Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [43]
“Val, I’ve decided to write the screenplay away from the house.”
“If you want to work at the studio, that’s okay with me. I’m going to miss having you around.”
“I mean I want to go off and write it.”
“Holy mackerel, Amos, this is a little sudden.”
“For you, not for me. I’ve been stewing over it for weeks.”
“Good Lord, Gideon, you can’t do a thing for yourself. You’re helpless.”
“I know. A lot of things have piled up. The closet needs a cleaning out.”
She was getting my drift that I wasn’t going to change my mind. She shrugged and loosened my leash a bit, but still held firmly. “So, write in Malibu. I can spend most nights with you and we can have the girls on the weekend. Say, it might be fun, after all.”
“Val, I’m going to the Caribbean. Alone.”
I don’t think she ever expected to hear me say anything like that. Val always had the trump card, my fear of loneliness. When backed into a corner, she never hesitated to use it. It had never failed to work.
“I realize we all need space but being a writer doesn’t give you license to abandon your family and home. God, you make me feel I’ve driven you out. It’s that damned book, The Tenderloin.”
“It’s not you, not the girls, not the studios, not Los Angeles. It’s me. Gideon Zadok is treading water. I thought we had given up so much to do the first book, the rest of the way would be covered with rose petals.”
“That bastard Murphy put you up to this.”
“Nobody put me up to anything. I cried for mercy. I’m lost, Val. Murphy understood. Becoming a true novelist means that I’ve got to be prepared to give up much more than I’ve given up till now. I have to do what is necessary to become a writer again who can look at his face in the mirror without cringing. As for now, Val, I’m going wherever my work takes me. If you and the girls can come, wonderful. If I have to go it alone, that’s what I’m going to do.”
She must have been numbed. I could hardly believe these words were coming from my mouth.
“I may fall flat on my face. I may not have the stuff. But I’m not going out without protest. I’m going to write another book, baby, and I’m going to give it everything I’ve got.”
We were consumed by deadly, black silence.
“You’re cruel! You’re rotten! You selfish son of a bitch.”
She hadn’t heard a bloody word! She felt nothing I was pleading for! Val flung her glass. It skidded over the patio. Glad it was plastic. She stood over me heaving her chest and locking her teeth.
“Why don’t you enroll in art school?” I said with all the meanness I could muster.
“What about me!” she cried. “What about me?” I asked.
ALPACA SWEATERS with muttonchop sleeves were the costume of the moment. Schlosberg wore a tan alpaca, Sal a blaring red, and I had on a white one to indicate chastity, modesty, and virtue.
Schlosberg lit a cigar that seemed half his size and he hung on my every word. We seemed to be of a single mind as to where we were taking the story but something was annoying him. I smelled that he had not totally made up his mind. “Up front?” he asked when I had finished.
Oh God, here it comes, the goodbye kiss.
“Of course,” I said.
“I like some of your work, Zadok. I like most of what you said here today. Now, I’ve always treated my writers as adults, until they prove otherwise. I was the first producer in Hollywood to permit writers to work at home. If home be Santa Barbara or New York. I’ve even let a couple of the Englishmen work in London. As long as we can stay in communication. But Sal tells me you want to write this in ... uh ...”
“St. Barthélemy.”
“Why?”
“Up front? The house of Zadok is tottering. But mainly, I believe it’s going to make the script better.”
“Are you fucking me over, Zadok? Why is it going to make the script better?”
“I want to create an atmosphere where I can achieve total, absolute concentration. This is going to be a great script.”
“Nine out of ten scripts bomb. Who do you think you are?”
We had worked out a flat deal. I would write a screenplay for fifty thousand dollars and I would be paid—good, bad, or mediocre.