“Using her. Look how high she is? Doesn’t she know it has to swing the other way? Doesn’t she know that seeing the boy is only going to make it all worse for her?”
“Maybe she hasn’t got your sense of caution, Lois.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Jason shrugged. “If you gamble big, you win big or you lose big.”
“And I don’t gamble at all?” she asked in a strained voice.
“I didn’t mean it as a criti …”
“I gambled big as you call it. And it only takes one big bet to find out all the wheels are fixed and all the dice are crooked. Only a fool would keep on making bets.”
“There’s an old joke, Lois. It’s the only game in town.”
“I’ve heard it. It’s about a compulsive gambler, isn’t it?”
“Like Jenny.”
“She loses, Jason. You can see that. She loses again.”
“Maybe she knows that. But, you see, she had this day, didn’t she?”
She looked down. “I can’t make that kind of a trade, Jason. I can’t trade little pieces of now for the misery of what comes after. I always see both ends of a bargain. Maybe that’s my trouble.” She raised her eyes slowly. “Let me alone, Jason.”
“Do you think I’m the bold trader, the big gambler? My God, Lois, I live with anxiety. I know the shape and the feel of it. I hedge all my bets, and my hand shakes. I want so badly for things to have meaning that somehow I don’t let them have meaning. You know, I envy Jenny. I get so busy worrying about what I’m doing with my life, I don’t do enough with it. My history is a big long list of the things I should have done. My God, I’d trade it for a list of remorses.”
“Just let me alone. Just please let me alone. Please.”
She unlocked her door and went in and closed it softly. He stood there for a little while, shutting his jaw so hard his teeth ached. And then he went down the stairs instead of ringing for the elevator, walked back to his hotel in the cold night with his shoulders hunched and his hands deep in his pockets.
As he dressed he thought of the odd talk. He wondered if it could be considered a quarrel. He wondered how he should act toward her when he saw her next. He wondered if she was wondering the same thing. Perhaps they would both wait, looking for a clue. That was, he thought, the difference between them and a person like Jenny Bowman. Jenny reacted immediately, instinctively, setting the tone.
(They had waited at Jenny’s hotel while Keppler viewed the last day’s rushes to decide whether any final takes were necessary. And then he phoned. Jenny answered. She thanked him and hung up. And then she ran to him and hugged him with forlorn strength and put her lips against his throat and said in a small fierce voice, “Just take me a long way the hell and gone a long way away from here, just us alone and a long way, and the first plane leaving no matter where just so long as it’s a warm place in the sun alone.”)
He breakfasted early. There was a misty sun. He walked as far as St. James Park and sat and smoked a pipe and watched the early scurry of the civil servants heading for the complex of government buildings. He looked at the fresh young English girls and had complex fantasies born of loneliness and lust. ‘See here, I don’t know you and you don’t know me. I may be a bit long in the tooth for you, but you look tidy and healthy and I have a four-year-old daughter who needs brothers and sisters. And you would live in California, if that sounds attractive to you. I am quiet and reasonably neat. I would be sober and faithful, and try to bring you back to England once a year to see your people. You see, my dear, people who do know each other make such a ghastly botch of it that it might be interesting to begin as total strangers.’ And the young eyes would bulge and she would give him a truly frightful wallop across the chops and scream for a bobbie. He grinned. And if by any chance he did strike upon one desperate enough, heartsick enough, lonely enough to chance it, she would turn out to be slatternly and dismal, yearning for the damps of her native climate, the pubs and telly, the fish and chips, the comforting pageant of royalty. But it alarmed him to realize how vulnerable he was, that he should even entertain such a fantasy. Somehow, coming here had opened chinks in familiar armor. And a cold wind blew in.
