The Irresistible Henry House Part 34

"I don't know," Chris said. "Something about a submarine."

3.

All You Need Is Love Henry got the job by mail and by necessity: It turned out that Yellow Submarine Yellow Submarine had to be completed in only ten months' time, and animators were being hauled in from all over Europe as well as from the States. The key requirements seemed to be a willingness to work hard and a willingness to accept chaos. Even Joe Hinton, the hiring producer, made it clear to Henry from the start that no one in London had the vaguest idea what was going on. had to be completed in only ten months' time, and animators were being hauled in from all over Europe as well as from the States. The key requirements seemed to be a willingness to work hard and a willingness to accept chaos. Even Joe Hinton, the hiring producer, made it clear to Henry from the start that no one in London had the vaguest idea what was going on.

Henry had money saved and was perfectly prepared to pay Peace's way, but her parents had apparently liked his clean-cut, fine-young-man look and had been moved by his words at the funeral. In any case, they decided that Peace going with Henry was preferable to Peace disappearing again. They paid for her ticket and sent her with cash.

"They called you that nice son of that nice woman," Peace told him when she returned his phone call in June to say that she could come.

She expressed no fear, no apprehension. The only doubt she acknowledged was about how long she would want to stay.

"I like to move around a lot," she told Henry.

"You said that before. You said it that first night in the practice house."

"So?"

"So it's fine," Henry said. "I move around too. Maybe we'll move around together."

He knew she was talking about a habit that was more than geographical. He was too. But he wanted, with absolute urgency, to be anch.o.r.ed, or at least tethered, and there was something in Peace-perhaps the surprise of their shared past, or how he imagined it might connect them-that gave him reason to think she was the one to whom he should be tied.

"Dear Miss Fancy," he wrote to Mary Jane on a homemade postcard with an outlaw drawing of Mickey Mouse wearing paisley shorts instead of the usual red ones.

Well, chick, I'm leaving. These boots, as the song says, are made for walking. I got a job in London, and it's too good to pa.s.s up. I'm sorry I won't be around to see your graduation, but I figure there's an equal chance you'll burn the place down before then anyway. I got a job in London, and it's too good to pa.s.s up. I'm sorry I won't be around to see your graduation, but I figure there's an equal chance you'll burn the place down before then anyway. I'll let you know when I know where we'll be living. I'll let you know when I know where we'll be living. Meanwhile, raise your hand if you're happy for me. Meanwhile, raise your hand if you're happy for me.

And he drew a tiny picture of himself with a hand in the air. His only reference to Peace was the p.r.o.noun we. we.

Henry sublet his Tuxedo apartment to Chris in exchange for the promise that Chris would send some boxes to London once Henry had gotten settled. Two days later, he met Peace at Grand Central. She was carrying three suitcases and wearing a flowered hat, bright pink lipstick, and red velvet pants. She kissed and hugged him exuberantly. All the way to the airport, he found himself eagerly trying on the same p.r.o.noun he had used in his postcard to Mary Jane, the p.r.o.noun that this journey abroad would include: We'll live; we'll find; we'll work; we'll spend; we'll go. We'll live; we'll find; we'll work; we'll spend; we'll go.

THE STUDIO WAS IN SOHO SQUARE, where buildings were painted with huge Day-Glo flowers and shop doors were curtained by strings of beads. Several hundred people shared an enormous suite of mismatched rooms, with the usual clutter of storyboards, character sketches, color palettes, and clay models. But, at least on the day Henry arrived, there was nothing approaching a working script. All anyone seemed to know was that the story would somehow evolve from the Beatles' songs and that the Beatles themselves would have virtually nothing to do with the film. Yellow Submarine Yellow Submarine had not been their idea. They had been signed to a three-movie deal years before, and now, in the mania of their had not been their idea. They had been signed to a three-movie deal years before, and now, in the mania of their Sgt. Pepper Sgt. Pepper popularity, animation seemed the only way to make a movie with them in it. Even their voices would not be their own but would be supplied by actors. On the mild June day when Henry arrived at the Soho studio, the closest things to actual Beatles were four life-size cutouts of their animated characters. popularity, animation seemed the only way to make a movie with them in it. Even their voices would not be their own but would be supplied by actors. On the mild June day when Henry arrived at the Soho studio, the closest things to actual Beatles were four life-size cutouts of their animated characters.

Joe Hinton showed Henry to an empty spot at one of three long tables that could accommodate ten or twelve artists each. With the tables and the low ceiling, the place felt a little bit like a lunchroom; the sensation was reinforced by the Ringo and John cutouts, poised like waiters behind the artists' chairs.

