The senior Potters were obliged to swallow their embarrassment when the baby was born with such obvious prematureness, though as grandparents they put a good face on the whole thing. But the future dimmed when it was learned that Dane, an exercise enthusiast, took a profound satisfaction in beating up his new wife, a habit he couldn’t seem to break. Faun was fast becoming the battered bride, and the marriage was over before it began.
At the same time Belinda was discovering that her own union was all but on the rocks. The writing was not on the wall, however, but in a poison-pen letter addressed to her and signed “a friend,” divulging the information that her husband, whom she loved and trusted, was secretly seeing a woman in San Francisco, a city to which he made frequent business trips.
I became privy to this little item because I’d accidentally stumbled across Belinda in the most unexpected way. Vi Ueberroth was practically one of the charter members of the Sand and Sea Club, that exclusive enclave on Pacific Coast Highway, an establishment catering to only the most exclusive social element in the city. Occasionally Vi would invite me out for lunch and an afternoon of sun poolside or, if I chose, a lie-out on the beach, listening to Vi chatter away; you could always count on Vi to bring you up-to-date on the latest dirt.
This particular afternoon, when she’d got into one of her beloved poker games, I went for a stroll along the beach. I suddenly discovered I had acquired a pal in the dog that ran up and barked for the stick I was carrying. I winged the stick, the dog bounded after it, pulled it out of the surf, and trotted back to me with the stick in his jaws. The next time I threw it, the dog dashed right across a blanket where two women were sitting with a baby under an umbrella, and then by golly if the dog didn’t get the stick and plow right back across the same blanket, splattering water all over the place.
When I stepped over to apologize to the women, I had my surprise: one of them turned out to be Belinda Carroll.
“Well, look who’s here,” she said musingly, shading her eyes at me. “I was just thinking of you not two hours ago.”
“What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that it’s been ages since I’ve seen you. You never call me.”
“I don’t know where to get you. I tried Mandeville. Aren’t you there anymore?”
She shook her head so her hair swung and she drew me down and introduced her companion, a young Finn who was her current au pair girl, a buxom milkmaid type with the look of the young Bergman about her, hired to look after the three-year-old baby, whom its father had left with Belinda! Faun, fortunately, had no interest in hauling the baby around with her on her “spiritual pilgrimage.”
When I pretended to suppose it was her own, she gave me a playful sock. “This is our beautiful Master Gary Potter,” she explained. “Kirstig and I are baby-sitting while Dane is in Salt Lake City on business. Say hello to the nice man,” she said, and the baby cooed. “Feel how heavy he is, this little dumpling,” and she handed him over to me. I sat him aboard my thigh and dandled him a bit, until he began to squall and Kirstig relieved me of him.
“Oh goodness, I thought so,” she said in her English-accented Scandinavian voice, “the little mischief has gone toy-toy in his nappy. Let me just go change him, I shan’t be a minute.”
With an apologetic smile she got up and bore the pooped-up baby away, leaving me to talk with Belinda, an interval both pleasant and enlightening.
The surprise of stumbling across her had taken my breath away, but now the mere sound of her voice worked like a tonic on me. There were little crooks and lines around her eyes that, while they made her appear older, were nonetheless intriguing. She was weathering, all right, but wonderfully. Her vivid beauty was paring down to a fine handsomeness rare in women, and I found her quite as extraordinary-looking as ever.
She seemed pleased to see me, too, and asked me many questions—about my health, my work, how things were going with Jenny and me. She’d rented a place here on the beach for the whole summer and urged us to come out any time we liked. The sun and salt air were good for the child and she was so delighted to have him. “Me, a grandmother? Come on.”
“And Faun? What’s become of her?” I waited for her answer.
“I had a letter, surprise, surprise. Wrong—not a letter, a card. From Delhi. She’s been at the Taj Mahal. There was some difficulty, evidently—they had to drag her out of the pool. It’s against the law to swim there.”
“What’s she doing in India? Killing all the sacred cows?”
