I Could Go on Singing (13 page)

“Listen to me, honey. This isn’t easy. Sid got very nervous when he heard you were starting the tour in London. The script thing is just an excuse.”

Her hand closed strongly on his and her dark eyes became enormous. “Are you telling me he sent you over here to … to protect his lousy interest?”

“He boxed me, Jenny.”

She yanked her hand away, squirmed out of the bed and stood looking down at him, her fists on her hips. “Jesus! Am I some kind of a moron? Am I some kind of an emotional incompetent? All my lousy life I get surrounded with a bunch of oily smooth-talking people, patting me on the head, telling me to be a good careful girl so they can make bigger money off me. When did you join the team, Brownie? I thought you were better than that.”

“Sid knows we get along.”

“Brother, we
used
to get along!”

“So he trapped me into it in such a way if I said no, I could get blacklisted for refusing to work on the script. George knows. He guessed part of it and I told him the rest. And I told him that the only thing I am interested in is what is best for you. Not what’s best for me or Wegler or the industry. What is best for Jenny Bowman He accepts that. I don’t see why you can’t.”

She glowered down at him and chanted, “Don’t be rash. Don’t be foolish. Remember the stockholders. Remember your marvelous career. How many damn times have I listened to that crap?”

“Jenny, I want you to …”

“Let me give you a little road test, loving friend. Let me find out something. You answer one little question. Should I have gone to see the boy?”

“If you’ll phrase it another way, I’ll answer it.”

“How?”

“Could you help going to see the boy? No. You had to. You couldn’t go on any longer without seeing him. And I think David sensed that too. I think he took you out there because he knew that if he didn’t, you’d find the boy on your own. And it was the only way he could hope to have any control of the situation.”

She was tense for several moments, then slumped and sat beside him on the bed and began to cry quietly. He put his arm around her and held her close.

“I’m sorry, Brownie,” she whispered.

“I had to come here for the wrong reasons, but I’m here. I’ll do what I can. If I see you starting to do something that is going to give you pain, I’ll try to stop you.”

“I can’t stop myself.”

“I’m on your side. I always was.”

She turned into his arms, put her arms around his neck and nestled close. “You make me feel safer, Brownie. I had a dream last night. I was making a stupid picture. I had to be a teen-ager, and I had to get into one of those little carts they race down hills, without motors. You know. And I stood around while they got everything ready, and then I got into the cart and they had the cameras going and they pushed me off and I started down the hill. They had extras lining the street, all bright and sunshiny and bands playing and I waved as I went by and they waved back, smiling and laughing and yelling my name. Jenny, Jenny. But then all the brightness began to blur as I went faster and faster and the hill got steeper, and as it went down, I went out of the sunlight. Into gray. There were no brakes. There weren’t any people or cameras or music. Just empty gray sidewalk and the hill getting steeper and steeper and no noise but the terrible noise the steel wheels made on the cement.” She shuddered in his arms.

“We won’t let it be like that,” he said.

“But I don’t know what I’m going to do. From one minute to the next, I just don’t know what I’m going to do. He’s a wonderful boy. I cherish him. I’ve missed so much of him. So much. Golly, I’m a mess, Brownie. Like a long time ago with you.”

He lifted her face. Her cheeks were streaked with tears. He kissed her salty eyes and then kissed her mouth gently. Her lips stirred. He kissed her again and suddenly her arms tightened and she responded with sudden fierce hunger, lifting to him, busying herself into a hungry readiness, ruthlessly direct, breaking her mouth against his. And suddenly she pushed herself away and said, “Whoof!” and got up and walked away. She opened the draperies, went to her mirror and looked at herself and patted her hair.

She turned and grinned at him. “Now isn’t
that
all we’d need? Lest old acquaintance be forgot, or something. Nothing like an additional complication.”

He laughed. “Pavlov’s dogs.”

“Brownie, you are a dear thing and I still love you and always will.”

“Me too. But the Memory Lane thing can get overdone.”

She came to him and patted his cheek and said, “And we would have felt like complete idiots. Darling, you better
not come near me when I feel mimsy. You’re an old familiar reflex. Anyhow, Lois would never forgive me.”

