Destiny

by Sally Beauman

  “Oh, Lewis, I can hardly believe it. I’m so excited…”

  Lewis could not quite meet her eyes. The truth of the matter was that Stephani’s invitation to Hélène’s party for Ellis was late. All the others had been sent at least a week before. Stephani, fortunately, did not know this. Neither did she know how the invitation had come about. It was he who had engineered it. Knowing how much Stephani wanted to go, he had, quite casually, mentioned her name to Hélène, the previous morning. Hélène’s hand had immediately flown to her lips. She had looked contrite.

  “Oh, Lewis. How terrible. I should have asked her—I never thought. I haven’t seen her since we were out on location—and I said I would. Oh, damn. Do you think it’s too late? Can we send her an invitation now?”

  Lewis had shrugged. “Why not?” he said. “I doubt she’ll come anyway.”

  Yesterday. Lewis could not quite believe that particular scene had taken place. And now that he was confronted with the evidence that it had, he could not quite believe the present scene, either. To have prompted his wife into inviting his mistress to their party. To their large, grand, extremely desirable party. People were fighting all over Hollywood to obtain invitations for this party.

  Why on earth had he done it? Somehow he had managed to deceive not just Hélène, but also Stephani. And—less than a week from now—he would have to face the horrendous prospect of an entire evening in which wife and mistress were together under the same roof. He sighed; was that prospect so terrible? At the back of his mind, somewhere, was a small creeping suspicion that it was precisely for that reason that he had done this. He wanted sometimes, he ached sometimes, to see them side by side, the real wife and the pretend wife, Hélène and her imitator. What would happen then, he had no idea. It was, somehow, the logical, the only conclusion to the past weeks, in which more and more, he found Hélène, the woman he loved, not in the house he shared with her, but here, in a downtown apartment, in a bed with a buttoned headboard of pale cerise velvet.

  Stephani rolled a joint with her small pink nimble fingers—such nimble fingers. He took it and inhaled it.

  “You’re worried, Lewis,” Stephani said. She put her arms around him and drew him down beside her on the bed. Lewis felt the drifting and the lifting begin in his mind. Grass sometimes made him feel as if he were high in the sky, suspended from a beautiful balloon, looking down on the world from a serene height.

  From this height, it seemed to him that Stephani might come to see she could not go to the party: to attend would be a serious lapse of taste. But no, that was ridiculous. Such a thought would never have occurred to her.

  Stephani saw things with the sweet amorality of a child. In this she sometimes reminded him of Thad, and—just as with Thad—that way of looking at life relaxed him. No more rules; no more codes; good-bye Boston. Up in his balloon, Lewis giggled. Stephani liked Hélène. She loved Hélène. She almost worshipped Hélène. Apart from the one indiscretion of the beach party, they had been very careful. There had been no gossip, and it was Stephani, almost more than Lewis, who cared about this.

  “We won’t let her know. It’s our secret. We won’t ever hurt her. You’re hers really, Lewis. I know that…”

  Now, gently, she began to stroke him. Slow gentle little marijuana touches. They whispered up over his thighs, over his pubic hair, over his stomach. So slow. So easy. Lewis shut his eyes.

  She was wearing a petticoat of pale peach silk, which Lewis had bought for Hélène five years before, a hundred years before, in London. It was several sizes larger than the ones she usually wore because when he bought it, Hélène had been pregnant. He had found it in the back of a closet, folded away, forgotten.

  Lewis’s mind sighed. He turned and nuzzled his mouth against her breasts. He loved her breasts. They were heavy and milky and full. He could feel the softness of her nipple growing hard as he touched the peach silk, the peach lace; he sucked; he suckled. He could smell the scent of her skin, and moaned a little. Very faintly, too, there was the scent of lavender, and he loved that because it was the scent of his childhood. Only two women he had ever known had placed small muslin bags of lavender among all the folds of silky satiny lacy things they wore next to their skin. Only two women. Hélène and his mother. He slipped his hand between her thighs, where she felt so wonderfully, so sweetly, warm and damp. Drifting; drifting; he could open her with his fingers, like the petals of a flower.

  He wanted so to be inside her, and when he was inside her, it was dark, and safe. Moving through inner space, swimming through the galaxies of her womb. The scent of lavender in his nostrils; darling Hélène. Pulsing and dreaming. He fell asleep in Hélène’s arms. He slept serenely for a long time: a lifetime; a minute. Then he woke, screaming.

