Sinners (32 page)

Was she happy? he wondered. Or did she miss him and the excitement of their life together? Although what excitement had she really had? It was always
he
who was doing everything.
She
was usually stuck at home with the kids.

She was certainly making more of a go with her second marriage than he had done with his. Maybe he should have knocked Dindi up, that might have kept her quiet and at home. But how did you knock up a girl who used a diaphragm
and
took the pill?

There were a lot of invitations – parties, dinners, barbecues – but Charlie was content to go nowhere, and Phillipa was certainly no social butterfly.

He felt, unconsciously, that their relationship was doing neither of them any good. She seemed to have opted out of everything, and while his day was full of minor activity of sorts, Phillipa just appeared in the morning, flopped out in a lounging chair in the shade, and slept the day away.

Then there was sex. She didn’t want to try again, and he didn’t want to force himself on her, but things were getting a bit desperate. His physical fitness seemed to increase his sexual appetite.

It was a tricky problem. He didn’t want to upset Phillipa, of whom he was very fond in a brotherly way, but his need was becoming more demanding every day.

He finally decided to have people to stay for the weekend: Natalie and Clay; Marshall and Carey; and Thames Mason, with a butch-looking queen called Marvin Mariboo who had worked in publicity on the last film. That should solve everything for the benefit of Phillipa, and with the promise of a part, Thames could be relied on to be discreet.

*    *    *

The weekend got off to a bad start. Carey turned up on Friday morning without Marshall. She said he was working and would arrive the next day. Clay arrived in the afternoon without Natalie, who felt queasy and had decided to stay at home. To make matters complete, Thames drove in on Friday night with the news that Marvin had been beaten up by a sailor and wouldn’t be coming at all!

Dinner on Friday night consisted of Clay chatting up first Carey and then Thames. He obviously fancied them both strongly.

Phillipa sat silently at one end of the table, making faces at Charlie, her way of telling him that she didn’t approve of any of his guests.

Carey put Clay down at every turn. She made it quite clear that he was going to get exactly nowhere with her.

Thames, however, found his line of chat particularly fascinating, especially when he said what a wonderful idea it would be to write a television series for her.

‘I’m surprised no one has suggested it before,’ he said, leaning closer to her across the asparagus. ‘Any idiot can see that you have great comic potential. You could be a young beautiful Lucille Ball.’

Thames visibly preened.

‘That’s you, Clay, old love, any idiot!’ Charlie said, furious at the sure-fire conclusion that Thames was going to be sharing Clay’s bed that evening, not his.

‘I’m going for a walk,’ Phillipa announced, suddenly getting up.

‘But dinner’s not finished,’ Charlie protested.

‘I’m not hungry. I’ll see you in the morning.’

He realized she was miserable. She knew why he had organized this weekend, and she obviously didn’t want to sit around and watch Clay and him bicker over Thames. He laughed out loud. The situation suddenly struck him as terribly funny.

‘What’s the matter?’ Carey asked.

He noticed what a fantastic coffee-cream colour her skin was. ‘Nothing, love, just thinking.’ She was very womanly. He had never had a . . . He stamped on his thoughts quickly. She was Marshall’s.

After dinner he went to the study to select some tapes.

Clay followed him, drunk and happy. ‘You don’t mind, old boy, do you?’ he asked. ‘She’s ripe and ready. Where on earth did you find her? Thank Christ Natalie didn’t come.’

Like everyone else, Clay imagined that Charlie and Phillipa were having an affair. It didn’t occur to him that Charlie had invited Thames for himself.

‘Go right ahead,’ Charlie said. ‘Do what the fuck you like.’ He was disgusted with Clay. Somehow it didn’t seem quite fair when your wife was lying at home, pregnant.

‘Of course, I really fancy the spade,’ Clay continued, ‘but there’s no free pussy being handed out in
that
direction.’

‘Tough,’ Charlie said, putting on Miles Davis good and loud.

*    *    *

The four of them sat in the living room, drinking, talking and listening to the sounds.

Charlie got out some pot and they all turned on, including Carey. She really wanted to go to bed, but she hadn’t smoked in a long time as it wasn’t quite Marshall’s scene. She felt like it. Having made the decision to marry Marshall didn’t mean that she had to stop living.

