The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 3

by Donald Harington

  By his choice of words and lines we know that Floyd pictures himself as a sharp, oily, swaggering humdinger of a guy, where in fact he is unsure, unsettled, even timid; he masks his nervous insecurity with a façade of boastful garrulity. With Wanda it is almost the reverse: outwardly shy and susceptible, she has iron in her veins, sovereignty in her glands; it might be that she is even vain. He is not going to make out with her very successfully. She knows this. We know it. Floyd doesn’t. The only advantage he has over her, if it may be considered an advantage, is that he is a pure realist, a no-nonsense opportunist, a practical and level-headed fellow who is never going to be gyped by the auto mechanics, is never going to be taken for a ride by man or beast, is never going to be caught doing anything except making money and having himself a good time, whereas she, alas, is idealistic, impractical, fanciful, quixotic, an incurable dreamer.

  Just as we are about to get wrapped up in the movie, even if we have seen it a dozen times before, we notice a singular fact: although we can hear snatches of the musical sound track, no voices are coming through to us: no word from the lips of Marius Goring or Moira Shearer or Anton Walbrook or Robert Helpmann or Leonid Massine is clear enough to interfere with the duologue of trifling twaddle heaving out of the mouths of Floyd and Wanda—forty-five minutes of compendious, synoptical, leisurely repartee—the essence, obviously, of Absurdity. But it begins to seem that Floyd is bothering her. She wants to watch the show. It is almost as if Floyd were saying (if he knew how): “See here, I want to talk about Man, I want us to make our own small progress in the direction of discussing these little problems of our little people, for only by plodding doggedly through them can we attain ultimate understanding of the big picture of which they are only fragments.” And it is as if Wanda replies: Poo. I want to watch this movie, because only by sharing its enchantment can I lift myself above those petty problems that concern you.” Apparently, for a while at least, Floyd has become our champion, the true hero of this drama, while Wanda is relegated to the role of the villain. She lacks common sense. She lacks perspective. What is worse, she has no sympathy, no fellow-feeling, she is too wrapped up in herself to perceive the rightness of Floyd’s practical point of view. Maybe this guy means to marry her some day, we don’t know. She owes it to herself to come down off her cloud. But naturally she won’t.

  He puts his arm around her shoulders and nuzzles her neck. She shrugs him off. Absorbed in the swelling climax of the movie, she even yet fails to perceive the message that it offers her, the lesson that it holds out to her like a pair of fancy red slippers proffered on a fat silk pillow: vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas, or, she who desires everything gets nothing.

  Moira is yelling at Marius and Marius is yelling at Moira (we see their contorted mouths but do not hear their noise) and then Moira is crying, and then Floyd is yelling at Wanda, “Goddammit, baby, I been trying to get somewhere with you for the last goddamn five months, and it’s driving me nuts! What’s the matter with you, anyway?” But Wanda does not cry. She looks him coolly in the eye and, obviously thinking of how severely he fails to be as handsome or romantic as Marius Goring, says to him, “Drop dead.” Moira leaps from the parapet in time to fall beneath the oncoming steam train. Anton Walbrook quavers his sad, choked speech to the Monte Carlo audience, and Massine begins the ballet without her, and then Wanda begins to cry. Floyd entreats her to dry up. Alternately pitying and disgusted, he is beside himself with confusion. His comforting words make her cry harder. His harsh words make her cry even harder yet. The movie ends. For a while the sound of Wanda’s sobbing is drowned by the roaring, gravel-popping noise of several hundred automobiles racing each other to the exit gate. When the last car fades off, we pick up her crying again. Floyd reaches into the back seat (there is none, but we are to imagine that whatever is behind the seat on which they are sitting is the back seat) and finds a tire jack, with which he begins clubbing her. Her red wig is knocked off by one of his blows, but he is too distraught to notice. She expires. He reaches into the back seat again and gets an ax and hacks away at her ankles, severing her red-shoed feet. (A clever bit of stage designing enables this illusion to be created, by having her conceal her real feet in a black shroud beneath the car seat, while a false pair is sent clattering downstage, coming to a stop near the footlights, where an intense pistol spotlight picks them out while all the other lights go off, and the curtain slowly descends.)

