He stopped at the front door as he reached it, and turned to look at her. She had followed him from the living room, ready to see him on his way, and said not a word.
‘I think perhaps I should say thank you,’ he said.
‘It’s better than apologising. But I don’t want that either. Just be happy.’
‘I am.’
‘Then that’s the way it should be.’ She pushed the door open and they stepped out into the sudden sunshine of the spring morning. There was a bite in the air of departing frost but beneath that a warm promise of sun to come, and she shook her head as she looked at the blush of green on the bedraggled privet hedge at the end of the scrap of front garden.
‘This is too much,’ she said. ‘Even the damned weather’s getting sentimental on me.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I was thinking something similar. Only not sentimental. More loving.’
‘Don’t talk about that! I can’t cope with that. Not yet. It’s enough to be happy. Love is something else.’ And for a moment the old Miriam was back, watchful, edgy, unapproachable. But he wasn’t worried. He’d known the other Miriam too well to be concerned.
‘I don’t have to talk,’ he said. ‘It’s enough to feel it.’ And walked down the path. ‘I’ll call you this afternoon, Miriam. And for God’s sake, get this house sold will you? It’s time you came to live in London. I can’t keep on trailing down here, can I?’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’ve got a movie to make,’ he said and went along the street towards the main road, whistling between his teeth.
Thirty-Six
He stood for a long time after hanging up the phone, staring out of the window at the clutter of buildings, which looked in the light of the murky Californian sun as though they had been made out of pasteboard and balsa wood, and waited for the wave of feeling to subside. It had caught him with such surprise that he actually felt sick.
But it’s real, a corner of his mind insisted. It’s fantastic! It’s what every bastard in this stinking business wants, and you’ve got it! You’re the right side of forty, and you’ve done it. You’ve cracked it. Great, fantastic, magic, the whole bit.
So why, the rest of his mind retorted, do I feel so low? What the hell’s the matter with me? Why feel so sick and so…?
The door behind him swung open and she came in, balancing a tray with glasses in one hand and pulling the food wagon behind her. ‘I sent the man away — I thought you might still be getting dressed. Here, give me a hand with this.’ And then she looked at him and, at once, set the tray down on the bed with a rattle of the glasses, and almost ran across the room to him.
‘What’s happened? What’s the matter? You look awful.’
‘I — nothing. It’s great — I’m fine. Here let me fix those things.’ Abner crossed the room almost blindly, stumbling a little, meaning to bring the wagon further in and to set chairs beside it. But she wouldn’t let him and put an arm round him; she took him over to the other bed and sat him down, her arm across his back.
‘Now, tell me what’s happened. I heard the phone and I thought — ’ She went a little white around the mouth suddenly. ‘Is it Frieda?’
‘Frieda?’ Abner looked puzzled and then shook his head. ‘No, it’s nothing to do with Frieda. I spoke to her this morning. She still won’t come, no way will she come, but she says she’ll watch on the TV. Which is quite something for her. No, it’s nothing to do with Frieda.’
‘Then, what is it?’ Miriam was getting angry now as anxiety got the better of her, because he still looked drawn and very distressed and she peered more closely into his face and hugged him closer, suddenly desperate with fear. ‘Don’t be ill, my darling. Oh God, don’t be ill. I couldn’t stand it.’
He managed a laugh. ‘Why the hell should I be ill? I’m in great shape! No, it’s nothing like that. It’s nothing at all, really.’
‘You’ve been working like an idiot for two years,’ she flared, allowing her anger to comfort her. ‘You’re exhausted. I told you it was crazy.’
‘Listen, Miriam, I’m sick of this. I told you right at the start, and I tell you again, making a film is not one of your nine-to-five affairs. You work all the hours God gives while the film’s on the floor and on location and — ’
‘And you drive yourself nearly into the ground all through the pre- and post-production as well, what with using people who aren’t actors and all the misery of that; and then there’s the editing, and you did all that too, and the dubbing and — ’
‘I know, I know,’ he said wearily and got off the bed and went to the window to stare out of it again. ‘But take it or leave it, that’s what making films is about for me. They’re my films, not a team’s efforts. Mine.’
