by Muriel Spark
‘Well keep in touch — just a minute’ — he turned to speak to Claire. ‘They believe they’ve found a sighting.’ Then, returning his voice to the phone, he said, ‘If it’s true, what a relief. Claire says, keep in touch with us. Do keep in touch.’
‘Every day,’ Cora promised.
‘I hope,’ said Claire to Tom, ‘that those two are having a good time while they’re about it.’
‘So do I.’
When they were in England Tom and Claire lived in a large house at Wimbledon, in four acres of garden, well off the road. It had been built in 1932 and had always been occupied by film people — producers, film tycoons, stars of fame and substance.
For Jeanne, who had by no means given up her inscrutable campaign against Tom, the house itself was a provocation. In reality it frightened her, its size, its silence behind the curtained windows and closed doors, and its loftiness inside, in the circular entrance hall, on the few occasions that the door was opened to admit her.
‘I want to see Mr. Richards.’
A new face had opened the door every time she had called. A series of young men, secretaries, helpers of the Richards family according as they were told off to open the door. Claire kept no live-in servants except the cook, also called Claire. But in the world of films there were always nice young girls, nice young men hanging around.
‘Tom Richards is resting, I believe. You know he has to rest.’
‘I’m Jeanne.’
‘Oh yes, I recognised you. Would you like to see Mrs. Richards?’
‘No, I saw her already.’
‘Just take a seat, I’ll see what I can do, Jeanne.’ Claire finally appeared as Jeanne knew she would. ‘Come in and sit down. Have a drink.’ They would go into a smaller room with drinks on the side table and a newspaper falling to bits on the floor.
‘You know, Jeanne, we’re worried about Marigold. Tom has had a lot of troubles. That last interview you gave wasn’t very nice. Why did you do that? What have we done to you?’
‘I’ve been used,’ said Jeanne.
‘We’re all used,’ Claire said.
‘Oh, really? Well, explain why I’m the key figure in the film and I don’t get star billing.’
‘Because you are not the star,’ said Claire. ‘Rose Woodstock is the star.’
‘I’m the main character in the story and I hardly have three close-ups. I am the story.’
‘That’s an artistic problem,’ said Claire. ‘You have had the opportunity of talking to Tom.’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘Well, you know Tom had an accident. Didn’t you see the rushes ever?’
‘No, I didn’t. The directors didn’t think I was worth asking.’
Claire pointed out that Jeanne had a contract. She should take it to her agent, her lawyer, if she thought she had a gripe. Claire pointed out everything except the fact that Jeanne was actually cast to have the fleeting part of ‘Jeanne’ in the film. A flash here and there and she was gone. It was difficult for Claire to be so explicit. It sounded deprecating. How does one explain an act of art? Rose Woodstock was the obvious dramatic draw, with her name, her looks and her outstanding presence. Never once had Jeanne been made to portray a rival to Rose. There was no story of female competition for the principal actor’s affections. Jeanne was an idea. A hamburger girl, frequently with her back to the camera, whose part in the story was by definition that of a nobody.
‘But I,’ insisted Jeanne, ‘am the one who’s going to inherit, to be a millionairess.’
Claire thought the girl was mad. Her face was gaunt. Unlike the fairly pretty aspect she had presented in the film her look now was slightly haunted. Claire suspected she had been taking drugs. Jeanne had gone to Venice, to the Biennale film festival, aimlessly drawing to herself what attention she could, but unable to compete with Rose Woodstock or even to find a place at a café table with the glamorous, white-toothed leading male actor who, in the film, had so well known how to offer a present to a girl (Rose Woodstock), and who now, in Venice absolutely failed to recognise Jeanne.
Claire discerned that Jeanne urgently needed a psychiatrist’s help.
‘I was to have inherited millions.’
‘Jeanne, you are not the Jeanne in the movie.’
‘Oh, no?’ said Jeanne. ‘Oh, no?’ This carried a threatening note. Claire thereupon decided not to give her any money, as she had been thinking of doing.
‘You signed a contract,’ Claire said rather harshly. ‘Presumably you had an agent and you’ve been paid. Go and tell all this to your agent, Jeanne. We don’t want you here.’
