Destiny

by Sally Beauman

  “Possibly.”

  “Well, try. And up it by two, or three. As much as you think it’ll take. But stop him doing anything for the next day—oh, and Simon. Call me as soon as I get to Paris, when I’ve had a chance to read these. Early afternoon, Paris time.”

  He flew into the sunshine of a perfect day. The streets and the boulevards of Paris were filled with people celebrating the spring. The sidewalk cafés were crowded. The Seine glittered; there was a scent of lime blossom in the air. Edouard reached the de Chavigny headquarters shortly before two P.M., Paris time, and asked for black coffee.

  Marie-Aude, his unflappable senior secretary, now married, and with her calm unimpaired by the strain of dealing with a husband and two young children in addition to her responsibilities at de Chavigny, brought him the coffee, and looked at him sternly. She was now inclined, when she dared, to be a little bossy; a certain maternalism occasionally crept into her manner. She had now worked for Edouard for eight years, and was not easily put off.

  “What day is it?” she said in a firm tone of voice.

  Edouard looked at her in exasperation. He relied on her totally; he was extremely fond of her, and of her family; but he did not like to be mothered, though the sparring between them, when she attempted it, amused him.

  “It is May eighteenth.”

  “Oh, you do know…I thought you might have forgotten. I thought you might just possibly have lost track. Last night you were in Washington, D.C. Yesterday morning you were in Seattle. The day before that you were in Tokyo…”

  “I’m well aware of that. I’m now here.”

  “You shouldn’t be here. You should be in bed. You must have jet lag.”

  “I do not have jet lag. I never have jet lag. I never felt better. Perhaps, some more coffee?”

  His secretary poured the coffee. She passed it across the desk, folded her arms, and frowned. “I have deliberately kept the appointment book clear for this afternoon…”

  “Excellent.” He paused. “And you may cancel any appointments made for this evening, as well.”

  She began to smile; a gleam of triumph appeared in her eyes. So, for once he was going to be sensible, she told herself. He would stay here an hour, two hours, just enough to make his usual routine checks, and then he would return to St. Cloud to rest. He would, this impossible man, behave like a normal man, with normal frailties, just for once…

  “Because,” Edouard went on, seeing the gleam of triumph, “I have a great deal of work to do here. I shan’t be leaving before eight. Probably later. Ah…” In the outer office a telephone had begun to ring.

  “That will be Monsieur Scher. Put him through, would you?”

  His secretary sighed. She left the room, put through the call, and then, on her other line, telephoned her mother, who could be relied on to step into the breach whenever necessary. Her mother would do the marketing for her, prepare dinner, put the two little ones to bed…

  “Maman. A little problem…yes, I’m afraid so. I’m not sure. At least until eight…”

  Her mother sighed. “Nine. Let us be realistic.” She paused. “So. He’s back then?”

  Later that afternoon, Edouard left his offices briefly, was driven to the de Chavigny showrooms, and shown straight to the vaults. There, the possible presents for Catharine were laid out for his inspection, as they were every year. This year, for the first time, he was late in making the inspection, and it was perhaps for this reason, he told himself, that the annual ritual seemed emptier than before. He found himself, for the first time, impatient with it. He was eager to return to his office; he was eager to return to the fray.

  Her fifth birthday; five years. He chose the present swiftly and with less deliberation than usual: a necklace of pearls—five strands of them, one for each year. They were placed with the other gifts in the safe. Less than ten minutes had passed.

  He was tempted, momentarily, to make a detour to St. Cloud, or to send a messenger to collect the small envelope which he knew would be waiting for him there, in George’s safekeeping. The annual note from Madeleine; the annual photograph. He wanted to look at them; he wanted to hold them in his hands—but the need was less strong than it usually was. There was another connection now, stronger than the one which they provided him—all his instincts could sense it. For better or for worse, some crisis was approaching. He returned to his office; no messenger was sent.

