Melting the Snow on Hester Street Page 27

  ‘Of course,’ he said wearily. ‘Of course. And so do I.’

  64

  Teresa tapped on the dining-room door. ‘Mrs Beecham?’ She sounded excited. ‘Mr Beecham? … I am so sorry to disturb you, but I have a letter … Mr Randolph Hearst’s driver is here. He is waiting for a reply …’

  A memory stirred in Eleanor. She moaned. After all these years of hoping for the wretched thing, here it was – and she had completely forgotten. They were expected at San Simeon this Monday. Day after tomorrow. She didn’t move.

  ‘Mrs Beecham?’ Teresa tapped once again. ‘Shall I leave the letter out here for you?’ Eleanor shrugged herself away from him, and Max went to the door.

  He took the envelope and turned back into the room. Marion’s initials were engraved on the outside. He held it up to Eleanor. ‘Is this what I think it is?’ he asked.

  Eleanor nodded. ‘She’s expecting us Monday. I had forgotten. We’ll have to cancel.’

  Max tore it open. Enclosed, along with the traditional tickets for the first-class sleeper, leaving the following evening, there was a handwritten note from Marion.

  Darlings,

  I haven’t heard a squeak from you since your wonderful party and I know it was all such terribly short notice, added to which the entire world has gone stark-staring crazy since. But you sweetly agreed to come stay with us up at the Ranch this Monday. Do you remember? I’m not at all sure you do remember, darlings, since it was awfully late in the evening when we discussed it, and now the world has gone topsy-turvy.

  I know it’s been a rotten week for all of us, but I do believe it’s vital we put on our jolliest faces now more than ever. I hope so much that you agree with me.

  Here are the train tickets, darlings – because I’m simply praying you haven’t forgotten and you do agree. And by the way, since you’re both between movies, I insist you stay on until at least Thursday. It’s only a small house party, but we shall make a wonderfully merry band. And you know how I detest to be a bossy-boo, but could you be terribly sweet and leave a little note with my driver, just for my peace of mind? Because I simply have to know that you’re coming because if you aren’t then I shall probably cancel the whole entire thing.

  The train leaves tomorrow evening and your tickets are in the envelope. I have a wonderful surprise for you both. You simply MUST come!

  X Marion

  Max glanced at Marion’s postcard, the tone of which seemed so jarring to him. He passed it to Eleanor without comment.

  ‘Too bad, huh?’ he said, crossing to the French window, looking out onto the terrace. He turned and smiled at her.

  She nodded. Dropped the card onto the table. It landed on her cheese blintz: ‘Too bad.’

  ‘I wonder what’s the surprise?’ Max said.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘… Not really. No.’

  ‘A party. Or something. Probably. Or a screening.’ Eleanor smiled. ‘Maybe she found the dailies for Lost At Sea. Maybe she’s stuck ’em all back together …’

  ‘Huh.’

  A long pause. It seemed unbelievable, what had passed between them only moments before.

  ‘So,’ she said, looking at his back, willing him to turn around. ‘What do we do now? Shall you …?’ She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

  In the long journey from Reno, when she knew what had to be done, why hadn’t she considered such questions?

  Where would he go? Would he return to Blanche now? Would they lock up the house and sell it and forget everything and forget each other and move swiftly, smoothly to the arms of their lovers? ‘God, Max,’ she said. ‘Help me. What do we do now?’

  He said, automatically, what he always said when he saw that anxious face, heard the anxious voice, saw all the sadness churning behind those eyes. ‘It’s going to be OK, El.’

  ‘Is it? How?’

  He didn’t answer. ‘What do you want to do?’ he asked instead. ‘I guess …’ He stopped. Forced himself to finish: ‘I suppose Butch knows about this decision?’

  ‘No.’

  He nodded, wondered if it was true. ‘So,’ he tried again. ‘Maybe I should go fetch some stuff. I guess that’s what I’ll do.’ But he didn’t move.

  It’s one thing, deciding on a course of action, another one setting it into motion. For an instant, it seemed to be quite beyond them both.

