Miriam smiled.
6
I smile. The sun slides free, looks down on me. The sun, methinks, looks with a watery eye. But which of us was Titania, which was Bottom?
The interviewer says, “That was your first professional role.”
“True. True.”
“And Miriam Croft was a great help to you.”
“We were a great help to one another," I say, and I laugh. But it hurts to laugh. I seem to be nothing but broken ribs from neck to crotch when I laugh, so I stop laughing. I smile. “We helped one another in so many ways," I say.
FLASHBACK 5
At night, the view from Miriam Croft's bedroom window was of a magnificent swath of dark, twenty-seven stories below, pinked with warm and creamy lights; the stretch of Central Park extending from in front of her building on West 59th Street two and a half miles north to 110th Street, flanked by the,bright towers and armed fortresses of Manhattan. The George Washington Bridge was a jeweled necklace in the far upper left of the view, a number of neoned corporate logos made glittering brooches at the throats of nearer buildings, and now and then a slow-moving hansom cab became briefly visible as it passed through the illumination of a park light far below, hinting at a gentler and more romantic age.
A magnificent view, but at this moment Miriam Croft was not observing it. At this moment, Miriam, her contact lenses out, was blurrily observing her bedroom ceiling, while Jack, atop her, performed like mad. “Oh, my Gaaaaa-aahhhhd!” Miriam cried out, and Jack raced to catch up, and they crossed the finish line together, spent, panting, their two hearts pounding as one. “Oh," Miriam said, her arms gripping him tightly around the back. “Oh. Oh."
“Mmm, Miriam," he murmured, smiling against her perfumed but crapen neck. Gradually he permitted more and more of his weight to rest on her, until she would want him off; at last she did, releasing him, sighing with long contentment, sliding her long-fingered hands from his back.
Then he lifted himself, rearing up on extended arms, beaming down at her, delighted in them both. “Well, well, Miriam!" he cried. “You are all right!"
Irony, briefly lost, had returned to Miriam. Stroking his cheek, smiling, she said, “The workman is as good as his tool, dear."
“You can teach me so muchl" Jack cried.
Miriam's smile turned acid, became cold amusement. “And the first lesson, dear," she said, “is don't be too eager."
“But I am eager, Miriam," Jack cried, laughing at the truth of it. “I'm eager for everything, I'm eager to be, to be used” Rolling off her, sitting up tailor-fashion, resting one hand on her lowest rib, he said, “I am a good actor, aren't I?"
She nodded, slowly, solemnly, treating it as a serious question. “Probably better than you know," she said. “And you aren't even afraid of it, are you?"
“Why should I be?" he asked, astonished. “It makes me happy!"
“And you are going to make me happy," she told him. “And there are no dangers at all in the world."
“Not in our world," he said.
7
How the years collide! And here I am, after all, while the past bounces and rattles away like tools left in the trunk of a car. How can I describe this to my friendly neighborhood interviewer? I cannot. I will not. These are my memories. “Ah, Miriam,” I say.
“Miriam Croft,” the interviewer says, and I can hear him imperfectly hide his disapproval. But who asked for his approval? He says, “She must have been forty years older than you.”
“Forty-three, in fact,” I say, amused after all this time by that strange fact. Doubly amused by the interviewer with his narrow little views.
“You had an affair with her,” says this prissy little man.
Disapproval gives me strength. All at once, it is possible for me to rise to a seated position, legs folded on the slate. I tuck the robe down between my legs—no use offending him that way as well—and I say, “She kept me, pal. That was an off-Broadway show we were doing. Her name wasn't that big anymore, and the pay was peanuts. But Miriam got me the job and moved me into her Central Park South apartment. She bought me my first really good wardrobe, she introduced me to people, and she taught me how to not be too eager. Miriam was very good for me, and I think I was pretty good for her, too. Brightened her last days, you might say."
Amusement makes me weak. I recline again, slowly, not wanting to crack the old beano on the slate. Very valuable slate, you know. I lie down. I smile at the sky. The interviewer waits, so I say it: "Brightened her last moments, in point of fact."
