Wise Children

by Angela Carter

  He carried on like a bloody dictator in that studio. The studio covered about the same area as, say, Monaco, and employed about the same population, and had a barber shop of its own, a dentist, a hospital, a canteen, a police department, as well as the actors and the directors, assistant directors, assistants to the assistants, second unit directors, art directors, costume designers, needlewomen, cameramen, assistant cameramen, key grips, best boys, gaffers, carpenters, scene painters, make-up girls, hairdressers, pimps, astrologers, whores, fortune-tellers, abortionists, writers, assistant writers, writers of additional dialogue, and common fellows, and all day long they bustled about the dusty streets of the lot, although at night it was a ghost town, only the nightwatchman, a few dogs, an abandoned newspaper blowing down a cardboard street.

  There was a lawn, where you could eat your sandwiches, and a big lilypond with carp in it. Daisy’s Persian cat came to the studio with her and used to sit and stare for hours into the lilypond. Sometimes it would slip its paw up to the elbow in the water, but the fish twitched and swam away, she never caught anything. Perhaps her shadow on the bottom of the pool warned them off.

  Daisy loved that cat. She went out with a net one afternoon, after she’d had a couple with Peregrine for old times’ sake, caught a carp, tossed it, all alive-oh, to Pussy. ‘There!’

  She told me: on the wedding night, between the satin sheets, he said, whatever you want, Daisy. Anything. And she said, a million bucks. In cash. He blenched, chewed a cigar ragged, but he was daft with love, he made a few phone calls, kicked ass. She sat up in bed in her negligée. First of all the hotel manager came in, ushering the chairman of the bank, in monkey suit and white gloves, as if it wasn’t three o’clock in the morning, and he was followed by a copper with holsters. Enter a little messenger boy in bum-freezer and pillbox, carrying a carpet bag; another little messenger boy, likewise; lastly, a third to match. Concluding the procession, another policeman.

  At a sign from the chairman of the bank, the boys all set down their bags on the wall-to-wall and bowed. Their eyes were bugging at the sight of Daisy Duck in her nightie, I can tell you, they sneaked peeks from the corners of their eyes until the chairman snapped his fingers and they scampered out. One of the coppers asked for an autograph. Genghis Khan, rendered solemn by the presence of so much money, shook the hand of the chairman.

  As soon as they were alone again, Daisy opened up the carpet bags and there it was. Her million. In hundreds, fifties, twenties. Nothing, to her regret, smaller than a ten, so that she was somewhat disappointed by the sheer volume of paper that she emptied out on the bed, but it was new, and fresh and crisp as spinach.

  If there’d been a burner in the room she might have cooked it up and ate it, but no burner, nor oil nor lemon for a salad, so she rolled in it, like a dog in shit. Ripped off her satin nightie to feel the touch of greenbacks on her skin, scooped up handfuls and poured them over herself, shrieking with glee, and kicked her heels up to the ceiling until Genghis, unable to hold back, ripped off his jodhpurs and consummated that morning’s marriage toot sweet, leaving the greenbacks somewhat stained.

  Stained or not, back to the bank they went, next day. Daisy never forgave him for that. She’d wanted to stuff a mattress. She’d never forgiven him and now she was wreaking her revenge.

  She’d been an old man’s folly, as far as he was concerned. He’d cast off that old, grey-haired, loyal Brooklyn wife for Daisy, the one who’d stuck with him through thick and thin since trolley-car days and was now mad with love, poor thing. She was the phantom caller on Daisy’s telephone, it turned out. Yes; the cast-off Brooklyn wife kept calling Daisy up, she wouldn’t speak, there would be heavy breathing and a tear-stained silence. She’d called her up in New York, those times; no wonder Perry said, ‘Poor cow.’ And, Daisy said, she called up all the time in Hollywood, in spite of vile abuse. ‘And,’ said Daisy, ‘she follows me around.’ So that was the solution to the mystery of Daisy’s raincoated shadow whom I’d seen expelled from the studio, that time! I felt quite sorry for her, but Daisy didn’t spare her a second thought. She was the wife in residence, and she was going to make Genghis pay.

  In spite of all that, Daisy was neither more nor less pretty, more nor less smart than any other one of the hundred, nay, thousand girls who lay back on the couch and thought of stardom while he shoved it in. But she was the one who got the wedding-band because she didn’t care.

