Evening In Byzantium Part 19
"Which one?" Wadleigh asked.
Robinson looked a little fl.u.s.tered. "Well," he said, "the one about the boy growing up in the Midwest and ..."
"My first one." Wadleigh sat down. "I wrote it in 1953."
"Please sit down," Natalie said hurriedly. "Everyone."
Anne sat down, but Craig remained standing. "Are you having a good time in Cannes, Mr. Robinson?" he asked, steering the conversation away from the dangers of literature to the safer ba.n.a.lities of tourism.
"Well, I've been here before, of course," the man said. "But this is the first time I've seen it from the inside, so to speak. Thanks to Natalie. It's a whole new experience." He patted her arm, a fatherly pat.
You don't know how much on the inside you are, Brother, Craig thought, smiling socially.
"We'd better sit down, dear," Natalie said. "The lady's waiting for us."
"I hope I see you fine folks again real soon," Robinson said. "You and your pretty daughter, Mr. Craig, and you, Mr. Wadleigh, and your ..."
"I'm not anybody's daughter," Gail said, chewing on a piece of celery.
"She defies description," Wadleigh said. His tone was hostile. Robinson obviously was no fool, and his face hardened. "Enjoy your meal," he said, and allowed Natalie to lead him to the table that the owner was pulling out for them.
Craig watched Natalie as she pa.s.sed, in the light-footed, slightly swaying dancer's walk he would always remember, between the rows of tables. Frail and elegant and carefully prepared to please men's eyes, rouse men's desires, courageous, and full of guile.
In a place like this you had to expect bits and pieces of your past to float by, to exert the power of nostalgia, to become again, for a little while at least, part of the present. Staring at Natalie Sorel, lovely and memorable, walking away from him on another man's arm to the rear of the restaurant, he wondered what perversity of chance had ruled that the part of his past embodied in Ian Wadleigh was claiming him tonight instead of Natalie Sorel.
As he sat down, he was conscious of Gail's looking at him quizzically, knowingly.
"Did I hear correctly?" Wadleigh was saying, mimicking Robinson's slight Texas drawl. "Are you the writer?"
"Keep it low," Craig said. "This is a small restaurant."
"I really admired your book, sir," Wadleigh said. Then, bitterly, "I've been writing for twenty years, and I've got eight books to show for it, and he liked my book."
"Calm down, Ian," Craig said.
But the wine was beginning to work. "And it's always the first one. The one I did when I hardly knew how to spell my own name. I'm getting so tired of that book I think I'm going to burn it in the public square on my next birthday." He poured himself a full gla.s.s of wine, spilling some on the tablecloth.
"If it'll make you feel any better," Anne said, "my English professor said he thought your second book was the best one you've written."
"Screw your English professor," Wadleigh said. "What the h.e.l.l does he know?"
"A lot," Anne said defiantly. Craig was glad to see that his daughter had that most difficult of virtues, courage among the teacups. "I'll tell you another thing he said ..."
"Do, do!" Wadleigh said. "I can't wait to hear."
"He said that the books you've written since you've moved abroad are comparative failures," Anne said. Craig recognized the way she lifted her chin, a habit she had developed as a child when she decided to be stubborn and willful. "That you're not really exploring your talents to their utmost, that you ought to come back to America ..."
"Did he say that?"
"Yes, he did."
"And you agree with him?" Wadleigh asked, icy and calm.
"I do," Anne said.
"Screw you and your English teacher both," Wadleigh said.
"If you're going to talk like that," Craig said, "Anne and I will be going home." He knew that the drink had made Wadleigh reckless, that he was ripe for torture, and that he had been touched on his sorest point, but he didn't want to expose Anne to Wadleigh's agonized thrashing about.
"Cut it, Ian," Gail said crisply. "We can't all be loved by the whole world every minute of our lives. Be a big grown man, for G.o.d's sake. Be a writer, a professional writer, or go do something else for a living."
