As Far as You Can Go (21 page)

He thought of what he had said to Dennis as his train was about to depart, his sudden plaintive “I wanted to do
something
big.” Afterwards he had felt ashamed of being so naïve. But in America a remark like that didn’t seem so silly, and the something big seemed possible.

He wondered what kind of pigeon-hole Dennis would put him in for thinking
that.
He re-read the letter, sitting in his dressing-gown, finishing the breakfast he insisted on having in his room. Dennis and his television programme, Helen and her fiancé, all seemed as though they were on another planet, not merely a different continent.

The phone rang, and he said “Hallo” in a specially vibrant masculine voice he’d been practising for Diane, assuming that it would be her.

“Harold?” said a man’s voice.

“Yes,” he said, hastily dropping the vibrations.

“This is Eddie. Where have you been?”

“Oh. I’ve been around,” said Harold stiltedly.

“Something the matter with you, Harold? You sound all goofed up. Anything wrong?”

“No, no. I was hoping you’d call, actually. I wanted to tell you——”

He wanted to tell Eddie that he didn’t in the least want to see him again, but now that he had Diane he felt more secure about things. He decided that it wasn’t Eddie he disliked, it was Eddie’s friends. But Eddie had already interrupted him.

“Listen, kid, I’ve got a guy wants to meet you. Some old guy. Says he knows about you, wants to have a look at you.”

“Who on earth can that be?”

“I don’t know. I met him last night. There was a real ball at his place. You should have been there. Wait a minute, I’ve got his address somewhere, maybe his name, too. Yes. A guy called Henry Washburn. He uses make-up. He’s a real old queen, the kind I hate. But he’s kind of rich, I guess. It was a swell party, Harold. And some of the chicks were way out. Invisible.”

“Listen, Eddie,” said Harold. “I know exactly who he is. And I don’t mind meeting him. But I don’t want to go on any more of your binges. So I shall bring my girl—my chick—with me, if you don’t mind.”

“I guess he doesn’t like chicks,” said Eddie. “Do you have to bring her? Can’t you make it alone?”

“She’s his niece, so he shouldn’t mind.”

“Great. So you know the guy already, huh?”

“No, only by reputation.”

“I guess his reputation’s kind of hot, right?”

“His mother loves him. What is finer than the love of a mother for her child?”

“I could tell you,” said Eddie. “How about me picking you up around six?”

“I think I’d rather drive my own car, if you don’t mind. I have an old-fashioned superstition about stealing. Besides I’ve got to collect Diane first.”

“Have it your way, then,” said Eddie. “It’ll be the first time I’ve dumped a hot car in a swank hotel parking lot. It’ll give me a kick. See ya, then.”

“Wait a minute. Do you know why Mr Washburn wants to see me? I mean, how did my name come up?”

“I guess he was talking about you. He was kind of loaded, shooting his mouth off about how he was going to sell you some picture. Didn’t you say you were trying to buy a
picture
? He reckons he can get it for you. But he was pissed as hell, he didn’t make much sense. Sounded like he was
thinking
of taking you for a ride.”

“Well, thanks for telling me. It’s good to know there’s someone on my side, anyway.”

“I don’t take sides, you should know that. I’m just a contact man. But watch out, Harold. He’s a real old queen, I’m telling you. And mean, too, I guess. And he’s over
thirty-five
. That does make me on your side, I guess.”

“Did you tell him anything about me?”

“What is there to tell?” said Eddie. “Listen, I’ll see you about six, right? I’ll call him to make sure he’s still interested, and tell him we’re coming over. I’ll call you right back if the deal’s off, O.K.?”

“O.K.”

“Hey, what about this Diane?”

“You’ll see,” said Harold.

He ran himself a bath and thought about Eddie’s phone call, and about what Diane had told him about her uncle. He didn’t trust Eddie at all: after all, Eddie had defined a friend as someone you couldn’t trust, and that certainly went for Eddie himself as well as for his friends. So, by axiom, Henry Washburn wasn’t to be trusted either. Who could be trusted? Well, there was Diane. Yes, there was Diane.

