by Maureen Lee
They lapsed into a companionable silence. She’d been devastated, yet very proud, when, two years ago, he’d volunteered to join the Army-Air Force without waiting to be called up. It was a big relief when he was posted to Britain rather than the Far East where the war had yet to end and where thousands of young Americans had died at the hands of the Japanese, one of them her very dear friend, Zeke Penn, who’d returned to defend his country as soon as the war had started.
John stopped and asked a man wearing a flat cap and overalls the way to Liverpool. ‘It sounds quite straightforward, ’ he said when he got back in the jeep.
It seemed no time before they were entering the outskirts of the city where the houses were mainly new. They passed tramcars gliding along the middle of the road, which Anne found quite fascinating. ‘I’d love to go for a ride on one of those,’ she said excitedly.
‘There won’t be time, I’m afraid,’ John told her.
‘Spoil-sport,’ she said, sticking out her tongue, though she knew he was right. ‘What happened there?’ she cried. ‘Has there been an accident?’ They’d reached the old part of the city, where a row of houses was little more than a heap of rubble.
‘It must be where a bomb dropped. Liverpool was one of the most heavily bombed cities in the country.’
‘Look, there’s more. Oh, John, that’s terrible.’ She felt deeply distressed and suddenly wished she hadn’t come.
‘Would you like us to turn back?’
‘No, no, of course not.’ That would be cowardly. The people of Liverpool had had to put up with the bombs: all she had to do was witness the result.
In the centre of the city, there were whole tracts that were nothing but wasteland. It was a relief when they arrived at a wide open space where a vast expanse of water glittered at the far side.
John said, ‘This is the Pier Head and that’s the River Mersey behind it. I’ll find a place to park the jeep and we can go for a walk.’
‘Can I get out?’ she asked.
‘Yes, but don’t move from the spot,’ he said sternly. ‘I don’t want to lose you.’
She promised faithfully to stay put. John drove away and she stood on the pavement in front of a large, elegant building, looking around her, taking everything in. A group of young women walked by singing at the top of their voices, ‘When the lights go on again, all over the world.’ The celebrations in Liverpool had begun.
There were quite a few people about and they all looked so happy. She sang with the girls under her breath. A man came up smelling strongly of beer. ‘Congratulations, luv,’ he said, shaking her hand.
She smiled. ‘The same to you.’ She had no idea what they were congratulating each other about. Tramcars whizzed by. The driver of one had a garland of silver tinsel around his neck. He waved at her and grinned. Anne waved back.
The atmosphere was getting to her. She could feel herself glowing inside, just as she did when she was about to go on stage. She wanted to fling out her arms and dance up and down the pavement, and had actually taken a few steps when she noticed the woman sitting on a bench far away across the wide road. She was sitting very still facing the silvery river. Anne stopped dancing and stared at the back of the woman’s head. She had no idea who she was, but felt as if an invisible cord had been thrown around her, drawing her towards this strange woman.
She stepped off the pavement, regardless of the traffic and began to walk, began to run, between the tramcars and the cars that careered busily to and fro. Brakes screeched, people shouted, but Anne ignored them. She was being pulled by the invisible cord and felt perfectly safe.
Then she was on the other side of the road, where the river shone even more brightly. A large ship was sailing across the water and people on board were waving flags. The woman was only ten feet away, five feet, and now Anne was standing in front of her. She looked terribly sad, the woman, and Anne knew straight away why she’d felt so drawn to her.
‘Mollie,’ she said quietly, and the woman raised her eyes, stared at her blankly for a minute until recognition dawned, and her face was transformed by a smile so sweet and lovely that Anne burst into tears.
‘Annemarie! Oh, Annemarie, I thought I was seeing things. Is it you? Is it really you?’ And now Mollie was crying and holding her lost sister in her arms. ‘Did you just drop down from heaven or something?’
‘No, no. Were you here waiting for me?’ Annemarie sobbed.
‘I must have been, darlin’, mustn’t I?’ She broke away and gave Annemarie a little shake as if to reassure herself she was really there. ‘We were all so worried about you. I wanted to die when Aunt Maggie wrote and said you hadn’t turned up in New York. Our Finn actually went all the way there to search for you. Have you been all right, darlin’? What happened? I’ve never stopped wondering what happened when you arrived there all on your own.’
