you will be punished!
This brings me back to White Shirt. I can no longer locate the Provençal blue door. Did I imagine it? From the pool the other day, seated in a different corner, while hiding out from the maid— and the searing sun— I had a very different view of his house. There is a muddy sea- green door to the flat, boxy part of the house and a long brick stair leading up to it. Also, there is a door below the stairs, to the right, I think. I can be certain of very little. For example, I thought I saw a stroller in the yard last weekend. There was a woman, the first female I've seen with White Shirt and I assumed since she was acting with propriety that she was related in some way— sister, ex? And I thought a child sat in the stroller. An hour later, however, when I checked, the stroller was still in place and the afternoon had grown chilly. The light had changed too. Was it a cripple instead, in a wheelchair? Toward evening I had to conclude I was wrong on both counts. Who would leave an invalid or a child out all day into the evening, the heat evaporating fast as the sun went down? The car seemed to be gone from the garage too. How much do I make up; how much do I see only to correct later on? There was, as it turned out, no stroller, no child or cripple. I don't know what I'd seen— a lawn chair, a table? Whatever it was, it was gone.
I have not seen the woman again. I did see a tall balding man one day. He and White Shirt were walking on the lawn in a friendly, familiar way. I thought that day that White Shirt might be gay. The gay theory held until there were no further sightings of the balding man, or any other man. But that leaves the sheets. White Shirt hangs an inordinate number of sheets out on his line for someone who appears to live alone. The question is: Am I bothered by the idea that White Shirt might be gay? Just how far are my musings willing to go?
Okay, I admit, I want clues, a never- ending supply of clues. I want to know what goes on, but from the safety of distance. I want to feel good somehow in my discreet peering into others' lives. And I do mean discreet. And to feel good, not sensually but more that things are harmoniously in their place and all is as it should be and, and, and what? What? I don't know. A wash of good feeling— what's wrong with that? Nothing, except I want the dark corners too, the shadows created by thick bougainvilleas on a sunny day, the soft light at night, the person awake when they should not be; I want all to be well and yet— mysterious. I am not interested in the normal and well- rounded, the life of overt purpose and presumptions.
I sense no such purposefulness with White Shirt. For one thing, like me, he has too much time on his hands. He hangs out the sheets nearly every day. No intimate apparel or shorts or shirts. A single male who hangs out his wash, is home a lot, and putters. Divorced? He's not old. Not middle- aged; late thirties or early forties? I don't see other clotheslines on the hills; maybe they are there, but I don't see them. How much would a cheap pair of binoculars cost? Is that too much of a commitment? Have I committed myself to spying on White Shirt? He has a sports car, but he hangs his sheets out to dry. Thinking about it, White Shirt is the only one there for me to observe. Where are all the people? Is he a watcher like me? A furtive slinker into corners?
I glanced up the other day— that's not true— I stood up from the couch, where I was reading that endless novel, feigning interest, and walked to the large window just in time to catch a glimpse of White Shirt before he slipped behind the very tall pine tree that hides much of his yard. Of course he didn't slip behind the tree. He moved behind a tree on his property in the service of some gesture or other, perfectly natural; a chore, or working in the garden— perfectly in order. It only seemed that he slipped into the shadow of the tree. Possibly it wasn't even him. I looked again, this time from the large bedroom window. No one there. Had I only imagined someone slipping out of sight? The car was in the garage— I checked, so I knew he was at home.
He could be a self- conscious observer, possibly a writer. He could feel illegitimate some of the time, he could work and then not work, he could feel he has purpose and then feel he has none. He could dwell on a fringe, not fully embraced or embracing. He could be a perpetual outsider, a criminal of the soul, so to speak, a person slightly out of tune with others while possibly, if unevenly, attuned to his society of one.
It was nearly two a.m., time for bed. All in all it had been a very rich night.
We slept in the next morning. Thank goodness Harry scheduled for two o'clock. He had a client coming and would lunch late. We awoke at eleven. Andre was surprised to see me lying next to him. He was perfectly gleeful when I said I'd be having lunch with Harry. "That's excellent," he said, watching me as I got up to shower. He said it at least three more times over the course of the morning. I smiled, biting down the question: What was so excellent about me lunching with Harry Machin?
We ate breakfast. I made tea; Andre made the Wolfgang Puck coffee the hotel provided. He cooked us eggs and toast and insisted we eat outside at the round balcony table. It felt like a little holiday with our plates of breakfast in the sunny morning. Jam and butter and an orange shared. "There's a man out there," Andre said, not pointing. He meant White Shirt. "There, across the way, looking." He looked at me. "Do you see?"
"Yes," I said, keeping my eyes on Andre, "I've noticed the man."
We said good- bye at our cars. I headed for Beverly Hills, Andre to the day's location. We agreed to phone each other later. "Excellent," he said again as I lowered myself into my car. I set Harry's address in the GPS and pulled out. Andre waited for me to go first. He pulled over when one of the PAs drove up behind him and tooted, not Jarrad. I sped off. I continued straight for as long as I could before cutting over to Sunset. I passed Gardiner Street and thought of the bungalow I had once lived in, the big floral upholstery I'd once cried into.
It took a long time to reach Harry's. The Los Angeles streets were achingly familiar as I drove. I knew the minute I pulled up to his house I'd made a mistake. Harry opened the door, his housekeeper, an Englishwoman of stout proportions, at his side. He looked as if he'd been to the grave and back and there was something else, a fierceness I'd not seen in him before. I sensed Harry had a different hold on things and that every gesture counted. His pallor was waxy gray, and he was not so much thin as loose. Poor old Harry. He was tired just walking out to the garden. "It's polluted today," he said. The view of L.A. smeared below us was dim, as if a Vaseline glaze had been rubbed on the camera lens. Even this high up the air was not inviting to breathe, and the day was suddenly very warm.
"We'll eat in the dining room," Harry told Lundy, the housekeeper, who would have to reset the table. The house was hushed and impersonal. Harry kept photos of some of his more famous clients hanging in a large downstairs powder room. The living room was comfortably decorated. Not by Harry. There were overstuffed couches and big- leg chairs in spacious rooms, a low, sprawling house. I think Harry'd always been more at home in his office. The grounds appeared extensive, but that was the typical illusion created by pricy gardening contractors. I looked out of a large bay window, and I could have been on a ranch, a small farm or a suburb. L.A.: It's all smoke and mirrors.
Harry groused some about the client who'd come up to see him earlier. An actor on the way up who couldn't accept the smaller parts Harry was bringing in for him. "I'm getting him regular work to build on; he threatens to fire me? He should do me the favor."
No, he answered me: He only got down to the office maybe twice a week. He missed it, but so much was done online now, and the actors were willing to come up to the house, so he managed. " Harry still has it," he said, coming as close to smiling as he ever did.
We sat down to lunch, and I was desperate what we'd talk about. The phone rang and the housekeeper told him who it was and Harry said he'd take the call. The food was as flavorless as promised. I ate while he talked. It was the actor from earlier, apologizing for being a hothead. The conversation went on a bit, with Harry saying okay, he'd get back to the producer today and see if he could audition for a bigger part and so on, all of it sounding painfully familiar.
"I guess nothing's changed in movieland," I said.
Harry looked at me. "Everything's changed. The whole damn studio system is on the way out. That whole approach. Streaming videos, animation, 'straight to DVD' . . . The star system is dying, Ardennes."
I took a sip of wine.
"I liked it better in the old days, but I guess every