Destiny

by Sally Beauman

  Gregory Gertz, now dancing with Rebecca Stein, to whom he appeared to be being assiduously polite. Hélène watched him a little anxiously: she saw him differently tonight, as perhaps less direct, less straightforward, than she had imagined. If she had not agreed to do his film, would Stein and his company have backed it? Very possibly not; was that why Gregory had been so eager that she do it—not because she was so right for the part, as he claimed, but simply because her participation, her “bankability” was useful to him? It was hardly surprising if that had been a motive—that was how things here worked. Yet he had seemed so honest, so truthful…

  She leaned back against the pillar. There were very few people here whom she liked, she realized, and even fewer whom she trusted.

  Someone bumped into her. Someone backed into her. Her West Coast agent, Milton, tall, tanned, immaculately groomed. He was looking a little haunted.

  “Homer,” he said. “I’m avoiding Homer. He’s had too much to drink. He’s on one of his jags.”

  He paused, looking around him for a waiter, and checking over the room methodically. Then, recovering himself a little, he took both her hands in his, and pressed them.

  “Genius,” he said. “I didn’t get a chance to say so before. Not a word I ever use. You never heard me use that word before. I’m using it now.” He fixed her with his eyes. “Genius. By the end of that movie, Hélène, I was weeping. Tears. I cried. Elizabeth cried. Paul cried—well, nearly cried. Even that little fucker from The New York Times cried. We have to talk, Hélène, and we have to talk soon. Today, the phones never stopped ringing. Everyone wants you. Everyone. You shouldn’t have agreed to do the Gertz picture. I warned you. It’s not right for you. She’s too hard, she’s a bitch. People won’t like that. They don’t associate you with that. You should do the second part of Ellis, and then…I read that today, by the way. I shouldn’t have read it, but I did. A pirate copy…” He smiled. “Hélène, it’s so hot—I am telling you, it’s so hot I read it and my fingers were burning. Now. Listen. Tomorrow, I want you to—”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow. But I won’t change my mind. I’ve said I’ll do the Gertz picture, Milton, and—”

  “Said? Said? What’s said? You haven’t signed. There’s nothing down in black and white. Now, listen, Hélène…”

  “Tomorrow, Milton,” Hélène said, and she slipped away. She moved through the lobby, past the bar, and into the conservatory. She sat down on a wicker chair, shielded by more palms, and by the cattleyas. She looked at them. She had never liked orchids, and she did not like these. Such a fluorescence of color; such fleshy petals; such predatory flowers.

  From the bar behind her, voices drifted through above the music. “So, I thought, screw you, but I said—okay. You cut us in on the distribution deal, and—”

  “Look, Homer. Cut this out, will you? The problem is, the only problem is, you will keep marrying them—”

  “You want to know why, Milton? You really want to know? Because I’m a fucking romantic, that’s why.”

  “You? A romantic?”

  “That’s right. That is so right. I had a terrible mother, a terrible childhood…”

  “I don’t want to hear about your childhood, Homer. Or your mother.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s old news, Homer. Old news.”

  “So. He wouldn’t sign. No way. One million up front, and a percentage deal. I said to him, I said—”

  “Thursday, Lloyd? You promise? It has to be then. The screen test’s Friday, and you said…”

  “Okay. Okay. Thursday. I’ll talk to them Friday morning.”

  “Lloyd, you’re a honey. What you want me to wear for you, baby?”

  “How about a diaphragm?”

  “So, I said—listen—we are talking about art here. Like, A-R-T, art. And he says, you know what Short Cut grossed in its first six weeks? And I said—okay, so Short Cut was big. Well, this is going to be bigger. A helluva lot bigger. I…”

  “Miss Harte?”

  Hélène looked up. The conservatory was dimly lit, and her mind was far away. For a moment she did not recognize the man in front of her. Then she saw that it was Simon Scher. He smiled. Politely.

  “Could I get you something to drink? You must be exhausted. Such a marvelous party…”

  “No, thank you.”

