Monica put down her handkerchief, the look in her eyes lost and tragic. She wasn’t acting now. “He killed her!” she wailed. “I’ve never told anyone in all these years, but he killed her!”
Before Linda could stop me, I reached in to take Monica’s hand. “Saxon? He killed Peggy?”
“Just leave her alone!” Linda snapped at me. “You can see how upset she is. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
Still tremulous and shaken, Monica pushed her away. “Just ask him about Peggy! Once I loved him, but he destroyed everything. He betrayed all of us. He’s a dangerous man, so be careful, Carol.”
Linda gestured to Ralph and he pulled the car away from the curb. I watched as it joined the traffic on Palm Canyon Drive. Then I walked over to Saxon’s Mercedes, parked a little way off. He couldn’t have heard Monica’s words, though he’d been watching us.
I felt deeply shaken as I got into his car. The past had been so embroidered over with fiction, so cleverly concealed, that it was going to be difficult to sort truth from fantasy. Yet I knew one thing. Monica’s voice had trembled with real emotion as she’d made her accusation. However wild her words had been, she was a frightened woman, and I had the very real feeling that she was telling the truth.
TWELVE
We left Mt. San Jacinto behind as we drove through the string of little “cities” that had been incorporated along the base of the mountains. Away from Palm Canyon, country club communities clustered around their golf courses, and expensive homes climbed canyons into the lower hills, or spread out with their swimming pools and gardens to displace the desert in the east.
Except for the Annenbergs and a few others, this was not an area of big estates. Ex-movie stars, or current ones, lived in comfortable luxury, but without the ostentation of the past.
Farther on were date groves—great areas of trees growing in tall columns and overspread by a solid roof of foliage. The ground beneath was eerily dark, except where bands of sunlight slanted through between the trunks. The groves were man-made forests with even, geometric aisles.
Saxon Scott lived in one of the wealthy enclaves in Indian Wells—the Eldorado Country Club, set close to the foot of the Santa Rosas, and guarded by a mountain called “Ike’s Peak.” A reminder that the area had long been a haven and playground for presidents.
We were recognized at the main gate, and drove through into broad avenues lined with palms and thick tropical growth. Low houses of redwood and stone were set apart from one another, all edged with green plantings and well-watered lawns, their inner patios and swimming pools out of view from the street. The encroaching desert was held away, and only the bare, baked-looking mountains, their sides slashed with deep canyons, suggested that nature could take over harshly whenever it chose.
Like the others, Saxon’s house was low and wide, with a generous overhang of roof all around, and a great deal of glass that looked out toward the mountains.
When he’d parked the car, he took me into a stunningly beautiful living room. Its spacious carpet was a soft, rosy cinnamon, and the cherry and brown flowered upholstery had obviously come from a fabric designer’s shop. Those walls that were not made of glass, and the slanted ceiling as well, had been painted a soft shell color that offered light and airy space. Central air conditioning controlled the interior climate.
“It’s heavenly,” I said. “Peaceful and beautiful.”
Saxon smiled. “Carefully contrived, and not very real. If you’re going to write about us, don’t be taken in. We live in decorator homes and dedicate ourselves to play and happy make-believe. When you live here, it’s easy to forget there’s a real world out there, and that it takes a great deal of money to live this way.”
I thought of Jason Trevor and his ranch in the desert, and of the work that absorbed him. Lately, I’d begun to compare Jason and his way of life with that of other men.
“You do have a business,” I said. “We had dinner in your restaurant the other night. You’re not exactly idle.”
“More make-believe. To serve the sunbathers. May I get you a drink?”
I shook my head and sat down near glass doors, where I could look out at the stark fissures of the mountains. There were no houses climbing these canyons. Not yet.
“If you don’t mind, I’ll have one,” he said. “Will you stay for lunch? I’d like you to.”
Again I shook my head as he poured himself a stiff whiskey and soda. “No, thank you,” I said. “I’d rather talk.”
“I need this after what happened this morning,” he said, tossing the drink down thirstily.
“What really did happen?” I asked. The image of Monica crumbling at the mere sight of him still haunted me. “You planned it cruelly. Why should you torment her now, when she’s old and terribly miserable?”
He sat opposite me, and I thought him far more interesting, with a more mature appeal than he’d had as that young man on the screen. I remembered the dangerous, exciting roles he’d played, and wondered if he’d only been playing himself. I couldn’t really like him, but I found him fascinating.
His expression hardened. “You’re here to interview me, if you like, Miss Hamilton. But not to interrogate.”
“That’s a pretty fine distinction.” I bristled in the face of his male arrogance. “Have you thought about how awful it was for her this morning? She was totally unprepared, with all her defenses down. She didn’t even have her props to get her by.”
Saxon’s healthy tan could flush even darker. Nevertheless, I rushed on, more indignant than I’d expected to be.
