Unfamous

by Emma Morgan

  *****

  https://callmechiara.blogspot.com/

  You Might Have Guest The Rest...

  Posted by Chiara on October 15, 2010

  I didn’t have time to panic, just to grab a carrier bag, stuff everything of mine left in the cottage into it and leap into the cab, if I was to make the train back to London in time for the function. So I was almost in Preston when I fully realised what had happened – that after almost a week of writing Stacey’s life story for her, she had stolen it from me.

  At any point, I could have called up the newsdesk and asked them to check a few facts, but I didn’t. I gave her the benefit of the doubt, gave her my time, and she repaid me by running off with my laptop and the tapes.

  More fool her. I had backed up everything I had written on email to myself, and Stacey didn’t have my password to delete it all, so really all she had was the deadweight of an almost-obsolete computer to lug around with her to – to where? She would hardly be waiting for me on my doorstep, and I doubted Cady Stone would throw open the doors to her immaculate home should she attack the intercom.

  Did she think she could arrive at a publisher’s and hand over the laptop in exchange for a hearty advance? I would love to have seen her try...

  She did have the tapes, but I doubted they would be much good to her now. As I put the third one back in its box last night I saw it was getting chewed up by the nth-hand Walkman; maybe they would self-destruct if she tried to listen to or transcribe them.

  Basically, Stacey could be anywhere now, and I had neither resources nor patience enough to track her down – although she would be lucky to get a National Express ticket with what she could get for the laptop.

  In the spare seconds before my train left I had bought a paper and stationery in the platform newsagent. I needed to get up to speed on the tabloid tales du jour if I was to sidle up to the main players that night – and I wanted to finish off Stacey’s story.

  ‘When Monday came, the diplomat marvelled once more at the sumptuous interior of the Mamounia’s reception, wondering aloud at how much just one night in a riad might cost. ‘I mean,’ he said to his wife, ‘you could probably stay for a week in a standard room for the cost of an overnight stay in a riad, so clearly she’s not wanting for...” He quietened when their friend arrived, looking much younger with the kohl and lipliner all washed away. She was gently tanned and clear-skinned, one of those women who look their most beautiful when pregnant. Hilary had not been the same – her skin had suffered dreadfully, as had her digestion – and the diplomat now came to wonder if all her afflictions had been signs of the sadness to come, that her body could not cope with the pregnancy and ultimately no good would come of it? Surely not. Most women experience morning sickness at some stage, he knew, and yet most babies are born with no complications, so there could be no correlation. They could not have known. They could not have known.

  “It’s not far,” Hilary told Estella, as they walked out into the shy warmth of the November sun, “but we’ll take a cab, to be on the safe side.” Estella nodded. As well as looking younger, she looked more vulnerable in daylight, as if being in character at the party had lent her a confidence she usually lacked. The diplomat despised himself for doubting whether they should pay, whether they should even befriend this stray waif – even if she was wealthy, she still needed support. And he would give it, they would give it, and, who knows, maybe it would begin the healing process?

  Estella was ushered straight in to see Doctor Harris, and their consultation was swift. She emerged looking relieved, hugging her stomach, more visible today above the waistband of her jeans, beneath a white vest-top topped off with a pale denim shirt. “She is fine!” she smiled, “everything is fine.” He saw Hilary’s tiny flinch, but also her joy. She hadn’t brought harm to the baby by accident, she would have no reason to hold herself responsible should anything dreadful happen, not that anything dreadful would happen, but sometimes it did, even if no-one knew how.

