Destiny

by Sally Beauman

  He had seen people use money as a weapon before, and it always interested him. It was legal and effective—the perfect murder weapon, he had once remarked jokingly. Today, he had seen in Hélène Harte something which surprised him, and slightly shocked him. He had seen hate.

  The lawyer, carried away by his own eloquence, was now questioning not just Hélène Harte’s judgments, but also her sanity. “Crazy,” he said gloomily. “Just crazy.”

  Gould interrupted, turning around, impatient to curtail this meeting, “Hélène Harte is one of the sanest women I know. Let’s leave it there, all right?”

  Later he considered that statement, and silently revised it.

  Was hatred ever entirely sane—any more than love was? He himself was a cool man, of moderate passions, and he doubted it.

  They had been to a party at Malibu, a champagne barbecue, given on Lloyd Baker’s private beach, by Lloyd Baker’s wife, who was, Lewis suspected, soon to become Lloyd Baker’s ex-wife. They had stayed longer than Lewis intended, and they were now on the Santa Monica Freeway, driving downtown, so that Lewis could drop Stephani off at the small apartment where she lived. It was six-thirty in the evening, and on the freeway nothing was moving, either way. Every lane, jammed solid. Lewis leaned on the horn; he swore.

  “Goddammit, Stephani. I told you this was a stupid idea.”

  Stephani licked her lips nervously. She gave him a shy little sideways glance.

  “What time does Hélène get back, Lewis?”

  “I told you. Around eight. And before that, I have to get you home, get back to the house, take a shower. Jesus.” He hit the horn again. “We’re going to be here all night.”

  “It’s my fault, Lewis,” she said in a small voice. “I know you didn’t want to take me. I know you don’t want to be seen with me…”

  “It’s not that, Stephani. You know it’s not that.” Lewis felt guilty and also aggrieved, since what she said was perfectly correct. “It’s that I have to think of Hélène, that’s all. I have…we should…well, it’s a good idea to be a little discreet, that’s all.”

  “Katie Baker won’t say anything. I know her from way back. She roomed with me once. Before she met Lloyd. If I started telling people some of the things I know about her…”

  “That’s not the point, Stephani. We shouldn’t have gone. I don’t know why the hell we did. I’ve got a load of work to do…God damn this traffic…”

  Lewis hit the horn again. The driver in front, in a purple Cadillac, stuck his hand out the window, and gave Lewis an unequivocal reply: one finger extended.

  Lewis thumped the steering wheel in frustration. They inched forward about ten yards, and stopped once more. They were now hemmed in on all sides.

  “Well. That’s it. We’re here for another hour.”

  “Lewis?” Stephani gave him another of those little sideways glances. “Don’t get mad at me. I hate it when you get mad. I’m sorry, Lewis. Really I am.”

  She hesitated. Lewis felt slightly mollified. He shrugged.

  “Give me a little kiss, Lewis. Just a little one. Please…”

  She leaned across before he could say anything, and turned his face to hers. She looked at him solemnly with those wide baby-blue eyes, then slowly and carefully she pressed her mouth against his, and pushed her tongue between his lips. Lewis resisted; after a while, he stopped resisting, and groaned.

  When he recovered himself, he observed that the purple Cadillac had moved forward another ten feet. He let the Porsche inch after it. Stephani was fumbling around on the narrow backseat.

  “Where’s your jacket, Lewis?”

  “My jacket? It’s in back. What do I want that for? It feels like about a hundred degrees…”

  Stephani had found the jacket. She pulled it through the gap between the seats; she wriggled a little in her seat. She said, “I like that. I like it being so warm. I like the top being down, and the sun and everything. It makes me feel…”

  She gave him another glance, a suggestive glance. Through the heat, and the exhaust fumes, and the residue of uppers and champagne, which was making his head ache, Lewis felt a slight urgency, a shifting in his body. He forgot about the Cadillac in front.

  “Keep still, now, Lewis. You’re real tense, you know that? You just lean back. I’m going to make you relax, Lewis. I’m going to make you feel—just fine.”