‘I didn’t know who I was, Moll,’ Annemarie explained. ‘Lev found me and took me to his heart.’ It was only now, twenty years later, that she wondered why Lev hadn’t tried to find out where she really belonged. Perhaps he’d loved her straight away and didn’t want them to be parted.
‘Lev?’
‘Levon Zarian. He’s dead now, but he was the dearest and most wonderful man who ever lived.’ Annemarie shed more tears for Lev. ‘I had a daughter very like you,’ he’d said when she got into his cab.
‘Yours till the stars lose their glory,’ the passengers on the boat sang as they waved their flags.
‘You’re so beautiful, darlin’.’ Mollie stroked her face. ‘More beautiful than ever.’
‘And so are you, Moll.’ Mollie’s beauty wasn’t showy like hers, but quiet and gentle. Goodness shone from her steady brown eyes.
‘We knew you were in England, the man on the wireless said so this morning. On Thursday, me and Finn were coming to see you at your hotel in London. Oh, but fancy finding you here, darlin’,’ Mollie cried joyfully. ‘If that’s not a miracle, I don’t know what is. Will you have the time to come back to Duneathly and meet everyone? Hazel and Finn have eight children and I have four, Thaddy and Aidan will be longing to see you.’
Annemarie felt the hairs go stiff on her neck. ‘But what about the Doctor?’
‘He passed away,’ Mollie said soberly, and a shadow fell over her eyes. ‘He died a long time ago.’
‘Then I’ll come back: we all will.’ She caught her breath at the idea of going back to Duneathly with Bobby and her children - and Lizzie, if she wanted to come. She couldn’t think of anything that would make her happier.
‘I thought I’d lost you,’ said a voice. They both turned and there was John, flushed and concerned. He managed to smile at them both. ‘Who’s this, Anne?’ he asked.
‘This is Mollie; she’s your aunt.’ She was also his sister, but this was neither the time nor place to reveal something like that. ‘Oh, Moll,’ she cried. ‘I’ve so much to tell you.’
Epilogue
On her thirty-fifth birthday, Olive had vowed that if she’d got nowhere by the time she was forty she’d give up show business, though would stay in Hollywood. She loved everything about the place: the heat, the outsize flowers, the unnaturally green grass and the fact that no matter what time of day or night it was there were always people about. She had another seventeen and a half months to go. In January 1947 she would reach the big four-O.
Hollywood hadn’t turned out to be a total failure. However, if the scales were weighted with the successes at one end and the failures at the other, the latter would outweigh the former with a loud clunk.
These thoughts passed through her head, as they so often did, while she waited in line for yet another audition.
‘Next!’ the secretary shouted from behind her desk at the far end of the room.
The spectacularly lovely blonde next to Olive rose to her feet and swayed out of the room into the studio beyond. Olive was old enough to be her mother - she was becoming obsessed with people’s ages. But what chance did she stand against a
girl like that?
The secretary singled Olive out for a dazzling smile. She was old enough to be Olive’s mother. Was it a smile of pity? Did she realize Olive didn’t stand a chance in hell of getting the part and the smile was just her way of softening the blow?
She was auditioning for a film called Smiles Apart. Her agent had phoned early that morning. ‘RKO want someone who can do an English accent,’ Jonesy had said. ‘It’s a musical. You have to be able to sing and dance.’
Olive had called the restaurant where she worked and told the manager she wasn’t coming in. He didn’t mind. He’d gotten used to it. Virtually every waitress in Hollywood had ambitions to become a movie star. Trouble was, most were half Olive’s age, as were the girls she shared the house with in Burbank, all budding actresses. She’d lived there since coming from New York and had lost count of the women who’d come and gone since then. They’d left to get married, go back home, or do something different with their lives. Only three had got anywhere in the film industry and then not very far.
A few times a year Olive managed to get a small part in a movie. Twice she’d even had a few lines to speak. The longest time she’d spent on screen was just over two minutes. But nowhere in Hollywood had a producer or director spotted Rosalind Raines and shouted, ‘I must have that girl for my next movie!’
The blonde returned. She looked disappointed. The secretary shouted, ‘Next,’ and another woman left the room. She was a spectacularly lovely brunette even younger than the blonde. It struck Olive that the auditions were taking a very short time. There’d been about twenty girls there when she’d arrived. She’d hardly been there thirty minutes and half had gone. Another five had come since.
