The youngest members of the family stayed up for dinner, which made it one of the messiest meals Harold had ever sat through. Joviality, however, reigned. Bottles of Italian Swiss Colony wine were opened and drunk with a lot of lip-smacking. Everyone ate enormously, especially Eleanor, who said she had two mouths to feed, and she didn’t want either of them getting hungry. Tony roared with laughter at his own jokes. Diane became the aunt again, helping the children eat, criticizing their table-manners. After dinner, Tony offered Harold a cigar, and they stood outside on the lawn while Diane and her mother did the washing-up.
“Dishes are woman’s work,” said Tony.
Harold felt he was a man after his own heart. Tony told him about the automobile business in San Diego, and offered to let him have a new car at a cut rate. Harold said he didn’t really need one just at the moment, but thanked him all the same.
It was time to leave. He said good-bye to Eleanor and patted the heads of the nearest children, hoping he wouldn’t catch any disease. He had never had mumps, and was frightened lest such obviously healthy children might carry germs around with them, too tough to catch anything themselves. Tony clapped him several times on the shoulder and told him to drop by if he was ever that way again.
“I don’t expect I shall be here again for a good while,” said Harold. “If I ever come again at all.”
“Of course you’ll come again,” said Tony. “Once a man has tasted America, he can never forget it. Why do you think all the immigrants stayed? Just for the money?”
“I should have thought that must have been one of the attractions,” said Harold.
“Sure, it’s one of the attractions. But it’s the life, the vitality, the vigour. That’s why they stay. Europe’s dying, Harold. You want to get out while you can.”
“You may be right at that,” said Harold.
“Of course I’m right. And you can breathe in this country. You can stretch. It’s on the move, on the go. Nothing stands still. A building goes up here today, it’s down tomorrow. Nothing, no one, stands still in America.”
Diane was saying good-bye to her mother.
“Gee, it was great, just great to see you again, Mom.”
“Nice to see you, too, Diane. You should come down more often. We’re always glad to see you.”
“Thanks, Mom. I come when I can.”
“You should fly down,” said Tony. “That way you can spend more of the day with us.”
“I might do that, Tony.”
“Well, I expect you’d better be getting back,” said her mother. “You don’t want to be too late.”
For a second there was a crestfallen look on Diane’s face, but it passed and she said, “Yes, Mom, you’re right. We’d better go. Good-bye, kids.”
The children shrieked their farewells.
“Everything all right there in L.A., honey?” said Mrs Campanella as they got into the car.
“Sure, Mom, everything’s just fine.”
“I’m glad about that, then. I worry about you sometimes, all alone there with your grandmother. But if you’re happy, that’s all right.”
“I guess I’m happy, Mom,” said Diane. She looked sad.
Mrs Campanella looked relieved. “Well, good-bye,” she said. “Drive carefully now, Harold.”
Everyone waved. Evening was nearly over and street-lights were already on.
Diane was silent as they drove north. She fiddled with the radio until she found a Mexican station, then leaned back and listened to the Spanish music, her eyes closed. When a man began to read what sounded like an endless commercial, Harold said, “Why don’t you change the station, honey?”
But she was asleep, and slept all the way to Los Angeles. She woke as they came into Inglewood, and said, “Where are we?”
“Somewhere in the middle of this mess of a city. I thought I’d try and cut across, but I’ll probably get lost. It’s a good thing you’re awake, you can guide me.”
“I’ll try,” she said. She snuggled against him in the familiar way. “That was a real nice trip, honey. Mom really liked you, too. I could tell.”
Harold wondered how, but he said, “I liked her, too.”
“They’re a great couple. And all those kids.”
“I was almost trampling them underfoot. I don’t expect they’d notice if they lost one, do you?”
Diane laughed, then looked serious. “You know, Harold, Mom and Tony, they’re kind of crazy the way they live, but they love those kids. You don’t notice, but they’re watching them, all of them, all the time.”
“It’s a full-time job,” said Harold.
“You’re all wrong about me not wanting to have kids, you know. You get some kookie ideas, Harold. I’d love to have about a hundred.”
“You can start any time.”
“I wonder what Grandma would say if I suddenly had a kid. I’d go up to her one day and say, ‘Grandma, you know what? I’m pregnant. How about that?’” She laughed with pleasure at the idea. “She’d throw me out of the house, I guess. She can be pretty old-fashioned at times.”
“I’d noticed,” said Harold.
“Don’t be like that,” she said.
“I think it’s time I went back into the desert and had a few great thoughts,” said Harold. “I want to go to Death Valley.”
“Morbid.”
“And to Salt Lake City. I’ve always wanted to see the Bonneville salt flats. Have you ever been there?”
“No. I think it’s kind of creepy, wanting to see those places. What do you get out of them?”
He thought about the desert, about the sense of being driven rather than driving, about the extraordinary content he had felt at the end of each exhausting day.