  The man at the gates invaded his dreams; he clung to the gates, and rattled them. He cried out again and again, in the most terrifying voice: Let me in, let me in…

  Lewis clutched at Stephani; he was sweating and trembling. Stephani fetched some water and bathed his forehead. She made him stand up and walk around the room. She made him eat something, and the nightmare receded.

  “You had a bad trip,” she said soothingly.

  Later, when Lewis had recovered, and she was sure he was all right, they watched television together. Hours of afternoon soap operas, which Stephani loved, and Lewis found soothing. In the middle of one of these programs, Stephani suddenly clasped his hand. She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “Oh, Lewis,” she said. “The party. What shall I wear to the party?”

  She wore a long white dress with a fishtail skirt, covered in beads and sequins. She had washed the rinse out of her hair, and returned to the normal platinum. It blazed at Lewis across the room; he felt a simultaneous relief and disappointment: she had come as Stephani Sandrelli.

  He was standing on the far side of the room when she made her entrance, drinking from two glasses of champagne. First pink, then white; it amused him. Next to him was Homer, Hélène’s East Coast agent, and Milton, her agent here. They were both staring at the spectacle.

  “Can you believe that, Milton? I mean—can you believe it?”

  “Homer. I cannot. I seriously cannot. This is 1964, right? Not 1954. Or did we just go through a time warp?”

  “Some things, Milton, never change. Even in Hollywood. Especially in Hollywood. Some things are eternal.”

  “I remember Marilyn in a dress like that.” Milton shook his head sadly. “Tighter, even. She couldn’t go to the john. It was sewn on. Frank said—”

  “Ah, but Marilyn was luminous, Milton. Luminous.”

  “This is true.”

  “Also, a truly lovely person. When she wasn’t phoning at three A.M., and being a pain in the ass.”

  “Three A.M.? She phoned you at three A.M.? She never did that to me.”

  This fact seemed to distress Milton. He shook his head mournfully.

  “Three. Four. Five, sometimes. Time had no meaning for Marilyn.” Homer gave a sigh. “You remember her smile, Milton? You could forgive her any goddamn thing when you saw that smile. That smile registered on the Richter scale. Just like Hélène’s.” At precisely that moment, peering around the crowded room, Stephani saw Lewis. She, too, smiled. The two agents looked at each other.

  “How would you rate that, Homer?”

  “Rate it? It doesn’t register at all. I would say, Milton, not the smallest tremor. How about you?”

  “Short on magic, Homer. Definitely short on magic…”

  They moved away in the direction of the bar. Lewis looked at Stephani uncertainly. Two months ago he would have said she looked like a tramp; two minutes ago he would have said she looked wonderful; now he was not sure what he thought, but he felt distanced. He felt, possibly, that she was not the woman who should be seen on his arm that evening, regardless of gossip. For a man like him, she was not, perhaps, the right accessory. He paused, gallantry and snobbishness fighting it out. Stephani had been crossing toward him, but had been waylaid.
Seizing his opportunity, and despising himself as he did so, Lewis ducked behind another group of people. He skirted the room carefully, and once sure Stephani must have lost track of him, headed in the direction of his wife.

  Hélène was standing near the entrance to the ballroom. He stopped a little distance away, just to look at her. She was wearing a dress that had been made for her in Paris, of a blue silk some shades darker than her eyes. When Lewis had first seen this dress being reverently unfolded from swaths of tissue paper, he had not liked it. It had seemed dull and unfeminine. But on Hélène, it was another matter; even Lewis, who did not understand women’s clothes at all, and had a secret preference for soft fabrics and ruffles, could see the mastery of its cut, the perfection of its line. It was narrow, so that she appeared even taller and slenderer; it left her arms bare, and the curving neckline, stiffened and stitched like two wings, or two sprays of foliage, framed the long, perfect line of her throat.

  She was standing between Thad on the one side, and Gregory Gertz on the other, but Lewis did not see them at all. The blue of her dress flared before his eyes; for a moment Lewis felt almost dizzy, as if his mind were impossibly light, filled with haze and ether. In the future, he felt, he would always see her as he saw her then. At a distance, in the blue dress, with her face turned a little away from him, her hand half lifted.

