The Woman Who Fell From Grace (11 page)

Mavis pursed her lips. “I know Richard would adore having a fellow countrywoman. … She’s good, you say?”

“She’s the best.”

“I’d need references.”

“She’d have them.”

“Could she start right away? Time is of the essence. I’m expecting a thousand guests here for my VADD costume ball the night of the golden-anniversary premiere. The Quayles are flying in. Senator and Mrs. Robb. The Kissingers, the Buckleys. Patricia Kluge. Gore Vidal, Bill Blass, King Juan Carlos. Barbara Walters is taping a three-hour special for ABC. … I don’t know what I’ll do if —”

“Shall I call Pam?”

“I’d love for you to call her.” She placed her long fingers on my arm and left them there. “And thank you, Hoagy,” she said warmly. Or what was warmly for her.

“All part of the service,” I assured her, glancing down at her fingers. She removed them, coloring.

I only hoped Pam wouldn’t mind standing in for someone who had just been murdered.

It was the Jag that was waiting for me outside the door of my guest cottage, the red 1958 XK150 drophead Merilee and I had bought when we were together, and which was hers now. It is a rare beauty, every inch of it factory original. Seeing it sitting there in the courtyard with its top down, sixty-spoke wire wheels gleaming, almost made me forget I’d been used as a soccer ball that afternoon. There was an engraved Tiffany note card on the tan leather driver’s seat:
I wouldn’t want you to forget me
,
darling
.

I couldn’t forget her if I wanted to, and I didn’t want to.

A few fat raindrops were starting to fall. Quickly, I put the top up and went inside. Next door, Gordie’s TV was blaring. There was, I was pleased to note, no sign of his goddamned cat.

Lulu growled at me.

Sat there in her chair and growled at me as if I were a stranger who’d barged into the wrong room.

“Excuse me, miss,” I said. “I don’t mean to intrude, but I happen to live here. At least I did the last time I looked.”

She stopped growling. Now she was just glowering at me.

I went over and sat on the arm of the chair and patted her. Or tried to. She pulled away from me, as if I’d sprayed my hand with some kind of doggy repellent.

“For your information,” I pointed out, “Hoagy could use a little sympathy. Possibly a lick on the face.”

No response.

“Lassie would have been right there by my side,” I said. “Chased those two off. Or at the very least raced over to Polk’s office and barked. ‘Hoagy’s in trouble! Hoagy’s in trouble!’ ”

She continued to glower at me from under her beret.

“Are you feeling all right?” I grabbed her nose. Cold and wet. “Want to go back to New York or something?”

She hopped down and waddled over to her bowl. She wanted her dinner or something.

I gave it to her. She ate mechanically, like a middle-aged husband chewing on his wife’s pot roast for the thousandth time. I watched her, concerned. She wasn’t herself. She seemed very far away to me. I couldn’t imagine why.

I made a fire in the small fireplace and put some ice in a towel and laid it against the throbbing welt on the side of my head. I was pouring myself a Macallan when I heard it. Softly at first. Then louder.

Meowing.

I ignored it. I sat and enjoyed the fire and my single malt and ignored it. It got louder. And then she began to yowl, loud enough to be heard across the valley. Certainly loud enough for Roy to hear her. Roy and his shotgun.

Disgusted, I went to the front door and opened it. Sadie sat there in the doorway in the rain, all bright-eyed and perky and wet. She’d brought me a token of her affection. A dead mouse. At least, I think it was dead. I didn’t look too close. I told her to go away and take her friend with her. I closed the door. She promptly started yowling again. I threw it open. Now she was hanging from the screen door by all fours, eye to eye with me. I went out there and yanked her from the screen and set her down on the ground. She immediately leapt up onto my right shoulder, scampered around the back of my neck, down the other shoulder, and into the crook of my left arm, where she nestled moistly and began making small, comfortable motorboat noises. At least someone seemed happy to see me.

“Tell you what,” I said to her grudgingly. “If you’ll shut up, I’ll bring you out something. But just this once. Never again.” I put her down. “Wait out here. And don’t ever bring me a rodent again.”

