Belinda Read online

“We can’t keep it in the stores—”

  “Marvelous.”

  “They want him on every talk show in the country. I tell you, it’s all that awful ‘Champagne Flight.’ I mean, these nighttime soaps have hooked everybody. They’re selling dolls of that actress Bonnie here, can you believe it? Twenty-five dollars in plastic, one hundred twenty-five in porcelain.”

  “So sign up Bonnie for a book,” I said. “Make sure it has plenty of pictures from her old movies.”

  “Sure, sure. Why don’t you and Alex have a drink with her and you guys talk her into writing her life story.”

  “That’s over my head. Alex will have to deliver that one.”

  “Looking for Bettina’s still rolling at a solid five thousand copies a week,” she said.

  “I know, I know.”

  “So how about loosening up and doing some more bookstores? Remember you promised me you’d think about it?”

  “Yeah ... Look, give Alex my love in case I don’t catch up with him.”

  “They’re begging for you in Berkeley and Marin. Just an hour away, Jeremy.”

  “Not right now, Jody.”

  “We’ll send you a big stretch limousine and two of our sweetest little elves to take care of everything.”

  “Maybe soon.”

  “That woman at the Chronicle’s furious that you canceled her interview.”

  “What woman? Oh, that. Yeah. Can’t talk to people right now.”

  “OK, you’re the boss.”

  SHE was still out when I got home. The house was quiet and very warm from the afternoon sun, about the warmest it would ever get regardless of the weather.

  There was a different smell to it, and I don’t mean the cigarettes only. Her perfume, soap. Something. Something rather lingering and sweet and different.

  All the toys in the living room were lying under a veil of dust and sun, and there were changes there, too. Sometime or other she had arranged the dolls neatly in the wicker carriage, spread them out on the sofa. She had opened the glass doors to the big three-story dollhouse and straightened all the little furniture inside. Polished the glass. Dusted all the little bits and pieces in there—the tiny hardwood tables and chairs, the little patches of hand-woven oriental carpet. She’d even put the little china dollhouse people in different positions. Now the little man stood by the little grandfather clock. And his corseted wife sat primly at the dining table. In the attic the dollhouse child played with the tiny train that really ran on its thread of electric track if you touched the little wall switch. Before, it had looked like World War II in there.

  I wish I had caught her in the act with the camera. Gotten her when she was deep into it, with all her hair tangled with the afternoon sun the way it was now, maybe in sock feet in that plaid skirt. Well, there was time now for everything.

  I hung up my coat, then brought in everything from the porch—the flowers, the packages—and took them upstairs and started to arrange things.

  I put an old white chenille bedspread on the four-poster. I stood the white floral wreaths around it. And I brought the silver candelabra up from the dining room and put the candles in them and set them on the night tables. The wreaths pretty much concealed the night tables. With the shades drawn and the candles lighted, the effect was as I had imagined it: the church at mass. There was even the delicious floral scent, though it could never be as sweet or as strong as it had been in New Orleans. That could never be duplicated.

  I set the camera on the tripod at the foot of the bed, laid out the new things and the white prayer book and the pearl rosary. I stood inspecting everything. In afterthought I went downstairs, got a bottle of good Burgundy out of the cupboard, opened it, and brought it up with two glasses. Set it aside on one of the hidden night tables.

  Yes, it was lush, gorgeous. But I was impressed very suddenly with the utter madness of it.

  The other pictures I’d done of her had formed themselves rather spontaneously. The props had been here. And the riding portrait had been her idea.

  This was contrived in an almost insane fashion.

  And as I stood there looking at the flowers and the flicker of the candles on the white satin canopy above—the tester, as we called it—I wondered if it wouldn’t frighten her. If I wasn’t wrong about that. It was sick, wasn’t it, to go this far? It had to be. And these wreaths of flowers on their spidery black wire stands, they were funeral wreaths. No one else ever used such flowers, did they? But that wasn’t what they meant here.

