“What’s your point?”
“I don’t know what the point is,” she said softly. “I guess that’s the problem in a nutshell, isn’t it? I don’t know what the point is.” She stared into middle distance for a while. “You’ll be fine, Todd,” she said finally. “Things will work out better without me, you’ll see. I’ll find someone to take care of you, Eppstadt’ll find a movie for you, and you’ll be back in front of the cameras in a few months, looking perfect. If that’s what you want.”
“Why wouldn’t I want that?” he said to her.
She looked at him wearily. “Maybe because none of it’s worth a damn.”
He knew he had a riposte for that; he just couldn’t figure out what it was at that particular moment. And while he was trying to figure it out, Maxine turned her back on him and walked out.
He let her go. What was the use of a feud? That was for the lawyers. Besides, he had more urgent business than trading insults with her. He had to find Katya.
The afternoon sun was not just warm, it was hot, and the foliage was busy with hungry hummingbirds and the canyon was quiet and perfect. He threaded his way through the overgrown bushes, past the tennis courts and the antique sundial, up towards the guest-house. The gradient became quite steep after a time, the narrow steps decayed by time and neglect, so that in some spots they’d collapsed completely. After a while, he realized the path had divided at some earlier point, and that he’d taken the wrong turning. The mistake took him on a picturesque tour of the gardens’ hidden places, bringing him first to a small grove of walnut trees, in the middle of which stood a large gazebo in an advanced state of disrepair, and then into a garden within a garden, bounded by an unkempt privet hedge. Here there were roses, or rather the remains of last year’s blooms, the bushes fighting for space, and strangling each other in the process. There was no way through the thorny tangle to pick up the path on the other side, so he was obliged to try and get around the garden from the outside, staying close to the hedge. It was difficult to do. Though the plants he was striding through didn’t have thorns, they were still unruly and wild; twigs and dead flowers scraped at his face, his shirt was quickly soiled, his sneakers filled with stony dirt. By the time he got to the other side of the garden, and took to the path again, he was short of breath and patience; and had two dozen little nicks and scratches to call his own.
His wanderings had brought him to a spot that offered a spectacular view. He could see the big house below him surrounded by palms and Birds of Paradise; he could see the baroque weathervane on the top of the gazebo he’d passed on his way here, and the orchid house, which he had come upon on one of his earlier trips around the garden. All this, bathed in clear warm California light; the crystalline light which had brought filmmakers here almost a century before. Not for the first time since coming to the house he had a pleasurable sense of history; and a measure of curiosity as to the people who might once have walked here, talked here. What ambitions had they plotted, as they ambled through these gardens? Had they been sophisticates, or simpletons? What little he knew about Old Hollywood he’d heard from Jerry Brahms, which meant he’d only ever really been half-listening. But he knew enough to be certain those times had been good, at least for a man like himself. Douglas Fairbanks and Rudolph Valentino, Charlie Chaplin, the Barrymore clan, and all the rest had been like royalty, lording it over their new dominion in the West. A bean-counting prick like Eppstadt — with his demographics and his endless corporate maneuvering — would have had no power in the world this canyon still preserved.
Having caught his breath, he now continued his ascent. The shrubbery became denser the closer he got to the guest-house. He would have needed a machete to hack through it efficiently; but, lacking one, had to do with a branch he picked up on his way. The flowers gave up their perfume as he beat his way through them, and he recognized their scent. It was her scent. The scent on Katya’s skin. Did she walk naked amongst them, he wondered, pressing the flowers against her body? Now that would be a sight to see.