Nothing So Strange (20 page)

We drove for miles over a succession of ridges, passing hardly any
traffic, till we joined the main Bakerfield—Los Angeles highway.
Arrived at the studio I found everyone at lunch and no apparent sign that I
had been missed or was wanted: but about three o’clock I was welcomed with
great courtesy by the head of the organization. He chatted for a while
without supplying any evidence that he had read my book—and apologized
for the absence of a Mr. Chandos, who was visiting the dentist. Mr. Chandos
was expected back at the studio about four—would I perhaps care to
wait, or would it suit me better to meet Mr. Chandos some other day? I said I
would wait, and somehow would have minded less if everyone hadn’t apologized
so much. It was almost as if I were being told that waiting was humiliating
and that therefore it was too much to ask me to do it. Perhaps for this
reason I grew rather bored as four o’clock came, then half past, and still no
Mr. Chandos. Every few minutes his secretary put her head in at the door and
said she was sure he wouldn’t be gone much longer, but if I preferred, she
knew he would understand if I chose not to wait. That made me wait more
exasperatedly than ever, though it was really not hard to pass the time in
Mr. Chandos’s office, equipped as it was with radio, phonograph, armchairs,
and all the latest magazines. These Hollywood magnates do themselves well, I
reflected: and that set me wondering what sort of man Mr. Chandos was, as my
mother and I had once wondered what sort of man Hugo Framm was. But it wasn’t
much of a game to play solo, and my expectations of Mr. Chandos were hardly
amusing and not very cheerful. I suppose subconsciously I thought of the
Hollywood one reads about, because when finally Mr. Chandos did appear he
surprised me very much.

To begin with, he was young—not mere than thirty-odd, quite good-
looking, and exceedingly literate. He apologized briefly for his lateness,
but obviously considered a sudden tooth extraction reason enough (which it
was): he also said a few polite but not extravagant things about my book.
Then we began talking about various parts of the world we had both visited;
and by five o’clock I knew a few of the facts of his life, such as that he
was unmarried, had been rejected by the army for medical reasons, and had
come to Hollywood originally from Harvard Law School by way of journalism in
Chicago and a doctor’s recommendation of the California climate.

“So you like it here,” I said.

“It’s good for my lungs,” he answered.

“Not for anything else?”

“Well … for my pocket, if you count that.”

“Let’s be realistic and count everything.”

He laughed. “All right. But I warn you—I’m an idealist. I’d like to
make a picture that would cost a couple of millions and lose at least one of
them. Hollywood won’t let me. It’s all I have against the place. Or nearly
all.”

“So what do you do in the meantime?”

“I compromise.”

“Why do you suppose your ideal picture would fail commercially?”

“Why do you suppose so many pictures that are not ideal succeed
commercially?”

“That’s not answering my question. I want to know whether you believe it’s
Hollywood’s fault or the people’s.”

“Both … and also neither’s. Think of the task of making fifty-two
pictures a year for a public that expects to see a new one every week. How
can fifty-two per year of anything in the creative field be more than
averagely competent? Are there fifty-two good books every year? Or good
canvases or good musical compositions?… You can’t expect Hollywood to be an
exception. It’s a machine for the production of financially profitable
entertainment, and it does that pretty well—so well that if it produces
a miracle now and again it really
is
a miracle. It’s almost as if one
car on the Ford assembly line should suddenly turn out to be a
Hispano-Suiza.”

“So to work miracles you should get out of Hollywood.”

“Yes, but the even greater miracle of getting a miracle out of Hollywood
always tempts me. It’s such a wonderful place for sheer technical
competence…. Look, why don’t we celebrate this first meeting?” He turned to
a cabinet which proved to be a miniature bar and began setting out
glasses.

I said I would have a very dry Martini, not too large, because I had a
drive ahead of me. He made it with some of the sheer technical competence he
had been talking about, and this challenged me to say: “Since you’ve been
frank, I might as well be also. I can’t imagine why your studio bought my
book for filming. There’s no story in it, and its real value, if it has any,
couldn’t be got on the screen.”

