The Comedy is Finished

24

Lily Davis pushed the Off button in the controls built into her chair arm, and across the room the television image collapsed inward to a descending point, then snuffed out. “They’ll kill him now,” she said, and pushed another button, which caused the wall panel to descend, hiding the built-in TV set.

In this sitting room in the house in Beverly Glen were four people: Lily, her two sons, and Lynsey Rayne. When the drift of the program had become obvious, Lynsey had gotten to her feet and spent the rest of the time pacing up and down the long room, from its broad arched entranceway to the sliding glass doors closing out the flagstone patio and the floodlit lush jungle greenery on the slope beyond. Now she paused in lighting a new cigarette from the last, coming deeper into the room to exclaim, “Lily, how can you say that? How can you say such a thing?”

“Because it’s true.” Lily gave her a calm look.

Frank and Barry had been seated, not very close together, on the long gray sofa. Now Frank hopped to his feet, with that inanely cheerful smile he seemed unable to turn off, and as he rubbed his hands together like a fly grooming itself he beamed around at them all, saying, “I for one could use a drink. Barry?”

“I think not,” Barry said coolly, that evanescent trace of English accent clicking in his words. “It’s four in the morning, my time. Tomorrow morning. I’m afraid a drink would slaughter me.”

“The reason it’s true,” Lily went on, calm and indomitable, “is because they have been humiliated now. No one can bear to be humiliated; believe me, I know.”

The last phrase made no sense to Lynsey, who therefore first disbelieved and then forgot it, concentrating on Lily’s stated reason. “That isn’t necessarily true. When Patty—”

Frank called, “Mom? Drink?”

“A sherry might be nice, dear.”

“Lynsey?”

“No,” Lynsey said, irritably, annoyed at the distraction and enraged with them all for not being able to concentrate on what was happening to Koo. Then she said, “Wait, yes. Scotch, I suppose. And soda.”

“One Scotch and soda, one sherry.” Frank frisked up the two marble steps and through the archway.

Lynsey struggled back to her sentence: “Patty Hearst’s kidnappers were humiliated, too. That business with the free food program they demanded, it turned into a joke. They didn’t kill Patty Hearst.”

Lily shrugged. “She was one of them.”

“Oh, not really. Besides, this man said the government was still open to negotiation.”

“He could hardly say anything else.”

Yawning, Barry rose gracefully to his feet, saying, “I am exhausted. If there are further developments, do let me know.”

“Of course, dear,” Lily said. “Have a good rest.”

“I shall. Good night, Lynsey. Don’t fret; there’s nothing to be done anyway.”

“That’s the worst of it,” Lynsey told him. She found herself for some reason less irritated by Barry than the other two. “I keep needing to do something.”

“Thus, one frets. Yes, I see. Well, try not to overfret yourself, then,” Barry said, with a faint hint of grin which made him look for an absurd instant like Boris Karloff; then he nodded to his mother and Lynsey, no longer Karloff at all, and departed.

Lynsey had no choice; she had to fret too much. She said to Lily, “Even if what you say were true, and I don’t believe it for an instant, but even if it were, what’s the point saying such things?”

With another shrug, Lily said, “For that matter, what’s the point saying most things? Communication is almost always an option, Lynsey.”

Lynsey studied the older woman. “Are you suggesting I shut up, Lily?”

“Not at all. But you probably ought to give more consideration to the difference between us. I mean, the differences in our relationship with Koo.”

“You’re his wife and I’m his agent.”

“Oh, those words don’t mean anything, Lynsey, you know that. The difference is, you love him and I don’t.”

Lynsey found herself blushing to the roots of her hair. Displeased by such a reaction at her age—she was not, after all, some tremulous teenager—she said, angrily, “And did you never love him?

