I found myself alone at the table with Joseph Grady, by far the youngest of Chatterton’s soldiers. No more than sixty-five, he had contributed not a trifle to the morning’s rough symposium; he had simply been there. A sort of cautious curiosity glimmered in his eye, the mark of a man who takes all things into earnest consideration but adds nothing to their explication.

For a while neither of us spoke. Then, “Hemlock?” he said.

Hemlock? All this talk about murder, being shot at, Seneca’s suicide, death by freezing, and now hemlock. The morbidity rate in Chatterton’s house had to be among the highest in the nation.

“I beg your pardon?”

“More coffee?”

I shook my head. He got to his feet slowly—he must have been six feet four—and poured from the blackened pot on the stove.

Quickly I assessed the situation. Here I was, sharing a heartburn with a man of scrupulous courtesy, somewhat outgoing, an excellent target of opportunity. Yet there was that sort of curiosity in his eye that I couldn’t decide whether I liked or not. And the tone of the place was such that certainly it would have been presumptuous if not gauche of me, the cub of the company, to ask him what he did, even if I could manage the question nimbly. Perhaps I could ask about Valerie? By the way, I might say, whatever happened to Chatterton’s daughter, the young lady with the fabulous tits?—something like that but more dignified, less personal.

My misgivings were unwarranted. Out of nowhere he turned his unruffled gaze on me and said, “It must be difficult for you around here—no one your own age…”

A man of vital perception; the seal that shut me off from Valerie was broken.

“Where is she?” I asked, bewildered by my own daring.

“In Fort Lauderdale, I’m afraid, with that handsome barrel of noxiousness, her great friend Derek What’s-his-name.”

“When will they be back?”

“Soon, I suppose—after the Christmas break. She’ll sashay in here, exhausted from… doing nothing, freighted down with sunburn, beer, and a supply of porno comic books.”

I managed to utter not a word.

“You too?” he asked with a solicitous grin.

“Me too, what?”

“Smitten.”

“I’m too busy,” I said. “I’m working on…”

“Don’t tell me!” he fairly shouted. “Chatterton doesn’t like team sports. We all work individually—keeping him posted, of course. He feels strongly that good work can never come out of collaboration.”

He returned his empty mug to the stopped-up sink, where a culture of velvet gray mold and some green slime bubbled gassily. “See you around,” he said, “and by the way—I manage to smuggle a newspaper into the house every now and then. You’re welcome to them, if you like.” And he was gone.

TEN
YEARNING JUST FOR YOU