Destiny (77 page)

"I mean it," he went on awkwardly. "It's not too easy to say. Other people wouldn't understand. Thad wouldn't. So in a way it's better if they don't know. It's just something we know. Our secret. I don't want other people poking into our lives, dirtying things. If we understand what we're doing, and if we trust each other ... if we love each other."

There! He had risked it. Lewis looked at Helen anxiously. Her face softened; her eyes seemed to change from blue to gray, as they did when she was moved or touched. She lifted her hand and pressed it against Lewis's face. "I'm not sure we ought to begin with a he," she said gently. "That's all."

"It isn't a he!" Lewis grasped her hands. He felt himself blaze with the most passionate conviction. "It's our truth. That's different."

She looked at him. She heard the emotion in his voice, and she could see the intensity in his eyes. She Uked Lewis's eyes. They had candor—too

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much candor sometimes, for it was easy to know what Lewis felt, and that made him vulnerable. Sometimes Lewis reminded her of some medieval figure, a knight riding out to do battle, blissfully unaware that while he was armed with a sword, his enemies were equipped with machine guns. This she perceived as a danger, but briefly. If Lewis girded himself for battle, he did so on her behalf, and she found that flattering. Also, he wanted her to agree with him, wanted it passionately, and she was already used to hiding her doubts and her qualifications from men. Most men, she felt instinctively, were like Ned Calvert: they didn't want to hear them.

She bent her head and agreed.

Lewis leapt to his feet, instantly full of plans. He would telephone from Paris every night. He would fly home at every opportunity. He would handle Thad. All would be well—now and forever. Meanwhile, they would have this evening, this special night. They would be alone. They would go out to dinner at the Caprice, his favorite restaurant. ... He picked up the telephone and reserved a table for two at eight o'clock.

At seven-thirty that evening, when it became clear to both of them that Thad had not only returned, but that there was no way he was leaving, Lewis made another call and changed the reservation. Still eight o'clock, yes. But for three people.

■—I e's not staying the goddamn night. That's all. He is not staying." XXHelen and Lewis had retreated to the kitchen. Thad was stuck like a limpet to the sofa in the small sitting room. It was now midnight. He had said virtually nothing all through dinner, and had guzzled snails in such a disgusting manner, dripping garlic and butter everywhere, that Lewis had been scarlet with embarrassment. When their taxi had arrived at the Caprice, Thad had climbed in first, before a word had been said. For the past hour he had been sitting by the fire, drinking cups of tea. He was wearing the new clothes he had bought. From the kitchen, Helen and Lewis could see him, squarely in the middle of the room, humming a little tune, and staring into the middle distance. He looked, Lewis thought, completely ludicrous.

First, he had had a haircut, and the beard had been trimmed. Second, the glasses were not bleary as usual, but polished, sparkling and winking against the light. Third, the greasy jeans, the sweaty shirt, the scuffed shoes, the nylon socks that always gave off" a perceptible fishy odor, had all disappeared. Thad appeared to have bathed, and he was wearing a suit.

It was not a suit in the sense that Lewis's were. What Thad had on his back in no way resembled those masterpieces of understatement that Lewis

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possessed, one of which he was wearing now. But a suit it definitely was. A black three-piece suit. The pants just about encased Thad's fat thighs, and the buttons of the vest strained only just perceptibly across Thad's ample belly. The pants were too short; where they cut off at the ankles it was possible to glimpse short black woolen socks; he wore lace-up black shoes, which twinkled with polish. Lewis, glancing back through the door, groaned aloud.

"Shhh." Helen smiled. "He'll hear you."

"I don't give a damn. He's going. One more cup of tea and that's it. He's had three already."

"Shall I tell him, or you?"

"I shall tell him," Lewis said firmly. "I shall do it right now. Watch."

He marched back into the sitting room, Helen behind him, pushed the mug of tea into Thad's pudgy hand—the fingernails were newly clean, Lewis observed—and looked down at him sternly.

"You can have that, Thad, then you have to go."

"Go?" Thad blinked. He looked at the sofa. "Oh, I thought maybe ..."

"You thought wrong. Tea, and then out. Helen and I want to be alone. This is our last night together."

Lewis felt proud of himself. Thad looked up at him, and his glasses winked and bhnked.

