As Far as You Can Go

by Julian Mitchell

  “Wait a minute. Do you know why Mr Washburn wants to see me? I mean, how did my name come up?”

  “I guess he was talking about you. He was kind of loaded, shooting his mouth off about how he was going to sell you some picture. Didn’t you say you were trying to buy a picture? He reckons he can get it for you. But he was pissed as hell, he didn’t make much sense. Sounded like he was thinking of taking you for a ride.”

  “Well, thanks for telling me. It’s good to know there’s someone on my side, anyway.”

  “I don’t take sides, you should know that. I’m just a contact man. But watch out, Harold. He’s a real old queen, I’m telling you. And mean, too, I guess. And he’s over thirty-five. That does make me on your side, I guess.”

  “Did you tell him anything about me?”

  “What is there to tell?” said Eddie. “Listen, I’ll see you about six, right? I’ll call him to make sure he’s still interested, and tell him we’re coming over. I’ll call you right back if the deal’s off, O.K.?”

  “O.K.”

  “Hey, what about this Diane?”

  “You’ll see,” said Harold.

  He ran himself a bath and thought about Eddie’s phone call, and about what Diane had told him about her uncle. He didn’t trust Eddie at all: after all, Eddie had defined a friend as someone you couldn’t trust, and that certainly went for Eddie himself as well as for his friends. So, by axiom, Henry Washburn wasn’t to be trusted either. Who could be trusted? Well, there was Diane. Yes, there was Diane.

  He had been too quick to tell Eddie that he would bring Diane. Presumably Henry Washburn thought he could get round his mother and persuade her to sell the miniature, expecting some kind of commission for himself. Which would be splendid. But how would Diane react to the idea? It was very curious that while she said very nasty things about her grandmother she didn’t at all like it when Harold added a few rude words of his own. She would become defensive at once, excusing the old woman for her generally bloody-minded attitude, taking the remarks Harold made as somehow reflecting on herself. The more he had got to know her, the more he had found it difficult to understand the relation which bound the old and the young woman together. They didn’t seem to like each other very much, and yet they seemed to operate as a pair, they thought of each other as permanent companions, perhaps. Harold was always aware of being an outsider when they were together.

  Not that Mrs Washburn had continued her rudeness after that first visit. She called him “son” and even “Harold”, she seemed to enjoy talking to him, to be flattered by his interest in her life, telling him long stories about early days in the west, sometimes repeating tales her father had told her. As she talked she would smile at him, the watchfulness gone from her eyes, and her hand would sometimes rest lightly on his knee or arm as she made a point. He even began to wonder if he might not be a welcome visitor: Mrs Washburn must get very lonely up there at the end of the canyon. Yet although she was friendly, although the watchfulness would sometimes disappear, he never felt that he was being treated as a welcome guest. It was more as though he was an alien under surveillance, allowed to travel in the country, but followed everywhere by two pairs of eyes. For it was in the Washburns’ house that Harold was most aware of the barrier that Diane would not let down: when he and Mrs Washburn were talking, Diane would go into the kitchen, or look out of the window, or sit smoking at the far end of the room. But in spite of this show of indifference he felt that she was watching and listening all the time. And when he was talking to her, he felt Mrs Washburn’s eyes always on him. Occasionally the two women would exchange a long silent look whose meaning he would be unable to penetrate, and he would feel excluded. Excluded, alone, alien.

  He had tried to tell Diane about this feeling, but she laughed quickly and said he was imagining things.

  “Besides,” she said, “Grandma and I have lived together for twenty years. You get so you don’t have to say things to each other after that long: a look is just as good.”

  “But what are you saying in those looks?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, and laughed.

  But he felt that she did know, that she was just as conscious as he of the exclusiveness of the glances held for so long across the drawing-room, and that she didn’t want him to understand them, to be included.

  And how would she now take the news of her uncle’s wish to see Harold? He almost wished that Eddie would call to say that the whole thing was off. But Eddie didn’t call.