  At eight, being merciful, he let Marie-Aude leave. At nine, he was still at his desk, at ten, and at eleven. The last hour, between eleven and midnight, seemed to pass very slowly, and Edouard chafed, waiting for Scher’s next call. He thought of the newspaper stories he had read somewhere over the Atlantic.

  They had sickened him, even though he had thought that he was used, by now, to the techniques of that kind of journalism. The interweaving of truth and lies; the guilt by association; the use of innuendo—all those techniques had been used in stories about him in the past. But he had never had to suffer a campaign as vile, or as long-drawn-out as this one, and the fact that this should have happened to Hélène, that he had been unaware of it, that he had done nothing, made him violently angry with himself.

  Nor did he understand the maneuverings of the past months, any more than Scher had the previous day. His mind went over all Scher had told him, in the course of the past hours, and it still made no sense to him. The fact that Hélène had refused to commit herself to the sequel of Ellis gave him hope. The next moment that hope evaporated: in the circumstances of the past months that refusal could have many explanations. Had Angelini deliberately sabotaged the film Hélène was to have made for A.I.—and if so, why? It was irrelevant to the plans for Ellis II: Hélène would simply have completed one film, and then gone on to work with Angelini on the other…

  He passed his hand tiredly across his eyes. He knew that the unnatural alertness he had felt earlier was leaving him, and that his mind was exhausted, not working as sharply as he would have liked. Tiredness also sapped the optimism, the sense of approaching crisis he had felt earlier. He stood up, and poured himself some Armagnac; he drank that, then more black coffee. The crisis, if there was one at all, related to Hélène’s work, and not to him. It was a long time since he had allowed himself to do this, but now, sitting at his desk, he looked at the future, and added up the time that had already passed, and asked himself at which point he would finally have to acknowledge that he had been wrong. In six months? A year? He knew it could not be far away, and he thought, dully, as the telephone rang: Angelini has won.

  “It’s worked.” Scher sounded exhausted. “I’ve persuaded him to delay a decision for another twenty-four hours. And I had to go to twelve million to do it. He’s playing us off now against Stein. He’s seeing Hélène Harte tomorrow afternoon, and he says he’ll then get an absolutely firm commitment from her. Once he’s got that, he says he’ll come back to me. For further discussions.”

  “Further discussions? You mean he thinks he can push us up from twelve million? He must be mad.”

  “Edouard. I’ve always thought he was certifiable. However, in this case it’s straightforward bargaining. He probably knows we won’t stick to the twelve, and he doesn’t care. He’ll use it as a negotiating figure with Stein, that’s all.”

  “Stein won’t go that high.”

  “He might.”

  “If Hélène Harte doesn’t commit, Stein won’t touch the project either.”

  “Obviously not. But Angelini says she will. He was quite definite on that point.” Scher paused. “I know what you’re going to say—and I’ve already done it. I’m seeing the director of the other movie tomorrow morning. Gregory Gertz. He may be able to tell us something useful, and he almost certainly won’t. In which case, there isn’t a great deal we can do. Once Hélène Harte commits to Ellis II, Angelini holds all the cards. He can take it to Stein, or he can stay with us. And I’m afraid I think she will agree. Angelini has enormous influence over her. In her present dilemma, the chance to
work with someone she knows so well, playing a sympathetic character in a sequel to an established hit…” He paused. “I’ll see if I can dig up anything, but in the meantime, I think we have to face the possibility that we’re about to lose Angelini, and her.”

  There was silence at the other end of the line. After a long pause, Edouard said, stiffly, “Simon—you sound very tired. I’m tired. Go and get some sleep. We’ll talk again in the morning…”

  Edouard left his office after that, and returned to St. Cloud. It was past one when he reached the house, and all the optimism he had felt earlier had now left him. Everything Simon Scher had said made sense. She would agree to make the sequel, and then the sequel to the sequel. One year; two years; possibly three. No, he knew he could not sustain his own hope and belief that long; five years was already too long to have placed such trust in the delusory. These fragments I have shored against my being: the line sprang into his head as he walked through the house; he heard it spoken in Hugo Glendinning’s voice. In the schoolroom, when he first heard that poem, and that line, it had meant little to him; he understood it now.