  A few of us have screamed. The rest of us are speechless. All of us, if we have followed closely throughout and have kept our minds open, clear and active, are asking ourselves: Who is to blame here? Which of them was right, which wrong? Who won, who lost?

  There are two polite curtain calls for Hugh and Margaret, but no cries of “Author! Author!” and the New York producer and his entourage have already departed.

  Illuminated by the rising house lights, Dall’s face was staring blankly at my face as if he were trying to place me. I stared back at him with a similar quizzical expression dulling my own countenance. We just looked at each other like this for a long moment, and I knew that we were probably thinking the same thing: Was that what we went to such trouble to get Margaret back from Hot Springs for? Then Dall slowly shook his head. “By doggies,” he said finally, “I done seen it all.”

  It behooved me to attempt an explanation. “You see, Dall,” I said, trying not to sound too didactic, “I think what Slater is trying to say in this thing is that the dreamer, the idealist, you know, doesn’t have any place in the modern world. The dreamer is too easily conceited, and that kind of conceit may get the dreamer into trouble—in this case, death.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I read the fairy tale. Slater showed it to me once. It’s in this book of stuff by this feller named Hans Christian Somebody or Other, and it tells about this little girl named Karen that gets her feet cut off cause she’s so all-fired stuck-up and snotty, but in that there fairy tale she sort of reforms, see, she takes it all back and she gets religion and all and her little old heart is so filled with peace and love and all that it breaks on her and her soul flies away to heaven.”

  But wasn’t Margaret beautiful? We agreed she was.

  Dall went out to check with Curly, and I joined Naps and Tatrice, who were busily trying to explain their conflicting interpretations of the play to each other. Naps was on Floyd’s side, Tatrice was on Wanda’s side, and a heated argument was building up between them, so I slipped away. Naps caught up with me and said he had to take Tatrice home and then change into his chauffeur’s uniform, and then he would be delighted to drive me out to the Nordens’ party. I thought that was superfluous, but he insisted on it. “Us Nobodies,” he said, “has got to show them Somebodies that we is Somebody too.” Then he winked, clapped me on the back, and rejoined his wife.

  I wandered on backstage to the Green Room, hoping to catch a glimpse of the author, but he was nowhere about. A group of people was milling around Hugh Berrey and Margaret, offering reserved congratulations to them, but Margaret slipped away as soon as she saw me. She came over and kissed me on the cheek and thanked me for the beautiful roses. Up close, I noticed the heavy stage make-up on her face, the exaggerated delineation of her eyes and mouth, and more than ever she seemed to be the strange embodiment of that transcendental succubus who haunted so many of my dreams. In that moment, perhaps because it was I, Clifford Stone an anonymous member of the audience, talking face to face with her, Margaret Austin the star, I felt a sudden profound passion for her.

  “You were wonderful,” I said.

  “Did you like it?” she asked hesitantly.

  “Not it,” I said. “You.”

  She smiled. “But you didn’t like the play?”

  “Frankly, no.”

  Then she said, “I told you. I told you it was bad.”

  I nodded. Then, a great idea suddenly taking hold of me, I took hold of her hand, bowed low, kissed her hand, and said, “Miss Austin, it has been my privilege to have received an invitation to att
end a post-theater party at the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Norden, and I will accept that invitation if I might have the honor of your company.”

  She laughed. “Stage Door Johnny,” she said. Then she said, “Jimmy Slater wants me to go out to his ranch and—”

  “Oh,” I said, crestfallen.

  She took my arm. “But I would rather go with you,” she said. “Much rather. So I will.” My heart did flip-flops, and instantly I visualized the impression that I would make when I arrived at Norden’s in a chauffeured limousine with the star of the play on my arm.

  Dall came into the Green Room. “Hiya, Marge,” he said and patted her on the back. “Great show. You were just great.” She thanked him, but expressed doubts that he really enjoyed it “Aw, yeah, it was kind of interestin,” he said without conviction. She asked him if he felt the time and trouble of his trip to Hot Springs had been justified, “This play wasn’t the only reason I wanted you back from Hot Springs.”

