A little to John’s surprise (though his ego wasn’t bruised), Max put Jim Hunter in what was clearly the place of honor in his study: a big, padded, crimson leather wing chair. The whole room was crimson leather, gilt-adorned books, walnut furniture and leaded windows. Artificial. Davina, he would have been prepared to bet.
He drew up a straight chair in front of but to one side of Jim’s wing chair, hardly curious about Jim’s significance: it would all come out in time, and he had loads of time. Max had gone into a huddle with Val and Ivan, each flourishing a large cigar and a snifter of XO cognac; the Tunbulls don’t skimp on life’s little niceties, he thought, and they love to huddle. Dr. Al drew up another straight chair on Jim’s other side, and the den settled into two separate conversations.
“Are you the Tunbull family physician, Al?” John asked.
“Lord, no! I’m a pathologist specializing in hematology,” Markoff said affably, “which won’t mean any more to you than Douglas fir does to me. Now Jim’s DNA I find fascinating.”
“Is this yours and Muse’s first child?” he pressed.
Markoff guffawed. “I wish! This, my bachelor friend, is the forties accident. We have two boys in their teens, but Muse is too scatty to throw geniuses, so they’re horribly ordinary.”
“I think you’d be a pretty cool father,” John said, enjoying the man’s easygoing humor as he expanded on the theme of the accidental forties pregnancy; while he talked, John almost forgot what he suspected was going on between Max, Val and Ivan: the non-depletion of Ivan’s share of the family business and estate.
He felt suddenly very tired. The meal had been long and his wine glass refilled too often, something he disliked. To gird up his loins for this meeting had taken courage, for there was much of his mother in John Hall, who shrank from confrontations. After Jim and Dr. Al moved on to nucleic acids he managed a surreptitious peek at his watch: 11 p.m. They had been in the study for a half hour, which meant, according to Dr. Al, another half hour to go before he stood any chance of escaping. Max was gazing across at him with real love and concern, but how could he get to first base with a father shackled to a harpy like Davina? She would be rooting for baby Alexis, and why not?
Sweat was stinging his eyes; funny, he hadn’t noticed until now how hot the room was. Rather clumsily he groped in his trousers side pocket for his handkerchief, found it, yet couldn’t seem to pull it out.
“Hot,” he mumbled, running a finger around the inside of his collar. The handkerchief finally came free; he held it to his brow and mopped. “Anyone else hot?” he asked.
“Some,” said Jim, taking John’s brandy snifter from him. “It’s the end of the evening, why not take off your tie? No one will mind, I’m sure.”
“Of course take it off, John,” said Max, moving to the dial of the thermostat; the response of cooler air was immediate.
His lips felt numb; he licked at them. “Numb,” he said.
Jim had taken the tie off, loosened the collar. “Better?”
“Not — really,” he managed.
He couldn’t seem to draw air into his lungs properly, and gasped. Sweet cool air flooded in; he gasped again, but this time it was harder to suck in a breath. He swayed on the chair.
“Get him on the floor, guys,” he heard Dr. Al say, then felt himself laid prone, a loosely rolled coat behind his head. Markoff was ripping open the buttons on his shirt and barking at someone: “Call an ambulance — resuscitation emergency. Max, tell Muse to give you my bag.”
Nauseated, he retched, tried to vomit, but nothing came up, and now he just felt sick, didn’t have the strength to retch. His teeth chattered, he was appalled to find his whole body invaded by a fine tremor. Then came an almighty, convulsive jerk, as if it were happening to someone else — why was he so aware of everything that was going on? Not in a disembodied way — that he could have borne, to hover looking down on himself. But still to be inside himself going through it was awful!
All that became as nothing compared to his struggle to breathe, an ever-increasing impossibility that flung him into a terror he had no way to show beyond the look in his eyes. I am dying, but I can’t tell them! They don’t know, they’ll let me die! I need air, I need air! Air! Air!
“Heartbeat’s weak rather than suspiciously irregular, it isn’t a primary cardiac catastrophe,” Dr. Al was saying, “but his airway is still patent. Shouldn’t have this gear with me, except that I borrowed it for a refresher course in emergency medicine … Gotta keep up with the times … I’ll intubate and bag breathe.”