Seducing Ingrid Bergman (22 page)

‘There’s a direct relationship between the size of your dick and the space between your ears.’

‘And you’ve got a big head, right?’

‘It was a philosopher who said that.’

‘Did he also say that behind every big dick is an even bigger asshole?’

He looks at me for a moment, unsmiling, judging me, then laughs furiously. He reaches for his glass, takes mine from my hand.

While he retreats inside, I look around at the palm trees, the smart new Plymouth behind the house, listen to the waves roll onto the beach and the boats jiggling in the distance.

Happiness may be enshrined in the constitution, but there’s still something in this patchwork quilt of a Republic, with its prim liquor laws and promise of democracy, that’s too neatly rectangular. The attempt to trap that fantastic blankness, to press all this emptiness into federal territory, to chop it into blocks and pin it into grids of numbered streets all seems a bit too easy, as if creating one vast convenience store. And for all the open space and big sky, I feel hemmed in here, with the desert on one side, the ocean on the other, and the San Andreas fault lurking beneath my feet.

I notice it is dark all of a sudden. The dark here happens very fast, flattening everything in shadow. At around six o’clock, the sky turns black, a bowl that empties suddenly. It’s as if the sun just drops off a shelf.

Irwin emerges with two new Margaritas in misty glasses, mixed with lime juice and salt on the rim.

‘It’s good to see you, Capa.’ He plonks himself down, takes longer than necessary to light a cigarette. There’s a silence, filled with the warm wind, the shore lights, the silver of the surf. The smoke from his cigarette trails off into the night. ‘You know all you have to do is let it be known you’ve slept with Ingrid Bergman and the women will come running.’

‘You think?’

‘It works for me.’ He flicks me a glance to show that he’s joking then explodes again with laughter.

A feeling of unease spreads through my body. I sip my Margarita. The salt stings my lips. I lean forward, start to say something, stop.

‘What?’

I hesitate. ‘Is it still okay if she comes here?’

He doesn’t answer straightaway. ‘Alone,’ he says, ‘or with you?’

A bit of ice slips between my lips. It’s so cold, it makes my teeth throb and cracks loudly inside my mouth. ‘I need $200,’ I tell him.

‘Why?’

‘To replace the $200 you gave me yesterday.’

‘What happened to that?’

I shrug.

‘I can’t keep doing this, Capa.’

‘I know.’

‘If you want to gamble, you’ve chosen the wrong town.’ He looks at me for a moment, then carries on speaking. ‘Don’t try and compete with these people.’

‘No?’

‘Because you’ll lose.’

He fishes out $200 from his wallet and counts it out slappingly into my hands.

I promise to give him the money back just as soon as I have it.

He tells me to get out, and not to bother coming back, though from the studious way he avoids my eye, I can see that he doesn’t mean it.

Returning from Irwin’s beach house, I take the coast road.

My eyes are glazed from all the Margaritas. I wind down the window to get some fresh air. The smell of sage penetrates the interior. Its scent is everywhere, and mixes with the leather smell of the seats. The car headlights slip and skim on the road surface, the signs and roadside grasses made vivid under the full beams.

I hate driving and haven’t driven for years. But it’s the only way to get around in this city, and the studio insists on giving me a big black 1941 Lincoln convertible in which to tank around. At least it’s easy to steer on the freeway; it’s as if you’re travelling on rails. But then when you enter the city limits, the traffic darts at you from all angles.

There must have been a shower. The streets are damp and shining, and a thin drizzle persists, but still it feels muggy. I breathe in deeply, keep the window open. Raindrops touch my face, trickle slippingly down the windshield. Lights flicker across my fingers on the wheel.

After a time, the wipers begin to squeak. It has, I realize, stopped raining. My thoughts wander, bend towards Ingrid, and how unutterably lovely she is, how she has bewitched me. Why else do I find myself driving this black box at the edge of the world, but for this crazy impossible need to love this woman. I try to think what she might be doing now, and whether she is thinking about me.

At an intersection on Franklin Avenue, I’m not concentrating properly and fail to see the red light. I press my foot down hard on the brake to avoid the oncoming traffic. A map slides across the top of the dashboard. A couple of books in the back hit the door. Light widens like a fan of sparks at the side of my eyes, and though I’m not travelling that fast, I clip the side of another car.

