Destiny

by Sally Beauman

  “All right.”

  Edouard, to Christian’s astonishment, pushed back his chair and stood up.

  “Very well. Let’s go and get drunk. Why not? It’s a long time since I did that. If I’m not capable of speech, I suppose I’m capable of getting drunk. Let’s do just that, Christian.”

  They were flying back from Nice; the film festival was over. The limousine was large, but not air-conditioned; it was very hot. In the back sat Thad, who was humming to himself; Lewis, who was silent; and Hélène, who stared out the window.

  As they approached the airport, they stopped at traffic lights, and a car came up behind them. Hélène heard its engine first, that distinctive full-throated roar; then it drew alongside, a long, low, black sports car: an Aston-Martin.

  Her heart seemed to stop beating. She leaned forward, craning her neck: but it was not Edouard’s car. It had different upholstery, and was driven by a stranger. The lights changed, the Aston-Martin overtook them effortlessly, and she saw, dully, that it had a Swiss, not a French, license plate.

  She rested her head against the glass of the window, and shut her eyes. The shock of seeing the car had broken down all her usual defenses, and for a moment her mind was flooded with Edouard. She could hear his voice; feel his touch; smell the scent of his skin and hair. He was closer to her than at any time since she had left him, closer even than when she slipped out that night, and stood in the Rue St. Julien in Paris. The love she felt, and the longing, were acute, and acutely painful, and they left her dissociated, dazed, so that for an instant she forgot where she was, who she was with, what had just happened.

  At the airport, they were delayed by photographers. Short Cut had just been awarded the Palme d’Or; Hélène had received the award for best actress.

  The photographers jostled to get shots of Thad Angelini. They fought to get close to Hélène. Lewis hung back, pushed to one side, and unnoticed.

  The photographers were yelling at Hélène in French and English and Italian: flashes of light, and flashes of sound. They became even more excited—she appeared not to hear them.

  Eventually, Thad took her arm.

  “They want you to smile,” he said. “Listen. Can’t you hear? They’re trying to tell you something.”

  “What?” She looked at him blankly. “What? What are they saying?”

  “The same thing I’ve always said,” Thad answered. “You’re a star.”

  And he pressed the soft skin of her arm with one of his fingernails, gently.

  “You have behaved appallingly. Thoughtlessly. Selfishly. You stayed out all day, and half the night. I heard you come back—both of you. They could have heard you in St. Tropez. You were drunk. Both of you. Christian was singing.”

  Louise was quivering with anger. Edouard had been summoned to her room, in which there were signs of packing.

  “I’m leaving. I shall return to Paris today. You may stay or go, as you please. But before you go, you will kindly explain to me exactly what has happened, and you will not fob me off with evasions and excuses. I want…I want to know exactly what has happened to Philippe. Where is he? Why did you dismiss him? Why can’t I see him? I’ve been trying to telephone his house and there’s no answer—no one there, not even the servants…I demand to know, Edouard. I demand it…” She was almost in tears.

  “Maman…”

  “I want to know, Edouard! I won’t be treated like this—as if I were a child. How dare you do that! How dare you…”

  “Very well.” Edouard looked at her, saw her tremble. His head ached; his body ached; the sunlight hurt his eyes; he was unshaven, and the previous day’s drinking had been pointless. It had left him feeling more bleak than before, distanced from himself, distanced from life, and above all, at this moment, distanced from his mother. He looked at her and did not even feel anger, just a cold disgust, and for that reason, perhaps, he told her what had happened, and what he had done and why, rather more baldly and directly than he would have otherwise.

  Louise sat down when he began speaking. For once she did not interrupt him, but listened.

  When he had finished, she sprang to her feet, and for one moment Edouard thought she was going to strike him.