  ‘You know,’ she said, ‘you never actually answered …’

  ‘Answered what?’ But he knew what. He sighed. How could she ever have imagined it would be any different? ‘She is never away from me, Eleanor. Never. And nor are you …’

  She nodded. ‘It’s too late for us now. Isn’t it?’

  A long pause. ‘I think so,’ he said at last.

  So they stood there, unable to move forward, unable to go back.

  ‘Right then,’ Max said.

  ‘I suppose you will live with Blanche?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’ll find a hotel. And you? What will you do? Move in with Butch, I suppose?’

  It occurred to them both, the absurdity of the exchange: of all the things they had to say to each other, the things that had been left unsaid, all the ways they could have helped each other, yet these were the words they exchanged. Eleanor didn’t offer an answer. She didn’t have one, in any case.

  There came another tap on the door, and then Teresa’s voice, calling through from the hall. ‘Mr Beecham? Sorry to disturb you.’ Max and Eleanor glanced at one another. ‘Mr Hearst’s driver is still waiting for a reply. What should I tell him? Should he come back later? Only he’s waiting for a letter from you, and I’m not sure if I should tell him to wait or if …’ Behind her came the sound of the telephone ringing in the hall. She tailed off.

  Eleanor said, through the door: ‘Teresa, give me a minute, and I’ll write a note for him. Tell him I will be just a minute.’

  It was something to do. Something to break the spell between them. She walked away from Max, to the door that connected to the drawing room. There was a small table in there, decorative mostly, but Teresa kept it stocked with Eleanor’s stationery. She would write a quick, gracious note, explaining to Marion that they couldn’t come. It was impossible.

  Max followed her into the room. She settled at the table, pen and card before her, heard his footsteps behind her, felt his presence, smelled his scent, heard his breathing; knew he was standing beside her, hands in pockets, scowling.

  ‘El, I think we should go,’ he said suddenly. ‘I think we should accept.’ She paused. ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘Because …’

  ‘We can’t possibly …’

  ‘We can’t? Why not?’

  She didn’t have an answer. But the question infuriated her. She was doing something at last – something decisive. Why did he have to make it any harder?

  ‘I think we should go,’ he said again. ‘Eleanor – this needn’t have anything to do with the way things are between us.’

  ‘How’s that?’ she asked. She laughed in disbelief, felt a surge of too-familiar rage flare up inside her, and welcomed it in. Max’s ambition had been at the root of so much that was rotten between them. She had always known it. And yet, even now, he couldn’t keep it in check. ‘Damn you, Max. Does nothing stop you?’

  ‘You know the kind of people they have there. All the big shots. The way things are, El, we can’t afford to turn it down.’

  ‘Never mind we can’t stand to be in the same room together. Never mind – anything else. We could pretend, just as we have pretended all these years. Is that what you’re suggesting?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said bluntly. ‘The situation we’re in, it is exactly what I’m suggesting. We’d be stupid to turn it down.’

  ‘Yes, and you can sit beside Mr Hearst, can’t you? Telling him what a wonderful, misunderstood director you are – and perhaps Blanche will be there too! Gosh, why not? Shall we bring her along? And I can call Butch – don’t you agree, Max? Because otherwise it would hardly b
e fair … and then you two can fuck in one corner of the castle, and we can fuck in another …’

  ‘It’s not what I meant. You know that.’

  ‘Which bit? Which bit of it didn’t you mean?’

  He stared at her: at the anger and bitterness in that beautiful face. She was unrecognizable, he thought, from the woman he loved. ‘Gee, Eleanor,’ he murmured, as if seeing her for the first time.

  ‘Gee?’ she mimicked. ‘“Gee”, what?’

  ‘Gee. When did you get so mean?’

  ‘When did I …?’ She didn’t like the question. She didn’t like the way he asked, as if he really did wonder. She gave a brittle laugh. ‘You really want me to tell you?’

  ‘You think everything is my fault, don’t you? Everything that went wrong in your whole, long existence. That’s what your problem is.’

  ‘No I don’t,’ she muttered.

  ‘It’s why you limp through life. Expecting me to make everything OK. Expecting me to spend the rest of my life apologizing.’