Henry gathered pens and pencils from a communal supply cart. He turned on his desk lamp. He brushed old eraser dust from the corners of his drawing board. All the while he kept glancing at, then away from, then back to, the cutout Beatles.

"Odd, isn't it?" the woman across from him said.

"Excuse me?"

"Odd, to have them here. Without the usual mob scene, I mean."

Henry laughed. "I'm Henry," he said.

Her name was Victoria Green. She was British, married, thirty-five, and had two children, she said.

She asked his age and where he was from. There was something frank and open about her.

"So you're the Disney boy," she said. "Got tired of Mickey Mousing around?"

Joe Hinton came back with a character sheet.

"I guess I should get to work," Henry said. He sat on the rolling chair and tucked his feet onto the tops of the wheels. He looked back up at Ringo and John.

Victoria exhaled her cigarette smoke, then waved it away with a wedding-ringed hand. She glanced over her shoulder and smirked. She said: "One piece of advice. Watch out for John. He'll talk your ear off."

HENRY HAD LEFT PEACE that morning with a map and a newspaper, and they had agreed to meet at six at the Piccadilly station. She was grinning when he emerged from the dark, deep tunnel into the bright summer evening. He had not intended her to make a decision without him, but her enthusiasm was captivating, and the flat she had chosen for them was, like her, both cheerful and surprisingly practical.

The flat was in Rose Street, a tiny lane closer to the theater district than to Soho Square, but just a block from the Tube, or a fifteen-minute walk to the studio. In the bas.e.m.e.nt of an old row house, the place was funky in a way that Henry liked immediately. The walls were painted dark green on the bottom and light blue on top, the rudimentary backdrop of a landscape without foliage. It reminded Henry of his practice house closet walls, and he knew that he would paint it someday, but he had no idea with what.

The previous tenants had taken it upon themselves to label the main objects in the place, so that the words SHOWER and SINK had been painted onto the bathroom walls, and, in the main room, the words BED, DESK, and DRESSER floated helpfully under the ceiling. There was a tiny stove, no larger than the ones Henry had had at the Tuxedo, and a sink with a tattered skirt covering its legs. He felt he was finally home.

Then they started to unpack, and soon Peace took out her knitting-explosive pink and orange yarns in long, thick rows; she was using enormous knitting needles as thick as turkey basters.

"Where'd you learn to knit?" he asked her.

She shrugged. "I don't know," she said.

It was one of a dozen things she did unusually well, with surprising confidence, although it would not take Henry long to realize that her talent for picking things up was not matched by an equal talent for finishing them.

"Aren't you going to unpack the rest?" he asked her.

"Eventually."

"Eventually when?"

"Come here, Hen," she said. "Let's test the bed."

FOR ALL HIS PRECOCIOUS EXPERIENCE, Henry had never lived with a girlfriend before. Every aspect of it was exotic, from selecting a single toothpaste brand to negotiating the height of the shower curtain rod. On their first weekend in London, Henry and Peace went to King's Road and bought an Indian-print bedspread, sheets, towels, pillows, paper lanterns, a secondhand radio, and a secondhand color TV. They came home with their purchases and had s.e.x before they'd unpacked them.

They had s.e.x nearly every night. The undisputed soundtrack of their lives was John Lennon singing "All You Need Is Love." When it wasn't being replayed relentlessly on the radio, Peace was singing it in the shower or in the bedroom or on the street. Her voice was so sweet and strong, and sometimes, when she wanted to make love to Henry, she would simply sing "It's easy" in a pretty good Liverpool lilt.

Meanwhile, there were fifty or sixty shows being performed in the London theaters, and within days, Peace had staked out a spot at the stage door of the Victoria Palace and made half a dozen friends among the other hippies and hangers-on. By the second week, she had managed to talk one of those friends into introducing her to an agent named Martin Doyle. By the third week, Martin had become "the Great Martini," and had lined up a series of auditions for her.

In the mornings, after they had eaten breakfast, Henry would leave Peace sitting in the huge white wicker peac.o.c.k chair that she had hauled home from a flea shop. She would invariably have a script in her hands and a blanched, open look in her eyes as she sat down, with utter earnestness, to try to memorize her lines.

The big prize of the season would be a part in America Hurrah, America Hurrah, a huge hit in the States that was destined, everyone said, to make an even larger explosion in London. The play was a biting, avant-garde, daring indictment of modern society, and Henry was convinced that Peace didn't understand a word of it. He wasn't sure he did. But he would leave her in the morning hearing her practice lines like "I'm dead, thank you, I said, thank you, please, I said, I'm dead." a huge hit in the States that was destined, everyone said, to make an even larger explosion in London. The play was a biting, avant-garde, daring indictment of modern society, and Henry was convinced that Peace didn't understand a word of it. He wasn't sure he did. But he would leave her in the morning hearing her practice lines like "I'm dead, thank you, I said, thank you, please, I said, I'm dead."

