The Lost Valley

by Jennifer Scoullar

  When the police arrived, she told her story, between sobs. Monty shoved his way into her trailer, drinking and popping pills. He tried to rape her, and while she was struggling to fight him off, he collapsed. She ran to the first aid trailer for help, but by the time she returned with a medic, Monty was dead.

  ‘It must have been a dreadful ordeal.’ The sergeant nodded sympathetically, offering her a handkerchief and what must have been her tenth cup of coffee. ‘If I could possibly have your autograph, Miss Munro? My wife is a big fan.’

  The doctor arrived, a middle-aged man with kind brown eyes almost lost beneath a tangle of grey eyebrows. He talked to Kitty, then disappeared into her trailer to examine the body.

  ‘A straightforward case,’ he said afterwards in the office. ‘Excessive doses of whisky and Benzedrine combined with, ah, imprudent physical activity has precipitated a fatal heart attack. I’ve taken blood samples, but I predict they will confirm my findings.’

  The sergeant put the hip flask and bottle of pills on the table. ‘These were found on the deceased’s person.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said the doctor. ‘It seems Mr Montgomery had a chronic problem with alcohol and drugs.’

  ‘Yes, well … I’d appreciate no official mention of that, doctor,’ said Alan. ‘To preserve his reputation. For the sake of his family.’

  The doctor nodded, sat down at Alan’s desk, and proceeded to fill out the death certificate. ‘I’m all finished here. Good day to you, Miss Munro. I suggest you get some rest.’

  The death certificate lay on the table. Kitty sneaked a look as Alan escorted the sergeant and doctor outside. Under Cause of Death was written Acute myocardial infarction due to underlying arterio-sclerotic heart disease. She breathed a sigh of relief. The bastard probably would have died anyway. She’d just hurried him along.

  Monty’s threatening words came back to her. I could make a lot of trouble for you at the studio. Not any more he couldn’t. Nothing and nobody was going to get in the way of her career. Father always said she and her sisters would amount to nothing. Hopeless, useless, stupid. Fat little good-for-nothings. Lazy little sluts who’d better hurry up and marry before they lost their looks.

  Her two sisters had done just that, marrying at eighteen to escape the hell that was home. Choosing husbands so much like their father that they soon created their own fresh hells. Kitty had vowed never to fall into that trap, vowed never to throw her life away on some tosser to please that old bastard. And she hadn’t. Tom and her father were as different as summer and winter.

  Through the window she saw a black hearse arrive. Alan directed two men in dark suits to Kitty’s trailer. Minutes later they emerged with Monty’s body on a stretcher, and then he was gone, just like that. Problem solved. It was the same when her father died. He fell down the stairs when she was fifteen, with a little help, and she was free. Free of his violence, his insults, his scathing dismissal of all she might ever be. Though not entirely free perhaps. The boiling desire to succeed and prove him wrong remained, burning white-hot at the very core of her being. One day she’d quench it and the searing pain would stop. One day.

  Alan came into the office, looking dejected. He took a numbered key from the desk draw and handed it to her. ‘Take this spare trailer for tonight. The cleaner will need to go through yours. I’ll have someone pack up your things.’

  Kitty longed to ask him about the movie, and who might take over Monty’s part. She had a few suggestions, and also some great ideas about how to play the re-shot ranch scenes to give them more comic effect. Finally Secret Heiress had a real chance of box office success, with a new co-star and a fresh direction. But she couldn’t discuss it now. Alan’s face said it wasn’t the time. He’d been friends with Monty, for God knows what reason. Tomorrow would be soon enough.

  Tom would be so happy for her. Kitty hadn’t seen her husband for months. It was hard being apart, but she wrote whenever she could; long, rambling letters telling him all about how the movie was going. Tom promptly replied, although until his hands healed the nurses had to write the letters for him. He was always interested in her news. How lucky she was to have a husband that appreciated the importance of her career, even if it meant she couldn’t be there for him right now.