Thames was a mass of giggles. She would have let Clay strip her and have her in front of everyone if he had been so inclined, but he dragged all six feet of her off to his bedroom with a sheepish goodnight.

‘Where’s Phillipa?’ Carey asked.

‘I don’t know.’ Charlie was irritable. ‘She’s a funny girl. Probably walking around the desert.’

‘Do you know Claude Hussan? He’s a sonofabitch, a real mean bum,’ Carey’s thoughts became disjointed when she was stoned, and she switched from one subject to the next, never even waiting for an answer.

Charlie on the other hand, if he wasn’t involved in sexual activity, became rather melancholy and morbid. ‘What’s it all about, love?’ he suddenly asked. ‘Where are we all running to?’

‘Marshall likes you,’ Carey remarked. ‘Put on Aretha Franklin.’

He changed tapes to Carey’s request. He felt a very strong urge to make love to her. She was lying back in a chair, her eyes closed.

‘Didn’t you ever want to be an actress?’ he asked. ‘Most beautiful women, especially in this town, see it as their life’s ambition.’

She shook her head. ‘Hell, no. Who needs that shit? I could never have handled myself like Sunday. She really knows where it’s at, or at least I thought she did until Claude.’

‘What’s she like?’ he asked, with only vague interest. After all, he was thinking, Marshall isn’t
that
close a friend, and if we had a scene who would know?

‘Sunday is a marvellous girl. Very young in some ways, yet old in others. Sometimes she –
Charlie, what are you doing?

He had approached her from behind and now he bent over, plunging his hands inside the neckline of her dress. She was wearing no bra and he was able to pop her small bosom out of the material before she could object.

She stood up quickly. ‘You bastard! I’m not some little Hollywood hooker, you know. How dare you!’

He hadn’t expected such a reaction. Being a movie star meant that most ladies were ready and willing.

‘Sorry,’ he mumbled sheepishly, and moved quickly away from her. ‘I, er, just thought . . .’

‘Well, think again.’ Her anger was caused by the fact that she fancied him and was furious with herself. She had made up her mind that when she married Marshall, she would be faithful; there would be no screwing around on the side as was the case with
all
the unhappy married couples she knew.

He buried his head in his hands. ‘I have always found,’ he said sadly, ‘that the women I want in life are usually the ones I can’t have. I want a woman I can come home to and say, “Fuck you,” and she just says “Yes, darling, that’s right, let’s go to bed.” Sometimes I think it’s better to go with a hooker, at least you know where you are. All they want from you is your money.’

Adjusting her dress, Carey listened quietly. ‘You’re wrong, Charlie,’ she said. ‘There are plenty of girls who don’t just like you for who you are. You’re a very attractive man.’

‘Do you mean that?’ His face brightened.

‘Yes, I mean it. The trouble with you is you mix with the wrong people. I bet all your friends are show biz. That way you only meet people looking to be with a star. What about you and Phillipa?’

‘Platonic. Purely friendship. She’s a nice girl, but very young.’

Carey kissed him on the cheek. ‘I’m going to bed.’

He held her lightly around the waist. ‘No hard feelings?’

‘It’s forgotten. Let’s be friends, Charlie.’

‘All right, love, I’d like that, I really would.’

It bothered Sunday that Carey didn’t approve of Claude. She knew that he wasn’t the most likeable of people at first acquaintance, but she was sure that if they met socially, the atmosphere between them would become less strained.

Of Carey, Claude said, ‘She’s just mad because she won’t be making much commission out of you. Only
you
would have the only black agent in town. She starts off with a chip on her shoulder.’

‘Carey doesn’t care about the money,’ Sunday defended. ‘She’s honestly not sure the part is for me.’

It was the weekend, and they were lying on Sunday’s patio. She had finally succeeded in getting him to come to her house, and he seemed to be enjoying himself lazing around and doing nothing. At first Jean-Pierre had been shy with him. Now he had gone off to swim with Katia.

‘The boy likes you,’ Claude remarked, ‘better than his mother.’