  And now, she didn’t care who knew she didn’t care. Before our father could say, ‘Ill met by moonlight’, she had him up against a pasteboard tree, in the wood near Athens, under a giant daisy, in the lunch break and all the lights went out, they fused them. She thought that that macaw had got it right: ‘It ain’t no sin.’ She was in love, she was like a force of nature, but Genghis Khan was blind and deaf. Blind, deaf and dumb. He thought that he who paid the piper played the tune. An orchid never bit him back before.

  And now began a dreary time. Early to bed, up before dawn and out along the mean streets as the forlorn lights were extinguished one by one to join our fellow-workers on the production line. But we ourselves weren’t so much part of the process as pieces of the product. They laid us back in chrome recliners and sprayed us with paint, as if we were a motor chassis. We watched the mirror as if the faces it reflected were those of two other women. Greenish in colour: spangles on the cheekbones. Arms and hands, greenish. The green looked weird on monochrome. We had on artificial fingernails that looked like bark. Genghis Khan was staking his all on Art.

  We had been cast adrift from what we knew and how to do it. We felt we had been dislocated. Or, as if we, too, had surrendered to the dream but did not know for sure who dreamed us.

  We had a lot of dancing to do. A woman came out from the east, specially. Black hair scraped back, scrawny throat, leotards. None of your one, two, three kicks, for her. Angular movements, she said. She stuck out her bum and did peculiar things with her fingers. No tap-shoes, no character shoes, no point shoes; we danced barefoot. Very arty. She told us, if we smiled, she’d kill us.

  I’ll say this for Daisy, I didn’t recognise her in the dailies. I wouldn’t say she looked every inch the fairy queen; she looked as if, given half a chance, she’d drop her frock and twirl her tassels but Irish cut her lines down until she scarcely said a word, just stood in the wood and shimmered, and that big head took a lovely photo, I must say, even if it made cows’ eyes at Oberon all the time. The Lady A. kept off the set, she knew which way the wind was blowing. All the same, she toddled over for a photocall occasionally, pictured picking up her daughters from the lot, plastered all over the papers, next day. Nothing a republic loves better than a Lord, unless it is a Lady.

  Peregrine hovered round those girls all the time. He was foolish fond. Saskia would curl up on his knee and he’d fetch a little something for her out of her ear or her nostril. A pearl. A flower. The ends of her mouth went down to see the rose, she was a mercenary bitch even in those days. Skin like milk and amber eyes. Peregrine watched her wistfully as she danced off towards Melchior as soon as she saw him coming, leaving behind his own little gift without a second thought, as often as not.

  When Genghis Khan saw the rushes of the fairy dance, he put Art on hold. Out went the lady in leotards, in came a little henna’d man who used mascara with discretion. One, two, three, kick! We joined up; we went down on our hunkers and kicked like cossacks; leaned over backwards and plucked daisies with our teeth; somersaulted over one another; the splits. We’d been here before, we could have done it in our sleep. Bucks, wings, struts, stumps, shuffles, coffee-grinders. If Melchior hadn’t been so besotted with the wife of Genghis Khan, he wouldn’t have let him get away with the production numbers but Genghis Khan thought he was hedging his bets. Kaleidoscope effects; fifty identical twins, twenty-five of each. One, two, three, kick! Then we stood on one leg. He wanted a cascade, a water ballet, he drenched us. Water, water, everywhere! Did he think it was the bloody Tempest?

  The foxglove
s trembled, the King and Queen of the Fairies were up to their usual tricks. And, to complete my pleasure, Irish was waiting in the dressing room eager to berate me. He berated me, then wept. I’d have a pound of schlap on, my wig kept flashing on and off, all I wanted was a good wash, a sit-down, a cup of tea. He clutched my knees, he cried so much he soaked my tights, but I never promised him anything.

  I was his flawed chorine. Like a glass he didn’t know was cracked until it fell apart when he poured his passion in it. But what’s a girl to do? It was a real treat when he read me Daisy Miller out loud. But we’d reached the point in our relationship when, in a straight choice between him and Henry James, I’d have taken Henry James any day even if Henry James were dead and not much of a one for the girls when living, either. The more I said, ‘It was lovely, Irish, but it’s over,’ the keener he became. I said, ‘I’m very busy with my German lessons, Irish,’ and he called me his beloved harlot.