If Craig had said that, he knew there would have been an explosion. But Wadleigh blinked, shook his head as though emerging from a wave, grinned at Gail. "Out of the mouths of babes," he said. "Forgive me, folks, I hope you're having a good time in Cannes. I want some more fish. Waiter ..." He waved, but politely, to the waiter who was hurrying past him with a tureen of steaming soup. "Should we order a souffle for dessert?" Wadleigh said, the perfect host. "I understand they do them very well here. Grand Marnier or chocolate?"
Craig saw Murphy come rolling through the door, looking, as usual when he entered a room, like a bouncer hurrying to break up a fight. Behind him was Sonia Murphy and Lucienne Dullin and Walter Klein. The tribes are on the move, Craig thought, the princes are meeting at the summit. He had lived in Hollywood too long to be surprised at seeing men who at other times denounced each other in the bitterest terms dining cordially together. In that tight, compet.i.tive world the lines of communication had to be left open at all times. He was sure that Murphy would not tell Klein that he had read The Three Horizons and that Klein would not tell Murphy that the script was on his desk. The princes were discreet and made their dispositions under cover of night.
Even so, he was relieved to see that the owner was seating the group near the entrance, well away from their own table. A long time ago, when Wadleigh was in fashion, Murphy had been his agent. When Wadleigh's bad years began, Murphy had dropped him, and Wadleigh, as might be expected, bore him no great love as a consequence. If the two men were to be seated near each other, with Wadleigh as far gone in drink as he was, the atmosphere would be less than friendly.
But Murphy, who scanned each room he entered like a ship's radar, spotted Craig, and while the others settled themselves at the table near the door, came rolling down the central aisle of the restaurant to greet him. "Good evening, everybody," he said, smiling at the girls and somehow excluding Wadleigh from the greeting. "I called you five times today, Jess. I wanted to invite you to dinner tonight."
Translated, that meant that Murphy had called once, had heard the phone ring twice, had nothing of importance to say to him, and had hung up, too impatient to get the operator back to leave a message. Or it might even mean that Murphy hadn't called at all.
"I had to go to Nice," Craig said, "to pick up Anne."
"G.o.d," Murphy said, "this is Anne! I wondered where you'd found the beauty. Turn your back for a minute on a scrawny little freckled kid and look what happens."
"h.e.l.lo, Mr. Murphy," Anne said gravely.
"Sonia'd love to see you, Anne," Murphy said. "I tell you what. Why don't you and Miss McKinnon and your father come over to Antibes for dinner with us tomorrow night?"
"I won't be here tomorrow," Craig said. "I'm leaving Cannes." He saw Anne's questioning look. "Just for a couple of days. We'll do it when I get back."
"I'm not leaving Cannes, Murph," Wadleigh said. "I'm free for dinner tomorrow night."
"Isn't that interesting?" Murphy said flatly. "See you later, Jess." He turned and went toward his table.
"The gracious benefactor of the rich," Wadleigh said. "Bryan Murphy, the walking Who's Who. Gee, Jesse," he said with mock innocence, "I sure am glad you're still in there in the current issue." He was going to continue but stopped because Murphy was coming back.
"Jesse," Murphy said, "I forgot something. Did you see the Tribune today?"
"No," Craig said. "Why?"
"Edward Brenner died yesterday. A heart attack, the story said. It was short, the obit, I mean, but not too rough. The usual-After an early success, he faded away from the theatrical scene, etc. They mentioned you."
"What did they say about me?"
"Just that you did his first play. Pick up a copy of the paper and read it yourself. Do you have his address? I'd like to send a cable to his family."
"I have an old address," Craig said. "I'll give it to you in the morning."
"Okay," Murphy said. He went back to his table.
"Was he a friend of yours, Daddy?" Anne asked. "Edward Brenner?"
"Not recently." He was conscious of Gail's eyes fixed on him, searching his face.
"Wipe away a tear," Wadleigh said. "Another writer gone. Waiter," he called, "encore une bouteille. Let's drink to the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d."
