by Nhys Glover
Adie’s heart went out to Georgie. She could only imagine the terrible things she’d been forced to endure. For the first time, she considered Georgie’s early life. From what she understood, Georgie had come from very poor roots in the worst parts of London. Maybe she had learned from an early age not to struggle when there was no chance of escape.
Hadn’t Adie learned the same thing from her stepdaddy? Of course, he never got the chance to rape her, but she had learned fast enough that struggling made his touches all the rougher and more hurtful. If she just stayed stock still and withstood it, he didn’t physically hurt her.
Pushing those horrible memories away, Adie refocused on her work.
In mid-February, Georgie was mentioned again and far more positively.
16th February
I’m so excited I could bust! I just got my first role in a film. It’s called Thunderball, and it’s one of the James Bond films.
I saw Goldfinger last year. The opening credits showing images of the gilded, naked woman were both shocking and beautiful. Mummy wanted to walk right out of the theatre when she saw them, but I nagged her into staying. And it was wonderful! A horrible way to die, I grant you. Covered in gold paint so your skin can’t breathe. But it was still wonderful. And Sean Connery is so debonair and sophisticated. I know he’s old, almost as old as Daddy, but still…
And now I’m going to see him in real life. Up close and personal. I might get to be one of the girls who fawns all over him, dressed only in a brief swim suit. That will probably turn Daddy’s hair grey! Luckily, the film won’t come out until much later in the year.
I owe this chance to Georgie, who knew one of the producers of the new film. She knows everybody. Without her guiding my path I doubt I would ever have made it as far as I have. She has a part, as well. Of course she does. Why some producer hasn’t yet picked her out of the crowd to make her a star, I don’t know.
She’s so beautiful and so terribly talented. Her fiery red hair is natural. And it requires no curlers to give it those wild waves. Some nights I watch her sitting at her dressing table, brushing her long, fiery hair. It’s mesmerizing. It truly is. Like liquid fire flowing down her back. When she’s in a good mood she’ll let me brush her hair for her. The silver-backed brush is part of a set her husband gave her when he was still lusting after her. Her words not mine.
I wish I had her hair. Mine is so anemic in comparison. It belongs on either a very young child or a very old woman. I thought to dye it. But Georgie reminded me of the American actresses with platinum blonde locks. She says its separates me from the other beautiful girls. Anything that makes us stand out is good.
Adie paused in her reading. Was it a stretch to think the silver-backed hairbrush she found earlier was the same one Minerva was describing?
Jumping to her feet, Adie went to her dresser where she’d placed the silver items. Her plan was to buy some Silvo polish to remove the tarnish from them. They were pretty and would look prettier still after a good clean.
Now, though, they were more than pretty or interesting. They were possibly something that belonged to Georgie.
Carefully pulling one of the long strands of hair from the brush, Adie took it into the bathroom. The fluorescent light over the mirror provided just what she needed. By its light she could see the true color of the strand. Red! It was a bright, fiery red. Not Adie’s rusty brown the hairdresser in New York had been polite enough to call auburn. Nor was it carrot red. It was a more ruby red. She could easily see why Minerva thought it looked like fire. If this was Georgie’s hair.
Reverently, Adie returned the hair to the brush before rushing out to tell Cage what she’d discovered. It didn’t solve the Mystery, but it was something. She couldn’t say what, as yet, but it was something.
Cage was interested, but not as excited by her find as she was, so Adie returned to her task. It would take a lot more than a hair in a brush to get Cage excited.
She was getting a better picture of Georgie now. An almost regal picture, from a young adoring acolyte, of a larger-than-life woman who carried immense pain with strength and resilience. How could Minerva just let Georgie disappear as she did, without thought? It seemed to go against everything she was learning about the relationship between the two friends.
Then she got her answer.
19th February
Georgie has taken off without a word. I know she can be a bit scatty at times. Very well, a lot of the time, but she has always told either Tansy or I where she was going if it was for longer than an overnight stay with one of her men-friends. I am torn between calling the police or contacting her ex-husband. He has been around here a few times ranting and raving and threatening her life. I think he might have done something to her this time. I really do. Or maybe it’s the rapist or one of the other men from that cesspool where she works. If she wasn’t so tall, and definitely doesn’t walk the streets of West London, I’d think she was a victim of Jack the Stripper. The huge manhunt for the murderer of all those girls is all anyone is talking about. I would call Daddy, but he’d come up to London and make me pack my bags. Without the influence of an older woman, Daddy wouldn’t let me remain here.
21st February
Thank Heaven she’s back! Georgie floated in, some time after lunch today, filled with stories about her gentleman, whom she calls ‘Rolly-Polly Roland’, and his country home. He’d invited her to a house-party on the spur of the moment, and so she caught the train to be with him. She was vague about where his country home is, but I gather it’s at least an hour’s train journey from London. I gathered this from the fact she complained about being hungry on the interminable trip, and that the food on the trolley was abysmal.
She reeked of alcohol and marihuana when she came in, and she didn’t seem concerned one bit that she’d worried us!
