So Little Time (60 page)

“All right,” Elise said, “so what?”

“She's a big help to me,” Hal said. “She talks like Mintz. Do you know what Elise did before she came to Paramount? She was in the Miss America contest at Atlantic City. She ought to understand America.”

“Listen, fat boy,” Elise said, “I know more about it than you do, and more about it than—what's your first name, dear?”

“It's Jeffrey,” Hal said. “You always call him Jeffrey.”

“I always forget,” Elise said.

Then Marianna touched his arm. She was smiling at him.

“Darling,” she said, “are you glad you're here?”

“Yes,” he said, “it's quite a change.”

“I can always tell,” Marianna said. “Elise, is there time for me to show Jeffrey the garden?”

“There isn't time for anything,” Hal said, “and besides, we're going to talk story.”

“Okay with me,” Elise said. “If you're going to talk story, I'm going to bed with Amytal.”

“I'll tell you one thing that you never went to bed with, honey,” Hal said.

“What?” Elise asked. “Don't keep me waiting. What is it, fat boy?”

“With a good book,” Hal said.

“There aren't any good books here,” Elise said. “You never went to bed with a good book, either, unless it was a sleeping dictionary.”

“Now honey bunch,” Hal said. “Just be quiet. We're talking story.”

There was nothing there to bother him. He did not have to worry about what Madge might think of Elise. She was just Hal's fourth wife, a very pretty girl, and when Hal told her to be quiet, she kept quiet. He was only there to talk story. It made the basis for a pleasant sort of friendship, temporary, but very genial, and they all were speaking a language that he knew. After dinner Marianna sat on the floor by the fireplace with her arms wrapped around her knees. Jeffrey sat near her and he kept looking at her while he was talking. She had interpreted so many characters that she could turn moods on and off, according to her wish, as any actress could. Now and then he could watch her with an amused sort of detachment, thinking of her stage career and of her as a motion picture property, as though he did not know her. Her nose, her forehead and her cheekbones were made for the camera. He remembered that the molding of her face had struck him the first time he had seen her. That had been at one of those theatrical parties somewhere in New York when she was studying at some school for dramatics, and that was quite a while ago. Her face was more mobile now, more sensitive because, like any actress, she was conscious of her beauty. He knew that she had studied the way she sat, clasping her knees with her thin hands, and once she turned to look at him, tilting her head back and giving her hair a quick toss. He knew her about as well as anyone, and yet there was no way of knowing what was attitude and what was not, because she did not know herself.

“Wait a minute,” Hal said, “what about a highball?”

“Don't get yourself soused,” Elise said.

Hal was sitting with a block of note paper across his knee. Elise was lying on the sofa smoking cigarettes and the wind was rattling the windows.

“Windswept,” Elise said; “hear it? My God, it's getting late. You talk and talk and you don't get anywhere at all.”

Jeffrey had no idea of the time, and time did not matter.

“You always get soused when you're on a story,” Elise said. “It's going to be colossal. It's going to get the Oscar—and then you go to bed and come down with a head in the morning.”

“It's all illusion, anyway,” Hal said.

“It's all illusion, and so what?” Elise said.

“So you can get your bath salts,” Hal said, “and have a mud pack on your puss, dearie, that's what it's for.”

Jeffrey knew that in the morning when he tried to write the script its luster would be gone. He would begin to see the faults in it and the bareness of the mechanism. It would be like any other script when he began to write it. There would be that eternal tragedy, the difference between performance and creative conception. But now he was awake and alive with the stimulation of ideas.

“You feel what I mean,” Jeffrey said, “in just a small way when you come back home from abroad. You've left things one way and when you're back, they're another. When I came back from the war—”

He saw Marianna tilt back her head to watch him. He saw Elise on the sofa throw away her cigarette, and he realized that they had all forgotten about the war.

“I had quite a time in the war,” Jeffrey said, “but never mind it now. I was only talking about coming back. We were all jammed in the steerage, a lot of lieutenants in the steerage, coming back. Colonels and majors and generals and captains were in the First Class—a whole ship full of casual officers coming back, and those of us down in the hold were pretty sore. We were officers, and we'd seen a lot, maybe more than the generals in the First Class.”