“You’ve weathered the years well, Mr. Scott. She hasn’t. And while there are times when she tries to fool herself, she understood only too well what you were seeing. How could you do that to her, when once … a long time ago …” I broke off, surprised that I was becoming so personal, so impassioned in Monica’s defense. This was hardly the way to conduct an important interview. “I’m sorry.” I said lamely. “I shouldn’t have—”
He spoke more gently. “Yes, you should. I’m glad you want to defend her. I deserve everything you’ve said. I haven’t seen her in years, and while we get used to our own faces in the mirror, we remember those we don’t see exactly as they used to be. Besides, Linda has always played her up, so I really didn’t expect what I saw.”
Linda would have, I thought, wondering if her own protectiveness had hurt Monica in the long run.
“In any case,” Saxon went on, “none of this is your real story. I am not your story.”
“Of course you are! If I write about her, I must write about you. I want to. One of the things I need is the answer to what changed her. Not just what happened in the years that make the connecting bridge. It’s the terrible occurrence—whatever it was—that blew everything up before you finished Mirage. You were part of that.”
He shook his head emphatically. “There’s no use asking about our celebrated breakup. I’m not going to talk about that. And I don’t think she will either.”
“You’re wrong!” I told him with new conviction. “She’s going to be ready soon. I can feel it coming. Monica needs this book to free her from the past. Not just as a record of her achievements, but as a revelation of her as a real woman.”
“And who’s to tell the difference between the actress and the woman? Or the actor and the man? In the beginning, perhaps, there’s a distinction and some of us try hard all our lives to keep the person separate from the personality. But that’s not what the public wants, so don’t count too much on honest revelations. We’re apt to forget where the distinctions lie.”
I shook my head. “Opening up will be a catharsis for her. She needs that.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” He was suddenly angry. “You don’t know what dangerous currents you may stir up.”
If what Monica had said was true—that Saxon had killed Peggy Smith—then he must of course protect his own secrets.
“Are you afraid?” I asked, forgettin
g diplomacy again.
He was still actor enough to control himself and his outer anger subsided. After a moment, he went on more quietly.
“Let’s get back to Monica—the way she used to be. That’s the real heart of your story. Not the old woman I saw this morning.”
Secure in the way he himself had aged gracefully, he was being cruel again, and with sudden longing I wished that he could see Monica put on her “performance.” For her sake.
“That’s unkind,” I said sharply. “And very unfair.”
His look softened, as though he was remembering a different, younger woman. “She had a natural acting talent—more than I ever had. I had to learn to be a good actor—which was fairly easy, playing with her. She was born with a genius to perform, and she brought her own natural gifts to everything she did on the screen. She had instinctive timing and a flair for pace. Most of all, she possessed that special, mysterious spark that the great ones have. When it’s there, it can last a lifetime. Hepburn has it still, and so does Bette Davis. When they’re on a screen, they’re the ones you watch. Age doesn’t matter. Perhaps they don’t like their faces now either, but they aren’t afraid of being seen as triumphantly old. So why is Monica concerned?”
“She seems so—so vulnerable,” I said. “So open to wounding.”
“That’s another gift—vulnerability. Usually only the very young have it. I remember it in Garbo. Of course in Marilyn Monroe. And today, especially in Meryl Streep. It’s that aching quality that reaches out and twists your heart.”
“I didn’t see your heart breaking today.”
He didn’t hear me, still musing aloud. “I remember her hands. So beautiful, so graceful. The things she could do with that iris she used in so many of her pictures.”
“She still has it,” I said. “Or anyway, a version of it. And she can gesture with it as marvelously as ever.”
This seemed to disconcert him. “The iris—in those hands?”
“You’re being condescending and vain!” I cried. “You might have a little compassion.”
He looked startled. “I’m sorry, Carol. That was a heartless thing to say. It’s just that I remember the first silk iris she ever carried—because I gave it to her. I started her off with that little affectation, and I was proud of what she did with it, how she made it her own.”
“I didn’t know you’d given it to her.”
He went on musing. “She used to have an inner sweetness, a generosity that I’ve never seen so strongly in any other woman. All lost now. Because I made a stupid mistake that I’ve been paying for ever since. A terrible mistake.”
I waited, hoping he would go on in this more unguarded vein. He broke off, however, recovering himself.
“There’s a photograph of her over there on the piano. My favorite picture.”
I went to pick up the portrait in its silver frame, and saw the lovely, faintly exotic face of the young Monica Arlen. She was smiling warmly at the camera. Smiling, not only with her lips but with her eyes—lovingly. Feeling as he did, it was strange that he should keep her picture out.
“I used to play around with cameras a bit,” Saxon said. “That’s a picture I took myself, with her eyes made up in that exaggerated way she used for the screen. Hers were more convincing—not like Theda Bara’s or Myrna Loy’s as they did their eyes in the twenties and thirties.”
So she had been smiling her love at the photographer? There was even a tender inscription in her famous scrawl. My moment of heat subsided. If Saxon Scott still felt strongly enough to keep her picture on his piano, how could he hurt her now?
“I grew up making believe about her,” I said. “I suppose I turned her into my whole family. I couldn’t know her in reality, but I could identify with all those roles of hers that I saw in movies. I never accepted the fact that what I built existed only in my imagination.”
