Destiny (102 page)

She hesitated. Was Thad simply and deliberately trying to block her from working with someone else? Was that the reason he had given her this script? She had felt that a moment before; now, looking at those windows and their blank shades, she was not so sure. With Thad, there could be innumerable reasons. Even if she did not like him, she acknowledged his diversity. She turned and looked back at him: why could he not acknowledge hers?

622 • SALLY BEAUMAN

At the foot of the steps Thad came puffing to a halt. He saw her glance; she wondered if he read her mind.

"You can take a look at the rest of the house if you like," he said. "You never have. I'd like you to see it. I do all my writing—in there."

He gestured at one of the blank windows.

"Not now, Thad. I have to get back for Cat. I like to see her before she goes to bed. ..."

She hurried in the direction of her car. She climbed into it. Thad followed her, but he made no attempt to delay her.

He had finally realized that something was troubling her, and that something was wrong. He looked a little anxious, but Helene knew that would not last; Thad's anxieties were always very brief.

"You will read it?" he said as she pulled away. "You will read it soon?"

"When I have time, Thad," she called, and accelerated away.

She drove home fast. Lewis was still not there, and the moment she was alone, she telephoned Gregory Gertz. Her hands were shaking a little as she placed the call, and it occurred to her that it might be better to wait, until she had time to think, until she was calmer. But she would not delay: she was already half committed to the Gertz film; it was a good script, and a good part—quite unlike any of the parts she had played before; she wanted to do it; she would not allow Thad to coerce her in this way.

To have been planning, all along, to make three films rather than one— and never to have hinted at that, never to have said one word . . . She felt angry again, and so, when Gregory Gertz answered, it was easy to say, "I've decided to do it. Yes, next spring." She paused. "If the terms are agreeable, of course."

"They'll be agreeable." She could hear the elation in his voice. "I guarantee it."

When she replaced the receiver, she sat for a while, staring straight in front of her. She did not see the room at all—she saw the future. The opening of Ellis; the return to Alabama; the long-planned confrontation with Ned Calvert; the film with Gregory Gertz, and the film after that, and the film after that. Lining up the work; lining up a lifetime. So much, and so little: she bent her head, and thought of Edouard.

Sometimes, when she allowed herself to do this, she had the illusion that he was very close, that he was also thinking of her. At this moment, she felt it strongly; she felt filled with the sense of him, and her heart lifted.

It was an illusion, though, and she knew that. Indulging it only made her miserable, later. She looked at the telephone, and then pushed it to one

DESTINY • 623

side. She had not called his number once since leaving New York; now she was not even certain whether, on that occasion, he had really said her name. That might have been an illusion too.

The envelope that Thad had given her lay on the table in front of her. She opened it and drew out the script.

It was heavy, and bound in a thick blue cover. She flicked it open and saw, to her surprise, that on the first blank page, Thad had written a dedication, in his small spidery hand.

For Helene, it said.

Underneath it he had written a date, a date in 1959. Helene looked at it blankly: she associated that late summer, and that year, with Edouard. It took her a moment to realize that it had other associations, also, if not for her, then obviously for Thad. The date Thad had inscribed was the date he first met her, in Paris, outside the Cinematheque.

j\ nd so," Stephani was saying, sitting up in bed, "I put a rinse in my jLxhair. It was easy. It's not quite the right color yet, the bleach needs to grow out. The makeup—well, I've been practicing that. I used to watch how she did it—when we were out on location. And the clothes . . ." She gave a gentle dreamy little smile. "Helene's are couture, of course, so I did the best I could. There's a shop about five blocks from Wilshire, well, I guess it's nearer Sunset, really. They sell copies, and designer fashions— not new ones—used ones. It's where all the stars get rid of their clothes. I know the woman who runs it. I went in there, and I was looking through the racks, and I thought, right oflF, as soon as I saw it—that's her, that's Helene." She stopped; she turned to Lewis. "You were pleased? You did like it? Tell me you did, Lewis?"

"Sure," Lewis said.

