The Secret History

They ignored their father's tears and marched right up to him.

'Hey, Pop,' said the eldest. He was curly haired, about thirty, and looked very much like Bu

The other brother – freckled, thi

'Go see Grandpa.'

Mr Corcoran stopped crying instantly, in mid-sob; he held the baby high in the air and looked up at it adoringly. 'Champ!' he shouted. 'Did you go for a ride with Daddy and Uncle Brady?'

'We took him to Mc Donald's,' said Brady. 'Got him a Happy Meal.'

Mr Corcoran's jaw dropped in wonder. 'Did you eat it all?' he asked the baby. 'All that Happy Meal?'

'Say yes,' cooed the baby's father. ' "Yes, Drampaw."'

'That's baloney, Ted,' said Brady, laughing. 'He didn't eat a bite of it.'

'He got a prize in the box, though, didn't you? Didn't you?

Huh?'

'Let's see it,' said Mr Corcoran, busily prying the baby's fingers from around it.

'Henry,' said Mrs Corcoran, 'perhaps you'll help the young lady with her bags and show her to her room. Brady, you can take the boys downstairs.'

Mr Corcoran had got the prize – a plastic airplane – away from the baby and was making it fly back and forth.

'Look!' he said, in a tone of hushed awe.

'Since it's only for a night,' Mrs Corcoran said to us, 'I'm sure that no one will mind doubling up.'

As we were leaving with Brady, Mr Corcoran plumped the baby down on the hearth rug and was rolling around, tickling him. I could hear the baby's high screams of terror and delight all the way down the stairs.

We were to stay in the basement. Along the back wall, near the Ping-Pong and pool tables, several army cots had been set up, and in the corner was a pile of sleeping bags.

'Isn't this wretched,' said Francis as soon as we were alone.

'It's just for tonight.'

'I can't sleep in rooms with lots of people. I'll be up all night.'

I sat down on a cot. The room had a damp, unused smell and the light from the lamp over the pool table was greenish and depressing.

'It's dusty, too,' said Francis. 'I think we ought to just go check into a hotel.'

Sniffing noisily, he complained about the dust as he searched for an ashtray but deadly radon could have been seeping into the room, it didn't matter to me. All I wondered was how, in the name of Heaven and a merciful God, was I going to make it through the hours ahead. We had been there only twenty minutes and already I felt like shooting myself.

He was still complaining and I was still sunk in despair when Camilla came down. She was wearing jet earrings, patent-leather shoes, a natty, closely cut black velvet suit.

'Hello,' Francis said, handing her a cigarette. 'Let's go check into the Ramada I

As she put the cigarette between her parched lips I realized how much I'd missed her for the last few days.

'Oh, you don't have it so bad,' she said. 'Last night,' had to sleep with Marion.'

'Same room?'

'Same bed.'

Francis's eyes widened with admiration and horror. 'Oh, really? Oh, I say. That's awful,' he said in a hushed, respectful voice.

'Charles is upstairs with her now. She's hysterical because somebody asked that poor girl who rode down with you.'

'Where's Henry?'

'Haven't you seen him yet?'

'I saw him. I didn't talk to him.'

She paused to blow out a cloud of smoke. 'How does he seem to you?'

'I've seen him looking better. Why?'

'Because he's sick. Those headaches.'

'One of the bad ones?'

'That's what he says.'

Francis looked at her in disbelief. 'How is he up and walking around, then?'

'I don't know. He's all doped up. He has his pills and he's been taking them for days.'

'Well, where is he now? Why isn't he in bed?'

'I don't know. Mrs Corcoran just sent him down to the Cumberland Farms to get that damn baby a quart of milk.'

'Can he drive?'

'I have no idea,' 'Francis,' I said, 'your cigarette.'

He jumped up, grabbed for it too quickly and burned his fingers. He'd laid it on the edge of the pool table and the coal had burned down to the wood; a charred spot was spreading on the varnish.

'Boys?' Mrs Corcoran called from the head of the stairs. 'Boys?

Do you mind if I come down to check the thermostat?'

'Quick,' Camilla whispered, mashing out her cigarette. 'We're not supposed to smoke down here.'

'Who's there?' said Mrs Corcoran sharply. 'Is something burning?'

'No, ma'am,' Francis said, wiping at the burned spot and scrambling to hide the cigarette butt as she came down the steps.

It was one of the worst nights of my life. The house was filling with people and the hours passed in a dreadful streaky blur of relatives, neighbors, crying children, covered dishes, blocked driveways, ringing telephones, bright lights, strange faces, awkward conversations. Some swinish, hard-faced man trapped me in a corner for hours, boasting of bass tournaments and businesses in Chicago and Nashville and Kansas City until finally I excused myself and locked myself in an upstairs bathroom, ignoring the beating and piteous cries of an unknown toddler who pled, weeping, for admittance.

Di

He brushed by me without a glance. Of all the brothers, he bore the strongest resemblance to Bu

Laughter, vertigo. Strangers kept wandering up and talking at me. I disengaged myself from one of Bu

I stood beside him. He didn't look at me or speak. The doors faced out on a barren, floodlit terrace – black cinder, privet in concrete urns, a statue artfully broken in white pieces on the ground. Rain slanted in the lights, which were angled to cast long, dramatic shadows. The effect was fashionable, post-nuclear but ancient, too, like some pumice-strewn courtyard from Pompeii.

That is the ugliest garden I have ever seen,' I said.

'Yes,' said Henry. He was very pale. 'Rubble and ash.'

People laughed and talked behind us. The lights, through the rain-spattered window, cast a pattern of droplets trickling down his face.

'Maybe you'd better lie down,' I said after a while.

He bit his lip. The ash on his cigarette was about an inch long.

'I don't have any more medicine,' he said.

I looked at the side of his face. 'Can you get along?'

'I guess I'll have to, won't I?' he said without moving.