“So you came running out here to California when you needed her?”
“I came running because I was desperate, but I was still dreaming. Of course she doesn’t understand any of this. Her reality is quite different, and now I’m trying to match mine to hers, since perhaps she needs me by this time. Yet even though nothing real has been taken from me, I feel a sadness, a sense of loss.”
I hadn’t meant to say any of this, and I didn’t expect him to understand. Yet when he spoke his expression was almost tender.
“I hope you won’t mind, but Linda’s told me a little about you. I can see how much the writing of Monica’s story means to you, and I really would like to help—if you’ll ask me questions I can answer. I’d like to see this book published.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me in that familiar way, and I felt that flip-flop of response that a very young heart had given him long ago. But now I must be wary, even in the face of his seeming gentleness. I must remember his moments of cruelty. At least his present mood would make the interview easier. I went back to my chair so I could write in my notebook.
“Let’s begin then. Tell me about when you made Mirage.”
He smiled, thinking back as though something amused him. “You might ask Monica if she remembers the restaurant scene.”
“The one with the cuckoo clock? Do you know that she still has that broken clock? Linda showed it to me yesterday.”
“Interesting. I wouldn’t have expected her to keep it.”
“I don’t think she’s had much to do with what’s been kept. Peggy collected things first, and then Linda.”
“I see. Ask her if she remembers what’s inside the clock. Perhaps it will start her talking.”
“All right, I will. When you were making that movie, did you sense how good it was going to be?”
He shook his head. “Nobody can tell much about any picture while it’s in the making. Even the rushes you see every day can’t give you the overall feeling. The actors in Casablanca thought it was run-of-the-mill while they were making it. We had a similar experience in not knowing what the Mirage ending would be until we got to it. Scenes are done out of sequence and it’s remarkable that we can even present the proper emotion on screen, when we aren’t always sure where we are chronologically. Of course it’s the public who decides in the long run. Audiences respond or turn their backs—and that’s all that counts.”
“The retakes didn’t feel right, did they?” I said.
“They almost spoiled the picture. It was a good thing there were so few. Everything had changed by that time.”
I ventured a statement, rather than a question. “Because Peggy Smith had died.”
He forgot his own ruling in a sudden burst of anger. “She was a terrible woman! Though I didn’t have the sense to realize it at the time. She had her own gifts, but she was more interested in winding Monica around her little finger. Monica believed in her, trusted her, and she even fooled me for a while. But it was her influence that destroyed Monica.”
I took a long chance, counting on his anger to keep his guard down. “Monica believes Peggy was murdered.”
He shied away visibly, and I could feel the wall go up between us. At once I backed down. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that, but I keep coming back to Peggy Smith—to her relationship with Monica. Somewhere along the way I have to learn what her influence was. Certainly she must have been a talented woman to do that sculpture in the museum.”
“Leave it alone for now,” he warned sharply. “I can’t talk about her. Not yet.”
“Then tell me about the way Monica was when she was young. Tell me more about her acting. I’ve seen all your pictures, of course, but I’d like your view.”
“She had a strong drive in those days. She wanted to be the best. Though she was never arrogant about it. She not only wanted to entertain—she wanted to enchant, to entrance, to charm everyone, on screen and off. She could never bear to be disliked.”
And she could still do that, when she chose, I thought, writing quickly.
He went on, half to himself. “Perhaps that was her greatest
weapon and her greatest weakness. It’s not safe—or very real—to go through life wanting everyone to love you. She needed to grow up, to stop her make-believe off screen.” He smiled at me. “You see, she was guilty of that too. She needed to get tougher in order to protect herself and survive.”
And now that she had, I thought, it wasn’t especially becoming. Or did she use this to conceal a new vulnerability that age had brought?
“Not that she wasn’t capable of mischief,” he went on. “She was always capricious, and sometimes she could play pranks that hurt people, when she didn’t in the least intend to. She had a disregard for scandal and gossip too, and oddly enough she didn’t invite it in those days, even when her behavior verged on the outrageous. She had a quality that made everyone want to protect her.”
“She still has that—for Linda,” I said.
“Hah!” The sound rang with his scorn. “Remember that woman I suggested you see—she’s Alva Leonidas now. Once when Alva didn’t get Monica’s makeup right, Monica threw a whole box of face powder at her. It went all over the dressing room, and Alva nearly died laughing. Of course, in two minutes, Monica was laughing too.”
He could laugh at the young Monica himself, yet show only a hard impatience toward the one who was old.
“I’m planning to see Alva Saturday, if I can. Jason Trevor has offered to drive me up to Idyllwild. I haven’t called her yet, however, to make an appointment.”
“I’ve already spoken to her, and she’s willing to talk with you.”
“Thank you. For some reason, Monica doesn’t want me to see Alva and her husband.”
“No, she wouldn’t. But you’d better go. Just remember that Monica wasn’t all sweetness and light in the old days either. We had some bang-up fights on occasion.”
And one bang-up fight that has never ended, I thought. Again I ventured a pointed question, since those were the most likely to bring a response.
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