Beggarman, Thief (44 page)

Then she heard Donnelly singing “Boola, Boola” outside the hotel. Sadly, she shook her head at the relation between talent and liquor in the arts in America. There again she thought of Colin Burke, whom she had never seen drunk and who rarely even took a drink. An exception. An exception in many ways. She thought of him often these days, while she worked, trying to imagine how he would set up the camera, what he would say to a balky actor, how direct a complicated scene. If you couldn’t plagiarize a dead husband, she thought defensively, whom could you plagiarize?

The singing outside stopped and she hoped that Donnelly wouldn’t feel too shaken in the morning. For his sake, not for hers—she didn’t need him for the next day’s shooting—but he always looked so shamefaced when he came onto the set after the night before.

She smiled, thinking of the artful, dour, complicated man, who, she thought, looked like a young Confederate cavalry colonel, with his jutting beard and fierce, unsatisfied eyes. She liked him and she could tell he was attracted to her and, despite her vow never to let a younger man touch her again, if she wasn’t so obsessed with the picture, she might …

There was a knock on her door.

“Come in,” she said. She never locked her door.

The door opened and Donnelly came in, walking almost straight.

“Good evening,” she said.

“I have just spent a momentous hour,” he said solemnly, “with your brother. I love your brother. I thought you had to be told.”

She smiled. “I love my brother, too.”

“We are going to engage in grand—grandiloquent undertakings together,” Donnelly said. “We are of the same tribe.”

“Possibly,” Gretchen said good-naturedly; “our mother possibly was Irish, or at least that was what she claimed. Our father was German, though.”

“I respect both the Irish and the Germans,” Donnelly said, leaning against the doorpost for support, “but that is not what I meant. I am talking of the tribe of the spirit. Do I interrupt you?”

“I’d just about finished,” Gretchen said. “If you want to talk don’t you think it would be a good idea to shut the door?”

Slowly, with dignity, Donnelly closed the door behind him and leaned against it.

“Would you like some coffee?” Gretchen indicated the thermos pitcher on her desk. She drank twenty cups a day to keep going.

“People are always offering me coffee,” Donnelly said petishly. “I find it degrading. I despise coffee.”

“I’m afraid I have nothing harder to drink,” Gretchen said, although there was a bottle of Scotch, she knew, in the cupboard.

“I have no need of the drink, madam,” Donnelly said. “I come merely as a messenger.”

“From whom?”

“From David P. Donnelly,” Donnelly said, “himself.”

Gretchen laughed.

“Deliver the message,” she said, “and then I advise bed.”

“I have delivered half the message,” Donnelly said. “I love your brother. The other half is more difficult. I love his sister.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Correct,” he said. “Drunk I love his sister and sober I love his sister.”

“Thank you for the message,” Gretchen said, still seated, although she wanted to stand up and kiss the man.

“You will remember what I have said?” He glowered at her over his beard.

“I’ll remember.”

“In that case,” he said oratorically, “I shall retire for the night. Good night, madam.”

“Good night,” she said. “Sleep well.”

“I promise to toss and turn. Ah, me.”

Gretchen chuckled. “Ah, you.”

If he had stayed another ten seconds she would have sprung from her chair and embraced him. But he waved his arm grandly in salute and went out, almost straight.

She heard him singing “Boola, Boola” as he went down the hallway.

She sat staring at the door, thinking, Why not, why the hell not? She shook her head. Later, later, when the work is over. Perhaps.

She went back to marking her script in the quiet room, which now smelled from whiskey.

«  »

On the floor below, Wesley tried to sleep. He had kept listening for the soft turning of the door handle and the rustle of cloth as Frances came into the darkened room. But the door handle didn’t turn, there was no sound except the complaint of the bedsprings as he turned restlessly under the covers.

He had said he loved her. True, she had more or less forced it out of him, but when he had said it he had meant it. When you loved someone, though, did you notice when she was faking, putting on an act, did you let her know that she was behaving foolishly? People talked about love as though it was all one piece, as though once you said you were in love nothing else mattered. In the movie he was doing the young politician who fell in love with Frances never criticized her for her behavior, which he adored, but only for some of the wilder schemes she concocted to sway the other characters in the script to see things her way. Love is blind, the saying went. Well, he certainly hadn’t been blind that evening. He had felt that the performance Frances had put on in the bar was phony and disgusting and he had told her so. Maybe he had better learn to keep his opinions to himself. If he had, he wouldn’t be in bed alone at two o’clock in the morning.

