Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler [22]
Early one afternoon, maybe ten days into our collaboration, I phoned again and again, but no one answered. “She told me she’d be home tonight. I don’t understand.”
“We’re supposed to be working here.”
“She’s a terrible driver. And they had freezing rain there this morning. What if she’s been in an accident?”
“She’s gone to a movie. Or dinner with friends. Now let’s get some work done here.”
It was five a.m., London time, before somebody picked up her phone. I recognized the voice at once. “McIver, you bastard, what in the hell are you doing there?”
“Who is this?”
“Barney Panofsky is who, and I want to speak to Miriam at once.”
Laughter in the background. The clinking of glasses. Finally, she came to the phone. “My God, Barney, why are you still up at this hour?”
“You have no idea how worried I’ve been. You told me you’d be in tonight.”
“It’s Larry Keefer’s birthday. We all went out to dinner and I invited everybody back here for a nightcap.”
“I must have called ten times. Why haven’t you called me?”
“Because I assumed you’d be asleep by now.”
“How come McIver’s there?”
“He’s an old friend of Larry’s.”
“You’re not to believe a word he says about me. He’s a pathological liar.”
“Barney, I’ve got a room full of guests here, and this is getting to be very embarrassing. Go to sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“But I —”
“Sorry,” she said, her voice hardening. “I forgot. How could I? Chicago beat Detroit three–two tonight. Bobby Hull scored twice. So the series is tied now.”
“That’s not why I called. I don’t care about that. It’s you I —”
“Good night,” she said, hanging up.
I considered waiting a couple of hours and then calling back, ostensibly to apologize but actually to make sure she was alone now. Fortunately, on reflection, I dismissed this as a bad idea. But I was in a rage, all the same. How that prick McIver must have enjoyed himself! “You mean he calls you from London for the hockey scores? Amazing.”
Flush or broke, Hymie lived like royalty. So just about every night we dined at The Caprice, The Mirabelle, or The White Elephant. Providing it was only the two of us, Hymie was the most engaging of companions, a born raconteur, charming beyond compare. But if there was a visiting Hollywood biggie at the next table, he was instantly transmogrified into a supplicant, who would tell one obviously irritated oaf how exciting it would be to work with him, and another that his last, unappreciated film was actually a production of genius. “And I’m not saying that just because you’re here.”
A couple of days before Miriam was due to fly into London at last, I made the mistake of trying to have a serious conversation with Hymie. “She’s very sensitive, so I want you to make an effort not to be vulgar.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“And your latest ‘discovery,’ that idiot Diana, is certainly not joining us for dinner while Miriam’s here.”
“Say we’re in a restaurant, and I have to go and make weewee, do I put up my hand to ask permission?”
“And none of your prurient Hollywood gossip, please. It would bore the hell out of her.”
I needn’t have been apprehensive about Miriam meeting Hymie. She adored him at first sight, dinner at The White Elephant. He made her giggle harder than I ever had, that bastard. He got her to blush. And, to my amazement, she couldn’t get enough of his salacious stories about Bette Davis, Bogie, or Orson. There I was, mooning over my loved one, my smile goofy in her presence, but definitely de trop.
“He told me you were intelligent,