Another thing that few would have thought credible and for which she blamed only herself was that she was often lonely. In a place full of interesting people she had so far been too busy to make friends, and the occasional parties she went to were apt to be unrewarding—not dull, but somehow devoid of a quality for which she could think of no single word but merriment. It seemed to her that many of the interesting people were also too busy to make friends, that many of the laughing people were laughing too hard to make merry, and that many of the interesting, laughing, and busy people were also as lonely as herself. Sometimes, after such a party, she had a spiritual hangover that sent her driving random miles in her rented car, as if to kill the memory of an evening that had been full of excitement yet fundamentally distraught. And even if her personal mood were responsible for much that seemed amiss, there were things to which she felt her own reaction was not subjective at all; the geographical heartlessness of the city, the miles of streets where nobody walked, the rigid charm of the professionally decorated interiors, the air of insecurity that was more sinister, somehow, than the perhaps greater insecurity of stage life.
One day she made the expedition she had often thought of, but had hitherto avoided, partly from an unwillingness to be sentimental. But now she felt that sentiment was not the guiding motive, but rather a dispassionate curiosity to see a once familiar place with a different eye. She drove, therefore, to a certain street between Western and Vermont. The houses looked much as she remembered them—a little shabbier with age, and there were gaps in what had once been a careful line of palm trees. The frame house she was looking for had been renumbered, but was otherwise unchanged— the same wide porch, and the swing door whose sound in banging she could still catch in the ear of her mind. She drove round the block to see the house again, and as she repassed, the swing door opened and a child emerged. His brown face was so happy that she had an impulse to stop and talk to him, but he scampered into a neighbour’s yard before she could think of an excuse. She then noticed other coloured children playing near by, and it seemed indeed that the whole district had undergone that kind of racial change that real- estate people deplore; but to her, because of the child’s face, it was part of a deep content that came on her as she drove back to her apartment.
When she got there, decision had been added to this new mood. She wrote immediately to Norris at the Hotel Bolivar, Montevideo, Uruguay:
“DARLING NORRIS—I’m writing this before I change my mind, before I feel scared about it. I’m so glad you’re having an interesting trip, but there was something in your last letter—the one from Rio—that I didn’t answer; I felt I couldn’t at the time, but now I suddenly feel I can and must. You asked what I thought you should do about going into the bank as your father wants, and my answer is No—not yet, anyhow, till you’re stronger and back at home and unless you then feel happy and aren’t in the cynical mood that your letter showed. Well, there you are, darling—my advice—you asked for it. DON’T GIVE IN—to anything or anybody. I wish I could offer my own life as a shining example, but you know it wouldn’t be—and yet, in a sense, I haven’t often let myself be pushed around too far, and when I have it’s been my own choice as well as my own fault. And in case your father reads this (and why shouldn’t you show it him?—I’d like him to know my attitude—perhaps it might even influence him a little), I’ll add the news that the picture is finished and I’m looking forward to seeing both of you again if he’ll send me a line so that I can match my plans with his. Actually I haven’t any particular plans —I don’t want to make any till I know his and yours. I’ve missed you both very much but I’m not sorry I came out here for the picture—I think it’s turned out the way I wanted it and you know what that is. Well, this seems about all, perhaps in some ways it’s more than enough, but the fact is, I’m so used to covering pages with nothing but chit-chat that I’d better send it off before I’m appalled at having had the nerve. But you’ll forgive me, because you know how much I care for your happiness. My love, darling, as always.—CAREY.”
Without a re-reading she air-mailed it from the box on the pavement outside. Then she took her car and drove to the mountains, returning towards dusk. The fact that the mailbox had been cleared by then gave her the feeling of having made a decision which she did not regret, but whose magnitude she might not yet have fully explored.
* * * * *
During this waiting period, before the film was released, she saw little of Paul, but what she heard about him was characteristic. He had money in his pocket and was spending it, not exactly on luxuries, but with an eccentric abandon that was even more consuming—but of course that would not matter if the picture were successful. And if it weren’t, perhaps money would even then be the least of his problems.
She did not see much of Greg, either, though she heard that he and Paul had been to San Francisco together and had later stayed at Greg’s house at Carmel. Apparently they were close friends and Greg’s admiration for Paul had in no wise diminished. There was an interview in one of the film magazines in which Greg talked of him in terms so extravagant that the shrewd outsider’s deduction would be that the picture must be bad enough to need it rather than good enough to deserve it; and so indeed were many deductions made, though not so shrewdly.
Of all the strangers she had met and talked to in this strange part of the world the one she liked most was a man who had nothing to do with pictures —a certain Professor Lingard, who did not even look like a professor. He was an astronomer; about thirty, sandy-haired, pink-cheeked, angular, diffident, not really at home at the party to which, for some obscure reason, he had been invited, yet enjoying himself from an angle schoolboyish enough to be charming. Carey found herself next to him for supper; he talked about his work at an observatory on a mountain top and was interested because she had driven near it and knew where it was. Apparently he lived there during part of the year, in a small cottage within walking distance of his job; he said she ought to drive up there some night and take a look through the big telescope. She told him she would like to. “Give me a ring first and I’ll let you know if the sky’s clear enough,” he then said, and she wondered if this were an ‘out’ because she had taken his invitation too seriously.