“That’s what
you
think,” he answered, quite rudely. “And see here
… in my office there’s one taboo—one only. Never say that a certain
thing can’t be got on the screen. What would you have said to anyone who set
limits to music or painting only half a century after their first
beginnings?”

“All right,” I said. “But I’ve heard that before in another form. The
difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer. It’s the
sort of gag you see framed on the office wall of a toilet-paper manufacturer.
Art isn’t half so arrogant. It accepts limits—in fact, the limits are
part of it….”

We went on talking and arguing till past six, and set a date for another
meeting the following Wednesday. I wasn’t quite clear what the purpose of
these meetings was to be (so far we hadn’t discussed the picture or the book
at all in any specific terms), but I was being well paid for whatever Mr.
Chandos wanted from me, and if it was only general conversation I could not
complain. I drove back to Vista Grande with a growing conviction that I
rather liked him.

My father had held up dinner and his patience in doing so seemed to me
quite pathetic. He asked many questions about my visit to the studio, and
then I suddenly got the angle of his interest, which was also
pathetic—he had heard some of the classic stories of Hollywood
dilatoriness and hoped I would be one of those people who come originally for
a few weeks and stay on endlessly. As this was precisely what I intended
should not happen, it was hard for me to give him the kind of replies he
wanted. He reiterated how pleased he was to have me staying at Vista
Grande—that it was what he had hoped for ever since he bought it. He
also told me something about the house, which had apparently been modernized
from the shell of an old ranch house dating back to Spanish- Mexican times.
He had chosen it, he said, because he thought it a pleasant place to end his
days in; and when I protested (aware that we were both conforming to a
certain pattern of behavior), he said that of course he didn’t mean to die
yet, his doctor had said it might be years—many years, if he took care
of himself. So he was doing that, and the climate suited him; he took drives
and found the mountain air invigorating; he also went to Santa Barbara or
Palm Springs occasionally and just pottered about the streets, well content
that nobody ever recognized him. Which reminded him: it happened that he had
been fortunate in getting a private supply of gasoline—quite
unofficially, of course—so that my trips to the studio were all right,
so far as he was concerned, though perhaps I had better not tell anyone I was
driving so far.

I thought it again pathetic that he should so easily switch from talk of
death to a confession of black marketeering; for both were further signs of
the change in him—perhaps also of a change in the world around him. The
truth was, I figured, that though his career had doubtless contained many
incidents of a dubious character, they had all been large matters, like that
of Marazon Cement; in the small things, until the war, his right to priority
and privilege had never been questioned; indeed, an army of underlings had
always been at call to ensure that he got the best seat, the fastest plane,
the promptest service, the ringside table, the choicest cut. But now this was
changed also, and though he could still get most of what he wanted, he had to
chisel like any small-time grafter.

I told him I certainly wouldn’t wish to use gas for frequent trips, but
that in any case I hadn’t to visit the studio again for a week; which meant
that tacitly I was agreeing to stay at Vista Grande. (And I later telephoned
the hotel canceling my room.) We sat by the fire in the library after dinner
listening to the radio—just the news and a commentator. I had never
known him bother much with the radio in years gone by, for the reason that he
never wanted to listen except when he was tired, and then he would certainly
have been too tired to listen to a commentator. But now he was only too tired
to comment on the commentator. Some kind of declining equilibrium seemed to
have been reached, offering perhaps a tranquility that offset even the
loneliness. He went up to bed about ten, kissing me good night as he had
kissed me when I used to go up to bed as a girl. It was all more like a home
than I had had for years, although (or else because) there was something in
it that dragged at the heart.

I stayed up myself till nearly midnight, examining the books and generally
pottering about. They were a sound collection of mainly modern authors, quite
unnecessarily rebound in full calf, and with a few good first editions, among
them a boxed copy of the 1847 Currer Bell
Jane Eyre
, which I
remembered my father had once bought in London. I took it down to reread that
immortal opening sentence—“There was no possibility of taking a walk
that day”—with its hint of English rain and Victorian servitude. I was
still at the books when Dan entered. He had forgotten to tell me, he said,
that someone had telephoned during the day … a Mr. Small.

