Love in the Loire Page 17

  Only my friend Masha knew about Glenn Elliott and me getting it on, and she’s not going to spill the beans to anyone. In many ways, Glenn is just one of those beautiful people who are up for grabs. If someone really loves him over a long period of time, I believe it finally sinks in that the relationship is worth hanging onto. If anyone can manage him it’s my mom. I certainly couldn’t have as a teenager. I’m not sure I can handle that kind of thing even now with Steve. And I’m not sure I love Steve as much as I loved Glenn. That was heavy. At sixteen it would be, of course.

  So, I’ve seen a lot of my mother and Glenn Elliott since then but only for short periods of time. They have come to New York. I’ve gone to Miami. So it’s worked out. They are having a high old time with real estate in Miami. I have been doing okay with my acting career. I’ve had boyfriends but haven’t been in love with anyone, truly, since then. Maybe that’s why I’d like something to happen with Steve so that I could feel I was really out of circulation. Anyway, they’re coming. All the time I’m with them I keep my fingers crossed that nothing will explode in my face and mess up everybody’s lives.

  Do you follow me here? I’m not for complete truth and reality. Reality, for me, is what you think is happening. Additional information might ruin your view of your own life, and to what end? When I heard that Tallulah Bankhead was caught in bed with someone and she threw back her hair and said, “It’s all a lie!” I understood the story perfectly.

  When I came in from rehearsal at the end of the evening, Graham and Nina were sitting in the lavender living room as though they were waiting for me. They were.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” Nina said. “Fluffy got a phone call tonight after you left. His new girlfriend is arriving. They will be sharing a bed. Her name is Mitzi.”

  “I don’t think you can hold that against her,” I said. “Lucky heterosexuals. Sonny has a girlfriend, and you pop them right into bed together. Sonny has a boyfriend, and you throw the two of them out of the house and tell them never to darken your door again.”

  “I wouldn’t do that!” Nina protested.

  “No. But the world in principle would,” Graham said. “Think how much the world has changed. Fifty years ago, men shared beds and no one thought a thing about it. Lincoln shared a bed with his law partner for years.”

  “Now everyone thinks he was gay,” I said.

  Graham ignored me. “And if an unmarried man and woman shared a bed, she was a whore. Now she’s merely modern. And two men in a bed is looked upon as deeply sinful. Or illegal. Or something.”

  “And Mitzi is black,” Nina said.

  “I love it,” I said. “I’ll bet she’s gorgeous. Some great, strapping princess who is going to make the rest of us look sick. I can’t wait until she gets here. This town needs an African princess. How tall is Freddy?”

  “About six feet,” Nina said. “She probably is some great raging beauty. He wants to bring her over here and show her off. I only tell you this because I think it would be a bad idea to put them in the pink room with Theo. If they’re going to be cavorting about in bed I don’t want Theo to be standing in his crib being traumatized. Freud was always writing about that. So I thought you could go in the pink room. Theo is a heavy sleeper. You wouldn’t wake him up if you came in late.”

  “I’m going to stay with Steve. Our relationship probably needs this little intimacy test anyway. We can wake up in the night and run lines from The Red Mill.”

  “How’s that going anyway?” Graham said.

  “It is the dumbest show. You are so lucky you’re not in it. How are you doing with your lines for Tea and Sympathy? I haven’t had a minute to even look at them.”

  The phone rang. Graham picked it up. He said in English, “Yes, this is Ralph.” That was a name I never heard before. “Oh, Darla. It’s you. Where are you?” Then, “It’s eleven o’clock at night here. Yes, there’s a six-hour difference in time. Yes, the sun is coming from over here.”

  There was a squawking sound that Nina and I could quite clearly hear. Graham said, “Darla, you are always welcome here. I’m not sure that we can put you up, but we can certainly find you some inexpensive lodgings. Lodgings. A room. Would you be coming alone? When?” More squawking. “Call me back when you know. I’d love to see you. How did you get this number?” More squawking. “I can’t imagine how they had this number. For that matter, I can’t imagine how you got their number. We’ll have a lot to talk about when you get here.” He hung up. Without sitting down he turned to us and said, “My cousin. Darla. She looks just like me. Calling from Vermont. She wants to come for a visit. What’s going on?” He looked a little stunned. I’d never seen that expression on the face of the calm, cool, and collected Graham. Do you know that word “discomfited”? He looked discomfited. The prospect of seeing his cousin didn’t seem to suit him entirely.

