“What was that thing we had around about the poison in the tea?” he asked the script-girl.
“The White Telephone.”
She went to a file cabinet, searched around for it for a while, and found it and pulled it out.
Reiter took the script and began thumbing through it.
“What would you do to show your love for me,” he read. “She gazes at him questioningly. His lips hesitate. He speaks. Anything. She is silent for a long moment. She is dubious. She is not sure of him. She looks at him as though trying to decide. Anything?”
He shut the script up and tossed it onto the desk in the pile of other scripts and papers.
“I don’t know if you can do this, Alys. It’s very complex. It’s full of psychology,” he said, underlining the word a little as if he were not sure I knew what it meant.
“It doesn’t sound so difficult.”
“You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
There was no sarcasm in this, and no hostility. He was simply inquiring if that were, in fact, a quality of my character.
“I think I can do it.”
“Well, maybe we’ll give you a try.”
THE
SECOND PICTURE
I walked along Fifth Avenue with the portfolio under my arm, wearing a soft velvet coat and a blouse with a loose Byronic tie. A busy throng hurried up and down the sidewalk past me, carrying briefcases and folded newspapers. Looking for an address, I turned into a doorway past a sign: “Beaux-Arts Gallery. London. Paris. New York.”
In the gallery, I opened my portfolio and showed the drawings to an elegant young man in a well-fitting dark suit, a white shirt, and a conservative necktie. At first, as I explained silently why I had come, he glanced at me in a perfunctory and indifferent way. But as he examined the drawings one by one his manner changed. He took a more careful look at me.
“I WANT MR. BELLINGHAM TO SEE THESE.”
Mr. Bellingham’s office was done in Art Deco style, with furniture of polished metal tubing and leather. Mr. Bellingham himself, like the clerk, was dressed conservatively in a dark suit and necktie. His graying hair was carefully brushed over his temples, and his neatly clipped mustache was the same elegant gray. He had a mannerism of touching the ends of this mustache before he spoke. While the clerk looked on from a respectful distance, he took out the drawings from the portfolio and turned them over one by one. For a long time he said nothing. Then he looked at me and touched the end of his mustache.
“YOU HAVE A GENUINE TALENT,
YOUNG MAN.”
The camera cut back to me. I made a faint smile.
“Come on, come on, start acting!” Reiter shouted at me from the edge of the set. “Don’t stand there like a dummy! You can’t believe what he is saying! You want to believe it, but it hardly seems possible!”
My smile vanished. I looked uncertain. A little of my smile came back again. I glanced from Mr. Bellingham to the portfolio and then back to his face. He touched his mustache.
“IF YOU HAVE MORE WORK LIKE THIS, I CAN
MAKE YOU INTO A FAMOUS ARTIST.”
Another shot of me looking pleased but uncertain. “Good! Good!” yelled Reiter. “Cut. That’s not bad, except you’ve got to get more psychology into it. Okay, now he invites you home for dinner.” We all tramped off to the next set.
On we went, I trying to get more psychology into it, and Reiter bawling at me from behind the camera. It was evening in the Bellinghams’ penthouse overlooking Central Park. A few lights glittered through little holes in the blown-up photograph of Manhattan behind the window. The living room was empty for a few seconds, then a maid in a black uniform with a white collar crossed the room and opened the door. Mr. Bellingham and I walked in. I no longer had my portfolio but I was still wearing my velvet jacket.
“WHERE ARE YOU, DEAR?”
Moira appeared wearing a long white gown that fitted her closely, clinging to her legs and bursting out at the ankles into a froth of white chiffon. Tiny silver sparkles in the gown caught the light as she turned. Her only adornments were a long pearl necklace that came to her waist and a pearl bracelet encircling one wrist. She stopped and looked at me with a sibylline glance, her chin raised slightly. I had never seen her dressed in such elegance. It was a new Moira. My limbs felt weak and I stood there as though rooted to the spot. I endeavored to show nothing.
But now Reiter began yelling at me to simulate the very emotion I was trying to conceal. “Look love-struck!” he shouted. “This is your first glimpse of the woman who is going to be your grand passion! Look as though somebody hit you over the head! That’s what love is! Open your mouth a little! Raise your hand to your throat!”
He didn’t have to tell me. My lips parted. They felt dry. My hand rose up and the fingers closed around my throat. I was unable to take my eyes away from Moira in the white gown.
“DEAR, THIS IS MR. DARTY.
HE IS THE PROMISING YOUNG ARTIST
I TOLD YOU ABOUT.”
Moira extended her hand. When I felt the touch of her long cool fingers it was all I could do to restrain myself from taking her into my arms. I held the hand a little longer than necessary.
“Fine! Fine!” yelled Reiter.
Mr. Bellingham gazed at me curiously. The shadow of a frown appeared in his forehead. Luckily at that moment the maid appeared carrying a tray with three glasses on it, the pale amber fluid in them clinking with ice cubes.
“THIS IS THE VERY BEST STUFF. I GET
IT FROM MY SUPPLIER IN CANADA.”