  For the remainder of the gestation period, Estella and Hilary grew ever closer, so when the due date finally arrived, the diplomat’s wife was unsurprised but honoured to be asked to be the birthing partner. “I would love to,” she almost wept. The labour went well, and as the healthy baby was passed to Hilary for safekeeping while Estella was checked over, she felt a rush of love unlike anything she had ever known. When her own child was born, she had seen from the terrible expression on the faces of the doctor and midwife that something was wrong, so she had never allowed herself to fully connect to the tiny body that emerged from her own, she had never unlocked the sluice gate of her affections. But now, as she watched the minute child wriggle and breathe and be, she felt her chest expand to contain her heart. She was not mended, she would always have the scar of her loss, but in that moment she knew happiness once more and felt rejuvenated, as if she too had been born that day. She was Hilary, only happier.

  With her husband busy at work so much of the time, Hilary became a regular visitor at the Mamounia, known as well to the staff as Estella. She had thought it a wonderful idea to have Suki, as the baby girl was indeed named, ‘christened’ there, albeit in a non-denominational ceremony. She imagined a blissful childhood, of running amongst the gardens, beloved by friends and staff alike, and felt almost jealous.

  Yet as adoring as Hilary was of Suki, Estella seemed somehow distant. She had been prescribed painkillers after the birth so had not breastfed, and Hilary worried that she had failed to bond with her child. She diagnosed Baby Blues, and tried to cheer Estella up as best she could, but where she delighted at Suki’s development – being able to focus on faces, to grip, to lift her head – Estella seemed uninterested at best, even irritated sometimes. How could she feel this way? She hadn’t known the pain of loss first, so perhaps took for granted her ability to birth a healthy baby, but Suki was an empirically adorable creature, no-one would deny it. She was a very pretty, peaceful child who slept through the night after only a couple of months. No parent could want for more – and yet Estella seemed to be estranging herself little by little each day.

  It was not until Hilary saw her arms one day that she understood. After the birth, Estella had taken to wearing long sleeves at all times, even when the spring weather arrived. Hilary did not follow fashion, so assumed it was another trend to which she was oblivious. Then, as they sat by the drained pool one morning (the manager insisted, for the safety of the baby, should she suddenly start crawling – it was filled with cushions instead), Estella stretched her hands above her head in a yogic pose. The cotton sleeves of her kaftan slithered down to her shoulders and Hilary saw with horror that the insides of her elbows were covered in scars and bruises, running along her veins. Hilary knew something was horribly wrong but that asking Estella about it outright was not the done thing; instead, she committed it to memory and made a call to Doctor Harris when she arrived home. Having accompanied Estella to all of her pre-natal check-ups, she herself had been given the physician’s private number but thankfully had not needed it until now.

  “I have a friend,” she began, “who has these terrible marks on her arms. And I am worried that, well, I don’t know exactly what they are but they look painful and dangerous and I fear for her...” Hilary stopped short of saying ‘daughter’ but suspected Doctor Harris was ahead of her. He asked that she describe exactly what she had seen and, after a deep doleful sigh, said he suspected her ‘friend’ was injecting heroin or some other opiate. “Heroin!” gasped Hilary. “Why, that’s not possible – where would she get it?” “It’s not uncommon around here,” the doctor told her, “this was quite the destination for ’60s musicians.” He advised she should make time to talk to her friend, that he knew of facilities that could help, and that it need not be a death sentence, “just a misstep”.

  Hilary’s heart was heavy as she rang off, not just for her friend but also Suki, growing up in the presence of a ‘junkie’, as she had heard them called. What kind of life could she have,
taking second place to addiction, and at such an early age? She swore to herself she would take legal action if needs be – her husband could help, if they needed to take the child away in order to have Estella understand the severity of the situation. But when she arrived, galvanised, at the Mamounia the next morning, it was as if Estella knew her intent, and refused to open the door to the riad. Hilary had to wait until the maid came to change the sheets; “Allow me – she’s not well,” she insisted as the door was opened, taking the bedding from the startled girl’s arms and waving her away. She went to Suki first, crying in a sodden terry nappy – the same one Hilary had changed the day before, she noted from the fold and the angle of the safety pin. She added ‘neglect’ to the list of ways Estella was failing her baby, then stormed into the bedroom to find her dead.

