As Far as You Can Go (33 page)

“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.

T
HE 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 phoning 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.

“Washburn?” he said. “Is that right at the top?”

“Yes,” said Harold. “They called me a quarter of an hour ago and asked me to come and help them take away their things. They don’t have a car of their own.”

“Listen, buddy,” said the lieutenant, “there’s a major fire coming over these hills. You want to risk your neck?”

“Yes,” said Harold.

“O.K.,” said the lieutenant. He scribbled something on a piece of yellow paper. “Give this to anyone who stops you. Be down here again in twenty minutes. Otherwise you’ll fry. Unless the wind changes.”

“Thanks,” said Harold.

The block was moved aside and he went through. He drove as fast as possible up the sharp curves. Twice he was stopped by firemen, but allowed to go on when he showed the yellow paper. As he came out of the trees that surrounded a large estate at the bottom of the canyon, he could see an ugly pall of smoke hanging over the hills. It was drifting quite fast towards the city, and seemed to be getting thicker every time he glanced up at it. A fire-truck with siren wailing passed him on its way down. He drove even faster.

A hundred yards from the Washburns’ he was stopped again, this time by a phalanx of fire-trucks, press cars and
police wagons. He parked the car as close to the edge of the road as possible, jumped out and ran up to the house. There were a large number of men about, wearing fire-fighting equipment and what looked like gas-masks. Above the house, at the turning-circle, he could see more trucks and men.

He saw Diane standing at the door of the house, and when she recognized him she waved and shouted “Thank God” and disappeared back into the house.

He ran after her. There was a pile of stuff in the hall, suitcases, pieces of portable furniture, coats, clothes. Mrs Wash burn was sitting on a sofa in the drawing-room, gazing out of the long window. Heavy clouds of smoke obscured the view. He could hardly see across the canyon.

Mrs Washburn looked up as he came down the stairs.

“Good morning, Mr Barlow,” she said. “Now you can see one of our famous Los Angeles brush-fires.” She seemed to be enjoying herself. Her hand was busy twisting the rope of pearls at her neck, and she seemed flushed and excited.

“Don’t just sit there, Grandma,” said Diane. “We’ve got to get out of here. Where did you put the car, Harold?”

“It’s a hundred yards down the road. I couldn’t get any farther. Too many fire-trucks.”

“Now don’t you children start getting all panicky,” said Mrs Washburn. “This here fire isn’t going to harm
us.
”

“Grandma, you come with us,” said Diane. “Get up off there. You can carry something, can’t you?”

“All this fuss,” said Mrs Washburn. But she got up and began to climb the stairs up to the hall.

Harold and Diane loaded themselves with as much as they could carry, and staggered down the road towards the car. As they reached it, a fire-officer, his face black with smuts, his eyebrows gone, came up to them and shouted, “What the hell are you doing here?”

“We’re getting the hell out,” said Diane.

“You’d better hurry,” said the officer, more calmly. “We
can’t stop the fire the other side of the crest. We’re going to try and hold it along this road. Hope the wind’ll blow over it, not under it. It’s going about twenty miles an hour now.”

“Jesus,” said Diane. “How long does that give us?”

“About minus ten minutes,” said the man. Then he turned away and began to shout at a fireman.

He was right. The fire-trucks were leaving the
turning-circle
and beginning to come down the road.

As they went back for more luggage, Harold and Diane met Mrs Washburn in the road, carrying nothing but a small valise and a sunshade.

“It won’t reach us,” she said as they passed her. “What do you think we pay taxes for?”

While they were loading themselves for the second time, a fireman ran into the house and said, “All out of here! You’ve got three minutes!” Then he ran out again.

“You should have been here five minutes sooner,” said Diane between her teeth and began to run down the road. Harold followed as fast as he could. He wasn’t used to
running
, and the steepness of the hill was beginning to make his legs ache. The smoke was getting thicker every moment, too, and his eyes were beginning to stream, and he coughed as he stumbled and ran.

“That’s it for you folks,” said the fire-officer.

Mrs Washburn was sitting in the back of the car as though nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

“Git,” said the fire-officer.

“Come on, children,” said Mrs Washburn. “Didn’t you hear what the man said?”

Harold turned to look once more up at the house. There was a loud roaring noise, and he saw a sudden flare of flames, terrifyingly tall, beyond the turning-circle.

“The miniature!” he shouted, turning back to the car. “Did you bring the miniature?”

“No,” said Mrs Washburn. “It’s on the wall where I left it. If you hadn’t made me mad it would be in my jewel-case now, where it belongs.”

Diane turned white. “No, Harold,” she said.

But he had begun to run again, each step more painful, the noise now deafening, the flames sweeping down the slope to the turning-circle, moving faster than he was running. A fireman running down the hill away from the fire tried to stop him, but Harold threw him aside and went on.

“You’ll be killed,” yelled the fireman.

I won’t, thought Harold, panting, blind with smoke, I won’t be killed, I’ll get that bloody miniature if it’s the last thing I do, I’ve got to get it, I’ve got to get the miniature.

It was becoming almost intolerably hot. He reached the house and ran in. It was surprisingly cool inside. The air-conditioning must still have been functioning.

He ran down the stairs and to the miniature, tearing it off the nail, turning, all in one motion, and was up the stairs and running down the hill again, the miniature clasped in his hand, running easier now, the heat pressing against his back like a helping hand, the roar in his ears urging him on. He didn’t dare look over his shoulder. He could hardly see,
anyway
, tears streaming down his face, the smoke rolling down beside him, like a large dog whose friendliness was suspect, jumping and growling.