  “What’s going on may partially be some strange confluence of the stars,” Nina said. “Or it may just be that Loire Valley hoodoo. We are living in the most beautiful part of France. It is summer. Everyone wants to come visit. The lure of the châteaux country. I think it’s probably more than fabulous us. I think this calls for a drink. Let’s open a bottle of wine.” She disappeared into the kitchen.

  “You said you were Ralph,” I said.

  “Yes. That’s my real, real name. Graham is my movie name. I like it better,” he said.

  Graham sat back down. “This is more than unusual. Darla could be my twin. She’s a lesbian. She lives in Vermont and is a riding instructor in some big commercial stable there. She wanted to be me and was always a little pissed off that I got the penis. Nina knows all about her.” Nina reentered from the kitchen with a tray holding a bottle and three glasses. There was a bottle opener, too. She put the tray down on the table beside Graham and handed him a bottle opener.

  “I don’t want to start any premature contractions by opening a bottle locked between my knees,” she said.

  “I love my wife,” Graham said, twisting the opener into the cork of the bottle. “What other hostess would present a bottle of wine with that statement?”

  “It’s true!” Nina protested, sitting down on the settee. “You can feel the muscles in your groin tightening when you pull.”

  “Stop. You’re making us all nervous that we’ll have to be assisting at a birth before dawn. Like that scene in Gone With the Wind,” Graham said.

  “I think the lights have to go out and there has to be an enemy attack before that can realistically happen,” I said.

  Nina said, “What was that about her finding your number here?”

  Graham handed us our glasses. “She got it from Eagle Productions in Hollywood.”

  Nina sat up. “That’s bizarre.”

  “What is Eagle Productions?” I asked.

  “For a gay guy you don’t really mingle all that much in the gay world, do you, Hugo?” Graham said. “Eagle is the biggest porn film production company. I used to work for them. I guess we can be open about it, can’t we?” He looked at Nina.

  “Fine by me,” she said. “This wine is good. Who’s it from?”

  “Monsieur Bonnet. Over in Thenay. It’s a Gamay. They don’t ship that out very much.”

  “Very good. So your cousin called Eagle Productions, and they had this number. They must be keeping tabs on you. Hoping you’ll make a comeback.”

  “Fat chance. All the same, it’s curious. It makes me uneasy that someone is keeping track of us from that period in our lives,” Graham said.

  “There are probably many people in the world who idolize you, Graham, and you don’t even know they exist,” I said.

  “I can never imagine anyone thinking of me or speaking of me in my absence,” he said.

  Nina said, “I’m looking forward to meeting your cousin, particularly if she looks like you. She’ll be quite a hit at certain bars I know of in Paris.”

  “Even in Blois,” I said.

  “You’re kidding. There’s a gay bar in
Blois?” Nina said.

  “There’s probably one here in Cornichons,” Graham said. “We just haven’t run across it.”

  I felt guilty when I thought of meeting Cass Brewster in the café that night with Steve. “Toca found it. He would. I don’t think it’s a full-time gay bar. It’s just where gay men go on a weekend to make rendezvous. Although if ten percent of the population is gay, Blois is certainly big enough to support a gay bar. If they would all just fess up and step out,” I said.

  I rambled on. It must have been the wine. “I don’t know anything about your family, Graham. Where are you from?”

  “What would you say about my family background, Nina?” he said. “Not exactly redneck. Maybe pinkneck. An army family. My parents weren’t uneducated. Brought up all over the world. Wound up on a farm in Iowa. It was my idea to go to college. They were unwilling to contribute any money so I worked my way. Didn’t finish. Studied acting. Went to Hollywood. Did some porn. Really as kind of a protest against Hollywood. The big commercial films were a lot more pornographic than those little sex films in my opinion. I think suggestiveness is a lot dirtier than the sex act. I think doing it is a lot healthier than making smutty remarks about it.”

