Destiny

by Sally Beauman

  True, he went through a certain number of ritual inquiries—he always did that; it amused him. He inquired after what he sometimes called her entourage: her press agent; her business manager; her three accountants; her two secretaries; her four lawyers, who, he claimed, intimidated him, though he employed equally astute lawyers himself. He inquired as to the welfare of her two agents: mainly, Hélène thought, because their names were an unending source of amusement to him: Homer on the East Coast, Milton on the West: Homer and Milton, Thad would say—now that’s really poetic…

  Her answers were duller and less animated than usual, but Thad appeared not to notice. He passed on to her masseur, to Cassie, who intrigued him, and finally, last of all, to Lewis. Cat he never—ever—mentioned at all.

  As he made these inquiries, the answers to which never seemed to interest him very much, Thad’s small eyes winked and blinked behind his glasses. With her new detachment Hélène watched him, and wondered. She sensed some purpose behind these questions, that they were a prelude to something else, perhaps. She thought, for a moment, that it might have been Lewis, because after she had given a routine answer to Thad’s routine question, Thad did seem to react.

  “Oh, Lewis,” he said. “I’m glad he’s okay. I worry about Lewis, you know. I asked him to come back and produce with me again—did he tell you that?”

  Hélène shook her head.

  “Better not mention it. It’s a sore point. He wouldn’t—Lewis can be kind of obstinate, don’t you find? And anyway, I shouldn’t have asked him, really. Sphere doesn’t want him. That man Scher—he’s had Lewis up to here. Because of the drinking, I think. I don’t know. Is he still drinking?”

  Hélène looked at the floor. “Not excessively,” she said in a flat careful voice. It was a lie, yet Thad let it go by.

  He talked about Ellis then. He talked about the work he had done in the post-production period. He talked about the music, and the editing. He talked about the first reactions from Sphere; about the première, which would be in September—the date was now fixed. He talked about its release, and its promotion. He outlined his strategy: this time, he said, with a little benign smile, he wanted the kudos and the box office. He wanted record-breaking returns, and he also wanted the Oscars.

  He talked on and on, and the more he talked, the more distanced Hélène felt. She found it hard to believe, now, that she had once been so influenced by Thad. On the set, at least, she had never doubted him; off the set, she had sometimes laughed at him, and even mocked him, but she had felt, even then, a respect.

  Now she wondered: was it respect she had felt, or was it dependence? She was not sure; all she knew was that it had left her, and in its place was a colder emotion. She admired him still, but she felt she did not like him very much. She could feel the force of his egocentricity, the pressure of his will, and now something within her resisted it, and resented it.

  Thad does not know me. He does not understand me at all: the thought came to her, quite suddenly, the thought, and the rider that came with it. Thad not only did not know or understand her, he had no wish to do so. Who she was, and what she was, were quite unimportant to him. To Thad, she was a vehicle, or an instrument, and that was all.

  She leaned forward and she interrupted him. “Thad,” she said, “do you need me in your films? Do you?”

  He looked a little taken aback; slightly irritated that she should have cut him off in full flow.

  “Need you?” He tilted his head a little to one side. “Of course I need you. I created you.”

  “You created me?” She stared at him in disbelief.

  Thad gave a small rusty giggle.

  “Well, obviously, you have the right face. You have the right voice—or you do now. And you can act. So, yes, I suppose you could say I needed you. I just never thought of it like that.”

  “You always work with me.” She hesitated, and the conversation with Gregory Gertz came back into her mind. “Couldn’t you work with someone else?”

  “No. Why? That’s a dumb question. I work with you. I want it to be you. You’re—” He paused, as if searching for the exact term, and failing to find it. He began to smile in a way Hélène disliked, craftily.

  “What am I?”

  Thad gave a small impatient sigh. “You’re mine,” he said, as if it were too obvious to be stated.

  There was a silence. Hélène looked at him. Just for a moment, something in the way he spoke, something in his expression, made her afraid. Then the fear passed, and she realized she was angry, angrier than she had been for many years. She looked at Thad coldly, and under her gaze, he began—to her surprise—to blush. It was something she had seen him do on only one other occasion; she knew he was remembering it, just as she, then, remembered it too.