He could see them all crowded in the bow as they steamed into New York Harbor, the whole deck full of younger officers. He remembered the wonder that he felt when he reached New York and stepped through the barriers beyond the pier, and saw the streets and the automobiles and the well-fed faces. No one had looked at him—they had seen too many soldiers, and he was lost there in the city. He was unfamiliar with the land he had left, completely lost.

“We ought to get that for the girl,” he said, “that sense of being lost, not a part of anything.”

Then he saw Hal turn in his chair and look toward the hall and he saw one of the Japanese boys in a white coat.

“The telephone,” the boy said, “for Mr. Wilson, from New York.”

Jeffrey felt a twinge of conscience when he pulled himself out of the chair. It was retribution for having had too good a time. Now, something serious must have happened in New York, particularly when he considered the difference of time. His watch showed him that it was half-past twelve, and it would be later—half-past three in the morning—in New York.

“Take it in my workroom,” Hal said. “You know, just across the hall.”

There must have been an accident or he would not have been called at half-past three in the morning. Someone was ill, or someone was dead. Marianna was standing up, and her eyes showed him that she had seen what he was thinking.

“Thanks, Hal,” he said, and then he made an inane remark. “I'm sorry.”

He walked across the hall to Hal's workroom with the framed photographs of all the celebrities that Hal had ever met on the wall around him—celebrities dressed like cowboys, celebrities in bathing suits and shorts, celebrities candidly snapped in night clubs. The telephone was on the draftsman's table and when he looked at it, he had a faint feeling of nausea.

“Mr. Wilson?” The operator's voice was precise and impersonal. “New York is calling. Just a minute, please.” He could hear the buzzing in the transmitter. “New York, we have your party, ready to talk. One moment, please. Mr. Wilson? Ready with New York.”

He wished to God she would not talk so much, and then he heard a burst of dance music, and then Madge's voice as clear as though she were talking across the room.

“Hello, Jeff. Is that you, darling?”

“Yes,” Jeffrey said. He was talking louder than was necessary as he always did on the telephone. “Yes, what is it, Madge?”

“Are you at a party? What time is it out there?”

“It's half-past twelve,” Jeffrey said. “No, I'm not at a party. What is it, Madge?”

“We're at El Morocco.”

“My God,” Jeffrey said. “What's the matter?”

“Darling,” Madge said, “there's nothing the matter. We're just at El Morocco, Minot and Jim and I. We wanted to tell you the news, that's all.”

“What?” Jeffrey asked. “What news?”

“Don't shout so, darling,” Madge said. “We all want to talk to you. We're just celebrating. We wish you were here.”

Something seemed to clutch at Jeffrey's throat. Madge's voice had the tinny, unnatural gayety which it sometimes assumed when she was being brave.

“Celebrating,” he repeated. “Has Jim—Celebrating what?”

“No,” her answer came quickly, too quickly. “No, it isn't that.”

“God!” Jeffrey whispered. “God!” But he controlled his voice. “Get hold of yourself, Madge. Tell me what's happened.”

“Don't be so cross, dear,” Madge said. “It's Jim's last night in New York.”

“What?” Jeffrey said.

“Don't shout so, dear,” Madge said. “Your voice goes right through my ears. Just wait a minute until I close the door. Just wait a minute.… Jeff, Jim's in the army.”

“What?” Jeffrey said, but he had heard her perfectly.

“Jeff, I can't tell you over the telephone. Minot will call you tomorrow. Jeff, just listen.” And then she spoke very slowly and carefully. “It was—serious—much—more serious—than we thought.”

“What was?” Jeffrey asked.

“I can't tell you over the telephone,” Madge said. “You know what I mean. What we were worrying about. Something—I found out the day you left. It was much more serious than we thought. She—she was completely losing her head about him.”

“Who?” Jeffrey asked, but he knew who.

