‘In real life, I’m a goddamned coward. All of that war hero stuff in the movie – it’s a joke.’
‘Ah,’ Hal says. ‘I was in the war. I don’t think anyone was as heroic as they make out in the movies. You aren’t alone.’
‘But I wimped out.’
Desertion, Hal thinks. Still a word never spoken aloud. He didn’t come across it much – mainly because of the practical difficulties of escaping a ship at sea. But there were tales of men never returning to base after leave: and of the retribution that could follow.
‘I got out of the draft, on a medical.’
‘Oh,’ Hal says. ‘Well, you can’t blame yourself for that.’
‘A false medical.’
‘How?’
‘The studio head. He got some quack to sign whatever he told him on the form, so long as it kept me out of service. Told me that what he paid the guy would put one of his kids through college. Blood pressure problems, that was what went on the form. Though I’d always been healthy as an ox. Sure I’ve got those problems now – probably a whole heap of other ones besides.
‘But the studio head, he told me that I could do more good for my country by staying home and making movies. Morale. I knew it was bull. But it worked for me: I didn’t want to go fight in Europe, in some other people’s war, maybe get killed. So I agreed.’
‘You know,’ Hal says, carefully, ‘there are many men who, if they’d been given that chance, would have taken it.’
‘My little brother, though,’ Morgan says.
‘What do you mean?’
‘He didn’t have a studio head, or a paid-up doc. He worked our pa’s old farm – would never take anything I offered him. He was shipped off to the Philippines.’
‘He was … killed?’
Morgan shakes his head. ‘Had his legs destroyed. He’s a cripple now.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘You know what my ma said, when I went to visit?’
‘What?’
‘“It should have been you.” She come up to me, and she said, quiet and calm, “It should have been you. Never set foot in this house again.”’
‘That’s—’
‘She was right.’
‘You believe that if you’d been out there too, you would have been able to protect him? They might have sent you two to different continents.’
‘I don’t know,’ Morgan says, wretchedly. ‘Might have been that we’d have been – you know – exchanged.’
‘Exchanged? Fate, you mean?’
Morgan nods. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think,’ Hal says, ‘that I know a lot of men who believed in Fate, almost above all else, and who did all they could to appease it – and it did nothing for them. The same for God, for luck – for any sort of superstition.
‘There’s something I’ve learned, recently,’ he says. ‘Something someone told me.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Things happen. And they happen whether or not we’re there to influence them. And we can either let them eat away at us, and destroy us. Or we can go on living. Sometimes that is braver.’
He watches Morgan. He can’t be certain that he has got through to the man. So difficult to tell, with someone who makes a living through pretence. A funny thing has happened, though. As he was saying it, he began to believe it himself.
37
Cannes
They arrive late that afternoon. Cannes itself is almost entirely obscured from view by the shoal of boats in its harbour. There are crafts of all sizes: other sailing yachts, hulking motor boats, tenders, even the odd dinghy dwarfed by the larger crafts. Hal sees the passengers of other crafts turn to look at the yacht as it passes, their speed now slowed to a crawl to navigate the throng. It remains, despite the array of competition, still the most beautiful of all. As they draw nearer to the shore he can make out a phalanx of beach umbrellas along the Croisette, and the vast, shifting crowds of people who mill among them. It is a heartening sight. Among such chaos one might easily disappear.
He retreats below deck. Passing through the bar he stumbles upon Aubrey, smoking furiously on a cigarette.
‘They’re still there?’ he asks Hal, squinting up at him. ‘The idiot photographers?’
‘Yes – I’m afraid there are more, in fact. Another boat arrived as I was coming down here.’
‘Oh for goodness’ sake. I mean … how ridiculous. I had to remove myself – they make me too angry to look at.’ Then he looks up at Hal, a little slyly.
‘Tell me – what happened last night, exactly?’
‘Oh,’ says Hal, evasive. ‘Morgan got himself in some trouble.’