Ross MacDonald - The Ferguson Affair

“Some legal Latin.”

“I’m no Latinist myself, but my mother taught me a little. That was Catullus. ‘I hate her and I love her, and I’m on the rack.’ ” His voice rose out of control, as if he was literally on the rack. Then he said in a deeper voice: “She’s the only person I’ve ever really loved. Except one. And I didn’t love her enough.”

“Have you been married before?”

“No. I’d reached the point of believing that marriage was not for me. I should have stuck to that. A man can’t expect to be lucky more than once.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“I’ve been lucky enough to make a good deal of money. I knew instinctively that a man like me couldn’t be lucky in love. And I’ve always shied away from women. It’s nothing to be vain about, because I know the reason, but plenty of women have thrown themselves at my head.”

“Did Holly?”

“No, she didn’t. I was the pursuer in her case-very much the pursuer.”

“How did you happen to meet her?”

“It didn’t happen , in the strictest sense. I arranged to meet her. I saw her in a film last spring in London-I was over there for a trade meeting at Canada House-and decided I had to meet her, somehow. A few months later, at the end of July, I happened to be passing through Vancouver. I have interests in British Columbia, and some of my property was threatened by forest fires.

“I picked up a newspaper and saw Holly’s picture. Her film was to be shown at the Vancouver film festival, and she was to be a guest at the showing. I decided to stop over in Vancouver, and the forest fires be damned. All I could think about was meeting her in the flesh.”

“Do you mean to tell me you fell in love with her picture, at first sight?”

“Does that sound foolish and sentimental?”

“It sounds incredible.”

“Not if you realize how I felt. She was what I’d been missing all my life. She stood for the things I’d turned my back on when I was a young man. Love, and marriage, and fatherhood. A lovely girl that I could call my own.” He was talking like a man in a dream, a rosy sentimental dream of the sort that burns like celluloid and leaves angry ashes in the eyes.

“You felt all this simply because you’d seen her in a movie?”

“There was more to it than that. I prefer not to go into it.”

“I think you should go into it.”

“What purpose would it serve? That other girl had nothing to do with Holly, except that Holly reminded me of her.”

“Tell me about the other girl.”

“There’s no point in going into the subject of her , not at this late date. She was simply a girl I picked up in Boston twenty-five years ago, when I was at Harvard Business School. For a while I planned to marry her, and then I decided not to. Perhaps I should have.” He stared down into his empty glass, twisting and turning it like a crystal ball that revealed the past but kept the future hidden. “Holly seemed like a reincarnation of that girl in Boston.”

He fell silent. He seemed to have forgotten that I was sitting across from him.

“So you arranged to meet Holly,” I prompted him.

“Yes. It wasn’t difficult. I have strong connections in Vancouver, among them some of the backers of the festival. A dinner in her honor was set up, and I had the privilege of sitting beside her. She was charming, and so young. ” His voice broke, leaving me unmoved. “It was like being given a second chance at youth.”

“Obviously, you made the most of your chances.”

“Yes. We got along from the start-in a perfectly straightforward, companionable way. And she didn’t know who I was. I was simply a fellow she met at a party who had a few business interests. That was the beauty of it. She didn’t know I had money until we’d been seeing each other for several days.” Ferguson spoke of his money as if it was a communicable disease.

“Are you certain of that?”

“Quite certain.” He nodded emphatically, as though he had to reassure himself. “She didn’t know who I really was until it developed that she was going to Banff. I invited her to stay at my lodge there-properly chaperoned, of course. We got together a little party, and rode up in a private railway car that a friend of mine makes available to me.

“It was a wonderful trip. I felt terrifically excited, just to be with her. I don’t mean in a sexual way.” Ferguson’s eyes became faintly anxious whenever he approached the subject of sex. “I’ve had sex with various women, but the feeling I had for Holly was very much more than that. She was like a golden image sitting there by the train window. I didn’t like to stare directly at her, so I looked at her reflection in the window. I watched her reflected face with the mountains moving through it and behind it. I felt as though I was moving with her into the heart of life, a golden time. Do you understand me?”

“Not too well.”

“I don’t pretend to understand it myself. I only know I’d lived for twenty-five years without that feeling. I’d been going through the motions for twenty-five years, piling up money and acquiring property. Suddenly Holly was the reason for it, the meaning of it all. She understood when I told her these things. We went on long walks together in the mountains. I poured out my heart to her, and she understood. She said that she loved me, and would share my life.”

Shock and whisky were working in him like truth serum. There was no trace of irony in his voice; only the tragic irony of the circumstances. He had founded his brief marriage on a dream and was trying to convince himself that the dream was real.

“And share your money, too?” I said.

“Holly didn’t marry me for money,” he insisted doggedly. “Remember that she was a successful actress, with a future. It’s true her studio had her tied up in a low-salaried contract, but she could have done much better if she’d stayed in Hollywood. Her agent told me she was bound to become a great star. But the fact is, she wasn’t interested in money, or in stardom. She wanted to improve herself, become a cultivated woman. That was the project we had in mind when we came here. We planned to learn together, read good books, study music and other worthwhile things.”

He looked around the shabby restaurant as if he had somehow fallen into a trap. I remembered the hooded harp and the white concert grand.

“Was your wife studying music seriously?”

He nodded. “She has a voice, you know. I engaged a voice teacher for her, also a speech teacher. She wasn’t happy about the way she spoke, her use of English. I’m no great grammarian myself, but I was always having to correct her.”

“All these lessons she was taking-were they her idea or yours?”

“They were her idea, originally. I’m still in my prime, and at first I wasn’t too fond of the notion that we should take a year or two out to develop our minds and all that. I went along with it because I loved her, because I felt grateful to her.”

“Grateful for what?”

“For marrying me.” He seemed surprised by my lack of understanding. Puzzled surprise was threatening to become his permanent expression. “I’m not a handsome man, and I’m not young. I suppose I can hardly blame her for running out on me.”

“It’s possible she hasn’t. Gaines may have been pointing a gun at her today.”

“No. I saw him get out of the car. She sat behind the wheel and waited for him.”

“Then he may have some other hold on her. How long has she known him?”

“Just since we’ve come here.”

“You’re sure?”

He shook his head. “I can’t be sure, no. She might have known him before, and pulled the wool over my eyes.”