“
Small
?”

“Yes, miss. He said he’d like to see you tomorrow morning.”

“To
see
me? But he’s—he’s in New York!”

“He said he’d be here, miss. Shouldn’t I have told him you’d be in?”

“No, no … it’s all right. I’ll see him, of course.”

The thought of Mr. Small kept me restless till almost dawn,
after which I
slept a few hours and woke up wondering what part of my life I was in. Then I
saw the sun through the curtains and felt the silence that was, of all things
after New York, least familiar. It was past nine. I bathed and dressed
hurriedly, having told Dan to take Mr. Small to the terrace and offer him
breakfast if he came. But when I got down I found there was another man, whom
Mr. Small introduced as a Dr. Newby. They had declined anything to eat, but
were sipping coffee, sniffing the air, and taking in the view with a good
deal of quizzical admiration. Mr. Small had made concessions to California in
the shape of two-color shoes, sunglasses, and a Panama; he seemed quite
cheerful and asked if I were surprised to see him again so soon.

“Nothing surprises me any more,” I answered, deciding on a line. “You must
have taken practically the next plane. How did you know where I’d gone?”

He smiled. “You didn’t make it very difficult for me.”

“I didn’t try.”

He nodded. “That’s so.” Then he looked around. “Nice. Good place to settle
down and write another book…. Is that the idea?”

“No. I’m in California on a short business trip. But I’m still puzzled how
you found I was here, because I’d originally intended to stay at a
hotel.”

“That’s what the hotel people said.”

“How did you know which hotel it was, or did you try them all?”

“I knew where the picture company had booked you a room.”

“For heaven’s sake how did you know there
was
a picture
company?”

“It was in
Variety
that they’d bought your book to make a film….
So you see none of it was really difficult.”

I suppose it was a very elementary example of sleuthing, and it probably
impressed me more than it should have. I smiled ruefully. “All right. So you
know everything.”

“No. There’s a lot that you still haven’t told.”

I thought I might as well force an issue then as later, so I retorted:
“And I’m not going to—unless I’m given at least a ghost of a reason for
all this grilling. No doubt it’s very important, or you wouldn’t have
followed me out here, but that doesn’t alter my attitude—I’m just not
going to answer any more.”

“Of course you know you could be legally compelled to.”

“Sure—by subpoena. And then you’d be surprised how little I could
tell you. I’m apt to have a bad memory about things that happened so many
years ago.”

“That would certainly put us in a spot.”

“Not you. Bradley’s the one who’s in a spot, and you won’t tell me
why.”

He thought that over for a moment, then said: “You’ll notice, Miss Waring,
I haven’t brought a shorthand writer with me. You’re not even on oath.”

“As I don’t intend to lie, that doesn’t make much difference.”

“I thought it might make you feel more inclined to co-operate.”

I didn’t answer. He went on: “At any rate, it ought to set the key for a
friendlier talk than we had last time.”

“What’s happened in the interval to make
you
feel friendlier?”

He smiled. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell you. I read your book.” He
stared at me through his sunglasses. They gave him a moonfaced appearance
that belied certain of his qualities that were known to me. He might be kind,
but I couldn’t see him ever as benign. “My wife read it too. She said it gave
a very fine picture of Americanism.”

I hadn’t ever thought of it that way, but when you have written a book you
get so used to unusual compliments that you blink at them no more than at
unusual insults.

“My wife’s a very good judge of a book—and of a writer. She said you
looked at things without prejudice and you had a passionate devotion to
freedom, so that what you wrote was what you felt as well as what you
saw.”

This somewhat took my breath away, because it was so nearly the epitaph I
would choose, if any, to have inscribed on my tombstone. I was making up my
mind to remember it when he added: “That’s why she called it a picture of
Americanism. And I must say I agree with her. It seems to me as American
as—as- -“