The Secret History

And the thing of it was, that Charles and Henry had to appear together in court in less than a week, because of the business with Henry's car.

Camilla, I knew, was worried sick. She – whom I had never known to fear anything – was afraid now; and though in a certain perverse way I was pleased at her distress, there was no denying that if Henry and Charles – who practically came to blows each time they were in the same room – were going to be forced to appear before a judge, and with some show of cooperation and friendship, there could be no possible outcome but disaster.

Henry had hired a lawyer in town. The hope that a third party would be able to reconcile these differences had granted Camilla a small measure of optimism, but in the afternoon on the day of the appointment, I received a telephone call from her.

'Richard,' she said. 'I've got to talk to you and Francis.'

Her tone frightened me. When I arrived at Francis's apartment, I found Francis badly shaken and Camilla in tears.

I had seen her cry only once before, and then only, I think, from nerves and exhaustion. But this was different. She was blank and hollow-eyed, and there was despair in the set of her features.

'Camilla,' I said. 'What's wrong?'

She didn't answer immediately. She smoked one cigarette, then another. Little by little the story came out. Henry and Charles had gone to see the lawyer and Camilla, in capacity of peacemaker, had gone along. At first, it had seemed as if everything might be all right. Henry, apparently, had not hired the lawyer entirely from altruism but because the judge before whom they were to appear had a reputation for being tough on drunk drivers and there was a possibility – as Charles neither had a valid driver's license nor was covered on Henry's insurance – that Henry might lose his license or car or both. Charles, though he obviously felt himself martyred by the whole business, had nonetheless been willing to go along: not, as he told anyone who would listen, because he had any affection for Henry but because he was sick of being blamed for things that weren't his fault, and if Henry lost his license he'd never hear the end of it.

But the meeting was a catastrophe. Charles, in the office, was sullen and uncommunicative. This was merely embarrassing but then – being prodded a bit too energetically by the attorney – he suddenly and quite without warning lost his head. 'You should have heard him,' said Camilla. 'He told Henry he didn't care if he lost his car. He told him he didn't care if the judge put them both in jail for fifty years. And Henry – well, you can imagine how Henry reacted. He blew up. The lawyer thought they were out of their minds. He kept trying to get Charles to calm down, be reasonable. And Charles said: "I don't care what happens to him. I don't care if he dies. I wish he was dead."'

It got so bad, she said, the lawyer kicked them out of his office.

Doors were opening up and down the hallway: an insurance agent, the tax assessor, a dentist in a white coat, all poking their heads out to see what the fuss was about. Charles stormed off walked home, got a taxi, she didn't know what he'd done.

'And Henry?'

She shook her head. 'He was in a rage,' she said; her voice was exhausted, hopeless. 'As I was following him to the car, the lawyer pulled me aside. "Look here," he said. "I don't know what the situation is, but your brother is obviously quite disturbed. Please try to make him understand that if he doesn't cool down, he's going to be in a lot more trouble than he bargained for. This judge is not going to be particularly amenable to them even if they walk in there like a pair of lambs. Your brother is almost sure to be sentenced to an alcohol treatment program, which might not be a bad idea from what I've seen of him today. There's a pretty good chance that the judge will give him probation, which is not as easy as it sounds. And there's more than a gambler's chance that he's going to get either jail time or he's going to get put in a locked ward over at the detox center in Manchester."'

She was extremely upset. Francis was ashen-faced.

'What does Henry say?' I asked her.

'He says he doesn't care about the car,' she said. 'He doesn't care about anything. "Let him go to jail," he says.'

'You saw this judge?' Francis said to me.

'Yes.'

'What was he like?'

'To tell you the truth, he looked like a pretty tough customer,'

I said.

Francis lit a cigarette. 'What would happen,' he said, 'if Charles didn't show up?'

'I'm not sure. I'm almost certain they'd come looking for him.'

'But if they couldn't find him?'

'What are you suggesting?' I said.

'I think we ought to get Charles out of town for a while,' said Francis. He looked tense and worried. 'School's almost over. It's not as if anything's keeping him here. I think we ought to pack him off to my mother and Chris in New York for a couple of weeks.'

'The way he's acting now?'

'Drunk, you mean? You think my mother minds drunks? He'd be safe as a baby.'

'I don't think,' said Camilla, 'you'd be able to get him to go.'

'I could take him myself,' said Francis.

'But what if he got away?' I pointed out. 'Vermont is one thing but he could get into a hell of a lot of trouble in New York.'

'All right,' said Francis irritably, 'all right, it was just an idea.'

He ran a hand through his hair. 'You know what we could do?

We could take him out to the country.'

'To your place, you mean?'

'Yes.'

'What would that accomplish?'

'Easy to get him there, for one thing. And once he's out there, what's he going to do? He won't have a car. It's miles from the road. You can't get a Hampden taxi driver to pick you up for love nor money.'

Camilla was looking at him thoughtfully.

'Charles loves to go to the country,' she said.

'I know,' said Francis, pleased. 'What could be simpler? And we won't have to keep him there long. Richard and I can stay with him. I'll buy a case of champagne. We'll make it look like a party.'

It was not easy to get Charles to come to the door. We knocked for what seemed like half an hour. Camilla had given us a key, which we didn't want to use unless we had to, but just as we were contemplating it the bolt snapped and Charles squinted at us through the crack.

He looked disordered, terrible. 'What do you want?' he said.

'Nothing,' said Francis, quite easily, despite a slight, stu

Charles looked back and forth at the two of us. 'Is anybody with you?'

'No,' Francis said.

He opened the door and let us in. The shades were pulled and the place had the sour smell of garbage. As my eyes adjusted to the dim I saw dirty dishes, apple cores and soup cans littering almost every conceivable surface. Beside the refrigerator, arranged with perverse neatness, stood a row of empty Scotch bottles.

A lithe shadow darted across the kitchen counter, twisting through the dirty pans and empty milk cartons: Jesus, I thought, is that a rat? But then it jumped to the floor, tail switching, and I saw it was a cat. Its eyes glowed at us in the dark.

'Found her in an empty lot,' said Charles. His breath, I noticed, did not have an alcoholic odor but a suspiciously minty one.

'She's not too tame.' He pushed up the sleeve of his bathrobe and showed us a discolored, contaminated-looking crisscross of scratches on his forearm.

'Charles,' said Francis, jingling his car keys nervously, 'we stopped by because we're driving out to the country. Thought it might be nice to get away for a while. Do you want to come?'

Charles's eyes narrowed. He pushed down his sleeve. 'Did Henry send you?' he said.

'God, no,' said Francis, surprised.

'Are you sure?'

'I haven't seen him in days.'