  “May I?” He looked at her, and then sat down on a nearby chair. He pinched the crease of his pants between thumb and forefinger, and crossed his legs. Hélène wished he would go away. She wished, suddenly and passionately, that they would all go away.

  “…So I wanted to congratulate you.” Scher, she realized, must have been complimenting her on Ellis.

  “An interesting film, and a most remarkable performance. Oh, yes.” He cleared his throat. “I have the script for the sequel, of course. A surprise. I had no idea there was a sequel.”

  “There are two,” Hélène said abruptly. “Ellis is intended to be a trilogy.”

  “Oh.” He looked taken aback at this. Hélène looked at him mutinously. Let Thad play his stupid secretive games; she did not intend to play them any longer.

  “Yes, well, of course, Mr. Angelini always liked to play his cards close to the chest. A trilogy.” He paused delicately. “And, are you—that is, I gather there is a little problem…”

  “Yes, there is. Thad wants to make the sequel in the spring. I’ve told him I won’t do that. I’ll be working on another picture then.”

  “Oh. I see.” He frowned. “Does that mean postponing production of the sequel then? Mr. Angelini didn’t mention—”

  “You had better ask him, perhaps.” Hélène answered him shortly. Then, regretting her rudeness slightly, and in the face of Scher’s unshakable politeness, she added, more gently, “You see, I had no idea of what Thad was planning either. He sprang it on me a few weeks ago. And I haven’t decided—I don’t even know that I want to do the film.”

  “Yes. Of course. Of course. Well, no doubt, in due course…such an ambitious project. Fine, in principle, like all his work. But ambitious, and lengthy—” He paused. He looked at her directly. “Such a pity Mr. Angelini and your husband fell out, I’ve always thought. I always enjoyed working with Lewis. Marvelous enthusiasm. Oh, yes. Marvelous…”

  Hélène looked up. “You enjoyed working with Lewis?” she said slowly. “You mean, you would like to work with him again?”

  “Oh, certainly, certainly. He was very hardworking, you know, very thorough. And I always felt that he…well, that he helped to control some of Mr. Angelini’s excesses, shall we put it like that? He could be very firm with him. Surprisingly so. In the early days”—he cleared his throat again—“when we began our partnership—”

  Hélène stood up. She looked at Scher. Either he was lying, or Thad had been. She knew which of them she believed: this small polite efficient man, who was not really part of the film world at all, but a businessman transferred from his parent company, there to ensure that this oddity among Partex’s more conventional products was, like the others, profitable. She held out her hand to him.

  “I wish you would say that to Lewis,” she said quietly. “I think it would please him very much. And I’m sure he could be persuaded to go back to producing. He misses it, you know…” She took his hand. “I wonder—I ought to get back—would you excuse me?”

  “Oh, but of course. Of course.”

  Scher turned back toward the ballroom. Hélène stood in the conservatory a few minutes longer, and then she walked out into the gardens.

  The night was cool, and they were deserted. From the ballroom came the strains of a tango; shadows moved across the lighted windows. She walked across the lawns, then through the trees, and there, where the level of the ground altered, and it was quiet, she stood for a long time, looking down at the swimming pool that lay below her.

  She thought of Billy, and the trip back to Alabama that was coming, week by week, inevitably closer. She thought about the future, an
d the life she had lined up, and then, because its emptiness made her feel cold, and lonely, she thought about the past, and Edouard.

  When some time had passed, she began to walk back to the house unwillingly. She walked across the lawns again, and down onto the drive. There was a breeze blowing up; clouds scudded across the sky. As she reached the drive, the moon came out, and lit the gardens with a thin pale radiance. She crossed the curve of the drive, watching the shadows of the clouds, as the moon was now hidden, and now clear. There, she paused, and looked back down the drive, in the direction of the gates, and saw the man who was standing outside them.

