Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1951)

being able to talk to him was a little more than I could stand just then. I called Anton quickly, and found to my relief that he, at least, was free. I could talk to him. Maybe it was a heaven-sent frustration, at that — maybe I'd talk myself out to Anton and find I was fighting shadows, and not have to take it up with Don after all. But Anton was in his sternest factfacing mood that night. There never was much chance to be dishonest with yourself around him, I reflected bitterly. He took a kind of cold delight in throwing the bright light of his mind on shadows. Sometimes they disappeared. Sometimes, however, they took on concrete form, and stood out and looked you in the eye . . . Two conclusions. No, they weren't shadows by Anton's analysis. . He listened, and nodded, and gave them the shape and name I had been dreading. 0f \1 course that's what it is, Wendy," he told me. "In a few plain words, Don's tendency to make too much of your friendships is suddenly intensified after he meets Mrs. Clements. Why? Well — Mrs. Clements, she is sharp and shrewd enough to perceive this odd streak in him. Perhaps she lightly builds it up, shall we say? A little word here, a little insinuation there. Easily done, by the right kind of person. Or perhaps . . ." "Perhaps Don has developed such a strong interest in Mrs. Clements that he has begun to feel guilty toward me, and turns on me with these idiotic exaggerations in an effort to convince himself that really I'm the one who's guilty." Anton regarded me silently, with serious eyes. I see it that way, he seemed to be saying; but it's your battle, Wendy. Either way, I thought, it was going to be a losing battle. So I suppose it was fortunate that, in the end, I didn't have to fight it. It was the very next day that the news broke about Nona. My secretary gave it to me before I had my hat off in the morning. Nona Douglas, wife of playwrightnovelist Mark Douglas, dies in auto accident on French Riviera. I stared at the girl, and then went mechanically on into my office and stood by the desk. I remember thinking resolutely Of course it's false — this can't have happened to Nona. This can't have happened to Mark. Then I suppose I went completely blank, for the next thing I was conscious of was the trembling of my hand as I tried to guide a glass of water to my lips. I put the glass down; I didn't want water. I was chilled and trembling, and I felt very much as though I were going to be sick to my stomach in just a minute . . . Don was there with me. He was sitting on the arm of my chair, holding my shoulders tightly. I pulled away, and then turned toward him again with an instinctive desire to bury my head. "Take it easy, Wendy," he said. "It hit's hard, doesn't it." "It's not true!" I said flatly. "It's true. I was on the phone with Seddon in Paris a while ago getting a conference report and he mentioned it too. It's true, all right." "I'm sorry." I bent for a Kleenex and passed it over my face. "I'm all right now. When it's such an old friend — I've got to get hold of Mark!" I said suddenly. "He's all alone over M there. I've got to help." Don said, reasonably enough, that there wasn't much I could do, three 108 thousand miles away. But I wasn't in a reasonable state of mind. I was fired with the need to get help to Mark, somehow, distance or no distance — fired unreasonably, perhaps, but with absolute certainty that he needed help now as he never had before. I think part of the urgency came from the need I had to suppress all thoughts of Nona. Nona laughing . . . Nona in a red pleated chiffon dress she'd once had, dancing with Mark . . . Nona asking me to be her friend ... I couldn't risk thinking about all that, not now. I'd be doing more good trying to help Mark . . . The only trouble was I couldn't reach Mark. I tried in every way that was open to me. The news reports, as they came in, gave no address for him, so I put in calls to the last hotel they'd written me from. I wrote and cabled . . . finally I enlisted Anton, knowing he had even better connections abroad than we had at the paper. We got a brief report of the funeral — Nona's funeral! Nona, dead! Then — nothing. More than ever, now, I was certain that Mark would be in trouble. I wasn't surprised when Anton finally was able to confirm my apprehension. His associate in Paris, through whom he'd been working to contact Mark, had pieced together a frightening story. Mark had been traced to a run-down hotel in a small southern town, under DON'T IV AIT FOR SICKNESS Right now your druggist is featuring sick-room needs. Check with