Westlake, Donald E - Novel 50 (4 page)

 
          
The
theater was small, with black walls and only simple efficient lighting on the
stage. Twenty James Deans lurked and posed and fixed their hair in the main
auditorium, while another James Dean, script in hand, went through a scene on
stage, playing opposite Miriam Croft, a famous older actress, a one-time beauty
who was now most frequently called “well preserved.” Miss Croft, working
without a script, her manner imperious and demanding, said, “‘I
am
your mother, and I
do
love you.' ”

 
          
“‘You
don't love me/” the James Dean read, passionately.
“ ‘You
never
loved me. You never loved
anybody
. You don't know
how
to love.'”

 
          
“All
right,” called the director from the front row. A tall, thin man with a thick
black mustache and waving hands, he was known for his impatience. Of the
half-dozen people watching from the front row, he was the only one without
notepad or clipboard. “Thank you very much,” he said to the James Dean on
stage. “Next.”

 
          
The
James Dean shrugged and walked off into the wings and Jack entered smiling like
someone who wants to be helpful. Jack carried no script. While Miriam Croft
watched him, noncommittal, he stepped to the center of the stage and faced
front.

 
          
An
assistant, seated to the left of the director, clutched her clipboard and pen
and called, "Name?”

 
          
"Jack Pine.”

 
          
"Do
we have your resume?”

 
          
Easy,
confident, self-deprecating, Jack spread his hands and said, "Such as it
is.”

 
          
The
director, edginess in his voice, said, "Where's your script?”

 
          
"Oh,
I've been hearing the scene,” Jack told him. "I know it now.”

 
          
The
director shook his head, waved his hand. "Then go right ahead.”

 
          
Jack
turned to look at Miriam Croft, and at once he altered, he transmogrified, he
became someone else. He was taller and thinner, both more closed off and yet
more vulnerable. He was cold, mistrustful, in pain. Miriam cocked an eyebrow,
watching him.

 
          
Jack's
voice seemed nearly closed, half strangling him, when at last he spoke:
"‘Mother . . ."'

 
          
Irritably,
the director called, "The line is, 'Mother, I can't stay."'

 
          
Miriam,
quite serious, watching Jack unblinking, said, "He knows the line, Harry.”

 
          
The
director reared back. "Well, excuse
me”

 
          
Amiable,
helpful, his former self, Jack smiled pleasantly at the director, saying,
"Are we ready now, sir?”

 
          
Miffed
but professional, the director said, "Of course. Go right ahead.”

 
          
"Thank
you, sir,” Jack said, and turned back to Miriam, and again underwent that
transition to the other person, the unhappy defeated son: "‘Mother ... I
can't stay."'

 
          
"‘But
I insist, darling."'

 
          
Jack
turned, twisted, a caged animal searching for a nonexistent door. "‘You .
. . stifle me. There's no
air
in
here, I can't breathe."'

           
Miriam's eyes were fastened like
cargo hooks on Jack's face. ‘"I only want what's best for you, dear. I am
your mother, and I do love
you.'"                                               
*

 
          
The
words were wrung from Jack, blasphemies he was helpless not to pronounce: “
'You
don't love me. You
never
loved me. You never loved
anybody.
You don't know
how
to love.'"

 
          
Miriam
smiled.

 
          
I
smile. The sun slides free, looks down on me. The sun, methinks, looks with a
watery eye. But which of us was Titania, which was Bottom?

 
          
The
interviewer says, “That was your first professional role.”

           
“True. True.”

           
“And Miriam Croft was a great help
to you.”

 
          
“We
were a great help to one another," I say, and I laugh. But it hurts to
laugh. I seem to be nothing but broken ribs from neck to crotch when I laugh,
so I stop laughing. I smile. “We helped one another in so many ways," I
say.

 
          
At
night, the view from Miriam Croft's
bedroom window was of a magnificent swath of dark, twenty-seven stories below,
pinked with warm and creamy lights; the stretch of Central Park extending from
in front of her building on West 59th Street two and a half miles north to
110th Street, flanked by the,bright towers and armed fortresses of Manhattan.
The George Washington Bridge was a jeweled necklace in the far upper left of
the view, a number of neoned corporate logos made glittering brooches at the
throats of nearer buildings, and now and then a slow-moving hansom cab became
briefly visible as it passed through the illumination of a park light far
below, hinting at a gentler and more romantic age.

 
          
A
magnificent view, but at this moment Miriam Croft was not observing it. At this
moment, Miriam, her contact lenses out, was blurrily observing her bedroom
ceiling, while Jack, atop her, performed like mad.
“Oh, my
Gaaaaa
-aahhhhd!”
Miriam cried
out, and Jack raced to catch up, and they crossed the finish line together,
spent, panting, their two hearts pounding as one. “Oh," Miriam said, her
arms gripping him tightly around the back. “Oh. Oh."

 
          
“Mmm,
Miriam," he murmured, smiling against her perfumed but crapen neck.
Gradually he permitted more and more of his weight to rest on her, until she
would want him off; at last she did, releasing him, sighing with long
contentment, sliding her long-fingered hands from his back.

 
          
Then
he lifted himself, rearing up on extended arms, beaming down at her, delighted
in them both. “Well, well, Miriam!" he cried. “You
are
all right!"

 
          
Irony,
briefly lost, had returned to Miriam. Stroking his cheek, smiling, she said,
“The workman is as good as his tool, dear."

 
          
“You
can teach me so
muchl
" Jack
cried.

 
          
Miriam's
smile turned acid, became cold amusement. “And the first lesson, dear,"
she said, “is
don't
be too eager."