“She’s meditating and learning yoga and has something called a mandala. She also has a mantra. Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes—I guess she jingles as she walks. She sent me a snapshot of herself with a diamond in her nose—how on earth do they get them to stay in? Now she’s living at an ashram somewhere and eating goat cheese. She can even make her stomach touch her spine or something. But I don’t think goat cheese is the answer.”
Though she made light of the whole thing, I could tell that Faun was rattling Belinda’s cage again. Because she seemed embarrassed to talk about it, I looked for another topic of conversation. “Where’s Grant these days?” I asked finally.
She didn’t look at me. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know. Singapore, maybe. Or Botswana, or Honduras. Or… San Francisco…” The funny way she said it made me pay closer attention.
“What’s in San Francisco?”
“Oh, you know, the usual—Nob Hill, Golden Gate Bridge—and somebody named Curtwright.”
Who, I wondered, was Curtwright.
Candace Curtwright, it came out, was a San Francisco socialite type, glittering hostess, patron of the arts, chairman of the Opera Ball, thirty, blonde, and a dilly.
“Blondes are fatal for Grant,” she said. “But what a way for me to find out.” She fetched her striped beach bag, delved inside, and produced a letter, which she handed over to me. “Read it and weep, darling.”
The letter, handwritten on drugstore stationery, said:
Must you spend your whole life being dumb? Did it ever occur to you why your darling husband insists on spending so much time these days in the lovely City by the Bay? As Tony Bennett says in the song, “I left my heart in San Francisco.” You know, dear—where the little cable cars climb halfway to the stars? Take a tip, the name is Candy Curtwright, she’s pretty and she’s loded [sic]. But don’t cry, it happens to us all. Just ditch the bum.
The lines were unsigned. I stared at them, trying to analyze the handwriting. There was something so blatantly vulgar, so cheap and obvious, even obscene about the note that I inwardly cursed its author. What kind of woman—of course it was a woman—could be so deliberately cruel?
I folded the pages to return them to their envelope, and as I did so, I caught the faint fragrance that clung to them, and noted Belinda’s tentative glance from under her lashes.
“Mm.” She wet her lips as she took the envelope back and stashed it in the bag. I wondered why she carried it with her. Presently Kirstig returned with the baby and we ventured into other realms of conversation.
An hour later, when I got back to the club and found Viola, who was sunny as Spain because she’d won three pots and filled an inside straight, I told her about the letter. Wise in the ways of her sex, Vi was neither as surprised nor as shocked as I. “Bitches, dear, we’re all bitches,” she said matter-of-factly. But I could see she was upset, for she liked Belinda and was one of the few women permitted to address her as “Blindy,” the nickname Maude Antrim had given her back when she was married to Perry.
“Certainly it was a woman. I got her scent. And guess what it was.”
“I know—Eau de la Skunk!”
“Try Jeunesse Dorée.” This was the scent that Claire Regrett had invested her name—and money—in.
She laughed outright. “Oh, my dear, you don’t mean it. Are you saying you detect the fine Italian hand of Madame Regrett in this?”
I pointed out that Claire was a notoriously bad speller. ?
??Loded” was how she’d written it.
Vi mused about this and I could tell she didn’t like it, didn’t like it at all. “Claire was in San Francisco for the opera two weeks ago. Pagliacci, I believe she said.”
“So there we are.”
“Oh dear, oh dear,” Vi said, shaking her head. “I really wish this hadn’t happened. What a woman doesn’t know—another woman will tell her. I’m afraid Blindy may take this too much to heart. I just pray it doesn’t set her off again. You know—”
She tossed back an imaginary glass of Scotch and went to collect her winnings.
Though she had no occult powers that I knew of, it was exactly as Viola predicted: the news of Grant’s infidelities snapped Belinda’s lines again and she became a ship all at sea. This time her sails were badly torn, her rigging all tangled, her anchor torn away and sunk. She endured the shame of the divorce bravely enough, making another collection of headlines and keeping tongues wagging.