He said, “I suppose it’s something to do with seeing so many western movies. The desert is a place of great romanticism for me. It makes me feel humble and small and part of the human race. Sometimes, when I’m in a big city, like London or L.A., I feel as though I’ve lost my membership card, that I’m not the same as everyone else. It’s a form of megalomania. I start thinking I’m superior to everyone else. But in the desert I know I’m not, and I’m glad I’m human. It’s hard to explain. I get a kick out of it. But more than that, it’s as though I’m in some sort of primal relationship to nature.”
“How I hate that word ‘relationship’.”
“I’m sorry. Perhaps I’ve been in America too long. I’m beginning to be affected. Is my accent still purely Ronald Colman?”
“Sounds like it to me,” she said. “You are kind of crazy, Harold. I always know I’m human. I wish I wasn’t sometimes, but I always know I am.”
“Well, I was exaggerating, of course.”
Diane suddenly said “Shh” and turned up the radio. It was a newscast from a Los Angeles station.
“… fifty firemen, aided by helicopters, are fighting the blaze. No houses are threatened yet, and no one has been injured. Officials say they hope to have the fire under control by noon tomorrow. Beverly Glen Boulevard has been closed to traffic between Basil Lane in Bel Air and Mulholland Drive. Police today charged fifteen-year-old Harrison Fredericks of 2247 Adams Boulevard with the possession of two pounds of heroin …”
Diane switched off the radio and said, “That’s kind of close.”
“How close?”
“I don’t know. I think he said it was over by Stone Canyon. That’s up in the hills behind us. But the fire has quite a way to go before it reaches us.”
“Do you have scares every summer?”
“Yeah. The hills are kind of dangerous. Like gunpowder. There’s a couple of big blazes every year. And we’re right up there at the end of the canyon, so we get it first if it comes. It’s being cut off I worry about.”
“Well, call me if you need help,” said Harold. “You may not love me, and you may think I’m crazy, but I’m very good indeed at breaking down doors and things.”
“I’ll do that,” she said, and laughed.
“Where
do you think we are?”
“I guess we’re getting near Sepulveda Boulevard,” said Diane. “Then we can take the San Diego Freeway.”
“We can pass the place where Eddie killed himself, then.”
“Let’s not,” said Diane. “I think that would be kind of creepy. Let’s just stay on Sepulveda. It won’t take much longer.”
“All right,” said Harold. He wasn’t anxious to see the hole in the white fence which would be all that was left of Eddie’s sensational departure from life. He’d said, “When I go, I’m going to go big.” Well, he’d certainly done that.
“Life is a Freeway,” he said, “and there are only so many exits and entrances, and there’s a speed limit. If you make a mistake you die early, that’s all.”
“Very funny,” said Diane. “You’re morbid, that’s all.”
“It was an idea,” said Harold. “If I was a poet, perhaps I could make something of it.”
“You couldn’t write the lyrics of pop-songs,” said Diane, snuggling against him and laughing.
“I wish I could,” he said. “There’s a lot of money in pop-songs. Do you think I’m too old to become a pop-singer? I’d love that. Having my clothes torn off me at airports and things.”
“You’re crazy again,” said Diane. “You have to be sixteen, and you have to be able to not sing. It’s pretty hard, not singing.”
“I bought The Elvis Presley Story the other day. It’s very interesting. But you have to love your mother, and it’s better to start poor. I don’t qualify on either count.”
“Thank God for that,” said Diane. “I should hate to share you with fan clubs.”
“I don’t expect it will ever come to that.”
They came into Beverly Hills and he drove to the hotel, without thinking.
“Where are we?” she said.
“My hotel.”
“Harold! You might try and be a little more romantic about it.”
“I’m sorry. I’m English, aren’t I? I’m supposed to have good manners and say please. Well. Please.”
“I’d almost forgotten you were English,” she said slowly. “I guess it doesn’t matter what country you come from so long as you’re human.”
“It’s a point of view,” said Harold. He was holding the door of the car for her, but she didn’t move. “Come on, darling. Let’s not waste what time we have.”
She got out slowly, saying, “I ought to go and see if Grandma’s all right. She may be scared with the fire out there.”
“Can’t you forget her for a moment?” He was impatient, and walked her fast into the lobby of the hotel. “Jesus, anyone would think she was a child you had to look after. She’s got you wrapped up every way.”
“Less of that, Harold.”
They got in the elevator and were silent, Diane standing rather apart from him. The elevator man was George and he gave Harold a purely professional look, then stared aloofly at his buttons.
“You know,” he said conversationally as they got out of the elevator and walked towards his room, “I feel more and more English all the time. I become daily more aware of the differences between peoples of the same colour.”
“You could fit in here if you wanted,” she said. “Anyone can fit in L.A. In five years you wouldn’t have a trace of accent. L.A. was designed for people who wanted to become anonymous. That’s why it needs all the angels there are to look after it.”
When Harold wanted to undress her, she pushed him away.
“I don’t want to,” she said.
“Why ever not?”
“I don’t, that’s all. It’s like I told you. You treat me as though you own me. You just don’t excite me that way.”
“You didn’t seem exactly cool yesterday.”
“Yesterday was yesterday.”
“Incontestably.”
