Emergency submission

[igenlode]

This is my attempted entry for the Writers Anonymous Narrative Voice Challenge, which has to be submitted by August 31st (and on FFnet, which means I can't do it after the library closes at 6.30pm).
That means I have to write and type the final section -- Norma's voice -- and then proofread the whole thing tomorrow morning for same-day publication; inevitably there are going to be rough edges, and probably typos remaining.

I think I have at least managed to establish the requisite three different voices for the three characters quite well, and Norma, like Max, is so distinctive that she should be *reasonably* easy to handle. And her section is, by intention, supposed to be short!

(Ouch -- I still also have to come up with a title and summary for the thing before I can submit it...)

---

With the Best Intentions

Max acts to forestall the final shot. AU, written for the WA Narrative Voices Challenge.

I escorted Mr Gillis from the premises and drove him myself to the bus station. It was necessary that I should make sure. Madame would never forgive him, and I —I, Max von Mayerling— I would never forgive myself if she were to do something precipitate. Something from which even I could not protect her.

The girl— that, in time, she could have overlooked. With a younger man, you understand, there are always these... difficulties. With the third husband, she was obliged to overlook much. In the end, they would beg and she would be gracious.

And always, they would beg. A pretty chorine, a little blonde hat-check girl might be amusement for a night, but Madame... she was Norma Desmond. To appear on Miss Desmond’s arm, that was to be somebody. Even now, in Hollywood, even after all these years— Gillis had known her name. A broken-down writer, knee-deep in debt, he knew of Norma Desmond. Knew that immortal face.

Men were for Madame to pick and choose, in those days when the world was young. How could it be otherwise, when she had Dukes and Counts at her feet, weeping to win forgiveness for a single day’s lapse in their devotion? The second marriage lasted four years; the third and fourth she ended after two.

One did not leave Norma. One was left behind, like an outworn coat, to be changed for the new season’s model. When she left me, it was to spread her wings, and how could I hold her back?

We made one more film together, I directing, she in the lead. Her new director, her new production company had failed her, and so it was back to good old Max— Max von Mayerling, who had brought her to the silver screen.

In front of the cameras, the old magic bloomed again and she was radiant as never before. Behind the scenes... there was the new husband.

I was professional. She needed me, needed the skills I could give her, nothing more. Jealousy and ugliness she did not need, not then— not ever, if I could keep them from her door.

She was still young then, and I was not so old. Now her star has faded and mine been laid aside in long service. There is only Madame, who gives the orders, and only Max, silent and deferential, left to tend the flame.

Gillis made her happy, for a while, and so he was to be tolerated. The Betty Schaefer business — that was unfortunate but not unexpected. But he had the arrogance to disclose to Madame facts that could only hurt her, and which I knew all too well she would not forgive.

I had warned him. Perhaps he did not appreciate how fragile her grasp on the world had become. Perhaps he did not care.

And so, with no other choice, I had to intervene. I removed Mr Gillis, suitcases and all, bodily from the room where he had said quite enough, and took him at once to the car so that Madame need see no more of him. Perhaps he had planned some grand exit, but I meant to make sure that he left.

We drove in stony silence. Twice he tried to speak, but I would hear none of it.

On the steps of the Greyhound bus he turned. “Say, Max— von Mayerling—”

“Goodbye, Mr Gillis.” I held myself upright; expressionless, controlled. “I think you have done quite enough. It is for me now to take care of Madame.”

She would need comfort. Perhaps —for one painful moment I let myself hope— she would even come back to my arms, and we could grow old together.

Norma Desmond was immortal. She would live forever up on the silver screen. But it was a struggle that the living woman at last must surrender.

I would be there. If she were to call, as always, I would be there.

---

Clinch, Tennessee... Clinch, Tennessee... Clinch, Tennessee...

Over and over, beating out to the rhythm of the railroad joints until I want to scream, or cry, or both.

Get a grip on yourself, Betty Schaefer. You’ve lived in Hollywood long enough to see a few dreams go pop; you’ve worked for men like Sheldrake and watched ideals minced up to churn out cold hard cash. Why are you letting a heel like Joe Gillis get to you? You’re on the train out to Clinch to marry your sweetheart, remember— the one who bought you the ring?

Waiting for me... waiting for me... waiting for me, the wheels drum out steadily, and I know what’s waiting for me out in Clinch. Artie Shaw, twenty-six years old, sweet and funny and about the nicest guy you could want to meet. I used to love him. I must have loved him when I said Yes, all those months ago. Now I know I don’t.

It’s funny how working with someone, really working and with someone you admire, can change you. Artie wants a wife and kids, a house with a swing and a white picket fence. I wanted to be like Joe Gillis. Like any one of hundreds of other screenwriters in this town, I guess, but it was that short story of Joe’s I wanted to bring to the screen. To show him —and Sheldrake, and all the other bosses and studio hacks— that in this industry we can still make a good film once in a while; something true, and moving, and full of promise.

