“We’d better believe.”
I started past her upstairs, but she stopped me. “What’s this about a note in the cuckoo clock? Ralph found something and took it to Monica.”
“I don’t think it matters one way or another.”
“Of course it matters. Monica read it and tore it up. After that she was terribly depressed for a while.”
“There are more things than that for her to be depressed about.”
I left Linda to her worries, and went to the pool to find Keith. For the rest of the afternoon I stayed with him, listening to his chatter, trying to respond.
Apparently Monica had shown him some pictures of Cadenza and I wondered why she seemed to be building it up in Keith’s imagination. Was Owen somehow pulling more strings? But I mustn’t be suspicious of everything and everyone. It was natural for Cadenza to be important in Monica’s mind. But the ring burned my finger with its warning.
When Monica and Ralph came back later in the afternoon, Keith and I were playing checkers in the little drawing room downstairs. I could hear Linda at her typewriter in her office, with the door closed, and she didn’t come out.
The state of Monica’s temper was clear as she stormed into the house to confront me. She dismissed Ralph with an imperious hand, and sat down beside me on the sofa. She’d dressed for town somewhat conservatively, for once, in a light beige frock and green scarf. Nor had she worn the chestnut wig. By now she’d probably discovered how little Owen cared for movie people—unless he could use them.
“Keith, go outside and play for a while,” she ordered. “I want to talk to your mother.”
She could still intimidate him, and though he went reluctantly, he obeyed. At once she turned indignantly to me.
“So! You went to Idyllwild this morning directly against my wishes!”
“If you’re not going to help me with the book, then I can’t think about your wishes,” I told her.
She pursed her mouth, but let the anger flow out of her as easily as it had risen. How much was real, how much was acting, I couldn’t tell. Perhaps not even Monica knew.
I watched her with a mingling of admiration and pity that added up to reluctant affection. I felt revolted by everything she and Saxon had done. Yet she’d paid over and over again through the years. There must have been a terrible, secret torment as she shut herself away from all that mattered to her. Now she was fighting—perhaps for the very right to live. Even though this had been a right denied to Peggy Smith, I couldn’t despise this pitiable woman. Even her play-acting was desperate, and sad to watch.
“I don’t like people talking behind my back,” she went on more mildly. “You and Alva—”
“You needn’t worry about anything Alva told me. She still has a tremendous admiration for you, and she said nothing that wasn’t flattering. It was the same with Nicos when he came in. Neither of them has forgotten that you were the most wonderful thing that ever happened to them. So when I asked questions they didn’t like, they both put up barriers.”
This didn’t seem to comfort her. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It was all so long ago.”
“It matters to this book. I don’t want to write it without your help, Aunt Monica.”
She opened her beautiful eyes very wide and looked straight at me with an honesty I’d seldom felt in her. “I spoke too quickly, Carol. Of course we must work together. I owe it to—to the people we all used to be. To Monica Arlen and Saxon Scott. To Peggy Smith.”
“I’m glad you’ve changed your mind,” I said, and she returned my smile tremulously. There was more I had to tell her, however.
“Tomorrow Jason is driving Keith and me to Desert Hot Springs—to see Henry Arlen. Since you won’t talk about your childhood, perhaps this cousin will fill in the blanks.”
For a moment she was silent and I feared another outburst. Then she collected herself and answered sadly, perhaps again lost in unhappy memories.
“Growing up in a place I hated was pretty boring. I had to fight my mother every inch of the way to get out of there, to get to Hollywood. I hate gray streets and nothingness.”
“Gray streets?” I picked up her words.
“Any street is gray if you want to be somewhere else.”
For a little while she sat thinking, lost in the past. Then she made up her mind. “If you’re going to look up Henry Arlen, I’ll go with you. I haven’t seen him for a good many years, but if it’s reminiscences you want, perhaps I can jog his memory.”
