The Secret History - Donna Tartt [68]
I read Greek till midnight. After I’d brushed my teeth and washed my face and was almost ready for bed, I went downstairs and called again. Still no answer anywhere. I got my quarter back after the third call and tossed it up in the air. Then, on a whim, I called Francis’s number in the country.
There was no answer there, either, but something made me hold the line longer than I should have and finally, after about thirty rings, there was a click and Francis said gruffly into the receiver, “Hullo?” He was making his voice deep in an attempt to disguise it but he didn’t fool me; he couldn’t bear to leave a phone unanswered, and I had heard him use that silly voice more than once before.
“Hullo?” he said again, and the forced deepness of his voice broke into a quaver at the end. I pressed the receiver hook and heard the line go dead.
I was tired but I couldn’t sleep; my irritation and perplexity were growing stronger, kept in motion by a ridiculous sense of unease. I turned on the lights and looked through my books until I found a Raymond Chandler novel I had brought from home. I had read it before, and thought that a page or two would put me to sleep, but I had forgotten most of the plot and before I knew it I’d read fifty pages, then a hundred.
Several hours passed and I was wide awake. The radiators were on full blast and the air in my room was hot and dry. I began to feel thirsty. I read until the end of a chapter, and then I got up and put my coat on over my pajamas and went to get a Coke.
Commons was spotless and deserted. Everything smelled of fresh paint. I walked through the laundry room—pristine, brightly lit, its creamy walls alien without the tangle of graffiti which had accumulated during the term before—and bought a can of Coke from the phosphorescent bank of machines which hummed at the end of the hall.
Walking around the other way, I was startled to hear a hollow, tinny music coming from the common rooms. The television was on; Laurel and Hardy, obscured by a blizzard of electronic snow, were trying to move a grand piano up a great many flights of stairs. At first I thought they were playing to an empty room, but then I noticed the top of a shaggy blond head, lolling against the back of the lone couch that faced the set.
I walked over and sat down. “Bunny,” I said. “How are you?”
He looked over at me, eyes glazed, and it took him a second or two to recognize me. He stank of liquor. “Dickie boy,” he said thickly. “Yes.”
“What are you doing?”
He burped. “Feeling pretty sick, to tell you the God’s honest truth.”
“Drink too much?”
“Naah,” he said crossly. “Stomach flu.”
Poor Bunny. He never would own up to being drunk; he’d always say he had a headache or needed to get the prescription for his glasses readjusted. He was like that about a lot of things, actually. One morning after he’d had a date with Marion, he showed up at breakfast with his tray full of milk and sugar doughnuts and when he sat down I saw that there was a big purple hickey on his neck above the collar. “How’d you get that, Bun?” I asked him. I was only joking, but he was very offended. “Fell down some stairs,” he said brusquely, and ate his doughnuts in silence.
I played along with the stomach-flu ruse. “Maybe it’s something you picked up overseas,” I said.
“Maybe.”
“Been to the infirmary?”
“Nope. Nothing they can do. Got to let it run its course. Better not sit so close to me, old man.”
Though I was all the way at the opposite end of the couch, I shifted down even further. We sat looking at the television for a while without saying anything. The reception was terrible. Ollie had just pushed Stan’s hat down over his eyes; Stan was wandering in circles, bumping into things, tugging desperately at the brim with both hands. He ran into Ollie and Ollie smacked him on the head with the heel of his palm. Glancing over at Bunny, I saw that he was gripped by this. His gaze was fixed and his mouth slightly open.
“Bunny,” I said.
“Yeah?” he said without looking away.