“Don’t get so angry. I’m human. I don’t like being in the desert. I don’t have to go there to feel ordinary.”
“Shut up, Diane,” he said fiercely. “Good God, I’ve put up with enough of this. What do you want to do? Go home and sleep with Grandma? Aren’t you even normal?”
She slapped his face hard.
“I guess that about makes it even,” she said. “Now you can take me home.”
“All right, go home. I don’t care. Why should I care? I just offered you love, and of course love doesn’t matter, no, not when there’s an old woman with a comfortable home for you.”
“Shall we go?” she said, opening the door.
“Oh, God, Diane,” he said. “For heaven’s sake, we don’t have to quarrel like this, do we? I mean, we’re adults, aren’t we? I’m sorry I said that. But you drive me out of my mind sometimes, you’re so bloody collected.”
“I’m not collected,” she said angrily. “Jesus, I’m in pieces all over the place. Only a dummy would think I was collected. You’re so self-centred you just can’t imagine anyone wanting to live their own life, that’s your trouble. Now let’s go, before I call a taxi.”
George looked professionally unsurprised to see them again so soon. Harold glared at his back to no avail.
In the car he tried to ease the tension, but Diane said, “Look, let’s get home, please. Grandma is probably frightened up there alone.”
“Grandma,” Harold muttered. “Christ, why the so-called civilized west hasn’t got around to suttee yet, I can’t imagine.”
From her silence he gathered that she didn’t know what suttee was. Failed again.
As they turned off Sunset up the canyon, there were large notices forbidding smoking and warnings of danger from fire.
“I hope it’s not really serious,” Harold said, trying to make her say something.
“Oh, no,” she said. “It happens every year. There’s no way to stop it. The hills are so dry you just have to breathe on them and they catch fire.”
“I haven’t dreamed about fire since I got to L.A. I was dreaming about it every night in the desert. I suppose it’s blazing passion that has stopped it.”
“It takes fire to drive out fire, they say,” said Diane.
As they came to the head of the canyon there was a red glow in the sky to the north.
“Wow,” said Diane. “That must be quite a fire.”
The moon was hazy, and there was a scent that might have been smoke. When they got out at the house they could feel a light breeze blowing from the north.
“I just hope that fire stays where it is,” said Diane. “It’s the wind is the danger. If it blows hard there’s nothing can stop a fire. It just leaps over the fire-fighters. They lose men that way.”
Harold shuddered.
“Good night,” said Diane.
“Darling, I’m sorry about what I said.”
“O.K. You’re sorry. But I’m still angry. Just let me cool down, will you?”
“All right. May I call you in the morning, please?”
She stood looking at the red glow.
“Do you think there’s any point?” she said.
“There is for me,” he said.
“Make it the day after,” she said.
“Diane——”
“Good night, Harold.”
And she was opening the door before he could move, her silhouette sharp and trim against the light from inside the house. He could hear her say “Hi, Grandma.” Then the door closed.
Why should I care, he thought, why, why should I care? Is it wounded pride or injured love? Why am I wasting my life pursuing other people’s pictures, other people’s girls, frittering my time away?
For a few minutes he stood and hated methodically: Dangerfield, Fenway’s, Mrs Fanshaw, Mrs Washburn, Dennis Moreland, Mr Blackett; Diane Washburn.
Then he drove back to the hotel.
Eight
THE TELEPHONE WAS RINGING and ringing and ringing. As he groped out of sleep for it, part of his mind was ticking off who it might be—Dennis Moreland, getting the time wrong (what was the time?), Mr Dangerfield deliberately ph
oning to express his dissatisfaction with the way things were going at a time when he knew Harold wouldn’t be awake, Eddie Jackson calling from hell.
He picked up the receiver and said “Hallo”, but no sound came out. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Hallo.”
“Harold?”
“Diane! What on earth’s the matter? What time is it?”
“Harold, can you get here as quickly as possible? There’s a danger of the fire getting here. A wind got up in the night and blew it this way. Come real fast, Harold. We want to put as much in the car as possible. And there’s no answer at Uncle Henry’s.”
“Right,” he said, fully awake now. “I’ll be right there.”
“Thanks, honey. But hurry.”
He pulled back the curtains. It was light, the sun was shining, but there was no sign of life. It was six o’clock in the morning.
He dressed rapidly, and went out to the parking lot. It was cold this morning. There was a definite wind, and he shivered slightly, wishing he’d put on a coat.
The streets were almost empty, and he drove fast along Sunset to the turn into the canyon. A few yards beyond the signs saying No Smoking, there was a police block.
“You can’t go any farther,” said a policeman, leaning in through the window. “There’s a fire coming right over the top of this hill here.”
“I’m going to rescue a family,” said Harold. “They called me and asked me to come. Can’t I go through and collect their things and come right back down again?”
“What family is that?” said the cop.
“Washburn. Number 1745.”
“Just a moment. I’ll have to ask the lieutenant.”
He walked over to an officer who was talking to someone on a walkie-talkie radio. He waved the policeman aside and went on with his conversation. Then the policeman was able to explain what Harold wanted. The lieutenant came over.
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