Contango (Ill Wind)

by James Hilton

  Towards midnight the surviving merrymakers called for a speech from Sylvia, who was still dancing with Nicky, and the cry was taken up so boisterously that guests came rushing in from their various preoccupations in other parts of the house and gardens. Sylvia, with her arm through Nicky’s, mounted the dais amongst the jazz-players and skimmed a few sentences serenely above the hubbub. She said very little about the new film, except that it was finished, and that she was sure it was going to be a success. But she praised Nicky and insisted that all the credit was due to him rather than to her. At this there was some slightly mocking applause, to which she responded by adding: “Well, anyhow, you’ll all be seeing the picture, so you’ll soon have a chance of judging the kind of person he really is.”

  To her surprise, Nicky flushed and appeared put out by the remark. “I don’t know that I particularly want all these people to know the kind of person I really am,” he answered, in a tone that began with lazy insolence and ended in a note of shrill rage. Then, in the excited hush that followed, he gave a sudden laugh, shook himself free from Sylvia, and pushed his way out of the room.

  Four hours later Sylvia slowly undressed amidst the perfumed and unguented luxury which had been photographed for so many art magazines and beauty-cream advertisements. She had not seen Nicky since his abrupt departure from the dance-room, and she was trying hard to feel that he had not meant to snub her publicly, but had only been a little more capricious than usual after too much champagne. Harder still, she tried to feel that it did not really matter what his reason had been, since he had behaved rudely to her, and must be left either to realise it for himself or not at all. It was by no means the first squabble they had had, but it was the first time they had ever given a public exhibition. She felt hurt, cross, and achingly tired after the stress of the evening and the sharp deflation of her triumph. The house and gardens were still full of sounds of the servants clearing things away, and one always wondered at such a time if it had all been worth while. On the whole she thought it had—at any rate, up to the scene with Nicky. Fortunately, everybody had been more or less tight when that had happened. Perhaps Nicky too, poor boy. She had better make up her mind, she reflected, whether she was chiefly sorry or angry.

  She got into bed and soon found physical languors too comforting to resist; she was nearly asleep when suddenly the door opened and Nicky entered. He wore one of his brightly futurist dressing-gowns over green silk pyjamas, and smoked a cigarette that drooped obliquely from the corner of his mouth. There was nothing of his usual elegance about him; his face, on the contrary, was flushed and unquiet, and his hair tumbled over his forehead in picturesque confusion. After switching on the light he closed the door noisily and, without looking towards the bed, strode over to the dressing-table and began to use one of her hair-brushes. He did not speak, though of course that might be because he thought she was asleep; in which case, she considered, it had been rather bad-mannered of him to switch on lights and make such a racket. “Well, Nicky,” she said quietly, “where have you been?”

  He swung round and answered in a clipped and rather peevish voice: “I couldn’t stand that infernal crowd, so I went out, got drunk on my own, and then had a bathe in the pool.”

  “Rather silly of you, really. Just the way to take a chill and die of pneumonia.”

  She was surprised, but able to keep quite unperturbed. She had been prepared for his meeting her with bland forgetfulness, or even with some sort of an apology; that he might continue the flare-up had hardly suggested itself. But then he always did what one least expected, she thought, calmly watching him.

  He went on, rather loudly; “Look here, Sylvia, all this—the sort of thing that happened to-night—has got to stop. Don’t say you don’t know what I mean. You DO know. You were patronising me. You had me on a bit of string and kept trailing me round to be shown off to all your confounded friends. I won’t have it. I belong to myself, and I won’t be made a tame monkey of. I tell you I won’t have it. And don’t imagine I shall be restrained by any feelings of—of gratitude—or chivalry—or—”

  “My dear Nicky, those are the last motives I should ever suspect in you. I’m afraid you’re still rather drunk or you wouldn’t be talking such nonsense.”

  “It isn’t nonsense. You know perfectly well that all this evening you’ve been doing nothing but parade me!”

  “And that’s all you can give as a reason for making a scene in public? Just because I said something quite harmless and not very important that didn’t happen to take your fancy? Do you ever care a damn whether I always like the things you say?”