“I’m a big girl! I can look after myself. You don’t have to worry about me!” she said airily, as she flamboyantly threw off her mink coat. (Another present from her husband when he was still enamored with her.)
When she’s not home I sometimes sneak into her room to try on that coat. It makes me feel like a film star. I can imagine Georgie wearing it as she sashays down the red carpet on opening night. One day I’ll have a coat just like it. I am determined to make it so!
I want to be angry with her. Georgie. I AM angry with her. But at the same time, I know this is just who she is. And she’s right. Who am I to worry about a woman who is ten years older than I am? A worldly woman at that. If anyone’s a survivor it’s Georgie. I know that now.
Minerva had told Adie that this disappearing act was not unusual, but reading about it made it suddenly real. For a couple of days there, Minerva had been beside herself with worry, fearing the worst, not only because it would mean going home, but because the flatmate she idolized was possibly in danger. She must have been thinking about the rape and other dangers the woman faced on a nightly basis. It would have been a slap in the face when she waltzed in, acting as if nothing had happened. And given the rape and her later disappearance, it was totally untrue that Georgie could look after herself.
Who was this Jack the Stripper Minerva mentioned? Adie had an image of a Victorian gentleman with a big knife slowly removing his clothes at a bachelorette party. Not creepy at all!
Adie’s mind drifted to the mention of the mink coat. She’d read about furs in books she’d read, but she had no idea what a mink’s fur looked like. To her, the very idea of wearing the skin of a defenseless animal was abhorrent. And she was very pleased it had lost its popularity. Fake fur was better in lots of ways, the fact animals didn’t give their lives for it was by far the best.
Jig’s big blocky head propped itself up on the edge of her bed and big brown eyes stared up at her. Was he picking up on her angst or was this his way of letting her know he wanted to go out?
Curious about what a mink coat looked like, Adie took her cue from Jig to go down to the kitchen where her laptop usually sat. While she pu
t on coffee to brew and let Jig outside for a run, she pulled up the internet and first entered Jack the Stripper into the search engine. After scanning the details of the serial killer, she quickly agreed with Minerva. The prostitutes who worked the streets seven miles from inner London were all small, fragile women; nothing like Georgie. A serial killer tended to keep to a certain victim type.
After getting herself a coffee, she got down to researching what she was really interested in. She entered mink coat into the browser. She was horrified to find such coats were still being sold for a thousand pounds upwards. How had she thought the fur industry was dead? It seemed to be alive and doing very well. And the furs came in a variety of colors, although when she looked up the animal itself she found they all seemed to be dark. Although there was a white version in the colder climates.
While it was acceptable for Georgie and Minerva to have wanted mink coats back in the 60s, it seemed horrifying that people still wanted them today given all the coverage there was on cruelty to animals. Her surfing led her to pictures of cute little critters kept in small cages. Row after row of them. In Denmark alone 17,000 were killed each year for fur coats.
“What are you looking at?” Cage asked, probably brought down to the kitchen by the smell of brewed coffee.
He went to the French doors to let Jig in before making for the coffee pot.
“Mink. I thought people didn’t wear real fur coats anymore. It’s awful the way they’re treated. Like chickens. I feel sick just looking at them in their cages. What kind of life is that?” Adie cried, tears pricking at her eyes.
Cage came up behind her so he could press into her shoulders with his big hands. “What got you interested in minks, of all things?”
“Minerva mentioned Georgie having one, and I had read about them in books and wondered what they looked like. Now I know mink coats come in lots of colors but the creatures all seem to be dark brown, mostly. I’m not sure…”
“Probably dyed, I guess,” Cage said, massaging Adie’s shoulders in an effort to soothe her.
“Oh, of course,” she murmured, a little of her distress fading beneath Cage’s caring touch.
“You seem to be going off on tangents. First that brush and now fur coats? What’s going on with you?” he asked as he rubbed sore spots she hadn’t realized she had.
For some reason she didn’t want to share Georgie’s awful secrets with Cage. She already knew how personally he took the crimes of men. So, she opted for almost the truth.
“I don’t know. I get engrossed in the period. Furniture doesn’t interest me, as you well know by now, but the little things that make up a life, do. I can’t explain it. It just makes me feel closer to the past. Closer to those people I never knew. My family. Their friends… I don’t know. And then I find out about minks, and my stomach wants to revolt. It’s awful what we do to animals. It’s awful!”
“It’s awful what we do to our own kind. Haven’t you got it, yet, Adie? Humanity is just wrong.” His tone drew her away from her concern for the minks, back to her friend.
There was so much bitterness in his observation. What had life done to him to make him so cynical and angry with humanity? It wasn’t like he had a bad childhood or anything. He had loving parents and affectionate siblings. That they weren’t blood didn’t seem to matter to those in that big, happy family.
“I think humans have both good and bad sides to them. Some people lean more in one direction than the other. But I don’t think it makes us all wrong. I try not to be a bad person and I know you aren’t bad, either. From what I’ve learned about my uncle, he’s basically a good man. Yes, he is technically a murderer, but I don’t think that makes him bad. He did what needed to be done to keep me safe from my stepfather. And I might have ended up like that girl in your class if he hadn’t made Chad pay.”