The secretary flashed Olive another smile. She smiled back. It was prudent to keep in people’s good books. The woman might do her a favour one day. She was tall and silver-haired, smartly dressed in trousers and a white blouse. Olive wouldn’t be surprised if she hadn’t had acting aspirations herself at one time.
Perhaps it was getting old, but these days Olive yearned for a place of her own. The smallest apartment would do, as long as it had a balcony so she could sit outside in the sun. Mind you, a garden - a yard - would be even better. She was fed up sharing a kitchen and bathroom with six other women. They even had a communal lounge. There’d be a fight over what to watch on television almost every night. The idea of having a bathroom to herself was sheer bliss.
To achieve this, she’d need more than the occasional movie part with temporary jobs in between. She’d need regular work. She might take a course and become a beautician or a hairdresser. It would be a big disappointment, but there was a limit to how long and how hard she could aim for the top - or even halfway there.
The brunette returned and another blonde went in her place. Yet again, the secretary smiled at Olive. The blonde came back and it was the turn of a beautiful, willowy redhead. The girls seemed to be going in and out like figures on one of those foreign clocks. When it came to Olive’s turn, the secretary went with her to the door.
‘What this movie’s about, honey,’ she said in a low voice, ‘is the male lead discovers he has a twin sister in England. They were separated at birth. As he’s going on for forty, the audience would have a big laugh if his twin turned out to be half his age. I told the agencies we wanted older women, but they insist on sending us the kids in the hope we’ll be so impressed we’ll change our minds.’ She gave Olive another smile; an encouraging one this time. ‘It’s a really important part and you’d be perfect for it, though you’ll probably have to dye your hair blonde same as your twin.’
‘I wouldn’t mind.’ She’d dye her hair blue if it meant getting an important part. Excitement began to course through her veins. It was a long time since that had happened. Neverending rejections, snubs, insults, and indifference had worn her down. Without her realizing, a streak of hopelessness had set in.
The secretary squeezed her hand and murmured, ‘Good luck, honey.’
Olive entered the vast studio. The remains of what had been a Roman temple covered half the space. Three guys were sitting by one of the plaster pillars. They were chatting together and didn’t look up. A bored-looking woman wearing a man’s white trilby sat at an ancient grand piano.
Olive handed over her music. ‘Play it once slow, and once again fast,’ she instructed. ‘Thank you,’ she added, remembering to smile. An uncooperative pianist could kill an audition if the mood took them.
She coughed and, in her best English accent, gave her name and announced she was about to sing and dance to ‘I’m Old Fashioned’ from the movie You Were Never Lovelier. The men looked up and one, a little tubby guy, nodded for her to begin.
So Olive began to sing. After a few notes, she just knew that she didn’t want to become a beautician or a hairdresser. She’d wanted to make it in show business for as long as she could remember. The thought had given her heart when she was still a kid and already selling herself on the London streets. The same thought spurred her on now, giving strength to her voice and possibly a touch of desperation.
It was the same when she danced. She’d kept herself fit and still attended dance practice once a fortnight. She found herself smiling as she twirled to a halt after a couple of perfect cartwheels. After twenty years in the business she didn’t think she’d ever danced so well.
She bowed, only slightly out of breath, and said, ‘Thank you.’ It was odd, but right then she didn’t care whether she got the part or not. There’d be plenty of others she could try for. One of these days she’d make it, she could feel it in her bones.
The little tubby guy said, ‘Thank you, Miss Raines. Wait there just a minute.’ He turned to the other men. Olive hadn’t looked at them properly before. The blond-haired handsome guy looked familiar. She’d seen him before a long time ago - it must have been in New York. Then the tubby one stood up and came towards, his face bearing a wide grin and his hand extended to shake hers.
She’d got it! And of course she cared. She cared more than she’d cared about anything before. Her head swam and she had a horrible feeling she was going to faint.
‘Welcome aboard, Miss Raines.’ They shook hands. The other two guys strolled towards her. One introduced himself as Abe Collins and said he would be directing Smiles Apart. The blonde-haired one looked even more handsome close up: like Olive, he had a few crinkles around his eyes. She remembered then who he was.
‘Hi, Rosalind.’ He shook her hand. Olive had read about people going weak at the knees, but it had never happened to her. As she told him much, much later, she’d fallen in love with him there and then. ‘I’m Herbie Blinker,’ he said, ‘and I’m sure we’re going to get along just fine.’