  I never went to his place, any more. On Sunday, I slept in at the Forest of Arden, got up late, lay in the blue, unnatural air beside the blue unnatural pool. Nora was never there on weekends any more. She was busy making ravioli. I felt that we were drifting apart.

  I wasn’t the only lonely one. Daisy’s cat slept on the canvas chair marked ‘Delia Delaney’, it never stirred a muscle, it lay quite flat and sometimes, when Genghis Khan came on to the set, he’d pick up that cat and cuddle it in a way that told me Daisy wasn’t available in the cuddling department any more. He’d gaze at her cooing at the King of the Fairies and he’d massage that white cat’s back until you thought he’d snap its spine. Don’t think Daisy was oblivious; she knew full well he went through hell. That was the way she kept her chaps in line.

  By the time we got our make-up off, it would be dark outside and there was a wind, sometimes, that smelled of the desert and the valley would be full of lights like diamanté in a black box, and a soft, deep dew was falling. As we were driven home to our thatched cottage, our steak and baked potato, our turned-down bed and early night, I felt we were marooned in Wonderland and victims of a plot.

  I know full well who plotted it. Not Melchior. Not Peregrine. Not even Genghis Khan. My German teacher was keen to ascribe everything to a cash nexus but I didn’t need him to tell me what was going on.

  The love of Mammon lay behind it all.

  We worked like slaves. Take after take after take. The same routine, the same song, the same line – over and over and over. We were both product and process, simultaneously, and it very near broke us. And what did all our hard work add up to? Just another Saturday night at the pictures! Your one shilling and ninepenn’orth. Your helping of dark. What an equation. Our sweated labour = your bit of fun.

  ‘Like tarts,’ said Nora, with prim distaste.

  I thought: as soon as all this is finished, we’ll go straight back to Brixton. We’ll softly and silently steal away, although we’d had plenty of offers, don’t think otherwise. We could have stayed out there, cut ourselves a nice little niche out there, hit the high spots. But I was pining away for home – for the whirr and rattle of the trams, the lights of Electric Avenue glowing like bad fish through a good old London fog, longing for rain and weather and bacon sandwiches, for the healthy chill of 49 Bard Road on a frosty morning, for the smell of home, the damp, the cabbage, the tea, the gin.

  ‘Cockney to the core,’ said Perry fondly. I felt I was in exile. I knew just what my German teacher felt. I thought that Nora felt it, too. I thought she, too, was pining away for home. But when I said to her: ‘I’m counting the days until the wrap, aren’t you?’ she said, ‘It all depends on Tony.’

  I saw which way the wind was blowing; she nourished aspirations towards the shoes and rice, the white lace and the orange blossoms. All of a sudden, even though I’d got thoroughly pissed off with her when she cramped our style in London, I started to miss Grandma, and not the way you miss a toothache when you lose a tooth, either.

  Then Perry buggered off. He reached his boredom threshold and was gone. He didn’t forget his salary cheque; he left a note on the white piano in his suite: ‘Find me poste restante in Hazard, Texas; I’ve saved enough to buy a ranch.’ I looked it up in the gazetteer. It was in the panhandle. When our grandparents played it late last century, it was a one-horse town but, from what the gazetteer had to say, it seemed the horse had died. Bit of a change from Hollywood! That’s why he went, of course.

  So, no Peregrine no more.

  Then something started to go wrong with time. We were all spellbound, now. The shooting schedule started out at eight weeks. Then it stretched to twelve. Then to twenty and then on ad infinitum. The director didn’t have his mind on the job, for one thing. He and Titania got on with, ahem, making the beast with two backs whenever the company knocked off for a ham and Swiss on rye with mayo. And nothing would satisfy Mascara, he was an obsessional, he was a perfectionist. And that ‘wood near Athens’ was a deathtrap. A couple of bunnies were concussed by swinging dewdrops; a gnome missed his footing on a toadstool and fractured a fibula; we backed into one of the spiky conkers by mistake, laddered our tights, punctured our posteriors and Nora’s went septic, off work for ten days on her front and hors de combat in the Forest of Arden, swearing and cursing and leafing through Brides magazine.