  As she spoke, she slipped the jacket across his knees, and slipped her hand underneath it. She unzipped his fly. Lewis said, “Jesus. Stephani. We’re on the freeway, for Godsake…”

  “That’s right, Lewis. And I’m going to take you for ride.”

  “Oh, my God…”

  He could feel her hand easing his shorts aside. It felt warm, and slightly damp. Lewis was instantly rock-hard. Stephani grasped the shaft of his penis and began to manipulate it. After a while, turning her wide eyes to his, she said, “Do you have a Kleenex, Lewis honey? Something like that?”

  From the pocket of his pants, Lewis produced an immaculately laundered white linen handkerchief. Stephani took it with a little smile. She insinuated it beneath the jacket. Lewis closed his eyes.

  Stephani squeezed and stroked; the movements of her hand were fast, then slow. Lewis opened his eyes again; he looked quickly to the left and right; the occupants of the cars either side appeared to be paying no attention at all. He groaned, then bit his lip. He became aware that he was going to come, and come soon, and that he had better do so silently. Stephani curled her fingers tighter, she switched to a different tempo, a different technique. He reached his hand across, and felt for the weight of her breast. Through the tight white material he could feel the jut of her nipple against his palm.

  Then he could no longer hold back. The restraint and the furtiveness had the effect of prolonging his orgasm; it seemed without end, and rapturous.

  When it was over, Stephani zipped him up again, and withdrew her hand from under the jacket, the damp and crumpled handkerchief clutched in her palm.

  Lewis looked at her; she raised the handkerchief to her face. She pressed her lips against it. She gave it a delicate little sniff. Then she smiled, and tucked it between the cleft of her large breasts. She passed her little pink tongue across her lips.

  “Lewis,” she said in her little girl voice. “You don’t need to tell me. Now Hélène’s home, you won’t want to see me again. I just want you to know, I understand. And, when I’m all alone, and I’m feeling lonesome, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to take this handkerchief, Lewis, and I’m going to think about you real hard. And then you know what I’m going to do next?”

  Stephani leaned closer to him and began to whisper into his ear. Within minutes, Lewis was rock-hard again. At precisely that moment, Stephani straightened up.

  “Hey, what d’you know?” she said. “We’re moving.”

  And so they were, or the other cars were. The purple Cadillac in front was gathering speed. Lewis slammed his foot down on the accelerator.

  When they reached the street where Stephani lived, he parked the car in a restricted zone, with two wheels on the pavement. He almost fell out of it in his eagerness. He propelled Stephani across the sidewalk, and up the stairs. As soon as the door was closed, they fell into bed.

  They stayed there two hours, and although they had, in the past week, spent a good deal of time in this room and in this bed, it had, Lewis told himself, never been so good. A voice in his head was saying triumphantly: You see? You see? There’s nothing wrong with you. It was all Hélène’s fault.

  Lewis liked that voice; he liked what it said to him. He looked at Stephani, and felt a sweet mingling of pity and lust. When they had left the Baker party, Lewis had made up his mind: he had intended to tell Stephani that now that Hélène was back home, it was all over. He could not see her again. He had to finish it.

  Now, as she lay beside him, that not only seemed unnecessary, it seemed cruel; Stephani was very vulnerable. He touched her breast, and Stephani gave a little
moan. Before he quite knew what was happening, Lewis found he had turned, and buried his face between her breasts. He heard himself say, “Stephani. I have to go on seeing you. I have to. I just do.”

  Stephani gave a little sigh. She lifted Lewis, and cradled his face, and looked into his eyes. She said, very seriously, “Lewis. I know you love her. That’s all right. I love her too. I do, really. We don’t have to hurt her, Lewis. She doesn’t have to know.” Then she did something which disconcerted Lewis very much.

  She lifted her hand to her forehead, and smoothed back the waves of blond hair. She held her hair, like that, off her face, and looked at him, her blue eyes wide. “I think I look like her,” she said in a little breathy whisper. “Don’t you, Lewis? Just a bit?”

  Lewis did not, but somehow he found he could not say so. He left her soon afterward. By the time he reached home he was over two hours late. It was nearly ten—Hélène would have been back two hours. The fact that he would have to tell a lie suddenly impressed itself on him. His mind wavered; he waited for the gates to swing back.

