Because I've already put him to the test. He's read some of your work—I passed it off as mine, of course— and he never suspected a thing.
So-o-o. Hmmm. You don't miss a trick, do you?
If you'd like to know, he was extremely interested. Said there was no doubt I had talent. He was going to show the pages to a publisher friend of his. Does that satisfy you?
But a novel ... do you honestly think I can write a novel?
Why not? You can do anything you put your mind to. It doesn't have to be a conventional novel. All he's concerned about is to discover if I have stick-to-it-iveness. He says I'm erratic, unstable, capricious.
By the way, I put in, does he know where we ... I mean you.... live?
Of course not! Do you think I'm crazy? I told him I'm living with my mother and that she's an invalid.
What does he do for a living?
He's in the fur business, I think. As she was giving me this answer I was thinking how interesting it would be to know how she became acquainted with him and even more, how she had managed to progress so far in such a short time. But to such queries I would only receive the moon is made of green cheese replies.
He also plays the stock market, she added. He probably has a number of irons in the fire.
So he thinks you're a single woman living with an invalid mother?
I told him I had been married and divorced. I gave him my stage name.
Sounds like you've got it all sewed up. Well, at least you won't have to be running around nights, will you?
To which she replied: He's like you, he hates the Village and all that bohemian nonsense. Seriously, Val, he's a person of some culture. He's passionate about music, for one thing. He once played the violin, I believe.
Yeah? And what do you call him, this old geezer?
Pop.
Pop?
Yes, just Pop.
How old is he ... about?
Oh, fiftyish, I suppose.
That's not so very old, is it?
No-o-o. But he's settled in his ways. He seems older.
Well, I said, by way of closing the subject, it's all highly interesting. Who knows, maybe it will lead to something. Let's go for a walk, what do you say?
Certainly, she said. Anything you like.
Anything you like. That was an expression I hadn't heard from her lips in many a moon. Had the trip to Europe worked a magical change? Or was there something cooking that she wasn't ready to tell about just yet? I wasn't eager to cultivate doubts. But there was the past with all its tell tale scars. This proposition of Pop's now—it all seemed above board, genuine. And obviously entered into for my sake, not hers. What if it did give her a thrill to be taken for a writer instead of an actress? She was doing it to get me started. It was her way of solving my problem.
There was one aspect of the situation which intrigued me vastly. I got hep to it later, on hearing her report certain conversations which she had had with Pop. Conversations dealing with her work. Pop was not altogether a fool, apparently. He would ask questions. Difficult ones sometimes. And she, not being a writer, could hardly be expected to know that, faced with a direct question—Why did you say this?—the answer might well be: I don't know. Thinking that she should know, she would give the most amazing explanations, explanations which a writer might be proud of had he the wits to think that fast. Pop relished these responses. After all, he was no writer either.
Tell me more! I would say.
And she would, though much of it was probably fictive. I would sit back and roar with laughter. Once I was so delighted that I remarked—How do you know you might not also be a writer?
Oh no, Val, not me. I'll never be a writer. I'm an actress, nothing more.
You mean you're a fake?
I mean I have no real talent for anything.
You didn't always think that way, I said, somewhat pained to have forced such an admission from her.
I did too! she flashed. I became an actress ... or rather I went on the stage ... only to prove to my parents that I was more than they thought me to be. I didn't really love the theatre. I was terrified every time I accepted a role. I felt like a cheat. When I say I'm an actress I mean that I'm always making believe. I'm not a real actress, you know that. Don't you always see through me? You see through everything that's false or pretentious. I wonder sometimes how you can bear to live with me. Honestly I do...
Strange talk, from her lips. Even now, in being so honest, so sincere, she was acting. She was making believe now that she was only a make believer. Like so many women with histrionic talent, when her real self was in question she either belittled herself or magnified herself.
She could only be natural when she wished to make an impression on some one. It was her way of disarming the adversary.
What I wouldn't have given to overhear some of these conversations with Pop! Particularly when they
