Nothing So Strange

by James Hilton

  A large black Cadillac stood at the curb, attended by a uniformed chauffeur who saluted in style. As he fixed me inside with a rug he remarked how fortunate it was that he’d been able to arrive before I got on the bus. I thought so too. Warmth and comfort began to pacify me even before we left the airport precincts, and soon I was musing on the hospitality of Hollywood studios, and whether it would change when they found out I hadn’t fooled them. Or would, they think I had?

  I must have slept, because the next thing I remember was the crunch of gravel as the car slewed through big gates into an upward curving driveway. I thought this could hardly be where a hotel room had been booked for me, and I was rousing myself to lean forward and question the chauffeur when we pulled up in front of a rather immense Spanish-type portico.

  “But where is this?” I asked, when he held open the door.

  “Vista Grande, miss.”

  “What?”

  “Mr. Waring’s house, miss. Vista Grande….”

  “Mr. Waring’s?… My … but … but I’m supposed to go to a hotel in Beverly Hills…. I thought this was a studio car….”

  “Mr. Waring’s car, miss. He telephoned the airline and found you were coming down at Palmdale.”

  “There must be some mistake, though. Mr. Waring didn’t expect me here … or maybe he didn’t know about the hotel. Better keep my bags in the car—I’ll be going on there later…. Is Mr. Waring in?”

  By this time several servants from the house had joined in the proceedings, and it was all adding up to the kind of fuss I dislike.

  “Mr. Waring is in the library,” somebody said.

  As I climbed the steps the chauffeur called after me, in a friendly way: “I shouldn’t think you’d want to go to Beverly Hills tonight, miss. It’s about a hundred and fifty miles from here….”

  * * * * *

  Entering Vista Grande through the large vaulted hall, with a servant leading the way like a stage servant, I couldn’t help thinking how my father’s life must have changed since losing my mother, first by divorce, then by her death. She would never have been happy in a place like this. I could almost hear her voice protesting: “But Harvey, this is impossible….” She had always liked a gay, cheerful, offhand sort of house, and though she had a flair for furnishing, she mixed styles and periods “for Pete’s sake,” as I used to think as a child. For when my father came back to our house, wherever it was, to find some new carpet or curtains or a reorganization of the furniture, he would say: “Christine, for Pete’s sake, what’s been happening?” But now it had stopped happening for some years, and the result was all opulence, impeccability, and loneliness. The place looked like a cathedral that wasn’t sure there was a god. Even the name was typical—the second word, anyhow. It lacked the touch of humanly bastard Spanish that enlivens so many of the homes of Southern California; it was the real thing, for those who sought their realities in wood and stone. I admit that after I had got used to Vista Grande I liked it better, but I never quite overcame that first chilling impression.

  The library was a long room, walled with books in alcoves between heavily curtained windows; the lamps were dim, but a log fire sent spears of light to show the carved ceiling and the leather bindings on the shelves. This was not so alarming as the hall; indeed, in a somber way it was rather fine, though personally I would have expected to write with more comfort in a motel.

  As I entered, my father rose slowly from an easy chair by the fire, and he looked so much older that I was immediately touched. We had drifted apart after the divorce; it wasn’t that I had sided with my mother so much as the plain fact that I liked her better, and since it was she who had taken over the New York house (and John), I saw her oftener during the scattered intervals when I wasn’t traveling. After she died I acquired the house myself, though it was far too big and unnecessarily expensive; I wasn’t, however, in a mood to find somewhere else. I saw my father occasionally and in various places till he began to change in slight but noticeable ways that set him further from me. As this had to do with politics, and largely out-of-date politics now, there is no point in going into detail. We corresponded from time to time; he told me his health wasn’t so good, and I learned (long after he had mostly recovered from it) that he had had a slight stroke. The next I heard was that he was compelled to rest a good deal and had bought a place in California which was quite isolated and fabulous.

  And now he was welcoming me to it. “Jane…. How are you?… Good to see you after all this time….”

  He kissed me, and the servant (a young Italian-looking boy with a beautiful face) helped him back into his chair.

  My father went on: “It’s just lucky your plane came down at Palmdale— much nearer here than Burbank. You’ve saved at least an hour.”

  After that I could see I should have to spend the night there, but already I didn’t mind so much. The Italian-looking boy, still hovering around, seemed to read my acceptance of the situation, for when I went to bed later my bags had been taken up and unpacked without further instructions.

  “So you’re quite a famous person now, Jane! Hollywood…. I saw it in the papers. Well, you can make this your headquarters as long as you want— it’s only a couple of hours’ drive.”

  More than that, I reflected, if it were a hundred and fifty miles; but in any case, I was certain that Vista Grande would not suit me at all. There was no point, however, in arguing the matter then. I said: “I’m glad to find you settled down like this, Father. It all looks rather stupendous, but of course I haven’t seen it yet in daylight.”

  “You’ll like it when you do. There’s a fine view over the mountains.”

  I hadn’t realized it was in mountain country, which I prefer to any other kind. My father went on: “Now tell me about yourself. Not married yet, I know. But not even engaged—or interested in anybody?”