"Oh, sure. Right. Okay. No problem. Dumb of me. I should have thought . . ." He paused. "I just wondered, maybe, on the couch, you know . . ."

"No, Thad. Not on the couch. Nowhere. Okay?"

"Okay."

Thad capitulated with good grace. Lewis sat down opposite him, and drew Helen down beside him. He lit a Marlboro, inhaled, and looked at Thad with disbelief Why a suit? A black suit, of all things.

"I've been thinking ..." Thad began, and Lewis frowned. That was never a good beginning; it usually heralded a monologue. Lewis felt that if he had to listen to one of them right now, he'd go crazy.

"Fine, Thad, but keep it brief, yes?"

"Sure. Sure." Thad waved a pudgy hand. "But this is important. It concerns you, Lewis. And Helen. Because it's Helen I've been thinking about. The thing is, we need to think about this, and we need to start now. We've got to decide—how we present her. Especially when we get back to America. It's key. We need a strategy. Did I ever tell you about Grace Kelly—when she went to Hollywood?"

"Not that I recall."

"Well, you know what she did? Every director she went to see, every

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producer, she wore white gloves. White gloves, for fuck's sake! Like, don't touch me, right? Like, I am class, you get it? And they went wild. Just wild, Lewis. Those white gloves—all the parties—no one could talk about anything else except this incredibly beautiful classy girl who wore white gloves. So—what we need to decide is—what is going to be Helen's white gloves? What is her equivalent, right? Because, of course, something like white gloves, you can't do it twice."

"I could wear black gloves."

Helen's voice held not a trace of sarcasm. It was beautifully judged; Lewis laughed, and it took Thad about forty seconds to realize it was a putdown. He grinned sheepishly, but hardly drew breath.

"The thing is, a lot of it's right. The marriage is good. I like the marriage. I mean you, Lewis—old money, Groton, Harvard, for God's sake. All those pricks out there, with their itchy fingers, well, they'll think twice once she's married to you. That's great. That's terrific. Because we want them to get it straight, this woman has class, this woman is beautiful, and this woman is one hundred percent not available. That's crucial. I mean, really crucial."

"Well, she isn't available. She'll be married to me. So that's all right, isn't it?"

"Lewis. Lewis. Please." Thad stood up and waved his hands. "We are not talking about facts now. We are talking about image. If Helen is going to be in our films, she has to have the right image. ..."

"If?" Lewis looked up quickly; beside him, he had felt her tense. "Why the 'if suddenly? You told me we were a team. You. Me. Helen. It was the perfect combination, or so you said. If you remember, you gave me a long lecture on the subject of triangles."

"Did I?" Thad looked crafty. "I may have said something about that. I said the best films always have a triangular structure. That's true. It's something I've observed."

"So you said. You gave me a long list. It started way back in prehistory, worked its way through The Third Man and Gone With the Wind, and—"

"Not Gone With the Wind. I never said that. Gone With the Wind is a bummer. . . ."

"And you went on to say, some hours later—once you had explained that the studio system was finished, dying on its feet, that the independent director, i.e. you, was going to be the savior of the American cinema—you went on to say that he needed a team. He needed an independent producer, and he needed a star. A woman, you said. That was the perfect basic structure. If we got that right, you said, there was nothing we couldn't do —nothing. As I remember."

Thad blinked furiously. He shifted about from one foot to the other, and

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glared at Lewis. Lewis smiled. He knew the reason for that glare. Thad did not want Helen to know, yet, the extent of his ambitions for her. They should let her realize it gradually. That way they could control her.

Now Helen leaned forward. She frowned, looking at Thad. "A star? Is that what you said? Is that what you thought?"

"Maybe. Maybe. Who knows? Lots of people get to be stars." Thad looked at her dismissively.

"A legend, you said," Lewis threw in, coolly compounding his own treachery.

"Well, legends don't just happen. Legends are made,'''' Thad snapped. "Which just happens to be what I'm talking about. Or trying to talk about. The point is, Helen's not right. Not yet. There's a lot of work to do."

He paused, then puffed back to his chair, sat down, and took one very small sip of his brimming tea. Lewis was about to interrupt again. Then he reaUzed that Thad now had Helen's attention. Her eyes were fixed on his face, and she looked, Lewis thought, as if Thad were Moses just down from the mount, and about to start reading out the Ten Commandments.