It was a great script when it was done. Joe and I wrestled it out line by line from the old ‘Blind Windows’ story in all those weeks when Artie was in Tennessee. “Strictly business,” I’d told Artie, laughing, and it was true.

I didn’t want to kiss and cuddle with Joe Gillis, not the way Artie and I used to, snuggling up in the back row at the pictures, or making out in his car. I wanted to pick his brains and strike sparks off his mind, and bat dialogue backwards and forwards between us until every line shone like diamond. And it was a swell feeling — so swell I didn’t ask the questions that maybe I should have done.

Until I got the cable from Artie, stuck out on location: Hey kid. Miss me? I miss you something chronic. You can get hitched out here for a couple bucks. How about it? Say yes. See you soon, okay?

But it wasn’t okay, not any more. Nothing was okay; not me, not Artie, and sure as fire not Joe. But I didn’t know that.

Well, it’s all out now — all the dirty linen. I don’t love Artie, not the way I thought I did, but I’m going out to Tennessee to marry him and to forget. And that script will never see the screen. I burnt it before I left, every page crumpled away into ash as if it had never been.

I wish I could burn Joe out of my mind the same way — the taste of him, the feel of him, the way my knees went weak. He’d never made a move on me all that time we worked together; quite the gentleman, or so I thought. He knew about Artie. I didn’t know about her.

I asked him about the lighter that one time: engraved in solid gold, ‘Mad About the Boy’. He brushed it off, and we laughed. Maybe I should have asked about the wristwatch. About the cuff-links, and the coat. About how come I could never ring him at home, and why he used to slip out to work after-hours on the Paramount lot.

But then maybe, with Artie’s ring on my finger, it was none of my business how Joe Gillis paid his rent, or what he lived on. Who he lived on. His hands on her, his mouth on her, his—

Stop it, Betty. Just stop it, okay?

I guess I thought I could save him, even after. The power of love, right? It’s in all the scripts: Redeemed by Ingenue from a Life of Vice.

Only vice pays, and writing doesn’t. What’s a little effort between the sheets, compared to a Murphy bed and a broken tap?

I’d have starved with him in a garret, if that’s what it took. Anything, to get him away from that house like a mausoleum, and wipe that cold hard sneer from his eyes.

Come on in. Meet Betty Schaefer: paid up card-carrying romantic fool.

I couldn’t bear that look on his face. I couldn’t even bear to look at him, in the end.

So here comes Tennessee and here comes Artie; fat pink babies and a picket fence, and a hammock slung under a tree. Maybe I’ll write another script, some day. But it won’t be ‘Blind Windows’, and this time I’ll be writing it on my own.

---

“Hey, Gillis —Hollywood hotshot— quit dreaming, will ya? Big Ed wants that half-inch done by four o’clock, and copy don’t write itself.”

Well, I always knew I’d have to face down the ribbing if I ever came back. Here I am back on the copy-desk in Dayton, Ohio: Joe Gillis, Sports and Features. That’s high-school basketball and the local funeral parade, if you were wondering. Ah, the joys of home...

The boys here haven’t been so bad, all things considered. Oh, there’s been a few jokes —more than a few— about guys with swelled heads who set off for Hollywood to write their way to fame, and come back with empty pockets and their tails between their legs. But Big Ed took me back on the old job at the old salary, and it’s enough to get by. It sure beats trying to hawk your work round the likes of Sheldrake and Zanuck.

If anyone asks, I tell them I quit Hollywood out of principle: the principle of three square meals a day. Like all the best lies, it’s true... up to a point.

The truth is, I gave up on writing the minute I got a better meal-ticket. And I quit Hollywood when I couldn’t live with myself any longer.

It’s about the one thing I can still be proud of — the one decent act I managed, in that stinking self-satisfied town. Sunset Boulevard’s a long, long road. So is the road to hell, and they both come paved with good intentions.

Betty Schaefer is a good kid: talented, smart, with stars in her eyes. She doesn’t deserve a Joe Gillis in her life.

That night we kissed was maybe forty-five minutes of the sweetest dream I’d ever had... until I got home —by that time I’d even gotten to thinking of that crazy palazzo of Norma’s as ‘home’, instead of as a jail— and had to deal with Max and his dire prognostications. Max von Mayerling, and that’s still hard to believe; von Mayerling the director, sunk to playing manservant to a faded film star.

That shook me up all right. I could see myself in his shoes, still hanging on Norma’s coat-tails ten —twenty— years hence. And then I walked in on Norma making her poison-pen phone call, all honey-sweet: “Oh, Miss Schaefer, there’s something you really ought to hear...”

Right then the dream was done, and I knew it. I couldn’t let Betty throw away her future on someone like me; I couldn’t go on even one more day with Norma. Betty was smart, and whatever I tried to tell her she’d sooner or later work out the truth.

