The Goldfinch

Chapter 10 | Part 28

"THANK HEAVENS HE'S GONE," murmured Mrs. Barbour after they had wandered away to the drinks table. "Small chatter tires me terribly."
"Same here." The sweat was pouring off me. How had he found out? All the pieces he'd mentioned I'd shipped through the same carrier. Still—I was desperate for a drink—how could he know?
Mrs. Barbour, I was aware, had just spoken. "Excuse me?"
"I said, isn't this extraordinary? I'm astonished by this great mob of people." She was dressed very simply—black dress, black heels, and the magnificent snowflake brooch—but black was not Mrs. Barbour's color and it only gave her a renunciate look of illness and mourning. "Must I mingle? I suppose I must. Oh, God, look, there's Anne's husband, what a bore. Is it very awful of me to say that I wish I were at home?"
"Who was that man just now?" I asked her.
"Havistock?" She passed her hand over her forehead. "I'm glad he is so insistent about his name or I would have had a hard time introducing you."
"I would have thought he was a dear friend of yours."
Unhappily she blinked, with a discomposure that made me feel guilty for the tone I'd taken with her.
"Well," she said resolutely. "He is very familiar. That is to say—he has a very familiar manner. He is that way with everyone."

"How do you know him?"
"Oh—Havistock does volunteer work for the New York Historical Society. Knows everything, and everyone. Although, just between us, I don't think he's a descendant of Washington Irving at all."
"No?"
"Well—he's altogether charming. That is to say, he knows absolutely everyone... claims an Astor connection as well as the Washington Irving one, and who's to say he is wrong? Some of us have found it interesting that many of the connections he invokes are dead. That said, Havistock's delightful, or can be. Very very good about visiting the old ladies—well, you heard him just now. Perfect trove of information about New York history—dates, names, genealogies. Before you came up, he was filling me in on the history of every single building up and down the street—all the old scandals—society murder in the townhouse next door, 1870s—he knows absolutely everything. That said, at a luncheon a few months ago he was regaling the table with an utterly scurrilous story about Fred Astaire which I don't feel can possibly be true. Fred Astaire! Cursing like a sailor, throwing a fit! Well, I don't mind telling you that I simply didn't believe it —none of us did. Chance's grandmother knew Fred Astaire back when she was working in Hollywood and she said he was simply the loveliest man alive. Never heard a whisper to the contrary. Some of the old stars were perfectly horrible, of course, and we've heard all those stories too. Oh," she said despairingly, in the same breath, "how tired and hungry I feel."
"Here—" feeling sorry for her, leading her to an empty chair—"sit down. Would you like me to get you something to eat?"
"No, please. I'd like you to stay with me. Although I suppose I shouldn't hog you to myself," she said unconvincingly. "Guest of honor."
"Honestly, it won't take a minute." My eyes sped round the room. Trays of hors d'oeuvres were going around and there was a table with food in the next room, but I urgently needed to talk to Hobie. "I'll be back as fast as I can."
Luckily Hobie was so tall—taller than virtually everyone else—that I had no difficulty spotting him, a lighthouse of safety in the crowd.
"Hey," said someone, catching my arm as I was almost to him. It was Platt, in a green velvet jacket that smelled like mothballs, looking rumpled and anxious and already half-sloshed. "Everything okay between you two?"

"What?"
"You and Kits get everything hashed out?"
I wasn't entirely sure how to answer this. After a few moments of
silence he pushed a string of gray-blond hair behind one ear. His face was pink and swollen with premature middle age, and I thought, not for the first time, how there'd been no freedom for Platt in his refusal to grow up, how by slacking off too long he'd managed to destroy every last glimmer of his hereditary privilege; and now he was always going to be loitering at the margins of the party with his gin and lime while his baby brother Toddy— still in college—stood talking in a group which included the president of an Ivy League college, a billionaire financier, and the publisher of an important magazine.
Platt was still looking at me. "Listen," he said. "I know it's none of my business, you and Kits..."
I shrugged.
"Tom doesn't love her," he said impulsively. "It was the best thing that ever happened to Kitsey when you came along and she knows it. I mean, the way he treats her! She was with him, you know, that weekend Andy died? That was the big important reason why she sent Andy up to look after Daddy, even though Andy was hopeless with Daddy, why she didn't go herself. Tom, Tom, Tom. All about Tom. And yeah, apparently, he's all 'Endless Love' with her, 'My Only Love,' or so she says, but believe me it's a different story behind her back. Because—" he paused, in frustration —"the way he strung her along—leeched money constantly, went around with other girls and lied about it—it made me sick, Mommy and Daddy too. Because, basically, she's a meal ticket to him. That's how he sees her. But— don't ask me why, she was crazy for him. Completely off her head."
"Still is, it seems."
Platt made a face. "Oh, come on. It's you she's marrying."
"Cable doesn't strike me as the marrying type."
"Well—" he took a big slug of his drink—"whoever Tom does marry, I
feel sorry for them. Kits may be impulsive but she's not stupid."
"Nope." Kitsey was far from stupid. Not only had she arranged for the marriage that would most please her mother; she was sleeping with the
person she really loved.

"It would never have panned out. Like Mommy said. 'Utter infatuation.' 'A rope of sand.' "
"She told me she loved him."
"Well, girls always love assholes," said Platt, not bothering to dispute this. "Haven't you noticed?"
No, I thought bleakly, untrue. Else why didn't Pippa love me?
"Say, you need a drink, pal. Actually—" knocking the rest of his back —"I could use another myself."
"Look, I just have to go and speak to someone. Also, your mother—" I turned and pointed in the direction where I'd seated her—"she needs a drink too and something to eat."
"Mommy," said Platt, looking like I'd just reminded him of a kettle he'd left boiling on the stove, and hurried off.