“You know who. Jeff, dear—” Her voice was low and strained. “Jim's waiting just outside. It's much better this way. Can you hear me, Jeff? Minot dropped everything and went up to see him. It was dear of Minot. Jeff, it'll take his mind off it. It's much better. Can you hear me? Are you there, Jeff?”

“Yes,” Jeffrey answered, “yes, I'm here.”

“He had that chance,” Madge said. “It was still open—that chance at Fort Sill. Jeff, we really had to do something.”

“Do what?” Jeffrey asked. “What happened? Were they—”

“It wasn't anything definite, dear,” Madge said, “but it's much better the way it is. Minot told him he'd talked to you. Jim really wanted to enlist. Minot told him he was sure you wouldn't mind.”

“Why didn't you tell me before he did it?” Jeffrey asked.

“Oh, Jeff,” Madge said. “Don't sound that way. You weren't
here
. It was just much better for Jim to go away somewhere
quickly
. Wait, Minot wants to talk to you. Here he is.”

“I don't want to talk to him,” Jeffrey said.

“What?” Madge said.

“I said I didn't want to talk to him,” Jeffrey said. “You can tell him so for me.”

“Oh, Jeff,” Madge said. “You don't know what you're saying. Minot—”

He interrupted her. He did not want to lose his temper.

“Madge,” he said, “I don't think you've been fair. I think you waited to get me out of the way, but there's no use going on about it. I want to talk to Jim.”

He realized that his hand was gripping the telephone so hard that his fingers hurt. He realized that he must not make a fool of himself, that it was no time to show resentment. He knew that they both had done what they thought was absolutely right, and perhaps they had been right, but Jim was his son, not Minot's. Jim was his business, not Minot's.

“Jeff,” Madge said, “I wish you'd listen. If you were here—”

“I'm not there,” Jeffrey said. “You should have let him alone.”

“Darling,” Madge said, “why should you be the only one who gives advice? You
never
let him alone.”

“Never mind it now, Madge,” he said. He did not want to hear her voice any longer.

“All right,” Madge said, and she was speaking the way she did when she knew that everything would be all right if she wanted it to be. “Are you having a good time, dear?”

“What?” Jeffrey said, but he had heard her and it was exactly like her.

“Don't worry,” Madge said. “Have a good time, dear, and think of it this way—It's something definite. At least we're doing something. Here's Jim, now.”

She must have been opening the door of the telephone booth, for he could hear the dance music playing louder.

“Jim—” he heard her say—“here he is …” and then he heard her say something else, but the music made her words indistinct. Jeffrey could almost smell the close air of El Morocco. He could almost hear the talk and the clatter of the dishes and see the couples dancing. People never knew how badly they looked when they danced. A tune that had nothing to do with El Morocco was running through his mind, and he could hear the grim gayety of the bugles as they blew it. “You're in the army now—You're not behind the plow. You'll never get rich, you son-of-a-bitch—You're in the army now.” He could feel his foot tapping the time of it on the floor as he waited to hear Jim's voice three thousand miles away.

“Hello, Pops,” he heard Jim saying, “how's it going, Pops?”

“Close that door,” Jeffrey called to him, “I don't want to hear the music.”

Jim's voice sounded just as his own sounded once, not careful, not measured, but triumphant and not afraid of anything. It seemed to wash the care from his mind. He knew what Jim felt and thought, because he had felt the same things, once.

“Hello,” Jim said. “Can you hear me now?”

Jim's voice seemed very near. Jim would be in his dinner coat with his hair in a short crew cut, and with his tie sliding a little off center. He would be smiling and he might even be a little tight, although Jim had never been bad that way. The sleeves of that coat were too short, Jeffrey remembered, but Jim would not need another now for a while.

“Yes,” he said, “I hear you. You don't have to yell.”

“Well,” Jim said, “I'm in the army now.”

“Yes,” Jeffrey said, “your mother said you were.”

“They're only sending three of us,” Jim said. “That's all—just three.”

“Well,” Jeffrey said, “that's fine.”