I Could Go on Singing Read Free Page A

at?”
    “I can assume, can I not, that when you and Jenny were in love, you did not keep important secrets from each other?”
    “I kept none from her. I can’t vouch for her, of course.”
    “But she told you she had a child?”
    “Whatever she told me, Sid, was in confidence.”
    “I see that she did tell you. A few of us, a very few of us, believe me, in the industry know about this. She was a valuable property even then, you understand. Thirteen years ago. That’s how old the boy is now. We hushed it up perfectly. An old scandal, Jason. Dead and buried you would say. But a boy lives. He grows. Her only issue. And the years add importance to such a thing.” Suddenly he slapped the script so loudly that Jason Brown jumped. “Do you think she can do this part?”
    “Y-Yes.”
    “Do you think she should do this part?”
    “Yes, I do, but …”
    “Let me finish. Please. In all these years of tours, she has never entered England. Why not? The boy is there. His father is there. Old wounds. Jenny Bowman is just beginning a tour. That is her business. We keep her on a sustaining contract, small money, plux
X
dollars per picture plus percentage, and a minimum of one every two years. She owes us this picture. We want her for it. The arrangement was that she would come back here after the tour and we would get into it. George Kogan arranged this tour. Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Rome, Israel. Presenting Jenny Bowman. Fine. A month ago I heard a rumor she would open the tour in London. I was astonished, Jason. I was apprehensive. To ease my mind I called certain contacts in New York. I thought that perhaps it was some inescapable booking arrangement. But no. I found that the London engagement was at the
insistence
of Jenny Bowman. And I found that she has been more than normally difficult of late. Moody. Too gay or too depressed. I am a pessimistic man, Jason. If there is any way for things to go wrong, they very probably will. It is the rule I follow. Suppose, in her emotional state, she wants to see the boy, and the boy’s father after all these years. The British press is merciless. It is savage. It rends and destroys. It could destroy her. Would you say she is in potential trouble, Jason Brown?”
    “Yes. But …”
    “It is a nervous habit with you, Jason, to say yes and then say but. There is affection between you. She trusts you. And you know no good can come of stirring up something which happened over thirteen years ago. She is vulnerable now. With you to steady her, and the script to remind her of what she might lose …”
    “And what the studio might lose, Sid.”
    “Careers have survived strange things, but thus far no one has tested the survival aspects of public knowledge of a bastard child.”
    “But the father adopted him, didn’t he?”
    “It would be placed in the worst possible light by the press.”
    Jason thought for a moment. “So you hired me on the remote chance I might be able to yank your chestnuts out of the fire, Sid. If I can, it is cheap insurance. You’ve been complimenting me on my integrity. Don’t you think I have too much integrity to use an old and valued relationship like that, to go meddle in her life to save the studio a property?”
    Wegler shrugged and smiled. “Jason, I could try to be subtle with you, but you have been in the business too long. This is a simple thing, is it not? You have been hired to work on a script. There is a way I want you to work on that script. You can refuse. There is a clause in the contract covering such eventualities, and it is covered in the studio agreement with the Screenwriters’ Guild.”
    The trap had snapped so loudly Jason was startled by the sound of the sharp teeth. He saw himself unemployed and virtually unemployable. He looked blankly at Sidney Wegler and said hollowly, “Why you son of a bitch!”
    Wegler shook his head sadly. “As I told you, things like this make me feel shabby. This is Friday. She opens in London Sunday