  In a terrible way, she was relieved. Hilary hated confrontation and now all she had to do was arrange a funeral, not start a fight. Much easier. She composed herself, picked up Suki and rang her husband’s office. “Estella is dead, drugs,” she said, as if dictating notes. “You had probably better send an ambulance. Suki is fine, she is coming with us.” And so the decision was made. Suki was coming with them. As the ambulance arrived, to the surprise of the front desk, Hilary left the riad for the final time, with Suki in her arms. The diplomat saw to it that any evidence of drug-taking was cleansed from the room. The ambulance took Estella to the hospital favoured by ex-pats – merely a formality, alas.

  Being close friends of the deceased and the de facto guardians of her daughter, Hilary and her husband swiftly met with the approval of the local adoption board, who no more wanted to add another child to their care than to incur the wrath of the British High Commission or US Consulate. The diplomat knew enough of the right people to ensure fast passage through the correct legal channels, so, within days of the death certificate being signed off, the adoption papers were stamped.

  They were parents at last. They had been parents before, of course, but never dared acknowledge the fact. But now they had physical proof, a living, breathing baby they could nurture and adore. They concocted a story to gloss over the discrepancies in the timeline – their doctor had miscalculated the due date and the baby was underweight for her age, but otherwise she was fine. Thankfully, they weren’t well-known enough to have merited any announcements in the press, so if anyone said, ‘Oh, I though you were due back in...’ they would laugh it off with, ‘So did we, so you can imagine how frustrating it was to have a few weeks more to wait!’ It was a stretch, but who would debate dates with proud parents holding their child, the ultimate evidence?

  With Estella gone and the trips to the Mamounia ended, Hilary felt no reason to stay in Marrakech when she could be setting up home back in London, so the diplomat took the first office job offered back in his native city and they decamped, taking with them only the documentation that revealed their daughter’s true identity. Papers which they never found the right time to present and explain, papers which were stashed away yet omnipresent in their minds, like Edgar Allan Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart beneath the floorboards, a nagging reminder of the white lie that had become a way of life. A reason to keep the child they had adored from before her birth increasingly at arm’s length, until she truly was almost a stranger to them, a cuckoo in their nest.

  So it was unsurprising that when the adult Suki found the certificates that made her question her entire existence, she wanted payback for her estrangement. If she really was who these old papers suggested she might be, she wanted to cash in. Immediately.”

  Arriving at Euston stopped me from assassinating Stacey on the page. That, and remembering my duties. I ran to-and-from the Tube, showered in five minutes, wriggled into the one ready-to-wear dress in my wardrobe, checked the batteries in my Dictaphone and stuck it in a clutch with pens, a pad – in case technology failed me, or was stolen from under my nose again – and cash, then ran out. My fastest pit-stop yet.

  Back on the Tube I battled the vibrations to put on make-up, only poking myself in the eye twice with the liner and accidentally mascara-ing an eyebrow once. By the time I arrived in Kensington, I looked semi-presentable. Were I attending as a guest, I would have made more effort but as I would be little more than talking wallpaper for the evening, earwigging while famous folk admired themselves and stole snide glances at one other, it only mattered that I didn’t look like I shouldn’t really be there. There was an unwritten rule that we columnists should be passable but not glamorous, lest we turned up like Raquel Welch at her son’s wedding, trying to outshine the bride. We wouldn’t gather much gossip if anyone was jealous of us.

  I had only a vague idea where I was going but when I turned into the little side street where the restaurant was supposed to be, the location was unmistakeable. The shop front was thronged by snappers and autograph stalkers – and I was home. I sauntered over to some photographers I knew, to find out what I was supposed to be covering.

  “Dinner for some old-dear actress. Louise Dulac, if you know who that is.”

  “Louise Dulac, are you sure?” She is alive?

  “I think that is what they said. Fucked if we know who she is.”

