‘Rose Sharon?’ said Joe. ‘Did she know Byron? I didn’t realize.’ He felt confused, irritated at having missed this titbit: Rose Sharon, one of the great Hollywood stars of her generation, three Oscar nominations, every picture an enormous box-office success. Why hadn’t he heard about this connection before? And why hadn’t Yolande mentioned it?
‘Joe, it was a real love story. When they were young. Romeo and Juliet. Type-casting. Naomi broke that one up, of course, along with the rest. Anyway, like I say, Byron hit the scandal sheets. Usually when that happened, when the studio got wind of it, they’d do a deal. I mean they say there was a huge trade done over Rock Hudson, huge. When Confidential offered Jack Navaar ten thousand dollars to talk. But Byron just wasn’t worth that kind of cover-up. They just let him go down the pan.’
‘I see,’ said Joe. ‘So who was it talked to this magazine? Do you know?’
‘Joe, I don’t know.’ Hilton sounded bored suddenly, irritable. ‘Some stringer. Hollywood swarms with them. Hookers most of them. Now look, this is really old news. We should talk about something more interesting. Joe, can you use anything on Floy Jacoby? I tell you that chick is going to be big. And we could both get big with her . . .’
Joe sat down in the morning and wrote a long, careful letter to Fleur. He asked her to forgive him for not telling her about Yolande, he told her that he had discovered that Kevin Clint was dead, and that Berelman had long since left Hollywood. After a great deal of thought he told her that he had also discovered that her father and Rose Sharon had had a love affair in the early days in Hollywood. ‘That was long before she was a big star. Or even a small one. Apparently Naomi MacNeice broke it up with great efficiency. I really don’t think she’d talk to you, but I suppose it’s worth a try.’ He hoped it wasn’t irresponsible of him but he felt he had to offer Fleur something to try to redeem himself.
She would almost certainly try to see Rose; Rose would almost certainly refuse her request; and after that, maybe, dear God, how he hoped so, Fleur would finally give in and let things rest.
Only letting things rest was not really Fleur’s style.
Transcript of telehone conversation with Hilda Foster, sister to Kirstie Fairfax, for Lost Years chapter of: The Tinsel Underneath.
I’m sorry, but I don’t want to get involved. I never have, and I never will. She died, she’s gone, she can’t be brought back; what’s the point of stitching up some bastard over twenty years later? Well, that’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? And like I say, it won’t help Kirstie. Poor kid. Starstruck, that’s what did it for her. They all were, all those kids. Whoever the guy was she got mixed up with out there, I’ll bet he was too. I didn’t know his name, I tell you I don’t want to get involved. We had all this at the time with the Los Angeles police, and we couldn’t help then. She never wrote, hardly ever called. All we knew was she met him at some casting session and he tried to help her. And he was very taken with her. Obviously it went wrong and he knocked her up in the process. Well, that’s life. It’s tough. Sure it was sad at the time, but it’s a long time ago. Life goes on.
Transcript of telephone conversation with Lou Burns, cameraman at ACI during 1950s.
Sure, I remember Byron. He was a real nice guy. Couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag, but he had the looks and he had Miss MacNeice, and who needed more? He was doing OK when all that shit hit the fan. I never could make out the truth of any of it. You never knew who was doing what to who in this town. Still don’t. It’s all an act. I tell you, even going to the toilet’s an act here. He was his own worst enemy, Byron was. Too trusting. He just never saw trouble coming. Yeah, I remember Kirstie Fairfax. Only because she died and she was here the day before, so the cops came round. He’d tried to help her. I mean there’s a for instance for you. Got her tested for some film with him, then when she doesn’t get it, she blames Byron. She was a tramp. Slept with half the town. Girls as well as men. On just about everything. Knocked up, wasn’t she? She comes in with some funny little dancer guy. Queer as a nine-dollar bill. ‘Where’s Byron?’ she says. ‘I wanna tell him something.’
I say he’s gone and she says tell him Kirstie called. Tell him we’ve passed the message on. Then she’s gone, and I never see her again.
1966
‘The thing is, I’m pregnant,’ said Chloe, looking rather fierce, ‘so there’s no point trying to stop me. It’s either an illegitimate grandchild, or you agreeing to the wedding. I’m twenty now, so I shall be able to do what I want next year anyway. Sorry, Mummy.’