  The next Sunday morning, Nora on her belly, me on my back enjoying to the full my weekly lie-in, high drama strikes. Daisy herself comes knocking at the door.

  ‘I’m pregnint!’

  Was she going to pass it off as Genghis’s? Once we’d rubbed the sleep from our eyes and drunk our orange juice, we earnestly advised this course. Daisy accepted juice, herself, but poured into her goblet a slug from the silver flask she always carried with her. She was still in her nightie (café au lait chiffon) and hadn’t combed her hair but she’d brought us a breakfast of lox and bagels in spite of her fluster, she was a dear, really. She stopped in the middle of splitting her bagel. Her jaw dropped. What? Put one over on Genghis? What kind of a girl did we think she was?

  Such moral horror as suffused her features! You never saw anything like it. We were quite surprised and felt shoddy, by comparison, as if we lived in an ethical twilight, a cockroach world of compromise, lies, emotional sleight of hand. And so we did, I suppose. We called it ‘Life’. But Daisy wanted something better. So did Irish, come to think of it. It’s the American tragedy in a nutshell. They look around the world and think: ‘There must be something better!’ But there isn’t. Sorry, chum. This is it. What you see is what you get. Only the here and now.

  ‘He really wants children, you know,’ Nora suggested delicately.

  How did she know this herself? Easy. He’d offered her one. There was a memo from his desk, delivered to the set: Miss Leonora Chance, please call. She thought she ought to go, although she had a twinge of unease on account of Tony, who was jealous as Othello. We weren’t wanted on the set that day so I was busy with my studies (W. for Wedekind).

  He only made her wait for half an hour, in itself a wonder. He had a sliding time-scale for appointments. Actors cooled their heels from seven hours to five days, depending on their box-office. Agents, a week to three. Writers, six weeks minimum. Irish once waited five months in the outer office.

  But Genghis Khan’s very own navy-blue-suited secretary sat Nora on a leather sofa, even offered her some coffee before she retired behind her mahogany desk to be evasive on the telephone. Over her head was a big Grünewald crucifixion, the kind where the Christ has gangrene. No matter where you sat in that outer office, the eyes of that agonised Christ would follow you around. Nora took her coffee black and patted her handbag; she hadn’t forgotten to bring with her the wee, pearl-handled handgun Tony gave her on her birthday, just in case.

  She knew, because Daisy told her so, that all the time she sat and waited, Genghis would keep an eye on her through a special spyhole he’d had drilled in one of those Grünewald eyes.

  Then she was buzzed in; she was admitted to the holy of holies, the o
rchid arbour. He was leaning over a glass case. Although he wore white gloves he did not wear a shirt. He was giving a close inspection to something that looked like a rotting pudenda and didn’t answer her cheery, ‘What’cher, Mr Khan?’ but dropped a scrap of raw meat into the orifice, which gnashed its snappers in appreciation. There was a plate of steak tartare on his desk beside the photograph of Daisy which Nora could not help but note stood upside down. He stripped off his bloody gloves and tossed them in the wastepaper basket. He gave Nora his full attention.

  ‘I’m not going down on my knees to you,’ he said. ‘Not to an actress. Why, actresses go down on their knees to me!’ He gave a caw of mirth. Perhaps he thought this quip would break the ice. Nora, sat on a leather chair with a dental look about it, crossed and recrossed her legs and fingered the outlines of her little gun. ‘Out with it,’ she said. He was quite taken aback to find the chorus girl so forward, so earthy; ‘out with it’ is not a US idiom. She hastily translated: ‘Say what you’ve got to say and get it over with.’

  ‘My mother’s name was Leonora,’ he said. ‘I’ve chosen you to bear my child.’ He must have been fond of his mother, the sentimental old thing. He pressed a button on his desk and Nora’s chair collapsed. She was everso surprised. The back fell down, the seat shot out, it turned into a chaise longue and she went sprawling, legs in the air. While she had been fingering her bag, she must have accidentally slipped the safety catch because the gun went off – her bag was ruined – and blew a hole in the orchidarium. The secretary came beating on the door: ‘Everything all right, Mr Khan?’