FLASHBACK 6
The limousine rolling northeastward through the dusk on the New England Thruway, that strip of high-speed road between New York City and the Connecticut state line, was a gleaming tasteful black, with New York plates indicating it had been either leased or rented. The chauffeur was a serious-looking white man of close to sixty, in a black suit, white shirt, narrow black tie, and black uniform cap. The glass partition between him and the spacious rear compartment of the limousine was closed, and from the point of view of the front seat the rear seemed to be empty.
It was nearly eight in the evening of a midweek day in spring. The air outside was soft, the sky pearlescent, the traffic not at all bad, considering the realities of the BosWash Corridor. The driver was accomplished, the limousine in excellent condition, the voyage smooth and tension-free.
A sign passed on the right. The driver, noting it, lifted the telephone from near his right knee on the dashboard and spoke into it: “We are entering Connecticut, madam."
Immediately, Jack's head rose into view on the other side of the partition. He was laughing, his eyes manic. He gazed in the rearview mirror at the reflection of the driver's face—the driver's eyes remained fixed on the road ahead—then groped for the rear seat telephone and spoke into it.
The metallic voice sounded in the driver's ear: “And that ain't all we're entering, James. We'll need fifteen minutes.''
Not a flicker of expression touched the driver's face. Correct, unflappable, he said, “Yes, sir.''
Jack, laughing, extended the phone down out of sight toward the floor in back. More faintly, his metallic voice sounded from the phone the driver held to his ear: “Do you wish to speak to James, madam?''
Another voice sounded, equally metallic, but identifiable as that of Miriam Croft. At first she was merely laughing, but then she said, “Halliwell, just keep driving, dear, until we tell you otherwise.''
“Yes, madam."
Less distinct, too far from the phone, Jack said, “How about me, madam? Should I keep driving?"
Miriam's laughter was loud, then farther away, as Jack took the phone from her and spoke into it again, grinning through the glass at the driver “We'll just keep driving, James, you and me, right through Connecticut! Can we do that?"
Miriam's laughter sputtered and struggled as she fought for breath, trying to talk and laugh and inhale all at once, crying out, “Oh, no! Oh, don't! Oh, poor Halliwell!" but then the laughter broke into pieces, into choking and gasping, into wheezing and terrible retching sounds.
Jack stared downward, suddenly concerned, then frightened, the phone in his hand obviously forgotten. Through it, the driver heard him cry, “Miriam? Miriam! Jesus God, put your tongue in! Miriam! Not you, too!"
Dropping the phone, Jack poked and prodded at the out-of-sight Miriam, while the chokes and gasps weakened. Then he turned to the driver, panicky, pounding on the glass, yelling, his words barely audible at all until he remembered the phone and dived for it. The driver, unsure what was going on and knowing that practical jokes were not impossible with these people, at last frowned at the rearview mirror, in which the wild-eyed and terrified Jack suddenly reappeared, phone mashed to his ear as he yelled, "Help! She's having a fit or something! Find a hospital!"
This was no practical joke. "Yes, sir” answered the driver, and pressed the accelerator to the floor.
And so the limousine tore through the sweet-scented Connecticut night, t
railing Jack's screams, Jack's moans, Jack's brokenhearted cry: "Miriam! Please! Pull yourself together!" And across the empty lanes his final, fatal scream: "Not agaaiiinnn”
8
There are things I shall not tell this interviewer. Wild torsos could not drag them out of me, though they're invited to try.
On the other hand—is it the other hand, or another part of the same hand? A different finger?—on the other finger, then, there are things I shall not even tell myself. In fact, so clever am I, perched atop this other finger, that I shall not even tell myself what the things are that I shall not tell myself. And to think people say drugs affect the brain; not my brain, Pops.