She was still sitting on the bed, watching him, and he turned round to look at her. She looked marvellous, in a long white dress which was very simple but made her dark eyes seem even darker and her neck extra long beneath the tight crown of dark curly hair. She’d picked up a little tan here in Los Angeles, and it suited her. Abner said impulsively, ‘You look better than any one I’ve seen here. And the place is lousy with actresses.’
‘Don’t change the subject,’ she said. ‘What happened to make you look like that?’
‘Dave phoned.’
‘Shandwick?’
‘Who else? That one. If I turn my back on him for a minute he’s got another deal set up, another incredible idea and — he’s done it again.’
‘What is it now?’
‘He’s got an offer of fifteen million to make — well, pretty much what I like. I can go right ahead and do the East European breakdown film. Distribution, marketing, the whole thing. It’s just the sort of deal Speilberg got after ET.’
She sat and stared at him and caught her breath. ‘Oh, Abner!’
‘Yeah. Oh, Abner,’ and he turned back to the window again.
She watched him carefully and then said, ‘So what’s the matter? Does Monty not want you to — ’
‘Monty!’ Abner said and his voice was solid with scorn. ‘I can’t get any help from Monty! He’s just happy to be getting what he’s getting from Postscripts so he can sit on his damned Majorcan terrace and rot. And he’s getting enough to rot from now till kingdom come. He’s got no opinion either way. And if he did have, I can tell you he’d be jumping up and down and screaming excitement, just like Dave. Grab it, take it, make more, more, more!’ He turned back to her, and held out both hands, in a childlike gesture. ‘Miriam, what the hell’s gone wrong? It’s all gone so wrong!’
‘You’re too successful,’ she said flatly. ‘Is that it?’ And he took a deep breath of gratitude for the speed of her awareness.
‘Yes,’ he said and let out the long breath and came back to sit beside her. ‘Yes. That’s it exactly. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I wanted to make Postscripts for Hyman, for your Barbara, for David Lippner and his mother, for all of you. For Cyril and all the other Cyrils — ’
‘Cyril,’ she said and let out a little bark of laughter. ‘He’s the happiest man I ever saw. He’s sitting up on the roof by the pool, talking his head off to some journalist and gobbling pizza. You’re the best thing that ever happened to him, Abner. How often is it that a man of his age ends up playing himself in a film and then gets this much attention for it?’
His lips quirked. ‘That, I admit, is one of the more satisfying things that came out of it all — he was wonderful. Wasn’t he wonderful?’
‘The whole film was wonderful,’ she said gently. ‘Everything about it was, and still is. It’ll be around for as long as people need to know what happened and what it all meant to the people like us who came after. It’s an important document, Abner. Don’t grieve over that.’
‘I know all that! I’m not the sort of self-effacing fool who doesn’t know when he’s done good work. I know it’s good. What I didn’t expect is that it would turn out to be so — so bloody commercial.’
She leaned against h
im, settling her head into the curve of his neck above his open shirt collar and he smelled the familiar soap and clean hair smell of her and relaxed a little. ‘You’re getting awfully English, my love, living with me. It’s no sin to be commercial, is it? So the film’s a success — what’s wrong with that?’
She sat up then and looked at him. ‘It’s amazing, though. It is, isn’t it? Over a hundred million at the box office.’
‘A hundred and ten million at the last count,’ he said gloomily. ‘Dave gave me the latest figures.’ And now she did laugh.
‘Oh, Abner, you are funny! Isn’t it great to know that so many people care about the film, want to see it enough to hand over their money like that? You’re not being paid for nothing. You’re not stealing it — ’
‘It feels like it,’ he said then, and put his hands over his face. ‘Oh, God, it feels like it. I remember — I keep remembering — Isaac saying that he felt like he’d have walked over dead bodies to get what he wanted and I did just that.’