  He toyed with the idea of not telling Diane anything about it. But he was supposed to be taking her out this evening, and besides—he wanted to tell her. By withholding nothing from her, he hoped to induce her to lower the invisible barricade between them, not to withhold in her turn. The mixture of business and pleasure was proving to be more complicated than he had gaily imagined.

  He dried himself and dialled the Washburns’ number.

  “Hallo?” said Diane.

  “Hallo, Diane. Listen, I’ve got news for you.” He explained what had happened, listening for reactions.

  All she said was: “Who’s this friend of yours?”

  “Eddie Jackson? He’s really rather terrible, I’m afraid. I met him in London, and just happened to run into him again here. He’s mad. He lives for going to bed with people, and he’s not choosy about the sex.”

  “You should pick your friends more carefully,” she said. “Gee, if he knows Uncle Henry, he must be undesirable.”

  “I think he only met him yesterday. Oh, and he hates everyone over thirty-five, so he can’t possibly like him, can he? How old is your uncle, anyway?”

  “He’s certainly over thirty-five. I guess Grandma told him about you and the goddam picture.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Harold, there’s no funny stuff going on, is there?”

  “Not yet. Not as far as I know. I’d tell you at once if there was, you know that.”

  “I’m not going to do anything to help Uncle Henry fool Grandma, Harold.”

  “No, of course not. Look, maybe I could come up a little earlier than usual and talk to you about it. And I’d like to talk to your grandmother, too. She might show me the miniature today, perhaps. Honestly, she’s like an old courtesan, withholding her favours from a young suitor.”

  “Yeah,” said Diane, to whom Harold had told the legend attached to the miniature, “like Queen Elizabeth and the kid in the picture, huh?”

  “Not unlike. Except I hope I won’t lose my head.”

  “O.K., honey. Do you want me to tell Grandma where we’re going?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t, darling, not till we’ve seen what it’s all about. Don’t you think?”

  “O.K.”

  Yes, but was it O.K.? Harold had no desire to become embroiled in any unpleasantness, any family plotting. He wanted to obtain the miniature, and he wanted to go on being in love with Diane, and if it came to a choice between the girl and the picture, well, as he had told her, life before art every time. But—life also included Mr Dangerfield. The miniature hardly represented art at all, it represented instead Harold’s raison d’être in Los Angeles. In fact, he had better start being careful: once he’d obtained the thing, if he ever did, then he would have no further reason for staying. Denver called. Mrs Bannister had written asking when he was coming. All the same, he could hardly spin out the negotiations about the miniature just to give himself time to spend with Diane. The spider would almost certainly not like the idea of that at all. No, the thing to do would be to get the miniature as soon as possible, send it off to Dangerfield, accept his thanks, then start looking around for a job. There was a good deal of ominous talk about a recession, but Harold felt that it couldn’t possibly apply to him. He could, anyway, always become a butler. Servants were paid fantastic sums in these parts, and he might as well make his English accent work for him.

  He went up to San Domingo Canyon at about five o’clock, and they sat out in the small garden, while
Mrs Washburn watered the few miserable flowers at endless length. Harold felt rather tense, and Diane seemed cooler than usual towards him. But Mrs Washburn never wandered far enough out of earshot for them to be able to talk properly about the miniature and Uncle Henry and Eddie.

  He described Eddie with some deliberate omissions, but Diane said, “Oh, I know that kind. L.A. is lousy with them. I bet he’s the sort that steals cars for kicks.”

  “Well, I think he does steal cars, actually, but not for kicks, particularly, just to get around. His kicks are rather more sophisticated, I think. I’m not at all sure that I should allow you to meet him. I mean, him to meet you.”

  “You’d better make up your mind who you do trust and who you don’t, Harold. And let me know.”

  “Oh, come off it, Diane. You know very well that I trust you absolutely.”

  “Well, don’t be too absolute about it,” she said. “I tell you, if I have to choose between Uncle Henry and Grandma, and I don’t like either of them, I’d choose Grandma every time.”