  It was the first time she had ever seen him, and if Cassie had not been so positive, she might almost have thought that Lewis’s sightings had been imaginary. But there he was. He was standing motionless, leaning against the gates, his hands and face pressed against their rails. They were at a distance from each other, and so Hélène could not be certain if he even saw her, but she thought he did.

  She stood for a moment, looking at him, separated from him by the length of moonlit gravel: a woman in a silk evening dress, and a man who was excluded.

  The moon went behind a cloud, and when it sailed forth again, the man had gone. She stared down the drive in the direction of the gates. She felt no sense of fear, or threat.

  From the house came a burst of laughter, louder music. She lifted her head; she associated the man with someone, she thought; it was a second or two before she realized that it was herself. Like him, she was an outsider; like him, she did not belong here. She had felt this before, but never as strongly, and it filled her with an unhappy resignation. She turned back to the house, walking slowly; then she began to quicken her pace. Something in her rebelled.

  She would not go back to the ballroom; she would not go back to that party, and those people. She would go to her room, she would telephone Paris; she would telephone St. Cloud. And—this time—she would not hang up after three rings, or thirty, or three hundred. She would wait until Edouard answered, and she would speak to him.

  “Oh, Lewis. It’s so beautiful. I knew it would be like this. I pictured it so many times, and I knew it would be lovely. But not this lovely. Oh, Lewis, is this real silk?”

  Stephani moved around Hélène’s room, touching things. The long pale cream draperies at the windows, and at the head of the four-poster. She touched the delicate columns of that bed.

  “Oh, Lewis. Is this old? Like, really old? Is it an antique?”

  “It’s Hepplewhite.” Lewis glanced edgily toward the door. He felt fairly safe, but not entirely safe. “Just let me look,” Stephani had begged. “I always wanted to see her house, and her room. Please, Lewis. It won’t take more than a minute…”

  They had been in here five minutes already. Lewis was fairly sure that Hélène was fully occupied downstairs, but what if—for some reason—she came up? His own nervousness annoyed him; he chafed against it. So what if she did? They were not doing anything wrong.

  He had brought a bottle of whiskey upstairs with him; in his pocket were a couple of glasses. Now, defiantly, he unscrewed the cap of the bottle. He held it up.

  “You want some? It’s Scotch.”

  “Oh, Lewis. I’ve had so much champagne…” She giggled. “Okay—maybe a teeny drop.”

  Lewis poured two large measures. He swallowed his own in one gulp, and immediately felt better. Stephani was still moving around the room. She looked at the eighteenth-century engravings of landscapes. She bent and touched one of the rugs, which was of needlepoint, a piece of museum quality. She moved to the dressing table, touched the silver and lapis brushes, from Cartier, and then bent, and looked at her own reflection in the Queen Anne mirror. She straightened again, and looked around the room once more: the fireplace, the two chairs which stood near it, the bowl of white roses, the serpentine-fronted chest of drawers, which was walnut, with a fine patina, and one of the rare authenticated Chippendale pieces. A slight expression of disappointment came over her face.

  “It’s not quite—I thought…” She looked at Lewis uncertainly. “It’s kind of plain, don’t you think?”

  “She doesn’t go in for cerise velvet headboards, if that’s what you mean.”

  Stephani flushed scarlet; her eyes rounded with reproach. Lewis at once felt ashamed of himself.

  “I mean,” he said more gently, “she doesn’t like too much color. She likes things muted and—well, plain. You know. It’s the same way she dresses…”

  Stephani immediately looked happier. She came over to him and took a little drink of the Scotch. She looked down at the floor, and then up at him again.

  “Could I look at her dresses, Lewis? Please. Just a quick look before we go back downstairs?”

  “All right. Sure. Why not?” Lewis took her arm; he was beginning to feel reckless. “They’re through here.”

  He led her across the room and through into the dressing room beyond that. It was a large room, flanked with built-in closets from floor to ceiling. Lewis passed along them, opening their doors. Some were shallow, others like small rooms themselves. “Nightgowns. Underwear. Day dresses. Suits. Skirts. Blouses. Sweaters…”

  “Oh. Lewis.”