  He was recovering so well, that recently they’d started talking on the phone. Naturally there was a certain strain in their conversations. They almost felt like strangers. But it wouldn’t be long before Tom could join her in Los Angeles. Amazing what they could do with plastic surgery these days. Kitty was thinking of having a small procedure done herself. She’d always envied Marlene Dietrich’s retroussé nose.

  Closing her eyes, she pictured Tom’s chiselled face. His classically even features and compelling brown eyes. That dimple. He was simply the most handsome man she’d ever met, and from all accounts an excellent horseman. If he could act as well, he’d make a perfect Buck Carter. Maybe she could talk him into a screen test.

  Kitty yawned and felt in her pocket for the key Alan had given her. Time for a beauty nap. It had been an exhausting day, and she’d been up since five. Her new trailer better have champagne in the fridge. She could use a glass to celebrate.

  * * *

  First thing next morning, Thelma delivered a message. Howard Hawks, the producer, was coming to the set and wanted to see her. Kitty couldn’t contain her excitement. Here was the perfect chance to make her own suggestions about recasting the movie and setting it on a new course. Alan was an experienced director, with plenty of box office hits under his belt, but so far he hadn’t coaxed the best from his cast. She didn’t blame him for Monty’s abysmal acting. Nobody could extract blood from a stone. However Alan’s blunt, acerbic manner was too often counter-productive, leading to boring scenes, flat performances and too many takes.

  Kitty herself had ambitions to direct one day. Women were perfectly capable of the task, as demonstrated by her role model, Dorothy Arzner, the only major female film director Hollywood had so far known. Arzner’s movie, The Bride Wore Red, where Joan Crawford played a nightclub singer posing as an aristocrat, was a comic masterpiece and a bit like Secret Heiress in reverse. Many of Arzner’s techniques would work well in this movie, giving it a witty freshness that Alan’s plodding, critical direction could never match. And now Kitty had the opportunity to share her thoughts and ideas with one of America’s greatest film-makers.

  Hawks wouldn’t arrive until eleven o’clock, but Kitty was dressed and ready by ten, going for a glamourous but serious look. Eager for the famous producer to see past her beauty to the brains beneath. She regarded herself in the mirror. Tailored burgundy skirt suit with a mink-trimmed collar and dramatic padded shoulders. Hair pinned in an elegant half-wave. A stylish little hat secured at an angle by a sequinned pin. Perfect. With her confidence steadily rising, Kitty resisted the urge to break out the champagne. She didn’t want Hawks to smell it on her breath. Instead she sat by the window to wait.

  A mountain storm was brewing, and the trailer swayed and bounced in the wind. Two giant beetles climbed up either side of her mirror, and a big, black spider lay in wait on the wall above. She despatched the vile creatures with a rolled up magazine. Ugh! How she longed to get away from this godforsaken place and return to her home in West Hollywood.

  Finally a maroon Cadillac convertible pulled into the yard. It matched her dress, surely a good sign. But when it was finally time to walk to Alan’s office, the storm hit in earnest. Driving rain soaked her suit and the gale blew her carefully styled hair into a tangled mess. Kitty reached the shelter of the porch and did her best to rearrange herself. She put on her most sombre expression and stepped inside.

  * * *

  ‘You’re doing what?’ said Kitty.

  ‘In the light of this dreadful tragedy,’ Howard Hawks was expressionless, ‘we’re shelving Secret Heiress indefinitely.’

  ‘But you can’t.’ Kitty shifted in her seat. ‘I have some terrific ideas for recasting—’

 
; ‘It’s decided,’ said Alan. ‘We don’t think it’s worth persevering.’ Alan seemed stern, almost hostile. ‘Kitty, we’re going to have to let you go too.’

  She must have misunderstood. He handed her a typewritten sheet of paper. She held it gingerly, between her fingertips, as if it might any moment burst into flame.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘The requisite five days’ notice, informing you that the studio is cancelling its arrangement with you.’

  ‘You can’t do that. I have a contract.’

  Hawks crossed his arms over his chest. ‘Not any more. Yesterday you breached the morality clause.’

  What? The injustice of the accusation was breathtaking. ‘Monty barged into my trailer and tried to rape me. How am I responsible for that?’