  I knew. And Stacey did too. Which explained why she was the first person I saw, sidling over to the main entrance, grinning and posing for the paps, then gliding inside with the confidence of an access-all-areas A-lister. It was a trick I often used myself – look like you are entitled to be there and often they will wave you in, rather than look like idiots for questioning you. ‘It’s all a game of who knows who, whether you are on the door or going through,’ was one of the first things I had learnt at work. Look like you are meant to be there and you will be: the power of suggestion.

  What did she think she was going to do, stand on a table and declare her birthright? Yank out hairs from beneath Louise Dulac’s wig and go for a DNA test? Or just tell her?

  I had to know.

  I queued. As we lesser-celebrated types shuffled along, I was glad to see a familiar face wielding the clipboard, a PR friend who I had done favours for, seeding stories about whichever useless products or presenters she was touting at the time. A quick “Darling!” or two, a “You look well! Spa?” and I was admitted, leaving my competitors to glare through the window as I waltzed in, turning on my Dictaphone.

  But my eyes weren’t on the prized boldface names tonight; I had Stacey in my sights. She owed me: for my friendship, for my computer – and for my scoop.

  As she worked her way around the room, I mirrored her actions, sitting down at the opposite side of the room, keeping an eye-line open even as the restaurant filled up. The turnout was impressive and I knew we would get at least a front-page splash. All I needed to do was get some piffle from famous faces about what big fans they were of Louise Dulac and what an honour it was to meet her (lie, lie) and I could retire for the night, ready to caption pictures for the next edition.

  I had a commission of my own – I needed to know how Stacey’s story ended.

  The buzz in the room had started to dull, some guests suspecting it was some scam and they were being rounded up to be humiliated or worse, when two figures appeared at the door, an elderly lady in a wheelchair and her carer. The clipboard-wielding wallah had no intention of letting them in, and titters could be heard at the tables.

  ‘Silly cow thinks this is for her!’ said one teen actor-turned-gigolo, so young he obviously couldn’t conceive of a celebrity being an octogenarian; his sliver of fame wouldn’t stretch to 30, so how could he?

  I took it upon myself to run to the front door. “Ms Dulac! Such a thrill to have you with us, please come in!” I flashed my eyes at my PR pal, inclining my head toward the old woman to indicate ‘This is her!’ Her tone changed to sing-song sunniness: “You’re not on my list because the party is for you – do go through!”

  Once inside, I had a decision to make. I either leave Louise to the mercy of the room – which was expecting some willowy goddess, well-preserved and as spry and bright
-eyed as in her heyday – or blow my cover to Stacey and make an announcement. But before I could mentally toss a coin, the hostess arrived and intervened.

  “So sorry I am late, terrible traffic. Thrilled you could make it, just thrilled,” she whispered to Louise, before clearing her throat and making introductions.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we are no strangers to British success stories in Hollywood – or indeed failures... But tonight we are in the presence of perhaps the most successful of them all, certainly the female trailblazer. Where Chaplin led, she followed, carving out for herself an unforgettable career as one of early cinema’s more beloved comediennes and actresses. Her movies still delight today, and I am thrilled to say she is here with us now, so I ask you to please raise your glasses to a Brit who made her mark on Broadway, Hollywood – and the oil industry. Louise Dulac!”

  Three things struck me at that moment. First, that the room turned on a sixpence from sniggering ridicule to adoration. Second, that Cady Stone was apparently the hostess of the event and, third, that Stacey was obviously now trying to hide from her.

  Cady made some one-on-one introductions, to a group of film producers and their go-to leading man who was instantly effusive, then wove her way through the room to check the kitchens. At which point, Stacey made straight for the wheelchair.

  I had wondered where she had got whatever she was wearing tonight and now, at close range, I knew. A charity shop. She was wearing some dreadful old nightdress, beaded and shabby, and had ringed her eyes so much she was in danger of being deported to a Chinese zoo. Her lips were a childish attempt at a Clara Bow mouth and her hair was kinked into waves with too much gel and endless slides. It was like fancy dress...

