Swan Song

by Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott

  Babe, undeterred, persists—‘Truman. Has anyone mentioned anything?’

  ‘What? No. Baby, can’t this wait?’

  ‘Has anyone asked you, today… about bed sheets?’

  The line goes ominously quiet. She hears shuffling in the background, the clean slice of a letter opener splitting a seal. Then—

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Babe. Why would anyone ask me about Truman or bed sheets? And the two in the same sentence seems more than a little implausible, wouldn’t you say.’ He laughs, but it rings hollow.

  ‘What about Esquire? Is anyone talking about that?’

  Bill, irritable now, ‘Look, Babe, I’ve got a dozen meetings on my plate. I don’t have time for phone games. I’ll see you at home. Be good.’

  The line goes dead.

  ‘Be good,’ Babe thinks. If anyone needed to ‘be good’ it seems to Babe it’s Bill who warrants the behavioural warning.

  WHEN BILL COMES home early that night (nothing short of the Second Coming) and with flowers (something he never thinks to do), Babe knows not only has Bill read Truman’s article, but that he is—without question—the model for Sidney Dillon.

  And if Bill is Dill and Slim undoubtably Ina… could that part be true as well? Has her whole life been a sham? In the span of nine pages Babe finds herself questioning the three individuals she’s most loved and trusted for over twenty years.

  As the truth sinks in, she can’t decide who she’s more angry with—Bill for the transgression, Truman for writing it down, or Slim for knowing and not telling her.

  WE’LL LATER LEARN that Truman sent a copy of his Esquire tale to Bill’s office as well, marked to The Sheets with an identical golden paperclip.

  Bill had opened it and skimmed the piece while Babe was on the line, he’ll later tell Slim, as they commiserate over their shared Scotches in a hidden bar along the street from the St. Regis.

  ‘Lady Ina’ and ‘Sidney Dillon’ are indeed old friends.

  They’ve always shared a chumminess, shared a lot more than that… But this Truman business has renewed a deeper kinship they haven’t taken the time to nurture in ages.

  ‘I can’t believe the little shit would have the balls to go there,’ Bill grumbles to Slim, in an out-of-the-way booth in outer Siberia.

  ‘I can’t believe he used me as his fucking mouthpiece, the sick little fuck.’

  Bill pauses, two rounds in. ‘Did I tell him that goddamn story or did you?’ he suddenly thinks to ask.

  ‘At this point, who the hell knows?’ Slim shakes her head, at a genuine loss to remember. ‘I swear I’ll never speak to him again.’

  A vow. Resolute.

  ‘Oh, I will,’ Bill assures her. ‘There’s more than one way to skin a snake.’

  Slim tosses back her drink. ‘I’ll tell you this—if he was doused in gasoline and set on fire like my poor little Buddy I wouldn’t pause to piss on him. He’s dead to me.’

  TRUMAN—A SAFE DISTANCE away in Los Angeles, having made his temporary getaway— attempts to ring Babe from the West Coast, only to be told that she is ‘not home’ whenever he calls.

  He tries Slim next, who simply hangs up at the sound of his girlish voice.

  He gathers his nerve and rings Bill at his office, and is a little more than surprised when he’s put through.

  ‘Paley.’

  ‘Bill… ?’ Truman’s voice comes out more tentative than he’d planned.

  ‘Truman.’ Neither friendly nor angry—utterly neutral.

  Unable to read him, Truman weighs his options.

  ‘I was just calling to say hellooooo, and that I’ve missed you both.’

  ‘Hello, Truman.’

  Then silence.

  ‘How’s Babyling… ?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Ohhh, good. I was worried—not having heard from her…’

  Silence.

  ‘Soooooo, just wondering if you got the story that I sent you… ?’

  ‘Yes. I believe I did.’

  ‘Well, I sent one to both of you—so you could each have your very own copy.’

  Silence still.

  ‘Did you read it yet… ?’

  ‘No, Truman, I don’t believe we got around to it.’

  Truman can hardly believe his ears. This is the last thing he’d expected. He shifts back and forth in his socks, jigging with impatience in his living room, a postmodern Rumpelstiltskin. It won’t be too long now—we feel certain—before he makes a beeline for the bar cart.