Between the things I shall not tell myself and the things I shall not tell the interviewer are those incidents, those memories that can still cause pain but not to an unbearable degree. Such as, to take the example that slots neatly into its chronological space at this juncture, the funeral of Miriam. Facing the patient silent interviewer with my blandest and most untroubled smile, I relive that troubled time.
A lot of people blamed me for what happened to Miriam, but my doctors said it wasn't my fault. She'd already had two minor strokes, which she hadn't told anybody (including me) about, and it could have happened at any time. And, as far as I was concerned, Miriam had checked out just exactly the way she would have wanted, coming and going at the same glorious moment. But you couldn't explain that to a lot of thin-lipped nieces and nephews.
Miriam had found me an agent—her own, of course, Jack Schullmann—and Jack phoned to say if I went to the funeral he’d drop me as a client and do his best to blackball me in the theater. He was an important man in that bitchy world, but I told him to go fuck himself. If he and the rest of them wanted to take away everything that Miriam had given me, that was all right, too. Bury me with her like an Egyptian servant, I didn't care.
So I did go to the funeral, and a hard-eyed usher made me sit in the back row. No one spoke to me or acknowledged my presence in any way, but that was the first time my picture ran in the National Enquirer. Is that funny, or what?
Jack Schullmann was as good as his word; after Miriam's funeral, when I finally came out again, I too was dead. But really dead. I made the rounds the same as ever, hit the auditions, sent my resume to every other agent in town (none of them wanted me, not then), but nothing happened, and in truth my heart just wasn't in it. But then one night . . .
But this is something I can report aloud, a spot where I can bring the interviewer aboard again, give him a little whadayacallit—frisson. That's it. Got a frisson for you, pal. “After Miriam’s death," I begin, but then I cloud over briefly, and when my internal sky once more is clear the interviewer is still there, politely waiting, pen poised, eyebrows lifted in respectful attention. “Yes,” I say. “After . . . that, I was lost for a while. I didn't know where to go, what to do, who I should try to be. I still had my friends from the classes and all that, we still all hung out together, went to parties, but I felt distant, not really a part of the scene. I knew that no matter how it might look from outside, I didn't care for anybody else, and nobody else cared for me. And without the acting, without using myself, with nobody to be but me, I was empty, I was nothing. I guess that's about as alone as I ever got."
The interviewer nods, viewing me with faint (possibly professional) sympathy. "How long did that go on?" he asks. "That sense of . . . separateness?"
"Separateness?" I laugh, hurting my throat. “That’s permanent," I say. "But the trouble after Miriam died? Almost a year, all in all. Until the following summer, when one night at a party I ran into Harry Robelieu, the director of the play where I'd met Miriam, and he asked me what I was doing that weekend, was I free or what, there was somebody he wanted me to meet. So I told him I was free, and God knows that was true, and that was how I first went to Fire Island Pines and met George Castleberry."
FLASHBACK 7
The far blue sea was full to the brim, rolling up the white sand lip of shore and receding again, flowing and ebbing, frothing white, whispering to itself while up on the silver-bleached wooden deck the pretty people in white trousers and powerful people in multicolored muumuus chattered together amid a jingling music of ice cubes. The deck served as collar for an oval swimming pool in which two bronzed young men in bikini briefs played and giggled, their fingers from time to time brushing as though inadvertently each others thighs. The bikinis bulged, the eyes sparkled like the sea, the pink tongues lolled in their mouths.
Beyond the pool and deck was the house, all white and glass, broadside to the sea, extending to the right beyond the deck. Through open sliding glass doors was the wide main room, at once parlor, dining area, and kitchen. In here, among the white walls, blond furniture, and large semierotic paintings, more people, all of them male (like those outside), chatted and drank and ate the delicate canapes. The kitchen was at the right end, and beyond it stretched a skylit hall flanked by doors—master bedroom and bath on the ocean side, guest rooms and bath on the poison ivy side—with an open door at the far end leading to a room enclosed by crowded bookshelves, with small windows grudging an ocean view and a desk against the windowless farthest wall. In this room, hunched over a small portable typewriter on the desk, sat the owner of the house, George Castleberry, trying to get some work done.