So I gave her the juicy detail, as ugly as I could make it. I sent her away as far and fast as I could, back to Artie and the safest haven I knew.

It wasn’t pretty. I guess I’d deserved it. She hadn’t.

Betty, if ever you think of me— I don’t want you wasting a moment’s pity on me, or regret. You made the right choice when you ran from that house and the perfect life I showed you. Believe me that shallow, and it’ll hurt less. Goodbye, kid. Goodbye.

And Norma... well, I gave her the truth. It was more than anyone else had, and she’d been good to me in her way; I owed her that much. I had to get out of that make-believe world of hers before it drove me crazy, and maybe there was a chance I could pull her out too.

She’s got her health, she’s got money — she’s got Max, God help them both. She could still do a lot with her life. It doesn’t have to be a tragedy when you turn fifty... unless your whole world depends on being twenty forever.

But before I’d finished my spiel old Max grabbed me and frog-marched me out, and it was Dayton, Ohio, for yours truly. I tried to tell him to take care of her, but he cut me off. I guess it went without saying.

Max and Norma. Betty and Artie. And me... I get to face myself in the mornings again.

I have to admit it’s not much. But it was the best I could do.

---

The headlines never made it out to Dayton.

The vultures arrived at dawn: flashing lights, photographers. But there was no big story, and presently they drifted away, disappointed.

An inch or two on the inner page, the editors judged, or maybe an aside in the gossip column. Norma Desmond hadn’t made a picture in twenty years, and that stony-faced butler of hers wasn’t talking. The end of her career wasn’t so much news as a period put to the epilogue of an aftermath.

~o~

“Max!”

The Schaefer girl had gone. The empty halls still held the echo of tears and upbraiding where Norma Desmond in turn had fought to keep her lover, but he was gone. They were all gone. Everything was gone.

“Max — Max! He mustn’t leave. You have to stop him. I won’t allow it. Do you hear me? Max? Max...”

There was no response. Nothing in the whole great house save the sigh of the wind in the organ and the clatter of her own hasty footsteps. On the distant road, headlights flashed out for a moment, passed, and left no trace behind.

“I can’t be alone. You know that.” Her breath was coming faster now. Joe Gillis had left her. He had said terrible things, things she could not even think about, that hung over her like a great wave poised to fall. Salome was the part she was born to play. She could see it all so clearly, every turn of the head, every flash of the eye, every sultry glance, every scene and close-up. De Mille would see that too. He would see that the script into which she had poured her heart was not— that she was not—

The unspeakable loomed, and she thrust it back. “Joe, Joe, say it’s not true. They want me — they’ll always want me. You want me, don’t you, darling? It was just a quarrel, just a silly tiff with your Norma-poppet who loves you so very much, yes she does...”

She caught sight of herself in a photo-frame, a cruel glimpse of reflection thrown back by the glass, snatched it up with a sob, and hurled the whole thing to smash in the fireplace. The raddled reflection mocked back in memory, its powder caked and cracking above slackened jowls and its eyes white-ringed and staring beneath a raccoon-mask of kohl.

Was that what he saw? Was that why he’d packed up his shabby cases and turned to go? She hadn’t loved him then, she had hated him— hated him—

The shape of the revolver was hard in her purse. One hand had slipped down and was clenched around it.

Max had been afraid she would use it, she knew that. Perhaps Joe had been afraid — that was funny. Perhaps poor little Joe Gillis had run away from big bad Norma...

A laugh escaped her like a sob, and then another, until it was beyond her control, in hysterical peals that echoed and filled her with terror. She turned to run and twisted a heel, crying out at the stab of pain.

She had to get out — out of this place and its blind watching eyes, from the photo curling in the grate to the huge oil portrait on the stair. That was Norma Desmond, and that was Norma Desmond, and that was Norma Desmond... all of them Norma, all of them beautiful, unmoving and serene, and if they were Norma, then who —who— was she?

“Max. Max!” She could not be alone like this. He could not leave her alone.

She hated Joe. She would have killed him. Why had Max taken him away? Why had Max gone?

Only Max— it was Max who had written those letters. She remembered now. Joe had said it. They were all gone, all her fans. All the letters, they were all lies. And hadn’t she known, hadn’t she seen the writing on the envelopes, hadn’t she understood all along how old those crumbling sheets of paper were?

Max had deceived her. Had been deceiving her for years. And hadn’t she let herself live that lie — refused to let herself see, because the truth was too impossible, too grotesque to bear?

Sobbing now, she stumbled from the house, into the balmy summer dark. High above her, blurred by tears, stars winked in the sky. One went out.

Her hand tightened on the gun; brought it up with a jerk. If you were not a star, you were nothing. She, Norma Desmond, was a star. She was the greatest star of all.

~o~

One foot gave way and slipped sideways as the shot rang out. When the big car drew up and Max came running, thirty minutes later, there was nothing but a mass of draperies, face-down in the pool.