The Other Side of Midnight (10 page)

“Very well,” Gautier said. “I will give you a play to study. When you have memorized it, you will read it to me and we will see how much talent you have. Then we can decide what to do with you.”

“Thank you, Armand,” she said. There was no triumph in her words, nor even any pleasure that he could detect. Just a simple acknowledgment of the inevitable. For the first time Gautier felt a small twinge of doubt. But that of course was ridiculous. He was a master at handling women.

While Noelle was getting dressed, Armand Gautier went into his book-lined study and scanned the familiar-looking worn volumes on the shelves. Finally, with a wry smile, he selected Euripides’
Andromache
. It was one of the most difficult classics to act. He went back into the bedroom and handed the play to Noelle.

“Here you are, my dear,” he said. “When you have memorized the part, we shall go over it together.”

“Thank you, Armand. You will not be sorry.”

The more he thought about it, the more pleased Gautier was with his ploy. It would take Noelle a week or two to memorize the part, or what was even more likely, she would come to him and confess that she was unable to memorize it. He would sympathize with her, explain how difficult the art of acting was, and they could assume a relationship untainted by her ambition. Gautier made a date to have dinner with Noelle that evening, and she left.

When Noelle returned to the apartment she shared with Philippe Sorel, she found him waiting for her. He was very drunk.

“You bitch,” he yelled. “Where have you been all night?”

It would not matter what she said. Sorel knew that he was going to listen to her apologies, beat her up, then take her to bed and forgive her.

But instead of apologizing Noelle merely said, “With another man, Philippe. I’ve come to pick up my things.”

And as Sorel watched her in stunned disbelief, Noelle walked into the bedroom and began to pack.

“For Christ’s sake, Noelle,” he pleaded. “Don’t do this! We love each other. We’re going to get married.” He talked to her for the next half hour, arguing, threatening, cajoling, and by that time Noelle had finished packing and had left the apartment and Sorel had no idea why he had lost her, for he did not know that he had never possessed her.

Armand Gautier was in the middle of directing a new play that was to open in two weeks and he spent all day at the theater in rehearsals. As a rule when Gautier was in production, he thought of nothing else. Part of his genius was the intense concentration he was able to bring to his work. Nothing existed for him but the four walls of the theater and the actors he was working with. This day however was different. Gautier
found his mind constantly wandering to Noelle and the incredible night they had had together. The actors would go through a scene and then stop and wait for his comments, and Gautier would suddenly realize that he had been paying no attention. Furious with himself he tried to focus his attention on what he was doing, but thoughts of Noelle’s naked body and the amazing things it had done to him would keep coming back. In the middle of one dramatic scene he found that he was walking around the stage with an erection, and he had to excuse himself.

Because Gautier had an analytical mind he tried to figure out what it was about this girl that had affected him like this. Noelle was beautiful, but he had slept with some of the most beautiful women in the world. She was consummately skilled at lovemaking but so were other women to whom he had made love. She seemed intelligent but not brilliant; her personality was pleasant but not complex. There was something else, something the director could not quite put his finger on. And then he remembered her soft “no” and he felt that it was a clue. There was some force in her that was irresistible, that would obtain anything she wanted. There was something in her that was untouched. And like other men before him Armand Gautier felt that though Noelle had affected him more deeply than he cared to admit to himself, he had not touched her at all, and this was a challenge that his masculinity could not refuse.

Gautier spent the day in a confused state of mind. He looked forward to the evening with tremendous anticipation, not so much because he wanted to make love to Noelle but because he wanted to prove to himself that he had been building something out of nothing. He wanted Noelle to be a disappointment to him so that he could dismiss her from his life.

As they made love that night, Armand Gautier made himself consciously aware of the tricks and devices and artifices Noelle used so he would realize that it was all
mechanical, without emotion. But he was mistaken. She gave herself to him fully and completely, caring only about bringing him pleasure such as he had never known before and reveling in his enjoyment. When morning came Gautier was more firmly bewitched by her than ever.

Noelle prepared breakfast for him again, this time delicate crêpes with bacon and jam, and hot coffee, and it was magnificent.

