The Cold Calling

XIV

Norah picked up, sounding relieved. Said it was real thoughtful of Grayle to call and she would be only too happy to prise Lyndon out the tub before he cut his wrists.

Huh?

‘No, hey, listen, I’ll call back …’ Grayle yelled.

Knowing that if she put down the phone she’d do no such thing, that once the effect of the final half-bottle of California Flat had worn off she’d change her mind about this. But Norah had already gone and Grayle waited, biting her lip.

She found her voice also was shaking, when Lyndon McAffrey arrived on the line, sounding just as dry as usual, and she just said it, the words spurting out.

‘Lyndon, I’m going crazy. I have to quit.’

‘Uh huh.’

‘You’re surprised, right?’

Lyndon said, ‘Uh huh.’

‘See, I’m nearly thirty years old …’

‘Mm-mmm.’

‘And all I do is write about other people’s searches for answers to what it’s all about.’

‘I think that’s called journalism, Grayle.’

‘And I’ve been doing this going on four years now, the New Age column, and at first I felt it was, you know, really important, like in a kind of evangelical way. Making people aware of … of more. I have like tens of thousands of readers, and most of them write to me, and I used to reply to all of them, but now when the guy comes in hauling this huge sack, I’m like, Take it away, take it away. The whole thing is way out of control. I’m just not … not big enough. All these poor, perplexed people who obviously think I’m this major guru-person when really my life’s more screwed up than theirs, in most cases, and I’m just serving up spiritual junk food.’

‘This is your sister brought all this on, right?’

‘Well, I just wonder whether this whole thing’s like conveying a message to me, that I need to get away. Find … I don’t know … spiritual first base. That what I need to discover is not so much Ersula as me. Find out if there’s really anything underneath the shlocky facade, and … and if you say … if you say uh huh one more fucking time …’

Silence.

‘But you can, you know, say something.’

‘You know,’ Lyndon said, ‘I thought at first you were going to say it was because of me. That you couldn’t face life on the paper without someone to share nauseous doughnuts with.’ He chuckled mirthlessly. ‘Ah, how we overestimate our own status.’

‘Lyndon, what are we talking about here?’

‘I’m forced to conclude no-one on the Courier saw fit to inform you that our masters have formally requested my retirement.’

‘Whhaaat?’

The god-collar fell to the carpet.

‘Shouldn’t have been a surprise. I’m fifty-six years old. Couple days ago I was telling myself, Hell, Lyndon, you’re only fifty-six. I guess I was looking at it from the wrong end. Young guys been walking over me for years like there’s a white line down my back.’

‘Goddamn cult of youth. Oh, this makes me so mad, Lyndon. I’m so sorry.’

Lyndon found another arid chuckle. ‘The editor is thirty-eight. He thinks he’s already kind of old for the job. What he told me today, he said, Lyndon, I give myself five more years at the sharp end. So you see, Grayle, I am a fortunate man indeed to have survived so long.’

She was in tears. The column would have lasted about two weeks but for Lyndon. He’d pull off-the-wall snippets from the news mush, pass them on to Grayle who, in the early days, with only student and underground newspaper experience, was, frankly, floundering. Lyndon was a great newspaperman.

‘Of course, after more than a quarter of a century, the payoff, as you would guess, is considerable. We could retire to Florida, Norah and I. Play a little golf. Maybe edit the senior citizens’ community newsletter.’

‘Without you there … I wouldn’t want to stay anyway.’

‘You don’t need me any more. You’re established. Why, you’re almost … never figured I’d say this … almost a pro.’

‘That’s the kindest thing I ever heard you say to anybody. But even if I really was a pro, it would make no difference. It wouldn’t be the same paper.’

‘You know,’ Lyndon said, ‘I was just lying in the tub thinking, this is how a life goes. Leastways, the years between sunup and sundown. Just wish I’d realized twenty years ago that the higher you go the thinner the air gets. What I mean is, yesterday, I would have been trying to talk you out of this. Now … Well, nearly thirty … In the novelty-column department, you could be close to peaking, Grayle. Close to peaking. How important’s the money?’

‘The money never was important. Money just holds you down. I have enough to get by. I could always sublet the apartment.’

‘You plan to go find Ersula in her Neolithic sanctuary?’

‘I think we could talk now, for the first time, on something like level ground. I think we need to talk. Because, in some ways, she’s been the big sister. You know?’

‘You could take a vacation, do it that way.’

‘I may find Ersula in a couple weeks; finding myself could take a little longer. Holy Grayle carries a lot of excess baggage.’

‘You’ll go to England?’

‘Wherever.’

‘Beats Florida. Climate excepted.’

‘You won’t go to Florida, Lyndon. You will never go to Florida.’

‘That a firm psychic prediction, Grayle?’

The wine all gone. The decision made. A decision made, if truth be told, some while back.

She’d give in her notice tomorrow. Maybe she’d tell them it was a protest thing, about Lyndon McAffrey and the cult of youth. Holy Grayle was through with cults.

She’d have to tell the parents. Mom, who read the column avidly, would be sorry to see it go but she’d understand all the stuff about finding yourself, having found a whole new (and arguably monstrous) self at the age of fifty-eight. Dad, who hated the column and all it stood for but believed in the need for a firm career structure, would come on like she was one of his more valued students planning to drop out before next semester. If things became difficult she would have to show him Ersula’s letter, the whole bit.

He ought then to understand why she needed to be pulled out of this before she went as crazy as Grayle.

Grayle’s eyes began to prickle. It was as if Ersula was reaching out to her. As if, thousands of miles apart, they were seeking a common bond.

Automatically, she closed her eyes, pictured Ersula with her blond hair and her steady, watchful, almost cold blue eyes.

Slowing her breathing, reaching out for Ersula.

Nothing. It never did work, did it? Especially when your senses were swimming in stale wine.