When he reached the car he saw Diane and her
grandmother
standing in the road, watching him.

“Get in the car!” he shouted as he stumbled towards them. “Get in! We haven’t a moment to lose.”

Mrs Washburn did not move. She stretched out her hand and said, “You give that to me, young man.”

For a moment Harold couldn’t think what she was talking about. Then he knew, and knew, too, that he wasn’t going to give it to her. He had surrendered it once, meekly enough. Now it was his, he had rescued it, it was his.

“No, Mrs Washburn,” he said, standing out of her reach. “Oh, no. No, no, no.”

A fireman was waving furiously at them from a hundred yards farther down the road. A last fire-truck swept past, a man shouting at them from the cab. They were alone at the head of the canyon.

“Give it to her, Harold,” said Diane. She was white-faced, but seemed unable to move, frozen.

There was a strange stillness about them, a pocket of silence surrounded by violence and furious sound. Behind him, Harold could feel the fire, could hear it advancing.

“Get in the car,” he said.

“Give that to me,” said Mrs Washburn.

“Give it to her!” screamed Diane, suddenly, colour
flooding
her face. “Give it to her, Harold! It’s hers!”

“No,” he said. He felt he had all the time in the world, with the fire breathing against his back, all the time he needed, and would ever need. He smiled and said, “Let’s go, shall we, everyone?”

He moved towards the car, and at once the immobility of the others was broken. Diane rushed towards him, her hands seeming to beat through the smoke to reach him. Mrs
Washburn
took a single step forward and made a grab at him. She slipped as she grabbed, and he watched her fall as though he was seeing it in slow motion, the hands flailing for balance, the legs buckling, the body hitting the concrete of the road.

Diane stopped in mid-stride.

Mrs Washburn sat up and tried to get to her feet.

“I can’t move,” she said.

Suddenly there was no time left at all, not a moment of the vast stretches of time he had possessed a moment earlier.

Harold slipped the miniature into his pocket and bent down to her.

“Don’t touch me,” she said between closed teeth. She was in obvious pain, but scorn and rage burned in her eyes.

“Open the door of the car,” he said to Diane. “Quickly. Now help me lift her.”

The fire was deafeningly loud now, and he glanced up the road, seeing flames reaching up and up, smoke boiling, orange and red and yellow and black. And the heat struck him in the face.

They struggled with the old woman, carrying her the few yards to the car, sweating and slipping under her weight. The fire roared nearer. Mrs Washburn had turned very white, but her eyes were open, and she tried to bite Harold’s arm.

She was bigger than he had imagined, and after pushing and shoving for several intolerable seconds he looked at Diane and said, “We’ll never do it.”

“We’ve got to.”

“I’ll carry her down,” said Harold. “I can make it. You take the car. But hurry.”

“You’ll kill her,” she said.

They stared at each other across the face of the old woman.

“You tried to kill her,” said Diane.

“Do what I say,” said Harold. Diane was obviously hysterical. He felt nothing for her at all now. She must do what he said, that was all.

“Take the car,” he said. “I’ll manage her.”

He tried to hoist the old woman on to his shoulder, but she was dead weight, and suddenly he found his strength had gone. He took a different grip on her, feeling fat and gristle beneath the dress, his fingers slipping. Then, carrying her like a baby, he began to run. The fire was tapping at his
shoulder-blades
, it seemed, but that was not where he felt the pain. It was like someone trying to arrest him, but he could not turn. There was an ache like a lump of molten steel in his chest, steel that was bubbling and spilling out of his lungs and into his throat so that he could hardly breathe.

He was aware of something passing him, and he scarcely looked at it, fearing it was the fire, lapping him, but it was
the car and Diane, and as the blood began to dim his sight, he felt only an irrelevant satisfaction that she would be safe, that had nothing to do with loving her, that was the satisfaction merely of having an order obeyed. But he had no time to examine his feelings, stumbling and staggering down the hill. The old woman’s face was against his shoulder. Her eyes were open, hate blazing from their blackness, her mouth clamped shut. He could not look at her eyes. Trying to run, he could only manage an agonizingly slow trot, the slope of the hill carrying him faster than the strength of his legs. She was unbearably heavy, and he slipped and nearly dropped her, but staggered upright again, feeling the fire suddenly hotter on his spine. He could see nothing, hear nothing now, just feel the fire, feel the pain on his back that had vanished a few moments before. He didn’t know where he was
running
, how far he had to run, he just ran, staggered, slipped, down the hill, keeping on the road by some instinct, the fire pressing against his back, his breath wrenched from him at each step, his lungs choking with smoke, feeling the hot steel dribbling from his mouth, not caring or thinking about
anything
in the world, the top of his head lighter than air, trying to break through his skull, aware only that he had to run, that he had to carry the old woman out of the fire and smoke and white heat that lay behind.

Then, as his eyes began to see nothing but a blazing
whiteness
of stars, as his legs began to sink and he felt he was running on his knee-caps, a voice said “You made it” and he fell, slipping one more time, stumbling one more time, trying to wrench his body upright, failing, falling on the road, the old woman tumbling out of his arms like a bundle of washing, his head hitting the concrete, grateful for it, as though it was a pillow, a soft white pillow, and now he could stop running, could sleep, sleep, sleep for ever.