The Lincoln emits a scream of resistance, jerks wildly, skids out of control. I register the change of key in the engine, the sudden high wild rasp of tyres, a sound torn like a shriek.

The car is deflected, spins off. Too late, I try to readjust and wrest the wheel back onto a line. Abruptly a dark upright shape appears in the centre of the windshield right in front of me, rigidly insists on its right to exist. I try to steer away but stubbornly it refuses to move. Fixed in the headlights, it sharpens into the stiff spike of a lamppost. And what startles me is the way it seems to leap forward at the last moment.

The slam happens in my head before it happens in reality. And then it comes. Sickeningly.

Wham!

There’s a fat smack as the hood hits, followed by the terrifying high sound of smashing glass and the lower, deeper sound of crumpling metal, a screech as if a giant tin can were being ripped open. The glass shatters, fragments flying into my face and arms, nicking my skin.

The horn sounds a dreadful and perpetual blare that I have no power to stop. The radiator spurts like a geyser. Hot water fountains over the sidewalk, the cap falling a moment later with a hollow clunk on the roof. The streetlamp, now bent like a question mark, flares red and fizzles out.

I feel my heart jar. Everything splinters. A bubble enters my stomach, pops. In this instant all I can think of is Ingrid – what she’ll say when she finds out.

In the seconds afterwards, I’m surprised to find a cigarette still in my hand. I can smell gasoline, hear a distant dripping. I switch off the ignition, stumble out as fast as I can. I hobble across the road. My right knee aches where it banged against the steering wheel. My skull feels fragile as a cup. The impact of the collision still rings within me, quickening like the rattle of a coin on a table top. My neck feels stiff and my collarbone hurts obscurely. Otherwise miraculously I seem to be all right.

Glass is scattered on the ground and crackles like sugar underfoot. I hear the metal of the car ticking, see its new, oddly distorted shape. The world outside the car seems to have changed shape, too, and for a moment everything seems weirdly out of focus.

The guy whose car I hit is out, and charging towards me. He’s furious and shouting. I apologize as best I can, and pretend my English is not so good. He starts swearing at me. He obviously thinks I’m Spanish, and utters a couple of oaths that he thinks I’ll understand. ‘
Lo siento
,’ I say, as convincingly as I can: the words for ‘sorry’ in Spanish. It’s the apology given by the workers on the lot when they’re screamed at by the technicians.

The police arrive. The car is towed away. I’m taken to the station where I deny having had more than one drink. They say I stink of liquor. I explain that I have a bad cold, and begin sniffing as convincingly as I can. They ask to see my passport and visa. I don’t have them on me. My mind races as I think what to do. They threaten me with a night in the cells. It’s only after I give them Ingrid’s name and number that the atmosphere changes and things are sorted out.

When she arrives, quite late at night after shooting, she’s furious, though she puts on an act for the police and charms the officers at the desk. She thanks them profusely, commends them for their patience, gives them her autograph, writes personal messages for their wives and kids. They are, of course, enchanted.

‘You can’t give out my name like that,’ she says to me once we’re outside.

‘I couldn’t think what else to do.’

‘Honestly, Capa. You could get me into trouble.’

‘You’re not angry with me, are you?’

‘It’s a good job Petter was on call tonight.’

‘Are you angry with me?’

‘Let’s go.’

‘Tell me you’re not angry with me.’

‘You’ve had too much to drink.’

From now on, she tells me, the studio will order limousines to take me where I want to go. I’m forbidden, she says, to drive in the city, consigned for the time being to the passenger seat.

That suits me just fine, I say.

*   *   *

I don’t see her come in. But when I look up, without warning there she is at a table with Petter, wearing a black and white polka-dot dress. In profile she sits tall as always. The light bounces off her ring like spray. I’m here waiting for Irwin. We’ve arranged to have dinner and go to a game.

Lights burn and voices murmur. A ceiling fan whirrs above me. I sit staring at her so that, however remotely, she must feel me looking and sense my presence even if she can’t return my gaze.

I see a sudden slight agitation of her hands. Her fingers flutter airily for a moment. She catches a glimpse of me, I’m sure. A few seconds later, she turns again. This time there’s the frankness of a direct glance.