  In his study, as always at this time of the year, he found the first early roses; an applewood fire, the scent of which always reminded him of his childhood in the Loire; the decanter of Armagnac; the chair drawn up by the fire. In the bedroom beyond, the lamps lit, the sheets folded back, the bed prepared. In the dressing room beyond, his clothes for the morning would already be laid out. Everything was perfect, and correct, as it always was; he looked around the room, and he loathed the order, and its emptiness.

  George was fussing unobtrusively, as he always did. After the ritual inquiries, and the ritual replies, after he had placed Armagnac and glass at Edouard’s elbow, and made sure his chair was at the right angle to the fire, he hesitated. Edouard was wishing he would leave, but hadn’t the heart to say so. He looked up; George was presenting him with a small silver tray, and on the tray was not one, but two letters. He looked at George; George’s face was entirely inscrutable.

  “The first arrived in early February, Monsieur le Baron. I observed that it bore the usual postmark, and so I kept it to one side. It was somewhat of a dilemma. I felt I should not pass it to your secretary—it is marked ‘personal,’ you see. And it seemed unwise to try to forward it, when you were traveling as you were. The other arrived on the usual date, just as you had told me, and I retained that, of course. But…I really was not sure what to do. I hope I did right.”

  George’s face was now less inscrutable; Edouard could see the anxiety in it, and hear it in his voice. He felt a moment’s sympathy for George, as well as affection. For George to have to confess to uncertainty, to have been unsure, for once, of the correct course, could not have been easy for him. He hated mistakes, and he was no longer young.

  “You did quite the right thing, George. Thank you.”

  The relief was immediately apparent. George laid the tray carefully on the table, and withdrew.

  Edouard looked at the two envelopes. He made himself open Madeleine’s first. Two photographs this time: one of Cat, giving tea to an assembly of solemn-faced dolls; one of Cat with Hélène, in a garden. This breaking of the rules snapped his control. He let the photographs fall, and pushed the note from Madeleine to one side, unread. He picked up the other envelope; he did not recognize the writing, and it was difficult to open it, for his hands were suddenly unsteady.

  There were several pages: he looked at the address at the head of the paper, and the written words blurred. Almost dropping them in his sudden agitation, he turned to the last page, and looked at the signature—the one word he had waited for, so long.

  His hands steadied; he turned back to the first page. Dear Edouard. He held the pages to the light, and bent his head. He began to read the letter Hélène had sent, some three months before.

  “The city of the angels. The citadel of dreams.”

  They stood on the balcony outside Thad’s studio room and looked down over the city of Los Angeles. Thad sighed.

  “Come inside. I’m glad you came. I’ll make some tea.”

  Hélène followed him into the room. It was just as before, just as it always was. She sat down on one of the backless grayish seats; she looked at the two television sets. On one of them, a black and white film was playing, and after some minutes, in which she hardly saw the flickering images at all, she recognized the film: The Third Man. In a fairground in postwar Vienna, Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles were being carried up on the huge ferris wheel. She looked away. On the other screen, a Buddhist monk was dousing himself with gasoline. He sat quietly, cross-legged, his saffron robes neatly tucked in. When the flames leapt up in a corolla around his body, he did not move.

  She stood up and switched the sets off. On the floor next to the sets was a pile of newspapers and magazines. She could see her own face, and the familiar headlines, without bending. She turned away, without comment, and sat down again, just as Thad returned with the tea.

  “Oh.” He sounded irritated. “You’ve turned them off. That was The Third Man. My favorite movie. One of my favorite movies.” He pushed the mug of tea into her hand with a gentle yellow-toothed smile. “You remember how it ends?”

  “I remember how it ends.”

  “One long take. The camera never moves. It’s an incredible sequence.” Thad settled himself opposite her. “Looking straight down the drive at the cemetery. They’ve just buried Harry Lime. Bare trees—lime trees, maybe. Joseph Cotten is just standing there, waiting, and Alida Valli walks down the drive, straight toward him, straight toward the camera. You think she’s going to stop when she gets to him. But she doesn’t. She walks right on by. No one says a word. Just the zither music. Incredible. I timed it once. He loves her, of course.”

