Love in the Loire Page 12

  “Oh, we all know that,” Toca said. “No, I called Cranston Muller last night and he’s coming over immediately with his new protégé, E. L. Losada. A handsome young Latin-American with perfect English and a great singing voice. We’re saved. And Cranston is going to direct the show, too. Kitty will be the artistic director. It’s perfect.”

  I wasn’t quite sure how I felt. I had sort of imagined I would have to do the lead, however badly. And I sort of imagined I would have had success with it, voice or no voice. And how did Steve feel? He looked relieved. Maybe he was thinking it would free up some time so he could be fucked by Graham again. What a cunt you are, I told myself.

  E. L. Losada turned out to be quite okay. Younger than me. Maybe 22 or 23, although coming off as more mature on stage. Dark hair, lots of it. Lots. Kind of a monobrow look and a craggy nose. He wasn’t a pretty boy, but very much a romantic lead. Sort of a young Laurence Olivier. And a great voice. Much better than either Steve or me. Not exactly hot but potentially great. He arrived Wednesday from Paris with Cranston Muller. We had dinner that evening at the hotel with him, Toca, and legendary Cranston. Cranston was so tan you couldn’t really tell what he looked like. Gray eyes, gray hair, not overweight, very pleasant, well-mannered, soft-spoken but there was something of a paid killer about him. Toca was all fluttery and thrilled that Cranston was there. I thought, Well, it is his festival. It shouldn’t be so surprising that he has appeared for it.

  At dinner Cranston said he was lucky to have the time to come to Cornichons for the rehearsal period as he was scheduled to go to California to direct a remake of Giant. Angelina Jolie was signed for the Elizabeth Taylor role and Brad Pitt for the Paul Newman part. The James Dean character wasn’t cast yet.

  E. L. was very tired so they went right up to their rooms at the hotel after dinner. I noticed that they had separate rooms, so E. L. evidently hadn’t landed that James Dean part yet.

  I Don’t Want to Act

  I don’t think I want to become an actor because it makes it impossible to love someone. I think actors can lust someone. Regularly. But I don’t think you can concentrate on yourself totally as actors must do and still place someone else’s welfare before your own. My definition of love.

  I think acting is something like skin cancer or leprosy. It starts with a little spot and eventually it consumes you completely.

  A friend of mine told me about working with Vanessa Redgrave in a revival of some Greek drama. Vanessa was a tempestuous queen. And every night she performed her role differently. No one knew what to expect on stage; what she would do, where she would be, how she would perform. One evening in a scene with a supporting actress, who happened to be black, she seized the actress by the shoulders and dragged her upstage and down, this way and that, as she delivered her lines.

  Once in the wings, the black actress turned upon Vanessa and said, “Don’t you ever touch me like that again, Girleen!”

  Vanessa exclaimed, “Girleen? Girleen? I love it. I want everyone to call me Girleen!” completely ignoring the other actress’s fury. So goes monomania, egomania, call it what you like.

  By the way, I don’t refer to female stage performers as “actors.” For me, men are actors, women are actresses, which for me is a more glamorous and prestigious sobriquet. How do you like that? Sobriquet.

  I’m beginning to think I really do love Steve. And that letting go of the control of my own life may be the result. What else can I do if I don’t act? Well may you ask. But I’m only 25. I’ll think of something.

  You’re probably saying, “You’ll fall in love again. You don’t have to be so decisive right now.” But I don’t want to fall in love again. I don’t want to be careful. What if I didn’t fall in love again? I’d feel pretty silly when I was 70.

  And you are also probably thinking, Is Steve Strapontin really worth all of this effort? Isn’t he just a silly, pretty, confused person? Perhaps. But it really isn’t about Steve. It’s about me. I love him. I don’t love some perhaps worthier person. You can’t call those plays.

  “Graham, where is the vacuum cleaner?” Nina said.

  “The big industrial one?” Graham said.

  “Do we have any other kind?” Nina said.

  “Not that I know of,” Graham said.

  “Am I live or on tape?” Nina said.

  “I just don’t want to tell you,” Graham said. “I loaned it to Cass.”