  ‘Well… when do you plan on reading it… ?’ he asks, need creeping into his voice.

  ‘Actually, Truman, I think someone must’ve thrown it out with the trash.’

  ‘Well, I can send you new ones—personally!’

  He jigs through the excruciatingly long pause before Bill delivers his cool blow—

  ‘Truman, my wife is a very ill woman. We simply don’t have time for such trivia.’

  Thwack! Like a javelin to the chest, wounding with indifference.

  ‘Your wife? You mean Babyling! Bill… it’s me, for gawd’s sake!’

  Bill’s satisfaction may as well have whooped and hollered, so resounding is his silence. (Slim will later concede that Bill’s plan was genius, withholding the attention the arrogant little shit expected as his due.)

  Finally—‘Truman, I really must go. I have a very important call to take.’

  Click.

  The line goes dead, leaving the great author feeling very small indeed.

  HE WRITES BABE a long letter from his trailer on the set of a third-rate film with an all-star cast, where he finds to his dismay that he cannot manage to play himself, the skill for which he’d been hired. (He really is dreadful, we’ll concur, watching the cringe-worthy results in cinemas months later.) He carefully pens a plea explaining his tale, comparing it to Proust (to whose œuvre he’d introduced Babe in cozier times) but his missive goes unanswered.

  He writes another, inviting her to lunch. Again no reply.

  A third is returned-to-sender, unopened, the contents of which we cannot hope to know.

  Deafening silence.

  Gun-shy after the Bill call, he begs his darling Jack to telephone Babe on his behalf.

  Babe has always had a soft spot for Jack, and Jack for Babe in turn—a fact of which Truman’s well aware. She admires his steady calm, anchoring Truman to earth, weathering two decades’ worth of storms— the angst, the art; the other toxic men, of whom Babe did not approve. She always felt for Jack, knowing that even the steadiest partner on earth could not hope to contain Truman’s restiveness. Lord knows Jack has tried…

  So when her maid says, ‘Mr. Dunphy… ?’ Babe accepts the call.

  ‘Babe, I’m asking you—for me. Please. Please talk to Truman.’

  ‘Oh, Jack,’ a catch in her voice. ‘I’m terribly sorry—I love Truman. Love him with every ounce of my being. But after what he did… Bill and I—we just can’t.’

  ‘He thought it was art, Babe. What he did with In Cold Blood. Reportage as fiction.’

  ‘These were people’s lives, Jack… People who trusted him.’

  ‘He’s a writer! You knew that. Writers write what they know.

  And he knows you better than anyone.’

  Babe doesn’t reply. She thinks she can hear static from another line…

  ‘I’m begging you.’ Jack takes a breath and gives it one last shot. ‘You’re the love of his life, Babe.’ Neither bothers to argue. She knows that Jack is right. ‘We both know this will ruin him.’

  There is a long pause, which Babe silently weeps through, trying to compose herself. She doesn’t want him to see her weakness. Can’t show it—can’t…

  Finally, steadying her voice—‘Oh, I don’t know, Jack. Let me talk it over with Bill.’

  After she hangs up, Jack watches the last of the evening light fade to darkness through the window, bracing himself to tell Truman that they’ve failed.

  JACK CANNOT TE
MPER his rage when Slim renounces the boy.

  Thus Truman enlists one of his faceless, toxic beaux (… beaux we’ve declined to bother with—even in happier times. Beaux who have bruised and bloodied the boy; beaux unworthy of his talent and our company, with whom we refuse to engage) to act as an intermediary.

  When Slim receives a call from one such gentleman, she, with her usual bluntness, makes it perfectly clear that there isn’t any point.

  ‘I’m on my way out. Whadda you want?’

  ‘Look, Slim. Truman understands that you’re very upset.’

  ‘Truman understands right.’

  ‘He thought you would think it was funny.’

  ‘Well, I don’t.’

  ‘Do you really think Lady Ina was you?’

  ‘I think that’s exactly who she’s supposed to be.’

  Slim can suddenly hear it—breathing on the line. A third party, listening in.

  Addressing him directly—

  ‘And Truman…?’

  The breathing faults as the culprit holds his breath.

  A tiny voice, hardly more than a whisper—

  ‘Yes, Big Mama?’

  ‘You’re not forgiven.’