Later in the evening he whispered to her: “I often wonder what it feels like to be famous,” and she was just about to answer modestly but first-personally when she realized that his glance was scanning the other guests and that he evidently didn’t take her to be one of the famous ones at all. That’s what comes of being friendly to nice nobodies at this kind of party, she thought; they assume you must be a nice nobody yourself. “I don’t know,” she answered, glad to have spared both of them embarrassment. “Almost everybody here is a household word except me.”
“Ah, but you will be soon,” he said, “if you’re in pictures.” He spoke comfortingly, as to a junior who had tried several times for an examination and failed. She was amused and also touched. There was not only a winsome naďveté in his attitude, but a pleasure to her in finding someone who did not know her name, or if so, did not know it WAS a name—who had never heard of her recent role in Morning Journey (as had everyone else in the room), but who treated her as if she were a young girl full of dreams and ambition.
She said: “I doubt it. I’m a bit old, you know, for a new career.”
“But you ARE in pictures, aren’t you?”
“I’ve just finished a part in my first one.”
“Well, the main thing, I suppose, is to get a start. And you really are beautiful.”
“Oh, thanks.” She even felt herself blushing.
“Do drive up some time and look through the telescope.”
She smiled and repeated her promise, satisfied now that he really meant it.
* * * * *
More weeks passed; the rainy season ended, the first hot spell of the year wiped the freshness off the hills. The skies became tawny-grey, the sun shone as through muslin.
S
uddenly two rumours got around, both from sources hard to define or investigate. First, that Carey was separating, or had separated, or was about to separate, from Austen Bond. Previous rumours that she was about to be ‘reconciled’ with Paul had somehow ignored the existence of a Mr. Bond, and for that reason she had herself ignored them more easily; but now, in gossip columns and on Sunday radio broadcasts, the stories, though untrue, had greater logic. She did not know whether to take trouble to deny them or not; once a woman telephoned her and, after receiving a denial, made the tart rejoinder: “Okay, darling, but I write a column, so I hope you aren’t just saying that on general principles.”
Carey telephoned Paul and asked if he knew of the woman. “She called me up just now. Any idea who she is?”
Paul answered promptly: “Never heard of her.” He was busy and soon hung up. But half an hour later he called back to say: “Carey, that woman you asked about—I asked Greg and it seems they’re all scared of her out here. So you’d better be careful.”
“How do I be careful?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Be what you like. What the hell does it matter?”
“Well, who IS she? Why is she important?”
“Greg did tell me, but I couldn’t quite get the hang of it. She writes, I suppose.”
“I know she writes, but why should they be scared of her?”
“They have scarable ulcers. Don’t worry about her. The whole thing is a fine pickle of nonsense.”
The second rumour, a pleasanter one, was about Morning Journey. In some mysterious way people were already aware that it was good. Possibly it had been run in private projection-rooms before an élite; at any rate, the hint was in circulation that it was something to look for. Then came the press preview in New York with the critics practically unanimous. All of them praised Carey, nearly all praised Paul’s direction, most prophesied a big hit, and one said that Greg Wilson had never supplied such a plausible though still invalid excuse for calling himself an actor.
On the day these critiques were reprinted in the trade papers Carey could sense an almost barometric change in the local atmosphere. She could even believe that at her usual restaurant the smile of the head waiter had an extra obsequiousness. People came up to her table to gush and congratulate. The next day an executive of another studio asked her to lunch, ostensibly to show her the New York clippings, actually to sound her out about her plans. “I understand you have no future commitment with Majestic,” he remarked with overdone casualness.
“That’s so, but I don’t know yet whether I want to make another picture at all. I must take a vacation first.”
“Why, yes, naturally.” And reading her indecision as caginess he said: “Of course nobody knows how the public will react. Critics can’t make or break a picture as they can a stage play.”
“I know. Better wait and see how it goes.”
Having blown cool, he must now blow warmer again. “Personally I enjoyed it immensely—and you were magnificent.”
“I think the direction counted for most.”
“Yes, very good, quite good… How did Saffron get along with people during the shooting—not too well, I heard?”
“Not too well, but well enough. He just did a wonderful job that’ll probably make somebody else a fortune.”
“High praise, indeed…”
“And from an ex-wife,” she said with a laugh, guessing that the fact was already or would be later known to him.
She added: “Paul’s so good in Morning Journey that one can imagine if he were given a free hand—a freer hand, anyway—he might be great.”
“Sometimes when you give them too free a hand, these geniuses, they make a hell of a mess of things. I’d be satisfied if he stayed GOOD.”
“I think he’d rather wait for a job in which someone would trust him enough to let him be GREAT.”
