Stardust

by Charlotte Bingham

  The dog saw him first as he shot out of the field after the cows and the red-head, stopping at the entrance to the yard the moment he sensed there was a stranger about. Then he turned and staring back down the track with his tail sticking up like a flag, flattened his ears and began to bark a loud warning.

  ‘OK!’ Oscar called. ‘Good dog! It’s OK!’ while continuing to walk up towards the house. He wasn’t altogether sure about the dog. It was big, lean and tough looking, with a long pointed muzzle and short, grey, wiry coat, some sort of cross, Oscar reckoned, between a sheepdog and a hound, some sort of very cross cross, because the dog had full control of the right of way and didn’t seem inclined to relinquish it.

  The red-head rescued him, appearing momentarily from behind a farm building in the process of steering one of the cows back into the yard by means of a stick laid on its quarters.

  ‘It’s all right! He won’t harm you!’ she shouted, and then called the big dog off. ‘Frizzle!’

  The dog stopped barking for a moment until the red-head disappeared again, then he picked up a large stick and ran down the track towards Oscar, who was wondering what on earth an Irish girl was doing in the middle of the Loire. The dog dropped the stick at Oscar’s feet and resumed barking, a different bark this time, a come-on-and-throw-my-stick sort of bark. Oscar hurled the stick into the adjacent field and the dog hurled himself after it.

  There was no-one visible in the yard as Oscar strolled in, the dog back by his side now, jumping up behind him and nearly knocking Oscar over in his determination to get his stick thrown again. Oscar wrested it from the dog and chucked it obligingly out of the yard before taking stock of his surroundings. It was exactly like the painting. Except the red-head wasn’t sweeping out any stable, he could see her now in the far barn, setting about milking one of the cows. There was no child either, and no sleeping black dog. But there were the chickens, and he could see the horse in the field behind the house, two horses in fact, and he was right, the goat had been eating an article of clothing, and it still was. It was up on the wall above him happily munching its way through what looked like a pair of girl’s cotton briefs. And there was someone at the window of the farmhouse, someone he could only vaguely make out since the sun was shining directly on the windows. Oscar put his hand up to his eyes to look at the person who was looking back down at him, and as he did so something hit him with terrific force in the back, giving as it did so a huge whoop of canine pleasure.

  He’d have kept his footing had it not been for the cows. As it was the dog knocked him forward into something one of the cows had conveniently dropped and Oscar lost his legs, went up in the air, and performed a classic pratfall straight back down into the freshly deposited pat.

  In the midst of his confusion and embarrassment he heard laughter from within the house and then, as he tried to get back up to his feet, someone running down stairs and out across the cobbled yard.

  He’d already recognized the laugh, he’d sworn he knew the laugh the moment he’d heard it, and when he looked up he found he was right, when he looked up and found himself looking into a face he had thought he would never, ever see again.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ Pippa said, still laughing all the while the tears filled her eyes. ‘I just don’t believe it. Oscar.’

  ‘You’ve lost some weight.’

  ‘I found a great diet. You get influenza and then you go on holiday to Spain.’

  ‘I wonder. If I’d seen you in the street, I wonder if I’d have recognized you.’

  ‘You mean it was only me falling for your cow’s practical joke that gave me away?’

  ‘You do look different.’

  ‘That’s just cosmetic. I was getting tired of people asking me whenever they saw me dressed up what happened – had I fallen over?’

  Pippa laughed and poured Oscar some more wine.

  ‘I’m not sure I should,’ Oscar said. ‘I have to drive home.’

  ‘Where’s home?’

  ‘Oh, still America. The land of the Free and the Easy. The land with thirty-two television channels and only one sauce.’

  ‘And you never married.’

  ‘No, Madame Nichole, no, I never married. I guess I’ve never been that cold.’

  ‘Sorry. I don’t understand.’

  ‘Shelley Winters said she was so cold once she almost got married.’

  ‘Stop it,’ Pippa laughed. ‘Jenny’s going to be sick.’

  ‘It’s not that I haven’t thought about getting a playmate,’ Oscar continued, the wind now well and truly under his tail. ‘It’s just that if I ever do, I’m not sure I’ll purchase. I think maybe I’ll just lease.’

  ‘No, please stop it,’ Jenny begged. ‘Please.’