  And with those three words, the last she will ever speak to him, Slim hangs up the phone on her beloved Truheart, cutting him from her life like the cancer he’s become.

  TEN

  1958

  SLIM

  FANDANGO

  NOT SINCE BILLY Woodward was gunned down by his trophy bride in Oyster Bay had Manhattan been so mesmerized by a single domestic scandal.

  After all, dramas of this scope don’t come along every day. The usual trysts—yawn. This season’s splits—shrug. But a drama with an extended, star-studded cast, spanning five cities in three countries—and all that fuss for just three little people! The dis-proportion alone enthralls.

  Who could tell what would touch a collective nerve. What might inspire New York’s jaded bystanders to haul themselves from the passivity of the bench and root for one team or the other. Camps have been chosen, bets placed, favorites fiercely sup-ported.

  Most of us declare ourselves ‘Slimites’—the term naturally coined by Truman. He has also given the ordeal a name, tired of the generic phrase previously employed in genteel circles, who heretofore referred to the unfortunate sequence of events discreetly as ‘Topic A.’

  Truman’s christening is far more colorful: ‘the Hayward– Churchill Fandango.’ Olé! Especially clever, we agree, given that Slim was in Spain, oblivious, when the theft occurred.

  In her absence, Tru has declared Babe the leader of the Slimites, taking the forefront defending Slim’s position. Babe was Slim’s best friend after all… and the guilt must be eating her alive. Frankly, the whole messy business has caused quite a situation among the Cushing sisters. Babe and Betsey, that is, Minnie wisely choosing to steer clear of her younger siblings’ entanglements.

  Not to confuse Babe’s sister Betsey with Slim’s pal Betty, as in Bacall. As in the film star, stage name Lauren. Aka Mrs. Bogart. The recently widowed Mrs. Bogart…

  Both Bet-sey and Bet-ty had been unwitting catalysts in the whole chain of events, though both through entirely innocent requests.

  If only Betsey hadn’t promised to host the former Mrs. Churchill. If only she hadn’t pawned the obligation off on Babe. Any number of factors could have altered the outcome.

  Had Truman been in town that night, nothing untoward would have taken place (and how often can we say that about Truman?!)

  ‘Did you know,’ Tru would enthuse, delighted with his cleverness at the whole naming business, ‘that quite apart from being the dance du jour with aristos back in the day, Fandango has a figurative meaning too? It’s considered a synonym for: A. a quarrel, B. a big fuss, or C. a brilliant exploit. Can you believe that—?! Now don’t all three just sum up what happened to Big Mama to a T… ?’ His smug grin would widen and he’d slurp his sangria, satisfied. (We have to agree this is apposite, especially the ‘big fuss’ bit…)

  If only Slim had kept her eye on the prize, looked after her own interests. But she was trying to be a friend. She’s like that, Slim. Salt of the earth. There for a pal, no questions asked. So when Betty decided, a year after Bogie’s death, that it was time to scrape herself off her terrazzo tile and live again, who better than Slim to orchestrate her resurrection? Slim, who had created her persona in the first place.

  ‘You have to go, Nan,’ Leland had agreed. Leland never called Slim ‘Slim’ as Howard had. She was Leland’s ‘Nan.’ A vestige of the Nancy she’d long since left behind, in the ashes of her childhood in Salinas. ‘After what she’s been through, Betty’s not asking much.’

  Slim took his face in her hands and kissed him hard. She’d only just returned from four weeks in Russia with Truman. Yet there was Leland, so gorgeous about her turning around and packing her bags yet again. He’d always been a prince about these things, Leland. Most of the husbands kept shorter leashes.

  ‘It’s only a week. You can meet me in Paris and we’ll head to Berlin from there.’

  So it happened that Slim found herself in Spain with Betty, and Papa, when the Fandango began. And by the time she could hear the rhythmic clack of the castanets, the death rattle of the tambourine, the dancers in question were already a blur, whirling beyond her grasp.

  THE PHONE RANG at ten fifty-five, on cue.

  Slim, carrying an armload of garments from her closet for review, raised the receiver from its Bakelite cradle.

  ‘Morning, Truheart,’ she answered, not bothering to question the caller’s identity.

  Ten fifty-five—Truman’s morning work break.