  Yet a person who could go to these lengths to see her this way, maybe such a person could hurt her.

  Imagine her telling me that she had done this with a man. “And then he bought a white veil and white shoes and ...”

  I would have said, he’s crazy, stay away from him. You cannot trust someone who does something like this.

  But it wasn’t merely the degree of contrivance. There was the obvious blasphemy. The prayer book, the rosary.

  My heart was beating too fast. I sank back against the wall for a moment, folded my arms. I loved it./

  I went downstairs, poured a cup of coffee, and took it out on the back deck with me. One thing is for certain, I thought. I would never hurt her. It’s madness to think I would. I’m not hurting her, asking her to put on these clothes, am I? It’s merely a tableau. And it fits perfectly, doesn’t it?

  The pictures could be a book so far—the carousel horse trio, the riding portrait, now the Holy Communion.

  When I heard the front door shut, I didn’t move. In a few moments she’d see these things. She’d come down and tell me what she thought. I just waited.

  The water went on upstairs. The pipes along the side of the narrow house were singing with it. She was taking a shower. Think of her in the hot steam, deliciously pink—

  Finally the water went off. I could hear even the faint vibration of her moving in the house.

  I walked inside very slowly, put down the cup. No sound. “Belinda?”

  She didn’t answer.

  I went upstairs. There was no light from anywhere but the bedroom, and that was the candlelight, throwing its flicker on the old wallpaper and the white ceiling.

  I went into the room.

  She was standing at the foot of the bed, dressed in the full costume, with the white wreath around her head and the veil down over her face. She was holding the prayer book and the rosary. Her feet were right together, heels of the white shoes touching. And the short gown just reached her knees like a little girl’s First Communion dress a long time ago. She was smiling through the veil. Her naked arms coming out of the puffed sleeves were very round, yet her fingers threaded through the pearl rosary beads were thin and fine and tapered.

  It knocked the breath out of me utterly. Her grave blue eyes shining through the veil, her bud of a mouth set just on the edge of a smile. Only the hands were a woman’s hands. That is, until I noticed the thrust of her breasts under the yoke, the pink nipples showing through the sheer linen.

  I felt the passion come up between my legs. I felt it go to my brain instantly.

  I came towards her. I lifted up the veil and threw it back over her hair, over the white wreath. That was the right way. The little girls had never worn the veils down. Always back. Her blue eyes were flowing with the candlelight.

  I took her in my arms, clasping her bottom through the thin linen. I lifted her up and back on the bed. I pushed her back, until she was seated against the pillows. Her legs were out straight and she held the prayer book and the rosary in her lap. I kissed her knees, ran my hands down her calves.

  “Come here,” she said gently. She beckoned with both hands for me to come up on the bed. I climbed up and she went back into the pillows. “Come on,” she said again. She opened her mouth and started kissing me very fast, very impatiently. I could see the movement of her eyes under her closed eyelids. I ran my thumbs across her eyebrows—silk. And her body pumping slightly beneath me.

  I was going to come before I was into h
er. I got off my pants and shirt, and then I pulled off her white stockings in one rough quick gesture.

  There was her sex under the heap of crumpled linen, all but hidden, the shy little lips under the ashen shadow of hair. A seam of frightening dark peach pink flesh. A core I wanted to touch—

  Her face was flushed. She pulled me close to her, and then she lay back, drawing the dress up so that I could see her breasts. I pressed my face to her stomach, then I went up on my arms and I gathered up her breasts and started kissing them, sucking them. Her nipples were tiny, stone-hard. She was moaning softly. Her legs lay open.

  I reached for the crystal glass of wine I had set beside the bed. I poured just a few droplets onto her sex, saw it flow down into the moist secret little creases. I smoothed it with my fingers, feeling her open more, feeling her invite, feeling her hips rise slightly. I poured the wine in her. Saw it stain the white coverlet, saw her quivering under it.