He ached for the touch of her hand, the softness of her breast as he kissed it. If that wasn’t love, what was it? When she was in bed with him he couldn’t believe she would go back to her husband, be attracted to another man, despite what his aunt had told him. He had enjoyed the women on the
Clothilde,
while their husbands had slept below or been off at the casino, he had liked what he did with Mrs. Wertham, but he had known, with certainty, that what he was feeling then wasn’t love. You didn’t have to be an experienced man of the world to know the difference between what he had felt then and what he felt with Frances.

He remembered the times when Frances was in his arms in the narrow bed, their bodies entwined in the dark, and Frances had whispered, “I love you.” What had she meant those times? He groaned softly.

He had told Frances to call her mother to find out who she really was. Whom could he call to find out who
he
really was? His own mother? She would probably say that like his father he was a defiler of decent Christian homes. His uncle? To his uncle he most likely seemed like an inherited nuisance, with no sense of gratitude, who only showed up when he needed something. His Aunt Gretchen? A freak, who by some mysterious trick of nature was gifted with a talent he was too stupid or unambitious to want to use. Alice? A clumsy, unsophisticated boy who needed pity and mothering. Bunny? A good deckhand who would never be anywhere near the man his father was. Kate? Half brother to her son, a painful, living memory of her dead husband. How put all this together and make one whole person out of the parts?

Was it only because he was so young that he felt so split up, so uncertain of himself? Retarded, Frances had said that evening. But other people around his age didn’t seem to suffer, they put themselves together all right. Jimmy, the other delivery boy at the supermarket, with his music and the firm knowledge that his sisters and his mother had a single, uncomplicated opinion of him, and that opinion based on love. His own mother said she loved him but that kind of love was a whole lot worse than hate.

He thought of Healey, the wounded soldier who had come back with Kraler’s son’s body. Healey lived on one certainty, that he was a man who always got a raw deal from the world and that nothing would ever change for him and that the world could go fuck itself.

There was only one thing he was certain of, Wesley thought,
he
was going to change. Only he had no inkling, as he lay there alone in the dark room, in what direction. He wondered, if by some miracle he could get a glimpse of himself at the age of twenty-one, twenty-five, thirty, what he would think of himself.

Maybe, after he was finished with Frances, he would finally do what his aunt wanted him to do and become an actor. Learn to live with all the different parts of himself and make full use of them, act not only in front of a camera, but like Frances, every minute of the day. Maybe she had it figured out—that’s what the world wanted and that’s what she gave it.

In the morning, he knew, on the set, he would be expected to seem like a savage, irresponsible ruffian. It was an easy role for him to play. Maybe he would try it for a year or two. It was as good a starting point as anyplace else.

When he finally slept he dreamed that he was in Alice’s living room eating a roast beef sandwich and drinking a beer, only it wasn’t Alice across the table from him, but Frances Miller.

CHAPTER 7

F
ROM
B
ILLY
A
BBOTT’S
NOTEBOOK—

BACK AT THE TYPEWRITER AGAIN. BAD HABITS DIE HARD. BESIDES, EVERYONE TAKES A SIESTA HERE AFTER LUNCH AND I’VE NEVER GOTTEN INTO THE HABIT OF SLEEPING DURING THE DAY AND SINCE THERE’S NOBODY ELSE TO TALK TO, I MIGHT AS WELL TALK TO MYSELF. ANYWAY, THERE’S NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT FRANCO’S POLICE WOULD BE INTERESTED IN THE RAMBLINGS OF AN AMERICAN TENNIS PRO IN THIS ENCLAVE OF THE RICH ON THE EDGE OF THE BLUE SEA. IT WAS DIFFERENT IN BELGIUM. IS IT POSSIBLE THAT PRIVACY IS EASIER TO ACHIEVE UNDER FASCISM THAN UNDER DEMOCRACY? MUST STUDY THE QUESTION.

AFTER BRUSSELS, THE CLIMATE OF SOUTHERN SPAIN IS THE WEATHER OF HEAVEN AND IT MAKES YOU WONDER, HOW, IF PEOPLE HAD ANY CHOICE IN THE MATTER, THEY WOULD CONTINUE TO LIVE NORTH OF THE LOIRE.

DROVE DOWN IN THE NEAT LITTLE SECONDHAND OPEN PEUGEOT WITH FRENCH TRANSIT TTX PLATES THAT I GOT AT A GOOD PRICE IN PARIS. AS SOON AS I CROSSED THE PYRENEES, BETWEEN THE GREEN MOUNTAINS AND THE OCEAN, I FELT A PECULIAR PLEASURE, AS THOUGH I RECOGNIZED THE VILLAGES AND THE FIELDS AND RIVERS FROM ANOTHER LIFE, AS THOUGH I WERE RETURNING HOME FROM A LONG JOURNEY, AND THIS WAS THE COUNTRY FOR ME.