‘And,’ Jeanne went on, without moving, ‘I was deliberately photographed in half-profile all the time, so I wouldn’t be recognised. The light always, always, blotted me half out.’
‘Light,’ said Claire, ‘is a director’s problem if it’s in the open air. You have to catch the same light from day to day to provide continuity. But anyway, you were meant to be half blotted out. That was the film. You could consult a lawyer if you aren’t satisfied. But it’s rather late. Why didn’t you protest at the time?’
‘Because I’m inexperienced. Because I didn’t realise what was going on. I was exploited.’
Claire, not knowing if Tom had slept with the girl or not, maintained an air of kindly coolness and of other miraculous and contradictory qualities such as she had learnt to adopt in the course of her life with Tom: maternal extraneity, professional amateurism, understanding and incomprehension, yes and no.
Escorting Jeanne decisively to the door Claire said, ‘Have you a family?’
‘My mother was with me in Venice. We saw Marigold.’
‘Really? Where?’
‘In one of those lanes. She was with a man.
‘Can you describe him?’
‘Fairly old. Like Tom. What sort of man can she expect? — Face like hers.’
‘You should have reported this at the time,’ said Claire. ‘Interpol are looking for Marigold.’
‘That’s not my problem.’
‘You’re right.’
By instinct Claire had sworn off lovers until Marigold should be found. Like Tom, she felt that Marigold was still alive somewhere. Cora rang her up. After the first possible ‘sighting’ which was at Montmartre, she and bright young Ivan had received only vague ‘signalisations’, as Cora put it. In the meantime Ivan had set up an office in a small street near the rue de Rivoli. He held that if you set up an office in Paris for a project you were going about things the right way. An office, an informative-type computer, a fax machine, two telephones (one unlisted, one not). They were now in the way of receiving confidential information from any source. Marigold’s face in many angles of photography had been planted with taxi-drivers, barmen, students and teachers, at numerous universities, especially those few where the students did not have to produce a school leaving certificate to sign up for a course. Cora and Ivan meanwhile stayed in a rented apartment on the Boulevard St. Germain. Cora wandered round the boutiques and department stores. Ivan, to do him justice, went to his office every day to check on the messages — many, but mostly futile — that arrived from his array of informers. Claire paid, and was well-satisfied with Ivan’s efforts. She was sure he had given professional thought to the problem. She was sure he was very busy about it. But was Marigold still in Europe? She could be anywhere, anywhere …
‘She is in Europe,’ said Ivan decisively.
How did he know?
He wasn’t saying. He just knew.
‘I don’t so much want to know where she is,’ Claire told Cora. ‘I only want to know if she’s alive.’
‘Or dead,’ said Cora.
Claire hadn’t liked to actually give voice to the alternative.
She suspected that Tom, too, had given up lovers. There seemed to be no women in his present life, but Claire didn’t attach weight to that aspect of Tom’s character. It was an extraordinary marriage, and Claire only reflected briefly on what Marigold h
ad once visited her to say: ‘Why don’t you and Pa separate? Why don’t you get divorced like other couples in your state?’
Well, thanks, Marigold. We are closer now than we ever were, Claire mused.
She had gone to the film festival at Venice with Tom.
The reporters asked Tom about Marigold: ‘Your daughter. Her disappearance. What were your relations with Marigold? Not too good I gather.’
‘That she’s my daughter is one fact,’ Tom replied to one of these enquiries. ‘My relations with her are another. What I’m looking for is my daughter. You can keep your nose out of my relations.’
And Claire told them, ‘We’re doing everything in our power to trace the whereabouts of Marigold. She is free to go where she likes. But her disappearance is worrying.’
Tom’s film, Unfinished Business, was a decided success.
‘But,’ Tom told Dave, ‘I didn’t feel the usual warmth, the camaraderie. You would think the film people would come up to me and ask about Marigold, wouldn’t you? Well, at least I must admit, Zeffirelli rang me up. “Tom,” he said, “I read about Marigold. Don’t give up. Keep your courage. She must be somewhere. If there’s anything I can do …” You see,’ said Tom, ‘that’s what I call a friend. Franco Zeffirelli is human and he feels for people. But the British, the Americans — they’re so suspicious. Do they really think I’ve murdered Marigold, had her done away with? Is that what they do to their own daughters?’