  ‘You wouldn’t be,’ said Alan. ‘Not if that’s what really happened. Unfortunately you smelled of alcohol, and your version of events doesn’t tally with what we know of Montgomery Grant’s good character.’

  ‘Good character?’ Kitty snorted with derision. ‘Monty was a sleazy old lech who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Ask practically any woman on set. Ask Sonia in makeup, she’ll tell you.’

  ‘Have some respect.’ Alan flexed his fingers. ‘A man is dead, here. A man who was my friend.’

  ‘Little wonder.’ Kitty stood, eyes blazing. ‘You have so much in common. The same sort of good character.’

  ‘People, people.’ Hawks held up his hands. ‘Enough. Miss Munro, please. Sit.’

  Kitty caught her breath. Calm down, she thought. There must be a way to salvage this. ‘I need to talk to my agent.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ said Hawks, ‘but it won’t change anything. According to our lawyers, the studio has a watertight case for dismissal.’ He picked up a document from the desk. ‘Your contract, Miss Munro. Clause 23.

  The actress agrees to conduct herself with due regard to public conventions and morals. She agrees not to do anything that might shock, insult or offend the community or outrage public decency. In the event that the actress violates any term or provision of this paragraph, then the Worldwide Film Company has the right to cancel this contract by giving five days' notice.

  You are a married woman, and a married man died in your trailer without his trousers on, while you were drunk,’ said Hawks. ‘That constitutes an outrage to public decency by anyone’s standard. You argue that he forced you, but there is no proof of that.’

  ‘What about my bruised face?’ She wished now she hadn’t worn so much make-up.

  ‘Sue if you want, Miss Munro, but I guarantee you’ll lose,’ said Hawks. ‘And the studio will destroy your reputation in the process.’

  Kitty felt sick. This couldn’t be happening. ‘What about my money?’

  ‘You forfeited your entitlement when you violated the contract,’ said Alan. ‘However Mr Hawks has generously agreed to a modest severance payment.’ He stood, as if she was already dismissed. ‘We’ve packed up your trailer, Kitty. A taxi will be here in one hour.’

  ‘The studio appreciates your cooperation in this matter,’ said Hawks, smiling now, and perfectly businesslike. ‘In return we’ll keep your name out of the papers. Our goal is to avoid a scandal. The official line will be that Montgomery Grant died of a heart attack in his own trailer, not yours. We will compensate witnesses for maintaining their silence. No doubt at some stage the rumour mill will grind into action, but we will not feed it, I promise, and neither should you.’

  Hawks stood and offered his hand. Kitty ignored it and rose unsteadily to her feet.

  ‘Put this ugliness behind you, Miss Munro.’ Howard Hawks opened the door for her to leave. ‘Go home to your husband.’

  The taxi moved off, leaving Kitty standing outside the modest single-storey hospital at East Grinstead. Freshly mowed lawns and colourful flower beds gave the place a tranquil air.

  The last time she’d seen Tom, more than six months ago now, he’d been wrapped from head to toe like a mummy. She was ashamed to say that she’d been shocked and frightened to see him like that. Her imagination played tricks, conjuring visions of blindness and disfigurement beneath the bandages. Bringing back memories of her father’s scarred face. She’d longed to get away.

  But now Tom was much better, even leaving the hospital to enjoy evenings at the local pub, according to his letters. He’d never once complained of her absence during his long convalescence. In fact, he rarely wrote about himself at all. He always showed an interest in the filming, and had been furious when she told him about how the studio had treated her. In short, he’d been unfailingly loving and unselfish. It had been wrong to leave Tom alone all this time, and she wanted to make it up to him.

  Kitty smoothed her skirt and checked her lipstick in her compact mirror. She was still determined to become a star again. The Secret Heiress debacle was only a setback to her ambition, not the end of it. However she did need a holiday, and time to reconnect with her husband. So when Tom had asked her to go with him to Tasmania, she’d agreed.