  ... And if Louise Dulac was as infirm as she looked, it might work. Through cataracts, glaucoma or short-sightedness, Stacey might look like Estella at the Mamounia.

  I elbowed towards them, my Dictaphone thrust out in front of me like a figurehead on the keel of my ship. I got into earshot just in time.

  Stacey stuttered: “I am, I am your... I am...”

  It was pitiful.

  To my astonishment, Louise replied “I know who you are.”

  She smiled, and I saw at once the attraction she must have had on screen all those years ago, barely diminished by her wrinkles.

  “I know who you are, and I love you.”

  Stacey inhaled as if shocked.

  It had been so simple, after all.

  She had gone to take her grandmother’s hand when another, more important guest leant over and shook it instead then went in for a kiss, completely blocking Stacey out. Looking dazed, she wandered back to her seat.

  I waited until I had what I needed, then went to find her.

  When she saw me, aside from a split-second pang of recognition at the dress I was wearing – fully restored since its rinse in the Thames – she didn’t look guilty.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here...” I began, not too combative.

  “She knows who I am,” said Stacey, smiling trance-like. “And she loves me.”

  A part of me didn’t want to play back to Stacey what I had just recorded. But I reasoned that I would want to know, and that the truth would come out eventually. This would be my payback. I would write off the computer once I had played it.

  I stopped recording and rewound a minute or two.

  “Do you want to listen back to it?”

  Stacey’s eyes lit up and I felt briefly evil.

  STACEY: “Ms Dulac? I’m, I’m your... I’m.”

  LOUISE DULAC: “I know who you are. I know who you are, and I love you.”

  Stacey smiled and went for Stop, but I pulled the Dictaphone away and let it play.

  She tilted her head to say, ‘Why?’

  There came the sound of the actor glad-handing Louise, then her carer spoke:

  CARER: “What did that girl think she looked like?”

  LOUISE DULAC: [Laughs] “Me, of course. They all think they look like me, the fans. They spend all this time on the costumes and make-up but they can never quite capture it, can they? But I love them, I love them all. The fans are what made me...”

  CARER: “Yes, yes, blah blah blah...”

  With that, she wheeled her away from my mic. I pressed Stop.

  “She loves you because she thinks you are a fan.”

  “No,” Stacey shook her head, her waves coming loose, “she knows who I am, that I am her granddaughter.”

  “No, she thinks you are a fan and she loves her fans. At least you met her, eh?”

  My evil deed done, I went back to work.

  Stacey sat in her seat for hours, only changing position when Cady Stone was in her orbit. There was unfinished business there – maybe I should stage another reunion?

  The party began to peter out but Louise Dulac showed no signs of leaving early. If this was to be her last big hurrah, she was clearly going to make every moment last. Come midnight, there were only waiters, Stacey, Cady Stone, Louise, her carer and myself still there. I wasn’t going to leave if anything was going to kick off, Stacey didn’t dare make herself known to Cady. A Mexican standoff in an Italian restaurant.

  When Cady’s phone rang, and she stepped outside to take the call, Stacey finally leapt up from her seat. I pointed my recorder at Louise, sitting just feet away from me.

  “I’m not a fan,” Stacey stammered. “I mean, I am a fan but I’m more than that...”

  This was not the first time an obsessive had presented themselves to Louise, and she handled it beautifully. True old-school class and glamour.

  “My dear, every fan thinks they are the biggest and the most devoted, and I believe you when you say it. Every fan should feel that way, that they have a special connection, that they get the star and their work more than anyone else does, that they have a real relationship through the screen. If you didn’t feel that way, I wouldn’t have been doing my job properly. So I am thrilled to meet you. As thrilled as you must be to meet me.”

