fortune (artistically, it would have to be immense) with indifference
as to its source. Once assured it was really hers, all hers, she could possibly
slip into the part without difficulty, settling her family and friends,
escaping from them (paying off her husband if she had one), starting a new
life.
Or, she
could be forever curious, never at ease. She could possibly start a search, so
that the anonymous benefactor was the subject of a long pursuit; he would be
perpetually in flight, always very nearly caught, but not quite. (Until,
perhaps, the end.) The hamburger girl could employ the most expensive detectives,
a computerised network of clue-hunters, infallible, international. How does
one give away a virtual financial empire (it had to be an empire) without
detection? Tom was seized with nostalgia for that hospital-dream of his when,
under the influence of drugs and injections, he had thought calmly of murdering
Claire so that he could inherit her money and settle it on the hamburger girl.
(But even then he had known that Claire’s considerable fortune was not enough,
artistically.)
Suppose
he should now say to his wife: ‘Claire, I need X millions to give away to a
girl as an experiment,’ what would she do? It would be like her answer to his
request for the Sèvres dinner plates in order to break them in a mood of
exasperation. She had sent to his room a pile of plates from the supermarket,
absolutely useless for his purpose. It would be like that. Instead of X
millions for his experiment Claire would, perhaps, suggest a few, some X
hundreds; interesting, but another story altogether, a mere kindly act, not at
all to the point. What he needed was all Claire’s millions, every last million.
Now the
hamburger girl of his dreams would naturally mistake the motive of the donor.
She would imagine that her personal attractions were what the anonymous
multi-millionaire had ‘taken a fancy’ to. She would probably look at herself in
the mirror and see a beauty, whereas she was not a beauty, only a fairly
presentable slim young girl cooking hamburgers. Would she tell all her friends?
Or only some of her friends? The fiscal problem — would capital gains come into
it? The legal question, all to be settled, her great fears allayed. The
hamburger girl might feel she would one day have to pay in some sexual terms
and might come to a near-breakdown deciding whether to give up the fortune or
fight the case — but what ‘case’?
She
might become very stingy, a miser, imagining that everyone was after her money.
Everyone might well be after her money, especially her family, her men friends.
The girl on the campsite wore no wedding ring. She did not appear to be a
married girl. She might, with enormous wealth, make a good social marriage. She
could find a bon parti who would arrange for her to have driving lessons
and learn to speak English (for she was still a French girl on that campsite).
She could afford to pay off endless fortune-hunters till she found the right
one, if ever.
‘Do you
think,’ said Tom to Dave, ‘that she would know what to do with that sort of
money? Would she ever learn?’
‘It
depends on the girl,’ Dave said. ‘It seems to me you’ve forgotten that the girl
has a character, a personality, already functioning before you saw her dishing
out hamburgers. She was already a person. It depends on her what she would do.’
‘The
charm of this girl is that she has no history,’ Tom said.
‘Then
she isn’t real.’
‘No,
she’s not real. Not yet.’
Like
a patient etherised upon a table;…
Rose Woodstock, the
actress who had been persuaded in the film to play the part of the rich and
eccentric benefactor’s girl-friend, had not improved, not greatly, in the act
of receiving a present. Tom accepted the last few pictures of her taking and
opening a box containing a necklace. Her hand did tremble a little more than it
had done at first, but Tom saw that this was as far as he could get
as to its source. Once assured it was really hers, all hers, she could possibly
slip into the part without difficulty, settling her family and friends,
escaping from them (paying off her husband if she had one), starting a new
life.
Or, she
could be forever curious, never at ease. She could possibly start a search, so
that the anonymous benefactor was the subject of a long pursuit; he would be
perpetually in flight, always very nearly caught, but not quite. (Until,
perhaps, the end.) The hamburger girl could employ the most expensive detectives,
a computerised network of clue-hunters, infallible, international. How does
one give away a virtual financial empire (it had to be an empire) without
detection? Tom was seized with nostalgia for that hospital-dream of his when,
under the influence of drugs and injections, he had thought calmly of murdering
Claire so that he could inherit her money and settle it on the hamburger girl.
(But even then he had known that Claire’s considerable fortune was not enough,
artistically.)
Suppose
he should now say to his wife: ‘Claire, I need X millions to give away to a
girl as an experiment,’ what would she do? It would be like her answer to his
request for the Sèvres dinner plates in order to break them in a mood of
exasperation. She had sent to his room a pile of plates from the supermarket,
absolutely useless for his purpose. It would be like that. Instead of X
millions for his experiment Claire would, perhaps, suggest a few, some X
hundreds; interesting, but another story altogether, a mere kindly act, not at
all to the point. What he needed was all Claire’s millions, every last million.
Now the
hamburger girl of his dreams would naturally mistake the motive of the donor.
She would imagine that her personal attractions were what the anonymous
multi-millionaire had ‘taken a fancy’ to. She would probably look at herself in
the mirror and see a beauty, whereas she was not a beauty, only a fairly
presentable slim young girl cooking hamburgers. Would she tell all her friends?
Or only some of her friends? The fiscal problem — would capital gains come into
it? The legal question, all to be settled, her great fears allayed. The
hamburger girl might feel she would one day have to pay in some sexual terms
and might come to a near-breakdown deciding whether to give up the fortune or
fight the case — but what ‘case’?
She
might become very stingy, a miser, imagining that everyone was after her money.
Everyone might well be after her money, especially her family, her men friends.
The girl on the campsite wore no wedding ring. She did not appear to be a
married girl. She might, with enormous wealth, make a good social marriage. She
could find a bon parti who would arrange for her to have driving lessons
and learn to speak English (for she was still a French girl on that campsite).
She could afford to pay off endless fortune-hunters till she found the right
one, if ever.
‘Do you
think,’ said Tom to Dave, ‘that she would know what to do with that sort of
money? Would she ever learn?’
‘It
depends on the girl,’ Dave said. ‘It seems to me you’ve forgotten that the girl
has a character, a personality, already functioning before you saw her dishing
out hamburgers. She was already a person. It depends on her what she would do.’
‘The
charm of this girl is that she has no history,’ Tom said.
‘Then
she isn’t real.’
‘No,
she’s not real. Not yet.’
Like
a patient etherised upon a table;…
Rose Woodstock, the
actress who had been persuaded in the film to play the part of the rich and
eccentric benefactor’s girl-friend, had not improved, not greatly, in the act
of receiving a present. Tom accepted the last few pictures of her taking and
opening a box containing a necklace. Her hand did tremble a little more than it
had done at first, but Tom saw that this was as far as he could get
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