Joe looked at her, pale and tired, standing there so bravely in her mother’s drawing room, making her announcement, and thought that if Piers had walked in now he would find it quite difficult to refrain from some kind of physical assault on him.
‘I told Piers not to come,’ she said, fiercely defensive, anticipating what he might say. ‘I knew you’d be horrible, and it would be worse if he was here.’
‘Well, let us not waste time and energy debating that,’ said Caroline. ‘This is nonsense, Chloe, of course you can’t marry Piers Windsor.’
‘Caroline,’ said Joe, warningly gentle, ‘let Chloe at least tell us whatever she wants to.’
‘I’ve told you,’ said Chloe. ‘I’m going to marry him. Very soon.’
‘But poppet, why? What’s the rush?’
‘I’d have thought that was obvious. I’m pregnant.’
‘Chloe,’ said Caroline, clearly struggling to be calm, to digest the situation, ‘you don’t have to get married. Just because you’re pregnant.’
‘Oh really? I suppose you want me to have an abortion.’
‘Chloe, don’t be silly. Of course we don’t. But you don’t actually have to get married. Until – until, well, you’re sure.’
‘I am sure. And why shouldn’t I get married? You don’t seem to understand. We love each other.’
‘Chloe, you’ve known – Piers –’ Caroline plainly had trouble getting the name out, without spitting – ‘known him for about four or five months. That isn’t very long.’
‘It’s long enough.’
‘Chloe,’ said Joe, and he could hear himself saying the words, very slowly, very cautiously, as he struggled not to alienate her, not to drive her faster into the disastrous course she had set herself on, ‘Chloe darling, I know you do feel quite sure about this. But first of all please try to understand this is something of a shock to us. We’re trying to be calm, but it isn’t easy.’
‘No,’ said Chloe and for the first time she looked slightly less hostile. ‘No, I can see that. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s all right. And then please, please think. Piers is at least, at the very least, twenty years older than you are. He leads a life of which you know nothing. You will find yourself, if you do marry him, having to contend with situations which you will find extremely difficult, and people with whom you have nothing in common. It may not seem very important to you now, but later, when the first excitement has worn off, it will. Your life will be terribly difficult; you’re shy, you’re – well, you’re very young. I just don’t see how you can be happy with him. Or rather,’ he added, still desperate to be tactful, ‘with his life.’
‘Well, I can,’ said Chloe, and he could see she was near to tears. ‘I know I’m shy, that’s half the point. All my life people have put me down, thought I was stupid. Boys don’t really like me. I hate the kind of men you’d want me to marry. Of course I’m shy. But Piers loves me and thinks I’m wonderful and wants me to be his wife. That makes me a lot less shy, I can tell you.’
‘But, Chloe –’
‘Don’t keep saying but. I’m going to marry him. And just in case you think he shouldn’t have got me pregnant, it was absolutely my fault. He thought I was on the pill and I wasn’t. So don’t blame him for that.’
‘Chloe, that is absurd.’ Caroline’s face was ver
y white and there were two brilliant red spots on her cheeks. ‘There is a way of not becoming pregnant that neither of you seem to have considered. You don’t have to go to bed with someone just because you are in love with them, you know.’
‘Oh really?’ said Chloe, turning on her like a small, cold fury. ‘Well there’s certainly no way I could have learnt that from you.’
‘Chloe!’ said Caroline. ‘Please don’t.’
‘Don’t what?’ said Chloe. ‘Talk about you? About it? Why not?’
‘Because it’s totally irrelevant to all this,’ said Caroline, ‘that’s why not.’
‘Oh really?’ said Chloe. ‘Not totally, I wouldn’t have said. If we had been closer, if you’d had a bit more time for me, if –’
‘Chloe, don’t,’ said Joe, suddenly very sad. ‘This is getting us nowhere. We want your happiness, poppet, that’s all.’
‘Yes, well, my happiness is with Piers,’ said Chloe. ‘I’m an adult now, and I know what’s best for me. I thought you’d be like this, not even try to understand. I’m going back to London now. I just wanted to let you know.’
‘Chloe, wait,’ said Caroline.
But she was gone.