“All right,” Gautier told himself. “You have found a young girl who is beautiful to look at, who can make love and cook. Bravo! But is that enough for an intelligent man? When you are through making love and eating, you must talk. What can she talk to you about?” The answer was that it didn’t really matter.

There had been no more mention of the play and Gautier was hoping that Noelle had either forgotten about it or had been unable to cope with memorizing the lines. When she left in the morning, she promised to have dinner with him that evening.

“Can you get away from Philippe?” Gautier asked.

“I’ve left him,” Noelle said simply. She gave Gautier her new address.

He stared at her for a moment. “I see.”

But he did not. Not in the least.

They spent the night together again. When they were not making love, they talked. Or rather Gautier talked. Noelle seemed so interested in him that he found himself talking about things he had not discussed in years, personal things that he had never revealed to anyone before. No mention was made of the play he had given her to read, and Gautier congratulated himself on having solved his problem so neatly.

The following night when they had had dinner and were ready to retire, Gautier started toward the bedroom.

“Not yet,” Noelle said.

He turned in surprise.

“You said you would listen to me do the play.”

“Well, of—of course,” Gautier stammered, “whenever you’re ready.”

“I am ready.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want you to read it, cherie,” he said. “I want to hear it when you have memorized it so that I can really judge you as an actress.”

“I have memorized it,” Noelle replied.

He stared at her in disbelief. It was impossible that she could have learned the entire part in only three days.

“Are you ready to hear me?” she asked.

Armand Gautier had no choice. “Of course,” he said. He gestured toward the center of the room. “That will be your stage. The audience will be here.” He sat down on a large comfortable settee.

Noelle began to do the play. Gautier could feel the gooseflesh begin to crawl, his own personal stigmata, the thing that happened to him when he encountered real talent. Not that Noelle was expert. Far from it. Her inexperience shone through every move and gesture. But she had something much more than mere skill: She had a rare honesty, a natural talent that gave every line a fresh meaning and color.

When Noelle finished the soliloquy, Gautier said warmly, “I think that one day you will become an important actress, Noelle. I really mean that. I am going to send you to Georges Faber, who is the best dramatic coach in all of France. Working with him, you will—”

“No.”

He looked at her in surprise. It was that same soft “no” again. Positive and final.

“ ‘No’ what?” Gautier asked in some confusion. “Faber does not take on anyone but the biggest actors. He will only take you because I tell him to.”

“I am going to work with you,” Noelle said.

Gautier could feel the anger mounting in him. “I don’t coach anyone,” he snapped. “I am not a teacher.
I direct professional actors. When you are a professional actor, then I will direct you.” He was fighting to check the anger in his voice. “Do you understand?”

Noelle nodded. “Yes, I understand, Armand.”

“Very well then.”

Mollified, he took Noelle in his arms and received a warm kiss from her. He knew now that he had worried unnecessarily. She was like any other woman, she needed to be dominated. He would have no further problem with her.

Their lovemaking that night surpassed anything that had gone before, possibly, Gautier thought, because of the added excitement of the slight quarrel they had had.

During the night he said to her, “You really can be a wonderful actress, Noelle. I’m going to be very proud of you.”

“Thank you, Armand,” she whispered.

Noelle fixed breakfast in the morning, and Gautier left for the theater. When he telephoned Noelle during the day, she did not answer, and when he arrived home that night she was not there. Gautier waited for her to return, and when she did not appear he lay awake all night wondering if she could have been in an accident. He tried to phone Noelle at her apartment, but there was no answer. He sent a telegram that went undelivered, and when he stopped at her apartment after rehearsal, no one answered his ring.

During the week that followed, Gautier was frantic. Rehearsals were turning into a shambles. He was screaming at all the actors and upsetting them so badly that his stage manager suggested they stop for the day and Gautier agreed. After the actors had left, he sat on the stage alone, trying to understand what had happened to him. He told himself that Noelle was just another woman, a cheap ambitious blonde with the heart of a shopgirl who wanted to be a star. He denigrated her in every way he could think of, but in the end he knew it was no use. He had to have her. That night he
wandered the streets of Paris, getting drunk in small bars where he was unknown. He tried to think of ways to reach Noelle but to no avail. There was no one he could even talk to about her, except Philippe Sorel, and that, of course, was out of the question.

