Come Unto These Yellow Sands Read Online Free PDF Page A

with Swift in the emergency room while they stitched the cut in his scalp and taped his broken nose.
    So there was a lot of warmth in Swift’s voice. There was warmth in Bernard’s tone too, though he sounded tentative even after six years, always prepared to find that Swift had once more descended into self-destruction. “My dear. How are you?”
    “Good. Very good. How are you?”
    It was odd to be making polite chitchat with someone who knew him as well as Bernard did. Had. Sometimes you had to go through the ping-pong preliminaries. It had been nearly two years since they’d last spoken. They still exchanged cards at Christmas.
    “I’m in fine fettle, Swift. As a matter of fact, I’m just back from a fabulous holiday in Barbados.” Bernard forever sounded like someone who’d escaped from a Noel Coward play, like one of those suave congenital bachelors—and he was a congenital bachelor, but he was also as straight as a baseball bat.
    “That must have been nice.”
    “Oh it was, my dear.” Bernard launched into a wry and witty account of his island vacation. He followed that with a catty description of a literary luncheon he’d recently attended—Capote couldn’t have done it better—complete with updates and the latest gossip about people Swift no longer gave a damn about.
    Swift appreciated that this was all warm-up for the main event and waited patiently, if a little nervously. Bernard would not call just to chat. Not these days.
    “But how did we get sidetracked on me when I rang to hear about you? I don’t suppose you’re…working?” The last word was cautious. Bernard didn’t mean working as in teaching or being otherwise gainfully employed. He meant writing. He meant poetry.
    “No.”
    “Not a word?”
    “Not a word worth showing anyone.”
    “I only ask because Fountainhead has been in touch about the Blue Knife collection.”
    Swift sank back in the leather chair that had once belonged to his father. He felt…gut-punched. Fountainhead Press was a small, independent literary press. Best known for the prestigious Fountainhead Prize, it was one of the most influential publishers in the United States. Fountainhead had published all but Swift’s first collection of poems.
    After ten years Swift had nearly forgotten the plans for his last ill-fated collection. He’d sort of assumed Fountainhead had forgotten too.
    When he found his voice, he said, “There was no Blue Knife collection, Bernard. You know that. We all know that. I lied to get an advance because I needed money for coke.”
    Bernard cleared his throat. “Er…yes.” The discomfort traveled all the way from Midtown Manhattan. Such dangerous streets.
    “Do they want me to repay the advance?” Swift couldn’t even remember how much it had been. Nothing wildly extravagant, safe to say. Fountainhead was a small operation, and financing poets was never a huge moneymaker. Whatever the amount, he’d blown it—literally—within a week.
    Well, his teaching salary wasn’t exorbitant, but if Fountainhead would give him a little time, he should be able to figure out a way to come up with the cash. If worse came to worse, he could approach his trustees—but that would be a last resort.
    “No, no,” Bernard interrupted his roiling thoughts. “Nothing like that. They just—well, we all—hope that you might be writing again.”
    “No.” Swift made an effort to temper it. “Sorry. The words just aren’t there.”
    Bernard didn’t seem to hear him. “In fact, given the complicated circumstances, Fountainhead is even willing to kick in another grand.”
    Far from cheering Swift up, that news just made him feel all the more wretched. “That’s generous of them, but I’m not writing.”
    “Ah.” Bernard’s careful tone was a dead giveaway. “What about the poems you wrote after…?”
    Swift’s heart paused mid-beat. He managed to say, “After what?”
    “After Norris passed away.”
    Passed away . What a feeble term