What was not likely in the news reports is that Prinz, and Ambrose too, were delighted with their episode and fascinated by their Mr Bray — who, when he learned that we were Only Acting, wept with humiliation at his disgrace (I think he had cause to be indignant at us, madman or no). Indeed he went upon his knees to ask our pardon, in particular Ms Golden’s, for whose sake he disquietingly declared himself ready to kill or die. And when these effusions were accepted by A. & P. (if not by Bea, who uncharitably bade him Fuck Off Already and called for a drink), he declared himself egregiously misled about our characters and intentions by “agents of the anti-Bonapartist conspiracy” and begged us to permit him to make amends. Specifically, in the name of our mutual benefactor His Majesty the late Harrison Mack, he hoped we would call upon him next day in nearby Lily Dale, where he invited us to photograph a ruin infinitely more consequential than that of a paltry excursion boat: he meant the failure of “LILYVAC II,” his “computer facility,” and with it the wreck of his “Novel Revolution” (or revolutionary novel, I never got it straight which), sabotaged by those same conspirators who had undermined the Tidewater Foundation and the world’s best hope for — here he looked worshipfully at Bea — a new Golden Age.
Certifiable lunacy! Which of course enraptured Ambrose, especially the “computer-novelist” business. Back at the Athenaeum at last, well past midnight, I tumbled straightway into bed and sleep. Before my lover joined me (and woke me for my nightly seeding) he and Prinz had made plans for an overland excursion on the morrow to Lily Dale, to Wrap Up That Part of the Story on location before returning to Maryland.
Thither we trekked next day, through heavy clouds and chilling rain, up into the hills to that smaller version of Chautauqua Lake and seedier replica of the institution: just the four of us, plus the cameraman and one all-purpose assistant. Bea Golden had at first refused, having suffered Transylvanian nightmares till dawn; she was at last, alas, persuaded by her shipboard hero, whose actions of the previous evening had clearly scored him a few points. Ambrose even invited Prinz to record their conversation in the car; he offered to reenact with Bea, at our destination, “the Author’s growing ascendancy over the Director in their symbolic rivalry for the Leading Lady.” Prinz declined with a tiny smile and shake of the head.
We wound through tacky lanes of spiritualists’ cottages, each with its shingle advertising “readings,” to a little farm overlooking Cassadaga Lake, just below a Catholic retreat house on the hilltop. Goats grazed in the meadow: footage. Bea thought the kids just darling, how they cavorted and banged heads. Ambrose cavorted with them to amuse her, till the nannies moved him off. Footage.
Ex-Captain Bray came out to greet us, at once obsequious and somehow menacing. I don’t like him! Now that the conspiracy had turned Drew Mack and the Tidewater Foundation against him (for which, he muttered ominously, They Shall Pay), and his services were no longer desired by the Gadfly company, his sole support must be the modest income generated by those dairy goats: their milk he sold to a commercial fudge maker in Fredonia, their hides to artisans on the nearby Seneca Indian reservation, who turned them into “Spanish” wineskins for sale at Allegheny ski resorts. Upon such shifts did the Revolution wait! And it must break our hearts to see to what pass LILYVAC II had come, sabotaged by Her whom he had judged of all humans the least corruptible. Et cetera. We exchanged surreptitious glances. He took us to the computer facility, at one end of the milking shed. Footage. Absolutely crackers.
Ambrose presumed, innocently, that our host was acquainted with the fictional George Giles, Goat-Boy and Grand Tutor, if not with the author of his adventures on “West Campus.” Dear me, sir, you are not held in universal admiration! First M. Casteene’s casual report of his offer to arrange your assassination for Joe Morgan, and now such a diatribe as should have warmed my heart if I truly bore you a grudge for not acknowledging these confessions written at your own solicitation. But surprising, yea alarming, as was the vehemence of Bray’s fulmination (you may thank us for not telling him you live within daily sight of the Gadfly; he believes you a Buffalonian tout court), it was upstaged by yet one more Uncanny Coincidence that came to light in course of it. To summarise — for why should I write? — it very much appears that Bray’s trusted “assistant” (she seems to’ve been his sort-of-lover too, repugnant as that notion is) in his woozy radical-political-literary-mathematical-ecological enterprises, who he came to feel was seduced by “anti-Bonapartist” elements into sabotaging his computer, and whom I gather he then assaulted in some fashion, was a certain hippie-yippie young woman from California by way of Brandeis U. named Merope Bernstein. Not only does our Bea Golden, with a Thrill of Horror, now understand her to be the same girl fetched hysterical to the Remobilisation Farm in May by her far-out friends (who thought she was “freaking out” on an overdose of something ingested back at their Chautauqua pad), but… ready? Brandeis, he said? Bernstein, Merope? From California originally? Omigod, cries Bea (and staggers for support, not to her Reg Prinz, but to my Ambrose): It’s Merry! I didn’t even recognise her! What did he do to her? Why didn’t she tell me who she was? I haven’t seen her in six years, since she was fifteen!
At length we got it sorted out: In an earlier incarnation, Bea Golden was Jeannine Bernstein, wife of a minor Hollywood character actor, himself much married and divorced. Bray’s allegedly perfidious assistant (but now he was calling her Morgan le Fay — altogether bonkers!) was this chap’s daughter by a prior mating. Hence…
Jee-sus! Ambrose exclaims.
Your wicked stepdaughter ha ha! Mr Bray cries feverishly to the recoiling Bea, with whom he is clearly smitten and whom he fears he has alienated. Footage. He didn’t hurt Ms Bernstein, he swears now; he only sort of spanked her for ruining his life’s work; put a bit of a scare into her, don’t you know. After all, she did save his life once; no doubt she was led astray in good faith; oh, they shall pay! He shall not rest till he has made it up to her — to Bea, for whom now he openly declares his adoration — for having chastised her ex-stepdaughter, however deservedly. They must go together, at once, to the Farm: he is a friend of Mr Horner there; he will declare to Ms Bernstein in her former stepmother’s presence that though with the best of intentions she has blighted his life and at least postponed the New Golden Age, and though he durst never trust her again with the LILYVAC programme, he harbours her no ill will and in the blessed name of her (ex-)stepmother forgives her his irreparable betrayal.
I summarise. With the greatest difficulty we got out of there — never did see the famous “printout” Bray claims to have been spoilt by Ms B. — back to Chautauqua; thence, Ambrose and I on the Friday, back Home. I do not envy Bea Golden her new admirer! Bray declares he will Put Things Right for her sake; that he will follow her to Fort Erie, to Maryland, anywhere she goes, let the goats fend for themselves; that with her aid and inspiration he may yet solve the Riddle of LILYVAC II and get the 5-Year Plan back on schedule before the “Phi-Point” of his life…
Ambrose finds him both frightening and fascinating: the Phi-Point, did he say? Point six one eight etc.? Bea finds him merely frightening, and threatens legal action if he attempts to follow her across either Peace Bridge or Bay Bridge. She was never close to Mel Bernstein’s daughter, she tells us now, whose mother of course had the custody; she thinks it possible Merry doesn’t even recognise her with her new name, any more than she Bea recognised her; but she cannot account for the coincidence. Ambrose cannot either, and worries for the ladies’ safety.