UNTIL I OPEN MY MOUTH I CAN PASS AS A SPANIARD. IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THE COLORING OF THE ABBOTT FAMILY IS THE RESULT OF A SLIPUP AT THE TIME OF THE SPANISH ARMADA? SHIPWRECKED, POTENT ANDALUSIANS ON THE COAST OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND?

THE HOTEL I LIVE IN IS BRAND NEW AND GOOD AT LEAST A DOZEN YEARS BEFORE IT SUCCUMBS TO WIND AND TIDE. BUT IT’S SOLID ENOUGH NOW AND I HAVE A COMFORTABLE, AIRY ROOM WITH A VIEW OF A GOLF COURSE AND THE SEA. ASIDE FROM THE LESSONS I HAVE TO GIVE TO BEGINNERS AND DUBS, THERE ARE ENOUGH GOOD PLAYERS AROUND FOR TWO HOURS OF FAST TENNIS ALMOST EVERYDAY. A SIMPLE MAN, MYSELF, WITH SIMPLE TASTES.

THE SPANIARDS HERE ARE HANDSOME AND AGREEABLE AND SCHOOLED IN COURTESY, A CHANGE AFTER THE AMERICAN ARMY. THE OTHERS ARE ON HOLIDAY AND ON THEIR BEST BEHAVIOR. UP TO NOW I HAVE NOT BEEN INSULTED OR CHALLENGED TO A DUEL, FORCED TO SEE A BULLFIGHT OR REQUESTED TO HELP BRING DOWN THE SYSTEM.

CAREFUL TO BE MOST CORRECT WITH THE LADIES, ACCENT OR NO. THEY’RE LIKELY TO HAVE HUSBANDS OR ESCORTS IN THE BACKGROUND WHO HAVE A TENDENCY TO BE SUSPICIOUS OF A YOUNG AMERICAN PROFESSIONAL ATHLETE WHO SPENDS AT LEAST AN HOUR A DAY, SCANTILY DRESSED, WITH THEIR PARTNERS. THEY SUDDENLY APPEAR ON THE SIDELINES DURING LESSONS, BROODING DARKLY. I HAVE NO DESIRE TO BE RIDDEN OUT OF TOWN IN DISGRACE, CHARGED WITH DISHONORING SOME SPANISH GENTLEMAN’S WIFE OR MISTRESS. FOR A YEAR AT LEAST IT IS MY INTENTION TO STAY OUT OF TROUBLE.

AFTER MONIKA THE JOYS OF CELIBACY ARE TO BE RECOMMENDED. TURMOIL, IN AND OUT OF BED, IS NOT MY SPECIALTY.

I’M BROWN FROM THE SUN AND IN BETTER SHAPE THAN EVER BEFORE AND HAVE TAKEN TO ADMIRING MYSELF NAKED IN A MIRROR.

THE PAY IS GOOD, THE TIPS GENEROUS. I FIND MYSELF ACTUALLY SAVING QUITE A BIT OF MONEY, SOMETHING NEW AND STRANGE IN MY LIFE.

THE PARTIES ARE NUMEROUS HERE AND I’M INVITED TO MOST OF THEM. NEW BOY IN TOWN, I SUPPOSE. I MAKE SURE NOT TO DRINK TOO MUCH OR SPEAK TO ANY ONE LADY FOR MORE THAN FIFTEEN MINUTES AT A TIME. BY NOW I KNOW ENOUGH SPANISH TO UNDERSTAND MOST OF THE FIERCE POLITICAL ARGUMENTS THAT ERUPT HERE LATE AT NIGHT. THE PARTICIPANTS ARE LIKELY TO BRING UP SUCH SUBJECTS AS THE MENACE OF BLOODSHED, EXPROPRIATION, COMMUNISM, AND WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE COUNTRY WHEN THE OLD MAN DIES. I KEEP SILENT AT SUCH TIMES, THANKING MY STARS THAT I HAVE SETTLED, EVEN IF ONLY FOR A SHORT PERIOD, IN A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY WHICH SUITS MY TEMPERAMENT SO WELL, WITHOUT HAVING TO EXPRESS ANY OPINION MORE INFLAMMATORY THAN HOW TO GRIP THE HANDLE OF A RACKET WHEN SERVING.