He arrived at the Park Lane at a little after nine. When there was no answer when he phoned Lois’s room, he looked in the dining room and saw her eating alone, opening mail as she ate, scribbling marginal notes on the letters. He hesitated, and when the captain of waiters started toward him, he waved him away and went to her table. He sat without invitation and as she gave him a startled look, he said, “The part of London they call The City comprises about three hundred and thirty acres. It is the part that was originally enclosed by a stone wall after the Claudian Invasion of 43 A.D. It became one of the largest and most prosperous of the Roman provincial cities. They anchored their slave galleys in the Walbrook that ran through it. The galley slaves and the enslaved inhabitants built the wall under the direction of the Roman artisans. Many parts of it are still standing, and if you have time, and if you want to get everything back into a nice historical balance, I can take you to a place where you can rest your hand against one of those stones and think of the sweat and the strain and the agony of how it was lifted into place almost two thousand years ago. When I thought I was going to get myself killed in a contemporary war I went and touched one of those stones put there by conquered men who had been children when Jesus Christ was alive.”
Her gray eyes had grown wider as he spoke, her lips stretching into a smile that faded again as he finished. “Is the stone you touched still there?”
“We can go look. It was in Amen Court off Cheapside.”
“It brought you luck.”
“Or measles.”
She shook her head. “You are a very strange man, Jason Brown.”
“I wanted to tell you I don’t have any idea what either of us were talking about last night.”
“Thank you. And I don’t remember anything I said to you. But I am going to find time to go touch that stone. Because I need luck.”
“Do they make you work at breakfast?”
“A girl weeds the letters in New York and sends on batches of the ones she thinks Jenny might like to see. Then I weed them again. It has to be done sometime. And if you get too far behind, it can get very dense and nervous.”
“Do they all still get answered the way they used to?”
“All except the sick ones.” She looked at her watch and swooped up her coffee and finished it, scrawled her name and room number on the tab. “I’ve got to get up there.”
“Is she up?”
“Ida promised George she would be.”
“When does Sam Dean go to work?”
“We’re working him in from eleven thirty to twelve, a drink and a chat up in the suite. She has to leave at twelve for lunch at the Savoy.”
“Anything I can do? I feel like a fifth wheel around here.”
As they crossed the lobby she said, “Come on up and check in with George anyhow.”
She wore a gray cardigan, a dark skirt. There were slight shadows under her eyes. He stood next to her in the elevator, aware of her closeness and fragrance, of her tall, staunch and rounded body, and of a new flavor of closeness between them, complicated by new restraints. She would never be easy to know. It would take a long long time to know her well. There were too many defenses in depth. Too many Roman walls.
As they left the elevator he stopped her and said, “I still have one thing I think I ought to do.”
“Yes?”
“She still doesn’t know why I’m here.”
“Don’t you think she’s guessed?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. But I have to tell her, I think. That’s the one lasting thing we had. Honesty.”
Lois looked thoughtful. “Now would be the time to tell her. While she’s up. But it’s a brutal day, really. Ten interviews, a lunch, a dinner, two tapes.”
“Any break at all?”
“From fou
r to five. But she’ll want to change and get any rest she can.”
“Will you be with her all day?”
“I won’t be with her at all. I have a couple hours of work to do here, plus any new stuff that may come up.”
“And if I hang around?”
“I’ll ignore you until the work is done, my friend.”
As they walked toward the suite, George came out of his room in his shirt sleeves, a sheaf of papers in his hand. “Hey, there you are, pussycat. Morning, Jase. Add this crud to the backlog, dear. Jase, I want you in the suite at eleven twenty-five. And you too, Lois. We make it a group interview with Sam Dean.”
“I think that’s wise,” Lois said. “Is Jenny up?”
“Up and jolly. Dressing, eating and having Gabe do her hair all at one and the same time. Not a single objection to anything on the schedule. They’re all darling people. She’s going to love every one of them. Even Sam.”
“Well … good luck,” Lois said. “I better get started on my stuff.” She began to back away.
“Needle Harkness on that new plate. He promised to pull a proof and have it here by noon.”