 
          
“But
I
am
eager, Miriam," Jack cried,
laughing at the truth of it. “I'm eager for everything, I'm eager to be, to be
used\”
Rolling off her, sitting up
tailor-fashion, resting one hand on her lowest rib, he said, “I am a good
actor, aren't I?"

 
          
She
nodded, slowly, solemnly, treating it as a serious question. “Probably better
than you know," she said. “And you aren't even afraid of it, are
you?"

 
          
“Why
should I be?" he asked, astonished. “It makes me happy!"

 
          
“And
you are going to make me happy," she told him. “And there are no dangers
at all in the world."

 
          
“Not
in our world," he said.

 
          
How
the years collide! And here I am, after all, while the past bounces and rattles
away like tools left in the trunk of a car. How can I describe this to my
friendly neighborhood interviewer? I cannot. I will not. These are
my
memories. “Ah, Miriam,” I say.

 
          
“Miriam
Croft,” the interviewer says, and I can hear him imperfectly hide his
disapproval. But who asked for his approval? He says, “She must have been forty
years older than you.”

 
          
“Forty-three,
in fact,” I say, amused after all this time by that strange fact.
Doubly amused by the interviewer with his narrow little views.

 
          
“You
had an affair with her,” says this prissy little man.

 
          
Disapproval
gives me strength. All at once, it is possible for me to rise to a seated
position, legs folded on the slate. I tuck the robe down between my legs—no use
offending him that way as well—and I say, “She
kept
me, pal. That was an off-Broadway show we were doing. Her name
wasn't that big anymore, and the pay was peanuts. But Miriam got me the job and
moved me into her Central Park South apartment. She bought me my first really
good wardrobe, she introduced me to people, and she taught me how to not be too
eager. Miriam was very good for me, and I think I was pretty good for her, too.
Brightened her last days, you might say."

 
          
Amusement
makes me weak. I recline again, slowly, not wanting to crack the old beano on
the slate. Very valuable slate, you know. I lie down. I smile at the sky. The interviewer
waits, so I say it: "Brightened her last moments, in point of fact."

 
          
The
limousine rolling northeastward through the dusk on the New England Thruway,
that strip of high-speed road between New York City and the Connecticut state
line, was a gleaming tasteful black, with New York plates indicating it had
been either leased or rented. The chauffeur was a serious-looking white man of
close to sixty, in a black suit, white shirt, narrow black tie, and black
uniform cap. The glass partition between him and the spacious rear compartment
of the limousine was closed, and from the point of view of the front seat the
rear seemed to be empty.

 
          
It
was nearly eight in the evening of a midweek day in spring. The air outside was
soft, the sky pearlescent, the traffic not at all bad, considering the
realities of the BosWash Corridor. The driver was accomplished, the limousine
in excellent condition, the voyage smooth and tension-free.

 
          
A
sign passed on the right. The driver, noting it, lifted the telephone from near
his right knee on the dashboard and spoke into it: “We are entering
Connecticut
, madam."

           
Immediately, Jack's head rose into
view on the other side of the partition. He was laughing, his eyes manic. He
gazed in the rearview mirror at the reflection of the driver's face—the
driver's eyes remained fixed on the road ahead—then groped for the rear seat
telephone and spoke into it.

 
          
The
metallic voice sounded in the driver's ear: “And that ain't all we're entering,
James. We'll need fifteen minutes.''

 
          
Not
a flicker of expression touched the driver's face. Correct, unflappable, he
said, “Yes, sir.''

 
          
Jack,
laughing, extended the phone down out of sight toward the floor in back. More
faintly, his metallic voice sounded from the phone the driver held to his ear:
“Do you wish to speak to James, madam?''

 
          
Another
voice sounded, equally metallic, but identifiable as that of Miriam Croft. At
first she was merely laughing, but then she said, “Halliwell, just keep
driving, dear, until we tell you otherwise.''

 
          
“Yes, madam."

 
          
Less
distinct, too far from the phone, Jack said, “How about me, madam? Should
I
keep driving?"

 
          
Miriam's
laughter was loud, then farther away, as Jack took the phone from her and spoke
into it again, grinning through the glass at the driver “We'll just keep
driving, James, you and me, right
through
Connecticut
! Can we do that?"

 
          
Miriam's
laughter sputtered and struggled as she fought for breath, trying to talk and
laugh and inhale all at once, crying out, “Oh, no! Oh, don't! Oh, poor
Halliwell!" but then the laughter broke into pieces, into choking and
gasping, into wheezing and terrible retching sounds.

 
          
Jack
stared downward, suddenly concerned,
then
frightened,
the phone in his hand obviously forgotten. Through it, the driver heard him
cry, “Miriam? Miriam! Jesus
God,
put
your tongue in! Miriam!
Not you, too!"

 
          
Dropping
the phone, Jack poked and prodded at the out-of-sight Miriam, while the chokes
and gasps weakened. Then he turned to the driver, panicky, pounding on the
glass, yelling,
his
words barely audible at all until
he remembered the phone and dived for it. The driver, unsure what was going on
and knowing that practical jokes were not impossible with these people, at last
frowned at the rearview mirror, in which the wild-eyed and terrified Jack
suddenly reappeared, phone mashed to his ear as he yelled, "Help! She's
having a fit or something! Find a hospital!"

 
          
This
was no practical joke. "Yes,
sir\”
answered the driver, and pressed
the accelerator to the floor.

 
          
And
so the limousine tore through the sweet-scented
Connecticut
night, trailing Jack's screams, Jack's
moans, Jack's brokenhearted cry: "Miriam!
Please!
Pull yourself together!" And across the empty lanes
his final, fatal scream: "Not
agaaiiinnn\”