  ‘At least I still have my hair,’ Oscar sighed. ‘Not like poor old “Bossy” Boska. You remember Dmitri Boska, Madame Nichole?’

  ‘You know who Mr Greene means?’ Pippa said to her daughter. ‘He produced most of your father’s first films.’

  ‘Didn’t he also just produce his Macbeth as well?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘You got it, Mademoiselle Nichole,’ Oscar said. ‘Well, the poor guy’s completely bald now. But that’s about all he’s lost, his hair. He’s still the same old Boska. He’s still got his teeth. He was sitting in his club recently, so they tell me. And this other producer, one of his rivals, he comes up behind him and runs his hand over Bossy’s bald head. “My, Bossy,” he says, “that feels just like my wife’s behind.” So what does Bossy do? He strokes his own head thoughtfully and he says “Yah, Michael,” he says, “yah, so it does.”’

  ‘That’s quite enough, Oscar,’ Pippa said, as helpless as her daughter was with laughter. ‘This daughter of mine hasn’t left school yet.’

  ‘Not yet, but nearly,’ Jenny said. ‘One month exactly.’

  ‘What are you going to do then, Mademoiselle Nichole?’ Oscar asked.

  ‘I’m going to London,’ Jenny said. ‘I’ve got a scholarship to the Slade.’

  ‘She’s a better painter than I am,’ Pippa said later in the evening as she was showing Oscar round their studio. ‘Or if she isn’t now, she’s certainly going to be.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s so,’ Oscar said. ‘Jenny’s a very different painter to you. And when she’s older, she’s going to be even more different.’

  ‘Have you got different, Oscar?’ Pippa asked. ‘Now you’re older?’

  ‘You bet,’ Oscar said. ‘I’m even more different than I was before.’

  ‘Seriously, Oscar.’

  ‘Seriously. I guess I was odd before, but you should see me now.’

  ‘Seriously, Oscar.’

  ‘I’ve always found it hard to be serious, Pippa, in public. You know that. But if you really want to know—’

  ‘I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.’

  ‘OK. So yes, yes I am different. I no longer jump Jim Crow – you know, rewrite this, Oscar will you? Here, Oscar, this needs breathing on. Oscar? You got time to cast your eye over this? For old times, Ozzie, know what I mean? I stopped all that some time ago, stopped being the rewrite man. I thought it was time I did my own thing again, rather than being a paid lackey the rest of my so-called life.’

  Oscar picked up one of the St Cholet canvases, a woodland painting of foresters at work, an oil full of movement and vigour.

  ‘Were you anyone’s lackey in particular?’ Pippa asked, sorting through some more canvases in the corner.

  ‘Sure,’ Oscar said. ‘I’d become the resident Yank at the court of King Jerome.’ Pippa glanced up at him, and Oscar handed her back the painting. ‘It’s no good,’ he said. ‘I’m going to have to buy all your stuff.’

  ‘Go on about Jerome,’ Pippa said, handing him another painting, a river view this time, a quiet stretch of the Loire late on an autumn evening.

  ‘I can just feel it,’ Oscar said, standing back from the easel he had set the painting upon. ‘I can feel the end of the day’s sun, that damp you get in the ai
r, right? Late September, early October, the moment the light fades and the dew comes out of the ground. The gentle but persistent surge of the water. It’s all there.’

  ‘Go on about Jerome.’

  ‘I was Master of the King’s Remington. Lord Fixit of the Cock-up. Whatever needed rewriting, I rewrote it. Not plays, mind you, I wasn’t allowed near the plays. The plays were reserved for serious writers. You know, guys with the beginnings of beards in black leather jackets who think while they write, right? Which just isn’t possible. You know anybody who can do two things at the same time and do both of them equally well? I don’t. Anyway, my job was to rewrite all these films Jerome and Lady Jerome had to make to keep the Court of the Didiers going. You sure you want to hear all this, Pip?’

  ‘I just want to hear what happened to you,’ Pippa said. ‘What happened to make you different.’

  ‘You mean that?’

  ‘Yes. Why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘You don’t want to hear it because you’re curious about Jerome.’

  ‘I want to hear it because I’m curious about you.’ Pippa handed him the last painting, the only one he hadn’t seen. Oscar didn’t even look at it.