  And lying there with my hands curled around her thighs, I drank the wine out of her. I pushed my tongue deep into her and drank the wine, and felt the taut muscles there contracting. Her thighs closed against the side of my face, hot, clamping onto me. She seemed to be throbbing, shivering.

  “Come on,” she said.

  Her face was very red, her head turning back and forth against her tangled hair. The veil was all over under her.

  “Come on, Jeremy,” she said again in a whisper. I went into her, and felt her legs really lock around me this time. But I had to be free to thrust into her hard and she let me go and lay back, sprawled out, her head crushing the nest of white veil, white silk flowers.

  When I knew she was coming, absolutely could feel it as her body clamped down on me, I let go inside her.

  One two three four five six seven. All good children go to heaven.

  [11?]

  WE slept a long time. I noticed later the candles had burnt down quite far. It was dark outside. When I opened my eyes, she was sitting beside me, looking down at me. She’d taken off the dress and the stockings, but she had the wreath and veil properly in place and the veil fell down to the bed forming a triangle of white light covering her. Her breast in profile and her bent leg were divinely lovely. I ran my hand down her leg. The pink of her nipples was exactly the pink of her mouth.

  To look at her eyes frightened me a little. She was peering out from this body and I don’t think she knew what a miracle it was. How could she? How could any child know?

  “Let’s take the pictures,” she said gently. “Doesn’t anything scare you?” I asked softly. “Of course not, why should it?”

  Priceless, the expression on her face, better than I’d ever be able to paint it.

  And there was the camera staring from the foot of the bed.

  I was so sleepy, positively drugged. The fragrance of the flowers was all around us. On the ceiling above I saw the shadows dancing, delicate shadows, like those of the frilled petals of the carnations, everything shivering as the candle flames were shivering.

  “Get the wine, would you?” I said. “Over here.” That will wake me up, won’t it?

  I watched her fill the glass with Burgundy. When she looked down, she looked younger than at any other time, because you saw her blond eyebrows brushed and soft and her lower lip jutting just a little. As soon as she looked straight ahead again and her face relaxed, she was ageless: the nymph who’d had this same body for a hundred years.

  She sat beside me with one knee up, her hair tumbled down over her shoulders, over her breasts. She seemed to glow in the light of the candles. “Holy Communion,” I said.

  She smiled. She bent down with the red wine on her lips and kissed me and she whispered:

  “This is my body. This is my blood.”

  Dxx called while we were still shooting. When I heard that voice coming through the bedside phone right next to her, I felt the blood rushing to my head.

  “Look, I can’t talk now,” I said.

  “Well, you listen to me stupid. Somebody’s looking for your little girl. And the whole thing looks weird to me.”

  She was looking through the prayer book. Her shoulder was touching my arm.

  “Not now. Call you later,” I said. “You go out and call me back now.”

  “Impossible.”

  I glanced at her, and she looked up at me. Something stirred in her face. I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I felt as if I didn’t know what to do with my mouth to look natural.

  “—photograph of her I want you to see!”

  “What? Look. I have to go now. Right now.”

  “—my office, eight o’clock, before I go to court. You listening to me?”

  “Twelve,” I said. “I work late.”

  “Jeremy, this is weird, I’m telling you—”

  “In the morning, OK?”

  I hung up. My face was burning all right. I knew that she was looking at me.

  It was the hardest thing just to turn and look back at her. And I knew she was sensing something, and that I wasn’t pulling this off.

  And then I saw the suspicion plainly there, her little mouth set, her skin slightly flushed too.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked. Right to it, of course.

  “Nothing. My lawyer, that’s all. Book business.” Yeah, hit close to the truth and you might be able to make it convincing.

  I was fumbling with the camera. What had I been doing? Changing the ASA for the new roll of film, what?

  She studied me for a long moment.

  “Let’s break,” I said. “Can’t work after an interruption like that.” I went right downstairs and threw on the answering machine with the sound down. That wasn’t going to happen again.