  It was then that he caught the flicker of movement; a face, turned around to him, pale and staring, transfixed in the beams of his headlight, like an animal paralyzed by light. The man was there again.

  Lewis felt angry, suddenly furiously angry. He also felt afraid—not just of the man, but of himself, of the lie he would have to tell, everything. He slammed the Porsche into gear, and accelerated past the man as if he had not seen him. The moment he was in the house, he called the Beverly Hills police; Hélène watched him, silent and ungreeted, from the far side of the room.

  The squad car came immediately, but by the time they reached there, the man had gone.

  “Will it be a big party, Mother?” Cat was perched on a chair next to Hélène’s desk. It was a fine, clear day, and sunlight filled the room. Cat swung her legs. She was eager to be outside.

  Hélène looked down at the list on which she had been working with her secretary; on it, there were already one hundred and fifty names. She smiled at Cat.

  “Yes, darling. A big party. There’ll be supper, and dancing—we’ll open up the ballroom. There will be music. And if you’re very good, you can stay up a little, with Cassie and Madeleine, and watch the people arrive…”

  “I’d like that.” Cat paused. Her legs stopped swinging. “Will Lewis be there?”

  “Of course he will, Cat. It’s his party too.”

  Cat frowned. “It’s not his movie though, is it, Mother?”

  “Well, no, not exactly, Cat. Lewis didn’t work on Ellis, but that doesn’t make any difference. It’s still his party. This is Lewis’s house and…”

  She had been about to add that Lewis was her husband, but somehow the words would not be said. Cat was looking at her intently. There was a little silence, and then Cat said, “Lewis isn’t here very often. I just wondered.”

  “Well, he’s very busy. You understand, Cat. Lewis is trying to write, he’s working on his story, and he has to see a lot of people to—well, to talk about his work. That’s all.”

  She looked away, as she said that, with a sudden feeling of hopelessness. Cat always referred to Lewis by his name; she had never, even as a very small child, referred to him as “Daddy.” Hélène knew she should be used to this by now; it was impossible for her to say precisely how the practice had come about; like many other aspects of her marriage, it was a product of a cold and unspoken unease. Lewis had never said, definitely, that he preferred Cat to call him by his name; Hélène had never confessed, outright that, when speaking to Cat, she found it impossible to refer to Lewis as “Daddy,” that the word stuck in her throat. The issue lay between them, and by some unspoken pact, it was never referred to by either of them. They no more spoke of that than they spoke of the separate bedrooms, or the fact that Lewis went through Hélène’s desk, and knew perfectly well that she was aware of it.

  They were fenced in, Hélène sometimes thought, by a cold and deteriorating politeness that threatened always to break down into outright confrontation, particularly when Lewis had been drinking. Yet even those confrontations seemed to her dishonest: Lewis rarely attacked her on the issues most central to their unhappiness. Once he had done so; now, more and more, he preferred to launch himself against minor targets—trivial targets: the time dinner was served; her choice of dress; some small imagined slight; some meaningless remark, made in passing, into which Lewis would read nuances of resentment that had never been there.

  She looked sadly at Cat. One day, when Cat was older, this issue of names would have to be faced; Cat herself would come to question Lewis’s role in her life. This issue, and all the others, simply lay in wait for them, Hélène felt; she saw herself and Lewis, sometimes, as erecting a careful and fragile dam, while all the time the weight of water behind it mounted dangerously.

  In the meantime, all the efforts she made to keep that dam intact seemed to her more and more futile. When she had deliberately set aside this time to be at home, she had promised herself it would be different. She had imagined, as she flew back from New York, all sorts of roseate visions. She and Lewis and Cat, together, as a family. She would allow no interruptions; she would devote all her time to them. They would make expeditions together, perhaps go away for a vacation. She and Lewis would have time alone together—they would talk, they would be close again.

  It had not happened, of course, any more than it had happened on other occasions, when she had also been full of resolutions and hope. In the three weeks she had now been at home, she had hardly seen Lewis at all. Either he shut himself in his study and pounded the typewriter keys, or he left the house for an endless series of meetings. Nothing she did could break through the barriers of resentment and anger Lewis erected around himself; indeed, her efforts seemed to make him more hostile.