He had been too quick to tell Eddie that he would bring Diane. Presumably Henry Washburn thought he could get round his mother and persuade her to sell the miniature,
expecting some kind of commission for himself. Which would be splendid. But how would Diane react to the idea? It was very curious that while she said very nasty things about her grandmother she didn’t at all like it when Harold added a few rude words of his own. She would become defensive at once, excusing the old woman for her generally
bloody-minded
attitude, taking the remarks Harold made as
somehow
reflecting on herself. The more he had got to know her, the more he had found it difficult to understand the relation which bound the old and the young woman together. They didn’t seem to like each other very much, and yet they seemed to operate as a pair, they thought of each other as permanent companions, perhaps. Harold was always aware of being an outsider when they were together.

Not that Mrs Washburn had continued her rudeness after that first visit. She called him “son” and even “Harold”, she seemed to enjoy talking to him, to be flattered by his interest in her life, telling him long stories about early days in the west, sometimes repeating tales her father had told her. As she talked she would smile at him, the watchfulness gone from her eyes, and her hand would sometimes rest lightly on his knee or arm as she made a point. He even began to wonder if he might not be a welcome visitor: Mrs Washburn must get very lonely up there at the end of the canyon. Yet although she was friendly, although the
watchfulness
would sometimes disappear, he never felt that he was being treated as a welcome guest. It was more as though he was an alien under surveillance, allowed to travel in the country, but followed everywhere by two pairs of eyes. For it was in the Washburns’ house that Harold was most aware of the barrier that Diane would not let down: when he and Mrs Washburn were talking, Diane would go into the kitchen, or look out of the window, or sit smoking at the far end of the room. But in spite of this show of indifference he felt that she was watching and listening all the time. And when he was
talking to her, he felt Mrs Washburn’s eyes always on him. Occasionally the two women would exchange a long silent look whose meaning he would be unable to penetrate, and he would feel excluded. Excluded, alone, alien.

He had tried to tell Diane about this feeling, but she laughed quickly and said he was imagining things.

“Besides,” she said, “Grandma and I have lived together for twenty years. You get so you don’t have to say things to each other after that long: a look is just as good.”

“But what are you saying in those looks?”

“I don’t know,” she said, and laughed.

But he felt that she did know, that she was just as conscious as he of the exclusiveness of the glances held for so long across the drawing-room, and that she didn’t want him to
understand
them, to be included.

And how would she now take the news of her uncle’s wish to see Harold? He almost wished that Eddie would call to say that the whole thing was off. But Eddie didn’t call.

He toyed with the idea of not telling Diane anything about it. But he was supposed to be taking her out this evening, and besides—he wanted to tell her. By withholding nothing from her, he hoped to induce her to lower the invisible barricade between them, not to withhold in her turn. The mixture of business and pleasure was proving to be more complicated than he had gaily imagined.

He dried himself and dialled the Washburns’ number.

“Hallo?” said Diane.

“Hallo, Diane. Listen, I’ve got news for you.” He
explained
what had happened, listening for reactions.

All she said was: “Who’s this friend of yours?”

“Eddie Jackson? He’s really rather terrible, I’m afraid. I met him in London, and just happened to run into him again here. He’s mad. He lives for going to bed with people, and he’s not choosy about the sex.”

“You should pick your friends more carefully,” she said.
“Gee, if he knows Uncle Henry, he must be undesirable.”

“I think he only met him yesterday. Oh, and he hates everyone over thirty-five, so he can’t possibly like him, can he? How old is your uncle, anyway?”

“He’s certainly over thirty-five. I guess Grandma told him about you and the goddam picture.”

“I suppose so.”

“Harold, there’s no funny stuff going on, is there?”

“Not yet. Not as far as I know. I’d tell you at once if there was, you know that.”

“I’m not going to do anything to help Uncle Henry fool Grandma, Harold.”

“No, of course not. Look, maybe I could come up a little earlier than usual and talk to you about it. And I’d like to talk to your grandmother, too. She might show me the miniature today, perhaps. Honestly, she’s like an old
courtesan
, withholding her favours from a young suitor.”

“Yeah,” said Diane, to whom Harold had told the legend attached to the miniature, “like Queen Elizabeth and the kid in the picture, huh?”

“Not unlike. Except I hope I won’t lose my head.”

“O.K., honey. Do you want me to tell Grandma where we’re going?”