‘I just can’t understand it,’ said Joe. He and Caroline were sitting by the fire in the drawing room an hour later; it was a cold August day, and the scene with Chloe had made it seem colder. ‘I can see why she’s infatuated with him, but I don’t understand why he wants to marry her.’
‘Well, maybe he’s infatuated too,’ said Caroline, rather bleakly. ‘She’s young and very pretty. She is – or rather was – a virgin. No doubt it all rather panders to his monstrous ego.’
‘But he knows dozens of very pretty young girls,’ said Joe. ‘All dying to take off their knickers for him. Much more his style as well. Chloe simply isn’t.’
‘Maybe that’s the point.’
‘Maybe. I don’t know. I actually would have said pretty boys were more his thing.’
‘I presume you’re joking,’ said Caroline.
But he could see the unease in her eyes.
Later she said he must talk to Piers.
‘It’s all your fault anyway.’
‘Thanks. Why is it my fault?’
‘You introduced them. Didn’t you?’
‘Not really, no,’ said Joe wearily, wondering for the hundredth, the thousandth time what Caroline would say or do if she knew the original reason that he had been investigating Piers Windsor’s past. Thank God, thank God the investigations had drawn a blank, that the drift of information had proved nothing, an entirely fragmented straw in the wind.
‘Piers? Joe Payton. I think we should talk.’
‘Of course.’ Piers’s voice was as always silken smooth. ‘Yes. I’ve been expecting you to call. Can I buy you lunch?’
‘If you like,’ said Joe. He might as well get what he could out of the bugger.
‘Look,’ he said, as they settled to Steak Diane at the Savoy Grill, ‘I want to know why you’re marrying her. Why not just an affair? Why not make her your mistress? It’s very destructive, what you’re doing.’
‘Joe, please!’ Piers’s grey eyes were very wide, his face very candid. ‘I love her. I really do.’
‘If you loved her,’ said Joe flatly, ‘you wouldn’t marry her. You’d leave her alone.’
‘How very unfair of you. Why should I leave her alone?’
‘Because she’s not going to be able to cope with you. With your life. With any of it,’ said Joe desperately. ‘She’s young, she’s only twenty, Piers, for Christ’s sake, and a young twenty, totally unsophisticated, terribly shy. She’ll suffer agonies. Once the first flush is over. And she won’t be a very satisfactory wife to you either. She’s not what you want, Piers.’
‘You’re quite wrong there,’ said Piers easily, draining his glass. ‘You understimate her, Joe, totally. She is a person of sterling character. And she is what I want.’
Joe looked at him, suddenly intent. ‘How much do you know about her, Piers? About her background?’
‘Oh – as much as I need to know,’ said Piers. ‘I know she’s a typical product of her class, her education. I know she’s shy and lacks self-confidence. For which I have to say I blame her mother.’
‘Oh really?’ said Joe sharply. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ said Piers. ‘Caroline is very unaffectionate, very detached. She hardly has a relationship with Chloe. She clearly adores those boys, favours them quite appallingly over Chloe. I think it’s hardly surprising she’s shy and insecure.’
So he didn’t know. Well, that was interesting. And probably a good thing.
‘Anyway,’ Piers went on, ‘I think she will cope splendidly. And I will help her.’
‘Do you call this pregnancy helping? It’s absurd, it’s making things twice, three times as difficult. She’s not well, she’s exhausted, she’s –’
‘I’m not entirely happy about that,’ said Piers quietly. ‘I have to tell you. For her sake, not mine. I had no idea she was – well, she told me she was on the pill. I’m very sorry about it. I can see how you must feel. She’s quite wilful, you see,’ he added with a slightly wry smile. ‘She’s not the helpless malleable creature you seem to imagine. But – well, I’m sorry, Joe. I asked her to marry me long before I knew she was pregnant. I love her. I want to have her with me. I need her.’
‘Yes, but why? Why do you need her, Piers?’ said Joe. He looked across at him, hating him, at the famously beautiful, chiselled face, the wide grey eyes, the girlishly long eyelashes and the awful sprayed-on hairstyle.
‘I told you,’ said Piers, gently firm, an expression somewhere near reproof in his eyes, ‘I love her. And you really mustn’t worry about her, Joe. I’ll take the greatest care of her. She’s doing beautifully.’