Once more she opened her eyes wide, but her mood had changed again, and now her look was one of triumph. As though she’d moved one of the men on the checkerboard successfully. A look that made me uneasy.
“That’s fine,” I said. “I’m glad you’ll come with us.”
I didn’t know whether she’d be help or hindrance, but it might be useful to see her out in the desert region where she’d grown up.
She closed her eyes and went through a ritual Linda had told me about. She inhaled to the capacity of her lungs, and then released her breath slowly. An exercise to achieve calm. When she looked at me again, however, her eyes were snapping with life, and I wasn’t sure the deep breathing had worked. As usual, she could change subjects without notice.
“I can see why you married Owen Barclay. I can also see why you divorced him. A totally fascinating, impossible man. Probably a vicious man. But in a little while I had him eating out of my hand.”
I doubted that, but said nothing. Perhaps each had been conning the other.
“Carol,” she went on, “you must understand the relief I feel over this sale of Cadenza. You were wrong to have misgivings. Mr. Barclay really does mean to go through with it. Oh, of course everything hasn’t been signed on the dotted lines yet, but we’re well on our way. My financial difficulties will be over. So perhaps your coming here has been good for me in several ways.”
She had a marvelous talent for self-deception. All Owen Barclay really meant to her was the sale of a house. The injury he had done to Keith and me in the past, and meant to do in the future, simply didn’t penetrate the protective shell of her ego.
I drew the emerald ring from my finger and held it out to her. “Please take this back. I don’t want the responsibility of keeping it, Aunt Monica. We haven’t told you, but it was lost for a while.”
“What do you mean—lost? I couldn’t bear for it to be lost!” She took the ring from me and sat turning it about in her fingers.
I told her exactly what had happened. That Ralph had pushed me into the swimming pool, and that he had certainly taken the ring from my hand and delivered it to Owen.
She slipped the ring on with fingers that were shaking. “That’s awful! Really dreadful, Carol! How could Ralph do such a thing? I can’t bear to think of what’s happening.”
“What are you going to do about Ralph?”
Her look was oblique. “I’ll talk to him, of course.”
And he would deny. We were getting nowhere.
“Everything was so peaceful and quiet before you came,” she said.
“I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed your quiet life.”
That look of mischief that was perhaps an echo of her girlhood curled her lips and lighted her eyes. Yet now it was a look colored by a hint of malice.
“Perhaps it’s been too quiet. There was so much that was exciting in the old days. Now Linda protects me. Protects me from being alive! Sometimes I even wonder if I might do something with my life again—starting with my appearance at the Annenberg.”
“You’re not afraid of Saxon anymore?”
“Afraid? If anyone’s afraid, it’s Saxon. We’re still tied to each other, and we always will be, whether we like it or not. That night we’ll put on a good front and prove to an audience who we are. If we fail, we fail together. But we won’t, you know!”
I wished I didn’t feel that this new Monica was a woman who balanced on a high rope. After years of avoiding dangerous heights, if she should falter up there
…
My doubt must have showed, for her fervor of excitement died as suddenly as it had risen.
“You don’t believe I can do it!” she wailed. “There’s no one to believe in me anymore. Not even my own mirror!”
“I believe you can do whatever you set your mind to,” I assured her. “It’s Saxon I distrust. I hope he won’t try to humiliate you in some way that night. I do want to be with you in the theater, Aunt Monica.”
“Of course you’ll be with me. You’ll be in the wings—so you can write about it properly afterwards. Saxon won’t hurt me. If he should try, he’d only destroy himself. So he won’t dare.”
I wasn’t sure she was right. I had seen in Saxon Scott a man consumed by old, deep hatreds. Perhaps a man who would sacrifice himself if he could carry out an act of revenge—because of wounds that had been festering for too many years.
“What did you do to Saxon?” I asked softly.
She answered without hesitation. “I saved him from himself. And I suppose that’s the most unforgivable sin of all. He’s not really like that screen image of his, you know. But I loved him anyway.”