Cage sat on the wooden chair beside her and turned Adie to face him. “You think going all vigilante on that prick was a good action?” His eyes were pits of dark fire.
Hers were pools of sadness. “I’m not a judge. I have no right to make judgments about other people’s actions. All I know is that if he hadn’t killed my stepfather I would be way more messed up than I am now. If he hadn’t beaten up Chad, I would have likely killed myself. What he did to me eroded what little self-esteem I had. Finding out he got his just deserts let me have closure. For the first time, or maybe the second, I felt God was on my side. God was looking after me. So I found the strength to carry on.
“Now I know it wasn’t God looking out for me, but my uncle… It’s even better. Neither man was good, and even though I’m no judge, I believe they got what they deserved. If that makes me part of humanity that’s wrong then I’m wrong.”
Cage cupped my cheek as Jig attempted to nudge his way between them. “I feel the same about Dad. He’s one of the good guys. All my life I’ve known that. Finding out that he committed murder to keep his niece safe doesn’t change my opinion. Nor does him beating up the creep who humiliated and used you change my mind. I’d forgotten about him, to be honest. It never entered my head that you might have felt like Shary.” He paused thoughtfully for a moment, as if slotting Adie in with Shary in his own mind. Belatedly. “So, in my eyes, you being glad those two got what they deserved doesn’t make you wrong.”
She smiled tentatively into Cage’s eyes as she absently stroked Jig’s head. “I probably wouldn’t have done it. The fear of hell would have stopped me.”
“Hell? For what?” Cage looked genuinely confused.
“Suicide. It’s a mortal sin. It’s a one way ticket to Hell.”
Cage chuffed out a humorless laugh. “Now that’s a load of crap, if ever I heard it. If Hell exists, it’s filled with people who really deserve that fate, not poor souls whose lives had become unbearable. Or people with a chemical imbalance. Religions that condemn those poor souls are wrong.”
“Didn’t you ever believe in God?” Adie asked.
Cage drew back as if she’d hit him. “I learned long ago that we’re in this alone. There’s no loving creator watching over us. If there was, He’d do something.”
Adie agreed, but at some deeper level she still believed in God. Maybe not the God her mother and her church believed in, but someone. Something. In her darkest moments she had sometimes felt that Something as a loving force. It was there in the background, ready to provide support, even if It didn’t intervene.
Giving herself a shake, she stood up. “We’re way off topic. Maybe I am letting other things deflect me from the Mystery. I’ll just take my coffee upstairs and get back to reading.”
Chapter 10
16th March
Today we were on the set of Thunderball at Pinewood Studios. Although I’d tried to sleep last night, it was impossible. I was too excited and, if I’m honest, just a little bit scared. There’s a world of difference between being a faceless extra and being an actress with a role to play and a line to say. What if the camera didn’t like me or I forgot my line? These were the thoughts going through my head all night.
However, the journey was easy, as it was the last two times I’ve been there. Georgie chatted most of the way, I think to help me keep my nerves under control. This was my big break. My dreams were finally starting to come true.
The first few times I was here I wasn’t sure what to expect. Something like the Hollywood studios you see in their films. This was not like that at all. Although it does have a huge lot with lots of stages.
Of course, I didn’t get to see much of the studio the last couple of times. Extras don’t get to just walk around freely.
Being an extra is very different to having a speaking part. Your position in the hierarchy changes. You became an actress, and you’re treated with more respect. And during breaks we were allowed to wander and explore a little, if only unofficially, rather than being corralled like lepers well away from the action.
Georgie and I were asked to don beautiful evening gowns and spend simply ages in hair and mak
eup. I have never felt so glamorous in my life. When I first got my part I’d been afraid I’d be expected to wear a bikini for my part. But as things solidified, I came to realize my role would be far less risqué. All I had to do was speak French to my companion, an extra, and then purr at Sean with a French accent while telling him where to find the bad guy in the casino. I got the role because I spoke fluent French. Bond gives me his trade mark smirk before sauntering off, leaving me to follow him with adoring eyes.
Georgie got to cozy up to Sean at the card table, showing her impressive cleavage as she leaned down to whisper in his ear. A little later she gets her one line, warning Bond to be careful.
After all the waiting around and take after take, I finally had my part done without issue and could watch Georgie do hers. I chatted with several of the director’s assistants and drew admiring glances from a producer. Or executive producer. I’m still not sure who is who, I must admit. The pecking order seems convoluted but very firm.
A young actor called Richard Mantz sidled up to me while I was watching Georgie. He told me I looked like a young Jayne Mansfield. Personally, I prefer being compared with Jean Harlow, but as he was a very handsome young man I didn’t complain. He asked for my phone number, which I gave him. Maybe we’ll go out for a meal or something. I doubt it will be anywhere expensive, as he’s only just breaking into the industry, like me.
Georgie drew a lot more attention than I did. In fact, she seemed to draw attention away from the actresses who were playing the Bond girls. I suppose that’s a drawback in this industry. You don’t want to outshine the stars, but you don’t want to go unnoticed.