Dreams Are Not Enough (45 page)

After a couple of minutes the hot, sparse tears stopped and she stared into the darkness.

Please let it be all right.

I’ll be careful, so careful.

She began compiling a list.

First thing tomorrow morning announce your condition.

Refuse to wear any form of corset. Let them figure out camera angles or close-ups that do not show your body.

No more impersonations of Superwoman. No more twelve-hour days—and the hell with Lang’s schedule.

Every day drink a quart of milk. Forget that it’s chalky, unpalatable, canned Carnation. No, better yet have Harvard Productions fly in long-life milk from England.

Don’t lunch on a Hershey bar and Fritos. Go on a health kick, eat those ip dine-flavored salads that Beth’s been pestering you to.

Insist on a Mercedes like Cliff’s to drive you to the location. No more bumpy minibus.

Do not pretend you have nerves of steel. Take it slow and easy. Do everything in your power to avoid an attack.

A prospective baby needs its prospective father, so tell Barry right away.

The hyenas started howling again.

“They’re right near the kitchen area,” Beth said as she barged into the office tent.

“Hi, Beth.” Hap was sitting at his desk. There was blood on his collar, and a small Band-Aid taped to the left corner of his swollen mouth.

For once he didn’t rise for her, so she came to hover uncertainly near him.

“The hyenas, I mean,” she said.

“Sit down,” he said, his injured lips forming the words slowly. As she picked up a fallen swivel chair, he asked, “Want a drink?”

She hadn’t noticed the open Scotch in front of him. He’s drunk, she thought. He’s not even bothering with a glass. Barry’s the family booze hound Never Hap.

“Nothing for me, thank you,” she said.

“Are you here to give some good advice?” he asked, a hint of rancor surfacing.

She frowned. Despite her cousin’s puffed mouth and bloody shirt, his fight with Lang had skipped her mind. She kept seeing Alyssia, trembling and sobbing. The collapse had terrified Beth to the point that she wasn’t sure whom she was more concerned about, her sisterin-law or Barry’s unborn baby.

“You’ll have to shoot around Alyssia tomorrow,” she said.

“That heroin pusher got through to her so much?”

“It’s not Lang.” Beth’s face grew hot. She found sex difficult to discuss even with Irving—only with PD had “it,” and the nimbus of accompanying vagaries and symptoms, seemed a natural part of life.

“When she got back to the tent I noticed she was, uhh … staining.”

“Jesus!” Hap’s apathy and inebriation vanished and he jumped to his feet.

“I’ll radio for a plane! We’ll get her straight to Nairobi Hospital!”

“Hap, there’s no cramping, she’s resting” — “She needs proper care!”

“They’d only put her to bed.”

“Damn it, she can’t stay here!”

“It happened to me and I just stayed home.”

“Medication” — “Doctors used to prescribe stilbestrol to prevent threatened miscarriages. But the women turned out to have cancer-prone daughters.

So now the OBs are afraid to use it. “

“She could die!”

“Hap, the baby’s in danger, not her.”

“How can you be so positive? You’re not a doctor.”

“For tonight, believe me, a doctor would only order bedrest.”

“We’re getting her to the damn hospital!”

“You know as well as I do that no plane can land or take off from here at night.” Nocturnal animals foraged on the level area they used as a landing strip.

“We’ll find a pilot who can handle it.” Hap’s pacing safari boots crumpled and dirtied the strew of production papers.

“I have a charter arranged for tomorrow morning—I’m going into Nairobi to put through a call to Irving.”

“What time?”

“Nine.”

“Nine!” Lines cut deep into Hap’s tanned skin.

“That’s twelve hours!”

He still cares, Beth thought. Does Alyssia still care?

Hap was saying, “… and line up the cars and buses so the headlights make a runway.”

“Hap, be reasonable,” she said gently.

“Frightened animals maybe would barge in, hit the propellers and then you’d have a plane wreck on your hands.”

Hap hit his fist into his palm, then sighed.

“What can we do?”

“Radio the hospital and ask their advice. Then radio Wilson” -Wilson, the smaller of the two Nairobi airports, catered to charter companies.

“Tell them to have my plane here by first light, at six. I’ll have Derek arrange for a doctor in Nairobi.”