"There's a lot of work to do." Thad, sensing her interest, gave a little giggle. "Face. Hair. Makeup. Clothes. We've got to have you in the right stuff. Classy stuff". Couture—you know. I want you to look like a woman, not some teenager. I want to look at you and think—money. I want every man who comes to your movies to get a hard-on when he looks at you on screen. I want them to think, God, I'd do anything to have that woman, but I'd never get her, because she's too cool, too classy, and too expensive. ..."

"Now, wait a minute . . ." Lewis leaned forward angrily. Thad sailed on as if he hadn't spoken.

"I want sex, right? The kind of sex that drives men crazy. So, like, they're in bed with their wives or girlfriends or whatever and they're fantasizing about you. Only all the time they know it's a fantasy, because there's no come-on from you at all. And why? Because you look pure. You look so fucking pure it's driving them nuts. It's classic. The ultimate female paradox, right? Artemis and Aphrodite, the virgin and the whore ..."

"That's it." Lewis stood up. His voice shook with anger. "You can get out of here, Thad, and you can get out right now. I'm not going to listen to that kind of filth, and Helen isn't either."

Thad blinked, and did not move. He looked genuinely astonished. As well he might, Lewis thought guiltily. He had heard much of this before, and never objected.

"I'm sorry, Lewis. Hey—Helen—you're not offended? I'm just tossing

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ideas around now, explaining the background. I'm not talking literally. I don't mean you're really a whore, and I know you're not a virgin. ..."

'"Thad . . . one more word, just one more word, and I swear . . ."

"Lewis. Lewis. Calm down, will you?" Thad took another swallow of tea. "I'll come to the point, right? Helen, you want me to explain? It won't take long. It's important. . . ."

"It's all right, Lewis." She looked at Thad steadily. "Why don't you be more specific?"

"Okay." He held up a pudgy hand, and Lewis sat down. Thad began to itemize on his fingers. "One: the voice. It's good, but it's not good enough. It's too identifiable. Too crisp. Too English. I don't want that. I want something more mysterious. . . . Think Garbo. Think Dietrich. Like, it sounds great—and why? You can't pin them down. They're talking English, and they're not English. ..."

"Well, obviously they aren't fucking well English," Lewis exploded. "One is Swedish, and the other is German. What's so goddamn mysterious about that?"

"Lewis. Lewis. Trust me, will you? You know they're Swedish. You know they're German. But all those people out there in the dark—they don't know that, and if they do, they're not thinking about it. They're just thinking that she's different, this woman. She's foreign. Exotic. Mysterious . . ."

"If you say that word one more time, I'll throw up. For God's sake, Thad . . ."

"I know what he means." Helen spoke quietly. "He's talking about power. The power you have when you're different. When people can't place you, sum you up . . ."

"That's power?" Lewis looked at her uncertainly.

"Sometimes. I think so. Yes."

Thad watched this exchange with interest. Then he leaned forward. "So —all I'm saying is this. I want Helen to work on the voice. Between now and the next movie. I want it darker, with an edge. A bit less innocent. Keep the purity, but try and blur the accent a little. Mix in a little French or Italian, a suggestion of Europe. Some American ..."

"It sounds like a bad cocktail." Lewis turned to her. He could hardly believe it, but she seemed to be taking this seriously. "Why don't you try some of your voices on Thad, darling? Show off your accents. He has no idea of your repertoire. ..."

The minute the words were out, Lewis regretted them. Helen blushed scarlet. Thad hummed, looked up at the ceiling, and then down at the floor.

"He knows already." She spoke in a small fiat voice.

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"Oh, he does? Since when?"

"Rome, sometime. We talked voices then, briefly."

Thad interrupted. He sounded bored. "Look—I want to move on. Helen knows what I mean, and she knows I'm right. There're more important things to discuss. One, in particular."

"Oh? Only one?" Lewis was now feeling furiously angry. Yet again, as he had in Rome, he felt excluded. He also felt jealous. He stood up. "I mean—why stop at one? I'm sure there're a million helpful httle hints Thad could come up with. If we're going to alter Helen's voice, which I happen to think is a beautiful voice just the way it is—why not alter a few other things as well? How about cutting oflF her hair? Or dying it? How about plastic surgery? How about ..."