"Good luck," Henry told her on a Thursday morning in July, the day of the big audition and a month after they'd arrived.

"Martini says I don't need luck. I've got talent," Peace said.

Henry left the flat, stepping past the black-and-white mosaic doorstep, heading down Rose Street, loving her confidence, or at any rate the way she pretended to have it.

He pa.s.sed the Lamb & Flag, the three-hundred-year-old pub where John Dryden got beaten up and Charles d.i.c.kens got drunk. He pa.s.sed a cat in a doorway, and theater posters fixed to the sides of buildings like stamps. It was a warm summer, but never oppressive in the mornings or the evenings, when Henry walked to and from the Tube stop at Tottenham Court Road. He had even learned to say Tottenham Tottenham so it had two syllables, not three. so it had two syllables, not three.

AT THE STUDIO, Henry had been a.s.signed to the team of animators who were drawing the Yellow Submarine amid the Sea of Monsters. Many of the monsters had already been drawn. There were the Kinky-Boot Beasts and Vacuum Monster, Snapping Turtle Turk and the fish with the human arms. But the Sea of Monsters was supposed to be a large sea, and in a non-hierarchical, non-Disney way, even some of the in-betweeners were being asked to contribute their own creations.

To the left and right of him along the long, cool table, Henry's colleagues madly sketched their own monsters at every possible opportunity. Frank had concocted American Monster, with the head of an eagle and the body of a flag. d.i.c.k was working on Many-Breasted Beast, which he alternately referred to as Many-Beasted Breast. Victoria was trying to counter with Muscle Man Monster.

In typical fashion, it had taken Henry only about a day to master the Submarine Submarine style-all flat, bold colors without shade or shadow; vibrant, bold ink strokes, and coloring-book fill-ins. But he felt no closer than he ever had to choosing a style, let alone a character, all his own. Faced with a blank page, Henry searched for inspiration. All that filled his mind was drawings he'd already drawn-of other artists' characters. "Doesn't have a point of view," the Beatles sang in the film about the Nowhere Man. "Knows not where he's going to." style-all flat, bold colors without shade or shadow; vibrant, bold ink strokes, and coloring-book fill-ins. But he felt no closer than he ever had to choosing a style, let alone a character, all his own. Faced with a blank page, Henry searched for inspiration. All that filled his mind was drawings he'd already drawn-of other artists' characters. "Doesn't have a point of view," the Beatles sang in the film about the Nowhere Man. "Knows not where he's going to."

One day early in July, when most of the staff headed out to the Dog and Duck for lunch, Henry stayed behind. Someone had put the standing fan on "oscillate" by mistake, and the air at regular intervals lifted the top cel on his drawing board. For a while, smoking a cigarette, Henry watched the cel rise and fall. Taking a sketch pad from the shelf behind him, he started to draw a fan monster. He made two fans for the eyes. Then he made the whole head a fan. Then he tried making the body the fan, with the blades looking large and dangerous. He imagined how Fan Monster might move: he might blow the submarine away; blow bubbles at the submarine; chop the submarine into pieces. He saw Peace's face and her smooth brown hair as she leaned back into her peac.o.c.k chair. He thought about making a peac.o.c.k monster. There could be a clock monster, he thought. Its clock hands could reach out with long, sharp claws, and its numbers could be launched as grenades. Henry wasn't sure he liked it enough to choose it above the others.

Choosing things, he knew, had been the challenge of his life. Choosing a woman, choosing a style. They weren't really that different.

He turned a page in the sketch pad, drew simple shapes-the old trick of Charlie's-then closed his eyes and tried to see what was in his own mind. In the darkness, he sensed light trying to get in. Insistently, the fan continued to make the room rise and fall. He imagined the street beyond the studio with all the black taxis and red buses rattling by. That didn't seem to be useful either.

He opened his eyes, completely dispirited, and began to draw toofamiliar objects: the Mary Poppins Mary Poppins penguins, the Mickey Mouse ears, the penguins, the Mickey Mouse ears, the Jungle Book Jungle Book trees, the bulbous Blue Meanies. trees, the bulbous Blue Meanies.

At the sound of voices, Henry threw down his pencil.

"You're going to love me," Victoria told him, sweeping back into the room with Frank.

He looked up, smiling. "I already love you," he said.

"No, really. You're going to love me. I brought you fish and chips. I guessed you'd be starving."

"You're right," Henry said. "I do love you."

"I told you."

She handed him a brown paper bag that was spotted with grease.

"Just don't get oil on this table," she warned him.

