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Page 7
It was not likely to be a day for work. That he felt righteously could
not be expected. Nevertheless, with hurt concession to certain talk of
indolence the night before, he donned a painter's smock and, filled
with a consciousness of tremendous energy to be expended in God's good
time, telephoned John Whitaker.
Yes, Brian had been there. Where he was now, where he would be,
Whitaker did not feel at liberty to divulge. Frankly he was pledged to
silence. Kenny willing, he would be up to dinner at six. He had a lot
to say.
Kenny banged the receiver into the hook in a blaze of temper, hurt and
unreasonable, and striding to the rear window flung it up to cool his
face. There were bouillon cups upon the sill. Bouillon cups!
Bouillon cups! Thunder-and-turf! There were bouillon cups everywhere.
Nobody but Brian would have bought so many handles. A future of
handles loomed drearily ahead. Brian could talk of disorder all he
chose. Half of it was bouillon cups. Bitterly resenting the reproach
they seemed to embody, stacked there upon the sill, Kenny passionately
desired to sweep them out of the window once and for all. The desire
of the moment, ever his doom, proved overpowering. The cups crashed
upon a roof below with prompt results. Kenny was appalled at the
number of heads that appeared at studio windows, the head of Sidney
Fahr among them, round-eyed and incredulous. Well, that part at least
was normal. Sid's face advertised a chronic distrust of his senses.
Moreover, when Pietro appeared after a round of alarmed inquiry, Kenny
perversely chose to be truthful about it, insisted that it was not
accidental and refused to be sorry. Afterward he admitted to Garry, it
was difficult to believe that one spontaneous ebullition of a nature
not untemperamental could provoke so much discussion, frivolous and
otherwise. The thing might grow so, he threatened sulkily, that he'd
leave the club.
As for the immediate present, Fate had saddled him again with an
afternoon of moody indolence. Certainly no Irishman with nerves strung
to an extraordinary pitch could work with Mike crawling snakily around
the lower roof intent upon china remnants whose freaks of shape seemed
to paralyze him into moments of agreeable interest. Kenny at four
refused an invitation to tea and waited in growing gloom for Reynolds,
a dealer who, prodded always into inconvenient promptness by Kenny's
needs, had promised to combine inspection of the members' exhibition in
the gallery downstairs with the delivery of a check. There were
critical possibilities if he did not appear.
Mike disappeared with the final fragment and Reynolds became the
grievance of the hour. Kenny, fuming aimlessly around the studio,
resorted desperately at last to an unfailing means of stimulus. He
made a careful toilet, donned a coat with a foreign looking waist-line,
rather high, and experimented with a new and picturesque stock that
fastened beneath his tie with a jeweled link. As six o'clock arrived
and Reynolds' defection became a thing assured, his attitude toward
John Whitaker underwent an imperative change. It would be impossible
now to greet him with hostile dignity. He had become a definite need.
When at ten minutes past six the studio bell tinkled, Kenny, opening
the door, stared at Whitaker in tragic dismay and struck himself upon
the forehead.
"Mother of Men!" he groaned. "I thought of course it would be
Reynolds. He's bringing me a check."
John Whitaker looked unimpressed. He merely blinked his recognition of
a subterfuge.
There was a parallel in his experience, a weekend arrival at Woodstock
when Kenny, farming in a flurry of enthusiasm, had come riding down to
meet his guest on a singular quadruped whose area of hide had thickened
strangely. Brian called the uncurried quadruped a plush horse. Kenny,
remembered Whitaker, had searched with tragic eyes for an invited
editor who had recklessly agreed to pay in advance for an excursion of
Kenny's into illustrating, ostensibly to pay for a cow. And Kenny's
words had been: "My God, Whitaker! Where's Graham?" Moreover he had
struck himself fiercely on the forehead and Whitaker had grub-staked
his host to provisions until Graham arrived.
"Can't we eat in the grill?" asked Whitaker. "It's raining." Kenny
regarded him with a look of pained intelligence.
"I'm posted," he said.
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