  He was thinking about that room in a small house in Trastevere five years ago, which was the only occasion when Thad had ever demonstrated the fact that he wanted the same kind of possession as other men. Except that it had not been the same kind of possession, it had been an ugly desperate and distorted version of it, sex in a fairground mirror, sex that was both pathetic, and crazed.

  They had never discussed that episode. It was a taboo between them that they both understood. Thad had never attempted a repetition of it; Hélène, revolted, but pitying, had behaved, always, as if it had never happened.

  Now, suddenly, the memory of it lay between them again. Hélène again heard him pant; try to speak and then stop; she felt again the slow, the terribly slow realization that he was not just filming her anymore, and that something was beginning to go horribly wrong. In a car accident, she had heard, people’s sense of time slowed. They saw an eighty-mile-an-hour collision very slowly, at a dreamlike pace: and it had been like that then. The slow, extremely slow, realization of exactly what Thad was trying to do with his hand-held camera, in which the film still whirred.

  She had kicked him then, hard, in the pit of the stomach. And he had stopped, and then he had done precisely what he was doing now. He had looked at her, and she had watched the blood seep up his neck and suffuse his face. Then he had taken his glasses off, and rubbed at his eyes. He looked defenseless without his glasses. The skin around his eyes was flabby, and pale, unexposed to the light. He made her think of a turtle, with its shell ripped off, and then—just when she had been thinking that—he had, briefly, cried.

  He was not crying now. But he had removed his glasses and was rubbing his eyelids irritably, as if some speck of dust were hurting him. Not a word was said. After a pause, Thad put his glasses back on. He looked at her slightly uncertainly.

  “I guess you know that anyway,” he said.

  Hélène stood up. She knew she could not bear to be in the room a moment longer. She could not bear to sit and listen to Thad, who wanted to own her, and who perhaps believed that he did. “I have to go now,” she said, and walked out onto the balcony.

  She stood there for a moment, looking at the view. The house, like her own, was set in the hills. In the bowl of the valley below lay Los Angeles itself. It was six o’clock in the evening, and the air felt metallic and hot. Over the city, in a band between buildings and sky, lay a layer of smog. It was purplish, shaded by the softening light to a delicate rose. It looked as if the sky were bruised.

  Thad came up behind her. She turned around, and he pushed a large and heavy envelope into her hands. It looked like the size of a script; it was the weight of a script. Hélène felt a sense of despair. She looked up at Thad.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s the reason I asked you to come. You didn’t think I wanted to talk about Lewis, did you—or the movie? Why should I? All that’s in the past.”

  “It’s a new script?”

  “I finished it last week.” He stopped. “It’s the second part of Ellis. There will be a third part, too, eventually. It’s a trilogy.”

  Hélène stared at him. “You never told me that,” she began slowly. “I thought…”

  “You thought
there was only the first part.” Thad had now recovered. He giggled. “That’s all right. So did everyone. Except me. I knew it was the first of three all along. I just wanted to keep it to myself for a while. A secret, you know?” He paused. “No one else knows, not yet. Not even Sphere. I’ll send it to Scher next week. But you’ll be the first to read it. Don’t tell anyone. Don’t tell Lewis even. Not yet.”

  Hélène drew in her breath. She thought about time. Two more films; two more parts. It would be next year at the earliest before they could begin on this project. One year. Two years. Three possibly, to complete the trilogy, even four. Four years like the last four years; four years in which, whatever else she did, she would be tied to Thad.

  Thad shifted slightly on his feet; he glanced up at her. And then, immediately, she knew—why he had shown her Ellis, why he had asked her back here.

  “You’ve heard about Gregory Gertz’s film, haven’t you?” She looked at Thad directly. “You’ve heard about it, and you’ve heard I may do it, and that’s why you called. It’s why you’ve given me this.”