  “Let’s go inside and talk,” said Harold.

  “Grandma will just follow us, you’ll see.”

  “That suits me fine.”

  Mrs Washburn did indeed follow them, but there was nothing for her to overhear. Diane said simply that she wasn’t easy in her mind about it all, and Harold said he wasn’t either, but the time hadn’t come to tell whether there was anything to be uneasy about or not, so why not forget it for half an hour? Diane said she’d try, but she was in one of her restless moods, and walked up and down the room, saying little or nothing.

  When Mrs Washburn came in, Harold mustered his bravest smile and said, “You did say you might let me see the miniature one day, Mrs Washburn. I do hope you’re feeling in the right mood.”

  “My moods are my own, son,” she said. She sat down on one of the sofas, and there was silence for a few minutes, while Diane continued to prowl the deep white carpet.

  “Diane, you’re giving me indigestion,” said Mrs Washburn at last. “Go up to my bedroom and get me my jewel-case, would you, child? I guess your friend here has been kept in suspense long enough.”

  Diane started slightly, but did as she was told, giving Harold a look as she left that he didn’t understand. It was hostile and yet despairing, as though she was doing something she didn’t want to do, that she thought he was forcing her to do, but which she couldn’t help doing.

  There was another silence as she went up the stairs and into her grandmother’s bedroom. Then Mrs Washburn laughed, a hard dry cackling laugh. “It would be kind of funny, Mr Barlow, wouldn’t it, if it wasn’t the miniature you were looking for, after all?”

  It was the first time she had called him “Mr Barlow” for several days. She cackled again, and gave her false breast a push with her hand. Harold looked away.

  “There’s nothing to be ashamed of in being old,” she said, suddenly and fiercely. “You remember that, young man.”

  “Of course there isn’t, Mrs Washburn,” he said. “Any more than there’s anything to be ashamed of in being young.”

  She seemed to relax a little, then she said, “Don’t you forget it. When you’re young you think you’re the only person in the world who can feel any emotion. And that’s wrong. That’s cruel and wrong. You think I’m just a mean old woman who won’t let you have something you want, don’t you? But I’m not mean, I have my own feelings.”

  Diane came down the stairs with a small box of red leather with an elaborate clasp.

  “Here it is, Grandma,” she said. She didn’t look at Harold.

  “Here it is,” repeated the old woman. Her fingers fumbled with the clasp, then opened the box, with a sort of reluctant tenderness, Harold thought. For a wild second he imagined that the miniature might be missing, so portentous had the atmosphere become.

  Mrs Washburn took out several rings, some clips, some earrings, laying them on the sofa beside her. Then came a rope of pearls, very like the one she always wore.

  “I’ve always been fond of pearls,” she said. Then, “You shall have all of this, Diane.”

  Diane was staring out of the window and did not turn round.

  “Here you are, Mr Barlow,” said Mrs Washburn. She held a chain from which there hung a locket. She snapped it open brusquely and handed it to him without looking at the portrait inside. “You may gaze your fill of it.”

  It was indeed the Dangerfield miniature, exquisitely done. A young man with auburn hair was leaning against a tree which had the date carved in the bark, 1599. He seemed negligent, affected, clearly aware of his own good looks. There was a bright blue background, as in old Dutch pictures, against which his hair seemed flamboyantly red, though a closer look showed it to be a true auburn, with dark lights in it. One hand held a book from which he appeared to be looking up, as though surprised by the presence of the artist; the other rested on his hip. He wore a loose collar, and a white shirt, with white hose and yellow velvet pantaloons, if those things were pantaloons. He was arrogantly sexual, Harold thought, assured, at ease, with a grave mouth that seemed to invite the viewer to trade epigrams or kisses with him. He was really very handsome. One could see why Queen Elizabeth was attracted. Also, perhaps, why she wasn’t sorry to see his head roll. He didn’t look the sort of man who would have been easy around the house, let alone around a palace. His pointed shoes looked as though they were itching to kick a servant up the bottom. Yet he looked dissatisfied, too. In fact, there was something restless about him which reminded Harold of Eddie Jackson.