He was sitting on the end of the bed, watching the color television, or rather, not really watching it, but channel-hopping. It helped to block out what Stephani was saying. He did not want to know the details. He did not want to know how it was done. That spoiled it somehow. He punched another button.

Stephani and he had been smoking a little grass; Stephani liked it afterward, and sometimes before. Lewis liked it too. It did not always combine too well with the little red pills, but today it was all right. He felt at peace; he felt dreamy. Stephani was rolling another joint now. He turned his head and watched her. Small nimble fingers; she extended a pink tip of tongue, and ran it along the edge of the paper.

"Does Helene ever do that—sell off her old clothes? Give them to the

624 • SALLY BEAUMAN

maids, maybe? Because if she did—oh, Lewis!" She gave a httle breathy sigh. "Imagine. Her very own things." She stopped and gave a sad httle frown. "Except they wouldn't fit me. They'd be too tight. Way too tight ..."

"Uh-huh." Lewis nodded. He was not listening. A baseball game; an old black and white movie; a soap; someone being interviewed; riots someplace; Lassie . . .

Lewis gave a sigh of pleasure. Lassie was saving a man who had been trapped in a mine. He loved Lassie. He had always loved Lassie, and back home in Boston, whenever she came on, the set was switched off. Lassie caught hold of the man's arm; she dragged him a few feet. She stopped and wagged her tail; she barked. Or should it be, he barked? Lewis was not sure. That struck him as funny, and he began to laugh. Then the ads came on; a pure-faced woman held up a box of detergent; Lewis punched the button again.

The soap; the riots; the interview; the movie. Lewis suddenly became very still. He punched the button again: back to the man being interviewed. He stared at the screen; he turned the sound up. Behind him Stephani crawled forward on the bed. She lay on her stomach with her chin in her hands. She, too, looked at the screen.

"Hey," she said after a while. "He's really good-looking, don't you think, Lewis?"

"Be quiet. I'm listening. ..."

Stephani subsided for a minute or two. Then she said, "Mmmm, I like his suit too. It's like the ones you wear, Lewis. Only darker. You ought to get one hke that. I like it. It's sexy."

"Will you shut up, goddammit?" Lewis rounded on her, and Stephani gave him a frightened look. She bit her Hp, and was silent.

Lewis stared at the screen again. He hardly heard a word that was being said; some financial matters were being discussed; it was not they which interested him. He felt quite alert now; the muzziness, the daze of a few moments before was gone. Shock had made his mind sharp as a razor.

The interview came to a close; the camera switched back to the questioner. Lewis stood up, he switched the set off. Stephani looked up at him uncertainly.

"Was that someone you know, Lewis?"

"No. I don't know him. Not exactly."

"He sounded English. . . ."

"He's not English. He's French." Lewis reached for his jacket. "I'm going home."

Stephani's eyes rounded in dismay. She knelt on the bed. "Oh, Lewis,

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you're mad at me. You are, aren't you? I can see it. You've turned all pale, the way you do when you get mad. . . . Oh, Lewis, what did I do?"

Lewis turned back to look at her. She was almost in tears; she looked like a woman, and also like a child. He was touched.

"You didn't do anything," he said more gently. "I'm not mad at you. Truly."

He bent and kissed her.

"I'll come tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay, Lewis." She hesitated. "Lewis, shall I . . ."

Lewis smiled. He lifted one finger and pressed it against her lips. He said: "Surprise me. . . ."

He drove home fast; just one little red pill, and he didn't really need that. He felt angry, and powerful, and free. No one at the gates. By the time he reached the house, the sky was darkening. He went into the living room. Helene was there, alone. She was sitting, reading a book. She greeted him, and made no comment about the time, or his absence. She watched him as he walked across the room to pour himself a drink, and Lewis knew why she was doing that. She watched his eyes, and she watched his walk. She never asked, but she Uked to know—how much he'd been drinking.

He lifted the heavy decanter and poured a good three inches of whisky into the glass. He held it so she could see what he was doing; let her watch; let her count them. He took a swallow of the drink, and then moved across so that he stood just in front of her, not too near, not too far, just enough. He rested his elbow on the marble mantelpiece. Helene bent her head to her book.