  “No, it isn’t.” Thad’s mouth set in an obstinate line. “You can work with Gertz if you want to. If you like making movies with a jerk like that, go ahead. He doesn’t have any talent. He isn’t an artist. He doesn’t understand you the way I do, but why should that matter? It’s work. But you have to do this script first. It’s all lined up for next spring. I’ve worked out a shooting schedule—everything. And Sphere will give us the go-ahead. We’ll be able to capitalize on the success of part one…”

  “Next spring. I see.”

  Hélène turned away. She began to walk down the steps that led from the balcony to the garden. She always came into the house this way; she always left it this way. She had never seen the rest of the house. Below the large room where they always sat, there was a whole floor of other rooms, ten, maybe twelve, of them. As she went down the steps, she passed their windows: the shades, as always, were fully lowered.

  She stopped for a moment at the foot of the steps. She did not even know if Thad used those rooms, she realized. Maybe he slept in one of them, maybe not. Maybe he worked in them. Maybe they were empty. She knew no more about his house, she realized, than she did about Thad himself.

  She hesitated. Was Thad simply and deliberately trying to block her from working with someone else? Was that the reason he had given her this script? She had felt that a moment before; now, looking at those windows and their blank shades, she was not so sure. With Thad, there could be innumerable reasons. Even if she did not like him, she acknowledged his diversity. She turned and looked back at him: why could he not acknowledge hers?

  At the foot of the steps Thad came puffing to a halt. He saw her glance; she wondered if he read her mind.

  “You can take a look at the rest of the house if you like,” he said. “You never have. I’d like you to see it. I do all my writing—in there.”

  He gestured at one of the blank windows.

  “Not now, Thad. I have to get back for Cat. I like to see her before she goes to bed…”

  She hurried in the direction of her car. She climbed into it. Thad followed her, but he made no attempt to delay her.

  He had finally realized that something was troubling her, and that something was wrong. He looked a little anxious, but Hélène knew that would not last; Thad’s anxieties were always very brief.

  “You will read it?” he said as she pulled away. “You will read it soon?”

  “When I have time, Thad,” she called, and accelerated away.

  She drove home fast. Lewis was still not there, and the moment she was alone, she telephoned Gregory Gertz. Her hands were shaking a little as she placed the call, and it occurred to her that it might be better to wait, until she had time to think, until she was calmer. But she would not delay: she was already half committed to the Gertz film; it was a good script, and a good part—quite unlike any of the parts she had played before; she wanted to do it; she would not allow Thad to coerce her in this way.

  To have been planning, all along, to make three films rather than one—and never to have hinted at that, never to have said one word…She felt angry again, and so, when Gregory Gertz answered, it was easy to say, “I’ve decided to do it. Yes, next spring.” She paused. “If the terms are agreeable, of course.”

  “They’ll be agreeable.” She could hear the elation in his voice. “I guarantee it.”

  When she replaced the receiver, she sat for a while, staring straight in front of her. She did not see the room at all—she saw the future. The opening of Ellis; the return to Alabama; the long-planned confrontation with Ned Calvert; the film with Gregory Gertz, and the film after that, and the film after that. Lining up the work; lining up a lifetime. So much, and so little: she bent her head, and thought of Edouard.

  Sometimes, when she allowed herself to do this, she had the illusion that he was very close, that he was also thinking of her. At this moment, she felt it strongly; she felt filled with the sense of him, and her heart lifted.

  It was an illusion, though, and she knew that. Indulging it only made her miserable, later. She looked at the telephone, and then pushed it to one side. She had not called his number once since leaving New York; now she was not even certain whether, on that occasion, he had really said her name. That might have been an illusion too.

  The envelope that Thad had given her lay on the table in front of her. She opened it and drew out the script.

  It was heavy, and bound in a thick blue cover. She flicked it open and saw, to her surprise, that on the first blank page, Thad had written a dedication, in his small spidery hand.

  For Hélène, it said.

