Chocolates for Breakfast Read online

  “I probably shouldn’t have said all this to you,” Courtney said soberly. “I suppose I had no right to let you know, and to hurt you because I was unhappy with myself.”

  “No, darling, that isn’t what I meant. You and I talk to each other, even a little. She talks to no one. I don’t even think she talks to you.”

  Courtney shook her head.

  “And she certainly doesn’t talk to her lovers. I would make a prediction, with absolute certainty, that within a year she will have a serious nervous breakdown.”

  “Janet?” Courtney smiled. “No, not Janet. She’s so terribly gay and courageous. She has life a little under control.”

  “Well, that is only my unprofessional prediction. Nonetheless, we were talking about you. I want to see you tomorrow. If I could help it, I wouldn’t let you go now. I may not have much to give you, but I don’t want you to be alone when you’re feeling like this. I feel vaguely responsible.”

  Courtney smiled at him. “You’re not so wicked, are you? Not so different.”

  “Angel,” he smiled. He put his arms around her and ran his hand through her hair. “When will I see you?”

  “I’ll call you when I wake up.”

  “Promise me,” he said. “As soon as you wake up.” He sighed. “I can see now that my social life will be shot. Becoming the lover of a moral child. I never envisioned such a fate. I should have known better than to get involved with an Irish girl. They’re all so moody and passionate, and so terribly conscience-stricken about the whole thing. You know,” he said, “I can’t go on seeing you constantly. Only for a while, then my polygamous self will be reasserted.”

  “You think so,” she smiled. “We’ll see. You haven’t made such an auspicious beginning, you know. Dropping your pose. You’ve made yourself vulnerable.”

  “Courtney,” he said, “have you ever been beaten?”

  They laughed and it wasn’t ugly any more.

  Chapter 18

  When she went home that night Courtney was not afraid, and her first thought on waking was: I have been loved. She was surprised and pleased that she felt neither the burden of loneliness nor the consciousness of sin. Because there had been no love, because, actually, there had been not even desire, there was no guilt. It had simply happened. She looked forward to seeing Anthony, and she thought again: Perhaps this is what I have been looking for. Perhaps this is love without evil, without the ugliness.

  She cleaned her room, a thing which she had not done in days, and then she called Anthony. Her mother was not in; she had gotten a featured role on a TV dramatic show, and was at rehearsal. Courtney was reassured by her absence. It was good to have her mother working again, it was, as Sondra said, “Like the old days.” It was different now, though. Courtney no longer felt dependent on her mother’s success, and her ability to pay bills and take her to dinner. While Courtney made breakfast for herself, as she had so often when her mother was working in Hollywood, she realized how, first with Barry, then with Janet’s friends, and now with Anthony, her life had become separate from her mother’s. The feeling of independence reassured her. Centering her life around men rather than around her mother was more secure: men were at least replaceable if they failed.

  Although Anthony offered to pick her up, Courtney chose to go to the Pierre by herself. Even though her mother was not home, the doorman might mention to her mother that she had left with a young man, and Courtney did not want her mother to know how much time she spent with Anthony. She left a note that she and Janet were going to the movies and would probably go on to dinner and then to a cocktail party. She was careful to account for the whole day in her note to her mother. How we deceive our parents, she thought as she propped the note beside the telephone. But it’s kinder this way; it would hurt them to know us better. She took the subway, because the contrast between the subway and Anthony’s suite amused her. As she walked into the Pierre, she thought to herself with pleasure, “I always live in glamour.” But then she cut herself short because she was beginning to sound like her mother. She knocked on the door.

  “Hello, darling.” He greeted her casually and without presumed familiarity. “Come into the living room, the bedroom depresses me in the morning. Beds in the morning,” he said as they walked into the other room, “are merely something to be gotten out of.” He looked at her. “I’ve been thinking of you all morning, angel. Oh, have you had breakfast?”

  “Yes, before I came.”

  “Well, then, have some coffee with me.”

  “Anthony, did I wake you up or something? You haven’t shaved.”

  “No.” He smiled. “I’ve decided to grow a beard. I had a three-day growth a couple of weeks ago, and it had a marvelous effect on the elevator men. I really couldn’t find suitably iniquitous occupation, though, so I shaved it off.”

  “Well, I think you should shave it off again. It looks foolish.”

  “Oh, dear, you’re always deflating me. Do you drink your coffee black?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m terribly bored this morning, angel. But I can’t think of any hope for it as I consider making love in the morning a barbaric practice.”

  Courtney suddenly wondered what she was doing here, but the sensation passed quickly. She sipped her coffee.

  “Are you depressed this morning, Courtney?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Come sit by me,” he said as he put down his coffee. She sat beside him and he put his arm around her. She leaned against him and felt at peace again. “Tony will tell you a story,” he said.

  “Oh, no,” said Courtney. “Not another tale of deviation.”

  “No,” he said. “This is the story of a child.”

  She settled comfortably in his arms.

