Read Ross Macdonald - 1960 - The Ferguson Affair Online
Authors: Ross Macdonald
“You
haven’t mentioned your place here.”
“No.
I feel decidedly out of place in California. I came here because it offered
investment opportunities, and because Holly was unwilling to leave California.”
“Was
there conflict between you on the subject?”
“I
wouldn’t say so, no. I wanted to please her. We’ve only been married six
months.” He’d been still and quiet for a few minutes, but the thought of his
wife was too much for him. He twisted in his seat as though he’d been kicked in
the groin. “Why are we beating around the bush, with this talk of homes and
places?”
“I’m
trying to get some idea of you and your situation. I can’t very well advise you
in the dark. Would you object to some more personal questions, about your wife
and your relationship?”
“I
don’t object. In fact, it may help to clarify my own thinking.” He paused, and
said in astonishment, like a man who has made a personal discovery: “I’m an
emotional man, you know. I used to think of myself as a cold fish. Holly
changed all that. I hardly know whether to be glad or sorry.”
“You’re
pretty ambivalent about her, aren’t you? Running hot and cold, I mean.”
“I
know what you mean, very well. I’m scalding and freezing. The two conditions
are just about equally painful.” Ferguson kept surprising me. He added: “
Odi
et
amo
.
Excrucior
!
Do you know Latin, Gunnarson?”
“Some legal Latin.”
“I’m
no Latinist myself, but my mother taught me a little. That was Catullus. ‘I
hate her and I love her, and I’m on the rack.’ ” His voice rose out of control,
as if he was literally on the rack. Then he said in a deeper voice: “She’s the
only person I’ve ever really loved.
Except one.
And I
didn’t love her enough.”
“Have
you been married before?”
“No.
I’d reached the point of believing that marriage was not for me. I should have
stuck to that. A man can’t expect to be lucky more than once.”
“I
don’t follow you.”
“I’ve
been lucky enough to make a good deal of money. I knew instinctively that a man
like me couldn’t be lucky in love. And I’ve always shied away from women. It’s
nothing to be vain about, because I know the reason, but plenty of women have
thrown themselves at my head.”
“Did
Holly?”
“No,
she didn’t. I was the pursuer in her case—very much the pursuer.”
“How
did you happen to meet her?”
“It
didn’t happen, in the strictest sense. I arranged to meet her. I saw her in a
film last spring in London—I was over there for a trade meeting at Canada
House—and decided I had to meet her, somehow. A few months later, at the end of
July, I happened to be passing through Vancouver. I have interests in British
Columbia, and some of my property was threatened by forest fires.
“I
picked up a newspaper and saw Holly’s picture. Her film was to be shown at the
Vancouver film festival, and she was to be a guest at the showing. I decided to
stop over in Vancouver, and the forest fires
be
damned. All I could think about was meeting her in the flesh.”
“Do
you mean to tell me you fell in love with her picture, at first sight?”
“Does
that sound foolish and sentimental?”
“It
sounds incredible.”
“Not
if you realize how I felt. She was what I’d been missing all my life. She stood
for the things I’d turned my back on when I was a young man.
Love,
and marriage, and fatherhood.
A lovely girl that I
could call my own.”
He was talking like a man in a dream, a rosy
sentimental dream of the sort that burns like celluloid and leaves angry ashes
in the eyes.
“You
felt all this simply because you’d seen her in a movie?”
“There
was more to it than that. I prefer not to go into it.”
“I
think you should go into it.”
“What
purpose would it serve? That other girl had nothing to do with Holly, except
that Holly reminded me of her.”
“Tell
me about the other girl.”
“There’s
no point in going into the subject of her, not at this late date. She was
simply a girl I picked up in Boston twenty-five years ago, when I was at
Harvard Business School. For a while I planned to marry her, and then I decided
not to. Perhaps I should have.” He stared down into his empty glass, twisting
and turning it like a crystal ball that revealed the past but kept the future
hidden. “Holly seemed like a reincarnation of that girl in Boston.”
He
fell silent. He seemed to have forgotten that I was sitting across from him.
“So
you arranged to meet Holly,” I prompted him.
“Yes.
It wasn’t difficult. I have strong connections in Vancouver, among them some of
the backers of the festival. A dinner in her honor was set up, and I had the
privilege of sitting beside her. She was charming, and so young.” His voice
broke, leaving me unmoved. “It was like being given a second chance at youth.”
“Obviously,
you made the most of your chances.”