  “Interested in a great many people, but not engaged.”

  “Twenty-six, my dear. Getting time. Or is it twenty-seven?”

  You put up with that sort of thing all the more easily when you have received and rejected quite a number of proposals. Also it occurred to me that he was matching his behavior, as he matched his furniture, to an approved style- -perhaps Lewis Stone or Lionel Barrymore or some other popular father-myth.

  “Twenty-seven,” I answered, “and I know it makes me very old, but I started everything early—you remember I began dining out at sixteen….”

  I said that lightly, not expecting it to echo along the corridors of his memory and finally wake something.

  “Yes … yes … I remember…. That painter fellow at Hampstead let me down over the house. I told him if he ever wanted to sell I’d buy.”

  “Oh well, never mind. You wouldn’t be living there now, anyway.”

  “Not now, of course … but when the war’s finally over everywhere—”

  “England won’t be the same, though. Europe won’t be the same. Only America will pretend to be the same.”

  “That’s what you said in your book…. But how are they going to put that sort of thing on the screen?”

  “They aren’t. I can’t think why they bought it unless they just want to use the title.”

  “H’m…. I didn’t think it was such a wonderful title.”

  “Neither did I.”

  We talked on, as inconsequently as that, and presently I telephoned the hotel that I wouldn’t be arriving that night. Then we climbed the stairs and he showed me to my room. I took his arm with more meaning because I knew he needed it. The bedroom and adjacent bathroom and dressing rooms were so sumptuous that I couldn’t restrain a whistle, whereupon he remarked, as if making a confession: “I know—it wasn’t cheap.”

  I said jokingly: “Even income tax doesn’t get you down?”

  “I have so much in tax-exempts,” he answered seriously.

  He led me to the open window and pulled a curtain. Very dimly, in the clear moonlit sky, could be seen the horizon of a mountain range. “There’
s a little snow on some of them—it stays all the year sometimes. You’ll like the look of things in the morning, Jane.”

  “I’m sure I shall. And such utter silence—that’s strange after New York. How far are you from your nearest neighbor?”

  “About four miles. It doesn’t bother me.”

  “Why should it? Only a few minutes’ drive.”

  “But I don’t even know them. I care for company less and less.” He added, with frail gallantry: “Except present company.”

  “Thanks,” I said, a little touched.

  “Good night, then….” But he paused on his way to the door. “You know, Jane … this is what I ought to have done after the Marazon inquiry. I should have settled down in a place like this instead of spending so much time abroad….”

  God, I reflected—how my mother would have hated it. But I was also surprised because this was the first time I had ever heard him refer to that unhappy incident directly. Of course I had been too young when it happened to know much about it, but I had read of it since, and the fact that it doubtless still cropped up in many people’s minds when his name was mentioned (or mine either, for that matter) had become a quite unspeakable thing between us. For this reason his broaching of it now and so casually seemed to me a pathetic sign of age and weakening.

  “Oh, why bring that up?” I said. “Good night, Father.”

  He fumbled his way out and I was surprised to find myself sorrier for him than I had felt even at my mother’s graveside. He had been rather unlucky in that Marazon business. Maintaining a representative to watch your business interests at an international peace conference must always require a good deal of tact. My father’s representative on that occasion was not tactful, and as he was also the son of a Senator the whole thing became a political football. That was the time when my father was publicly attacked as a merchant of death, and I think he would have done better to ignore the attacks than to argue, as he did, that cement was not a war material and that he had no idea that the sale of it in huge quantities to a European government could have had anything to do with the construction of fortifications. But cement was not the worst of the things my father had interests in, nor was it revealed that he had been selling to one side only; indeed, the thorough investigation that ensued was the last thing he should ever have courted.

  * * * * *

  The next morning I woke early, drew the curtains, and saw the breath- taking view across the Santa Modena Valley. The range that had been palely visible in the moonlight was now a deep green meeting the blue of the sky, and beyond it, at some far distance, were higher ranges tipped with snow. I came to know and love that view during the weeks that followed; it was the kind that had a different enchantment for every time of day and variation of weather.

  My father did not get up till noon, the Italian-looking boy told me (and also that his own name was Dan). He added that all arrangements had been made to drive me into Hollywood whenever I wished. I took a solitary breakfast on an outdoor terrace overlooking the view, then said I would leave at ten o’clock. That gave me time to wander about the house and grounds. It was a large property and, considering the wartime labor shortage, excellently kept up. In strong sunlight the house itself did not look so somberly impressive, which was all to the good; and I could admit the value of dark interiors as a contrast to the vividness outside. The air was already so warm that I suspected the place might get uncomfortably hot at times, and I commented on this, but Dan said it was too high up—about four thousand feet—to be ever unbearable, and that in any case the house itself was air-conditioned.

  I drove into Hollywood with no clear decision in my mind about returning. I felt I ought to have explained that the distance was much too great for driving often, and that a hotel room on the spot would really suit me better. But my father hadn’t come down to breakfast and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings; perhaps another night would do no harm, and I could tell him after dinner.

  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 t
o 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.