  According to his doctor, Tom still had some mending to do. She rather liked the idea of playing the caring wife at his grand estate in the country. That would put paid to the vicious gossip rags. All those rumours about Monty. Accusations she’d abandoned her injured war hero husband for a part in a doomed B-grade movie. When Tom was completely well, and the media interest in Monty’s death had settled, they’d move back to Los Angeles and she could resume her career. Tom would make a handsome addition to her arm at all those Hollywood parties.

  Kitty entered the reception area with her pen at the ready. She’d been mobbed last time, but not today. A growing collection of nurses hovered in the corridor, whispering and looking her way, but nobody approached her or asked for an autograph.

  The grey haired woman at the desk sniffed and peered at Kitty over her glasses. ‘You’re after our Tom, then,’ she said in a cold voice. ‘Wait over there. He’ll be here directly.’ She pointed to a hard bench by the wall as a murmur rippled through the group of nurses.

  Kitty turned and saw him, her husband, coming towards her with his doctor. She tried to smother her shock. It was Tom, and then again it wasn’t. Everything was there. He wasn’t missing eyes or ears, like in some of the horrific photos she’d seen of burnt airmen. But it seemed as if someone had stretched a mask tight over his face, muting his features.

  The taut skin of his cheeks shone in shiny shades of pink and white. Faint scar lines showed where sections of skin had been stitched on. And his nose … not Tom’s proud, straight nose at all. An angry red lump of a thing, that seemed to have randomly attached itself to his face. What was it about his eyelids? Of course — no lashes and no brows either. His lips looked paper thin, like those of an old man; like her father’s lips. The adorable dimple on Tom’s chin had disappeared altogether. Only his deep brown eyes, set in those grotesque but vaguely familiar features, remained unchanged.

  Everyone was staring. Kitty knew she should hug her husband, give him a kiss, but she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. She wanted her beautiful Tom back, not this poor tortured man.

  ‘Hello, Kitty.’

  It was a shock to hear her husband’s voice emerge from that ruined face. He didn’t try to hug her, didn’t press her. His eyes said he understood. That was Tom for you, always putting her feelings first. Following his example, she tried to do the same thing.

  ‘Darling.’ Kitty stepped forward and kissed him, to the cheers and applause of those gathered there. Only she and Tom knew it was an artfully disguised air kiss and that she kept her eyes squeezed shut. Things would be different when he looked normal again, but until then she couldn’t bear to touch those misshapen lips.

  Kitty turned to the doctor. ‘How long before his face will be entirely healed?’

  ‘Maturation will take two years or more, during which time the scarred and grafted tissue gradually returns to a more normal skin tone, and becomes softer and flatter. Tom may need more operations, but I predict an
excellent result in the end.’

  Kitty exhaled, all eyes upon her. A blinding flash lit the dark reception space. She turned to see a reporter by the window, and another coming in the door. This was better. It was second nature for Kitty to perform for the press. ‘How marvellous to be together again,’ she said, pasting on an instant smile. Tom would need a very good makeup artist for any magazine shoots. False eyelashes and lipstick. Powder to even out his blotchy skin, but it wouldn’t be forever.

  Kitty moved to stand beside him and tentatively touched his hand. She flinched at the feel of it – scaly and rough, like lizard skin. How was she supposed to hold it? Kitty opened her fingers and Tom’s hand slipped away by an inch. He kept it so close to hers that nobody noticed.

  She gazed into the caring eyes behind Tom’s ugly face. Part of her wanted to run outside, leap into the taxi and flee, but where to go? She was out of money, luck and opportunities, and the papers would have a field day if she left Tom in his time of need. Her already tarnished reputation would be entirely destroyed.

  ‘Give him another kiss,’ someone yelled. ‘For the camera.’

  She steeled herself, shut her eyes, and this time their lips connected. Kitty shuddered a little on the inside, but didn’t let it show. She had to find a way to do this, had to persevere with the marriage and go to Tasmania with her husband. Tom had been granted a medical discharge from the RAF, and all he wanted to do now was go home. It might work out for the best in the end. She needed time to decide her next career move, and Tom needed time to heal. Then they could move to Los Angeles as she’d planned.