  “That’s different. You went round acting the proud mamma with the infant prodigy!”

  “Oh, Nicky, you’re too funny! Even if I was acting, which I don’t feel inclined to admit, haven’t I as much right to an occasional pose as you have? Don’t you ever act? Aren’t you acting just a little bit now? Why, you’re just lashing yourself into a temper to enjoy the result, that’s all. I’ll allow you’re managing it rather well, but I’m doing my share too, remember—your smart dialogue wouldn’t come out so pat if I didn’t hand you the right cues. And, by the way, I don’t think the hairbrush gestures are quite in keeping—put it down and try something else.”

  He suddenly collapsed on to the bed and began to shout and shake with laughter. “Oh, Sylvia, whatever makes you so adorably acute?” Every cadence in his voice was changed, and as he went on laughing he stooped and buried his lips and nose in the gentle hollow of her throat. “Do I smell of champagne, darling, or doesn’t it matter? Oh, what a lovely and clever woman you are! Lovely, yet you’ve got a mind like a surgical knife…. I like the mixture, I must say.” His lips roamed to her mouth, and he added, in between deep kisses: “Yes, I do… DO… like… it….”

  She flung her arm round his neck and stroked his face, instantly forgetting the ridiculous little tiff, and submitting to his fondling with rich contentment. Her sensuality was of a kind of which she felt no shame and which she saw no need to suppress. “Nicky, I’m—I’m glad you like me.” That sounded silly. She had only said it to hear herself say it; her real answer was with her body. And her body felt, if it were possible, amused. It occurred to her all at once that here they were, the two of them, engaged in these rather abrupt and intimate diversions, without ever having exchanged a word of love. That was modern, surely. In the old days, to judge from novels, love was largely a matter of protestation, and an author had to work his characters up to a fantastic pitch of verbose sentimentality before he could close the final chapter with a chaste embrace. Rather unhealthy, she thought; she remembered going through the phase in her teens— perhaps most girls did at that age. Anyhow, the mere idea of talking love with Nicky made her feel quite comically gigglish. It was all right for the films, but they would be too well aware of each other’s technique to take themselves seriously in private. In the midst of her cool, roving thoughts she passed from mere amusement to sharp, quicksilver delight. Marvellous boy! And how wonderful those days had been at Sabinal—long, brick-red days in the sun, Nicky hallooing the Indians, sausages frying over picnic-fires, the rusty-rose of the sky when they all returned to camp in the evenings. And the scarlet ocotillo that was like a spurt of flame, and the big blots of lilac and lemon on the hillsides. … She was never quite certain whether colours made her happy, or whether she always noticed them most when she was happy. For she liked Nicky tremendously—as much as she had ever liked any man, if you could call him a man…. But to LOVE him… well, anyway, he didn’t ask you to. If he wanted to kiss, he did, and if you felt in a similar mood, all right; he didn’t insist on adding a huge significance to it. And what WAS love, for that matter? Only a word to mean anything you liked; drinking too much champagne, sleeping with somebody, dying on the battle-field, going to church— you did it all for what could be called by the name. An unprecise term, therefore, to use in an argument…. But she was at Sabinal again, its colours before her eyes and its warmth lapping her
like a tide; and she knew at last that whether she loved Nicky or not (an absurd problem), his coming had made a difference beyond her power to calculate, and that without him now she would be struggling amongst the elbows of the world. She had had her day, there was no real doubt of it; but his profound and lovely foolery could give her the illusion of a second chance.

  * * *

  CHAPTER FIVE. — NICHOLAS PALESCU

  “I don’t want to stay here long,” said Nicky, driving his two-seater on Fifth Avenue; and Sylvia, sitting next to him, purred comfortably: “Sure, Nicky—after the next picture we’ll go to Europe for a season, or Japan, or just anywhere you like.”

  He pulled up sharply and the surrounding items of the traffic-block seemed to stoop over him in menace. It was an extravagantly low-built car, the last word in silver-gadgeted opulence, and a recent gift from Sylvia; there had been photographs of it and of them throughout the Press, and the makers, for publicity, had let it go at half-price. But Nicky already felt that he had given away several thousand dollars’ worth of advertisement in return for nothing but the sensation of being a large baby who must not only travel in a bassinette but propel himself in one. Just now, for instance, the occupants of adjacent cars immediately noticed him, and there was a concerted craning of necks and muttering of comments until, with a jerk, the traffic moved on.