  ‘You’re having lunch with me, Big Mama.’

  ‘Can’t.’ She held a linen sundress to her Saluki frame, the fabric’s buttery hue matching the light streak in her hair almost exactly.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Packing.’ Tone firm.

  ‘A girl’s gotta eat.’

  ‘I’ve got a lunch date.’

  ‘With whom?’

  ‘Shipwreck Kelly.’

  ‘Well, cancel him.’

  ‘I can’t. We’ve been set for weeks.’

  ‘You can, Big Mama. And you will.’

  Slim laughed in spite of herself. His bossiness could be oddly endearing. She’d gotten used to it over long weeks on Siberian trains, where they’d fallen into the rhythms of an old married couple. ‘And why,’ she challenged, ‘would I do something so ratty?’

  ‘You’re gonna cancel because your Truheart needs to see your shining face. And besides, you know you’ll have a much better time with me than with dullsville Shit-wreck Kelly!’

  ‘You know, you are Satan.’

  ‘With horns and a pitchfork, honey! But really, Big Mama, you know I’m right. Humdrum or hellion… who wouldya rather?’

  ‘Where?’ (Relenting…)

  ‘21. I’m simply craving those scrumptious little pot pies. We’ll go incognito… a booth in the bar room, tucked back in a corner. No one’ll even know we’re there.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Goody!’ She could almost hear him smile.

  ‘Rat.’

  Slim replaced the receiver. She felt a twinge of guilt as she fished her phone book from the vanity drawer, flipping to the K’s for poor old Shipwreck’s number, summoning a cough, preparing to feel under the weather.

  BY THE TIME She’d settled into a booth next to Truman in the bar at 21, Slim couldn’t have been happier to have changed her plans. They whispered beneath the jumble of antique toys hanging precariously from the ceiling, tucking into pies, slurping mojitos through straws.

  ‘So I suggested Madrid. All she needs is a good dose of fun.’

  ‘And maybe a matador or two… ?’

  ‘Big Mama’s guide to taking bulls by horns.’

  ‘Or whatever appendage is handy…’

  ‘Bottoms up!’

  ‘Here’s hoping…’ Truman grinned salacio
usly. Then, lifting his glass, motioning an ancient waiter for another round—‘Oh, Mr. Weissssss…’

  Beating Weiss to the table (his tortoise pace an accepted feature of the establishment) was Babe, sailing into the bar room in a light mac, shaking droplets from her umbrella.

  ‘Hallo, Babyling!’ Truman beamed, then, calling to the server—‘Make that three, Mr. Weiss!’ They exchanged a round of pecks as Babe removed her scarf, tying it absently around the handle of her handbag. She slid in next to Slim, fixing her with entreating eyes.

  ‘Slim darling, I’m in such a pickle—and you’re the only one who can help me. I know it’s a bit much to ask, but may I borrow your husband for a night… ?’

  ‘Come again?’ Slim hardly concealed her amusement.

  Timing impeccable, Weiss reached the table balancing a round of mojitos. Truman plucked a highball from the tray, taking a long suck through his straw. ‘Well, well. Luncheon just got a helluva lot more interesting!’ He winked at Slim. ‘Now, would Shipwreck Kelly have given you that? What did you have in mind, Babyling? Ménage à trois, or an even swap—?’

  Babe swatted Truman with her menu. ‘Not for me. Well, I guess it is for me, in a way… and Betsey.’ She rolled her eyes, a gesture that tended to accompany Betsey’s name.

  ‘Incest to boot?! Baby, I didn’t think you had it in you! Though I must say, I wouldn’t have pegged Betsey as your type.’

  ‘Truman, please remove that mind of yours from the gutter.’Turning back to Slim—‘Technically, it’s for Pam. Churchill.’

  ‘Pam Churchill?’ Slim frowned, puzzled.

  ‘Seems she and Jock were close friends in London during the war—’

  ‘Of course they were,’ Tru chipped in gleefully. ‘So were Misters Onassis and Agnelli… and Misters Harriman, Kahn, and Rothschild—oh! and Eddie R. Murrow—’

  ‘Ed’s just a rumor,’ Babe swiftly corrected. (Tru and Slim exchanged knowing glances otherwise.)

  ‘But what on earth does she have to do with us?’