  ‘It’s not true …’

  ‘So, yes, Eleanor. I do want you to tell me. I would love to know when you decided you would cast yourself as the world’s greatest victim. In your fancy house. With your husband and your lover and your five-thousand-dollar-a-week contract with the biggest studio in Hollywood.’

  She turned back to her postcard.

  ‘Darling Marion—’ she wrote, with her film star flourish: bold letters, thick black ink curling this way and that – as deceptive as everything else about her. It struck her – it struck them both, simultaneously, the vulgarity of it all.

  ‘Da-aa-arling,’ he mimicked her, reading it aloud: ‘Daarling, darling, daaaarling!’ She stopped writing. Laid down the pen.

  ‘Max …’

  ‘I think we should accept,’ he said again. ‘I think we should go to San Simeon. Definitely. Try and salvage something out of it. I think we should say yes.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And we can come back here, and we can never speak to each other again. If that’s what you want. Never speak to each other. Never set eyes on each other again.’ He fell silent, and she looked away. ‘Maybe it’s what we have to do,’ he said quietly. ‘Because, after all, together we can never forget, never move on … But Eleana …’ He touched her cheek.

  She brushed it away.

  Another tap on the door. ‘Mrs Beecham? You have a telephone call. It’s Miss Marion Davies. She says it’s urgent. She says if Mrs Beecham is unavailable she will talk to Mr Beecham.’

  ‘I’ll talk to her,’ Max said, moving towards the door.

  ‘No …’ she said.

  He ignored her, as she knew he would.

  ‘Tell her, Max, won’t you?’ She turned back to the desk. ‘That it’s absolutely impossible.’ But she muttered the words without conviction. ‘Tell her how sorry we are.’

  But she knew even as she said it that he would say nothing of the kind. Nobody said No to Hearst Castle. Nobody said No to Marion Davies.

  And somehow, even now, Eleanor never could say No to Max.

  65

  Dear Miss Davies,

  I hope sincerely that you will forgive me for intruding in this way upon your precious time. I have long been a fan of all your movies and I adored you in Tillie the Toiler which I have seen now five times and I adore it more each time I watch. However, it is not why I am writing.

  I have a most unusual request …

  Charlie Chaplin was one of the few guests allowed access to the private sitting room that adjoined Marion’s bedroom on the uppermost floor of the castle. She would have much preferred to be showing him the letter up there, away from the prying eyes of servants. But Charlie Chaplin, reflected Marion Davies – and not for the first time – could be exceptionally annoying, and he claimed his delicacy forbade it. He had no such qualms at the Beach House in Santa Monica, but here at San Simeon, he always refused see her in her private rooms, unless WR himself was present.

  WR (Mr Hearst to everyone but Marion) was not present. He was in Hollywood, due to arrive at San Simeon in time for dinner, bringing with him a nurse, and the six-year-old Veronica, Marion’s adored niece. Until then, Charlie and Marion had the run of the castle. And really, all things considered, Marion thought it would have been far more delicate for the two of them to be entertaining one another in her private sitting room. As it was, they were together, drinking champagne and eating peaches, in Chalie’s private rooms in the best guesthouse, a hundred yards from the main house. Looking as delectable as ever, Charlie thought, in turquoise satin day pyjamas and little shoes with an arrangement of coloured feathers attached to them, she was lounging across the foot of his bed.

  Charlie sat in an armchair by the fireside a few feet away. He held the letter in his hand – between finger and thumb, actually – as if it were contaminated. Charlie didn’t share Marion’s enthusiasm for the fan letters. On the contrary, he always advised her to throw them directly in the trash; failing that, onto her secretary’s desk. ‘They will send you mad eventually,’ he said. ‘Never read personal letters from absolute strangers, no matter how harmless they appear. And never read your own press.’ But she didn’t listen, not on either count.

  She’d been longing to show him this letter for weeks, ever since she’d received it. But knowing he would disapprove, and sensing he might dismiss it or, worse still, try to forbid her from pursuing her delightful plan, she had clutched its secrets to herself. Now – with the scene set, and the cast all making their way to the stage – she was nervous. Horrified, actually, by the prospect of what she had set in motion. She needed Charlie’s wise words to make it feel all right again.

