he: A Novel(79)

– It’s not funny.

– No, I guess it isn’t. So how do you feel about it?

– How do you think I feel?

Babe’s voice cracks. Ben Shipman wonders if Babe can ever be truly angry with his partner.

Disappointed? Yes.

Frustrated? Yes.

But angry? No, it would appear not.

This, Ben Shipman divines, is in the nature of love, because Ben Shipman also loves both of these men, in all their strangeness and their gentleness, in all their sorrows and their joys.

He’s drinking on set, says Babe.

– Does Hal know?

– I think Hal suspects.

– What about his son?

Hal Roach, Jr, is an assistant on the latest picture.

– Hal, Jr doesn’t run to his old man with stories.

– That’s something, at least.

But Babe does not hear him. Babe is elsewhere, in some future place, mourning the absence of a shadow, listening for an echo that does not come.

What will I do? Babe asks.

– When?

– When he leaves me.

– You’ll wait.

– For what?

– For him to return.

– And will he?

He will always return to you, says Ben Shipman. I’d say that it’s like a marriage, but in his case it would be a bad analogy.





152


He builds a new house in Canoga Park, with a high wall around its gardens. This is to be his sanctuary, his fortress. Vera, and Countess Sonia, and – with disturbing frequency – Roy Randolph, the Dancing Master, join him inside, and the prison doors close. To compound his madness, he and Vera hold a third wedding ceremony, this time conducted by Father Leonid Znamensky of the Russian Orthodox Church, and witnessed by men of no consequence.

He thinks that Father Leonid Znamensky resembles Rasputin, but he is too hungover to care.

Ben Shipman visits the house at Canoga Park. There are papers to be signed. They are due back in court: more squabbles about maintenance and child support.

One of the windows at the front of the house is broken, and a small bronze statuette lies on the gravel outside, surrounded by fragments of glass. Ben Shipman picks up the statuette and carries it with him to the door.

He greets Ben Shipman on the step. Ben Shipman hands him the statuette.

An accident, he says.

– At least it missed you.

– That one did.

From somewhere inside the house comes the sound of singing. Vera often sings. When Vera is not singing, Vera plays recordings of herself singing. Ben Shipman is not sure if this is one of Vera’s recordings, or Vera performing in the flesh. Ben Shipman has been exposed to both, and each is equally bad.

– Do you want to come in?

Ben Shipman does not want to come in. If Ben Shipman comes in, Vera will sing to him. Vera may also try to hug him. Being hugged by Vera is like being smothered by meat soaked in rubbing alcohol.

I left messages for you, says Ben Shipman.

– I was planning to call.

In the dimness of the house, the wraith that is Roy Randolph becomes visible, drink in hand. The singing stops to be replaced by two female voices screaming at each other in Russian.

Ben Shipman hands him a pen. He signs the papers on the step without reading them. He is unshaven. His hand trembles.

This has to end, says Ben Shipman. Walk with me.

– I have work to do.

– What work? You think they can’t open another bottle themselves?

– Come to dinner sometime.

– I don’t take dinner from a glass.

The singing resumes, but at a louder volume than before.

It’s teething troubles, he says.

– Children have teething troubles, and maybe sharks. Which one are you? More to the point, which is she?

– I can’t leave another failed marriage behind me.

– Listen to me: better to leave it behind than take it with you everywhere you go for the rest of your days. You’re suffering. If you suffer, your pictures suffer. If your pictures suffer, your paycheck suffers.

– Is this Hal speaking, or you?

– Hal has spent nearly three-quarters of a million dollars on Swiss Miss. Hal doesn’t think it’s going to recoup.

– Hal’s the only one of us who’ll die wealthy. Hal always recoups.

– Not this time. The picture isn’t good enough.

– Hal cut it behind my back. If it stinks, it’s Hal’s fault.

– Hal had to cut it because you couldn’t.

– That’s not true.

But he knows it is. He tried to run the edits with Bert Jordan at home, but between Vera’s interference and spontaneous vocal performances, and Roy Randolph, the Dancing Master, hustling for work, and Countess Sonia proffering booze, everything fell apart. He needs space to work, but there is no space. He cannot think.

Vera calls from upstairs, asking who is at the door. Behind her speaking voice, she sings to herself.

I’d better be going, says Ben Shipman. You have a nice house. If you’re lucky, you’ll get to keep it after the divorce.





153


Vera mocks him when Chaplin calls on the telephone. She claims that his voice changes when it is Chaplin on the other end of the line. She says that she can tell by his manner if he is talking to Charlie Rogers or to Chaplin.