He stared at her. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Dear Brownie, you two generate enough quiet tension to light a small village. Just be terribly sweet with her, please. I’m fond of her.”

He shook his head. “I’ve made such a life work of despoiling shy maidens, I can’t stop being cruel and ruthless at this late date.”

“Idiot!”

“She’s a very strange girl.”

“She is a very sweet girl and a nice girl and a normal girl and a bright girl. She’s just a little wary. Now get out of here. I forgive you for coming here to try to keep me out of trouble. But I’m through being managed. I’ve had it. Go on. I have to change now.”

He left and went looking for George and found him in Lois’s room, dictating a memo to the theater manager in Rome. When George finished he looked inquiringly at Jason.

“Forgiven,” Jason said. “But a near thing for a couple of minutes.”

“Good! Now we can all join hands and pray.”

“If you need any historical perspective,” Lois said, “Jason will take you where you can touch a lucky stone.”

“If I need historical perspective,” George said, “I will get quietly stoned. Sign my name to that, dear one, and get it in the mail. I’m off. You two types have yourself a fun evening.”

And it was a good evening. They had quiet drinks and a good dinner, and he took her walking through the cheap neon turmoil of Soho, the narrow streets and stalls and sleazy clubs, the merged blare of rock and roll. He found to his pleasure that she was a confirmed people-watcher. She walked with her arm in his, and she would give a little squeeze with her hand when they came across the very special types. It was a good evening and an early evening, because they were both quite tired. He said good night to her in the lobby of the hotel, and watched her into the elevator until the door closed on her parting smile.

Wednesday and Thursday were busy, the tempo of appointments and interviews continuing. When Sam Dean and his companion left on Thursday, George Kogan sighed as
though a yoke had been lifted from his neck. George began to give Jason small chores to do.

On Thursday, Herm Rice and Jorgenson flew back from Paris, and the whole team, including Larry, the orchestra leader, twenty-eight musicians, sound technicians and lighting technicians, stagehands and managers worked at the Palladium to put the finishing touches on the final setup.

Herm Rice, an agile, excitable gnome of a man explained it to Jason. “What we use is dynamics. Varying intensities of sound. We could go with the normal acoustics, but it cuts down on the effects you can get, right? So we set those mikes up here and three right in the band. Jenny has a walk-around mike. We get the right mix from her and the band and then blow it out of those big clusters of speakers, right? Then she can roam the whole stage and come out anyplace on the runway and it doesn’t spoil the balance. And those hardwood flats under the band, they bounce it right at her to keep her timing on the button. What it is, it’s live and augmented, right? We get the right mix and we get rid of any feedback anyplace she might roam to, and in the back row we can blow them out of the seats without distortion. Of course now it will sound lousy because it’s pushed high on account of there’ll be twenty-five hundred people soaking it up.”

Jorgensen made some major changes in the runway lighting, sending Jenny back and forth, having the crew follow her with the spots. The band made the little tweedles, twangs and oomphas of tuning. Jenny wore turquoise slacks, a green sweater, white loafers and dark glasses.

Jason sat halfway back in an aisle seat beside Lois Marney. Jenny seemed very somber and intent. The way she acted reminded him of something, and when he remembered, he told Lois. He had once seen Arnold Palmer taking his first look at a golf course prior to his first practice round before a tournament. Palmer had roamed around moodily, kneeling to feel and examine the grass of fairway, rough and green, fingering the sand in the traps, throwing pinches of it into the wind, thoughtfully measuring the slopes and distances with a steady eye.

When they gave her the mike she blew into it and said, “Happy greetings to all you out there in limey land.” Her voice sounded vast and hollow in the empty auditorium. “Larry, did Herm tell you ‘When You’re Smiling’ gives him a good check off? You’re set up on that? Good. Wake up
the boys and tap your little foot, sweetie. Don’t give me a strip-tease tempo because it’s sweater weather in here. Anyhow, I don’t do it. I only talk about it. Say, I like the blonde saxophone. He laughs at my jokes. Enough on voice, Herm? Okay, let’s go and I’ll keep moving.”