  “Speaking of my mother,” Margaret said, “how did you keep her from getting here?”

  Dall shrugged. “Aw, I guess she must of run into car trouble or something.” Then he asked her, “Where’s Slater, by the way?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. I guess he’s back in the wings or somewhere. Why?”

  “Just wanted to speak to him a bit,” Dall said.

  “Why?” Margaret asked again, her face wearing a worried expression.

  “Aw, just wanted to tell him what a good show it was and all, you know,” Dall said. Then he said, “Excuse me,” and went out through the door leading to the stage.

  Some old ladies came up to pat Margaret on the arm and tell her how sweet she was and how awful it was that she had been killed. Then a photographer wanted to take some pictures of her holding hands with Hugh Berrey. Then a florist brought her some more roses. Then some more old ladies came up to pat her on the arm and tell her how sweet she was and how awful it was that she had been killed. Then Margaret came to me and told me that she had to go to the dressing room to remove her make-up and costume, and would meet me outside.

  I left the Green Room and strolled for a while up and down the sidewalk promenade beside the Arts Center. The last of the audience was leaving; only a few cars remained in the parking lot. An old Hudson drove up, and a fat old woman got out and swiftly approached me. Officer Curly moved to intercept her, but she had a head start on him. “Clifford!” she said. “Where’s my daughter?”

  “Ma’am,” said Curly, trotting up, “could I see your driver’s license, please?”

  She turned to him. “I’ve shown my license to enough policemen tonight, and I’m not going to show it again!”

  “Now, ma’am,” said Curly, “don’t you go using offensive language to me, or I’ll run you in.”

  She ignored him and turned back to me. “Where’s my daughter?’“

  “I’m afraid you’re much too late,” I said. “The show was over half an hour ago, and—” I did some quick thinking—“and Margaret has already gone out to Mr. Slater’s place.”

  “Oh, she has, has she!” She made a movement to return to her car, but then she paused and turned back to me again. “But what are you doing here, then?”

  “Waiting for my chauffeur,” I said.

  She eyed me suspiciously and wagged a finger in my face. “Did you steal my daughter away from me in Hot Springs?”

  “Hot Springs?” I said. “My goodness, I haven’t been there for years.”

  “Well, you stay away from my daughter too, you…you married man!” she yelled, and then she got back into her car and turned it around and began to roar away toward, most likely, the Slater rancho.

  Curly took off his cap and scratched his curly hair. “Crazy old bag,” he said. “Imagine anybody having a mother like that.”

  “Imagine,” I said.

  Curly returned to his squad car, and I stood alone, restless, breathing in the spring night fragrances, magnolia and honeysuckle. It was the kind of moment when, had I been a smoker, I would have lit a cigarette. After a while Dall came out. He lit his pipe. I asked him if he would like to go to Norden’s party with us.

  “That asshole?” Dall said rancorously. “Not me. Wouldn’t be caught dead walkin the same ground he walked on. Besides, I don been invited to go out to Slater’s. He’s feelin pretty low, the way nobody seemed to care for his play. Wants me to go out and play some poker with him or somethin. Just me and him. He don’t like people.” Dall smirked at me. “And he sure don’t like you. Cause you done gone and stole his girl away from him.”

  I told Dall that my heart was touched with pity for Slater, but that all was fair in love and war. Then I told him that if he and Slater were going to play cards, they might have a third for their game, because Mrs. Austin was on her way out there. “What?” Dall boomed. I explained. I told him that I had simply been trying to think of some way to keep Mrs. Austin away from Margaret when I told her that Margaret had gone to Slater’s place. “Well, say now,” Dall said with a speculative smile, “that might not be such a bad thing after all.” Then he bade me a good night and a pleasant evening’s entertainment. Curly came up with the squad car, and before getting into it Dall said, “When you see Norden, tell him that Doyle C. Hawkins says, and I quote, ‘KISS MY RUSTY BUTT,’ all capital letters. Wouldja do that for me?”

  “Sure.” I laughed and waved as he drove away.