  SHE’D been drinking for a while before we left for dinner. Maybe the first time I’d seen her just a little drunk. Her hair was pinned up and she had on a velvet suit, white blouse. Very grown-up. The ashtray was full of butts. She didn’t say anything when I suggested a little place around the corner. She tossed down the last of her Scotch and got up languidly.

  White wicker tables, overhead fans, good food. I kept trying to make conversation. She was stony.

  And Dan, what the fuck had he been saying about a photograph of her? Another photograph of her?

  “Who was that who called?” she asked suddenly. She had just lighted another cigarette. She hadn’t touched the scampi.

  “My lawyer, I told you. Taxes or something.” I could feel the heat again in my face. I knew I sounded like a liar. I put down the fork suddenly. This was just too ugly.

  She was eyeing me downright coldly.

  “I have to go down, see him at noon, I hate it.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “All these things in the works, Disney thinking about buying the Angelica books. Rainbow Productions wanting them. It’s a tough decision to make.” OK, good, latch onto that little misplaced speck of truth. “Don’t much want to bother with it right now. My mind’s on you, it’s a million miles from those things.”

  “Big bucks,” she said with a slight lift of her eyebrows. “Rainbow’s a new company. They do exquisite animation.”

  Now how would she know that? And the tone, all the California girl had dropped away. There was that crisp articulation I’d noticed the first time I met her.

  Her eyes were strange. The wall had come down again.

  And what did I look like to her?

  “Yeah, Rainbow ... they did a—” I couldn’t think.

  “Knights of the Round Table. I saw it.”

  “Yeah, exactly. So they want to do two films of Angelica.”

  But this wasn’t working. She knew something was out of whack.

  “But then Disney is Disney,” I said. “And whoever does it has to make sure the animation is true to the drawings. You know, if they want to add characters, they have to fit.”

  “Don’t you have agents and lawyers that handle all that?”

  “Sure. That’s who called me. The lawyer. I have to sign on the dot
ted line finally. Nobody can do that but me.”

  Her eyes were frightening me. She was drunk. She really was.

  “Are you really happy with me?” she asked. Small voice. No drama. She crushed out her cigarette in the uneaten food on her plate. She never did things like that.

  “Are you happy?” she asked again.

  “Yes, happy,” I said. I looked up at her slowly. “I’m happy, probably happier than I’ve ever been in my life. I think I could write a new definition of happy. I want to go home and develop the pictures. I want to stay up all night and paint. I feel like I’m twenty-one again, if you want to know. Do you think I’m a fool for that?”

  Long pause. Then the smile, tentative, then growing brighter, like a light coming down a dark passage.

  “I’m happy, too,” she said. “It’s all happened just like I dreamed it could.”

  To hell with Dan. To hell with all of it, I thought.

  I DID the whole roll of Communion shots before I went to bed. For a little while she came into the basement darkroom with me, a cup of coffee in her hand.

  I explained everything I was doing and she watched carefully. Asked if she could help next time. She seemed tired from all that Scotch earlier, but otherwise OK. Almost OK.

  She was fascinated by the process, the pictures coming clear magically in the developing tray. I told her how a real photographer might do it, take more time with every step. For me it was like squeezing out oil onto the plate, cleaning brushes, it was mere preparation.

  I made three enlargements, and we took these up to the attic.

  I knew this was going to be the best picture of all. Holy Communion or Belinda with Communion Things. Just the veil and the wreath, no other clothing, of course. And the prayer book and rosary in her hands. Formal as the riding picture, as the little black-and-white photographs that the mothers would take of the little girls on that day outside the church before the procession. The trick was the background.

  At first glance you had to think you saw cloisters or Gothic arches. Maybe the flowers of an altar with candles. Then you would realize you were seeing a bedroom, a four-poster bed, wallpaper. Had to make this illusion seamless: it was a matter of texture as well as lighting. And I was going beyond the practiced applications of my craft here into a new depth of illusion.