Alyssia was in the white-tiled bathroom of the suite at the Norfolk that she and Beth were sharing. Dr. Jozef Kazimir, whom Derek, the White Hunter, had alerted, had just ended his hotel call. Kazimir, an emigre Pole with dyed black hair and courtly manners, had felt her torso with his soft hands, then passed his cold stethoscope up and down and across her abdomen.

“My dear Miss del Mar,” he had finally pronounced, “I am most delighted to inform you that the little one is safe in his snug nest.”

With Alyssia’s distrust of the medical community in general, it was not Dr. Kazimir with his over black hair and ornate English who reassured her, but the fact that the bleeding had stopped entirely.

She turned her profile to the long mirror, pulling her silk robe close to show the bulge.

The outer door opened and closed.

“It’s me, I’m back,” Beth called. In the hopes of garnering more obstetrical information, she had walked Dr. Kazimir across the tropically planted courtyard to the hotel’s broad veranda.

Alyssia went into the living room.

“What else did he tell you?”

“Nothing. He just repeated that you’re both fine but you must be very cautious.”

“That’s for sure. No more corset. Hap and I’ll have to work it out.”

Catching a flicker in her sisterin-law’s eye, Alyssia added, “Before I say anything to him or anyone, though, I’ll get the dope on Barry’s progress.”

“You’ll tell him,” Beth said with firm fondness.

“The baby’s more important than any novel.”

“Shhh.” Alyssia held a finger to her lips.

“Never say that to a writer—or a writer’s wife.”

“Why don’t you lie back down? I’ll tell the desk to put in the call.”

Beth had already booked her call to Irving.

The call from Bellevillesur-Loire came through first. The sister sing-law were having tea, and Alyssia, who was stretched on the couch, set down her plate of thin-sliced watercress and cucumber sandwiches, going into her bedroom for privacy.

“Hon, what a coincidence!” Barry’s voice emerged tinny and exultant.

“I was about to cable you. Exactly eleven minutes ago I typed The End.”

“Barry! How fabulous!”

“Of course there’s still the copy editing and the galleys.”

“I have some news for you,” she said.

“How is the movie progressing?”

“This is about us.” She swallowed.

“I should have told you before.”

“What is it?”

“It’s dumb, but I can’t say the words.”

“You’ve faded away.”

“I’m going to have a baby.”

“What?”

“I’m having a baby.”

The line crackled loudly, then there was a hum.

“Barry, are you still there?”

“Should I present my congratulations to anyone in particular?” Barry sounded as if he were in his cups, sullen, petulant.

“Don’t be angry.”

“Tell me what other response I could have?” he shouted.

“You and I, we haven’t been in proximity for over three months.”

She held the phone tighter. The previous night she had determined that her child would have all that she had been denied, and a father was the main advantage.

“I’m sure that’s an eminently negligible fact, of course,” he barked.

“I’m in my fifth month, Barry.”

“Oh? Well I accept that the male plays a minimal role in the drama of parturition, and therefore you haven’t said a word to me. But what about the press? I get the papers and the trades here. I read the rumors about disasters on the Baobab Tree location. Thus far, though, I haven’t seen one infinitesimal hint about the star’s pregnancy.”

“I’ve felt life,” she persisted.

“And everybody there is too astigmatic to notice your advanced condition?”

“I’m sorry, really sorry. I didn’t say anything because I wanted you to finish Spy.”

“My ever self-sacrificing spouse.”

“Yesterday I had a little problem, so I can’t work so hard. I’m going to have to tell them.”

“It’s the least you can do.”

“Barry,” she said, forcing the pleading note from her voice.

“The book’s finished. Why don’t you come down and we’ll make the announcement together.”

“They’re laying the parquet.”

The baby needs a father, so don’t scream at him. She drew a shaky breath.

“It would look better if we both tell the press.”

“Oh, indubitably it would look better!” he shouted.

She heard the click and knew he’d hung up.

The hotel courtyard was centered with an aviary of brilliantly plum aged Kenyan birds, and she lay on the bed listening to the harsh caws and trills of alien fowl.

When the phone rang, positive it was Irving, she let Beth answer in the living room.

“It’s Barry,” Beth called.

“He said you were cut off.”

Alyssia picked up the extension.

“Barry?” she whispered.

“You took me by surprise,” he said apologetically.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

The sisters-in-law had retired to their bedrooms when Irving’s call finally came through.

Beth said, “I was getting worried if I’d reach you, dear.”

“My Beth … how good to hear your lovely voice.” The connection roiled Irving’s words, as if passing them through mountainous waves.