‘He said nothing of the sort. He said he’d do it to survive. And you did too. I don’t mean you walked over bodies, but that you had to survive as well. The way you were about what happened to your parents and what that did to you — if you hadn’t made Postscripts, Abner, I don’t think you could have gone on. You don’t know how close you were to breaking up.’ She set her head into the curve of his neck again, ‘I know because I was, too. You pulled me out of the morass when you pulled yourself. Working on Postscripts was — well, if I never do another thing in my life, that made it worth living for.’
He held her close, resting his chin on her curly hair, feeling the resilience of it and relishing it; but still the sick feeling lurked, deep in his belly.
‘It’s not that easy,’ he said after a long pause. ‘Not that easy, whatever my intentions, whatever the value of the work. Don’t I diminish it in some way if I get so rich out of it? I never meant that to happen, I truly never did. But it’s happened. Well, it won’t last for always. What with Monty’s share — and God knows he’s got a big one, what with his agent’s cut and the extra cut for the use of his name in the early scripts — and the share David Lippner has, and the chunk that goes to the Holocaust charities, I could get through the rest in a matter of a couple of years.’ He tipped her chin up then so that she had to look at him. ‘Well, we both could.’
‘You’re damned right,’ she said sturdily. ‘I’ve got no hangups about spending money. Why should I have? I had enough bad years, enough when there wasn’t enough of anything. I earned my share of the loot on my job. I’m a bloody good researcher — ’
‘Bloody good,’ he said gravely.
‘ — so I’ll take what’s coming and be glad of it. You should do the same. This is childish quixotry.’
He pushed her away gently and got to his feet again, needing to move around, and began to pace the room. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘You think I don’t know that? That’s part of the whole bloody confusion. I made Postscripts to get over the sickness of the guilt I felt because I wasn’t in the camps and my parents were, to get over the loss of my parents’ involvement in my childhood, to deal with the sheer pain of being alive when so many were dead, and all that happens is that I get more guilty than ever. Oh, Christ,’ he said then and turned to look at her. ‘Do you know that I keep feeling I wish I could be Matthew Mayer?’
‘Sitting in his hiding place somewhere, listening to his music, staring at his paintings, all on his own?’ she said and shook her head. ‘You can’t mean that.’
‘No, I don’t mean that. I’m glad we brought him down in England at any rate, glad that it all came out, glad he had to run like that. No, what I mean is, I wish I could be as he seemed to be. Quite free of any guilt. For anything at all — for what he did as a boy, for the way he stole all that property from the dead — I can’t see how he could be that way. And I wish, just sometimes, I wish I could be the same.’
He went back to the window and stared out again, remembering. He recalled the day that had been meant to be so glorious, when he had taken Mayer to the viewing room to show him the uncut print, the one on which Mayer had expected to see Monty Nagel pilloried as the adult version of the boy who had sold his own people for a bag of apples, but had seen himself instead. The actor Abner had found had been a miracle, had managed to convey the mixture of ruggedness and fragility that was the contradiction of Mayer, had looked like him, even sounded like him; and, of course, Abner had used Mayer’s name, even shots of the outside of his office in as loving a reconstruction of his own inner sanctum as Abner had been able to devise for a set. And Mayer had sat there in the viewing room in Wardour Street and watched the film and said nothing. And at the end had stood up and looked at Abner and made a little bow, an oddly courtly little gesture.
‘Well, there it is,’ he’d said in his normal relaxed voice. ‘There it is. You think you’ve hurt me? Think that if it will help you. But I did what I did because it had to be done and I have no regrets. If I hadn’t, would they have survived any better? They caught me and I would have died too if I hadn’t played the game their way. And dead men are of no use to anyone. So I played it their way and I’ve had no guilt about it, ever. I still haven’t. As for the property of the dead — pfui! The dead are dead. I put their money to good use, for lovely paintings and ceramics, beautiful objects that will always live when people corrupt into slime, for music and books. Such things mean more than dead men. If this film you’ve made helps you with your juvenile guilt, Mr Wiseman, then you are fortunate to find comfort so easily. But it won’t, you know. The sort of guilt you have will never go away.’
