he: A Novel(45)

– You see?

– Like a submarine.

– Yes, like a—No, not like a submarine.

Mr Hardy considers. Gravity might possibly apply also to submarines, but Mr Hardy would not like to commit until certain.

Anyway, it’s not important, says Mr Hardy. What’s important is that the glass was thrown, and the glass fell, and when I tried to pick up the pieces, I cut my hand.

– But who threw the glass?

– My wife threw the glass.

Mr Hardy emphasizes this detail with a single nod of his head, in the manner of one who is proud of the power of his wife’s throwing arm.

– She ought to play baseball.

– I will tell her that when next I see her.

– But why did she throw the glass?

Mr Hardy grimaces, and tips his derby forward, the derby that is a size too small for the head upon which it sits, just like his own.

– She suspected me of being with another woman.

– You mean your mother?

Mr Hardy’s shoulders hunch, toppling the derby so that Mr Hardy is forced to juggle his headwear in order to avoid losing it entirely.

– My mother! No, not my mother. Why would my wife throw a glass at me for being with my mother?

– Maybe she’s met your mother.

Mr Hardy scowls. Mr Hardy flails at him with his hat. He takes a step back and blinks, conscious that he appears to have irritated Mr Hardy, but not sure how, given that his suggestion appears entirely logical.

– Just leave my mother out of this. Look, it’s perfectly simple. I came home with make-up on my suit, smelling of perfume, and my wife assumed that I was seeing another woman. Who was not my mother.

– And were you?

– I tried to explain to my wife that as an actor, I always have make-up on my clothing. I wear make-up for the camera, and some of it gets on my jacket and my shirt.

– Do you also wear perfume as an actor?

– No, I do not, but I am sometimes in proximity to actresses who do.

– Were you in very close proximity to an actress who does?

– I was not. I was merely having lunch with her.

– And who was this actress?

– Her name is Miss June Marlowe.

Mr Hardy blushes, and plays with his tie.

– She’s pretty.

Yes, says Mr Hardy, she is.

– And friendly.

– Yes, she is that, too.

– Maybe your wife would like to meet her.

– Yes, that’s—No, my wife would not like to meet her. Don’t you understand? My wife thinks I’m engaged in a dalliance, when all I was doing was having lunch. Do you really think it would help the situation if I were to bring Miss June Marlowe home with me in order to introduce her to my wife?

He opens his mouth to confirm that this is indeed his opinion, before reconsidering.

Maybe not, he says.

– Definitely not. And do you know why it would not help?

– Tell me.

Mr Hardy hesitates. Mr Hardy looks away.

And it is Babe who speaks.

– Because my wife is a drunk.

Their names are called.

They step out of the shadows and into the light.





97


At the Oceana Apartments, he marvels at the number of pictures he and Babe made involving men mired in miserable relationships, men living in fear of their wives, men being berated by women, men being struck by women.

Hal Roach found bad marriages funny.

But only because Hal Roach was never trapped in one.

He can count his marriages, in all their various forms, on the fingers of two hands, with the thumbs left over. He should really have married a few more times, just to complete the set. He once suggests this to Ida, if only to hear what she says, and Ida tells him that he is welcome to try, assuming he can find a way to leave the apartment without her help.

He admits that relative immobility is a barrier to meeting new women.

This, and the fact that he will soon be dead.





98


Babe’s marital troubles are about to become common knowledge. The studio publicists try to smother the flames as best they can, but the brands leave smoke rising. Worse, the Los Angeles Times dispatches a reporter named Paul Moreine to cover the production of their latest picture, Our Wives, and Paul Moreine is on the lot at all times, so it is fortunate that Babe has learned to hide his emotions so well.

And, although it does not seem so at the time, Babe is doubly blessed in that Hal Roach is forced to close the studio for six weeks from March until May in order to reorganize his finances. This means that Babe is not on set, and not required to work, while the fault lines in his marriage are being exposed.

It is small solace, but Babe has become used to small solaces.

One of these solaces is his lover, Viola Morse.

Myrtle is a regular client of the Rosemead Lodge sanitarium in Temple City, although Myrtle appears to use it solely as a convenient location in which to sleep off a hangover before once again heading out to hunt for liquor. Babe finds it difficult to understand how the sanitarium can operate an open-door policy when it comes to Myrtle, but at least Babe and the staff at the sanitarium have this much in common. Myrtle could find a way to escape from a locked and windowless room. This leads Jimmy Finlayson to suggest that Myrtle may be related to the famous Jack Sheppard, who rarely stayed in a prison cell for longer than it took to have a nap and a bite to eat, until the law grew tired of chasing Jack Sheppard and hanged him instead.