Lulu was still eating and still giving me the cold shoulder. I spooned the leftover mackerel from her can into a saucer and took it back out to Sadie. The rain was really coming down now. Not that she was complaining. She was waiting just as I asked her to, quietly getting wetter and wetter. I sighed and held the door open. She came right in. The mouse she left on the doorstep. Lulu eyed her from her bowl but didn’t seem to mind. Whatever was bothering her it wasn’t Sadie. I put the saucer down inside the door and Sadie went for it, starved.

I sat back down before the fire with the telephone. I talked the rental agency into hauling away their Nova and a florist into delivering a dozen long-stems to the farm in Connecticut. I tracked down Pam through her brother in Croydon. She was being a woman of leisure at a residential hotel in Bournemouth, and bored stiff. She’d be at Shenandoah as soon as the airline schedules allowed.

I fed the fire and my whiskey glass. I put on a Garner tape and let the little elf and the rain have their way for a while. Then I opened up the notebook. Alma Glaze had kept her diary on unlined paper. Her writing had a tendency to go uphill as she got to the right edge of the page. No curlicues or flourishes. Her handwriting was small, tight, and no-nonsense. Just like the text. Just like the woman.

J
UNE 9

I sit in the gazebo
,
gazing out at the North Lawn
,
trying to
s
tay out of everyone’s way. They have begun their filming today. The very last scene
,
the duel
,
is being filmed first. I’m told they do everything out of sequence in Hollywood. How can they? How can the actors know what to feel if the preceding scene has not yet been filmed? Curious. The lawn is filled with their modern equipment — cameras
,
lights
,
trucks
,
trailers. Amidst all of it stand the duelists
,
Errol Flynn and Sterling Sloan
,
in their costumes and powdered wigs
.

Mr. Flynn cuts such a tall
,
dashing figure as De Cheverier
.
He is an utterly charming
,
devilish man. Last evening he kissed my hand and pronounced me “the loveliest writer I’ve ever laid eyes on
.
” He is so full of life
,
so eager to embrace its challenges.
…
Mr. Sloan is in many ways his opposite. He is a small man
,
five feet six at most. He must stand on a platform to see eye to eye with the strapping Flynn. He has such tiny hands that the costumer told me he must wear boy’s gloves. His forehead is unusually high
,
his skin fair
,
his mouth delicate
,
hair a lovely ginger color. But that voice! So rich and baritone! Were it not for that he would seem too small and frail to project John Raymond’s inner strength. Sloan is a very quiet man. There is an air of deep suffering about him
,
of dark inner torment
.

Laurel Barrett is an exquisite
,
fine-boned creature. She has the loveliest
,
purest white skin I have ever seen. However
,
she is very arrogant and high-strung. When I told her how pleased I was she had been chosen to play Evangeline
,
she said
,
“I can well imagine you would be
.
” I gather she is not well liked by the cast and crew. Certainly she makes no attempt to be cordial. There seems to be more than a little marital strain between her and Mr. Sloan. Or perhaps I simply do not understand performers
.

Mr. Wyler
,
the director
,
certainly seems to. Willy is very much in charge. He asked the gentlemen to perform one small part of the duel scene over and over again this morning. They did so without question. I suppose they are used to this
,
since so much of moviemaking seems to be mindless
,
painstaking repetition.
…
Happily
,
Mr. Goldwyn has returned to Hollywood for the time being. What a vulgar
,
horrid snake! What a total
f
igment of his own imagination! And what does he actually do? His sole interest here seemed to be in trying to bed any living
,
breathing woman he could get his hands on. Briefly
,
he even pursued the “dahlink” widowed author of
“Old” Shenandoah,
as he insists upon calling it. We were not amused
.

