The Secret History - Donna Tartt [96]
“I’d been worried before, but then I began to feel really afraid. Immediately we went off into a side street, and made our way home by a roundabout route—Bunny never did get his lunch that day, he almost drove me crazy—and I sat by the window until it got dark, telling Bunny to shut up and trying to think what to do. I didn’t think he knew exactly where we lived—otherwise, why roam around the piazza, why not come directly to our apartment if he had something to say? At any rate. We left our rooms pretty much in the middle of the night and checked into the Excelsior, which was fine with Bunny. Room service, you know. I watched quite anxiously for him the rest of my time in Rome—goodness, I dream about him still—but I never saw him again.”
“What do you suppose he wanted? Money?”
Henry shrugged. “Who knows. Unfortunately at that point I had very little money to give him. Bunny’s jaunts to the tailors and so forth had just about cleaned me out, and then having to move to this hotel—I didn’t care about the money, really I didn’t, but he was nearly driving me crazy. Never once was I alone. It was impossible to write a letter or even to make a telephone call without Bunny lurking somewhere in the background, arrectis auribus, trying to listen in. While I was having a bath, he’d go in my room and root through my things; I’d come out to find my clothes all wadded up in the bureau and crumbs in the pages of my notebooks. Everything I did made him suspicious.
“I stood it as long as I could but I was beginning to feel desperate and, frankly, rather unwell too. I knew that leaving him in Rome might be dangerous but it seemed every day that things got worse and eventually it became obvious that staying on was no solution. Already I knew that the four of us could under no circumstances go back to school as usual in the spring-though look at us now—and that we’d have to devise a plan, probably a rather Pyrrhic and unsatisfactory one. But I needed time, and quiet, and a few weeks’ grace period in the States if I was to do anything of the sort. So one night at the Excelsior when Bunny was drunk and sleeping soundly I packed my clothes—leaving him his ticket home and two thousand American dollars and no note—and took a taxi to the airport and got on the first plane home.”
“You left him two thousand dollars?” I said, aghast.
Henry shrugged. Francis shook his head and snorted. “That’s nothing,” he said.
I stared at them.
“Really, it is nothing,” said Henry mildly. “I can’t tell you how much that trip to Italy cost me. And my parents are generous, but they’re not that generous. I’ve never had to ask for money in my life until the last few months. As it is, my savings are virtually gone and I don’t know how much longer I can keep feeding them these stories about elaborate car repairs and so forth. I mean, I was prepared to be reasonable with Bunny, but he doesn’t seem to understand that after all I’m just a student on an allowance and not some bottomless well of money.… And the horrible thing is, I don’t see an end to it. I don’t know what would happen if my parents got disgusted and cut me off, which is extremely likely to happen at some point in the near future if things go on as they are.”
“He’s blackmailing you?”
Henry and Francis looked at each other.
“Well, not exactly,” said Francis.