“You mustn’t torment yourself. Perhaps when you and Saxon walk out on that stage together, you’ll go back to when everything was right between you.”
“I wonder,” she said. “I wonder if I could …” Quite suddenly she put her head on my shoulder and wept, while I held her, not knowing how to help and strengthen her, not even believing in the sentimental solution I’d offered.
At a sound I looked toward the door. Linda was watching me with an oddly blank expression on her face, and Ralph stood just behind her. I didn’t know how long either had been there, or how much they’d overheard.
Linda came to draw Monica gently from my arms. “You’re tired, dear. Let me help you to your room. Ralph can bring your tray upstairs, and when you feel better you can tell me about your trip to town.”
I sensed that Linda was asserting her guardianship again. This was what she lived for—Monica’s need of her—and she must resent it when Monica turned to me. She was probably glad when I was out of the house.
Even as I watched, Monica gave up. All her rising courage and determination, her excitement over a life that might be lived again, died away. As she went with Linda, leaning on her arm, an old and defeated woman, indignation surged through me. It might be a lot better for Monica Arlen to take defeat in a valiant fight than to give up without even trying. Perhaps my words hadn’t been so empty after all. Perhaps they’d supported Monica in the very course of action she ought to take.
Ralph continued to lounge in the doorway.
“Lots of rivalry around these day’s, isn’t there?” he said. “Looks like everybody’s trying to be top dog. You know you’ve put Linda’s nose out of joint since you came, don’t you?”
I went past him to the terrace, not wanting to dignify his words with a retort, though he’d been shrewder than I’d have expected.
“I know about the ring,” I told him. “I know exactly what you did with it.”
“Do you now?”
“Yes. And I’ve told both Linda and Monica.”
I didn’t wait for his lies, but went outside to join Keith. At least I’d served notice on him that we knew about his double-dealing.
Linda didn’t appear for dinner that night. Ralph carried trays upstairs for all of them, and Keith and I dined alone. Afterwards, I went to work on my notes, elaborating on some of the stories Alva and Nicos had told me, before they could grow cold.
When Keith was asleep, I went to stand on the balcony, looking out over Palm Springs, thinking of the time I’d spent with Jason. We had seemed to come closer in understanding during those hours of travel in his car. He wasn’t a simple man to know, yet I felt that we had become friends.
It was all too easy to imagine Jason’s hands touching me, his arms holding me. Harmless comfort to think of in a dangerous world.
SIXTEEN
The next morning Linda didn’t come down for breakfast. Helsa said she had a headache and had stayed in bed. Monica, however, came blithely to the table to join Keith and me.
She had decked herself out in a long-skirted, sun-yellow dress with a boat neck—vintage almost any year. Over this she had draped long strands of amber and topaz beads that gave her a gypsy look. Her hair was covered with a large straw hat, tied under her chin by a scarf of braided orange silk, and she kept the hat on through breakfast. Its brim gave her an advantage, since she could hide her face simply by ducking her head.
I must have stared when she walked in, for she laughed good-naturedly. “Do I look like a movie star? I dug this out of a chest of clothes I acquired from old pictures. I can’t even remember what film I wore it in. Henry Arlen hasn’t seen me for years, so I’ll need to make an impression.”
“You look very impressive,” I said. Even Keith was staring, stunned by the effect she could produce.
I mentioned Linda’s headache, and she shrugged it off. “Linda’s peeved because I don’t want her to come on our little trip this morning.”
“Why shouldn’t she come, if she wants to?”
Monica shook her head playfully. “Today I’m escaping all my keepers!”
I didn’t trust her. I knew very well why she was coming with us. Alva Leonidas had told me in her note that Henry Arlen “knew” something. So Monica had invited herself along in order to prevent him from saying anything she’d prefer I didn’t hear. It was as simple as that, and as complex.
“We’ll have fun, won’t we, Keith?” she went on, ignoring my doubtful expression.