  ‘Why?’ he said. ‘Why are you curious about me?’

  ‘Because I’ve thought of you often,’ Pippa said. ‘That’s why.’

  ‘You know something, Madame Nichole?’ Oscar grinned. ‘If I was a bell, I’d go ding-dong ding-dong ding.’

  Back by the fireside, with all the rest of the household asleep, Pippa and Oscar sat on the floor drinking Armagnac and talking it all over. Pippa told him all that had happened to her, right up to Jenny’s discovery of the full identity of her father, and the subsequent discovery of her prodigious acting talent, and her decision to go to art rather than drama school, then Oscar brought Pippa up to date on how he had excused himself from the court of Sainthill, returned to America to do, as described, his own thing, and languished for two years in the Hollywood wilderness, until a director named Jim Asher who’d just made a big hit with a movie called Dumb Talk, read an original script of Oscar’s over one weekend he was hiding out from his about-to-be ex-wife at Oscar’s apartment, and called him the following weekend to say he had the go-ahead from Columbia to put Oscar’s script in production.

  ‘That script had been through every goddam production office in that crazy town,’ Oscar said. ‘But then that’s Hollywood. And that’s something you learn out there. You learn that there are more of them than there are of us. I’ve written four movies since, and they’ve all been made. They just showed my latest in Cannes, The Streetfighter, with Robert Nissen. It didn’t win any prizes, but then it wouldn’t. It’s got a story line. But it’s doing great at the box office. In fact it’s doing so well, next month they’re going to show it in the cinema. So there you are. The story so far. Here I am. I got about as far as I can go. I know that’s the case because I now have detractors. When you’re nobody, all you have is friends. But when you’re somebody, you have detractors. No really, people write things about me, really rude things, which is a compliment, it shows I’ve arrived. You know, they do things like wonder out loud in print why such lousy writers as me should be successful. They don’t see the reason. They don’t see the reason why so many lousy writers are successful is because so many people have such lousy taste.’

  Pippa laughed and shook her head.

  ‘You don’t believe that for one minute, you don’t believe any of it, and neither do I, Oz,’ she said. ‘And you certainly don’t believe for a moment you’re a lousy writer.’

  ‘You’re kidding, Pip,’ Oscar replied. ‘If I didn’t I’d never write another goddam word. Now will you marry me?’

  Pippa stared at him speechlessly, her glass of Armagnac halfway to her mouth, frozen en route.

  ‘What are you looking like that for?’ Oscar asked, lighting a cigarette.

  ‘What do you mean, now will I marry you? I don’t remember you asking me before.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Oscar agreed. ‘What I meant by now will you marry me, was I reckon that now is a good time.’

  ‘For what, Oscar?’

  ‘For us to get married, Pippa.’

  He leaned over and gently took the glass of brandy which Pippa was about to spill down her front.

  ‘So?’ he said. ‘Oscar’s waiting.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say, Oz,’ Pippa replied. ‘I’m sorry. I really don’t.’

  ‘OK,’ Oscar agreed, ‘so I’ll do the talking. I’ll tell you why this is a good time. I’m doing very well. Better than I’ve ever done, maybe better than I’ll ever do. But whatever happens, from now there’s no chance of me starving. Sure I was kidding about being a lousy writer, but I wasn’t kidding about not thinking that I’m any good. Because I don’t. I just know I can write. If I knew what I could write, I wouldn’t write. More importantly, you’re terrific.’ Pippa looked at him, but Oscar was poker faced. ‘A terrific painter I mean. You really are.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’ Pippa interrupted.

  ‘There you are! You must be!’ Oscar exclaimed. ‘Because you think you’re not. Anyway, the point is—’ Oscar frowned, and drew deeply on his cigarette. ‘The point is I love what you do. What you have in you. As they say nowadays where I come from – I love where you’re at. When I saw that painting, the painting of Jenny in the farmyard, when I saw all your other paintings, I had to have them. All of them. I never felt like that before in my whole life about anything. Because it wasn’t just wanting the paintings, although I didn’t understand that. I wanted the person who painted them, the person who had all that inside them, not necessarily the talent, but that spirit, the feeling that was in the paintings and the drawings, whoever had all that inside of them I wanted.’

  ‘Supposing it had been a man?’ Pippa asked.