  It was a speech I was sure she had delivered before but she gave it with such poise and passion it felt almost improvised. Bravo.

  Stacey felt differently.

  “No. I’m not just a fan or an obsessive or a stalker...”

  Louise flinched at the S-word as Cady slipped back into the room, out of view.

  “...I am your granddaughter!” Stacey blurted with all the effort she could summon.

  But for the stereo, the restaurant fell silent.

  “You are... what?”

  “Your granddaughter.” Stacey was almost sobbing. “Suki. Estella’s daughter?”

  Now out of character, Louise looked stern. She turned to her carer.

  “I have a granddaughter? When were you going to tell me this?”

  The carer looked utterly confused. She turned to Stacey.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I... um, I found some papers, and I... um, well...”

  “Do you not mean you stole papers, like you stole stories?”

  The sound of Cady’s voice made Stacey jump.

  “I do not understand what is going on,” said Louise, sounding all of her 95 years.

  “It is very simple,” said Cady, calmly. “This girl...”

  “No, no, I don’t understand why Stella never said anything. Why, Stella, why?”

  “Because I gave her away,” said the carer.

  The carer is Estella?

  “I was very young, I could not have coped alone, the plan had gone wrong... and I met this couple and who so wanted a child and it seemed like the perfect situation.”

  “And this is the first I hear of it?” barked Louise.

  “What would you have expected me to say?” asked Estella, “‘Hi Mother, sorry the comeback didn’t work out but, guess what, you’re going to be a grandmother!’? That is the last thing you would have wanted to hear. If you couldn’t get work as a single mother, being a single grandmother wouldn’t have helped, would it?”
<
br />   Louise did a dainty shrug. “I just wish you’d said something sooner, that’s all.”

  She yawned; “Do you think we might go home now?”

  I couldn’t believe she had been so matter-of-fact about it all – and had one important question to ask before they left, to return to obscurity.

  “So... she is not your daughter?” I asked Estella, pointing at Stacey.

  The woman in the dowdy brown dress looked Stacey up and down, taking in the crass cosmetics job and ill-fitting nightdress while trying not to laugh.

  “No. She’s not. She looks nothing like the father. Sorry.

  She looked straight at Stacey: “Did you really think you were?”

  Stacey started to nod, then stopped. “I thought I did, but...”

  “She just wants to be famous,” said Cady. “Desperately. That is why she latched on to me and sold my secrets. I should have known, there was no way anyone else could have known some of the stuff that got printed, but I was too trusting, I suppose. I liked her, took pity on her, so I let her move in. That is when she must have stolen the papers.”

  My brain was slowly making sense of it all. “So... you are Suki?”

  I looked at Estella, who was squinting at her maybe-daughter, analysing her height, her poise, her eyes...

  “Her nose – it’s his. Without a doubt. And the height is right, and the build. You look very like his sister did, actually, just like her.”

  Cady smiled shyly but a theatrical yawn from Louise meant there was no group hug there and then. Instead, cards were swapped and promises made to meet – when Louise was feeling rested again – and discuss DNA testing, and to take things from there.

  “It is amazing what you can do these days, do you not think?” said a sleepy Louise as she was being wheeled out of the door by her thought-dead daughter.

  I couldn’t hear what Cady was saying to Stacey, accompanied by some fearsome stabbing gestures with her right index finger, but I gathered that if missing items were returned to her ASAP, nothing more would be said. (She should have insisted no more false claims be made, too, but who knew Stacey would dare to do her ‘memoirs’?)

  My scoop had come to nothing. But now I had something better.

  So we came to an arrangement, the Dulac ladies and I. As long as their story stayed quiet in the meantime, we would meet when the full DNA results had come through and I would get everything, exclusively, with Estella and Louise’s full and unabridged input. If they reneged, I would print what I already had – that was my insurance policy.

  I couldn’t predict what Stacey would do, but I knew Cady would be true to her word. You can’t fake class like that.

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