  Nicky had come to New York with Sylvia after the successful premičre of ‘Red Desert.’ The fact was, at the trade-show the film’s obvious merits had caused several distributing companies to bid for it, and Sylvia, after much haggling and consultation with Statler, had disposed of half her rights for a hundred thousand dollars. As this was nearly as much as the whole film had cost to produce, and as the services of nation- wide distributors were bound to result in larger profits, she felt she had driven a good bargain. True, the distributors insisted on making a few slight alterations in the film as it stood. Besides the change of title, it was also decided to add a few supplementary studio scenes revealing the fact that the Indian was not really an Indian after all, but a bank-president’s son whom his parents believed to have been drowned as a baby, but who had actually been rescued by Indians and brought up as one of themselves. The timely discovery of his true ancestry made possible a new and happier ending for the picture, and the final scene showed Nicky and Sylvia bringing paternal tears to the eyes of an old man in a bath-chair. Apart, however, from these additions, and the shortening of a kiss by two seconds in the interests of public morality, ‘Red Desert’ was substantially the same work as the projected ‘Amerind.’

  The revised version represented, it might be said, a victory for reasonableness and common sense on all sides. Sylvia had been at first reluctant to consent to any changes at all, but the unmistakable enthusiasm of the film-magnates for the production as a whole convinced her that it would be merely quixotic to stand out, particularly as Statler favoured agreement and Nicky offered no objections. Only the Russian producer proved thoroughly intransigeant, but since he had no direct financial interest in the film’s success it was easy to discount his attitude. Nor could it be denied that the cautious editing imposed by the distributors seemed amply justified in the reception given to “Red Desert” by the cinema- going public. The dish had been well salted by preliminary publicity, and the story of how Raphael Rassova, the new Roumanian film-star, had originally masqueraded in Hollywood as a Roumanian prince, and how Sylvia Seydel had found him out but had refused to give him away, evoked delighted comments from the gossip-paragraphists. “A wonder film,” quoted the blurb compiled from assorted newspaper criticisms. “Something new in cinematography…. Raphael Rassova is marvellous, and Sylvia Seydel is lovelier than ever…. At one bound the Roumanian Romeo steps into the front rank of heart-throbbers…. Miss Seydel has surpassed herself…. To take a single glance at Rassova is to know instantly why girls leave home…. Rassova is a revelation. Not since Valentino has there risen such a star in the firmament…” The film’s triumph was definitely clinched when a Baptist minister in Athens (Arkansas) described it in a sermon as “a shameless aphrodisiac, fit only for a nation of birth-controllers and evolutionists.”

  On Sylvia, at least, the effect of such rather stupendous success was completely tonic. She had always (until the Wall Street slump) considered herself a good business-woman, and she was in her element now with the shoals of offers that began to pour in on her, not only for film-work, but for such remunerative side-issues as newspaper-articles, recommendations of face-cream, magazine-interviews, etc. All her depressions had lifted at last; she had “rung the bell”; her “come-back” had been practically all that she had ever hoped—practically, yes—and the impractical residue had been fairly easy to forget. She was still a queen in her own right and on a safe throne; besides which, she had had the genius to marry Nicky. That, in the opinion of Hollywood’s coolest critics, was a prudent fortification of the dynasty.

  “You see, Nicky,” she was saying, that afternoon on Fifth Avenue, when the next traffic-block gave her the chance, “we’ve made such a wonderful hit that it’s terribly important to follow up quickly with another. Terribly important for you too. So many people won’t take you seriously till you’ve done a thing twice—they’re always afraid the first time may be only a fluke.”

  “Well, so it may be. And, anyhow, who wants to be taken seriously?”

  “Yes, I know, but when people begin handing you dollars by the hundred thousand you can’t treat the matter entirely as a joke. That offer of Vox’s this morning was pretty good, and I think he’ll give more if we hold out. I cabled him that we’d accept two-fifty, but I expect it’ll end by splitting the difference.”