June 10

The children are in heaven. They consider this entire enterprise their personal playground. The twins are enamored of the cameras and lights and of the men who handle them. Particularly Edward
,
who
,
with the typical verve of a man with one entire year of college under his belt
,
has pronounced himself bound for a career in the theatrical arts. He is terribly underfoot
,
I’m afraid.
…
little Mavis has taken to worshiping Mr. Flynn with every ounce of her ten years. She follows him about and constantly seeks to dominate his attentions. He’s been quite charming about it. Her main competition is Miss Barrett
,
who appears to be terribly smitten by him. I can only hope the filming will not be highlighted by a real duel between these two gentlemen
.

Mr. Flynn has liquor on his breath at nine in the morning. Still
,
he is a perfect professional and the crew adore him. They do not care for the moody aloofness of Sloan and Barrett
,
whom they have dubbed Himself and Herself. Mr. Niven is most ingratiating. Miss Barrymore intelligent and convivial. I believe she and I shall become friends
.

Seeing my characters come to life this way
,
I cannot help but think of their continuing on after
Oh, Shenandoah.
Of Evangeline’s going forth to live the joys and the sorrows of this sweet land of liberty. John Raymond must win the duel. For it is he
,
a statesman
,
a man of peace
,
who is destined for greatness in the new land. De Cheverier
,
the eternal rebel
,
is a man of war. He is aflame
,
burning brightly in Evangeline’s heart
,
but his time has now passed
.

And on it went. Alma’s notes for
Sweet Land
were, in fact, rather sparse. There was little here that Mavis hadn’t already told me. Mostly, there was gossip. Pretty good stuff, though, if you’re interested in that sort of thing. It so happened I was.

June 14

Everyone is talking about how Mr. Niven and Linda Darnell are sleeping together. Neither of them has bothered to be discreet about it. I do not understand these people
.

My poor Frederick is hopelessly in love with Helene Bray
,
the fast young actress who plays Evangeline’s best friend
,
Abigail. Helene curses like a sailor and flirts with most of the young men on the set. She also happens to be sleeping with Rex Ransom
,
the handsome young actor who plays James Madison. I don’t have the heart to tell Frederick. … Edward has the acting bug now. But he’s so enthusiastic and genuine that he’s actually managed to befriend Himself the moody Mr. Sloan
,
who has consented to discuss his craft with Edward in his free time. Quite an unexpected privilege
.

Little Fernie O’Baugh
,
the daughter of that fellow who fixes cars in town
,
looks simply lovely in her costume as Evangeline’s sister
,
Lavinia.
…
I wonder if perhaps Mavis is spending too much time around Mr. Flynn. He made the oddest
,
crudest remark today about how much he enjoyed having her sit in his lap. I do believe I will start keeping her away from him
.

June 25

Willy drove Miss Barrett to utter hysterics this morning. They were filming the scene where Donald Crisp
,
the fine actor who plays her father
,
tells Vangie he despises De Cheverier and would never countenance their marriage. Willy wanted Miss Barrett to break down in response and was not satisfied with what she was giving him. He made her film it over and over and over again
,
tormenting her
,
driving the poor woman to such a state of frenzied exhaustion that she genuinely was breaking down. She was not acting. Only then was he satisfied. It did not seem to bother him in the least that she then had to be given a sedative and put to bed. Mr. Sloan got into a violent quarrel with Willy because of it. I thought the two would come to blows. An aide had to separate them. Mr. Sloan then refused to come out of his trailer after lunch. He said he had a severe headache. Willy instructed the crew to pound on the trailer with hammers
,
creating such an unbearable amount of noise within that he simply had to emerge. The shooting went surprisingly smoothly after that.
…
Actors are children. Willy is their father
.

I must say I am appalled at how casual they all are about altering my dialogue. Mr. Sherwood was most faithful in his script. Not so Willy and the performers. They keep changing a word here
,
a phrase there
,
and in the process destroying its authenticity. When I sell the film rights to
Sweet Land of Liberty,
I will make sure they cannot do this. It shall be in the contract
.

June 29

Whispers about Mr. Flynn and Miss Barrett. They have filmed several love scenes together
,
and the passion they are generating appears to be quite genuine. She has been seen coming out of his trailer. Such a lovely creature. How could she? And with her own husband right here! I do not understand these people
.