“What, are you—his agent too?”
More laughter. She couldn’t be quite sure she was helping Paul by putting out feelers like this, but she had an impulse to do so. Then she steered the conversation to more general matters and let her host do most of the talking. Just before taking her to the car he said: “Where IS Saffron, anyway— I was trying to get in touch with him this morning but couldn’t.”
So THAT’S it, she thought gleefully; they’re ALREADY after him.
But she had to answer, in reply to his question: “I don’t know.”
* * * * *
Paul was on an Arizona ranch, with Greg; he returned after Morning Journey had opened at Radio City Music Hall and broken all records for a first week. Randolph, convinced now that his private dream of a half-success was hopeless, jumped on the band-wagon with full force. He was especially pleased when the picture won the triple awards given annually by the local newspaper critics—Carey, Greg, and Paul being the recipients. The awards were to be presented at a big dinner, and on the morning of the day Randolph could not help summoning the honoured three to the studio for compliments and a briefing. “Of course you’ll all make speeches after you get the plaques and somebody ought to bring in that Calvin Beckford is seventy tomorrow.” (Calvin Beckford was a local politician who would present the awards.) “Perhaps that would come best from you, Carey. And if anybody should see fit to say something nice about the studio it wouldn’t do us—or them—one bit of harm.” He tittered self-consciously. “I’ll be there, of course, but they don’t ask producers to speak. Those newspaper boys seem to think we don’t do any of the real work… Incidentally, Carey, I phoned your agent in New York—I wanted him to know how pleased we all are.”
Paul had arrived at the office with Greg, but afterwards he drove back with Carey. “Greg wanted to stay on and talk to Randolph,” he said, as if the star’s absence from their company were something that had to be explained.
Carey, who could be away from Greg without feeling completely lost, sat back in the car and looked at Paul. When she thought of Randolph’s recent compliments she did not know whether to feel happy or cynical, but for Paul’s sake at least she was happy. She knew he enjoyed compliments, even when he knew they were insincere, and from a man who he knew hated him there was probably a special piquancy.
She said: “Well, Paul, isn’t it nice to be on top of the world?”
Paul seemed to have Greg still on his mind. “Greg’s had too much of it. They put him in one picture after another—anything to exploit him. He’s getting pretty sick of it all.”
“I don’t know what he has to be sick about. He gets five thousand a week and he can’t act.”
“He’s a good fellow, Carey—really he is.”
“I know it, and I also think he’s lucky.”
“Because I directed him, you mean?”
“He was lucky before that.”
“He wasn’t BAD in the picture.”
“He wasn’t as bad as usual.”
“He told me he never believed he had it in him.”
“I don’t think he had. I think you performed an optical illusion.”
“He certainly gives me all the credit.”
“Why shouldn’t he as long as he keeps the salary?”
“You’re very waspish today, Carey.”
“I’m just myself as I always am, only you haven’t seen me lately— you’ve forgotten what I’m really like.”
“As if I could ever forget.”
“Darling, that’s sweet and probably true.”
“All the same, though, I think you’re a bit unfair to Greg.”
“Greg? Are we still talking about HIM?”
How familiar it was, to be arguing with Paul again. She had not seen him for weeks, they had said hello almost as strangers in Randolph’s office, they were now by chance thrown together in the same car for a half-hour’s drive, and already they were arguing—not quarrelling, for they had never quarrelled… just airing their minds in a private tradition of cut and thrust—he with some idea he was leaning towards, but would not yet put into words; she sensing it already and
poised to exert some uncharted manœuvre of checks and balances. The strange thing was that she felt free with him, free even from her own troubles and problems. And the thought came to her: how absurd it was ever to use the word ‘reconcile’ about the two of them. It was not in their power any more either to come closer or to move away.
She said, thinking of all this: “Anyhow, Paul, you’ve had your big chance and it’s certainly paid off. Can’t you feel a bit joyful about it?”
“After the way Randolph botched the cutting?”
“Doesn’t seem to have done much harm.” (There were a few instances in which, from a commercial angle, she thought Randolph’s cutting had done good, but she would not invite the wrong sort of argument by saying so.)
“Harm? To whom? To what? The popcorn sales?”
“Oh, come now, Paul, you can’t talk like that. It’s been a critical success too.”
He sighed in a bemused way. “Ah, those critics. One of them said that in the street scenes I’d caught the pulse-beat of the American rhythm. That tickled me, not only because I don’t know what the hell it means, but because there was once a critic in France who said I was so much in tune with the Gallic spirit it was hard to believe I hadn’t been born in Paris. And in Germany when I made Berliner Tag they brought up my Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry to explain THAT miracle… All nonsense. People are people. Watch ‘em anywhere and you’ll see. Great discovery. The Saffron touch—even in a cops and robbers epic.”
“You know it isn’t really as simple as that.”
“SIMPLE? Whoever said it was simple? To see life as it is, plain, not gift-wrapped—why, it’s as hard as being note-perfect in the Hammerklavier.”