“Sure,” Keith said and finished his glass of milk. “Can I go outside, Mom, and watch for Jason?”
The bruise beneath his eye had yellowed, and the swelling was gone, but the mark of Owen’s fist still made a patch of sickly color on his cheek. I nodded and he left the table.
Jason came for us just as we finished breakfast and we went out to his car. He helped Monica into the back seat, which she preferred, while Keith sat in front between Jason and me. If her appearance and her presence disturbed him, he showed nothing.
As we drove off, I glanced up at the house and saw Linda standing on her balcony watching us—unsmiling and resentful. Monica saw her too, and waved gaily.
Once more Jason had turned remote. After asking how I was, he had little to say, as though he’d withdrawn from any gesture that might have been made between us on the trip to Idyllwild.
I wondered if he would always be like this—so that I must start anew with him every time we met. For a little while yesterday we’d seemed comfortable with each other, but now he was holding himself away again. Why should I mind? Why did I continue to feel drawn to this disturbing man? I seemed to have learned nothing at all.
Yet when I looked at the harsh lines drawn down from his mouth—lines that always tempted my fingers—I wanted only to offer comfort, where no comfort was wanted or needed.
The road to Desert Hot Springs pointed north across more stretches of sand, to where a town of spas had grown up at the foot of the Shadow Mountains.
At least Jason talked to Keith as he drove, telling him about the place we were to visit.
“A man named Cabot Yerxes built this house in just the way the Hopi Indians built their pueblos a thousand years ago. He hadn’t any money, so he used his own labor and whatever materials he could pick up free. He found old railroad ties for the roof beams and floors, and he hauled rock and sand and earth for the cement and adobe he made himself. He never stopped adding rooms, so the house was still unfinished when he died some years ago. He and his wife lived there for a long time, and now the house has been preserved so people can visit it—still the way it used to be.”
Keith’s interest was caught, and when we reached the quiet, unspectacular little town, and the pueblo came into view, he was eager to explore. The moment we left the car, he ran toward a redwood statue that rose on the grounds of the rambling white building. It was an Indian hea
d carved from a sequoia that had been felled by lightning, Jason said, and it reached several stories high, the feather that topped it carved from a single cedar tree. The man who had created the carving was putting up one of these Indian statues in every state of the union.
Keith looked tiny beside the tremendous head, and the strong, stern face seemed not to see him, the eyes looking far out across the desert.
“Let’s get out of the sun,” Monica murmured from behind the shelter of sunglasses and hat. “Let’s see if we can find Henry Arlen, since that’s what we’ve come for.” Again I sensed an excitement in her voice that made me apprehensive. She was quite capable of unpleasant surprises.
We walked across sandy earth toward the strange memorial of a building that Cabot Yerxes had built, and which was now called by his name. It looked rather like a castle, its square adobe towers and flat roofs rising against bare mountains beyond. Unlike the usual pueblo construction, Jason pointed out, where each room had only one door or window, Cabot had put in as many windows and doors as he pleased, many of them looking out from a four-story-high vantage point. Everywhere, the brown beams of roof supports protruded, adding to the southwestern look.
Near the entrance an elderly man dozed on a bench, and Monica nudged me. “I think that’s Henry. My goodness, how old he looks!”
She walked toward the sleeping figure with an arrogant tilt of her chin and prodded him awake. He looked up, startled, staring at her without recognition.
“You want to go through?” he asked.
Monica whipped off her dark glasses. “Don’t you know me, Cousin Henry?”
“You—you’re her,” he said incredulously, and rose to his gaunt height, staring down at her in obvious astonishment. His hair was white and he wore it in what had once been an Indian style, cut straight over the forehead and above the ears, and his eyes were a faded blue.
Monica’s arrogance vanished, as though she realized that no challenge of this elderly relative was necessary.
“You’ve gotten old, too, Henry,” she said testily. “We haven’t seen each other since I came here that last time—before the war.”
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