A week after Noelle had disappeared, Armand Gautier arrived home at four o’clock in the morning, drunk, opened the door and walked into the living room. All the lights were on. Noelle was curled up in an easy chair dressed in one of his robes, reading a book. She looked up as he entered, and smiled.

“Hello, Armand.”

Gautier stared at her, his heart lifting, a feeling of infinite relief and happiness flooding through him. He said, “We’ll begin working tomorrow.”

Washington, D.C., was the most exciting city that Catherine Alexander had ever seen. She had always thought of Chicago as the heartland, but Washington was a revelation. Here was the real core of America, the pulsating center of power. At first, Catherine had been bewildered by the variety of uniforms that filled the streets: Army, Navy Air Corps, Marines. For the first time Catherine began to feel the grim possibility of war as something real.

In Washington the physical presence of war was everywhere. This was the city where war, if it came, would begin. Here it would be declared and mobilized and masterminded. This was the city that held in its hand the fate of the world. And she, Catherine Alexander, was going to be a part of it.

She had moved in with Susie Roberts, who was living in a bright and cheery fourth floor walk-up apartment with a fair-sized living room, two small adjoining bedrooms, a tiny bathroom and a kitchenette built for a midget. Susie had seemed glad to see her. Her first words were:

“Hurry and unpack and get your best dress steamed out. You have a dinner date tonight.”

Catherine blinked. “What took you so long?”

“Cathy, in Washington, it’s the
girls
who have the little black books. This town is so full of lonely men, it’s pitiful.”

They had dinner that first evening at the Willard
Hotel. Susie’s date was a congressman from Indiana and Catherine’s date was a lobbyist from Oregon, and both men were in town without their wives. After dinner they went dancing at the Washington Country Club. Catherine had hoped that the lobbyist might be able to give her a job. Instead she got the offer of a car and her own apartment, which she declined with thanks.

Susie brought the congressman back to the apartment, and Catherine went to bed. A short time later she heard them go into Susie’s bedroom, and the bedsprings began to creak. Catherine pulled a pillow over her head to drown out the sound, but it was impossible. She visualized Susie in bed with her date making wild, passionate love. In the morning when Catherine got up for breakfast, Susie was already up, looking bright and cheerful, ready to go to work. Catherine searched for telltale wrinkles and other signs of dissipation on Susie, but there were none. On the contrary she looked radiant, her skin absolutely flawless.
My God
, Catherine thought,
she’s a female Dorian Gray. One day she’s going to come in looking great, and I’ll look a hundred and ten years old
.

A few days later at breakfast Susie said, “Hey, I heard about a job opening that might interest you. One of the girls at the party last night said she’s quitting to go back to Texas. God knows why anyone who ever got away from Texas would want to go back there. I remember I was in Amarillo a few years ago and…”

“Where does she work?” Catherine interrupted.

“Who?”

“The girl,” Catherine said patiently.

“Oh. She works for Bill Fraser. He’s in charge of public relations for the State Department.
Newsweek
did a cover story on him last month. It’s supposed to be a cushy job. I just heard about it last night, so if you get over there now, you should beat all the other girls to it.”

“Thanks,” Catherine said gratefully. “William Fraser, here I come.”

Twenty minutes later Catherine was on her way to the State Department. When she arrived, the guard told her where Fraser’s office was and she took the elevator upstairs.
Public Relations. It sounded exactly like the sort of job she was looking for
.

Catherine stopped in the corridor outside the office and took out her hand mirror to check her makeup. She would do. It was not yet nine-thirty so she should have the field to herself. She opened the door and walked in.

The outer office was packed with girls standing, sitting, leaning against the wall, all seemingly talking at once. The frantic receptionist behind the beleaguered desk was vainly trying to bring order into the scene. “Mr. Fraser’s busy right now,” she kept repeating. “I don’t know when he can see you.”

“Is he interviewing secretaries or isn’t he?” one of the girls demanded.

“Yes, but…” She looked around desperately at the mob. “My God! This is ridiculous!”

The corridor door opened and three more girls pushed their way in, shoving Catherine to one side.

“Is the job filled yet?” one of them asked.

“Maybe he’d like a harem,” another girl suggested. “Then we can all stay.”

