certain physical decency established itself. Ryan got himself into a shadow and, while Gavin and I talked, looked conscientiously from one to the other of us with tense, unhappy eyes. However, as calmness wasn’t an end in itself, I made an excuse at the first possible moment, and got to my feet.
“Where are you going?” demanded Ryan in immediate alarm.
“I’ll be back.” I said reassuringly.
“I’ve got to speak to you about something before you go.”
He followed me wildly into the kitchen, closed the door, and whispered:
“Oh, God!” in a miserable way.
“What’s the matter?”
“This is a terrible mistake,” he said, shaking his head from side to side, “a terrible, terrible mistake.”
“You’re just embarrassed, that’s all. Gavin’s embarrassed too.”
“He’s embarrassed?” he repeated incredulously.
“Just as much as you are.”
“Shh! Don’t talk so loud.”
“You’re acting like a little boy,” I belted impatiently. “Not only that, but you’re rude. Gavin’s sitting in there all alone.”
He raised his hand to stop my words, looked at me with unforgettable reproach, and, opening the door cautiously, went back into the other room.
After an hour and a half had passed, I went in — after making every possible noise in the kitchen, short of pushing over the stove — but I don’t believe they heard a sound. They were sitting at either end of the couch, looking at each other as if some question had been asked, or was in the air, and every vestige of embarrassment was gone. Gavin’s face slightly red, as if from emotions, and when I came in he jumped. But there was a change in Ryan that was simply shocking. He literally glowed; without a word or a gesture of exultation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room.
“Oh, hello, old sport,” he said, as if he hadn’t seen me for years. I thought for a moment he was going to shake hands.
“It’s stopped raining.” I said.
“Has it?” When he realized what I was talking about, that there were twinkle-bells of sunshine in the room, he smiled like a weather man, like an ecstatic patron of recurrent light, and repeated the news to Gavin. “What do you think of that? It’s stopped raining.”
“I’m glad, Ry.” His throat, full of aching, told only of his unexpected joy.
“I want you and Gavin to come over to my house,” Ryan said, “I’d like to show him around.”
“You’re sure you want me to come?” I asked, not wanting to third-wheel too badly.
“Absolutely, old sport.”
* * *
“That huge place there?” Gavin asked pointing.
“Do you like it?” Ryan questioned.
“I love it, but I don’t see how you live there all alone…” Gavin responded.
“I keep it always full of interesting people, night and day. People who do interesting things. Celebrated people.”
We went up-stairs, through bedrooms swathed in rose and lavender silk and vivid with new flowers, through dressing-rooms and poolrooms, and bathrooms.
Finally we came to Ryan’s own apartment, a bedroom and a bath, and library, where we sat down and drank a glass of some Chartreuse he took from a cupboard in the wall.
He hadn’t once ceased looking at Gavin, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from Gavin’s admiration.
Ryan’s bedroom was the most basic out of all of his rooms, but Gavin still looked at it like it was a dream.
“It’s the funniest thing, old sport,” he said hilariously. “I can’t — When I try to ——”
He had passed visibly through two states and was entering upon a third. After his embarrassment and his unreasoning joy he was consumed with wonder at Gavin’s presence. He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity. Now, in the reaction, he was running down like an overwound clock.
Recovering himself in a minute he opened two hulking cabinets which held his suits and ties, and his shirts, piled like bricks in stacks a dozen high.
“I’ve got a man in California who buys me clothes. He sends over a selection of things at the beginning of each season, spring and fall!” Ryan shouted over to Gavin.
He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel, which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray. While we admired, he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher — shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange, and monograms of Indian blue. Suddenly, with a strained sound, Gavin bent his head into the shirts.
He cried; his voice muffled in the thick folds.
“What’s wrong, Gav?” Ryan asked him when he wrapped his arm around him.
Gavin lifted his head, “It makes me sad…because I’ve never seen such — such beautiful shirts before.”
Ryan took a deep breath and brought Gavin’s head closer to his chest.
We all know Gavin was sad because he didn’t keep Ryan when he had him.