Sunday wanted to ask, ‘Was it true she was here with you?’ But instead she bit her lip, and said, ‘Don’t you think he should go back with you? The nanny is very good, she’ll stay.’

‘Fed up with him?’ he chided.

‘Don’t be silly, of course not. I would love him to stay here; I was just thinking of you.’

‘Think of the boy, he’s happier with you.’

‘What about the Palm Springs location? Shall he come with me or you?’

‘We’ll leave him here with the nanny. You are going to be working, creating a character. I don’t want you to have a child hanging around. It’s not going to be another easy piece of shit with the crew admiring you and you just showing your tits and looking beautiful. By the way, we’ll live at the house.’

‘What house?’

‘The house in Palm Springs I’m shooting the film in.’ He yawned. ‘It will be good for you, you’ll see.’

Later she reflected on their conversation. She wasn’t sure how she felt any more. Did she love him, or was it just a very physical attraction? He was spoilt, arrogant, rude, a bastard. How could she love a man like that?

She resigned herself to the fact that their relationship was transient and would probably only last as long as the movie.

I’m getting hard, she thought, I’m thinking only of what’s good for me. In a way I’m using Claude, but then he’s using me, so I suppose that makes us even.

*    *    *

The weather in Palm Springs was unbearably hot. The idea that Claude had of living and shooting in the same house was bizarre.

The house, surrounded on all sides by acres of desert, was nice enough. It had a swimming pool, tennis court, sauna, billiard room, all the usual extras that Los Angeles executives expected in their cosy desert retreats. However, Sunday found that Claude wanted them to sleep in the actual bedroom in which he was filming. It was horrible to sleep in a bed with a camera looming across the room, arc lights, cables, sound equipment everywhere.

‘I can’t stand this,’ she announced the first night. ‘We have no privacy, it’s like being in a shop window.’

He stared at her. ‘You want to be an actress for once, try and live the part without bitching.’

He was tough to work with, demanding, critical, rude.

Every detail had to be just so, every take perfect.

There were only three other actors on the location – the man who was playing her husband, and the two young men who broke into the house and raped her.

Claude’s eye for casting was uncanny. The three men fitted their roles perfectly. The husband was pot-bellied, weak and greedy-eyed. The first boy, thin, blond, Southern, with a slow evil smile, had green eyes. The second boy, the actor Claude had gone after in Rio, was dark, about twenty. He had long-lashed black eyes, a panther-like walk, and was intent, beautiful. His name was Carlos Lo.

Claude allowed Sunday no contact with them except when they were doing a scene together.

It was a clever move that worked beautifully.

The four actors became the characters in the film, and Claude merely manipulated them as he wanted.

Herbert read that Sunday Simmons was going to Palm Springs. Maybe he would follow her. Marge could be fobbed off with the excuse that the Allens were going, she was under the misguided impression that he still worked for them.

Perhaps this would be the answer to all his problems. He would find an opportunity to present himself to Sunday, who, with her money and influence, would be able to help him, perhaps take him to Europe, far away from Marge and her accusations.

The idea appealed to him.

That evening he trailed Sunday to Malibu. To his disgust she had a guest. Sitting in his parked car, he watched with annoyance as a long black Cadillac pulled up at her house and a man emerged. This meant she would not be going to bed early as she usually did, and he would have to wait for the man to leave before he could crawl along the side of the house and watch her while she slept.

He settled back in the driving seat, aware, with a slight sniff of distaste, that he needed a shower. It would have been good to have gone home earlier and taken one, but he was avoiding Marge as much as possible now that he was expected to perform disgusting sexual acts as soon as he entered the house.

The blowsy hag had become insatiable. Bile entered his throat at the very thought of her.

‘I’ve gotta talk t’ya, Herbie,’ she had whined that very morning. ‘Try and get home early.’

He was no fool. He knew why she wanted him home early.

He must have dozed, for when he looked at his watch it was one o’clock, and the Cadillac was still there, although the house was now in darkness.

His body was stiff and cramped. He slid out of the car and edged towards the house. It was silent. He crawled along the side, and crouched in his usual position at Sunday’s window.

She was asleep, lying on her back, naked. Beside her, one dark hairy arm thrown casually across her belly, was a man.