‘I thought …’ I said at one point, as she scribbled figures in margins, and added this one to that one and the other to the next, and my eyesight blurred with the vision of them all. ‘I had always understood that the bulk of my living costs were to be met by the house. That is, I thought, why you always charged such a hefty commission.’
She said, ‘I don’t know where you got that idea, Dora.’ And she paused, pen in hand, dollar signs whirring behind the eyeballs. ‘What did you think? I’m running some kind of vacation resort? I’m not in this business for my health.’
‘No, of course. But … neither am I.’
I had no recourse. I knew it and so did she. There was no legal contract between us. And, in the meantime, William’s dollar bills rested on her desk. Short of making a grab for them and running like hell (except I was locked inside, and it was well known she kept a loaded pistol in her desk), there was nothing I could do. Phoebe held this town in the palm of her fat, jewelled hand. So I waited quietly, with my whiskey glass, as she presented me with another ancient bill, and then another, and then another …
‘But I don’t recall ever owning a purple chiffon dinner dress. I dislike purple. I dislike chiffon. Are you certain that wasn’t for another girl? Perhaps one of the girls who left already. Or Larenne. Remember Larenne?’ Larenne had only lasted a couple of years. She died of an overdose of laudanum. Suicide.
Phoebe looked blank.
‘Larenne!
You must remember Larenne!
She used to adore purple. It was the only colour she would ever wear.’
Phoebe shook her head. Apparently she didn’t remember Larenne. I was wasting my breath. Whether the bill once belonged to Larenne, or whether Phoebe had written out the damn bill herself, it was immaterial anyway. She intended to subtract the cost of it from my inheritance. And the cost of everything else, too. Whatever she felt like subtracting.
‘Well then,’ she said at last, sitting back in her gilt throne, removing her pince-nez,
smiling
. ‘I think that’s just about it. You can check my calculations if you like. By all means …’ She pushed a piece of paper across the desk towards me: there was a scrawl of tiny black figures, and at the bottom of the longest column, a final number.
I looked down at it. Couldn’t bring my mind to bear. Was that it? The final number. Was it what she intended to give to me, or what she intended to take?
‘And if you’re agreeable with that …’ she said. She picked up the dollar bills,
my
dollar bills, the dollar bills William Paxton had left for me, and she began to count them out.
‘Ten … Twenty … Thirty … Forty … Fifty … Fifty-five …’ She stopped.
She waited. I waited. She waited.
‘
Fifty-five dollars?
’ I said at last.
‘That’s right,’ she said. She indicated the paper sheet with a slight tilt of the chin. ‘That’s what it says. Fifty-three dollars and forty cents. I rounded it up.’
‘Out of two thousand five hundred? What are you, crazy? I’m not accepting that.’
She feigned gentle confusion. Then she smiled. ‘You’ll accept it,’ she said softly. ‘You’ll accept whatever I give you.’ She surveyed me and then she sat back with a small sigh of surrender. ‘However, because I’m fond of you, Dora … Ha! Yes. You may well raise your eyebrows at that, but it’s true. Over the years, I’ve come to like the way you …’ Nothing seemed to come to mind. She shrugged. ‘In any case, I want to be good to you. I’m going to be generous.’ She opened a drawer beneath the desk and pulled out yet another sheet of paper. She slid it across the table top towards me.
It was a document from William’s lawyer.
‘You need to sign it,’ she said. ‘To confirm you have received the funds.’
‘But I haven’t received the funds! You are keeping them from me.’
‘Because of debts outstanding, Dora. How many times must I explain it?’ She sighed. ‘
However
, as I say, I am willing to be generous. I am going to cancel a further two hundred and fifty dollars of the debt, allowing you to leave this room with … Let me think: three hundred and five dollars. Hell, I’ll throw in another fifty! The liquor must be fuzzing my old noddlebox! That leaves you with three hundred and fifty-five … And your freedom, Dora. Imagine that. I know how long you’ve hankered for it. But you need to sign the document.’ She flashed me another grin. (How I detested the sight of her little teeth!) ‘What do you say?’
‘What if I refuse to sign it?’
She shrugged. ‘Of course. It’s up to you.’