Mr. Bellingham’s premonitions vanished. The frown disappeared and he resumed his former air of slightly patronizing friendliness. We sipped at the bootleg highballs, then we went in to dinner. The dining room was as luxurious as the rest of the penthouse. It looked out past a landscaped terrace to a view over the Hudson. The long table, gleaming with white linen and silver, was set for three. I glanced at Mr. Bellingham, uncertain where to sit.
“Keep looking at Moira! Never mind the husband! You’re struck dumb with love! All you can look at is her!”
Our glances were locked. I stared at her as though enchanted. She looked back at me with a mysterious, faintly ironic promise at the corners of her lips. Then she spoke.
“SIT HERE BY ME, MR. DARTY.”
Fadeout. The camera stopped and the kliegs went off with a snap. I came to myself and found that I was sitting alone at the table with a foolish smile.
“Scene Three, Take One. Darty’s rented room in Greenwich Village.”
We all trooped over to the next set, which consisted of three sides of a squalid rented room left over from a picture about an East Side tenement. On the windowsill was a cloth flower in a milk bottle. There was an iron bed with a cheap calico spread.
“Okay, Alys, sit on the bed and bite your lip.”
I sat on the edge of the bed, biting my lip and thinking.
“Okay, that’s enough. You’ve decided. Clench your fists in resolve. Get up and go phone her.”
I got up and opened the prop door, making the flat quiver slightly. Outside in the hallway I took the black receiver off the hook, hesitated for a moment, and spoke some words into the mouthpiece.
“Moira’s answering it at the other end!” bawled Reiter. “We’ll shoot that later! You talk and then she talks! She says yes! She says come right over! She says her husband won’t be home until six! You nod, Alys! Look serious! You are asking yourself, is this a good idea or not? You aren’t sure.”
I nodded into the phone, looking very pale. I hung up the receiver and stared into the air at a point just to one side of the camera, with an expression of mingled uncertainty and surmise on my face.
“Good, good! Cut! The kid’s learning! He’s still got a long way to go, but he’s learning!”
The penthouse again. The doorbell rang as before and the maid crossed the room. I entered in my velvet coat, rather awkwardly and hesitantly. Moira, corning up behind the maid, made a conventional smile.<
br />
“WHY, MR. DARTY.
WHAT A PLEASANT SURPRISE.”
She extended her hand, I took it briefly, and we sat down on the sofa. She was wearing a white negligee and had only flung on a flimsy peignoir over it. Turning her head away from me, she spoke something into the air. The maid appeared almost instantly with two cocktails in wide conical glasses, something white with froth on top. We sipped these, our glances fixed on each other over the rims of the glasses. “It’s real booze,” she told me in a low tone. “I had them fix it. I’m a …”
“… little nervous, aren’t you?”
“That’s fine!” shouted Reiter. “Go on chatting! It’s what’s called double entendre! You’re saying one thing but you really mean another!”
“At least we can be together this way,” she told me in an undertone.
“So look cryptic, Alys! Look like you’re saying one thing but you really mean something else!”
I formed my face into an expression of innuendo, meanwhile trying to keep my mind on these two things at once, the lines I was supposed to be reciting and what I was really feeling.
“But every time I touch you …”
“Yes, I know,” she murmured, still smiling. “Everything stops. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
“Oh, it doesn’t amount to much!” Reiter shouted.
I shrugged.
“OH, IT DOESN’T AMOUNT TO MUCH.”
Now Moira assumed her own expression of innuendo. She examined me intently, as though she were attempting to penetrate into something private and personal that lay beneath my outward semblance.
“I’M SURE YOU’RE GOING TO BE A
GREAT ARTIST SOME DAY.”
She gazed at me meaningfully out of her dark eyes. She set the empty cocktail glass down, and I did the same. After a moment a new idea struck her. Her smile changed. It became faintly conspiratorial, suggestive.
“PERHAPS I COULD HELP YOU. I COULD
BE YOUR INSPIRATION.”
Just at that moment the doorbell rang. The maid crossed the room again. Mr. Bellingham entered, carrying his fedora in one hand and a cane in the other.
Moira half rose from the sofa. She looked at me and then at her husband.
“BUT YOU’RE HOME EARLY, DEAR.”
Mr. Bellingham gave the hat and cane to the maid. He stood uncertainly in the entryway for a few seconds, then he advanced into the room. He looked from me to Moira.
“I CAME….”
He glanced at me again and thought.
“BECAUSE I HAVE SOMETHING TO
TAKE UP WITH MR. DARTY.”
Moira and I glanced at each other. But how could he have known I was here? The question hung unanswered in the air. We were playing a dangerous game. I got up and went off with Mr. Bellingham into his study.
He had my portfolio in there. He looked again at the drawings. Then he turned to me.
“IF YOU WANT TO BE A SUCCESSFUL ARTIST,
YOU WILL HAVE TO TURN FROM
DRAWINGS TO OIL PAINTINGS”
We both gazed without conviction at a very bad oil painting on the wall of the study. It depicted some waves beating on some rocks in Laguna Beach. A pine tree bent over the cliff, looking as though it were about to fall into the sea.
“Look guilty, for God’s sake, Alys! He’s caught you practically with your paws on his wife!”