‘Perhaps not,’ Abner had said. ‘But it’s been eased by making this film. And using the money you stole to do it. And bringing you down with it. Oh God, but that’s eased it.’
‘Bringing me down?’ Mayer had got to his delicate little feet and walked down to the screen end of the viewing theatre, to stand leaning against the low wooden bar that separated the screen from the seating area. His face couldn’t be seen then; just the silhouette of his massive head with its thick springing hair. ‘Bringing me down? You foolish creature. Do you think I’m so easily toppled? I have millions put away — millions.’
‘You won’t keep them long once the film is released and people see it. And it will be. For all the great power you’re supposed to exert you can’t stop it. I’ve told Jo Rossily all about you. She’s seen this rough cut — and she’s an honest woman, Mayer. She’ll get the film out whatever you try to do to stop her. And I’m ready and willing to help finance her in the future when you no longer will — or can. This film will make money — I know that — so you’re not the power you were.’
Mayer waved one hand, an elegant little movement that left jerky traces of itself against the silvered screen behind him. ‘Such childish retribution you’ve planned. You think you can hurt me? Of course you can’t. I will walk out of here when I’m ready, and I will go about my business again in my own way. Not here, perhaps. Not as Matthew Mayer perhaps. I have a splendid collection of other personae I can use. In Germany, possibly. Or America — though I find it rather brash for my taste — or possibly France or Switzerland, or even South America. I’m well cushioned in all these places, you see. You can’t hurt me and you can’t stop me doing what I choose.’
‘I shall stop you. I’ll get the police to — ’
He laughed with genuine amusement. ‘My good creature, you have no proof! They will never arrest me, just on your say! No, by the time you can convince them of how evil I am, I’ll be long gone. Don’t you realise I was aware of all you were doing? Don’t you understand that I was watching you all the way? Venables made a stupid mistake in the way he gave you that first cheque, of course — if he’d done it properly I could have blocked you then. But I credit you where I must. You saw the danger of losing your project to him and so to me, and sidestepped it. But Heller and Garten watched you too. I’ve had plenty of time to organise myself. I shall
go away, Mr Wiseman, not because I’m afraid of you, or ashamed of your revelations, but because I’m bored. I need the stimulus of a move. You’ve done me a service, believe me.’
He stopped then, and came back up the slight slope of the viewing theatre to the door that led out. ‘And you won’t try to stop me physically, because you’re too aware of your own guilt in just being alive when so many died for you to be able to set a finger on me. But before I go, Mr Wiseman — ah, such a wise man! — let me tell you, you were not there. You did not experience what I experienced. Your life was a gift to you that you take for granted, and expect to be given love and approval to go with it. Me, I worked for my life, fought for my survival, and learned very early how little real value love and approval have. I prefer music and books and paintings. This is love turned into something worth having, not your mawkish sentimentality. Goodbye Mr Wiseman. You have your film. Many fools will be moved by it, I have no doubt. They’ll make you rich because of that and then how will you live with your conscience? Poor fool of a Wiseman! You hadn’t thought of that, had you? Well, you will. And you’ll remember what I told you. Good night, Mr Wiseman.’
And he had bent his head in the sketch of another bow, and walked out into Wardour Street, taking Abner’s glorious afternoon with him, and disappeared. The next day he was gone from his office in Mayfair, leaving a silent but clearly distressed Rowena behind, but taking his books, his records and his paintings, and no one had seen or heard from him since. Not even, it seemed, Rowena, who vanished too. However much Mayer’s partners scurried about in despair trying to find him, people like Alex Venables and Simmy Gentle, all of them had found no trace. And that had been that.
Perhaps, Abner thought, staring out at Los Angeles in the late-afternoon sunshine, perhaps Mayer would come back in his own way, as he had said he would to do his own thing somewhere else. That man was born to survive. Not like me.
Postscripts Page 39