  “Oh, you fool! How could you have done that—how could you? How dare you interfere! How dare you make decisions like that without even speaking to me, without even asking me. Do you know what you’ve done? Do you understand? No—of course you don’t. Because you’re too blind. Too blind and too arrogant, and too stupid…”

  “Listen, Maman. What I did was for the best. It may be unpleasant, but you asked me to tell you, and I’m telling you. De Belfort was using my company, and he was also using you…”

  “Do you think I don’t know that?” She rounded on him, her voice shaking with emotion. “Do you think I’m so very stupid? I suppose you do. Well, I’m not. I’m not, do you hear? I knew exactly what Philippe de Belfort was—I knew it the very first time I met him. And I didn’t care. It didn’t matter to me—what his reasons were—if he wanted my money, if he wanted my influence—so what? He wasn’t the first to want those things—not by any means. It didn’t matter—what mattered was that he was there. He bought me little gifts. Sent me flowers. Telephoned. Sent his car to meet me. When I was with him, I felt young again—and I enjoyed myself—I was happy…”

  “I would imagine, Maman, that if that is all it requires to make you happy, you will be happy again very soon…”

  She did strike him then; one sharp little blow across the face. She had to reach up to do it, and then she stepped back from him, the tears now falling down her face; she was trembling from head to foot with passion.

  “You can’t understand. You won’t understand. You don’t understand love, and you never will. You have no heart, and no imagination, Edouard. Jean-Paul was worth a thousand of you, for all his faults—that was why I loved him, why all women loved him. Because he was open and kind and generous, and fun—not like you—what woman would want you, except for your name and your position? No one. It would be like being married to a machine, an automaton…”

  Edouard took a step away from her.

  “That’s not true. You should not…It isn’t true. Isobel…”

  “Oh, Isobel!” Louise tossed her head. “Even with Isobel, you were second best…”

  Edouard stopped. For a moment he felt like a child again. Louise had always had this capacity, to touch him where he was most raw, and to reduce him to a state in which pain and anger were so mixed, so choking, that he could hardly speak. Louise could see that she had hurt him; triumph had come into her face, and spite. It was there for him to see quite clearly for a moment, and then Louise’s mouth opened into a little jagged O of pain.

  “He was my last chance,” she said. “I’m not young anymore. Philippe was my last chance, and now you’ve spoiled it, the way you spoiled my life, the way you spoiled everything…I hate you, Edouard, for this! I hate you. And I’ll never forgive you…”

  Just for a moment then, her eyes bright with tears, the color staining her cheeks, she looked young again. Edouard’s vision blurred; he saw her again, coming up to the nursery, smelling of roses; he heard her brittle laugh. He passed his hand across his eyes, and his vision cleared.

  “Your chance was my father,” he said in a cold voice. “And that chance you threw away.”

  He turned, and left the room. Louise had begun to laugh.

  He walked out of the house, across the terrace, and down onto the beach, and there, quite suddenly, from nowhere, Hélène came to him. He felt her absolutely, and knew that she was near. He heard her voice; he felt her touch; he could smell the scent of her skin and of her hair. There was no effort of will on his part, and no struggle. One minute he was filled with blinding anger and pain, the next she was there. She wiped out Louise’s words, and he felt again the old absolute conviction, and the old absolute calm.

  He was afraid to investigate that conviction, afraid to analyze it in any way.
He thought, quickly, as he looked out over the water: let be.

  He half-expected that this regained calm would not last. It would be with him for a while, he told himself; then, just as before, it would depart. But this was not the case; it was as if he had reached some lowest point, from which there could be no further to fall, and then, just when he was in despair, something miraculous had happened, and he had been lifted up. Christian said, tartly, that the cure had been a good night’s drinking. Edouard now thought that it might have been partly that, partly the things which had happened before, and partly the scene with Louise—her accusations had been so vicious that, in some way, he had been freed.

  “I saw the other face of love—perhaps that was it,” he said to Christian, and Christian sniffed. He remarked that it was that side he usually, unfortunately, saw.

  Christian was perplexed by this change in Edouard; at first he welcomed it. Then, after they left St. Tropez, and the months passed, he felt less sure.

  Christian was all for change; steadiness unsettled him. He liked to see a crisis resolved, yes—but he liked another crisis to take its place.