The door to the inner office opened, and a man came out. He was just a little under six feet, and had the almost-slim body of a nonathlete who keeps in shape at the athletic club three mornings a week. He had curly blond hair graying at the temples, bright blue eyes and a strong, rather forbidding jaw line. “What in hell’s going on here, Sally?” His voice was deep and authoritative.

“These girls heard about the vacancy, Mr. Fraser.”

“Jesus! I didn’t hear about it myself until an hour ago.” His eyes swept over the room. “It’s like jungle drums.” As his eyes moved toward Catherine, she
stood up straight and gave him her warmest I’ll-be-a-great-secretary smile, but his eyes passed right over her and went back to the receptionist. “I need a copy of
Life
,” he told her. “An issue that came out three or four weeks ago. It has a picture of Stalin on the cover.”

“I’ll order it, Mr. Fraser,” the receptionist said.

“I need it now.” He started back toward his office.

“I’ll call the Time-Life Bureau,” the receptionist said, “and see if they can dig up a copy.”

Fraser stopped at the door. “Sally, I have Senator Borah on the line. I want to read him a paragraph from that issue. You have two minutes to find a copy for me.” He went into his office and closed the door.

The girls in the room looked at one another and shrugged. Catherine stood there, thinking hard. She turned and pushed her way out of the office.

“Good. That’s one down,” one of the girls said.

The receptionist picked up the telephone and dialed information. “The number for the Time-Life Bureau,” she said. The room grew silent as the girls watched her. “Thank you.” She replaced the receiver, then picked it up and dialed again. “Hello. This is Mr. William Fraser’s office in the State Department. Mr. Fraser needs a back issue of
Life
immediately. It’s the one with Stalin on the cover…You don’t keep any back issues there? Who could I talk to?…I see. Thank you.” She hung up.

“Tough luck, honey,” one of the girls said.

Another added: “They sure come up with some beauties, don’t they? If he wants to come over to my place tonight, I’ll read to him.” There was a laugh.

The intercom buzzed. She flipped down the key. “Your two minutes are up,” Fraser’s voice said. “Where’s the magazine?”

The receptionist drew a deep breath. “I just talked to the Time-Life Bureau, Mr. Fraser, and they said it would be impossible to get…”

The door opened and Catherine hurried in. In her hand was a copy of
Life
with a picture of Stalin on the
cover. She pushed her way through to the desk and placed the magazine in the receptionist’s hand. The receptionist stared at it incredulously. “I…I have a copy of it here, Mr. Fraser. I’ll bring it right in.” She rose, gave Catherine a grateful smile and hurried into the inner office. The other girls turned to stare at Catherine with suddenly hostile eyes.

Five minutes later the door to Fraser’s office opened, and Fraser and the receptionist appeared. The receptionist pointed to Catherine. “That’s the girl.”

William Fraser turned to regard Catherine speculatively. “Would you come in, please?”

“Yes, sir.” Catherine followed Fraser into his office, feeling the eyes of the other girls stabbing into her back. Fraser closed the door.

His office was the typical, bureaucratic Washington office, but he had decorated it in style, stamping it with his personal taste in furniture and art.

“Sit down, Miss…”

“Alexander, Catherine Alexander.”

“Sally tells me that you came up with the
Life
magazine.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I assume you didn’t just happen to have a three-week-old issue in your purse.”

“No, sir.”

“How did you find it so quickly?”

“I went down to the barber shop. Barber shops and dentists’ offices always have old issues lying around.”

“I see.” Fraser smiled, and his craggy face seemed less formidable. “I don’t think that would have occurred to me,” he said. “Are you that bright about everything?”

Catherine thought about Ron Peterson. “No, sir,” she replied.

“Are you looking for a job as a secretary?”

“Not really.” Catherine saw his look of surprise. “I’ll take it,” she added hastily. “What I’d really like to be is your assistant.”

“Why don’t we start you out as a secretary today?” Fraser said dryly. “Tomorrow you can be my assistant.”

She looked at him hopefully. “You mean I have the job?”

“On trial.” He flicked down the intercom key and leaned toward the box. “Sally, would you please thank the young ladies. Tell them the position is filled.”

“Right, Mr. Fraser.”

He flicked the button up. “Will thirty dollars a week be satisfactory?”