  ‘Very funny,’ Oscar replied. ‘OK, so if it had been a man, I’d have had a sex change. Now may I continue?’

  ‘If it means you’re going to buy some more of my paintings, fire ahead.’

  ‘I can’t remember where I was now, smarty-pants.’

  ‘You wanted this painter, whoever he or she may be.’

  ‘You’re damned right I did.’

  ‘And now that you’ve met her?’

  ‘Now I know why I wanted those paintings. Look, I’ve bought paintings in all sorts of places, but I can tell you, having met some, the last people I ever want to meet are the artists. Most of them are – what did Shaw call them? Dubedats. Why your paintings spoke to me, is because it was you speaking, Pip. And you see, you see – I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to finish this,’ he said.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Pippa put in. ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘I do, Pippa, you’re wrong,’ Oscar said. ‘I have to finish it. I have to find some way to tell you I love you. I have to find some way to tell you that I’ve always loved you. And have you got any suggestions?’

  Pippa sighed deeply, and took one of Oscar’s strong square hands in her slim brown ones.

  ‘I don’t know, Oz,’ she confessed. ‘You could try saying it.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Pip. You know me. I’d probably bite my tongue.’

  They stared at each other in silence for a while, and then Oscar put his other hand over Pippa’s.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said. ‘Maybe if you said how you felt. Maybe that would help.’

  ‘We could try,’ Pippa agreed, and then thought for a while. ‘Can I have a cigarette?’ she asked.

  ‘You don’t smoke.’

  ‘I know. I just thought I’d like to try one.’

  Oscar lit her a Lucky Strike, and passed it over to her. Pippa took it and took a puff, taking care not to inhale.

  ‘OK,’ Oscar said. ‘So now you’re having your first cigarette. So now you’re a grown up. So put away all childish things, and now tell it like a woman.’

  Pippa handed him back the cigarette, and pulled her knees up under her chin.

  ‘T
here was only one person I missed,’ she said finally. ‘After I left Jerome, I didn’t miss anybody, besides Jerome obviously. But then when I stopped missing him, when I really did a spring clean and knew I had to start all over again, there wasn’t anyone, or anything, or anywhere I missed, except you.’

  ‘Hey,’ Oscar said. ‘I like that. Or are you just saying what I would have you say?’

  ‘I’ve just said it, Oscar, and I meant it,’ Pippa warned him, ‘and if you’re going to barrack. If you’re going to be facetious—’

  ‘I’m sorry, Pip,’ Oscar said, meaning it. ‘I hate the fool in me. Really. It’s just that this is a place I never expected to be.’

  ‘What is? This house? The Loire?’

  ‘No. I never expected to be here. At a moment like this, I mean. With you. Now please go on.’

  ‘I don’t know why I missed you,’ Pippa continued, almost defensively. ‘At least I didn’t. I didn’t then. I thought it was just because you were a friend, because we’d been such friends, in fact I suppose you were my only real friend.’

  ‘Besides Jerome.’

  ‘Besides Jerome.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And then. Then I often used to sit and think why were we such friends. And I came to the conclusion we were such friends because we liked so many of the same things, and because we could talk, and because you made me laugh. No-one, at least this is what I thought, no-one ever made me laugh like you did. Not even – not even Jerome. I used to sit here late at night, or up in my bed, and remember how you would talk, and tell me stories, and tease me, and crack jokes, and all I could think about was all the laughter we had shared, and now, then, then suddenly there wasn’t any. Not for a long time here, at least it seemed like a long time. There was no laughter, no-one to laugh with, no-one who could make me laugh. Because there was nothing to laugh at. Which is why I thank God for Jenny. When Jenny was born, and as she started to grow up into herself, and become a person – however small at first – it sort of came back. The ability to laugh. And when it did, when Jenny and I used to play together, simple games at first, when she was tiny, and then hide and seek, and that sort of thing as she grew older, and we all used to giggle and laugh, Jenny, and Nancy and me, then I remembered you again. Every time I laughed, I used to remember the other times, and somehow you were always there. Which was why I never thought about you. I couldn’t bear it any more, to think that I’d never see you again, I suppose, at least I suppose that’s the reason why I put you out of my mind. Why I refused ever to think about you again. I haven’t thought about you for years.’