  He saw Edouard, that summer, in Paris and in London; they met once, when their visits coincided, in New York. He noted his friend’s regained energy and sense of purpose; he noted his curious calm. He was glad that Edouard seemed happier, but still, nothing was changed, nothing was resolved, and Edouard’s apparent certitude was unfounded, he thought. He began to grow a little impatient with it; Edouard was growing complacent, he said, and when Edouard smiled and said no, that was far from the case, he revised his terms: Edouard was, he decided, becoming fatalistic.

  “The beginning of the end,” he pronounced. “Edouard, you should snap out of it.”

  Christian had, then, just emerged from one of his brief, turbulent love affairs. Edouard, who knew this, was patient, and stayed silent.

  Hélène and Lewis

  Los Angeles, 1964

  “AND SO, HE MADE me lie down. Right there. It was filthy. There were cockroaches all over, and dirty dishes—no one ever washed the dishes. He made me lie down, and then he put his hand over my mouth so I couldn’t scream. And then he did it to me. My own stepfather. My mother was right there, in the next room, but she was probably out cold from the drinking. I don’t know. I never asked her—if she heard. I was frightened to. I never told her one thing. I was only twelve years old.”

  Stephani Sandrelli drew in a deep breath; she fixed Hélène with her eyes. She smoothed down her skirt, and rested her hands on her knees, folded neatly, like a well-behaved child.

  “I ran away from Chicago not long after that. I’d had enough. I couldn’t stand it.”

  Hélène frowned. She said gently, “I thought you said it was Detroit you lived in, Stephani?”

  “It was Detroit first. Then Chicago. We moved. We were always moving.” She stood up. “Should I go and see if they’re ready for you yet? They can’t be much longer. Your stand-in’s been out there for hours…”

  “Stephani—it’s all right. When they’re ready, they’ll—”

  “It’s okay. I don’t mind. It’s no trouble…”

  Stephani was outside before she could stop her, and Hélène sighed. As she opened and closed the door, a blast of hot dry air came in. Tucson, Arizona. Outside, it was ninety-five degrees, and getting hotter by the day. Inside, the air-conditioning whispered. Another state, another movie, another trailer, another character. Change of location, change of part. In the past year alone, she had filmed in Los Angeles, New York, Massachusetts, and the Dakotas. And now the Arizona desert, for another four weeks.

  Today she was waiting to die, in a hail of bullets, next to the wreck of a car, at the hands of her lover. It was three in the afternoon, they’d had technical problems, and she’d been waiting to die since she came in for makeup at six o’clock this morning. The Runaways, directed by Gregory Gertz, whom people were calling the next Thad Angelini, with a script originally written by a friend of Lewis’s, since reworked five times by five different writers. A good script though, and a good part, but in one respect Greg Gertz did not resemble Thad; they were behind, two days at least; she thought they might go a whole week over.

  On the dressing table in front of her there was a photograph of Cat, which Madeleine had sent her, taken in honor of Cat’s fourth birthday. Cat was in the garden of the Los Angeles house, seated proudly on the brand-new bicycle Hélène had arranged to have sent to her. She was smiling. Hélène looked at the photograph, and felt as if she might cry. Cat looked so proud, and so pleased…and she herself hadn’t been there. She had to fight to get time at home, and whenever she lost the fight, as she often did, in the maze of shooting schedules, script conferences, and publicity campaigns, she felt guilty, just as she did now. The bicycle was fine; but Hélène had not been there to give it to her.

  Another blast of hot air; the door had opened again, and Stephani Sandrelli’s face appeared around it.