  Shortly afterward Margaret came out, dressed in a very charming blue cocktail dress which did interesting things for her figure. She glanced nervously from side to side. I asked her if she was afraid that Slater was hunting for us. No, she said, Jimmy had already left. But she was afraid that Agnes Galloway might be hunting for her. Who’s Agnes Galloway? I asked. “My understudy,” Margaret said. “This dress belongs to her. She left it in the dressing room, and I don’t have anything else to wear, so I—”

  Naps pulled up in the Lincoln. He jumped out to hold the rear door open for us. Lord, he was lovely, decked out in a full-dress chauffeur’s uniform complete with brass-buttoned tunic. He bowed low. “Monsieur et mademoiselle,” he voiced in a precise and perfect French appropriate to a Phi Beta Kappa who had had three years of the stuff in college but never a good chance to use it, “entrez dans ma voiture donc, s’il vous plaît.”

  Thus it came to pass that Cinderella and Prince Charming got into the golden coach and, the wicked mother being tied up elsewhere, went off to have themselves a ball.

  Chapter thirty

  Rhododendron Terrace is actually west of Pulaski Heights, and out of it: a winding quarter of a mile of six superaffluent new homes in a special development called Grandwood, carved into the hilly pinewoods between Robinwood and Kingwood, overlooking the river precipitously and toploftily, it is hardly a street at all, but a golden curl, a wisp of honey-blond hair bristling up from a head which otherwise is plain dishwater. Number Five the Rhododendron Terrace is a white-brick peri-styled Pompeian villa with Williamsburg touches, a smooth bar of platinum lolling behind two rows of gas lamps in two acres of sea-green fescue on the river side of the street, with marbled patios commanding a grand view of the palisades upstream and the city downstream. No television announcer’s salary ever paid for this place, or ever could; its immaculate conception and birth could only have been the fruit of a divine coition between Judge Norden’s tainted legacy and the free riches of Marcia Paden’s family, fertilizer magnates. The gas lamps, which, like thousands of others all over town, the Arkansas-Louisiana Gas Company burns night and day to supplement their usual income while satisfying a parvenu craving for elegance, were bright enough to gild this homestead with resplendent aureoles of celestial light.

  All of the other guests had arrived and were standing around in the patio out back, while white-jacketed Negro waiters plied them with drinks. A small orchestra was providing music for twisters. Naps turned the huge Lincoln into the white gravel driveway and edged it as close to the gathering as he could get. Everybody turned to look at us.r />
  The car motionless, Naps leaped out, raced around the rear of it, and swung our door open with a flourish, standing rigidly at attention while we stood up and debouched. He whispered to me through a closed mouth, “Suck in your gut.” I sucked it in. Then he gave me a crisp salute and closed the door behind us.

  Hy Norden trotted up as fast as his corpulence would allow, with Marcia hard on his heels. He threw both of his hands at me and clasped my hand between them, pumping. “Great to see you, Cliff!” he oozed. “Glad you could make it, boy!”

  “Margaret,” I said to her, I believe you know Hy Norden and his wife Marcia. Hy and Marcia; Margaret Austin.”

  He squinted his eyes at her. “Your face is familiar. Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” Margaret smiled modestly, her head slightly bowed. Hy went through the finger-snapping routine, trying to place her. “Where was it?” he asked himself aloud.

  “Well,” Margaret offered, “we were classmates in high school.”

  “Yeah!” Hy said.

  “Hy,” Marcia said sotto voce to her husband, “she was the girl in that play tonight!”

  “No!” Hy said, ogling Margaret up and down. “Well, I’m damned! What a surprise! What an honor!” He glanced at me with renewed admiration. “Well, come on, let’s say hello to some of the folks.”

  There followed a round of introductions with old, half-forgotten friends. I remembered only a few of their names, but they all knew mine; Hy must have announced me in advance. A circle opened around us and followed us as Hy took us from one couple to another. My supersensitive ears picked up their hushed asides; wives were telling their husbands that the girl beside me was the Wanda of the Slater play; I heard one girl remark to another, “He’s ever so handsomer than he used to be, don’t you think?” and one of the guys said to his companion, “Saw a dinner jacket just like that one in Gentleman’s Quarterly last month. Costs two hundred and forty-five bucks.”