  Beyond her, in the ballroom, the music began. Lewis gave himself a little shake. The hubbub of the room returned, and the press of people.

  He saw that, around her throat, Hélène was wearing a narrow band of sapphires and diamonds, which he had bought her for their first wedding anniversary. He had bought it from de Chavigny in New York, because that was before they went to Cannes, before he realized how much Hélène lied. Now, he never set foot in de Chavigny: not in New York, not in Paris, not anywhere.

  Still, he had bought it for her, just as he had bought, for Stephani, the necklace of brilliants she was wearing tonight. Diamonds for his wife; for his mistress, diamanté. The equation angered him; the memories angered him; there was something he might say to Hélène, tonight, when she was wearing that particular necklace. But not now.

  He turned around smartly, and avoiding the Lloyd Bakers, who were bearing down upon him, he swerved away from Hélène, in the direction of a group of men. There were at least ten of them, and they clearly did not share the opinions of Homer or Milton, for in their center, much admired, was Stephani Sandrelli.

  It was a successful party. Hélène looked around the room, it was crowded, but not overcrowded. In the room beyond, where supper had been served, people were just beginning to leave the groups of round tables, decorated with flowers and ribbons. In the ballroom behind her, the first couples were beginning to dance. Some of the most powerful people in Hollywood, and some of the most famous. Her eyes roved over the groups, making sure that no one was hedged in, that no one was alone, or ignored. In one corner, Joe Stein, holding court; in another a very famous female agent, surrounded by delicate young men, who occasionally let out little birdlike shrieks of delight at her latest witticism. Homer, going around introducing people to other people to whom he had already introduced them some ten minutes before. There was a certain electricity in the atmosphere of the room, which she had come to recognize, and it was that which told her the evening was a success.

  Cassie had said, in her dour way, before the evening began, that in her experience most parties were a success. “Plenty to eat. Plenty to drink. Can’t go wrong. No call for nerves,” she had said flatly, partly because she was nervous herself.

  Hélène had said nothing; she knew that was not true. Maybe it was true in Orangeburg, where parties were, on the whole, simple affairs, gatherings of friends and neighbors. Even there, she doubted it, though, for Orangeburg, too, had its social divisions, its hierarchy. Here in Hollywood, those divisions were viciously observed; the party tonight was a success partly because of its glittering guest list, but mainly because Ellis was a success. The reviews, with the notable exception of Susan Jerome’s, had been filled with an ecstatic, and—Hélène had felt—extravagant—praise. Ellis was a hit: her party was a hit. It was a simple formula, and one she disliked.

  Beside her, Thad and Gregory Gertz were talking. Gertz looked ill at ease; Thad was all beaming amiability. Since Thad knew that she was to make the film with Gertz in the spring—for she had told him—and since Gertz knew Thad knew, it was perhaps the amiability that was causing the unease. As well it might: Thad, in her experience, was most to be feared when he was kindly.

  Occasionally, she interjected a remark, or nodded agreement at something one of them said, but she was not really listening to them. Across the room, she had seen Lewis; he started to weave his way to her through the crowd, and then, abruptly, he stopped. He stood looking at her, with an odd, dazed expression on his face. He had been drinking too much, she knew it instantly, and she looked away quickly. She had been so careful to invite, this evening, people who she thought might be of help to Lewis. A producer who had once expressed an interest in a previous screenplay; an actress who had liked the leading role in Endless Moments; a director with whom Lewis had once been quite friendly. Lewis, so far, had ignored all of them; if he went on drinking, he was likely to cause a scene.

  She at once tensed, and then felt angry with herself. Between her and Lewis there was now an unspoken and uneasy truce; she was not going to spend the entire evening worrying about Lewis, or trying to protect him from himself. She looked back, though, a little anxiously. Lewis was now moving away; he seemed bent on talking to Stephani Sandrelli.

  He shouldered his way rudely through the group of men surrounding her, took her hand, and raised it to his lips. He bent over it with exaggerated, ridiculous courtesy. Stephani looked at him uncertainly, and then laughed. Hélène flushed; she looked away. How could Lewis be so unkind? It was perfectly obvious that he was taunting Stephani, and it was cruel.

  “Long Division,” Gregory Gertz was saying with obvious reluctance. “That’s the working title, anyway.”