She nodded and turned and went down the corridor, her stride quicker than usual, dark skirt swinging, strong shoulders straight, fair hair bright in the shadows of the corridor.
“Stop panting,” George said.
Jason turned and looked at George’s knowing grin. “I’m way ahead of the game, boss. I get to show her a hunk of Roman wall someday.”
“Get smart and she’ll push it over on you,” George said and went into his room. Jason followed him in.
“George,” he said, “I better tell Jenny exactly why I’m here.”
George started to tie his necktie. “How smart is that?”
“I’m not very smart about anything. If I was, I’d be rich. I know one thing about Jenny. She doesn’t like slick tricks. The sooner I tell her the better.”
“End of mission, maybe.”
“Then they should have sent another boy. That’s what I told Wegler in the beginning. Send another boy. I think I should tell her when she’s feeling good.”
George knotted the tie carefully, put his jacket on and buttoned it. “This whole thing may very probably go to hell in a bucket, pal.”
“I know.”
“And turn into a salvage operation. If there’s anything left to salvage.”
“I realize that too.”
George turned from the mirror and looked steadily at him. “If it does, I want you around. Not for the salvage job. Not for picking up pieces of the career of Jenny Bowman But for her. Can you understand that?”
“I think so. And I think you are a pretty good man, George.”
“Nobody else could have picked up the pieces seven years ago. Not the pieces of the career. That was safe and sound. The pieces of Jenny Bowman.” George’s face twisted and darkened. He beat his fist into his palm. “All along,” he said. “Right from the beginning of it all, she’s deserved more than she’s ever gotten. But don’t tell her I said so.”
“I won’t.”
“Four o’clock might be a good time to level with her, depending on how the day goes. Be around. I’ll tip you whether it’s okay.”
After they left in the limousine, Jason went to Lois’s room and read the Times while she worked. It didn’t bother her to have him there. He enjoyed being near her, being able to look over and see her. She worked steadily, swiftly, making and taking phone calls, typing, stapling, filing, sending out her own letters and memos, preparing others for George’s and Jenny’s signatures, entering the expenses in the ledger.
At twenty after eleven, Jason walked over and stood behind her and said, “Five minute warning.”
She looked at her watch. “Damn! Another fifteen minutes would have done it.”
He put his hands on her shoulders and bent and kissed the nape of her neck. She froze. “Don’t,” she whispered.
He released her and moved away. She sat with her head lowered. “I swear I had no idea of doing that until I did it.”
“Don’t do things like that.”
“I’m sorry.”
She got up and went to a mirror and patted her hair. She fixed her mouth. She looked at him in the mirror and looked away. “Let’s go,” she said.
Ida was in the sitting room of the suite, mending a small tear in the silk lining of a sable cape. She had arranged bottles, glasses and ice on a small table. She moved into her bedroom and closed the door. In a few moments Jenny, George and Sam Dean arrived together. They had met in the lobby.
Jenny came sweeping in, full of a vitality that seemed to fill the room. “Lois, darling, a steep one with one rock. My God! What is my favorite color? Can you imagine that, dears? Truly a star question. A vast audience hanging breathlessly on my shy answer.”
“Absolutely dead-pan she answered, ‘plaid,’ ” George said.
“Thus sewing up the Scots,” Sam Dean said.
“Sam, there’s sherry for you, and probably a better brand than you deserve,” Jenny said. “Are you going to ask me my favorite color? Thank you, Lois dear.”
Sam Dean poured his own sherry and took the glass over to the couch. “Your favorite vice, maybe. What is it lately?”
She looked at him over the rim of her glass as she sipped her drink. She tossed her wrap on a chair. “What it always has been, darling. Recklessness. Bad judgment. Selfishness. A combination of the three. Call it Jennyism. Bowmanism. You can say I abuse the privilege of having talent. But you’d be repeating yourself, wouldn’t you?”
Sam smiled. “Excellent sherry. I don’t mind repeating myself. Jenny, dear, why don’t you get yourself into some real gummy mess so I can have a new crusade?”
