His dance with Lois continues, but each moves to a different music.
He returns from Europe expecting Ben Shipman already to be working on the details of the settlement, and has begun to consider where he might live as a single man, but Lois has evinced no progress toward divorce, has not even made the promised call to her lawyer. Instead of gratitude, he feels disappointment, and a kind of thwarted ambition. He wants to be free of this marriage, and the proximity of Lois adds another tone to the complexity of his mourning for his son. He understands the pain that Lois is enduring, but he cannot bring himself to offer comfort. He cannot acknowledge their shared grief, even if it might bring succor to each. If he does, the display of emotion may be misconstrued.
And he is still seeing Alyce Ardell.
He does not wish to leave Lois for Alyce Ardell; this is not the reason for the sundering of his marriage. He doubts that Alyce Ardell would have him, even if he offered. Alyce Ardell is a free spirit, and because she does not ask anything of him beyond his occasional presence in her life and her bed, he is able to forget himself when he is with her. But he does not speak of Lois when he is with Alyce Ardell, and Alyce Ardell does not ask.
In this much, at least, he shows respect for his wife.
Leaving England has been difficult.
For the brief period after their British promotional duties are completed, while Babe tramps golf courses with Myrtle and he revisits the streets of his youth, he is at ease. He has no false nostalgia for his homeland. He has almost forgotten how claustrophobic are its cities, how tightly packed their citizens; how gray the skies, how white the faces. Even in London, the fashions seem dated, the women less colorful in their dresses. It is like exchanging butterflies for moths.
But he is more of that place than California. He is more of that place than any other. All of the constructs fall away, and what remains is a boy formed of smog and stage.
A.J.’s son.
At the Glasgow Metropole, he stands on the boards and weeps.
And there is A.J. himself, stony-faced, as unflinching in his loyalty to his son as A.J. is unwilling to express it, staring out at the crowds assembled in honor of his boy, shaking his head as though unable to believe that people could be so foolish as to give up their day to catch a glimpse of men they can see ten times larger on the screen, and without having their toes trodden.
Bampots, says A.J.
Then A.J. tells the newspapers that he is a good boy.
Babe likes A.J., and A.J. likes Babe. He would never have thought it. Perhaps, he speculates, it’s because neither can quite understand what the other is saying, even when the words themselves are comprehensible. When A.J., thirsting, announces that he is spitting feathers, Babe, once the meaning is explained to him, thinks it’s just the funniest phrase that has ever been uttered.
All these moments he recalls as he drives the alien streets of Los Angeles, these sun-blanched stretches of palm and prosperity.
As he drives away from Alyce Ardell.
If he stops in an effort to walk alone with his thoughts, he will be mobbed. If he goes to a restaurant, he will be mobbed. Even if he should secure a private table or booth, he will have to be polite to a stream of staff.
So he drives, though he does not find negotiating these streets conducive to relaxation or contemplation, until he spies an empty lot off Ventura Boulevard, and there he parks in the shade and thinks that it was not meant to be this way.
He speaks with Ben Shipman.
Why are you waiting? asks Ben Shipman. If the marriage is over, it’s over. Don’t get me wrong: I like Lois a lot, and I gain no pleasure from handling divorces. I find them depressing. I find many professional duties depressing, but divorces more than most. It seems to me that you want your wife to be the first to sever the bond, yet she doesn’t care to do so. But if you continue on this path, suddenly you’re sixty years old, still married to the same woman, and still not getting along with her. She’s told you that she wants a divorce, right?
—Yes. Or a separation, for a while.
—So separate. You like it, you get a divorce. You don’t like it, you go back to being unhappy together. That’s how it works.
He examines his hat. He tries to remember if it is one purchased for him by Lois.
How do we go about it? he asks.
—You tell Lois, then you tell the studio. The studio tells the newspapers, and it’s out in the open.
—What if we don’t tell the newspapers?
—Then you tell Lois, you tell a few close friends, one of the few close friends tells the newspapers, and it’s out in the open.
Or, says Ben Shipman, you could just save some time and tell the newspapers yourself.
He issues a statement. Under the terms of the agreement, Lois will keep their home, and he will be compelled to invest in two life trusts for her and their daughter. Ending his marriage, Ben Shipman estimates, will cost him more than $200,000.
It’ll be worth it, he replies.
Ben Shipman elects not to comment.
He tells the newspapers that it is “just one of those things.” He tells the newspapers that he and Lois “got on each other’s nerves.” When he sees his own statements in black and white, he marvels at the blankness of them, their poverty of meaning, yet still they are printed.
We’re separating because I’m sleeping with other women.
We’re separating because I cannot hold my wife and permit her to speak of her grief.
We’re separating because we consigned a child to the flames.