Delighted to abandon his efforts, Henry took the bag into the sitting room, where he settled into one of several cast-off leather couches that sat amid mismatched coffee tables. The fish and chips, each in a little red-and-white paper boat, were too salty, but he didn't care.

Victoria followed him in.

"What's with you?" she asked him. "What's got your knickers in such a bunch?"

"How're you doing on your monsters?" he asked her.

"Oh. So that's it. Lacking inspiration, are we?"

He allowed himself the luxury of telling her the truth. "I'm drawing a blank," he said.

"What color?"

"No fooling. I can't come up with a thing."

"It'll come."

"Fish?" he asked her. "Chip?"

"No, thanks. You're the one who skipped lunch, remember? Why don't you show me what you've got?" She flashed him a flirty smile.

"Pardon me?" he asked, flirting back a little.

"Sketch pad, Harry," she said.

He pushed the remains of his lunch back into the bag, then balled it up and tossed it into a trash can.

HENRY GOT THE IDEA when he showed Victoria the sketch pad. There was his drawing of the Chief Blue Meanie, and there was his drawing of the Mickey Mouse ears. Later, he would confide in Victoria that he didn't consider it a pure idea. It was based on an accidental juxtaposition, he said, of two other people's pure ideas. She scoffed at his admission and said he was just fishing for compliments. Putting Mouseketeer hats on the Blue Meanies was a stroke of genius, she said.

She was not alone in her a.s.sessment. The sketch of the Chief Blue Meanie, wearing mouse ears, was quickly pa.s.sed down the table, like a platter of cookies, and before the afternoon was out, it had met with the art director's enthusiastic approval.

IT AMAZED HENRY-but apparently didn't faze either the Great Martini or Peace-that she had gotten called back for the part of Girl at the Party in America Hurrah. America Hurrah. This occasioned several more mornings of "I'm dead, thank you, I said, thank you, please, I said I'm dead," as well as several concerted if awkward efforts at staging. A week later-more amazing still-it was down to Peace and one other actress, and Peace called Henry at the studio to say that Martin had told her he'd heard the part would be hers. This occasioned several more mornings of "I'm dead, thank you, I said, thank you, please, I said I'm dead," as well as several concerted if awkward efforts at staging. A week later-more amazing still-it was down to Peace and one other actress, and Peace called Henry at the studio to say that Martin had told her he'd heard the part would be hers.

Henry came home early to make her a special dinner. He turned on the radio and listened, inevitably, to the Beatles, the Stones, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix. "Well," said the DJ, "this is the beat of the sixties, here for all you mods and rockers. It's a Thursday night in July in the year of our Lord nineteen sixty-seven, and here's a little something smashing for you from the Who."

Henry sharpened his kitchen knife, as Martha had taught him to do years before, and he sliced potatoes and minced onions, chopping in time to the music. He poured himself a gla.s.s of wine. He reveled in the fact that he could feel simultaneously attached and unconfined.

The dinner was ready at seven o'clock. Henry set the table with an array of the seemingly random objects that Peace had been bringing home from flea markets and who knew where else. There were mismatched plates, utensils, and gla.s.ses that somehow, once a.s.sembled, made a perfectly stylish whole, with the unmistakable flair of the perfectly stylish girl who had found them. Henry put fresh candles in the wine bottles Peace had made into holders, their sides already mottled with drippings of different-colored wax. By 7:30, Henry had fluffed the couch pillows, swept the carpet, and put the dishes in the dish drainer away. Just before 8:00, he heard Peace's key turn in the lock. She stepped in wearing a pink polka-dot raincoat and some kind of sailor cap.

"Hen!" she said, as if it was a surprise to find him in their flat. "Wow," she said. "You cooked?"

He tried to read her eyes, but they were hidden by the two curtains formed by her hair.

"Well?" he finally asked her. "Am I looking at the next Girl at the Party?"

"Nope," she said, and tossed her polka-dot coat, unsuccessfully, toward the front hall bench. She did an exaggerated stage curtsy. "Thank you," she said, as if to a vast theater audience. "Thank you so much."

"Oh, baby," Henry said. "I'm so sorry, baby."

He took her in his arms, smelling her herbal shampoo. Perhaps later they would bathe together, he thought, or shower, and he would wash her hair.

He loved so much to shampoo her, building her hair into soapy swirls, like white roses.

She broke quickly from his embrace.

"It's no big deal," she said.

"No big deal!"

She shrugged herself away.

"You were dying to get this part," he said.

Still standing up, she reached for one of the roast potatoes and ate it, then licked her fingers.

"You've been working on this part for weeks," Henry said.

She reached for another potato. "These are good," she said. "Hen. There'll be other parts."