An old friend, an old enemy, now just a name in an obsolete address book, was dead across the ocean, and some ritual, some grave marking of the moment, was in order, but Craig contented himself merely with bringing the wine gla.s.s to his lips when Wadleigh raised his gla.s.s and said flippantly, "To dead writers everywhere."
Observing himself as though from outside himself, Craig noted that he ate his meal with relish and enjoyed the souffle when it came. Brenner, he thought, would have been more demonstrative if it had been Craig's name in the obituary column.
He wondered if some months before he died, Edward Brenner's handwriting had changed.
By the end of the meal Wadleigh was very drunk. He had opened his collar, complaining that the restaurant was too hot, and had added up the check slowly, three times, and fumbled with the crumpled hundred-franc notes he pulled out of his pocket to pay the bill. As he stood up, he knocked over his chair.
"Get him out into the open air quick," Craig whispered to Gail. "Anne and I have to stop and say h.e.l.lo to Sonia Murphy."
But when they came to the Murphy table, even though Gail kept tugging at Wadleigh's sleeve to get him to move, he planted himself behind Murphy's chair as Sonia greeted Craig and Anne and Klein introduced Miss Dullin, who said, with a lilting French accent, that she had long wanted to meet Monsieur Craig. While Sonia Murphy was telling Anne how happy she was to see her again after all these years and to make sure to come over and use their cabana at the Hotel du Cap any time, Wadleigh, rocking gently back and forth on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet behind Murphy's chair, began to hum loudly, "Hail to the Chief."
Klein, diplomatically, pretended to be amused. "I didn't know you were so musical, Ian," he said.
"Among my many talents," Wadleigh said. "Mr. Murphy is going to book me into La Scala next season, isn't he, Mr. Murphy?"
Murphy ignored him. "Give me a ring in the morning, Jess," he said, and turned back to his dinner.
"Come on, Ian," Craig said.
But Wadleigh refused to budge. "Mr. Murphy is a great little old booker, isn't he, Mr. Murphy? All you have to do is have a number-one best seller for a year and a picture that has just grossed forty million dollars and Mr. Murphy is almost a sure thing to get you a job writing a La.s.sie picture or a television commercial for aspirin. Don't you wish you were as successful a flesh-peddler as Mr. Murphy, Mr. Klein?"
"Indeed I do, Ian," Klein said soothingly. "And you can call me Walter."
"Cut it out, Ian," Craig said sharply. Wadleigh was talking loudly, and the people at the surrounding tables had all stopped eating and were watching him.
"I'll give you a hint, Mr. Klein," Wadleigh went on, still rocking gently and dangerously back and forth behind Murphy's chair. "I'll tell you the secret of Mr. Murphy's great success. You, too, can be rich and famous and invite girls to your cabana any time. It's not whom you represent that counts, it's whom you drop. You have to learn how to drop the deadwood, Mr. Klein, and drop them fast, before anyone else even knows they're droppable. One bad review and you drop. You'll never get as expert at it as Mr. Murphy, Mr. Klein, because he's got it in his blood, he's the genius of the age for dropping, he lets nothing stand in the way of his craft, not friendship or loyalty or talent, he's like the war-horse in the Bible, he sniffs failure from afar. The telephone rings, and he's not in. See, that's the secret. When the telephone rings and you know it's me, you're not in. The fact that you made thousands and thousands of dollars on me doesn't make any difference. You're not in, see. Remember that simple rule, Mr. Klein, and you'll go far, very far. Won't he, Mr. Murphy?"
"Take him away, Jesse," Murphy said.
"Come on, Ian." Craig tried to lead Wadleigh away. "Everybody gets the point."
But Wadleigh pushed away his hand. "I can't get to talk to Mr. Murphy on the telephone," he said, "so I talk to him in restaurants. I like to talk to Mr. Murphy about his profession-about all the jobs he could have suggested me for that he didn't suggest me for ..."