  Thad looked up at him. He hummed a little.

  “Long Division. Long Division. Yes, well, you could always do a follow-up, I suppose. They remarry. They have children. You could call it Multiplication.”

  “I’m not planning a follow-up,” Greg replied stiffly.

  “Oh, you should. You should.” Thad beamed. His glasses winked and blinked. He was, Hélène thought, very angry. He paused.

  “I am. To Ellis. I expect Hélène told you.”

  “No, as a matter of fact.”

  “Well, I am. Next year.” He planted his feet a little farther apart. “Films should be longer,” he pronounced. “One hour twenty, one hour forty—what’s that? What can you do with that? It’s child’s play. I want to make longer movies…”

  “Yes, I noticed that in Ellis…”

  “Sequels are a way of doing it. Three hours. Four. People balk at the idea now. They won’t always. They always balk at the new. The revolutionary.”

  “New?” Gregory Gertz’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Not exactly new, surely. As I recall, a number of people have had that particular idea. Among them Erich von Stroheim. His original version of Greed ran to ten hours, I think. Though, of course, it was never shown…” He touched Hélène’s arm. “Hélène. Would you like to dance?”

  There was a small tight silence. Thad looked, for a moment, like a fat pressure cooker about to explode. Then, before Hélène could move or say a word, he did an about-face of military precision, and walked out of the room.

  Hélène was in no doubt that he was not only leaving the room, he was leaving the party. He looked absurd, departing at an angry trot, and Gregory Gertz laughed. Hélène rested her hand on his arm.

  “I’ll come and dance,” she said. “But you know, you shouldn’t have done that. It wasn’t wise.”

  “I couldn’t care less,” Greg answered with a certain cockiness which she had never noticed in him before. “Why should I? There�
�s nothing he can do to me.” He paused. “Or you, I hope.”

  Hélène frowned. Damn Thad, she thought; damn him, with his megalomania, and his possessiveness. She took Gregory Gertz’s arm.

  “Once, perhaps,” she said firmly. “Not anymore.”

  It was one o’clock in the morning, but people showed no signs, yet, of leaving. So many dances, so many partners; as the evening wore on, she felt more and more distanced from it. “Thank you, Hélène.” Joe Stein, escorting her politely back to the side of the room, Joe Stein who, like most of her partners, had not danced with her simply because he wanted to, but because it was part of the business process. For years, he had wanted her to make a film for his company—ever since they first met in Cannes in 1962. Now, Stein had achieved his ambition. His company would produce and back Long Division; he glanced across at Simon Scher, who was talking to Stein’s wife, Rebecca, and a slight swagger came into his walk, as if he were carrying spoils from the field of war, not escorting a woman from a dance floor. He, Joe Stein, had captured Hélène Harte from the clutches of Sphere.

  Simon Scher smiled back politely, and returned to his conversation with Rebecca Stein. He was a small, neat, pleasant man, and he always smiled politely, whenever Hélène encountered him, which was not often. A businessman—but then, they were all that, men and women. And they were here to conduct an essential part of their trade—exchanging information, and gossip, watching who was talking to whom, power-trading…

  Hélène evaded the next man who was pressing her to dance, and slipped away to the side of the room. There, in a lobby that led out to the bar, she was shielded from view by a pillar, and by palms. She stood there for a while, watching groups form and re-form, watching the dancers. Joe Stein now dancing with his wife, ignoring the rhythms of the music, and proceeding around the room in a stately fox-trot. Stephani Sandrelli, dancing with Randall Holt, the young man they were calling the next Lloyd Baker. The original Lloyd Baker, dancing with everyone except his wife. Lewis, performing some Bostonian gyration of his own, face fixed, eyes glazed, with a girl called Betsy, about whom Hélène knew nothing at all, except that someone had brought her, and she lived in San Francisco, and she was dressed rather as if she were a sultan’s handmaiden or an Indian squaw. She had bare feet, which she stamped, and around her ankles she wore bracelets with tiny silver bells on them. She wore a long embroidered garment, like a caftan. Her flowing and beautiful auburn hair was threaded with feathers and ribbons. As Hélène watched her, she lifted her arms above her head and waved them to the beat of the music. From wrist to elbow her arms were covered with tiny bracelets of turquoise and silver. She shook her arms, and the bracelets glittered and jingled.