“As a special favor to you, Sam?”
“To my vast readership. Three million plus.”
“What does that come to, dear. A little less than two percent of the country?”
He colored slightly. “A poor thing, but mine own.”
She went over to him and sat beside him and patted his arm. “Why do we always take the knives out, Sam? I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give you the absolute truth. Look at George! He’s the color of wet cardboard.”
“Don’t anybody get between me and the window,” George said.
“It won’t make very good copy for you, Sam, because it will sound like some sort of devious plug. I’m seriously thinking of canceling out the rest of this jazzy tour. And if you put that in, it will sound like a plug for the tour. And I definitely feel squeamish about the cruddy moving picture Wegler wants me to do. Put that in and you’ll be plugging the picture. But honest and truly, Sam dear, I’m bored. I’ve had too much of too much for too long, and I’m going stale and I want to lease an island someplace and hide for a whole beautiful year. I’m so serious about it, it’s making George horribly nervous.”
Sam Dean looked intently at her. “Do you mean that?”
“If you really want a nasty, you can say very accurately that my voice is going.”
“Hey now!” George said.
“Shut up, Georgie. You know it. Herm knows it. I’m doing a lot of faking lately. And I’ve had to drop some tried and trues because the range just isn’t there.”
“That just isn’t true, damn it!” George said.
“If I even get through this tour, I’ll be astonished.”
Sam Dean got up slowly and went over and poured more sherry. He turned and looked at Jenny. “Otherwise?”
“You mean aside from that? Just minor disasters, Sam. Like tax audits, nuisance suits, chronic indigestion, plane sickness, too many contracts, too big a payroll, lousy arrangements, no new songs.”
Sam walked slowly back to the couch and sat beside her. He patted her arm. “And here you had me hoping you were in a real jam. Jenny darling, you’ve been making the same threats for years.”
“But this time I mean them!”
“No you don’t,” George said soothingly.
“Don’t push,” she said. “You might get a hell of a shock, Georgic.” She stood up. “Sam, I don’t want you to feel abused, but you really didn’t give us any warning, you know. I could talk to you again tonight, after midnight, if you want.”
Sam finished his sherry and put the empty glass on the coffee table. His eyes were sleepy and hooded behind the thick lenses. His gold frames, tie tack, cuff links and watch band twinkled in the shadows of the sitting room.
“Thank you, darling,” he said, “but it would just be for old times sake, and the old times I’ve given you have been bad times. I’m afraid you’ll make lousy copy right now. I’ll be around when you get in a real jam.”
“Thanks a lot.”
He got up and said formal good-bys to Lois, George and Jason. At the door he turned suddenly and said, “By the way, Jenny dear, why did you always avoid coming to London until now?”
She smiled and tapped her throat. “A batch of specialists said to keep this throat out of this climate.”
“But you came here anyway?”
“I got a new batch of specialists. They said Callas thrives here.”
George went out with him and closed the door. Jenny looked wide-eyed at Lois and Jason and held up both hands, her fingers crossed. Lois and Jason duplicated the gesture. They were all like that when George came back in. George slammed the door, walked over to her and hugged her and kissed her. He held her at arm’s length and said wonderingly, “What’s an actress like you doing wasting her time singing?”
“He bought it?”
“He said you should be on tranquilizers. I told him you ate them like peanuts. He said he wouldn’t trade jobs with me for a thousand dollars a minute. He went away shaking his evil little head and muttering to himself.”
“See?” Jenny said. “Trust me, George. You should always trust me. I’m really very very clever.”
“You are really very very stupid, Miss Bowman. But sometimes lucky. Going to change for lunch?”
Ida came out and looked at them. She smiled. “You either fooled him or killed him. Should I look under the sofa?”
Lois put her hand over her eyes. “Not yet, Ida. Please. It’s still twitching a little.”
I Could Go on Singing Page 9