April 1933
Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, California
Max has his fruit ice. He took some time choosing the flavour and finally settled on coconut and pineapple. And I can’t be certain if he has any idea how infuriating it is, to watch him nibbling on his fruit ice, when we still have so many questions unanswered. He swears he was not her lover – and I do not believe him. I wonder why he ever arranged for us to meet, since he can only tell me lies, and nibble on ices. I am thinking that perhaps it is time for me to leave. In fact, I regret very much having agreed to see him. His lack of concern for Inez can hardly come as a surprise, but still, I see her lying in the morgue; I see him savouring his fruit ice. I see the letter, in all its girlish pain; I see him savouring his fruit ice. How can a man reach his age and still have such a healthy head of hair? It’s a mark of
something
, I decide. Something callous. Shallow. Max Eastman has words for everything, but feelings for nothing. I reach for my purse.
‘I have to leave,’ I say. ‘I have an appointment.’
He looks surprised. Hurt, even. ‘What?’ he says. ‘Why? What kind of an appointment? We haven’t even started to reach the bottom of this. I thought you said you had all afternoon.’
Did I say that? I don’t remember. ‘I have a client,’ I say vaguely. ‘Out in Santa Monica. They are expecting me at five.’
‘A
client
?’ Max Eastman blushes. ‘I’m so sorry …’
‘Please, don’t apologize.’
‘I thought you said … Of course you didn’t actually tell me what you were doing nowadays. I thought you’d given all that up.’
‘Oh. No. A different kind of client,’ I say.
‘Yes?’
‘I work for the studios now. I coach new actors to sing.’
‘Oh!’
‘We have sound. The people want to hear their idols sing.’
‘Ha! Yes, of course they do. You bet!’
‘Musicals are all the rage.’
‘Oh well. Gosh. That sounds—’
‘It is. It’s wonderful. I’m very fortunate.’ I take up the letter. He watches me folding it, tucking it into my purse; and, as I do so – God knows why – I feel my eyes stinging with tears. It’s the disappointment. No, it’s the fruit ice. Max and his bloody fruit ice. All these years I have imagined how he would react were he ever to read her letter. I imagined his dismay, his guilt, his grief. I had imagined that my failure to deliver the damn thing to him might in some way have been a mercy. I had spared him from it; the dying wrath of his beloved – and I had nursed that. But here he sits by the pool of the Ambassador, basking in the California sun, telling me lies and slurping like a puppy on the speciality of the house. I want to pick up the bowl and throw its contents into his lap.
There is a pause. He lays down his spoon. Swallows. ‘Dora, is my fruit ice repelling you?’
‘No,’ I reply. I laugh. I can’t help it. All those years of hiding my distastes – had I made it so obvious? ‘No, of course it’s not …’
‘Indeed it
is
!’ he says. ‘I shall send it away. Waiter! Ah, hello. Thank you. Could you kindly relieve me …’ He hands the waiter his bowl. ‘You’re very kind. It was delicious but I have had enough.’ He turns back to me, raises an eyebrow. Smiles. ‘You misconstrued my enjoyment, Dora. I was thinking. That’s all. Sometimes a small
amuse-gueule
can help one to concentrate. I am sorry if it seemed callous. I was trying to understand … And, by the way. It didn’t help. Not on this occasion. I have nothing. I am as bewildered as you are.’
‘What might help,’ I say, ‘is if you started telling the truth. You were in love with each other. Anyone could see it. I don’t know why you would want to deny it after all these years. What does it even matter any more?’
He shakes his head. ‘What can I say to persuade you?’
‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘And really, I have to leave. Please, don’t get up.’ In fact he has made no sign that he might. I am pushing back the chair. My eyes are blurred with tears now. It’s important that I leave before giving way to them. ‘It was good to see you, after all these years. I only wish it could have been more illuminating …’ I feel a hand on my shoulder, and in an instant, Max’s expression alters: from frustration, to astonishment, to alarm – to delight.
‘Good God!’ he says. ‘For a moment I thought you were – but you look so alike! I had forgotten how alike you always were. Although I declare I think you have grown
even more
alike.’ Now Max is on his feet. He has leapt to his feet, and his face is alight with pleasure. ‘Xavier Dubois! It
is
you, isn’t it? Tell me it’s you! – Well, I know it is. How could it be anyone else?’ He wraps his long arms around Xavier’s shoulders and hugs him.
When Max pulls back they both laugh, as surprised as each other by his warmth.
‘Hello there Max,’ Xavier says. ‘Well, well! … Here you are!’
‘Yes indeed!’ grins Max.
‘Dora mentioned she was meeting with you and I must admit I rather insisted on being allowed to barge in. Sidled out of a godawful meeting this afternoon …You don’t mind me joining you, I hope?’
‘My friend, I couldn’t be more delighted!’ cries Max.