To the loss of a husband (after the divorce, Grant married his thirty-year-old San Francisco socialite) must be added the shocking and mysterious loss of her grandchild, Gary, whom she had adored and whom she mourned, while Faun’s blithe attitude about the missing child only served to estrange mother and daughter further. The story of the tragic case sold papers for months; one lead after the other was turned up, only to prove another red herring or to end in some calculating person’s believing it was chance to make money out of someone else’s misfortune, in this case one of the most famous women in the country. As might have been expected, the mother was at the bottom of it all. Having flown in from India with members of the Hare Krishna cult she had made herself a part of, she arrived at Sunnyside, demanded that Belinda hand over the child. She drove him away in a van with flower decals pasted all over its exterior, the speakers blaring “Strawberry fields forever…” Neither Belinda nor Maude Antrim ever saw the boy again.
Faun was crucified in the papers, and Belinda was again pilloried, as if the thing had somehow been her fault. It mushroomed into a scandal of remarkable proportions when she, leaving her psychiatrist’s office on North Bedford, was attacked by a hysterical woman who dumped a bag of garbage on her. Since a photographer had been conveniently on hand to record the incident, it seemed likely it had been a set-up, but it didn’t help Belinda at all to see her picture plastered on page one. (Some time later I was hurrying to catch my flight out of Chicago, and as I ran for the gate I was accosted by one of those smiling Hare Krishnas who annoy travelers by handing them a flower and then cadging a donation; as I brushed angrily past the creature in her curry-colored rags, I was astonished to realize it was Faun Potter, or someone who looked a lot like her.)
The kidnapping was all Belinda needed to push her off the deep end. She began drinking again, more heavily than ever, and there were many repetitions of the kind of scenes she’d played before, the kind from the New York and Rome days.
Again, regrettably, I lost track of her. Jen and I were still having problems, I was being faced by important career decisions, and frankly my mind was in other places. But then there occurred the unfortunate business about Mel Beets, and that, of course, was the end. It was really the nadir for Belinda Carroll; after it she had no place to go but up; she’d been down about as far as anyone could go.
She’d always liked jazz, and back in the forties when she came to New York she’d sometimes go up to Harlem to hear the black musicians, Dizzy Gillespie and others, who she claimed “sent her.” Now she’d latched on to a sax player who could be heard at The Joint, a place along the Coast Highway between Santa Monica and Malibu.
One day eight of us had driven in two cars up to Trancas, the only really good beach around in those days when the notorious Red Tide was running. It was a great day and we lingered for a long sunset cocktail hour; then, since everyone was starved, on the way home we stopped for chili and beer. By then it was after ten, but some of the gang were up for a party, and since The Joint was just next door, they said they wanted to go catch a couple of sets. Jenny poured cold water and party-pooped, but it wasn’t our car so she got overruled.
As we entered, there was a sandwich board at the coat-check closet that proclaimed “Featuring Mel Beets,” and there was an 8 x 10 glossy of a black dude with a saxophone hung around his neck. Since it was still early, there were plenty of tables, and we sat up front while a trio played really cool stuff, the kind of fifties music that frosted a hot room and reminded you of Castles in Spain, that terrific icy album that Miles Davis put out.
While we sat listening, I noticed this woman at a table to one side; she had a drink and there was an untouched club sandwich on the Formica-top table. The way she sat, with one foot turned at the ankle, the other foot resting on top of it, made me look closer. Sure enough: Belinda. She’d put on weight—the reason I hadn’t recognized her right away—and she was looking her absolute worst, in slacks and a messy blouse and don’t-care hair. Afraid she might catch me staring, I looked away, and I didn’t say anything to Jenny or the others.
Then the set ended, the trio came off the stand, and a quintet came on. Now I had my first look at this Mel Beets; he was the one people came to hear, and pretty soon he began to wail on his sax. No doubt, he was good, really cool. Not bad-looking, but nothing to write home about, either—a trimmed mustache, neat hair, good hands with a careful manicure; you could see the pale rose ovals gleaming under the lights. I was always amazed at how some musicians could go clear out of things while they were playing; this fellow was as far out as you can get.
But I didn’t like him, only because of Belinda’s interest in him, and I found myself rejecting both him and his music. His eyes would occasionally flick over to where she was sitting. She looked zombielike as she sipped from her drink and took extended drags on her cigarette, blowing out streams of smoke that rose and dissolved in the blue lights, as if she were trying to call attention to herself.