‘It’s put in their minds by the newspapers. The diarists drop hints, as you can see.’
‘But why?’
‘It seems to me,’ Dave said, ‘that the tone is set by Marigold herself.’
‘She’s in touch with journalists, you mean?’
‘That I don’t know. But she could set the tone in a number of ways, Tom. Word of mouth is the strongest method I know, always has been.’
‘Then you think my daughter’s still alive.’
‘Alive,’ said Dave, ‘and kicking.’
‘Why should she want to foul-mouth me?’ Tom said. ‘She doesn’t like you.’ Dave stated this so much as a matter of fact that Tom wondered if he had some certain source of knowledge.
‘Dave,’ he said, ‘if you suspect anything. If you could tell me where she is, or even give an indication…’
But Dave shook his head.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Let us go then, you and I, …
‘You should write your memoirs.’
‘I know,’ Tom said. ‘But you wouldn’t believe how many chances of recording my memories I missed. So many conversations. All forgotten, and so many have died. John Braine knew a good deal about films, he had a whole lot to say, especially about films adapted from books. But I can’t remember a single word of it, not one point that he raised. All I recall of John Braine is that he advised me to drink Earl Grey tea. Filthy stuff, to my taste. Then there was Mary McCarthy. She spoke voluminously but I don’t remember a thing, didn’t take a note. What I remember was how formal and conventional she was. At a cocktail party she always wore a correct dress, sometimes black, sometimes red, very smart, with a diamond brooch and white kid gloves. Always the white kid gloves which she held with her handbag. But who cares about details like those?’
‘I care,’ said Dave.
‘Do you really! Do you honestly? — Why?’
‘It tells you something about the person, details like Earl Grey tea and white kid gloves.’
‘You’re right,’ Tom said. ‘You’re absolutely right. But I wouldn’t have expected you to feel that way. In fact I think they wanted to create a memory of themselves — Earl Grey tea and white kid gloves.’
Two days after this, while Dave was alone in his taxi after dropping a fare at Holborn, a car drew up beside him at a traffic light. Dave glanced as he waited, at his neighbour, a young man with a nobody-special look and sun-glasses accompanied by a long-haired mousey girl, in a B.M.W. As he glanced back at the traffic light, now changing, he was aware of an arm coming out of the window of the B.M.W. and after that he was aware of little else — some hooting behind him urging his taxi to move — until he came to full consciousness in hospital. Dave had lost a small fragment of his skull, his chin was cut with glass from the broken window, he suffered from shock and concussion, but otherwise was sound. He was told his life had been saved by a fraction of an inch.
He could only vaguely describe the hit-man and the girl companion to the police. The car, he knew, was black and shiny, a three-year-old model.
Had he any enemies, debts? No, he hadn’t. They searched his house from top to bottom, much to his wife’s indignation: ‘We’re the victim and they treat us like the criminal.’ The police found no drugs, no evidence of handling drugs, — they found nothing.
After Dave was discharged with his head still in bandages an inspector of police in plain clothes came to see him. The man took off his glasses, breathed on them one lens after the other, cleaned them with his handkerchief and put them on again.
‘You are quite a friend of Tom Richards, aren’t you?’ said the policeman.
‘That’s a fact,’ said Dave.
‘I daresay you’ve wondered if this misfortune of yours might have some connection with him?’
‘I’ve wondered,’ Dave said. ‘And so has he. We didn’t want the press and the T.V. to get hold of the idea.’
‘Well,’ said the man, ‘it’s one of those cases where it even might be helpful if the press did catch on to it.’
‘It could be anybody,’ Dave said. ‘How much can a hit-man cost?’
‘A lot,’ said the policeman.
‘That leaves out a lot of people,’ Dave said. ‘If they wanted to get at Tom through me, the number is limited. If they only wanted to get at a taxi-driver, a Mr. Anybody on the street, like they do and you know it, there is no limit to the category of person.’
‘Who are Tom Richards’ enemies?’