Lewis knew she could feel his anger, and he was glad of it. He looked down at her bent head, at the thick pale gold hair, which she had tied back at the nape of her neck with a black silk ribbon. Should he tell her now, should he tell her what he had just seen on that television set, or should he wait? He might wait. A week. A month—as long as he wanted. He felt he would like to do that. After all, how long had he waited to find out the truth? Five years. Yes, he would wait. But still, he could feel the anger, and it was mounting. The itch to pick a quarrel was very strong. . . .

Helene turned a page. She tried to force her mind to concentrate on the words in front of her. She could feel Lewis's anger very strongly; it was like a third person in the room; she had felt it come in with him. It could have been caused by drinking, although he did not look drunk. It could

626 • SALLY BEAUMAN

have been the pills he took. It could have been any number of things— resentment at her seeing Thad; a chance remark by a stranger.

These past weeks in particular, but also for long before that, she had grown used to these moods, and accustomed to trying to humor Lewis. Oh, so many devices. She thought of them now, all the httle ways in which she tried to conciliate him. The carefulness with which she agreed with all his opinions, however contradictory; the silence she maintained, so that Lewis could talk or rage as he pleased. The eflforts—the pathetic eflforts— to please him. Making sure Cat was in bed early, for if she was still up when he came home, he always flew into a temper. Trying to arrange that the foods he liked would be served at the times he preferred. Wearing clothes on which he had once compUmented her. Wearing jewelry that he had given her on some happy occasion in the past. Wearing her hair loose, as he preferred it. Asking him always, so considerately, about his work, his experiences, and making sure, if he bothered to ask her about hers, that the replies were brief and dismissive. Bowing to his opinions; bowing to his judgments; bowing to him. . . .

She had behaved toward Lewis, she realized then, as she sat with her face bent to her book, in exactly the same way that, years ago, when she was still a child, she had behaved to Ned Calvert. She had seen other women, women much older than herself, behave in the same way. She had seen their fixed smiles, their attempts, in public, to make Ught of their husband's rudeness. She had watched them, flirting a httle, attempting to charm, women in their forties and older, behaving like coy little girls. She had hated their obsequiousness; now, quite suddenly, she hated her own. She thought: it is unbearable; it is humihating; I shall never do that again. And she closed her book, and looked up at Lewis.

He was spoiling for a fight—she could see it in every hne of his face, in the set of his body. On any other day in the past month, in all the months before that, she would have set out to disarm his anger, and to defuse it, no matter how she had to abase herself to do it. Now, she rebelled. She could feel the rebelhon, a hard tight core of it inside her. The instant she felt it, she knew that it had always been there, and that she had allowed it, for years, to dwindle away into a weak and self-destructive resentment. She looked at Lewis quite calmly: not anymore.

"Why did you never tell me about your investments?" Lewis spoke suddenly, in the calm flat voice that always presaged trouble. It was not the central issue, she knew that at once, merely a side one he would use to open the engagement.

"I would have thought you might have mentioned them to me, just once or twice, in the past four years, since I introduced you to Gould in the first place, and since they've been so successful."

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"You've been through my fiUng cabinets then, as well as my desk?"

That surprised him, a httle. He had been waiting, of course, for the placatory reply.

"Yes, I have. Why not? It's a way of checking up on you. I like to know what you do, how you spend your time. And you're not likely to tell me." His tone was still calm, not yet openly beUigerent. That would come next.

Helene looked at him coldly. "I hope you found them instructive."

"Oh, I did." He swallowed the last of the whiskey, and placed the glass, with great care, on the mantel piece. "Instructive, and interesting. You like money, don't you? I should have reahzed that before." He paused. "After all, you married me for mine."

The attack was now overt. There was a long pause while they looked at each other. Then Helene said quietly, "I didn't marry you for your money, Lewis. Not exactly."

"Not exactly?" He flushed, and his voice rose. "Not exactly? Then why did you—exactly? Because you wanted my name? Because you thought I could help your career? Or would you still have married me if I'd been poor?"