It was always the same thing every summer. Get into a social mood, invite friends, accept friends of friends because the whole world and his gay brother wants to come to Fire Island Pines, and when the house fills up discover there's just too much work to be done, deadlines are pressing, the whole thing was just a dreadful mistake. The typewriter calls, duty calls, let the damn locusts amuse themselves, they'll all be gone on the last ferry anyway, no sleepovers. Except, of course, for those very few, that tiny number, that infinitesimal troop of those George Castleberry actually liked. Then he could settle down with that hardy band for the true amusement of the day: dishing the day trippers.
In the meantime, work. It was so hard to concentrate; while his guests cavorted, George frowned furiously at the leaden words he had most recently typed. A slender petulant balding man of fifty-three, dressed in a green and white caftan and brown sandals, George Castleberry was among the three or four most powerful playwrights of the current American stage, and yet it seemed to him when working that every word he put on paper was meretricious and false, that he had been incredibly lucky in the matter of actors and directors and producers, that he was a fraud and a mountebank who would inevitably some day be exposed for the utter waste of everybody's time he really was, that it was only the deplorable state of the American theater—all the really talented writers were either doing novels for the art or movies for the money—that had made it possible for him to get away with this fourth-rate toothless mumbling for as long as he had. Having to fight his way past that clawing gorgon in his mind to the typewriter every day left him not much time or patience for the sensibilities of others. Now, hearing light laughter more distinctly than the general background wash of social chitchat, he snarled, he actually ground his teeth, he turned to glare over his shoulder and down the long hall to where some pretty pansy all in white stood twinkling in amusement, just beyond the threshold into the kitchen. “Damnit!" George cried. “Close that door!1'
Startled faces were turned toward him. Two or three people reached at once for the knob, bumping into one another, creating a brief Keystone Komedy before at last the door was shut and he was alone.
Still angry, George turned to the typewriter and glared at the words written there. “Now I don't get the ventilation," he muttered, anger shading into self-pity.
Two or three minutes of despairing concentration quite slowly elapsed. George's fingers moved tentatively to the typewriter keys, tapped out a word, another, another, a phrase, a sentence, another.
A breeze riffled the page in the typewriter. Party chat became audible again. George, one eyebrow raised in murderous disbelief, turned about to see Harry Robelieu making his way do
wn the hall toward this room, diffident but daring. Robelieu, a minor director of off-Broadway or out-of-town productions, was among those tolerated by but not actually welcomed by George; his brazen approach now, no matter how tremulous, was so unexpected that George said nothing, didn't even snarl, scarcely showed his teeth as Harry traversed the hall and entered the office and said, “George, we just came over on the ferry."
Deceptively quiet, George said, “I'm trying to work here."
Harry, unbelievably, didn't even acknowledge that. Some sort of excitement gleamed beneath his pale anonymous face. He said, “There's someone I want you to meet."
“I don't want to meet people," George told him. “I hate people. What have people ever done for me?"
“This isn't people,” Harry insisted, moving toward the sea-view window. “Come take a look.''
George sat where he was. Harry looked out the window, then back at George, gesturing to him to come see. George turned his head to glower at his typewriter, needing to struggle through to victory, but at the same time tempted by this distraction, intrigued despite himself by Harry's unwonted manner. With an angry slap of the hand on the desktop, he rose and crossed toward the window, prepared to be coldly bitchy about anything at all Harry might have it in mind to show. “Yes?" he said.
“Look," Harry said, gesturing again, stepping back from the window.
George looked, lips already curling.
All alone by himself, at the outer corner of the silver- gray deck, stood a magnificent boy of twenty-three or -four, in tight black T-shirt and white jeans. He was half turned away, one hand on hip, gazing out over the illimitable sea. Sunlight caressed the strong line of his jaw, shadowed the eyes beneath his brows.
Westlake, Donald E - Novel 50 Page 3