The first smashing blast of the music nearly lifted Jason out of his seat. She sang. She moved, turned, roamed, strutted, her voice soaring clear and true over the slamming beat of the big band. When she finished there were conferences and discussions. Then she did “If Love Were All.” And that was it. The next note she would sing on that stage would be to a full house. And to her son, and to a man she had loved.

Larry and Herm kept the band there, running them through things, checking for rough spots. Lois went back to the hotel. George sent Jason off on some minor errands. They took longer than he expected.

It was after seven when Jason returned to the Park Lane. He found George in his room, stretched out on the bed, talking on the phone. As soon as he hung up it rang again. Jason stood and looked out the window until the long conversation was over. Then he reported success with the errands. George thanked him.

“Have you got Lois sewed up, George? Or do I get to buy her a drink?”

George wore a slightly uncomfortable expression. “Better give it a rest, pal.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean let’s you and me have a drink and then go downstairs and get something to eat. Okay?”

“What’s the matter with Lois?”

“She’s just fine, but I don’t think she feels sociable. That’s all. Better you should give it a rest.”

“You keep saying that. Give
what
a rest? What the hell do you think I’m doing to her?”

“Now don’t get sore, Jase. I guess she wouldn’t want to see you for a little while.”

“Don’t tell me not to get sore. I am sore. What the hell has happened?”

George sat up and lit a cigarette. He glanced up at Jason. “Hell, you know how Jenny is. She’s way up, but the closer it gets to curtain time, the edgier she gets. She isn’t herself. You know,”

“What happened?”

“We were across the hall there, and Jenny was signing some things Lois typed up for her, and Jenny started riding Lois a little, about you. She was just having a little fun with her. But … well, Jenny can get a little earthy sometimes. And maybe she wasn’t as careful as she should have been, and she hit a nerve or something. Lois started shaking. She was white as soap. With her voice trembling she said she would appreciate it if Miss Bowman would keep her mouth off personal matters that were none of her business. Pal, when Jenny is edgy, you just don’t give it to her that way. She went up like rockets. She filled that room from wall to wall. And she said a lot of things she’s probably sorry for already, and sent Lois boohooing out of there on a dead run.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Half an hour.”

“What sort of things did she say?”

“Oh, just sort of personal things.”

“Like what, George? I think you better tell me.”

George looked very uncomfortable. “Well … like telling her she couldn’t take a joke because she was scared of being a woman. She was scared of life and scared of taking any kind of a chance, and she was visibly drying up and turning into a sour prissy old maid. And she told her … in pretty plain language … just what she better do before it was too late and what would do her the most good. She said other people had made lousy marriages too. She said she was an expert on lousy marriages, but it didn’t make her stop being a woman. It didn’t turn her into a frozen stick. She said if one bad marriage could do that, then Lois was sick to begin with, and the marriage probably went bad because she probably acted as if the best part of marriage was something nasty. She said that if Lois really wanted to turn herself into a female eunuch, she better make one hell of a big change in the way she looks because she goes around confusing the troops.”

“Dear Lord!”

“I guess it is called hitting somebody where they live. You know, nobody can hit as hard or be as sorry about it as our Jenny girl.”

The phone rang and he picked it up. “Kogan. Oh, hello doll. She did? Well, I guess you better give it a little more time. I will if you want me to, but I don’t know what good
it will … Yeah, he’s right here.” He handed the phone to Jason and said, “Jenny.”

Jenny sounded teary. “Oh, Brownie, I was lousy to her and I just called her and she hung up on me. I want to tell her I’m sorry.”

“That’s one thing about you, Jenny. You always say you’re sorry.”

“You’re mad at me too.”

“No. I’m not. But she’s been plugging away pretty hard. You know.”

“She’s like family, Brownie. It was a family quarrel. I mean you say the nastiest things to the people you love. Can’t you explain that to her?”

“You want me to do your apologizing?”

“You know better than that, dammit!”

“Steady, girl.”

“What I want you to do, darling, is get her so she’ll let me talk to her. Look, I can’t have this on my mind. I have to relax. Ida gave me hell. George looked daggers at me. Now you sound …”