CHAPTER 27

 

 

Carmody looked as he walked, and observed as he looked. It seemed like the place he thought it should seem like. The Maplewood Theatre was on his right; today’s feature was The Saga of Elephantine, an Italian-French adventure film directed by Jacques Marat, the brilliant young director who had given the world the deeply moving Song of My Wounds and the swiftly paced comedy Paris Times Fourteen. On the stage, for a limited engagement only, was the new vocal group, Iakonnen and the Fungi.

‘Sounds like a fun film,’ Carmody remarked.

‘Not my sort of thing,’ the Prize said.

Carmody stopped at Marvin’s Haberdashery and looked in the window. He saw loafers and saddle shoes, hound’s-tooth check jackets, wide, boldly patterned neckties, white shirts with spread collars. Next to it, at the stationery store, he glanced at the current Colliers, leafed through Liberty, noticed Munsey’s, Black Cat, and The Spy. The morning edition of The Sun had just come out.

‘Well?’ the Prize asked. ‘Is this the place?’

‘I’m still checking,’ Carmody said. ‘But it looks pretty favourable so far.’

He crossed the street and looked into Edgar’s Luncheonette. It hadn’t changed. There was a pretty girl sitting at the counter, sipping a soda. Carmody recognized her at once.

‘Lana Turner! Hey, how are you, Lana?’

‘I’m fine, Tom,’ Lana said. ‘Long time no see.’

‘I used to date her in high school,’ he explained to the Prize as they walked on. ‘It’s funny how it all comes back to you.’

‘I suppose so,’ the Prize said doubtfully.

At the next corner, the intersection of Maplewood Avenue and South Mountain Road, there was a policeman. He was directing traffic, but he took time to grin at Carmody.

‘That’s Burt Lancaster,’ Carmody said. ‘He was all-state fullback on the best team Columbia High School ever had. And look, over there! That man going into the hardware store, the one who waved at me! That’s Clifton Webb, our high-school principal. And down the block, do you see that blonde woman? That’s Jean Harlow. She used to be the waitress at the Maplewood Restaurant.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Everybody said she was fast.’

‘You seem to know a lot of people,’ the Prize said.

‘Well, of course I do! I was raised here! Miss Harlow is going into Pierre’s Beauty Parlour.’

‘Do you know Pierre, also?’

‘Sure. He’s a hairdresser now, but during the war he was in the French Resistance. What was his name again? Jean-Pierre Aumont, that’s it! He married one of our local girls, Carole Lombard.’

‘Interesting,’ the Prize said in a bored voice.

‘Well, it’s interesting for me. Here comes a man I know … Good day, Mr Mayor.’

‘Good day, Tom,’ the man said, and tipped his hat and walked on.

‘That’s Fredric March, our mayor,’ Carmody said. ‘He’s a tremendous person! I can still remember the debate between him and our local radical, Paul Muni. Boy, you never heard anything like it!’

‘Hmm,’ said the Prize. ‘There is something strange about all this, Carmody. Something uncanny, something not right. Don’t you feel it?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Carmody said. ‘I’m telling you, I grew up with these people, I know them better than I know myself. Hey, there’s Paulette Goddard over there. She’s the assistant librarian. Hi, Paulette!’

‘Hi, Tom,’ the woman said.

‘I don’t like this,’ the Prize said.

‘I never knew her very well,’ Carmody said. ‘She used to go with a boy from Millburn named Humphrey Bogart. He always wore bow ties, can you imagine that? He had a fight once with Lon Chaney, the school janitor. Licked him, too. I remember that because I was dating June Havoc at the time, and her best friend was Myrna Loy, and Myrna knew Bogart, and –’

‘Carmody!’ the Prize said urgently. ‘Watch yourself! Have you ever heard of pseudo-acclimatization?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Carmody said. ‘I tell you, I know these people! grew up here, and it was a damned good place to grow up in! People weren’t just blobs like they are now; people really stood for something. People were individuals then, not crowds!’

‘Are you quite sure of this? Your predator –’

‘Rats, I don’t want to hear any more about it,’ Carmody said. ‘Look! There’s David Niven! His parents are English.’

‘These people are coming towards you,’ the Prize said.

‘Well, sure they are,’ Carmody said. ‘They haven’t seen me for a long time.’

He stood on the corner and his friends came down the pavement and the street, out of stores and shops. There were literally hundreds of them, all smiling, all old friends. He spotted Alan Ladd, Dorothy Lamour and Larry Buster Crabbe. And over there he saw Spencer Tracy, Lionel Barrymore, Freddy Bartholomew, John Wayne, Frances Farmer –

‘There’s something wrong with this,’ the Prize said.

‘Nothing’s wrong,’ Carmody insisted. His friends were all present, they were moving closer to him, holding out their hands, and he was happier than he had ever been since leaving his home. He was amazed that he could have forgotten how it had been. But he remembered now.

‘Carmody!’ the Prize shouted.

‘What is it?’

‘Is there always this music in your world?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’m talking about the music,’ the Prize said. ‘Don’t you hear it?’

Carmody noticed it for the first time. A symphony orchestra was playing, but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

‘How long has that been going on?’

‘Ever since we got here,’ the Prize told him. ‘When you started down the street there was a soft thunder of drums. Then, when you passed the theatre, a lively air was played on a trumpet. This changed, when you looked into the luncheonette, to a rather saccharine melody played by several hundred violins. Then –’

‘That was background music,’ Carmody said dully. ‘This whole damned thing was scored, and I didn’t even notice it.’

Franchot Tone reached out and touched his sleeve. Gary Cooper dropped a big hand on his shoulder. Laird Cregar gave him an affectionate bear hug. Shirley Temple seized his right foot. The others pressed closer, all still smiling.

‘Seethwright!’ Carmody shouted. ‘For God’s sake, Seethwright!’

After that, things happened a little too fast for his comprehension.