The Loved One (3 page)

But while Dennis prospered, things were not well with Sir Francis. The old man was losing his equanimity. He fidgeted with his food and shuffled sleeplessly about the verandah in the silent hour of dawn. Juanita del Pablo was taking unkindly to her translation and, powerless to strike the great, was rending her old friend. Sir Francis confided his growing troubles to Dennis.

Juanita’s agent was pressing the metaphysical point; did his client exist? Could you legally bind her to annihilate herself? Could you come to any agreement with her before she had acquired the ordinary marks of identity? Sir Francis was charged with the metamorphosis. How lightly, ten years before, he had brought her into existence—the dynamite-bearing
Maenad of the Bilbao water-front! With what leaden effort did he now search the nomenclature of Celtic mythology and write the new life-story—a romance of the Mountains of Mourne, of the barefoot child whom the peasants spoke of as a fairies’ changeling, the confidante of leprechauns, the rough-and-tumble tomboy who pushed the moke out of the cabin and dodged the English tourists among rocks and waterfalls! He read it aloud to Dennis and knew it was no good.

He read it aloud in conference, before the now nameless actress, her agent and solicitor; there were also present the Megalopolitan Directors of Law, Publicity, Personality and International Relations. In all his career in Hollywood Sir Francis had never been in a single assembly with so many luminaries of the Grand Sanhedrin of the Corporation. They turned down his story without debate.

“Take a week at home, Frank,” said the Director of Personality. “Try to work out a new slant. Or maybe you feel kind of allergic to the assignment?”

“No,” said Sir Francis feebly. “No, not at all. This conference has been most helpful. I know now what you gentlemen require. I’m sure I shall have no further difficulty.”

“Always very pleased to look over anything you cook up,” said the Director of International Relations. But when the door closed behind him, the great men looked at one another and shook their heads.

“Just another has-been,” said the Director of Personality.

“There’s a cousin of my wife’s just arrived,” said the Director of Publicity. “Maybe I’d better give him a try-out on the job.”

“Yes, Sam,” they all said, “have your wife’s cousin look it over.”

After that Sir Francis remained at home and for several days his secretary came out daily to take dictation. He footled with a new name for Juanita and a new life-story: Kathleen FitzBourke the toast of the Galway Blazers; the falling light among the banks and walls of that stiff country and Kathleen FitzBourke alone with hounds, far from the crumbling towers of FitzBourke Castle… Then there came a day when his secretary failed to arrive. He telephoned to the studio. The call was switched from one administrative office to another until eventually a voice said: “Yes, Sir Francis, that is quite in order. Miss Mavrocordato has been transferred to the Catering Department.”

“Well, I must have somebody.”

“I’m not sure we have anyone available right now, Sir Francis.”

“I see. Well, it is very inconvenient but I’ll have to come down and finish the work I am doing in the studio. Will you have a car sent for me?”

“I’ll put you through to Mr. Van Gluck.”

Again the call went to and fro like a shuttlecock until finally a voice said: “Transportation Captain. No, Sir Francis,
I’m sorry, we don’t have a studio automobile right here right now.”

Already feeling the mantle of Lear about his shoulders Sir Francis took a taxi to the studio. He nodded to the girl at the desk with something less than his usual urbanity.

“Good morning, Sir Francis,” she said. “Can I help you?”

“No, thank you.”

“There isn’t anyone particular you were looking for?”

“No one.”

The elevator-girl looked inquiringly at him. “Going up?”

“Third floor, of course.”

He walked down the familiar featureless corridor, opened the familiar door and stopped abruptly. A stranger sat at the desk.

“I’m so sorry,” said Sir Francis. “Stupid of me. Never done that before.” He backed out and shut the door. Then he studied it. It was his number. He had made no mistake. But in the slot which had borne his name for twelve years—ever since he came to this department from the scriptwriters’—there was now a card typewritten with the name “Lorenzo Medici.” He opened the door again. “I say,” he said. “There must be some mistake.”

“Maybe there is too,” said Mr. Medici, cheerfully. “Everything seems kinda screwy around here. I’ve spent half the morning clearing junk out of this room. Piles of stuff, just like
someone had been living here—bottles of medicine, books, photographs, kids’ games. Seems it belonged to some old Britisher who’s just kicked off.”

“I am that Britisher and I have not kicked off.”

“Mighty glad to hear it. Hope there wasn’t anything you valued in the junk. Maybe it’s still around somewhere.”