“Oh yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Fraser.”

“You can start tomorrow morning, nine o’clock. Have Sally give you a personnel form to fill out.”

When Catherine left the office, she walked over to the
Washington Post
. The policeman at the desk in the lobby stopped her.

“I’m William Fraser’s personal secretary,” she said loftily, “over at the State Department. I need some information from your morgue.”

“What kind of information?”

“On William Fraser.”

He studied her a moment and said, “That’s the weirdest request I’ve had all week. Has your boss been bothering you, or something?”

“No,” she said disarmingly. “I’m planning to write an exposé on him.”

Five minutes later, a clerk was showing her into the morgue. He pulled out the file on William Fraser, and Catherine began to read.

One hour later Catherine was one of the world’s foremost authorities on William Fraser. He was forty-five years old, had been graduated from Princeton summa cum laude, had started an advertising agency, Fraser Associates, which had become one of the most successful agencies in the business, and had taken a leave of absence a year ago at the request of the President, to work for the government. He had been married
to Lydia Campion, a wealthy socialite. They had been divorced for four years. There were no children. Fraser was a millionaire and had a home in Georgetown and a summer place at Bar Harbor, Maine. His hobbies were tennis, boating and polo. Several of the news stories referred to him as “one of America’s most eligible bachelors.”

When Catherine arrived home and told Susie her good news, Susie insisted that they go out to celebrate. Two rich Annapolis cadets were in town.

Catherine’s date turned out to be a pleasant enough boy, but all evening she kept mentally comparing him to William Fraser, and compared to Fraser the boy seemed callow and dull. Catherine wondered whether she was going to fall in love with her new boss. She had not felt any girlish tingly feeling when she had been with him, but there was something else, a liking for him as a person and a feeling of respect. She decided that the tingly feeling probably existed only in French sex novels.

The cadets took the girls to a small Italian restaurant on the outskirts of Washington where they had an excellent dinner, then went to see
Arsenic and Old Lace
, which Catherine enjoyed tremendously. At the end of the evening the boys brought them home, and Susie invited them in for a nightcap. When it appeared to Catherine that they were starting to settle down for the night, she excused herself and said she had to go to bed.

Her date protested. “We haven’t even gotten started yet,” he said. “Look at them.”

Susie and her escort were on the couch, locked in a passionate embrace.

Catherine’s escort clutched her arm. “There could be a war soon,” he said earnestly. Before Catherine could stop him, he took her hand and placed it against the hardness between his legs. “You wouldn’t send a man into battle in this condition, would you?” Catherine withdrew her hand, fighting not to be angry.
“I’ve given it a lot of thought,” she said evenly, “and I’ve decided to sleep only with the walking wounded.” She turned and went into her bedroom, locking the door behind her. She found it difficult to go to sleep. She lay in bed thinking about William Fraser, her new job and the male hardness of the boy from Annapolis. An hour after she had gone to bed, she heard Susie’s bedsprings creaking wildly. From then on sleep was impossible.

At eight-thirty the next morning Catherine arrived at her new office. The door was unlocked, and the light in the reception office was on. From the inner office she heard the sound of a man’s voice and she walked inside.

William Fraser was at his desk, dictating into a machine. He looked up as Catherine entered and snapped off the machine. “You’re early,” he said.

“I wanted to look around and get my bearings before I began work.”

“Sit down.” There was something in his tone that puzzled her. He seemed angry. Catherine took a seat. “I don’t like snoops, Miss Alexander.”

Catherine felt her face redden. “I—I don’t understand.”

“Washington’s a small town. It’s not even a town. It’s a goddamn village. There’s nothing that goes on here that everybody doesn’t know about in five minutes.”

“I still don’t—”

“The publisher of the
Post
phoned me two minutes after you arrived there to ask why my secretary was doing research on me.”

Catherine sat there stunned, not knowing what to say.

“Did you find out all the gossip you wanted to know?”

She felt her embarrassment swiftly changing to anger. “I wasn’t snooping,” Catherine said. She rose to her feet. “The only reason I wanted information on
you was so that I would know what kind of man I was working for.” Her voice was trembling with indignation. “I think a good secretary should adapt to her employer, and I wanted to know what to adapt to.”