“Yes.
We got along from the start—in a perfectly straightforward, companionable way.
And she didn’t know who I was. I was simply a fellow she met at a party who had
a few business interests. That was the beauty of it. She didn’t know I had
money until we’d been seeing each other for several days.” Ferguson spoke of
his money as if it was a communicable disease.
“Are
you certain of that?”
“Quite certain.”
He nodded emphatically, as though he had to
reassure himself. “She didn’t know who I really was until it developed that she
was going to Banff. I invited her to stay at my lodge there—properly
chaperoned, of course. We got together a little party, and rode up in a private
railway car that a friend of mine makes available to me.
“It
was a wonderful trip. I felt terrifically excited, just to be with her. I don’t
mean in a sexual way.” Ferguson’s eyes became faintly anxious whenever he
approached the subject of sex. “I’ve had sex with various women, but the
feeling I had for Holly was very much more than that. She was like a golden
image sitting there by the train window. I didn’t like to stare directly at
her, so I looked at her reflection in the window. I watched her reflected face
with the mountains moving through it and behind it. I felt as though I was
moving with her into the heart of life, a golden time. Do you understand me?”
“Not
too well.”
“I
don’t pretend to understand it myself. I only know I’d lived for twenty-five
years without that feeling. I’d been going through the motions for twenty-five
years, piling up money and acquiring property. Suddenly Holly was the reason
for it, the meaning of it all. She understood when I told her these things. We
went on long walks together in the mountains. I poured out my heart to her, and
she understood. She said that she loved me, and would share my life.”
Shock
and whisky were working in him like truth serum. There was no trace of irony in
his voice; only the tragic irony of the circumstances. He had founded his brief
marriage on a dream and was trying to convince himself that the dream was real.
“And
share your money, too?” I said.
“Holly
didn’t marry me for money,” he insisted doggedly. “Remember that she was a
successful actress, with a future. It’s true her studio had her tied up in a
low-salaried contract, but she could have done much better if she’d stayed in
Hollywood. Her agent told me she was bound to become a great star. But the fact
is
,
she wasn’t interested in money, or in stardom. She
wanted to improve herself, become a cultivated woman. That was the project we
had in mind when we came here. We planned to learn together, read good books,
study music and other worthwhile things.”
He
looked around the shabby restaurant as if he had somehow fallen into a trap. I
remembered the hooded harp and the white concert grand.
“Was
your wife studying music seriously?”
He
nodded. “She has a voice, you know. I engaged a voice teacher for her, also a
speech teacher. She wasn’t happy about the way she spoke, her use of English.
I’m no great grammarian myself, but I
was always having
to correct her.”
“All
these lessons she was taking—were they her idea or yours?”
“They
were her idea, originally. I’m still in my prime, and at first I wasn’t too
fond of the notion that we should take a year or two out to develop our minds
and all that. I went along with it because I loved her, because I felt grateful
to her.”
“Grateful for what?”
“For marrying me.”
He seemed surprised by my lack of
understanding. Puzzled surprise was threatening to become his permanent
expression. “I’m not a handsome man, and I’m not young. I suppose I can hardly
blame her for running out on me.”
“It’s
possible she hasn’t. Gaines may have been pointing a gun at her today.”
“No.
I saw him get out of the car. She sat behind the wheel and waited for him.”
“Then
he may have some other hold on her. How long has she known him?”
“Just since we’ve come here.”
“You’re
sure?”
He
shook his head. “I can’t be sure, no. She might have known him before, and
pulled the wool over my eyes.”
“Do
you know much about her background? Where she came from, what sort of girlhood
she had?”
“She
had a difficult girlhood, I don’t know where or how. Holly preferred not to
talk about herself. She said when she married
me,
she
intended to start a fresh page in her life, with no crying over spilt milk.”
“Have
you met her parents?”
“No.
I’m not even aware that they exist. It may be that she’s ashamed of them. She’s
never told me her real name. She married me under her stage name.”
“Did
she tell you that?”
“Her
agent did, Michael Speare. I met him last fall, when I was breaking her studio
contract. His agency has her under a long-term contract which I couldn’t
break.”
“Would
you object if I talked to Speare?”
“You
mustn’t tell him what’s happened.” Ferguson’s voice was almost plaintive. The
past had opened like a wound, bleeding away his force. “Whether or not she
deserves it, we have to protect Holly. If I could just get her out of this
frightful mess she’s landed herself in—”