  Stephani’s face was transparent with wonder. She followed him slowly from closet to closet, occasionally reaching out a hand to touch something reverently. She lifted up a little lace camisole, and held it against her face; it was as fine and delicate as a cobweb.

  “She has those made for her in France. There’s some convent place, where they’re famous for that lace…”

  Stephani laid the camisole back very carefully. She moved on. She touched the material of the dresses, one by one: wild silk, pure linen, wool barathea, tweeds woven by hand in Scotland.

  “Oh,” she sighed. “They’re beautiful. You can feel the money.” The next closet: shelf upon shelf of cashmeres, arranged carefully by colors; gray, pale blue, slate blue, Prussian blue, navy blue, black, rose, shell pink…

  “Take a look at these.” Lewis threw back another door.

  And there were the evening dresses, line upon line of them. Fortuny velvet; silk moiré from Givenchy; black taffeta from Saint Laurent; one from Hartnell with a bodice of tiny hand-stitched seed pearls. Long dresses, short dresses. Stephani passed along the racks, touching them. She looked at the labels, and her hands trembled. For a moment, Lewis thought she was going to burst into tears.

  He was enjoying himself now. He felt almost brutal, though whether toward Stephani, or Hélène, he was not quite certain.

  “You want to take a look at the furs? They’re in here.”

  He opened another, heavier door, which led into the cool room, kept at a constant forty-five degrees, with controlled humidity. Stephani gave a little cry.

  “Oh, I didn’t know she liked furs. She never wears them…”

  “She doesn’t. She thinks they’re cruel. I bought her most of them. She wears them sometimes. When she wants to please me.” Lewis shrugged.

  Stephani ran forward and began touching. Red fox; Blackglama mink; lynx; a long coat of brown sables.

  Stephani hesitated. She touched it. She looked back over her shoulder at Lewis, guiltily, as if she were being caught in the act of shoplifting. Then she slipped the coat off its hanger.

  “Please, Lewis, please. Let me just try it on. Just for a second. I never had a fur coat. Well, I had a rabbit thing once, but that doesn’t count, does it? Please, Lewis…”

  “Go ahead. Why not? Hélène doesn’t like it anyway.”

  They came out of the cool room, and Lewis swung the door shut.

  “Put it on. Then come and show me. I’m going to get another drink.”

  He walked back into Hélène’s bedroom, poured a large whiskey, and swallowed it. He looked around him. He had never liked this room, and now he hated it. It reminded him of his parents’ home. It reminded him of nights of humiliation. Had he ever made love to Hélène successfully in this room? He was not certain. Perhaps, a
t the very beginning, when they first moved here, but he was not sure. He could feel the past leaping and bending in his mind, taking on a life of its own. He passed his hand dazedly across his eyes; the room would not keep quite still. It fluctuated, advanced, and then receded. An idea came to him.

  On one wall there was a narrow bookcase. This bookcase, when manipulated in the correct way, swung back, and behind it was the safe. One of the safes. The safe where Hélène kept her jewelry. He knew the combination. He had been through the safe, just as he had been through her desk and her filing cabinets, because once, crazily, he had believed that maybe she kept the love letters in there.

  He opened it, frowning in concentration, lifted out the boxes and the soft chamois bags, and carried them over to the bed. There, he began to tip them out, one by one, and there was his past, there was his marriage, tumbling and glittering on the bed in front of him. The diamond engagement ring; the matched pearls bought in Bond Street for Hélène’s birthday; diamond earrings, bought to celebrate their second film. A Victorian belt of silver filigree; a necklace of moonstones; a long rope of amethyst beads; a diamond collar; bracelets of diamonds. Most of these things she rarely wore, and Lewis looked at them, feeling hurt and incomprehension well up inside him. Why didn’t she wear them? Was there something wrong with them? Or was it because he gave them to her—was that why?