him today! BE PREPARED! an assumed name, and gave every evidence of planning to do something . . . well, not normal. "What does he mean — not normal? Suicide?" My voice was shrill with tension. "Disappear? Run away? Didn't he say?" But no — he hadn't said. Apparently that was all there was to say. Mark, tragically bereaved, hidden away in a strange land, among strangers. I knew Mark, possibly a little better than he knew himself. I knew quite a lot about the despondency of which he was capable, the profound bitterness of soul that lay waiting beneath the surface of his personality . . . It seemed quite reasonable to ask Don for a leave of absence. "I want to get to Mark before it's too late," I explained. I was over my first shaken horror, now. With my own instinct and the information Anton had collected, I knew that the more important business at hand was to reach Mark somehow, before he succeeded in whatever dreadful plan he had in mind. So when I spoke to Don, it was as one reasonable person to another. I was altogether unprepared for his flat refusal. "Leave of absence? You're crazy, Wendy. Now, with the paper in this chaotic state, you — " "Well, all right, let me do some work over there! I'll get hold of that French movie star, the one with scandal, what's her name — and I can do a couple of fashion reports for you. We can use my time over there somehow . . ." Don said, as if the words hurt, "Douglas still means that much to you, doesn't he." I still didn't understand. "How would would you feel if your oldest friend lost his wife and stood in danger of — maybe losing his mind, or worse? And you couldn't help?" "I haven't any old friends like that." Don stood up. "How would you feel if I said I loved you and then rushed off to be with an old girl friend who happened to be having a spot of trouble?" All at once I couldn't look at Don any more. His face — his face was unpleasant to me, like that of a stranger I didn't understand and didn't like. I walked away and stood looking down from the window. "There's only one way I can answer that," I said finally. "If you were a decent, whole human being you couldn't ask it. You'd know the answer. But you — there's nothing in your world except the great Don Smith and those who are willing to revolve around him." "I'm human all right." Don's face flushed darkly, and he bit his lip. "So human I can't stand the thought of you running over the ocean to some guy who apparently means more to you than any guy ought to except the one you're going to marry." "That's your picture. I'm going over to help — possibly to save the life of one of the oldest, best friends I've ever had. Can you conceive that it wouldn't matter if it were a man or a woman?" "No," Don said. "I can't." He came around the desk, but he didn't touch me. His voice was low and deeply troubled. "Wendy. Don't go. I — just don't go. Not now." I moved away. "I have to, Don. I'll go with or without your okay." "Oh, you can have that. As far as the paper is concerned, you can stay away a year. You've earned it." He went back to the desk and swept its clutter aside roughly. "But where does that leave us?" He didn't look at me now either. Where does that leave us? The question hung in the air and fluttered gently, sadly down to the floor. It seemed safer not to make any answer. I shrugged, and put my hand on the doorknob. Don said tensely, "Wendy, it's only fair to tell you — if you go, I'll be seeing a good deal of Kay." "Please do," I answered. "I'm going to be terribly busy myself from now on." I went out quietly and closed the door behind me. I didn't have any feelings of an organized kind. I suppose I'd been having them all along, really — feelings about Don's irrational jealousy, speculations about his selfishness, about Kay and what might be building up between them ... It was rather unfair that I didn't have a ring to take off and fling at his feet. If it had been anything else we quarreled about this final time, anything less important, I might have gone back. But a self-centeredness that could reduce this tragedy of Mark's to a matter of personal spite — that was too much for me. As I left the building and went toward the restaurant where Anton was meeting me, I thought almost with bitter amusement that now Kay did have everything — her money, her career, her strong personality, her looks, her minks and jewels and clothes . . . and Don. Everything. But even as I thought it, I knew that if anyone had asked me if she had anything I really wanted, I would have answered regretfully, but honestly, "No, I don't think so — I don't think she's gotten herself anything I really want."