  ‘It’s a hoax!’ he said, ‘and you are playing with people’s hearts, Marion. Can you not imagine it – the pain you may be causing?’

  ‘You know I can imagine it, Ch-Charlie. You know just how much it means to me … And I told you I have especially said nothing to the Beechams, so as not to get their hopes up.’

  ‘Well I suppose that’s something.’ He softened a little. ‘Even so, I’m amazed you could be so fickle with other people’s hearts … when I know you have feelings of your own.’

  ‘I am trying to help.’

  ‘You are trying to amuse yourself.’

  ‘I am not! Hell, Charlie! You haven’t even read the letter!’

  ‘Because I don’t need to.’

  ‘Why, yes you do. How can you be such a know-all, when you haven’t even read the letter? … B-besides. Imagine … Just imagine if I am right – only imagine it.’

  He read the first few lines again and spluttered with renewed disdain.

  ‘A most unusual request?’ he snorted. ‘I tell you what, Marion. As soon as she arrives, I shall test her on Tillie the Toiler. Mark my words. Honestly darling – you were blinded by the flattery right there.’ He tapped the letter. ‘Nobody could sit through that wretched movie even once without wanting to throw themselves off the nearest bridge. But five times? It’s a lie! Either that, or she’s a simpleton.’

  Marion rolled her eyes. ‘You’re b-being horrid again, Charlie. I don’t think you’re being clever, whether you liked the movie or you didn’t.’

  ‘You know I love almost all your movies, sweetheart. You know how highly I rate you as an actress. But Tillie the Toiler was a stinker. And you know it.’

  ‘Oh shhh!’ Carelessly she tossed her peach stone at his chair, missed it by half a room-length. ‘It’s not about the movie, anyway. J-just read the letter, will you? T-tell me what you think. I th-think it’s for real. I do … And if it is – y’know?’ She rolled onto her back, gazed up at the gilted ceiling – it had once belonged in the chapel of a fourteenth-century Sicilian palazzo, or something. WR had told her before, but she could never remember. Marion thought, not for the first time, that it might have looked better if it had been left there. ‘Only imagine though Charlie, if I am right, how happy they will be!’

  ‘You shouldn’t have meddled.’ />
  ‘Oh! Just read the letter, will you?’

  ‘Do Max and Eleanor know what you have in store for them?’

  ‘I told you, no!’

  ‘What did you tell them?’

  ‘I said …’ She looked at Charlie slyly. ‘Well, I guess you know Max got canned from Silverman?’

  He chuckled. ‘Broke into Butch Menken’s office last week and beat the hell out of him, so I heard. Blood on the carpet all the way up the corridor. God knows, there must be a hundred people in this town who would like to do the same thing.’

  ‘And you know why?’

  ‘I could think of a million reasons.’

  ‘No. B-but you know the actual reason?’

  Charlie hesitated. ‘Presumably Eleanor. If you believe the rumours. Oddly, I never did. Not until Max broke into his office and beat the hell out of him.’

  ‘Butch and Eleanor?’ Marion cried, aghast. ‘You’re kidding me!’

  He laughed, pleased by her reaction. ‘Ha! You see? You don’t know everything that goes on in this town, Marion.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I don’t think you’re right about that,’ she said, recovering herself. ‘No. Definitely not. Max? Maybe, just a l-little bit. OK. So what? But Eleanor? I don’t think so, Ch-Charlie. He and Eleanor are the h-happiest couple in Hollywood. Everyone knows it.’

  ‘So you always say.’

  ‘You got that rumour wrong, Charlie. And definitely not with Butch.’

  Charlie shrugged. ‘If you say so, sweetheart.’

  ‘It’s because …’ She rolled back onto her belly, the better to share her gossip. ‘Max hit Butch because …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘But Ch-Charlie. You mustn’t repeat it. P-promise me you won’t.’

  He looked at her, deadpan, and crossed himself.

  ‘I’m serious,’ Marion said.

  ‘Sweetheart, I promise. I won’t breathe a word.’

  ‘Max hit Butch, because Butch, before he went across to Silverman and got rid of Max – before he did that, he got Eleanor canned from Lionsfiel!’

  ‘No, really?’