“I’d rather you didn’t, darling, not till we’ve seen what it’s all about. Don’t you think?”

“O.K.”

Yes, but was it O.K.? Harold had no desire to become
embroiled
in any unpleasantness, any family plotting. He wanted to obtain the miniature, and he wanted to go on being in love with Diane, and if it came to a choice between the girl and the picture, well, as he had told her, life before art every time. But—life also included Mr Dangerfield. The miniature hardly represented art at all, it represented instead Harold’s
raison
d’être
in Los Angeles. In fact, he had better start being careful: once he’d obtained the thing, if he ever did, then
he would have no further reason for staying. Denver called. Mrs Bannister had written asking when he was coming. All the same, he could hardly spin out the negotiations about the miniature just to give himself time to spend with Diane. The spider would almost certainly not like the idea of that at all. No, the thing to do would be to get the miniature as soon as possible, send it off to Dangerfield, accept his thanks, then start looking around for a job. There was a good deal of ominous talk about a recession, but Harold felt that it couldn’t possibly apply to him. He could, anyway, always become a butler. Servants were paid fantastic sums in these parts, and he might as well make his English accent work for him.

He went up to San Domingo Canyon at about five o’clock, and they sat out in the small garden, while Mrs Washburn watered the few miserable flowers at endless length. Harold felt rather tense, and Diane seemed cooler than usual towards him. But Mrs Washburn never wandered far enough out of earshot for them to be able to talk properly about the miniature and Uncle Henry and Eddie.

He described Eddie with some deliberate omissions, but Diane said, “Oh, I know that kind. L.A. is lousy with them. I bet he’s the sort that steals cars for kicks.”

“Well, I think he does steal cars, actually, but not for kicks, particularly, just to get around. His kicks are rather more sophisticated, I think. I’m not at all sure that I should allow you to meet him. I mean, him to meet you.”

“You’d better make up your mind who you do trust and who you don’t, Harold. And let me know.”

“Oh, come off it, Diane. You know very well that I trust you absolutely.”

“Well, don’t be too absolute about it,” she said. “I tell you, if I have to choose between Uncle Henry and Grandma, and I don’t like either of them, I’d choose Grandma every time.”

“Let’s go inside and talk,” said Harold.

“Grandma will just follow us, you’ll see.”

“That suits me fine.”

Mrs Washburn did indeed follow them, but there was nothing for her to overhear. Diane said simply that she wasn’t easy in her mind about it all, and Harold said he wasn’t either, but the time hadn’t come to tell whether there was anything to be uneasy about or not, so why not forget it for half an hour? Diane said she’d try, but she was in one of her restless moods, and walked up and down the room, saying little or nothing.

When Mrs Washburn came in, Harold mustered his bravest smile and said, “You did say you might let me see the miniature one day, Mrs Washburn. I do hope you’re feeling in the right mood.”

“My moods are my own, son,” she said. She sat down on one of the sofas, and there was silence for a few minutes, while Diane continued to prowl the deep white carpet.

“Diane, you’re giving me indigestion,” said Mrs
Washburn
at last. “Go up to my bedroom and get me my
jewel-case
, would you, child? I guess your friend here has been kept in suspense long enough.”

Diane started slightly, but did as she was told, giving Harold a look as she left that he didn’t understand. It was hostile and yet despairing, as though she was doing
something
she didn’t want to do, that she thought he was forcing her to do, but which she couldn’t help doing.

There was another silence as she went up the stairs and into her grandmother’s bedroom. Then Mrs Washburn laughed, a hard dry cackling laugh. “It would be kind of funny, Mr Barlow, wouldn’t it, if it wasn’t the miniature you were looking for, after all?”

It was the first time she had called him “Mr Barlow” for several days. She cackled again, and gave her false breast a push with her hand. Harold looked away.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of in being old,” she said, suddenly and fiercely. “You remember that, young man.”

“Of course there isn’t, Mrs Washburn,” he said. “Any more than there’s anything to be ashamed of in being young.”

She seemed to relax a little, then she said, “Don’t you forget it. When you’re young you think you’re the only
person
in the world who can feel any emotion. And that’s wrong. That’s cruel and wrong. You think I’m just a mean old woman who won’t let you have something you want, don’t you? But I’m not mean, I have my own feelings.”