Xavier nods and smiles. ‘… I see you still have all your hair.’ He lifts his boater, reveals a forehead several inches higher than it used to be.
Max examines the hairline. ‘Oh, you just need to brush it forward a bit, old chap. Plus you’re tall enough. Most people don’t even get a chance to see the top of your head.’
I laugh. Poor Xavier! I tell him he still looks good – and he does, too. But this is Hollywood. He minds about his hairline more than he ought, perhaps. ‘Is that really all you have to say to each other,’ I ask, ‘after all these years?’
‘Far from it,’ Xavier says. ‘It’s just the
first
thing we have to say to each other. After all these years. We have plenty more to talk about now we’ve settled that.’
‘Nineteen years,’ Max says. ‘Nineteen years almost to the day – do you realize? Dora – you didn’t tell me Xavier would be joining us. I had no idea.’
‘I wasn’t sure myself if he would make it,’ I reply. ‘Hello darling,’ I say to him.
He swoops to kiss me. It lands half on my head, half on the edge of my hat. He takes my hand and squeezes it. ‘Am I too late?’ he asks us. ‘I’m sorry. I couldn’t get away before. Dora, darling – you looked as if you were leaving?’
‘Well, I thought I had an appointment,’ I mutter.
‘But you said you’d kept the afternoon free! Can’t you stay for a drink? Now that I’ve made it all the way out here? Please, darling?’
The pleading is a formality. He knows I will stay for a drink now. Because he is impossible to refuse, just as his sister was. So I put my purse down again, and he nods at a passing waiter. ‘What are we all having?’ he asks.
‘Max is having the fruit ice,’ I say.
Max chuckles. ‘I am decidedly
not
having the fruit ice. Another martini, I think. What about you?’
‘Three martinis,’ Xavier says. ‘However my friends took them. I’ll have the same. Thank you.’
He sits down. I notice for the first time what he is carrying. Actually, he produced it – Inez’s swordstick – from the back of a cupboard, the evening I returned from the restaurant and told him about my encounter with Max. It was covered in dust, and the silver blade had turned black, having been so long neglected in its casing. Now the silver catch glistens in the sunlight. He has polished it up for the occasion.
We exchange glances. He is not sure, I think, if I approve of his bringing it out with him today. But who am I to approve or disapprove? What difference does it make? When he talks to Max, and discovers the extent of his callousness, as I have in the past hour or so, he will no doubt wish he had left it in the dark cupboard where it belongs.
Max leans back in his wicker seat, the better to examine his new guest. ‘God, you look well! Is there something in the water here in California? The pair of you don’t look a day older! Are you living here too, Xavier? Of course you are! You were making films even back then. Are you still? And have you at any point had the good fortune to encounter my great friend Charles Chaplin? We’ve fallen out rather, lately, sadly. Politics. But I am awfully fond of him, you know.’
Xavier takes a cigarette from the silver box that Max holds out to him, attaches it to his cigarette holder. ‘I’ve met him often,’ Xavier says. ‘He’s not an easy man to work with.’ He produces his lighter – gold. I gave it to him last birthday, engraved with his name. ‘And yes, to answer your question. Absolutely, I live in Califor- nia. Here in Hollywood. Dora and I live together.’
‘Oh!’ Max looks embarrassed and slightly confused. ‘I’m not sure I understand.’
Xavier looks politely surprised. ‘Which bit?’
I smother a laugh. I want to redirect us back to the letter. I want to hear Max telling Xavier what he has just told me – and to see how Xavier reacts to it. I am pulling the letter back out of my purse when the golden-limbed, dive-bombing Adonis – whose face I had recognized previously – approaches the table. We wait, while he and Xavier exchange pleasantries, and then Xavier introduces us all. We have met before, he reminds me. I had forgotten. He is not a famous movie star – though Xavier assures him and us that he soon will be. He is a friend of Xavier’s. Ah – too bad! He is a sight for sore eyes, no matter what.
I indicate the ebony swordstick; say to Max: ‘Look familiar?’
He picks it up. ‘I can’t say that it does …’ He fiddles with the catch, and the blade slides out. ‘Oh indeed! Dora, it’s not what I think, is it?
Is it?
’ He looks, for once, quite misty eyed. ‘I never saw it before, but she told me about it. She was terribly proud of it. Isn’t it part of the notorious “spy equipment” she ordered down from Chicago or somewhere? It’s actually rather beautiful …’ He continues to fiddle with it, sliding out the blade. ‘Do you remember that wonderful little pistol-in-a-purse she was so pleased with? I wonder what became of it.’