The Truth About Lorin Jones Read Online Free PDF Page B

marketable.
    As soon as they had been served coffee, Polly opened a spiral notebook containing a list of prepared questions, ranged in decreasing order of harmlessness according to the advice given her by a friend who was a professional journalist. Then she set her tape recorder on the plastic placemat with its view of Warwick Castle. Lennie, like all her previous interviewees, flinched slightly at the sight. He sat back and straightened his spine, confronting her more squarely.
    For a while everything went well enough. Lennie answered the easy questions without hesitation, supplying dates, addresses, and the names of relatives and schools. But when Polly started to ask about Lorin Jones’s parents he began to speak more slowly and give short, unhelpful replies. (“Sorry, I don’t recall... I don’t remember, really ... It’s a long time ago.”)
    “Can’t you tell me any more?” she asked as persuasively as she could. “You said just now that you visited your father’s new family fairly often.”
    “Not all that often. It was a long trip from Queens, and my mother wasn’t all that keen on my making it.” He smiled sourly.
    “But you must remember something of what it was like there.”
    Lennie smiled briefly sideways, not exactly in Polly’s direction, and shook his head.
    “Really?... I find that hard to believe.” She waited, but he merely shrugged and took another sip of espresso. “I’m beginning to get the feeling that you don’t want me to write about your sister,” she said finally, not quite in control of her tone for the first time.
    “I don’t want you to write the kind of personal things you’ve been asking for; no. In my view, it’s far too soon for anything like an analytic biography.”
    “But you said — you agreed —” Remembering what had happened with Paolo Carducci, she tried to keep the indignation out of her voice. Jeanne was right; she wasn’t going to get anywhere that way.
    “I agreed to the idea of a book on Laura, yes. But what I assumed you had in mind was a study of her paintings — an extension of what you wrote in the catalogue.”
    “Well, of course I’m planning to discuss the paintings,” Polly said, trying to remain calm.
    “I think you should concentrate on that.” Lennie smiled in an irritating way. “On the professional side of her life.”
    Don’t tell me what to concentrate on, Polly thought angrily. But she feigned docility and began to ask about Lorin Jones’s early years. Did she show artistic talent as a child, did she win prizes, did her parents and her teachers recognize her ability and encourage her? “Yeah, I think so,” Lennie kept saying; but he wouldn’t provide any details.
    “You’re not helping much, you know,” she told him finally.
    “I know. I’m trying, but you’ve got to remember we grew up apart, and I was nearly five years older than Laura. It wasn’t until she’d finished college and was studying in New York that we really got acquainted.”
    “So you didn’t know her all that well as a little girl,” Polly said, trying to give the appearance of believing this.
    “No. But I don’t think anyone did. Laura was extremely shy, you know. Especially with older people. When I visited my father’s house, most of the time she’d be up in her room, or out in the garden playing with her dolls under the lilac bushes. Or making up stories and singing them to herself, or drawing — yeah, I do remember her drawing sometimes.”
    “And would you say she was a happy child?”
    “Happy?” Lennie squinted past Polly and the bleached brick wall of the restaurant, into some lost space.
    Now he’s going to tell me, Polly thought; making an effort, she said nothing more. But when Lennie looked back at her, his jaw was set. “As I believe I mentioned before,” he said, heavily ironic, “I don’t see the point of questions like that. Who knows what happiness is for anyone else?”
    “Mmh,” Polly agreed,