After a couple of sets the group took a breather. When they moved off into the dark, I watched Belinda get up and head for the john. Our group started talking, and the women said they were going to powder their noses. I thought, God, if Jenny recognizes Belinda—
But when they came back there were no signs of anything amiss. I got up casually and stretched, glanced around, then said I thought I’d check the service for messages. I ankled over to where it said “Rest Rooms” and ducked behind a ratty curtain that was half off its rod. At the end of the passageway hung a lighted sign, “Telephone,” and I went along to it. The booth was hidden away under the stairs and it was in use. The light at the top glowed dimly and I could see a man behind the glass. Then I realized there were two people in there, but I didn’t think they were using the phone. The man was wearing a white shirt; the back of his neck was dark; the woman’s arm was white as she embraced him. As I looked away, to the walls that were covered with graffiti, I noticed two pairs of initials enclosed in a heart, making me think of a similar design in cement in the cellar of a Connecticut house. And now here we were, Belinda and I, in a California roadhouse, and she was getting banged by a black saxophonist, and my wife would be angry if she knew what I was thinking. I turned and went out.
“Anything?” Jenny asked. I shook my head.
After a while the musicians shuffled onto the stand again; they played a few riffs, feeling their way into something, but the quintet was now a quartet, because the sax player was missing. They started without him, “On the First Warm Day,” a Bart Howard tune Mabel Mercer used to sing, and it jarred me, reminding me of New York, but my mind was still picturing the scene in the telephone booth—what if I’d just knocked on the glass and waved?
The guitar was taking the lead chords, and I noticed that Belinda’s table remained conspicuously empty; the top was cleared of both glass and uneaten sandwich. Pretty soon Mel Beets reappeared, clipped on his sax, and slid into the measure; after a discreet interval Belinda stepped out from behind the curtain, ducking low in the light as she resumed her
place. She carried a fresh drink, which she set in front of her while she lit another cigarette and blew more smoke into the blue lights. I couldn’t resist looking at her, my eyes flicking back and forth from her pale face to the sweating brown one on the stand. She looked both nervous and bored. She studied her wrist in the light, then fumbled in her purse; she turned aside, bent her head, and jerked it once, twice, and I knew she was taking a snort. As she turned back she wiped her finger under her nose, a dead giveaway.
At that moment, her profile had fallen into full light, and I heard Jenny’s low gasp and she poked me. “Look—it’s Belinda Carroll!” she said in a louder voice than I could have wished for. The music level dropped at that moment and her voice carried, carried so well that Belinda glanced our way. She peered harder; then she jumped up, knocking over the table along with her drink. She stumbled and landed in the corner with a crash. I rushed to help her, pulling her to her feet but trying to keep her hidden with my body as I propelled her through a slit in the curtain.
We were standing in the passageway to the kitchen and I could hear pots being rattled, and voices. I tried to prop her against the wall and keep her upright while I caught my breath. She stared at me and kept repeating “Jesus Christ” over and over in a dazed, disbelieving voice. Wagging her head, she tried to shove me away.
“Don’t look at me, Jesus, don’t look at me!” she kept saying, still shoving at my chest while I stood there holding her up, trying to figure out what to do with her. Then a figure ducked through the curtain behind us and I felt rather than saw someone move in—this turned out to be the club manager—and relieve me of her weight. He didn’t say a word, but as he took her away, I heard Belinda say my name. “He’s a friend,” I heard her tell the man, “Charlie—friend—” Then she was gone and I could smell fried onions from the kitchen.
I was ashamed to face my friends; most of them knew of my friendship with Belinda, and Jenny kept saying, “I don’t understand, I simply don’t understand.” I didn’t try to enlighten her, because I didn’t understand, either, but there were domestic repercussions. At home, she had lots to say about the situation, words I didn’t care to hear. I felt she was hitting below the belt and taking it out on Belinda for whatever had happened years earlier in New York. Then something got into the papers about a “famous forties star” hanging out at a beach dive because she was hung up on a musician who happened to be a gentleman of color.