  Underneath it he had written a date, a date in 1959. Hélène looked at it blankly: she associated that late summer, and that year, with Edouard. It took her a moment to realize that it had other associations, also, if not for her, then obviously for Thad. The date Thad had inscribed was the date he first met her, in Paris, outside the Cinemathèque.

  “And so,” Stephani was saying, sitting up in bed, “I put a rinse in my hair. It was easy. It’s not quite the right color yet, the bleach needs to grow out. The makeup—well, I’ve been practicing that. I used to watch how she did it—when we were out on location. And the clothes…” She gave a gentle dreamy little smile. “Hélène’s are couture, of course, so I did the best I could. There’s a shop about five blocks from Wilshire, well, I guess it’s nearer Sunset, really. They sell copies, and designer fashions—not new ones—used ones. It’s where all the stars get rid of their clothes. I know the woman who runs it. I went in there, and I was looking through the racks, and I thought, right off, as soon as I saw it—that’s her, that’s Hélène.” She stopped; she turned to Lewis. “You were pleased? You did like it? Tell me you did, Lewis?”

  “Sure,” Lewis said.

  He was sitting on the end of the bed, watching the color television, or rather, not really watching it, but channel-hopping. It helped to block out what Stephani was saying. He did not want to know the details. He did not want to know how it was done. That spoiled it somehow. He punched another button.

  Stephani and he had been smoking a little grass; Stephani liked it afterward, and sometimes before. Lewis liked it too. It did not always combine too well with the little red pills, but today it was all right. He felt at peace; he felt dreamy. Stephani was rolling another joint now. He turned his head and watched her. Small nimble fingers; she extended a pink tip of tongue, and ran it along the edge of the paper.

  “Does Hélène ever do that—sell off her old clothes? Give them to the maids, maybe? Because if she did—oh, Lewis!” She gave a little breathy sigh. “Imagine. Her very own things.” She stopped and gave a sad little frown. “Except they wouldn’t fit me. They’d be too tight. Way too tight…”

  “Uh-huh.” Lewis nodded. He was not listening. A baseball game; an old black and white movie; a soap; someone being interviewed; riots someplace; Lassie…

  Lew
is gave a sigh of pleasure. Lassie was saving a man who had been trapped in a mine. He loved Lassie. He had always loved Lassie, and back home in Boston, whenever she came on, the set was switched off. Lassie caught hold of the man’s arm; she dragged him a few feet. She stopped and wagged her tail; she barked. Or should it be, he barked? Lewis was not sure. That struck him as funny, and he began to laugh. Then the ads came on; a pure-faced woman held up a box of detergent; Lewis punched the button again.

  The soap; the riots; the interview; the movie. Lewis suddenly became very still. He punched the button again: back to the man being interviewed. He stared at the screen; he turned the sound up. Behind him Stephani crawled forward on the bed. She lay on her stomach with her chin in her hands. She, too, looked at the screen.

  “Hey,” she said after a while. “He’s really good-looking, don’t you think, Lewis?”

  “Be quiet. I’m listening…”

  Stephani subsided for a minute or two. Then she said, “Mmmm, I like his suit too. It’s like the ones you wear, Lewis. Only darker. You ought to get one like that. I like it. It’s sexy.”

  “Will you shut up, godammit?” Lewis rounded on her, and Stephani gave him a frightened look. She bit her lip, and was silent.

  Lewis stared at the screen again. He hardly heard a word that was being said; some financial matters were being discussed; it was not they which interested him. He felt quite alert now; the muzziness, the daze of a few moments before was gone. Shock had made his mind sharp as a razor.

  The interview came to a close; the camera switched back to the questioner. Lewis stood up, he switched the set off. Stephani looked up at him uncertainly.

  “Was that someone you know, Lewis?”

  “No. I don’t know him. Not exactly.”

  “He sounded English…”

  “He’s not English. He’s French.” Lewis reached for his jacket. “I’m going home.”

  Stephani’s eyes rounded in dismay. She knelt on the bed. “Oh, Lewis, you’re mad at me. You are, aren’t you? I can see it. You’ve turned all pale, the way you do when you get mad…Oh, Lewis, what did I do?”