  “Please, Lewis,” she had said when she had been home about two weeks. “Couldn’t we go away together somewhere, just you and me and Cat? Just for a little while?”

  Lewis had looked at her coldly.

  “Oh, I see,” he said. “I’m supposed to drop everything, just because you happen to have some time free? What I do isn’t important, I suppose? Well, it may not be to you, but it is to me. I’m tied up. I’ve got work to do.”

  Hélène sighed. Cat was watching her closely, legs swinging back and forth. After a pause, she slipped down from her chair and put her arms, around Hélène’s neck.

  “You look tired, Mother. Cassie said you looked tired, yesterday. Don’t be tired. Come and play in the yard.”

  She hesitated, then she reached up and placed a warm kiss on her mother’s cheek. Hélène hugged her. She had seen the little hesitation, the quick glance over the shoulder, and it always hurt her. She knew why Cat did that—it was because of Lewis.

  Cat was an open and demonstrative child. She had always been quick to laugh, and quick to cry, and quick to show her affection. But she had learned to be wary. If Lewis saw her hug her mother, or climb on her lap, or kiss her, it always made him irritable. “You spoil her, Hélène,” he would say. “She’s getting far too old for that kind of thing.” Or, “Cat, run along. Your mother is busy. Don’t bother her now.”

  Hélène hated it. Cat was only four, after all. It was horrible that she should feel her affection was wrong in some way, that it was a risk to show it. Unhappiness welled up in her; she hugged Cat tightly, too tightly perhaps, as her own mother used to sometimes. And Cat, as she herself had once done, sensed the tension in her embrace, and wiggled away.

  “Come on. Come swimming. I want to show you. I can swim miles and miles now…”

  “All right. Let’s do that. It’s such a lovely day.”

  In the pool Cat set her face. She tilted her head back, fixed her eyes on the other side of the pool, and lurched across it, arms paddling frantically, legs kicking. One foot occasionally touched the floor of the pool, to give her an extra hopping impetus. Hélène did not mention the hops.

  “That wa
s very good, darling. Very good. Try again.”

  She moved back into the shade of the pool house, and Cat, who was very determined, plowed her way back and forth, back and forth. Hélène watched her, and as she did so, her eyes filled suddenly with tears.

  It was a pool of clear temperate water; it was surrounded by a stone terrace, and shielded by high clipped hedges of yew. The pool house, built for Ingrid Nilsson, had been fashioned in the form of a small classical temple, and a series of statues, brought from Italy, were set at intervals, among flowers.

  A Hollywood pool. It did not in any way resemble a small muddy gulley surrounded by Cottonwood trees. Yet Hélène could not look at it without thinking of Billy. To think of Billy, and then to look at Cat—for some reason—always made her cry. She brushed the tears away.

  Cat had noticed nothing. Now she was tired of her efforts. She clambered out of the pool and sat down on the edge, swinging her legs so her feet just dangled in the water. She shook back her wet hair, and diamonds of spray glittered in the sunlight. Then, after a brief contented pause, she began to sing.

  She sang a song Madeleine must have taught her, in her high clear voice:

  Sur le pont d’Avignon,

  L’on y danse, l’on y danse,

  Sur le pont d’Avignon,

  L’on y danse, tout en rond…

  Her accent was exact; she emphasized the rhythms strongly, beating time with one small hand. Hélène stared at her. Cat’s small triangular face, now smiling, was lifted to hers. Hélène looked at her black hair, made darker by the water; she looked at her dark blue eyes, and the fringe of black lashes. She had never heard Cat sing in French before.

  Her mind froze; she felt her body grow cold and still. Cat was still looking up at her, her smile growing a little uncertain as she sensed something was wrong.

  “Don’t you like it? Did I sing it wrong?”

  “No, darling. You sang it beautifully. Now sing me an American song…”

  Cat frowned. “I don’t know any. Madeleine taught me only this one.”

  “Oh, well, never mind. Come and swim, Cat,” Hélène said quickly.