“I must go and see Otto Baumbein.”

“He’s screwy too but I don’t figure he’ll know anything about the junk. I just pushed it out in the passage. Maybe some janitor…”

Sir Francis went down the passage to the office of the assistant director. “Mr. Baumbein is in conference right now. Shall I have him call you?”

“I’ll wait.”

He sat in the outer office where two typists enjoyed long, intimately amorous telephone conversations. At last Mr. Baumbein came out. “Why, Frank,” he said. “Mighty nice of you to look us up. I appreciate that. I do really. Come again. Come often, Frank.”

“I wanted to talk to you, Otto.”

“Well, I’m rather busy right now, Frank. How say I give you a ring next week sometime?”

“I’ve just found a Mr. Medici in my office.”

“Why, yes, Frank. Only he says it ‘Medissy,’ like that; how you said it kinda sounds like a wop and Mr. Medici is a very
fine young man with a very, very fine and wonderful record, Frank, who I’d be proud to have you meet.”

“Then where do I work?”

“Well, now see here, Frank, that’s a thing I want very much to talk to you about but I haven’t the time right now. I haven’t the time, have I, dear?”

“No, Mr. Baumbein,” said one of the secretaries. “You certainly haven’t the time.”

“You see. I just haven’t the time. I know what, dear, try fix it for Sir Francis to see Mr. Erikson. I know Mr. Erikson would greatly appreciate it.”

So Sir Francis saw Mr. Erikson, Mr. Baumbein’s immediate superior, and from him learned in blunt Nordic terms what he had already in the last hour darkly surmised: that his long service with Megalopolitan Pictures Inc. had come to an end.

“It would have been civil to tell me,” said Sir Francis.

“The letter is on its way. Things get hung up sometimes, as you know; so many different departments have to give their O.K.—the Legal Branch, Finance, Labor Disputes Section. But I don’t anticipate any trouble in your case. Luckily you aren’t a Union man. Now and then the Big Three make objections about waste of manpower—when we bring someone from Europe or China or somewhere and then fire him in a week. But that doesn’t arise in your case. You’ve had a record run. Just on twenty-five years, isn’t it? There’s not even any
provision in your contract for repatriation. Your Termination ought to whip right through.”

Sir Francis left Mr. Erikson and made his way out of the great hive. It was called the Wilbur K. Lutit Memorial Block and had not been built when Sir Francis first came to Hollywood. Wilbur K. Lutit had been alive then; had, indeed, once pudgily shaken his hand. Sir Francis had watched the edifice rise and had had an honorable if not illustrious place at its dedication. He had seen the rooms filled and refilled, the name-plates change on the doors. He had seen arrivals and departures, Mr. Erikson and Mr. Baumbein coming, others, whose names now escaped him, going. He remembered poor Leo who had fallen from great heights to die with his bill unpaid in the Garden of Allah Hotel.

“Did you find who you were looking for?” asked the girl at the desk as he made his way out into the sunshine.

*

Turf does not prosper in southern California and the Hollywood ground did not permit the larger refinements of cricket. The game indeed was fitfully played by some of the junior members, but for the majority it formed as small a part in their interests as do fishmongering or cordwaining to the Livery Companies of the City of London. For these the club was the symbol of their Englishry. There they collected subscriptions for the Red Cross and talked at their ease, maliciously, out of
the hearing of their alien employers and protectors. There on the day following Sir Francis Hinsley’s unexpected death the expatriates repaired as though summoned by tocsin.

“Young Barlow found him.”

“Barlow of Megalo?”

“He used to be at Megalo’s. His contract wasn’t renewed. Since then…”

“Yes, I heard. That was a shocking business.”

“I never knew Sir Francis. He was rather before my time. Does anyone know why he did it?”

“
His
contract wasn’t renewed.”

They were words of ill-omen to all that assembled company, words never spoken without the furtive touching of wood or crossing of fingers; unholy words best left unsaid. To each of them was given a span of life between the signature of the contract and its expiration; beyond that lay the vast unknowable.

“Where is Sir Ambrose? He’s sure to come this evening.”

He came at length and it was noted that he already wore a band of crepe on his Coldstream blazer. Late as it was he accepted a cup of tea, snuffed the air of suspense that filled the pavilion to stifling, and spoke:

“No doubt you’ve all heard of this ghastly business of old Frank?”

A murmur.