  “This is the story,” he said in his low, gentle voice, “of a little boy who lost his childhood. The boy was bred to wealth and boredom and his nursery was a little pocket of a private beach on the prewar Riviera. It was a lovely beach, with fine white sand and quiet waters, and there was always sun on the beach. There were some caves in a cliff at the end of the beach, very mysterious. It was really an ideal nursery. He and his childhood used to play with each other there, swimming and building intricate castles, and his parents were content to let him play without his governess because he had his childhood to keep him company. They got along so awfully well. So his parents had lavish lunches for charming people, and never needed to worry about their little boy.”

  “Wasn’t there ever anyone else on the beach?” asked Courtney. “You mean, he just played by himself all day long?”

  “I told you,” said Anthony patiently, “it was a private beach. Besides, he had his childhood to play with him. Now, don’t interrupt me with these academic enquiries.”

  Courtney nodded, chastised. He brushed her hair gently from her forehead as he resumed his story.

  “He was ecstatically happy, this little boy. He was terribly fond of his childhood, and didn’t go anywhere without it. One day, he was exploring the caves in the cliff. Now, he had never been off the private beach, so exploring was very exciting to him. It was dark in the cave, and darkness was something he wasn’t used to. You see, it was always sunny on his beach. When he went into the cave he was a little frightened, but he soon got over that in his excitement. He even forgot to pay attention to his childhood as he wandered through the tunnel. Well, he found to his delight that the tunnel went all the way through the cliff, and he saw sunlight ahead of him. He came out at the other end and found himself on one of those ghastly public beaches, with men rubbing sun-tan oil on women’s backs and lying with the Times over their heads. It was a shocking sight, so he hurried back into the cave. When he came out on his own beach, he looked behind him, and suddenly realized that he had lost his childhood somewhere between the two beaches.”

  “Didn’t he go back to look for it?”

  “No, of course not,” Anthony said crossly. “If you must know, he called into the cave
, but there wasn’t any answer, so he simply walked wretchedly back to his villa and had a Brandy Alexander.”

  “He never found it again,” Courtney said despondently.

  “No,” said Anthony gravely. “It was lost for good.”

  “What a sad story. What’s the moral?”

  “Now, the moral is obvious, angel, and if you’re so thick you can’t see it, I refuse to explain it to you. Did you like the story?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I like it very much.”

  “Do you feel better now?”

  “Yes,” she smiled.

  “I thought you would,” he said. He ran his fingers along her mouth, tracing its curves. “Perhaps it’s not so barbaric to make love in the morning,” he said thoughtfully.

  “Perhaps not.”

  The sun was soft, spilling through the partly closed Venetian blinds. It was very still, with no indication that life existed beyond the room.

  “I want to lie here for years,” he said. “Just like this. Making love and then lying here like this.”

  “And people will walk to work in the morning,” said Courtney, “and come home to nag their wives and pay their bills, and everyone will grow old outside our room. And we’ll just lie here like children in a secret place.”

  “Building sand castles.” He smiled. “Did it ever occur to you that we might sound a little foolish?”

  “No, not really,” said Courtney thoughtfully. “The people who sit and pay their bills are the ones that sound foolish to me.”

  “Think of it,” he said. “Never living to excess, never taking a chance, never touching the heights.”

  “I don’t know that we would touch any heights, either,” said Courtney, thoughtfully. “Maybe we would go as far as scaling the walls of our secret garden, but that would be all.”

  “And drop back in horror at the sight of the outside world?” He put his head against her breasts like a child and ran his thumb absently along her arm. “Possibly you’re right. I’ve done my damndest to find the heights. Making love, risking my life, occasionally—in my wayward youth,” he smiled “—getting involved in slightly illegal dealings. None of it really worked, though. Something was still missing.”

  “I don’t know, really. Sometimes I think it’s necessary to be a child to find the heights—you know, illusion is necessary. Then sometimes I think the harsh light of adult reality is what’s needed, and that children only climb sand hills.”

  “We haven’t any choice in the matter,” he said. “If it takes an adult to know the joys of excess, I haven’t any hope. So I like to think that only a child can come upon euthanasia, that isolation at the height of ecstasy. But the question is academic,” he said crossly, “and it depresses me.”

  “We need some wine,” she said, “and some lunch, to descend from fantasy for a moment.”

  “Yes,” he said sadly, “I suppose we do.”

  “Where will we go? Some place special, heavy and dark, where we’ll drink marvelous white wine and have things flambeau.”

  “I know a place,” he said. “You have expensive tastes, my dear.”

  “Not always,” she said. “But I have always eaten either very expensive food or terribly cheap food. I refuse the in-between. Both poverty and wealth are excellent things, because they are extremes, but the middle ground is damaging to the soul.”

  “Schrafft’s,” he said. “Good, wholesome food at a moderate price.”

  “And three women haggling over the check.”

  “I agree with you,” he said. “Far better a fifty-cent meal served by fugitives from an early Bogart picture, in filthy aprons.”

  “You know,” she said, “we’re going to have a delightful life.”

  The restaurant was exactly what Courtney wanted. They walked down stone steps to enter it, and when they sat down they lost all awareness of the fact that it was daytime.