From this angle, I notice how the tip of her nose tugs downwards rhythmically in conversation. Candlelight flickers on the white tablecloth and shines flatteringly onto her face. She’s lit as if for a portrait. Her eyes shine wetly, rich dark wells. She begins fingering her string of pearls.

It’s unbearable seeing Petter with Ingrid, the two of them together enjoying the intimacy of man and wife: the proprietorial way he addresses her, the solicitous way he traps his hand over her glass, the manner in which he touches her shoulder.
Mine
, he’s saying.
All mine
. Small acts of possession. There’s something primitive and territorial about the whole thing, something distasteful about his display of ownership. The whole performance, it seems obvious, is designed to ward people off.

I realize with a pang that I’m jealous. I find the sight of his hand around her waist grotesque. The way she tolerates the gesture, too, seems obscene. I think of her in bed with him, sharing her body on occasions when she cannot reasonably resist. The thought makes me so agitated, involuntarily I shift the position of my chair.

I catch her eyes again. The oval of skin above her neckline flushes. A spot of rosiness enters her cheeks. Can it be the wine? Or has the pressure of my gaze burnt a hole in her cheek? She touches her earlobe, twists the ring on her finger. She’s on fire; lit from within.

She has this habit, I notice, of reaching to her neck as if to pinch the collars of a shirt together. She keeps doing it, as though wary of exposing the flesh there. She reaches for her water glass and drinks. The ice cubes bump her upper lip.

After a few minutes, Ingrid gets up, wends her way towards the rest room. She floats past my table and flashes a tender heartfelt glance. The light seems to hover for a moment, scattering shadows across her arms. Her pearl necklace glimmers milkily above a crescent of freckles. The candle flame staggers a little, then recovers as she glides past.

Maybe I’m imagining it, but the rhythm of her walk seems to match exactly the music coming from a corner of the restaurant. A guitar and piano duo play subdued, lyrical versions of ‘I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good)’ and ‘You Rascal, You’.

I take a sip of martini. The olive glistens greenly on top. With the glass to my mouth, I glance across at Petter. He has his back to me, lighting a cigarette. Then I watch as he starts dismantling a packet of matches. The operation is performed with the same clinical attention he might devote to extracting a tooth or dissecting a patient’s brain.

I stab my cigarette out in an ashtray, then on an impulse head for the rest room where I know Ingrid will be.

There are two toilet doors. No one is waiting. I knock on the women’s door.

‘Ingrid?’ No answer. ‘It’s me.’

Inside I hear the toilet flush. The flush becomes muffled. ‘Capa?’

‘Let me in.’

There’s a pause, followed by a long scratch as the bolt is slid across. Her face, in shadow, appears at the edge of the door. Her eyes dart around until she’s certain no one can see us. ‘Are you nuts?’

I step inside. Ingrid closes over the door, locks it. There’s a faintly urinous smell, mixed with the bitter odour of cleaning products.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’ve come to tell you something.’

‘What?’

I give her the look of a dope. ‘I love you.’

The floor repeats a pattern of blue and white square tiles. The blue leaps out, seems to tremble above it. A rimless mirror throws back an oddly angled version of the two of us.

I reach to kiss her.

She pulls away. Her eyes enlarge in protest. ‘Not here.’

‘Just let me kiss you. Please.’

She listens for anyone outside the door. No one. Just the faint strains of the guitar and the high squeak of a violin – thin strings that connect us to the web of the next room.

I move to kiss her again.

‘You’re out of your mind. We can’t. Not in here.’

I touch her. The fabric of her dress is thin. The intimacy is illicit, thrilling.

‘Have you taken leave of your senses?’

‘Probably.’

‘What if we get caught?’

‘We won’t, I promise.’

‘How do you know?’

Something tips. Her closeness, the frustrations of the last few weeks, the sheer need I feel for her. This time when I kiss her, I feel the tension in her body dissolve. In a single fluid movement, I lift her dress up to her midriff, hungrily push her back.

‘What are you trying to do to me?’ She half falls, half plants herself on the toilet lid, her toes just touching the floor. Her shoes shake free, the heels falling with two sharp clicks onto the tiles below. The clicks operate like triggers.