Chaplin checked his watch. “Helen?”

It took a moment, but Helen reappeared, a telephone in her hand, earpiece to her ear.

“Get Alf, please.”

Five minutes later, Chaplin was telling Alf to pack up the bread trucks with lights, reflectors, cameras, and film and take them back to the Phelps Ranch property. They were going to rent it again this afternoon. “Oh, and, Alf? How many angels do we have on payroll now?”

Out came the cigar. He counted on his fingers. “Six, I think. Maybe four.”

“Have them come to the set.”

“Is this for after you’re dead?”

“I want to finish this.”

“Right-o.” The cigar went back into the mouth.

Chaplin spent another half hour on the telephone. His mouth moved, he wrote down times and figures, he laughed when necessary, and expressed urgency at times. It felt like nothing. By ten-thirty, he had planned out the afternoon, including the shoot at the ranch, with all its contingent problems.

He waited in his office. He watched the courtyard. As time passed, it was sunny and then sunny and then sunny, as if the quality of light in this part of his world did not age.

44

When she arrived, Hannah was greeted by the new friends she had made. The checkerboard and a table and two chairs floated her way, for she was the best draughts player anyone had met, and when she was told this, she smiled and stuffed the ends of her scarf in her mouth. Today Maverick sat on the other side of the board, and said he was surely going to win this time. Sandwiches were brought to them. Twice, Hannah asked Maverick what that was, over there, and when he looked, she filched a sandwich into her pocket.

Chaplin watched this through the window. He was in street clothes. He ran his fingers along the band inside his cap. He asked Helen to remind Rollie to bring his new lens, the Zeiss Tessar, to the shoot.

The game lasted hardly five minutes. Hannah slaughtered Maverick, who had tried his hardest. A moment later, Chaplin was behind his mother’s chair. “Mum? Should we take a walk?”

She looked up at him, shading her eyes and squinting.

“I think I can promise there will be ice cream.”

“Shall I get my things?”

“No, that’s all right. It’s just down the block.”

Chaplin and Hannah walked into the office, where he waved to Helen. “Maverick fancies you,” Hannah said to her. Helen blushed, for this was true, and she looked toward Hannah for some further comment, but she had already opened the front door and stepped down the three brick risers onto De Longpre. Once on the sidewalk, she turned in place, a full circuit, unsure of where to go.