“He fell on bad days at the end. I don’t suppose there’s
anyone in Hollywood now except myself who remembers him in his prime. He did yeoman service.”

“He was a scholar and a gentleman.”

“Exactly. He was one of the first Englishmen of distinction to go into motion-pictures. You might say he laid the foundations on which I—on which we all have built. He was our first ambassador.”

“I really think that Megalo might have kept him on. They wouldn’t notice his salary. In the course of nature he couldn’t have cost them much more.”

“People live to a great age in this place.”

“Oh, it wasn’t that,” said Sir Ambrose. “There were other reasons.” He paused. Then the false and fruity tones continued: “I think I had better tell you because it is a thing which has a bearing on all our lives here. I don’t think many of you visited old Frank in recent years. I did. I make a point of keeping up with all the English out here. Well, as you may know, he had taken in a young Englishman named Dennis Barlow.” The cricketers looked at one another, some knowingly, others in surmise. “Now, I don’t want to say a word against Barlow. He came out here with a high reputation as a poet. He just hasn’t made good, I’m afraid. That is nothing to condemn him for. This is a hard testing ground. Only the best survive. Barlow failed. As soon as I heard of it I went to see him. I advised him as bluntly as I could to clear out. I thought it my duty to you all. We don’t want any poor Englishmen hanging
around Hollywood. I told him as much, frankly and fairly, as one Englishman to another.

“Well, I think most of you know what his answer was.
He took a job at the pets’ cemetery.

“In Africa, if a white man is disgracing himself and letting down his people, the authorities pack him off home. We haven’t any such rights here, unfortunately. The trouble is we all suffer for the folly of one. Do you suppose Megalo would have sacked poor Frank in other circumstances? But when they saw him sharing a house with a fellow who worked in the pets’ cemetery… Well, I ask you! You all know the form out here almost as well as I do. I’ve nothing to say against our American colleagues. They’re as fine a set of chaps as you’ll find anywhere and they’ve created the finest industry in the world. They have their standards—that’s all. Who’s to blame ’em? In a world of competition people are taken at their face value. Everything depends on reputation—‘face’ as they say out East. Lose that and you lose everything. Frank lost face. I will say no more.

“Personally I’m sorry for young Barlow. I wouldn’t stand in his shoes today. I’ve just come from seeing the lad. I thought it was the decent thing. I hope any of you who come across him will remember that his chief fault was inexperience. He wouldn’t be guided. However…

“I’ve left all the preliminary arrangements in his hands. He’s going up to Whispering Glades as soon as the police
hand over the remains. Give him something to do, to take his mind off it, I thought.

“This is an occasion when we’ve all got to show the flag. We may have to put our hands in our pockets—I don’t suppose old Frank has left much—but it will be money well spent if it puts the British colony right in the eyes of the industry. I called Washington and asked them to send the Ambassador to the funeral but it doesn’t seem they can manage it. I’ll try again. It would make a lot of difference. In any case I don’t think the studios will keep away if they know
we
are solid…”

As he spoke the sun sank below the bushy western hillside. The sky was still bright but a shadow crept over the tough and ragged grass of the cricket field, bringing with it a sharp chill.

D
ennis was a young man of sensibility rather than of sentiment. He had lived his twenty-eight years at arm’s length from violence, but he came of a generation which enjoys a vicarious intimacy with death. Never, it so happened, had he seen a human corpse until that morning when, returning tired from night duty, he found his host strung to the rafters. The spectacle had been rude and momentarily unnerving; but his reason accepted the event as part of the established order. Others in gentler ages had had their lives changed by such a revelation; to Dennis it was the kind of thing to be expected in the world he knew and, as he drove to Whispering Glades, his conscious mind was pleasantly exhilarated and full of curiosity.

Times without number since he first came to Hollywood he had heard the name of that great necropolis on the lips of others; he had read it in the local news-sheets when some
more than usually illustrious body was given more than usually splendid honors or some new acquisition was made to its collected masterpieces of contemporary art. Of recent weeks his interest had been livelier and more technical for it was in humble emulation of its great neighbor that the Happier Hunting Ground was planned. The language he daily spoke in his new trade was a patois derived from that high pure source. More than once Mr. Schultz had exultantly exclaimed after one of his performances: “It was worthy of Whispering Glades.” As a missionary priest making his first pilgrimage to the Vatican, as a paramount chief of equatorial Africa mounting the Eiffel Tower, Dennis Barlow, poet and pets’ mortician, drove through the Golden Gates.