  “When did you see your parents last?” I said.

  “Not since I left for college. I’ve never seen them since. We really had nothing more to say to each other. I helped Darla through college, and we’ve kept in touch, kind of. But I haven’t seen her for ten years. God knows what she looks like. Perhaps she’s all run to fat.”

  “Now you’ve got my appetite up for seeing her,” Nina said. “When is she going to show up?”

  “She’s calling me back. In about ten days, I guess.”

  “This is going to be a busy end of season for you,” I said. “I’m going to my little trundle bed in the attic while I still can.”

  Cornichons is really a tiny town. So when you run into people you tend to run into them in the same places all the time. Which is to say as I was leaping up from a table at the café to make a dash for my first class at the Abbey, I bumped right into Nina and an older woman wearing extremely chic navy blue linen and beautiful jewelry. She was blond and tall and looked something like a very elegant afghan hound. I mean that in the most complimentary way.

  They came out of the narrow side street that led down to the Hôtel de L’Abbaye just as I was leaving my table so I had to say hello, even though I was going to be late for my first class.

  “Edwina, this is Hugo Bianchi, my friend, the occupant of my guest room and my adored one. He’s a very talented young actor.”

  Edwina held out her long, elegant fingers to me. Her handshake was not limp but strong and bony. “Edwina Grey. You must be special. Nina never raves about anyone.”

  “Hugo, Edwina is all part of the great turning tide of life that is swirling and whirling toward us,” Nina said. “The phone rang this morning, and it was Edwina at the hotel. I worked for her in New York, and she was very instrumental in bringing Graham and I together. Once you know Edwina, your opinion of me will skid entirely as I am nothing more than a pale copy of her.”

  Edwina did not seem to mind all this fulsome praise of her. She stood with her lids somewhat lowered against the morning sun. She was expertly made up but was certainly ten years older than Nina. Fifty-three or four? Great legs. Strange hazel-yellow eyes. She seemed used to being adored without it meaning very much to her.

  “Is it your first visit here?” I said.

  “I was born in Blois,” she said. She did not have a hint of an accent, French or English. She spoke with that mid-Atlantic accent of people who are of international backgrounds. No accent and no slang. You hear it often in New York.

  She obviously wasn’t planning to explain further.

  “So you must know Cornichons?” I said.

  “Never in so animated a state,” Edwina said. “My memory of passing through here was that it was extremely sleepy. The Abbey was closed. Everyone was moving to Paris at the time. I was a teenager. We were still recovering from the war. My parents had a black Peugeot.” She spotted Nina and Graham’s car standing by the Abbey gates. “Very much like that car. It could almost be the same one.”

  “That’s my car. Mine and Graham’s,” Nina said. “We bought it from a farmer near here who had never left it outdoors overnight in all its life with him. After we bought it, he used to come by in the evening and look at it. You could see it broke his heart that we left it in the street overnight. I felt guilty, but there’s a limit to how much you can care for a car, with all the other things one has to care about.”

  “I must run. I have a class to teach,” I said. And shaking Nina’s friend’s hand and kissing Nina on both cheeks, I left them. I could hear Edwina say as I walked away, “So beautiful. It’s a pleasure to look at him.” I hoped I could develop that lady’s casual disregard of other people’s compliments. I don’t want to become a vain asshole.

  Nina called after me, “Hugo, if you’re free on Sunday perhaps you’ll do some château visiting with Edwina and us?”

  “Château visiting?” I said. “But your friend is French.”

  Edwina said, “I’ve never seen one. Not even the Château of Blois. French people don’t visit châteaux. I’m one of those rare ones that wants to.”

  “Then it should be Chenonceaux,” I said. “It’s the most beautiful. You will fit right in there.” And I made a dash for the Abbey gates.

  A Visit to Chenonceaux

  “But this is magnificent!” Edwina said. “Who would have thought of building a ballroom across a river? What style!”

  “It is magical, isn’t it? And it wasn’t Diane de Poitiers who dreamed it up. She just had the bridge built so that her lover Henry II could ride across the river and hunt on the other side. It was the mousey little Catherine de Medici that had the ballroom built upon it,” I said.

