Beautiful Ruins (83)

What could I do? Burton wants to meet her in this remote little coastal town. Portovenere. Right between Rome and the south of France where he’s shooting The Longest Day. I opened the map and my eye went straight to this flea speck with a similar name. Porto Vergogna. I ask the travel agent to look into it. She says the town is nothing. A cliff-side fishing village. No phones or roads. Can’t even get there by train or car. Only by boat. “Is there a hotel?” I asked. Travel agent said there was a tiny one. So I booked a room in Portovenere for Dick but I sent D— to Porto Vergogna. Told her to wait at the little hotel for Burton. I just needed to stow her for a few days until Dick went back to France and I could get her to Switzerland.



At first it worked. She was stuck in this village. No contact with the world. Burton showed up in Portovenere and found me waiting for him instead. I told him D— had decided to go on to Switzerland for treatment. Don’t worry about her. The Swiss doctors are the best. Then I drove him back to Rome to be with Liz.



But before I could get them back together another problem arrived. Some kid from the hotel where D— is staying shows up in Rome and walks right up and punches me. I’d been in Rome three weeks and I’d gotten used to these Italians gouging me so I gave him some cash and sent him away. But he double-crossed me. Found Burton and told him the whole story. How D— wasn’t dying. How she was pregnant. Then he took Burton back to her. Great. Now Dick is holed up with his pregnant mistress in a hotel in Portovenere. And my movie hangs in the balance.



But did the Deane give up? Not by a long stretch. I called Dickie Zanuck and got Burton back to France for a day of phony reshoots on The Longest Day. And I raced to Portovenere to talk to this D—.



I’ve never seen someone so angry. She wanted to kill me. And I understood why. I did. I apologized. Explained that I had no idea the doctor would say it was cancer. Told her the whole thing had gotten out of hand. Told her that her career was made. Guaranteed. All she had to do was go to Switzerland and she could be in any Fox picture she wanted.



But this was one tough nut. She didn’t want money or acting jobs. I couldn’t believe it. I’d never met a young actor who didn’t want either work or money or both.



This was when I understood the deep responsibility behind my ability to divine desire. It’s one thing to know what people truly want. It’s another to CREATE that want in them. To BUILD that desire.



I pretended to sigh. “Look. This got out of hand. All he wants is for you to get the abortion and stay quiet about it. So you tell me how we can do that.”



She flinched. “What do you mean? ‘All he wants’ ?”



I didn’t blink. “He feels really bad. Obviously. He couldn’t even ask you himself. That’s why he left today. He feels awful about how this all turned out.”



She looked more hurt than when she’d thought she actually had cancer. “Wait. You don’t mean—”



Her eyes closed slowly. It had never occurred to her that Dick might have known all along what I was doing. And frankly it hadn’t occurred to me until that moment either. But in a way it was true.



I acted like I’d assumed she’d known I was acting on his behalf. It was a rush play. I had just a day before Dick got back from France. I had to appear to be defending him. I said he cared deeply for her. That what he was offering didn’t change that. I said she shouldn’t blame him. That his feelings for her were genuine. But he and Liz were under tremendous pressure with this picture—



She interrupted me. She was putting it together. It had been Liz’s doctor who diagnosed her. She covered her mouth. “Liz knows about this, too?”



I sighed and reached out for her hand. But she recoiled like my hand was a snake.



I told her there were no reshoots in France. I said Dick had left a ticket to Switzerland in her name at the La Spezia train station.



She looked like she might vomit. I gave her my business card. She took it. I told her that back in the States we’d go over the slate of upcoming Fox films. She could pick any part she wanted. The next morning I drove her to the train station. She got out with her bags. Her arms slack at her side. She stood and stared at the station and the green hills behind it. And then she began walking. I watched her disappear inside. And I was never surer of anything. She’d go to Switzerland. Then she’d show up in my office in two months. Six at the most. A year. But she’d come to collect. They all do.



But it never happened. She never went to Switzerland. Never came to see me.



That morning Burton arrived back from France to see D— but found me waiting for him instead.



Dick was mad as hell. We went to the train station in La Spezia but the agent said she had only come inside and dropped off her luggage. Then she’d turned around and started walking back toward the hills. Dick and I drove back to Portovenere but she wasn’t there. Dick even made me get a boat to go back to the little fishing town where I’d hid her for a while. But she wasn’t there either. She had disappeared.



We were about to leave the fishing village when the strangest thing happened. This old witch came down from the hills. Cursing and yelling. Our driver translated: “Murderer!” and “I curse you to death.”