Джеймс Хилтон - Morning Journey

Carey telephoned Paul and asked if he knew of the woman. “She called me up just now. Any idea who she is?”

Paul answered promptly: “Never heard of her.” He was busy and soon hung up. But half an hour later he called back to say: “Carey, that woman you asked about—I asked Greg and it seems they’re all scared of her out here. So you’d better be careful.”

“How do I be careful?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Be what you like. What the hell does it matter?”

“Well, who IS she? Why is she important?”

“Greg did tell me, but I couldn’t quite get the hang of it. She writes, I suppose.”

“I know she writes, but why should they be scared of her?”

“They have scarable ulcers. Don’t worry about her. The whole thing is a fine pickle of nonsense.”

The second rumour, a pleasanter one, was about Morning Journey. In some mysterious way people were already aware that it was good. Possibly it had been run in private projection-rooms before an élite; at any rate, the hint was in circulation that it was something to look for. Then came the press preview in New York with the critics practically unanimous. All of them praised Carey, nearly all praised Paul’s direction, most prophesied a big hit, and one said that Greg Wilson had never supplied such a plausible though still invalid excuse for calling himself an actor.

On the day these critiques were reprinted in the trade papers Carey could sense an almost barometric change in the local atmosphere. She could even believe that at her usual restaurant the smile of the head waiter had an extra obsequiousness. People came up to her table to gush and congratulate. The next day an executive of another studio asked her to lunch, ostensibly to show her the New York clippings, actually to sound her out about her plans. “I understand you have no future commitment with Majestic,” he remarked with overdone casualness.

“That’s so, but I don’t know yet whether I want to make another picture at all. I must take a vacation first.”

“Why, yes, naturally.” And reading her indecision as caginess he said: “Of course nobody knows how the public will react. Critics can’t make or break a picture as they can a stage play.”

“I know. Better wait and see how it goes.”

Having blown cool, he must now blow warmer again. “Personally I enjoyed it immensely—and you were magnificent.”

“I think the direction counted for most.”

“Yes, very good, quite good… How did Saffron get along with people during the shooting—not too well, I heard?”

“Not too well, but well enough. He just did a wonderful job that’ll probably make somebody else a fortune.”

“High praise, indeed…”

“And from an ex-wife,” she said with a laugh, guessing that the fact was already or would be later known to him.

She added: “Paul’s so good in Morning Journey that one can imagine if he were given a free hand—a freer hand, anyway—he might be great.”

“Sometimes when you give them too free a hand, these geniuses, they make a hell of a mess of things. I’d be satisfied if he stayed GOOD.”

“I think he’d rather wait for a job in which someone would trust him enough to let him be GREAT.”

“What, are you—his agent too?”

More laughter. She couldn’t be quite sure she was helping Paul by putting out feelers like this, but she had an impulse to do so. Then she steered the conversation to more general matters and let her host do most of the talking. Just before taking her to the car he said: “Where IS Saffron, anyway— I was trying to get in touch with him this morning but couldn’t.”

So THAT’S it, she thought gleefully; they’re ALREADY after him.

But she had to answer, in reply to his question: “I don’t know.”

Paul was on an Arizona ranch, with Greg; he returned after Morning Journey had opened at Radio City Music Hall and broken all records for a first week. Randolph, convinced now that his private dream of a half-success was hopeless, jumped on the band-wagon with full force. He was especially pleased when the picture won the triple awards given annually by the local newspaper critics—Carey, Greg, and Paul being the recipients. The awards were to be presented at a big dinner, and on the morning of the day Randolph could not help summoning the honoured three to the studio for compliments and a briefing. “Of course you’ll all make speeches after you get the plaques and somebody ought to bring in that Calvin Beckford is seventy tomorrow.” (Calvin Beckford was a local politician who would present the awards.) “Perhaps that would come best from you, Carey. And if anybody should see fit to say something nice about the studio it wouldn’t do us—or them—one bit of harm.” He tittered self-consciously. “I’ll be there, of course, but they don’t ask producers to speak. Those newspaper boys seem to think we don’t do any of the real work… Incidentally, Carey, I phoned your agent in New York—I wanted him to know how pleased we all are.”

Paul had arrived at the office with Greg, but afterwards he drove back with Carey. “Greg wanted to stay on and talk to Randolph,” he said, as if the star’s absence from their company were something that had to be explained.

Carey, who could be away from Greg without feeling completely lost, sat back in the car and looked at Paul. When she thought of Randolph’s recent compliments she did not know whether to feel happy or cynical, but for Paul’s sake at least she was happy. She knew he enjoyed compliments, even when he knew they were insincere, and from a man who he knew hated him there was probably a special piquancy.

She said: “Well, Paul, isn’t it nice to be on top of the world?”

Paul seemed to have Greg still on his mind. “Greg’s had too much of it. They put him in one picture after another—anything to exploit him. He’s getting pretty sick of it all.”

“I don’t know what he has to be sick about. He gets five thousand a week and he can’t act.”

“He’s a good fellow, Carey—really he is.”

“I know it, and I also think he’s lucky.”

“Because I directed him, you mean?”

“He was lucky before that.”

“He wasn’t BAD in the picture.”

“He wasn’t as bad as usual.”

“He told me he never believed he had it in him.”

“I don’t think he had. I think you performed an optical illusion.”

“He certainly gives me all the credit.”

“Why shouldn’t he as long as he keeps the salary?”

“You’re very waspish today, Carey.”

“I’m just myself as I always am, only you haven’t seen me lately— you’ve forgotten what I’m really like.”

“As if I could ever forget.”

“Darling, that’s sweet and probably true.”

“All the same, though, I think you’re a bit unfair to Greg.”

“Greg? Are we still talking about HIM?”

How familiar it was, to be arguing with Paul again. She had not seen him for weeks, they had said hello almost as strangers in Randolph’s office, they were now by chance thrown together in the same car for a half-hour’s drive, and already they were arguing—not quarrelling, for they had never quarrelled… just airing their minds in a private tradition of cut and thrust—he with some idea he was leaning towards, but would not yet put into words; she sensing it already and poised to exert some uncharted manœuvre of checks and balances. The strange thing was that she felt free with him, free even from her own troubles and problems. And the thought came to her: how absurd it was ever to use the word ‘reconcile’ about the two of them. It was not in their power any more either to come closer or to move away.

She said, thinking of all this: “Anyhow, Paul, you’ve had your big chance and it’s certainly paid off. Can’t you feel a bit joyful about it?”