  “Fifteen minutes,” she said, “Jack thinks fifteen minutes at most. I’ve asked catering to send you over some tea. I have to go now. They need me for a fitting…”

  “Stephani—I don’t want any tea, I—”

  The door had already closed again. Hélène gave a sigh of exasperation. She leaned across to the trailer windows, and watched Stephani teeter her way past the other trailers, past the generators, picking her way over equipment and cables. A group of male extras lounging outside one of the farther trailers turned to watch her as she passed; one of them pursed his lips in a whistle. Stephani’s hips swung in her tight skirt; her breasts bounced up and down; and she herself seemed quite unaware of the effect this produced. When it was made evident to her, as it was now, it did not seem to please her. She glanced over her shoulder at the men, and increased her pace—as if she were running away from them. The dazzle of platinum hair disappeared from sight. Chicago, Hélène thought, or Detroit—was any of it true?

  Stephani had a bit part in this movie, four lines, no more than that, but a number of crowd appearances. She had attached herself to Hélène from the first, and Hélène, irritated by her, then amused, and finally intrigued, now hadn’t the heart to get rid of her. When they had been filming in the studio, Stephani had hung around the commissary, waiting for Hélène to come in. She began by running little errands, for Hélène’s dresser, for wigs, for makeup. She would fetch and carry, take messages, relay phone calls: It’s no trouble, was her constant refrain; I don’t mind. It’s a pleasure…

  When her services were not being utilized in this way, she would station herself somewhere from which she could watch Hélène, and would simply stare at her, wide-eyed, missing nothing, like a child on its first visit to the circus. The crew, and some of the other actors, laughed at her. Stephani was the butt of all their jokes: she was so luscious, so willing, so star-struck—and so dumb. Hélène felt sorry for her—that was how they first came to talk, and then, when she listened to Stephani, she became fascinated. The stammering confidences, the breathy childlike voice, so at odds with the curvaceous body. The way of talking she had, with her head drooping, shyly, looking up every so often, and fixing Hélène with that wide, startled, blue-eyed gaze. She intrigued Hélène, and Hélène watched her, wondering if she could catch that way of speaking, those characteristic gestures, wondering if she could act her.

  Then, when she first arrived for the location work, Hélène began to miss things. Tiny things, unimportant things: once, a bar of soap she used; another time, a handkerchief; a day later, one of the hairbands with which she tied back her hair when she took off her makeup; the day after that, a lipstick. She thought nothing of it at first, did not even associate the missing items with Stephani’s constant presence, until one day Stephani came in, and instead of the normal pale pink lipstick she wore, she had painted her lips a quite different color. Hélène recognized it; she said, “Oh, Stephani, my lipstick,” before she could stop herself, and Stephani stood there, with a funny proud look on her fa
ce.

  “It’s true,” she said. “I took them. All those things. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t mean any harm. I just wanted to be you.”

  Hélène stared at her in consternation. Then, after a little pause, she said gently, “Stephani—I don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. But that’s silly, you know. Why should you want to be me? Why can’t you be yourself?”

  “Be me? Who would want to be me? I’m a nobody. I’m a joke. You’re Hélène Harte…”

  And that was how it began, really. The conversations, in the trailer, day after hot day, the endless boredom of waiting. The tedium of filming, the endless inevitable waiting around: Stephani passed the time with her stories, and Hélène listened. The stepfather; the mother; the boyfriend; the photographer who first spotted Stephani’s potential. The nude pinup that Stephani was now ashamed of. The decision to go to Hollywood. The fateful meeting, one night at a party, with the elderly agent.

  “He took me to Cannes once. For the film festival. It was the year you won the prize. I’ve never forgotten it. It was the best year of my life, that year. He’s dead now.”

  Hélène listened to all this with fascination. At first, she thought it was the absolute predictability of Stephani’s story that absorbed her: the way in which, undeviatingly, it followed the course of all the other similar stories she had read in a million magazines and press handouts. It was, give or take a few elements, the story of Marilyn Monroe, she supposed, on whom Stephani had clearly modeled herself, and for whom she cared, passionately.

  “I saw all her movies, every one of them. And when she died, I cried. I cried every day for a week.”

  Hélène contrasted this with Thad’s reaction to the actress’s death. When he heard the news he said, “She would have died anyway. This will be good for you. This is where you stop being a star and start becoming a legend.” He giggled. “You know—they’re insatiable. They’ll need a replacement.”