  Nina came to the door of the salon and looked at Graham, who was sitting in the lavender plaid armchair reading the Herald Tribune from Paris. She said nothing.

  Graham said, “He was helping me change the beds between the pink room and the blue room, and he asked me if he could borrow it, and I felt like I would be a real shithead if I said ‘no.’”

  “I can understand that,” Nina said. “Is there no possibility of ever getting it back?”

  “I checked on that, too. He left it over at the Château de Loupfou in St. Georges. And he can’t go back and get it.”

  Nina said, “I understand perfectly. Another chatelaine screwed, and another house half-finished. Right?”

  “Right,” Graham said, putting down the paper.

  “Any ideas?” Nina said.

  “Only the idea that I’m not going to go get it. Hell hath no fury like a chatelaine scorned.”

  “Please call Cass and ask him how the hell one gets to the Château Loupfou. I’ll go recover our vacuum cleaner. My vacuum cleaner, I guess I should say, since you’re such a wuss. You’re probably afraid that Madame la Chatelaine is going to transfer her affections to you and pursue you through the streets of Cornichons like Adele H. Wearing black and not recognizing you when you finally speak to her.”

  “Adele H. was the daughter of Victor Hugo, right? And she fell in love with an army officer and pursued him all over the world, right?” Graham said.

  “They made a movie. With Isabelle Adjani. Movies. They take the most beautiful woman in the world to play the role of a woman scorned. Yes. You’ve got it right. Call Cass.”

  Graham called Cass and without explaining in any way why he wanted directions to the Château de Loupfou, obtained them. Cass evidently understood the subtext without any problems. The directions were complicated.

  “Across the river at Cornilly, across the Autoroute and into St. Georges; then up the hill at the main intersection by the farmacie, then the third road off to the left with the signs for Petitfour, Grandfour, Carrefour, and Loupfour, pass four farmhouses, take the left by the big elm, and then what?”

  I went with Nina to recapture the vacuum cleaner. Nina was reading from the notes on the paper beside her on the front seat of the old black Peugeot. “And then what? Here I am lost among the brambles.” She was talking to herself. “I could kill Cass. I could kill Graham. Men. They always prefer buying a new vacuum cleaner to facing the music.” It was then she noticed that the wall of bushes on her right apparently had an opening in it. She drove through it and found herself on a winding road. Almost a path, with a large gray building in the distance. The large gray building was a house. Nina thought that the large stone house didn’t really have the right to call itself a château. But as she pulled up in front of the large flight of stone steps running up to the imposing front door, a tall woman with dark hair appeared at the top of the steps. Nina got out of the car. “Bonjour,” Nina said.

  “We can speak English,” the woman said rather crossly.

  “Hello. I’m Nina DeRochemont,” Nina said. She used her first husband’s last name. It was her professional name, and I guess she felt more comfortable using it with strangers. The woman approaching her must have been young in the 1970s, perhaps a half-generation before Nina. “I’ve come for my vacuum cleaner which I believe Cass Brewster left here.”

  “Why wouldn’t he have come himself?” the woman said sourly. She didn’t introduce herself.

  “I’ve no idea. He simply was unwilling to. And I needed my vacuum cleaner as I am just about to indulge in some hous
ecleaning.”

  “The vacuum cleaner is out here,” the woman said, gesturing to a wing of the house. She led Nina toward the door that was standing open. I got out of the car and joined them. The woman ignored me. We entered a large room with lumber piled in the middle of the floor, much sawdust, and Nina’s vacuum cleaner. The woman didn’t move to pick it up. Nina didn’t ask about the interrupted renovation. “Is he working for you?” the woman asked.

  “Heaven’s no,” said Nina.

  “Why ‘Heavens’?” the woman asked.

  Nina went to the middle of the room and picked up the vacuum cleaner. “I’m from Cornichons. Cass has a reputation in Cornichons for not finishing his work.”

  “Is that the only kind of reputation he has?” the woman asked. Her arms were crossed and she wasn’t really blocking the door, but there was something pugnacious in her manner. I wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t been drinking. Nina passed her with the heavy vacuum cleaner and once outside said, “You don’t want to know.”