  “I told you, Thad. I remember it. And I didn’t come here to watch a movie. I came here to talk.”

  She broke off. Having been looking at the television set in a longing way, Thad was now looking at the pile of tabloids on the floor. He was smiling.

  “And I also wish those weren’t quite so prominent,” Hélène said. “Did you have to leave them out? I’ve seen enough of them these past months.”

  “Hey, Hélène. I’m sorry, I never thought…”

  He at once stood up, picked up the bundle of newspapers, and trotted off with them to the far end of the room. He put them on top of the packing cases. He trotted back.

  “Was it all true? That stuff?”

  “Some of it. He was my father. Thad…”

  “And you really grew up in that trailer?”

  “Yes. Listen…”

  “And that Major Calvert—the one that just died—he really was your first lover? You got pregnant, and had an abortion, and…”

  “Thad. For God’s sake. Leave it, will you?”

  Hélène stood up angrily and turned away. Ned Calvert had died two days after the story came out. At the wheel of his car, on the Orangeburg road, just near where he used to pick her up after school. A coronary. She shut her eyes. Had he known he was going to die soon? Had the story contributed to it? Or had she? She turned back and looked at Thad carefully. She herself had only just heard of his death in a letter sent from Orangeburg to Cassie.

  “How did you know he’d died, Thad?”

  “I saw an item somewhere this morning. Quite small. I just happened to notice it.”

  “You must have been paying a great deal of attention then. I didn’t know you even read papers like that.”

  He looked up. “Oh, I read everything about you,” he said with a little smile. “I was concerned. Naturally.”

  “Oh, naturally.” She returned to her seat. “So concerned, that when all that was going on, I never heard from you once. Not so much as a telephone call. However…I didn’t come here to talk about that either. I came here to talk about Long Division. You know something about that…”

  “Oh, I know all about it.”

  “Fine. Then you can tell me what you know.”


  “All right,” he said with a surprising meekness. “Not that there’s much to tell. You’ve probably guessed. Or Gertz told you. Stein didn’t like all the publicity you were getting. He thought the part of the wife was wrong for you now. It’s too hard. It’s too unsympathetic. Stein thinks you’ve got image problems, and he’s quite right. Stein thinks you need building up again. And the Gertz movie would have made it worse, not better. So he leaned on Gertz, which is like leaning on a sandcastle, and Gertz collapsed. That’s all.”

  “I see.” Hélène looked at him coldly. “You seem very friendly with Joe Stein suddenly. Why’s that?”

  “Ah, well. Now, that’s the interesting part.” Thad began to smile. “I’m leaving Sphere. I’m going over to Stein. And I’m taking both the sequels to Ellis with me.”

  “You’re what?”

  Thad began to look impatient. “I’m going over to Stein. It’s simple. I’ve had enough of Sphere. I’ve made that company a fortune, and all they do is quibble. They wouldn’t accept my budget for Ellis II; they wanted to cut me back to six point seven million dollars, which is way too low. And I don’t like that man Scher. I don’t trust him. He sits there being polite, and thinking he can order me around. Well, he can’t, that’s all. I needed Sphere once. I don’t need them now. And Stein has been trying to get us for years—”

  “Did you just say ‘us,’ Thad?”

  “Yes, us. Of course I said us. I can’t do Ellis without you, can I?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought so, no.”

  “Well, I can’t. However—that’s beside the point. The point is, the minute Sphere found out about Stein, they backed down quite a lot. Oh, yes.” He rubbed at his beard, and beamed at her. “You know how many times that little prick Scher called me yesterday? Twelve times. I’ve really got them on the run. They’ve upped the budget figures to twelve million. Just in the last twenty-four hours.”

  “Twelve?” Hélène stared at him. “So—are you telling me that you’re going to stick with Sphere?”