The Moment by Douglas Kennedy Page A

corner of the room. I turned around and found myself staring at a man around thirty-five, exceedingly tall, rail thin, with sallow skin, sunken cheekbones, terrible teeth, and electric blue eyes that matched the ultramarine in his paintings. He was dressed in a pair of faded jeans, a heavy black turtleneck sweater that did nothing to hide his evident emaciation, and a pair of expensive tan leather lace-up boots that were dappled with paint. But, again, it was his eyes that were so magnetic. They had the coldness of permafrost, offset by deep crescent moon rings. They hinted at a worldview both defiant and vulnerable, just as I sensed from the outset that his verbal haughtiness was also a veneer. Arrogance always masks doubt, after all.
“You let yourself in,” he shouted over the Bach.
“The door was open . . .”
“. . . so you simply decided to make yourself at home.”
“I’m not exactly brewing coffee in your kitchen.”
“Is that a hint? Your way of telling me you’d like a cup of something?”
“I wouldn’t say no. And if you wouldn’t mind turning down the music . . .”
“You object to Bach?”
“Hardly. But I find shouting over a Brandenburg Concerto . . .”
A slight curl of the lip from Alaistair Fitzsimons-Ross.
“A cultivated American. How surprising.”
“Not as surprising as an arrogant Brit,” I said.
He thought that one over for a moment, then went over to the record player in his studio area and lifted the tone arm off the record.
“I’m not a Brit. I’m Irish.”
“You don’t sound it.”
“There are a handful of us still left in the country who sound like this.”
“West Brits?”
“You are up on your Irish argot.”
“There are Americans who read and travel.”
“Do you all get together once a year in some restaurant and exchange stories?”
“Actually we meet in a diner. How about that coffee?”
“So rude of me. But I’m afraid all I drink is tea. Tea and vodka and red wine.”
“I’ll go with the tea.”
“But you do drink?”
“That I do.”
He moved toward the kitchen, picking up a rather battered and rusted kettle.
“That’s a relief. I had some of those strange compatriots of yours at my door the other day. They looked like smiling zombies in very ugly blue suits and had name badges on their lapels.”
“Mormons?”
“Precisely. I offered them a cup of tea and they looked at me as if I had asked to sleep with one of their sisters.”
“They have a thing against all things caffeinated. Tea, coffee, Coca-Cola. Cigarettes and booze are also a no-no.”
“So that explains why they went pale when I lit up. You don’t have a thing against fags?”
“By which you mean cigarettes?”
“Oh yes, I forgot you Americans have a different interpretation for that word.”
“Why don’t you drop the ‘you Americans’ line right now.”
I said this without anger or edge—rather with what I hoped was an ironic smile on my face.
“You are so profoundly direct, Mr. New Yorker. And I must admit that I’ve forgotten your name.”
I told him. Then he said:
“Let me guess? Being a rather serious chappie, you prefer Thomas to Tom or, God forbid, Tommy.”
“Thomas works.”
“Then I shall call you ‘Tommy.’ Or perhaps ‘Tommy Boy,’ just to be contrary. So Tommy Boy, do you smoke?”
“I’m not a Mormon . . . and yes, I roll my own.”
“How John Wayne of you.”
“You really do talk a load of bullshit for an evidently talented man.”
That last part of my statement caught his attention. After lifting the now-boiled kettle, then scalding a large brown porcelain teapot before reaching for a dark green tin, opening it, and heaping three spoonfuls of tea into the pot, he asked:
“What makes you think I have any talent whatsoever?”
“The two canvases on the walls.”
“You want to buy one?”
“If I’m here to inquire about renting a room, I doubt I can afford your prices.”
“How do you know that I’m so expensive?”
“Just a hunch.”
He now poured the