“When will she be back?” I asked.
No. I had not understood. She had gone away. She was not returning.
I felt sadness infect me like a germ.
“Where has she gone? Did she say?”
“No,” he said. “She just left. Monsieur Mavrocordato came and they went away together.”
14 Dog Days
I was back in London within a week. I sold the Audi in Paris and bought a large tin cabin trunk to take the contents of the old one and the reels of The Confessions. This I then deposited in the vault of a bank in Piccadilly. I rented a modest dusty flat in Islington not far from the site of the old Superb-Imperial studios and contemplated my future.
It was strange to be back in London after a gap of ten years. It was busier and dustier than Berlin; apart from that, to my indifferent eyes, it seemed more or less unchanged. Sonia and the children now lived in a large house near Parson’s Green. I deliberately chose a place to live as far away from Shorrold territory as possible.
I was depressed and often quite miserable during those initial weeks back in London. I had taken the demise of Realismus Films and the end of my dreams about The Confessions extraordinarily well, or so I thought. I suppose it was because I had never truly felt that the sound version was really feasible. Making it was a despairing effort rather than an enthusiastic one — an act of bravado, not conviction. I needed more time to generate that last emotion.
In fact, ambition had become almost extinct in me since 1929, hard though it may be to believe. I set up Part II and did what filming I could manage powered by an energy that was derived more from dwindling momentum than from any self-generating creative source. Ambition had died, and now I needed a strong deep sentiment to fill the spaces it had vacated. That was why I drove to Paris with such joyous anticipation, and that was why Doon’s betrayal was the most savage shock I had to take.
I could hardly believe that she had gone off with Mavrocordato. I could feel only hate and revulsion for what she had done to me. To try to forget, I spent a couple of days getting drunk (we drank much more then, I think). Finally, sober, crapulous, fed up, I wondered what to do next. To go back to Berlin was out of the question. Eddie was going to America, so why not follow him there? For a while I was tempted. I even went to a shipping agency and inquired about booking a passage. But I was too hurt and sorrowful to take such a step straightaway. And so I turned for home with my films, my scripts and my bits and pieces, to set about the task of putting my life back together in a mood not far off apathetic.
It was two weeks after my arrival in London before I got round to going to see Sonia and my family in the house I was renting for them. On Saturday, as a taxicab drove me up the King’s Road, all the memories of the early years of my marriage passed through my mind. I allowed a wistful smile to accompany them. I thought of my younger self with affection. What an impulsive, sentimental idiot I had been then.
I was shocked when Sonia came to the door. It was a considerable time since I had seen her and since then she must have lost at least forty pounds. Her clothes were as neat as ever, her central parting still ruthlessly defined, but her once round, plump face was gaunt and hard. She wore spectacles with pale caramel-colored lenses and held a cigarette in her hand. She had never smoked in all the years I had known her.
“Hello, John,” she said. “Nice of you to come by.”
I followed her in. Her round haunches had disappeared completely.
“Are you well?” I asked, concerned.
“Fighting fit.”
“What’s happened to your voice?”
The London accent had gone. The mild glottal stop that would have produced “figh’ing” was now replaced by a positive t.
“What are you talking about?” Sonia, I realized, had gone radically genteel. She sounded like an actress.
“Nothing, nothing.”
We went into the sitting room, where my children were waiting for me. Vincent, a bland brown-haired eleven-year-old, was a Shorrold to the dull roots of his hair. The girls — Emmeline and Annabelle — were absurdly dressed, as if for a pantomime, with satin bows in their hair and white silky dresses. They were plump like their mother used to be, and shy. I kissed them all, strangers. In the corner a familiar figure hovered. Lily Maidbow. Loyal Lily.
“Hello, Mr. Todd,” she said.
I looked uneasily at my family and retainer. Was I really something to do with all these people? I tried to ignore the pain of Hereford’s absence.
“How nice to see you all,” I said like a headmaster, hands clasped behind my back.
“The girls have to go,” Sonia said.
“What a shame.”
“They’ve a dress rehearsal of their school play.”
“Ah. Good. Excellent.”
They went. Lily took Vincent out of the room. “Good-bye, Daddy,” they said awkwardly as if it were a foreign word. Sonia and I sat down. Cigarettes were offered to me and declined.
“When did you start smoking?”
“Guess. Sherry?”
“Mmm. Please.” I felt soft vague guilts press upon me, like giant cushions. I was seized suddenly with a manic desire to flee this lugubrious house. “The children look well,” I said with a thin flat smile.
“I need more money, John. Another thousand a year. Vincent goes to prep school—”
“Prep school!”
“And I’m going to board the girls too; place near Ascot.”
“Good God.” I did some quick calculations. I had approximately twenty thousand dollars and the apartment in Berlin to my name. I could not rely on a quick sale of the apartment and at six dollars to the pound that made something over three thousand pounds. One to Sonia left me two to live on.
“I could manage a couple of hundred, I should think.”
I will not reproduce the profanity of the language Sonia employed after I explained how I had bought the negative of The Confessions from Eddie Simmonette. Impressively, the new accent never slipped. Abuse gave way to quiet, serious threats. The name of her lawyer — a Mr. Devize — was frequently enjoined. Eventually I promised her the thousand; this and the proceeds from the apartment calmed her down somewhat.
“You’ll just have to get another job,” she said. “You can earn a lot as a director. I’m sorry, John, but I’m going to have to tell Mr. Devize about you buying that film. That money wasn’t yours to spend. It belonged to all of us.”
She left the room, calling for Lily to show me out. I counted the cigarette butts in the ashtray — five. Lily edged in, head bowed.
In the hall, putting on my hat and coat, I asked a question.
“What does Mrs. Todd do these days, Lily?”
“Well … plays cards, mostly. These three lady friends come round. They play cards for hours. Days. And smoke. Smoke something terrible. Cards, cigarettes, cups of coffee. Play right through the night sometimes. I get up in the morning and there they are, still at it.”
“Lord.…” I felt very depressed.
“Oh, and she goes and visits that Mr. Devize.”
I left after that. And, as events turned out, that was the last I ever saw of my family.
I looked, rather halfheartedly, for a job. I met some people and talked about The Confessions: Part II, but it prompted little enthusiasm. Mr. Devize summoned me to his office several times. He was a sleek burly man with thinning oiled hair who affected half-moon pince-nez spectacles. He was aggressive and unpleasant. I had him labeled arriviste at once, despite his banded institutional tie and the mellow professional fruitiness of his voice. I laid my documents and accounts before him, including my notarized bill of sale from Eddie. He had this verified and reported to Sonia that I was indeed as impecunious as I claimed.