  “Oh, Hugo. Thank you very much for bringing me here!” Edwina Grey leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. She was wearing the dark blue linen dress again today and her Bulgari jewels. A magnificent gold chain with a large antique coin embedded in it and gold coin earrings. She had a large ruby on one finger. As I came to know Edwina better I was never to find her without jewels. She was not very French. More like a Russian princess.

  We were standing at the balustrade of the formal gardens beside the Cher River. Before us was the great cream-colored stone barrier of the Château of Chenonceaux, standing on enormous arches, under which the river ran.

  “It is a bridge. It is a palace. It is a dream,” Edwina said, leaning on both elbows on the stone balustrade, staring hard.

  On the river below us small boats were skimming about and around the pillars of the arches. On the high promenade that surrounded the formal gardens in front of the château many people were walking. Most of them Japanese. But with a strong dash of Italians, also. The Italians come here because Leonardo da Vinci had lived in Amboise, which was very near. The Japanese were here because they had to be. As we approached the château down its famous alleé of trees, I had seen a group of Japanese posing to be photographed on the green lawns immediately in front of the entrance to the château. The angle of the camera was such that only the lawns would show around them. No château. How would they know where they had been? What would they tell their friends? “This is us. In France.” And then they will tee-hee and cover their mouths. Am I being racist?

  Edwina didn’t seem to notice the Japanese. Or the Italians. Perhaps she was just imagining that she was Mary, Queen of Scots, wending her way from Amboise down through the trees to her wedding festivities at Chenonceaux. We were by ourselves. Nina had asked me if I would mind taking Edwina in the black Peugeot as she wanted to rest her pregnant body. She’d been standing up a lot for the rehearsals of The Red Mill, and she also wanted to spell Graham so that he could be free of Theo to learn his Tea with Sympathy lines. I didn’t mind. It even made me a little nervous, and I like that feeling. You felt you had to
toe the mark with Edwina. She was something like Marie Antoinette, of whom they used to say, “She was of perfect graciousness and never made you feel that you were in the presence of the Queen. Although it was quite clear that you were.”

  Out of the blue Edwina said, “The trouble with treating people as though they are your equal is that they treat you the same way.”

  “Are you referring to me?” I asked. We were walking toward the entrance to the château now. Below us in the gardens there were any number of small flowering trees planted among the strictly geometric patterns of low shrubs and flowers. Everything was very much in the formal garden style of the sixteenth century. Yet the colors were all lavender and pink.

  “Oh, heavens, no, darling. I was just thinking of the great democratization of tourism. Now everyone is on the move, and everyone has a Gucci bag. Or Vuitton. They’ve killed Vuitton, haven’t they? Do you think lavender and pink were popular colors in the time of Diane de Poitiers?” She gestured toward the gardens. It was uncanny how she sensed what you were thinking. Or perhaps we had similar minds. I would be flattered to think so. And she obviously had noticed the bands of roving tourists, but had risen above it.

  In the château the bands of roving tourists were now compressed into mobs. There aren’t a great many rooms in the château, only four to a floor, with a large hall down the center. Each room is vast with a gigantic fireplace and little furniture. Furniture was sparse in those days, and I believe when they moved from château to château they carried it with them.

  I told this to Edwina, who said, “But I know nothing of this!” So I told her that in the time of Diane de Poitiers’s residence in the château it couldn’t have been spick-and-span as it now looked. There was certainly straw on the floors. Servants, and there were many of them, had no real sleeping places and just snuggled down on the straw and pulled their cloaks about them. There was probably quite a battle to sleep as close to the fireplace as possible. The reason that nobility moved from château to château was that this was the only way to clean them. Everyone peed and shat in the straw, as did the many dogs that undoubtedly accompanied them for hunting. And finally when it got too foul, they packed their furniture onto wagons and moved to the next château, which was probably only one or two very slow days’ haul away. The nobles would be on horseback most likely. It was the fastest way to move about. The carriages of the time didn’t have springs and must have been hell over what were undoubtedly poor excuses for roads. Servants stayed behind and swept and scrubbed the château until it was clean again.