  The woman joined us outside, closing the door behind her. I took the vacuum cleaner from Nina. “But I do want to know. I thought Cass and I had a kind of understanding. I’m alone here with my husband, who is crippled. He’s older than I am by quite a bit. He wanted to retire in France. I didn’t. And here I am. I’m Emmeline Wainwright, by the way.” She held out her hand. Nina took it. Emmeline offered me her hand also. Her handshake was firm, and her hand was cool.

  I said, “I’m Hugo Bianchi.” She nodded.

  “You may be giving me more information than I should have,” Nina said. “I’m sorry. I understand Cass has become involved with at least two other women while renovating their homes and departed midway in the project. Usually he leaves town and disappears in the south. At least he’s still here. In Cornichons, I mean.”

  “I’m not going to go looking for him,” the woman said.

  “I think that’s smart,” Nina said as she opened the trunk of the car and I put the vacuum cleaner inside. She slammed the heavy door down.

  “I’m sorry you had to come over and get that yourself. I had no idea that it didn’t belong to Cass. Of course, if I did I wouldn’t have bothered to find the owner and return it. I was furious,” Emmeline Wainwright said.

  “Who would have blamed you? You must come over to Cornichons and visit us. We’re here for the summer. I have a nice husband and an even nicer child, and I think I’m going to have another nice child pretty soon. We live facing the gates of the Abbey.”

  Mrs. Wainwright said, “And I let you lift that vacuum cleaner. Now I feel like a rat.”

  “No, the rat is over in Cornichons. I had a French husband once. He was a rat, too.”

  “But he’s English,” Emmeline Wainwright said.

  “They learn,” Nina said. “Come visit. Bring your husband. Here’s my card.” Nina reached into the car and rummaged around in her purse. “Truly. I’m a magazine editor. Maybe you can write an article for us.”

  Back in Cornichons, Nina found Graham in the garden sunning himself in very brief shorts. “Would you please get the vacuum cleaner out of the car? That thing is as heavy as the car itself.”

  Graham turned over. “You’re back. I feel like shit letting you go by yourself.”

  “Why wait until now? You could have started feeling like that before I went.”

  Graham got up and went toward the door.

  “Aren’t you going to put on a little more than that?” Nina asked.

  “Let’s give the natives a treat.” I went with Graham to the car. As we went into the street we noticed Toca Sacar with Cranston Muller, the director of the Cornichons Theater Festival. Graham had never been introduced, but he had seen him at a fund-raising party once. We waved, and the men waved back. Graham dragged the vacuum cleaner out of the trunk of the Peugeot and carried it into the house. The two men thought he looked hot I’m sure, and I think he was glad they did.

  “Now you can start cleaning,” he said to Nina as he put the cleaner down on the kitchen floor. “Don’t you want some ice for that Coca-Cola?”

  Nina was sitting in the dark, shadowy kitchen with a red and white can in front of her. “No, I kind of like it a little warm. And it’s not really warm in here. They were cooling off in these old stone houses long before there were refrigerators. That Cass Brewster is a real asshole.”

  Graham said, “Look, it’s more like he’s doing charity work among the rich. He comes, he see, he conquers.”

  “It’s more like ‘He sees, he conquers, he comes,’” Nina said. “But you’re right. I’m not sure these poor women would be better off if they never met Cass. He brings some drama into their lives, stuck out here in the wilds of La France profonde. But it’s tough to think for a little while that your looks aren’t completely shot, someone still desires you, you perhaps are going to escape the old ennui of life in the country. And then there’s this crash of reality. Whether it’s better for them or not, Cass Brewster is still a shithead.”

  “You should tell him that the next time you see him,” Graham said.

  “You know I won’t. I don’t want to embarrass all the women within earshot who have either slept with him or wished they had or are planning to.”

  Nina Talks to Evangelique LeBrun

  The next morning outside the boulangerie Nina ran into Evangelique LeBrun, the mayor’s wife. Evangelique said in her rather good English, “I understand you have gotten your aspirateur back, Nina. Even though you had to go to St. Georges to get it.” And she laughed, not unkindly. She was blond and pretty and the same height as Nina. Nina always wondered how some of these French women in the provinces managed to stay so trim and chic. Elle magazine probably. And France is a smallish country. Nowhere is that far from Paris, the capital of “chic” in the whole world.