I swallowed, inserted my fingers into my collar, and looked slightly away as Bellingham stared at me.
“Glower a little!” Reiter shouted at the husband. “You suspect the son of a bitch!”
Mr. Bellingham glowered a little. He gazed at me with two separate expressions mingled in his glance, suspicion and paternal friendliness toward a young artist. He was an excellent actor.
“BUT YOU WILL HAVE TO WORK HARD, AND
KEEP YOUR MIND ON YOUR ART.”
“A heavy innuendo!” Reiter shouted. Bellingham stared at me for perhaps four seconds with heavy innuendo. “Cut! Great! Print that!” said Reiter. The cameraman took off his cap and turned the visor around to the front. The grips lit cigarettes.
I was in the Bellinghams’ penthouse again. It was another afternoon a few days later. The maid showed me in and then turned to her mistress.
“YOU MAY HAVE THE AFTERNOON OFF,
JEANETTE.”
The maid disappeared discreetly. Moira (in the picture her name was Charmian) went to the window and stood looking out at the view of the park and the Bronx. Since it was daylight now there were no little pinpoints of light showing through the photograph behind the window. She seemed pensive. She turned, and her pale white hand came up and touched the velvet of my jacket.
“MR. DARTY…LOUIS”
“You don’t say anything! But you feel like grabbing her!”
An eloquent but mute look of earnestness showed in my face. My hands stirred at my sides, but I didn’t dare to lift them. My lips worked. Finally I managed to pronounce a word.
“CHARMIAN”
To this, with a little smile, Moira turned away to the window again. Then she reached up, almost indifferently, to fasten a pin in her hair. I looked at her questioningly.
“BUT YOUR HUSBAND?”
“You needn’t be so shy,” she told me in an undertone. “You can kiss me if you like. There are some …”
“HE IS ODIOUS TO ME”
“… things we can do and some we can’t.”
I restrained an impulse to turn around and see if the camera was still watching. “Can we go into the bedroom?”
“Oh yes.”
“And lie down?”
“Yes. But all we can do is kiss.”
“What would you do to show your love for me!” shouted Reiter.
Turning back to me, she fixed me in a powerful and steady gaze, her mouth tightening over her teeth. She seemed to study me. It was as though her eyes pierced deeply into my soul, into my private thoughts.
“WHAT WOULD YOU DO TO SHOW
YOUR LOVE FOR ME?”
The camera turned to me. At first my face showed doubt. But then a resolve spread through me, a reckless abandon. My expression darkened; the muscles of my face hardened.
“ANYTHING.”
At this she smiled again, but it was a new, hard, and cynical smile. She fixed me in her glance. I couldn’t look away. I was transfixed and unable to move, like the victim of a serpent.
“ANYTHING?”
I nodded. She touched her lips to mine, only briefly so that I had a fleeting sensation of their soft parted coolness.
“She’ll go to bed, but for a price! The two of you discuss it in low voices!”
“Now can we …”
“What?”
“Go into the bedroom.”
“It doesn’t sound like much fun, does it?”
“It doesn’t matter. If it’s all I can have …”
“Anyhow we don’t do that now. Now you leave me to buy the poison.”
“You realize what she’s asking, Alys! You’re horrified! But you imagine your life together! You’ll do it for her anyhow!”
I went through the required gamut of expressions: first a shock of horror, then a moment of dreamy thought, and finally my look of resolve returned. I nodded wordlessly.
“Cut!” yelled Reiter. “Well, that’s not bad, Alys. The thing is, you’re in love with this dame but at the same time you realize it’s wrong. You show two expressions at once. It’s psychology, see.”
When I came back to the penthouse she herself let me in. I stole through the door with my hand in my pocket, looking cautiously about me. Then I turned to her, and she asked me something in a low voice audible only to me.
“Still feel like kissing me?”
With a faintly troubled look, I nodded. Slowly and deliberately I took my hand from my pocket. There was a small glass vial in it. Our bodies were very close together; only a few inches separated us. My hand moved slowly toward hers and she took the vial.
The camera moved to her face
. Slowly it formed into an expression of complicity, with a hard and knowing smile. “Don’t forget, you can’t …”
“I KNEW YOU WOULD DO IT”
“… monkey with my clothing.”
A close-up of my face. Guilt, resolve, and desire were mingled in my expression. Then abruptly I gripped her in my arms. Her head turned away, and I buried my face in her hair. The camera rolled on this for perhaps five seconds.
“Good! Good! Good!” bawled Reiter. “Okay, everybody, into the bedroom.”
We moved on to the next set, while the camera, the cameraman, the electricians, the script-girl, and Reiter followed along behind. The bedroom was a large room with everything in white: the walls, the carpet, the bedspread, even the telephone. A glare of simulated sunlight came through the filmy curtain over the window. Moira went to the window and then turned around and faced directly toward me. The camera started buzzing again. I could see the outline of her face and body silhouetted in the window, with a bright silver halo around her hair and a knife blade of light between her legs. In the strong light from behind the negligee and peignoir were almost transparent. I felt the warm honey of desire trickling through my veins again. As though pulled by a magnet I moved toward her.
Screenplay Page 16