‘You have to ask him yourself. There are always cranks who want to hit the famous.’
‘But they hit you.’
‘Well, it could have meant a piece of advice for Tom and then again, it couldn’t.’
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Pretty rotten. I’ve got a headache. I dream of the hospital, though. The lovely nurses.’
The press had been sympathetic, indignant, puzzled.
Tom said to Claire, ‘We have too much money. It allows us too many possibilities, endless options. It could be Marigold, quite easily. It’s unlikely to be Jeanne although she would have some sort of motive. Jeanne couldn’t afford it. Marigold could.’
‘And Rose Woodstock?’ Claire said.
‘You can forget Rose. She got her prize at Venice, didn’t she?’
‘Yes, but you didn’t wait to see her collect it.’
To the police, Tom said, ‘It fills me with horror but I find the idea that the bullet which hit Dave was meant to intimidate me irresistible. What other reason should bring him into the news like this? What they’re saying is “Next time it will be you, and we’ll get you.” But Why? Supposing Dave had been killed. Who would it serve? Cui bono as Cicero said.’
‘We’re a long way from Cicero’s time. He probably didn’t give much thought about the motiveless crime. I’m not up in Cicero,’ said the inspector.
‘The gratuitous gesture? Do you think it’s that?’ Tom said.
‘Can’t rule it out.’
They didn’t say, but they plainly suspected, Marigold.
‘Is there no way you can make your daughter come out in the open? She needs help. She’s probably dangerous.’
‘Perhaps if I separated from Claire. If we put in for a divorce, she might come out of hiding, if that’s where she is. But even if we did that, she wouldn’t be convinced. You know, we’re neither of us at all sure but it could be Marigold who hired that killer in the B.M.W.’
‘Have the police been back to see you?’ Dave said on the phone to Tom.
‘Yes.’
&nbs
p; ‘What did they say?’
‘Nothing. They talk in circles.’
‘That’s to trip you up,’ said Dave. ‘Second, third time round you’re almost bound to contradict yourself.’ He wanted very much to go cruising with Tom again.
‘Let’s wait awhile,’ said Tom. He hated to be afraid.
Tom got out some photographs of Marigold. Marigold at sixteen in her tennis clothes. Marigold at a ball, frilled up in white. Marigold eating a frankfurter at a swimming-pool in New York State.
‘She is not so hideous,’ Tom said to Claire.
‘She has a fairly good figure,’ said Claire, looking at the photos that Tom had handed her. ‘It’s only the expression.’
‘In fact,’ said Tom, ‘by modern standards she has quite an interesting face. Not a beauty. But interesting; photogenic. She would do well in a harsh movie. Say, Ibsen; say Ibsen, a film adaptation. Say Thomas Hardy. I wish I’d thought of it.’
‘Has she ever had a film test?’
‘Not that I know of,’ said Tom. ‘Not by me, anyhow. Those little eyes …
‘They make too much of the eyes in my opinion in modern films and T.V.,’ Claire said. ‘They can’t get a decent script so they make it up with huge watery shining eyes brimming with feeling. Too much, too many —’
‘Well, you could be right.’
Jeanne’s lawyer wrote. Tom, he said, had represented to Jeanne that her role in Unfinished Business was to be a major one. He had actually put that in writing. ‘Of major importance.’ Instead, she had occupied a minor part. And so on. ‘My client deserves an explanation with adequate compensation for the professional damages undergone.’
The lawyer was a well-known and expensive one, who would never have taken on such a doubtful case without a good down-payment. Where did Jeanne get the money?
‘Probably Marigold,’ said Claire. ‘It was a mistake on my part to ever settle money on her. But as she’s my daughter…’
In the course of their enquiries with the shooting of Dave, an ex-boyfriend of Marigold’s emerged. Now discarded, he was the same man as was concealed with her in the trailer when Tom and Claire went to look for her in the Haute Savoie. That was now four months ago. The youth recounted his experience with Marigold but said they had parted shortly afterwards. He did not discount that Marigold was perfectly capable of hiring a hit-man if the plan suited her. The police eventually believed the boy, whose name for the present purpose is irrelevant, and let him go. Where was Marigold? Nobody knew for sure.