  They were the only young people in the dimly lit room, which was half filled with leisurely diners. Courtney had not known that such places existed in New York, and she was enchanted. She did not have to think of the cost of the meal, because she knew that, somehow, the world gave Anthony his living without his having to work for it.

  Courtney sat with studied nonchalance while the waiter set her roast duck afire in solemn ceremony. When he had left she sipped her wine, and then looked over at Anthony. Her face was relaxed and very young, and her eyes were green indeed in the dimness.

  “I’m marvelously happy,” she said.

  He watched her silently for a few minutes.

  “You know,” Anthony smiled, “if I’m not awfully careful I shall fall in love with you.”

  “Oh, no,” she said solemnly, “you mustn’t do that.”

  “You object?”

  “You must promise me never to fall in love with me.”

  “What an odd child,” he said. “I’ll promise, if you wish.”

  “And you must keep your promise, like a monastic vow.”

  “I’ll do my best, angel. Because you’re quite right; if we ever fell in love we should fail miserably in our quest. Great phantoms of doubt and jealousy would slip into our room. We must hold to our vow, and keep ourselves pure.”

  “This is a marvelous wine,” she said suddenly, “and an enchanting place. I like it here.” She looked at him thoughtfully. “No, I mustn’t say that. I mustn’t say that wherever I am with you seems enchanting.”

  “No, you mustn’t say that.”

  “We’re idiots, do you know that?”

  “The thought had occurred to me once or twice today,” he said. “Now eat the dinner that you were so anxious to get.”

  “And then what will we do?”

  “I don’t know. Does it really matter?”

  “No,” she said thoughtfully.

  Chapter 19

  Time passed in timelessness, and the city settled down under the oppressive heat of July. In almost a month not a day had passed when Courtney had not seen Anthony, and as she lay on her bed with her clothes off in a vain attempt to keep cool she felt strange at being alone. Anthony had called her when she woke up late in the morning, and had told her that he would have to have dinner with his lawyers that evening. They were conferring about his estate, and he would be with them for several hours after dinner as well. Courtney was faced with the prospect of having dinner with her mother, or alone. Neither appealed to her, so she decided to call Janet. Janet was delighted to hear from her.

  “Courtney, sweetie, what has happened to you? I called a few times, but you were always out. Have you been having a mad affair with someone?”

  “I’ve been awfully busy,” Courtney answered. She did not want to tell Janet about Anthony, because she felt a little disloyal, knowing about Janet and Anthony when Janet had visited his island last winter. “I really meant to call you,” she went on. “Look, I wondered if you were tied up this evening?”

  “I’m not doing anything for dinner, except the family, but after dinner I’m going to Pete Murray’s cocktail party. You remember Pete?”

  “Vaguely. Well, what about my seeing you for dinner, then?”

  “Sweetie, that would be great. Then maybe you could come to the party. I know Pete wouldn’t mind.”

  “I don’t have a date—”

  “That doesn’t make any difference. You’ll know the whole crowd. It’s going to be a real blast—the whole of Pete’s house is turned over to us. His family is away for the weekend, and every bad actor in town will be there.”

  At its wildest, Courtney knew that at least the party would be better than sitting at home. Courtney felt more and more ill at ease with her parents these days, conscious that somehow she was betraying them, and painfully aware of how careful she must be to keep them, for their own sakes, from knowing of her life with Anthony. It was a difficult duality that she must maintain at home, and she avoided contact with her parents as much as possible.

  “Jan, I really would love to go to the party,” Courtney
said finally. “Are you sure your parents won’t mind my coming up for dinner?”

  “Well, I would be delighted to have you, sweetie, and it’s as much my home as theirs. I’m afraid dinner will be a real drag, though. Mother is back, and Daddy will be there, too.”

  “That’s all right, Jan. It will be great to see you, and I’m really sorry I haven’t called before.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Court. You can come right on up—it’s about five thirty, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I’ll be there about six. So long, sweetie.”

  The familiarity of Janet’s apartment was reassuring to Courtney; it was reassuring to be reminded that she had a group to return to if somehow her world with Anthony should dissolve. Although she could see no reason why her garden should wither, the caution that she had learned at such great cost remained with her.

  Courtney had not seen Mrs. Parker in almost three years, but Janet’s mother was just as Courtney had remembered her. She was a slight woman, with the small, regular features and the almost formless face of the women whose pictures can be found every day on the social page of The New York Times with the caption: Benefit Aides. She was wearing a nondescript black suit and clutching a glass of sherry as though it were a period prop which she had just been handed and was not yet accustomed to. When Courtney came in she rose with great agitation to greet her, as though she was anxious to take Courtney’s attention from Mr. Parker, who was sitting beside the window with his usual glass of bourbon.

  “Courtney dear, I’m so glad to see you, it has been such a long time. Thanksgiving vacation a long time ago, when you and Janet were in Scaisbrooke, I think it was, you have changed, you look so much older, but then I suppose you are”—this with a little laugh—“I was so glad when Janet told me you were coming to dinner with us, I’ve been looking forward to seeing you so much,” and by this time her speech had carried her across the room and she kissed Courtney on the cheek, a gesture which Courtney had objected to since she was a little girl.