  “It’s beautiful,” he said.

  “And is it the one you’re after?”

  “Yes, Mrs Washburn.”

  “Well,” she said, “now you’ve seen it.” She was watching him very closely, he felt, but he didn’t hand it back at once.

  “Come and look at it, Diane,” he said.

  “I don’t want to see it,” she said.

  “Now, child, why ever not?” said Mrs Washburn. “You’ve seen it before. Don’t you like it?”

  “Not any more,” said Diane. “Harold, we ought to be going. I’ve put your supper on for you, Grandma, you only have to take it out of the oven.”

  Harold gave the miniature back to Mrs Washburn and said, “I’m most grateful to you, Mrs Washburn. I can see exactly why you don’t want to part with it. I wouldn’t myself.”

  “My husband gave me that,” she said. “He was no good, my second husband. But he bought me that. There’s a lot of things in this life, son, that you don’t want to part with.” She looked at the miniature. “But you part with them all in the end.”

  He wondered if there was a deliberate double meaning in her words. He was about to speak, but thought better of it.

  “Hadn’t we better get moving, Harold?” said Diane.

  “I’m really very grateful,” said Harold.

  Mrs Washburn put all the jewels and the miniature back in the box and snapped the lid. Hearing the snap, Harold felt a sudden constriction in his throat, as though he had had a plate of food snatched from in front of him. His mouth was full of saliva. He realized suddenly and for the first time that he wanted the miniature for his own reasons, and the hell with Mr Dangerfield. To have held it in his hand and to have surrendered it again seemed madness. It was almost like voluntarily submitting to castration.

  He pulled himself together and said, “Yes, we ought to be going. Good night, Mrs Washburn.”

  “It’s hardly evening yet, son,” she said, with mild surprise. “Now you kids go off and enjoy yourselves. Off with you, now.” Her hands lay relaxed over the jewel-box.

  She is my enemy, thought Harold.

  As they got into the car Diane said, “Well, I hope you’re satisfied now.”

  “No,” said Harold, “I’m just beginning to get an appetite, as a matter of fact.”

  “Look, Harold——” she started.

  “You listen to me, Diane.” She was no longer a girl to daydream about, sitting beside him, her face
pale and her eyes hostile, the pupils like sharp pinpricks. She was the girl he wanted, and wanted very badly. “Let’s not pretend anything any more, shall we? There are just two things I want in California, and I want them badly enough to know I’m going to get them. One’s that damned picture. And the other is you.”

  “What I like about you is you’re so romantic,” she said.

  “Listen to me, Diane. What have you got against me? I want you. And I’ll show you that I’m serious enough not to give a damn about your grandmother. She may have frightened off the other boys. She may have frightened you. But she doesn’t frighten me.”

  He leaned across the car and seized her shoulders roughly and kissed her very hard. She was caught off balance, and didn’t have time to resist, at first. But then he felt the invisible polythene bag again, and the pleasure went out of the kissing. He felt a surge of rage and despair, and pulling back he slapped her face, not hard, but enough to sting.

  “What in hell’s got into you?” she said, stunned.

  “I’m sick of this politeness, this distance, between us. Why don’t you let go? If you don’t like me, say so. But there’s always something you hold back. Why? And why do you side always with your grandmother?”

  “Why?” she said, blankly. “Why?”

  He started the car and began to drive fast down the twisting road of the canyon.

  “Yes, why? Do you think I’m hanging around you just to soften up your grandmother? Do you think——”

  “Harold, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Jesus Christ,” he said, slamming on the brakes as they came to a stop sign. “I love you, Diane, that’s what I’m talking about.”

  He was still angry, still hungry. He turned to her and saw tears in her eyes, tears and fright. The tiny pupils seemed hypnotized.

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” he said, more gently.

  She began to cry.

  “You don’t have to hit me,” she said, between quiet animal sobs. “You don’t have to act rough, Harold.”