“I’ve missed you so.”

“I’ve missed you, too. And Clarrie. How is she?”

“She’s not well.”

Beth leaped up, standing by the bed.

“I knew something was wrong! I knew it! The fever?”

“Yes—a fever. For a couple of days she’s had a fever.”

“The same as the last time?”

“Higher.”

“How high?”

“A hundred and three.”

“Oh my God! Is it connected to her last illness?”

“They aren’t sure. Maybe.”

“Do they know what it is this time?”

“Her arms and legs are weak. The neurologist says it’s a form of encephalitis” — “Encephalitis?” Her voice rose in terror.

“Brain fever? Sleeping sickness?”

“Beth, it’s not that bad” — “I should have been with her! Oh, Irving, how could you not tell me?”

“Bethie, I sent the cable today. She only got sick the day before yesterday.”

“You should have radioed me immediately!”

“Listen to me, Beth. Clarrie’s Clarrie. There’s nothing we can do. And they have the encephalitis diagnosed, so everything’s in hand” “I’ll be on the first flight I can get.”

“You’re already ticketed on the Pan Am flight to New York. It leaves Nairobi at six a.m. I’ll have the jet at Kennedy to meet you. Beth, I don’t want you all frantic. The doctors say there’s no reason on earth to think the worst.”

“Oh, God. Why wasn’t I there?”

As Beth hung up, she saw the reason.

Alyssia stood in the doorway, the lights behind her shining through her sheer nightgown to display the fecund curves below. Beth’s entire body shook with surges of mortal fury. This sisterin-law—this cheesy creature, this brassy bitch who had risen to world fame by flaunting her nakedness—had needed a curb against her whoring. That was why she, Beth, wasn’t with her desperately ill child.

“What is it?” Alyssia asked.

“You’re all white. Beth, you’re shaking.

What’s wrong? “

“Clarrie’s got encephalitis. She’s burning up with fever,” Beth said tautly.

“I’m leaving first thing, so I have arrangements and packing.

If you’ll go back to bed, I can get started. “

5S

ALYSSIA DEL MARS HUSBAND JOINS HER ON LOCATION IN MASAI MARA

—Kenya’s The Nation, February 6, 1980

Alyssia del Mar and her husband, writer Barry Cordiner, are expecting their first child sometime in May. Good news for the long-married couple, but just one more problem for already problem-beset The Baobab Tree, which is being shot in the wilds of Kenya. The film is already reportedly in excess of $30 million over budget.

—CBS Evening News, February 8, 1980

Budget fizzles and tempers sizzle as Harvard Productions’ The Baobab Tree approaches its third month on location in Africa. More delays expected because of Alyssia del Mar’s anticipations.

—The Hollywood Reporter, February 8, 1980

Meadstar, financing Harvard Productions’ The Baobab Tree, has sent in two veteran producers.

—Daily Variety, February’ll, 1980

A Land-Rover bounced to a halt near the small kraal erected for Alyssia’s scenes with the Masai, and a mismatched twosome climbed from the back seat. The small man with narrow shoulders and thin gray hair wore the first dark suit seen on location, while his outsize companion’s superfluity of flesh was stuffed into a creased but new looking bush jacket.

Alyssia pulled away from her hairdresser’s ministrations to go to the open door of the trailer.

Barry came up behind her.

“Who are they?” he asked.

“I never saw them before.”

“Definitely not tourists. What tourist comes to a game reserve in a business suit?” Barry snaked an arm around her waist, resting his hand fondly on her stomach.

“I wonder if…. Maybe Lang sent them.”

Barry released her.

“What about Lang?”

“When he was here he threatened Maxim and Hap that if we didn’t speed up, he’d send in his people.”

“Watchdogs, you mean?”

“Exactly.”

Barry picked up a shiny, red plastic loose-leaf notebook. With a long, penetrating glance at the two dissimilar men, he began to write rapidly.

He was keeping a journal. Alyssia, warmly grateful that his acceptance of their child had escalated to proud pleasure, was delighted that he’d discovered something to occupy himself. (There is nothing more stultifyingly boring than being trapped on somebody else’s location. ) He wandered around chatting with grips, electricians, wranglers, the assistant directors, the cameramen, the script supervisor, the bit players, and over dinner at the long trestle table he initiated earnest discussions about the delays and production problems with his cousins.