The Secret History - Donna Tartt [164]
“You missed quite a time last night,” said Charles to me.
“So I hear.”
“Hugh’s wife showed us baby pictures for an hour and a half.”
“Yes, at least,” said Camilla. “And Henry drank a beer from a can.”
Silence.
“So what did you do,” Charles said.
“Nothing. Watched a movie on TV.”
They both perked up. “Oh, really? The thing about the planets colliding?”
“Mr. Corcoran had it on but somebody switched channels before it was over,” said Camilla.
“How’d it end?”
“What’s the last part you saw?”
“They were in the mountain laboratory. The young enthusiastic scientists had all ganged up on that cynical old scientist who didn’t want to help.”
I was explaining the dénouement when Cloke Rayburn abruptly shouldered through the crowd. I stopped talking, thinking he was headed for the twins and me, but instead he only nodded to us and walked up to Henry, who now was standing on the edge of the porch.
“Listen,” I heard him say. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you last night. I got hold of those guys in New York and Bunny hasn’t been there.”
Henry didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he said: “I thought you said you couldn’t get in touch with them.”
“Well, it’s possible, it’s just like a big headache. But they hadn’t seen him, anyway.”
“How do you know?”
“What?”
“I thought you said you couldn’t believe a word they said.”
He looked startled. “I did?”
“Yes.”
“Hey, listen to me,” said Cloke, taking off his sunglasses. His eyes were bloodshot and pouchy. “These guys are telling the truth. I didn’t think of this before—well, I guess it hasn’t been that long—but anyway, the story’s all over the New York papers. If they really did something to him, they wouldn’t be sticking around their apartment taking phone calls from me.… What is it, man?” he said nervously when Henry didn’t respond. “You didn’t say anything to anybody, did you?”
Henry made an indistinct noise in the back of his throat, which might have meant anything.
“What?”
“No one has asked,” said Henry.
There was no expression on his face. Cloke, his discomfiture evident, waited for him to continue. Finally, he put on his sunglasses again in a slightly defensive manner.
“Well,” he said. “Um. Okay, then. See you later.”
After he’d gone Francis turned to Henry, a bemused look on his face. “What on earth are you up to?” he said.
But Henry didn’t answer.
The day passed like a dream. Voices, dogs barking, the whap of a helicopter overhead. The wind was strong and the roar of it in the trees was like an ocean. The helicopter had been sent from the New York State Police headquarters in Albany; it had, we were told, a special infrared heat sensor. Someone had also volunteered something called an “ultra-light” aircraft which swooped overhead, barely clearing the tops of the trees. There were real ranks now, squadron leaders with bullhorns, we marched over the snowy hills wave upon wave.
Cornfields, pastures, knolls heavy with undergrowth. As we approached the base of the mountain the land took a downward slope. A thick fog lay in the valley below, a smoldering cauldron of white from which only the treetops protruded, stark and Dantesque. By degrees, we descended, and the world sank from view. Charles, beside me, stood out sharp and almost hyper-realistic with his ruddy cheeks and labored breaths but further down, Henry had become a wraith, his large form light and strangely insubstantial in the mist.
When the ground rose several hours later, we came up on the rear of another, smaller party. In it were some people I was surprised and somehow touched to see. There was Martin Hoffer, an old and distinguished composer on the music faculty; the middle-aged lady who checked IDs in the lunch line, looking inexplicably tragic in her plain cloth coat; Dr. Roland, the blares of his nose-blowing audible even at a distance.
“Look,” said Charles. “That’s not Julian, is it?”
“Where?”
“Surely not,” said Henry.
But it was. Rather characteristically, he pretended not to see us until we were so close it was impossible for him to ignore us any longer.