“I don’t remember,” Lily said, cool as ever. “Someone who once wore my name loved someone who once wore his. But it was unrequited and died, as such loves do. Except Dante, of course, but I’ve never been that sort of masochist. Or any sort of masochist. That was probably what went wrong with the marriage. But I shall not,” she went on, as Frank returned to the room with a tray containing three drinks, “give you the sordid details of my marriage in its active phase, even if I remembered them. You may merely assume that Koo and I had adequate reasons for living apart these last forty years.”

“Not quite that long, Mom,” Frank said, as though gallantly, giving her the flute glass of sherry.

“I can’t be bothered to keep trace of such an anniversary,” Lily said, with evident disgust.

“You came out here to see him die,” Lynsey accused, looking at Lily past Frank, who was offering her the Scotch and soda. “You hate him and you want him to die.” Distracted, she took the drink from Frank’s hand.

“I don’t want anything, where Koo is concerned,” Lily said. “Desire ceased a long long time ago.”

Frank having distributed the glasses raised his own, said, “Salud,” and drank. Then, smiling at Lynsey, he said, “Mom won’t defend herself, but believe me Lynsey, this thing was as much a shock to her as to anybody else.”

“Where Koo Davis is concerned,” Lily said, “I am one with the public. I would be distressed if he were killed. Surely you don’t expect from me anything more intimate than that? My relationship with the man is hardly as personal as yours.”

Which was the second reference to that subject; this time Lynsey answered it: “I’m not Koo’s mistress, if that’s what you mean. You know I’m not his type.”

“You mean those overblown blondes,” Lily said, with a faint smile. “Oddly enough, I was rather the type myself as a girl; without the cheapness, of course. But don’t tell me Koo never took you to bed; it’s not like him to pass up an opportunity.”

This time Lynsey managed to keep from reddening only by threatening her body with immediate self-destruction. Nevertheless, the three times—early in their business relationship, when she was still Max Berry’s assistant and Max was Koo’s agent—that she had spent the night with Koo still burned behind her eyes. Could Lily gaze at her with her own cool eyes and see the flames? Lynsey blinked, turning her face away, sipping in confusion at her Scotch and soda, only too late realizing that these gestures too admitted the truth.

Frank said, cheerfully, “Oh, there’s so much fuss all the time about who’s going to bed with whom. What does it matter? It plagues us in television, let me tell you, on and off the screen. After a while you just don’t care anymore.”

Lynsey understood that Frank was trying to ease her past this awkward moment, but though she was grateful she also knew that his assistance was really automatic; Frank went through life making the best of things, easing the rough spots for everybody else because he wanted no rough spots for himself. Television was the ideal arena for his talents, his capacity to take the blandest route to any goal. She said, looking at Frank but actually speaking to Lily, “The important thing now is that we care what happens to Koo. It doesn’t matter if we can do anything or not, it doesn’t even matter what Koo might have done wrong in the past. The point is that we care about him now.”

Lily, with a kind of amused wonder, said, “Lynsey, I’ve always admired you, I think you know that. If Koo can arouse such tremendous loyalty from a person like you, there must be more to the man than I’ve given him credit for. I suppose my vision is still colored, even after all these years.”

This combination of sincerity, condescension and naked self-analysis was too complex for Lynsey to encompass. She could only fall back to a safe position: “Whatever he’s done, Koo doesn’t deserve what’s happening to him now.”

With only the slightest hesitation Lily nodded, saying, “I agree.”

“The poor guy,” Frank said, and for once his smile seemed actually clouded. “It must be rough on him. All we can do is hope the FBI can get him out of there.”

Looking at Frank, Lynsey thought with some surprise, Koo never was his father, his or Barry’s. The marriage broke up too early. Naturally the boys aren’t responding the way I’d expect. How complicated and melancholy this must be for them, having to hope for the return of a father who had never been there in the first place. Turning her head to glance at Lily, she wondered who had taken the father’s role with these boys. Was there a father? Had this straitjacketed woman ever taken lovers?

Lily heaved herself out of the chair, saying, “We should dine. I come from a background where even at funerals one eats.” With a meaningful look at Lynsey she added, “And this isn’t a funeral.”