Chloe would have been surprised to hear this conversation. She did not feel she was doing beautifully at all. Despite her adoration of Piers, his constant affirmation that he adored her, it was hard: she would not have believed how hard. There were times when she would have run away, had it not been for the baby, but she knew it was too late to change her mind. She would have run away, not from Piers, but from the life she found herself thrust into. The theatrical tribe is arguably the hardest of all in which to gain acceptance. Its language, its customs, its initiation ceremonies are all absolutely exclusive; no experience of any other people can prepare for it. While Chloe was only trying to gain acceptance as a member, she was seen, by the women within the circle, as an interloper of the highest order, a plunderer, stealing a glittering and unearned prize.
Most people in Piers’s circle treated her with an initially overt and gushing politeness, and then proceeded to ignore her, occasionally tossing her a courtesy smile. She had many times sat for over an hour at a lunch or dinner table, completely silent, neither speaking nor spoken to, while Piers’s friends exchanged jokes and gossip, discussed their present and future work and frequently invited him to join them for all manner of social and professional happenings without so much as glancing in Chloe’s direction. She sometimes thought if she had to listen to one more conversation about how John Osborne had changed the English theatre beyond recognition, or how breathtakingly brilliant Tom Stoppard was, how magically talented Vanessa Redgrave, how Bernard Levin’s review of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had just slightly missed the point, she would scream very loudly indeed. But of course she never did, she went on sitting, smiling politely, trying to look intelligent, praying no one would speak to her, ask her opinion. Not everyone was like that; some people were kind and courteous, particularly men, and those of Piers’s generation, but both older women and young girls regarded her at best tolerantly and at worst with contempt.
She struggled not to mind, she struggled to join in the conversations, to ignore the
hostility, the coolness, to tell herself it was only a phase, something that had to be gone through, that it would surely get better and that anyway it didn’t matter, and that Piers loved her and that was all that mattered – and still it was hard.
There had been one particularly appalling day, just before the wedding, which weeks later she could hardly bear to think about: they had been invited to a lunch party, given by Maria Woolf at her house in Oxfordshire. Maria Woolf was the leading member of the circle concentric to Piers’s own: not theatrical, but café society, rich, smart, high profile (‘They love to boast about being in each other’s worlds,’ Joe had explained to Chloe: he was a great source of information on such matters, she had discovered); Maria Woolf was an over-dressed, over-jewelled blonde, with wide blue eyes and a rosebud mouth which totally belied a ruthless ambition and almost complete self-absorption; she was married to millionaire industrialist Jack Woolf and nobody knew quite why he put up with her. ‘You know what they used to say about Fred and Ginger,’ Piers said to Chloe once in an unusually humorous comment, ‘she gave him sex and he gave her class: same with Maria and Jack, except he gives her money.’ Maria was a heavy investor in many of Piers’s productions, including the Lady, and was important to him. Piers had assured Chloe that she would love the party, that she would have the greatest fun, that there would be all sorts of amusing people there, that he would be with her, and that most people would kill to be going. Chloe would have killed not to be going.
The party was huge: Piers’s pale grey Rolls pulled through the iron gates of the Woolfs’ house – a beautiful Queen Anne mansion near Oxford – and she saw, with a thud of terror, innumerable groups of people, all immensely glamorously dressed, scattered everywhere. Most of them seemed to know Piers and waved at the car; countless women blew him kisses. Chloe shrank into her seat, forcing herself to keep calm, and debated saying she felt ill and wanted to go home, but she knew that would be a mistake. She had to go through with this. She had to. It was part of the deal, as she had told herself so many times during the past two months, part of becoming Mrs Windsor. She forced herself to smile, to ask Piers who people were, and became instantly confused against a background of, ‘Oh, that’s Lila Beauchamp, wonderful girl, she and I were at RADA together, and that’s her husband, very big banker, darling, do be nice to him, and there’s old Foggy Fanshawe, we were at school together, and that’s his new lady, Dulcima, isn’t she lovely, now that’s Caroline Outhwaite, she’s so sweet you’ll love her, her husband will adore you, he’s a wicked old rogue, always causing trouble in the House of Lords, he’s probably in the bushes even now with some dolly bird and that’s . . .’
AN Outrageous Affair Page 39