Finally, Murphy turned around. "Don't make me laugh, Wadleigh," he said calmly. "With the way you've been going for the last ten years, I couldn't sell you for dog meat."
Wadleigh stopped rocking. His lips twitched. The entire restaurant was silent. Sonia Murphy was sitting with her head bowed, staring down at her plate. Lucienne Dullin was smiling slightly, as though she were being amused. The chances were that she couldn't follow Wadleigh's drunken English and probably thought it was a friendly, if rather boisterous, conversation. Klein was playing with his gla.s.s, not looking at anybody. Anne was the only one who moved. With a gasp, she bolted out the door. Wadleigh took a step as though to follow her, then suddenly turned and hit Murphy. The blow was aimed at Murphy's head but slid off and landed on Murphy's shoulder. Murphy didn't move as Craig threw his arms around Wadleigh and pinned his arms.
"Get that b.u.m out of here, Jesse," Murphy said, "before I kill him."
"I'm going home," Wadleigh said thickly. Cautiously, Craig released him. Wadleigh walked stiffly out the door.
"I'll get a taxi," Gail said, "and take him to his hotel." She hurried after Wadleigh.
"I do like your friends," Murphy said to Craig.
"He's drunk," Craig said inanely.
"So I gathered," Murphy said.
"I'm sorry for everything," Craig said to the others.
"It's not your fault," Sonia said. "It's just too bad. He used to be such a nice man."
The noise in the restaurant was rising to its normal pitch as Craig went out into the street.
WADLEIGH was on the quay puking into the harbor. Gail was standing near him, ready to grab him if he started to teeter toward the black water. Anne was a few yards away from Gail, making a point of not looking at Wadleigh. Drunk as he was, Wadleigh, Craig was sure, was not vomiting because of the wine he had downed.
Watching Wadleigh bent over the harbor edge, his shoulders heaving convulsively, Craig felt his anger cool. He put his arm around Anne to comfort her. He felt her shiver minutely. "I'm sorry, Anne," he said, "to have let you in for something like that. I think that's the last dinner we'll have with Mr. Wadleigh for some time."
"The poor, poor, desperate man," Anne said. "Everybody is so hard on him."
"He asks for it," Craig said.
"I know," she said. "But even so."
Wadleigh stood straight, turned around, dabbing with a handkerchief at his mouth. He tried to smile. "There goes a hundred-franc meal," he said. "Well, it's been a nice party. Worth every penny of it. All right, Jesse, say what's on your mind."
"Nothing's on my mind," Craig said.
Gail hailed a taxi that was making a U turn in front of the restaurant. "I'll take you to your hotel, Ian," she said gently.
Docilely, Wadleigh allowed himself to be led to the taxi. The door closed behind him, and Gail and the taxi spurted off. No hints, no signals.
"Well," Craig said, "that's that."
Then Anne began to cry, hard, wracking sobs. "There, there," he said helplessly. "Just try to forget it. He'll probably forget the whole thing by morning."
"He won't forget it," Anne said between sobs. "Not for his whole life. How can people be so ugly to each other?"
"They manage it," Craig said dryly. He didn't want to show too much sympathy for fear of further tears. "Don't take it so hard, darling. Wadleigh's survived a lot worse things than tonight."
"You never imagine a man would behave like that," Anne said wonderingly as the sobs subsided. "A man like that who can write so beautifully, who seems so sure of himself in his books ..."
"A book is one thing," Craig said. "The man who writes it is another. More often than not a book is a disguise, not a description."
"When the telephone rings, and you know it's me, you're not in," Anne said. The tears had stopped, and she rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand like a little forlorn girl. "What a terrible thing to know about yourself. I hate the movie business, Daddy," she said fiercely. "I just hate it."
Craig dropped his arm from her shoulders. "It's no different from any other business," he said. "It's just a little more concentrated."
"Can't anybody do anything for him? Mr. Murphy? You?"