  Nicky assented rather vaguely. He took little interest in the complicated financial problems that had arisen since his ascent into fame; beyond the knowledge that he was now rich enough to buy anything he wanted in shops, he was glad to leave all that side of the business in Sylvia’s hands. It was not that he couldn’t bargain shrewdly himself; he could, when he wanted to—which was to say, when he felt that the issue could possibly matter to him. He had, for instance, enjoyed the haggling with those Englishmen about the aeroplane invention, and with Sylvia about his original salary as secretary, because in those days he had needed money and could bother about it. But now he found it difficult to raise any keen excitement about the exact digits that were to precede the row of noughts in his new contract.

  When they reached their suite at the Plaza a cabled reply from Vox awaited them. Sylvia’s eyes, as she tore it open, conveyed the news. “Nicky!” she cried. “He’s accepted! He’s not even arguing about it! We’re signing for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars!”

  He smiled, and tried to think, as a mere essay in the whimsical, what the sum of a quarter of a million dollars might do. It might buy a scrap of frontage on Broadway, the whole Ziegfeld chorus for an experiment in companionate marriage in Honolulu, a large-sized howitzer, or a seat on the New York Stock Exchange; it could endow a professorship of ventriloquism at Harvard, equip a scientific expedition to Mongolia, or pay the interest on the world’s debts for about ten minutes. What was quite certain, however, was that the quarter-million handed over by Vox would be employed in none of these thought-provoking pursuits. He said, after his reverie: “Yes, it’s not too bad, is it? But it’s got to be earned yet, remember. How many pictures are we promising?”

  “Three.”

  Three, was it? Thirty-three would have appeared to concern him no more—and no less. For he knew then, quite definitely, that he didn’t want to make another film at all. He was bored, with a boredom like a hot chafing that would soon break into a sore. “I think I’ll go out for a walk,” he said, desperately seeking relief.

  “But, Nicky, dear, if you wouldn’t mind, there are just a few things that you simply must do. …”

  This time it was autograph-books that had to be signed. There was a whole heap of them awaiting the scribbled “Raphael Rassova” which, since it would inevitabl
y convert the mere admirer into the devotee, was considered well worth the trouble both by Sylvia, with her experience, and by Nicky’s new private secretary, with his. This latter person was a hearty, hand-shaking New Yorker, specially recommended by Vox for the education of rising stars in the way they should twinkle.

  Nicky filled his fountain-pen and set dismally to work. Just before he had finished the secretary admitted a girl journalist who wanted to know his life-story, how it felt to be famous, and his opinion of American womanhood. A few of her questions he answered frivolously, and afterwards Sylvia warned him against this; for it appeared that journalists were dangerous people, with immense power to injure him if they conceived themselves slighted. He was, he realised, a much more vulnerable person now than ever before—an idol, it would seem, only so long as he skilfully avoided becoming a target. He grumbled for a time, but there was soon the need to dress for a dinner and reception that were being held that evening in his honour. He went in a state of grudging resignation induced by several cocktails, shook hands with between four and five hundred people, made a short speech, signed menu-cards by the dozen, and drank some rather bad brandy. As he crossed the pavement afterwards with Sylvia to reach their car, a crowd of girls who had apparently been waiting in the rain for some hours rushed forward. His coat was torn slightly and one girl put her arms round his neck and pulled his hat off. He rode back to the hotel ruffled, sombre, and hardly soothed by the sight of a monster sky- sign spelling out his pseudonym in letters of vivid scarlet. Sylvia, of course, had been marvellous throughout the entire evening—marvellous herself, and marvellous in the way she had tried to spare him the kind of things he disliked. It was the one axiom he forced himself to admit on every possible occasion—the marvellousness of Sylvia. That she was beautiful, clever, and immensely capable of running their married life as a going concern, were facts so indisputable that he could not easily decide what else there was that she could have been. Perhaps not very much. And yet… his mood of growing dissatisfaction seemed just to touch her, as it were, while his back was turned, and to recoil swiftly whenever he caught himself at it.