  “How did you know that?” Nina said.

  “Oh, my cousin Eleonore lives in St. Georges, and she is very friendly with Anne Marie de Maintenon, who lives next door to Emmeline Wainwright.” She pronounced the “right” of Wainwright as though it were “rich.” Wainrich. The French always have a hard time with the “gh,” Nina thought.

  “Yes, somehow my vacuum cleaner wandered all the way to St. Georges. I’d never met Madame Wainwright before. She seems very nice. Very correct. I invited her husband and her to come over one day soon.” Nina felt that was the least she could do for Emmeline Wainwright’s reputation locally.

  Without making any kind of conversational connection whatsoever, Madame LeBrun said, “I don’t suppose you have any work for Cass Brewster?” Nina looked appraisingly and said nothing. Madame LeBrun shifted her basket on her arm. “I thought perhaps with the new baby coming you might be redoing some rooms.” They don’t miss a thing, Nina thought.

  “Or perhaps Monsieur Muller needs some work on his house.”

  Nina said, “I wouldn’t recommend Cass Brewster to my worst enemy. Actually, I could recommend him to Cranston Muller. Cass probably isn’t going to want to sleep with Cranston Muller.” She could see this was all going completely over Madame LeBrun’s head. Not recommending someone to your worst enemy was an idea a French person could never understand. Irony is impossible in French. Madame LeBrun is probably pondering why would anyone recommend anything to their worst enemy? The French are supposed to be so witty, but actually they aren’t. Very literal. French is a very literal language.

  As Madame LeBrun stared at her she said, “I’ll see if Mr. Muller needs some help. And why would you care anyway, Evangelique?” She realized exactly why as the words came out of her mouth, Stupid Americaine that I am, she thought.

  “I’ll tell you someday,” Evangelique LeBrun said and turned away.

  What is going on here? Nina thought. About half an hour earlier she had closed the door on Evangelique LeBrun, who had rung the ting-a-ling bell above her door. She had the same basket on her arm that she had had the previous week when Nina and she had spoken on the street in front of the grocer’s. She might have been wear
ing the same dress. All Evangelique’s clothes looked very much alike to Nina.

  Evangelique didn’t want a cup of tea or a glass of water. She perched on the violet velvet sofa and said, “I stopped by to thank you for helping get Cass . . . Cass Brewster . . . that job with Cranston Muller. That was very nice of you when I know you disrespect Cass.”

  Nina said, “I just happened to hear Cranston say he wanted to redo the attic of his house, and I thought it was just mean-spirited of me not to mention Cass. He does do excellent work. And it’s unlikely that he will depart half-finished as Cranston is not a woman.”

  “Poor Emmeline Wainwright,” Evangelique murmured. She pronounced it “Wainrich,” of course. Nina said nothing. “I have a special reason to be interested in Cass,” Mme. LeBrun went on.

  Again, Nina said nothing. “It is what you suspect. And then again, it is not what you suspect. I had a little affaire with Cass several years ago, and who hasn’t around Cornichons?”

  “I haven’t,” Nina said.

  “But, of course, you have that husband. Si beau. Magnifique.” Evangelique’s eyes glazed over slightly. Nina thought that Monsieur LeBrun must be really wretched in bed.

  Madame LeBrun went on, her eyes lowered toward her basket. Chicken today, Nina thought. “I had the very poor judgment to let Cass take some photos of the two of us together. He had this new kind of camera. I am perhaps too proud of my body. At any rate, Monsieur LeBrun would not be at all happy to see these pictures. He would not divorce me. This is France. But he would be concerned that others would see them. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Very well. Cass probably has quite a nice collection. Stuck up around his bathroom mirror. And nobody is going to sue him for not finishing his work with his little collection.”

  “You are quick. American women usually do not understand these things. And they are so quick to divorce.”

  Nina came over to the sofa and hugged Evangelique, who did not respond particularly but who stood up, shook her skirts out, and moved toward the door. “I thought we should know each other that much better,” she said. And left.