Eden St. Michel

by F. R. Jameson

  Not Cheesewright, though. The moment he saw those pictures he dubbed Eden “Princess Porkpie”, and it was the name he’d called her by ever since. Even on weeks when Eden did nothing of particular interest, he still found a way to force that new nickname into his copy and wrap it up with whatever other insult had sprung up in his horrible mind since his last spewing of bile.

  When I read the words “Princess Porkpie” for the first time after we were together, I wanted to punch my fist through the bloody wall.

  Eden, even though she left the newspaper lying around her place, always tried to give the impression of not really caring. “I am like a pork pie, though, aren’t I, darling?” she said, smiling a little wider than usual. “Crunchy on the outside, soft in the middle, that sums me up perfectly. Don’t you think?”

  When I was with her, I was totally enchanted by her; the whole world seemed like a more pleasant place. But when I was by myself, at work or hammering a punchbag at the gymnasium, I was seething and seething.

  One afternoon I nearly ran into Cheesewright at Motspur Studios. I was there riding horses for a mid-budget highwayman movie, which was then called The Crimson Rogue. Cheesewright was there because the Yank film producer, Boris Wachtel, had arrived in town to announce a new big-budget English Civil War picture he was working on with Jean Simmons and the American actor, Jeffrey Hunter. It was a big event, lots of cameras popping. But even though he’d used his press pass to get in, I don’t think Cheesewright wrote a word about it in his column.

  Afterwards, Cheesewright apparently went to the bar to see what talent was on offer, but left after half an hour, clearly disappointed. My friend Archie – another stuntman – saw him glowering at the bar with a scotch in hand. “All the way down to Motspur and he didn’t get a whiff of a shag,” Archie told me. “No wonder he looked so gutted.” Cheesewright and I didn’t run into each other – which, given I’d taken a tumble off a big black mare that morning, was probably good for him, as I was already in a foul mood.

  Perhaps, though, given what happened afterwards, it would have been better if we had bumped into each other in more enclosed, manageable surroundings.

  Finally, the premiere of Stranger at St. Paul’s arrived, a big gala event at Leicester Square. Eden was unsure whether she’d be allowed to show up with a mere stuntman on her arm, but actually the studio leapt at it. I think she’d been seen solo at a number of those events recently, so they wanted to prove she wasn’t setting up to be a spinster and could actually get herself a man. Probably they thought it was a good way to get ahead of things before Cheesewright made it the subject of his next hate campaign.

  Eden came straight from the studio – where she’d been coiffured and primped and made up like a European princess – while I was told to put on my best bib and tucker and wait for her at Charing Cross Station.

  It made for a strange evening. There was me stood at the entrance to the Charing Cross Hotel, dressed up but alone, like the world’s loneliest bachelor. A drunk old sod tried to ponce a fag off me, and when I told him I didn’t have any, asked for half a crown instead. Just when I seemed to have got rid of him (although he was still peering at me from the corner of his eye, as if plotting his next move), a big, gleaming, white, Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud drifted up and I was whisked away by a beautiful woman to bright lights and cheers and the full film-star experience.

  My word, Eden looked good that night. There was absolutely no repeat of the pink bow fiasco. They’d put her in a beautiful, shimmering red dress, which was low-cut to her cleavage and slit up her left thigh, and so tight it could have been painted on.

  It was like the material itself was daring Cheesewright to call her fat again!

  The grin she gave me on greeting showed she knew exactly what kind of thoughts were going through my dirty Welsh mind. Her hair was curled and teased to her shoulders, her lips gleamed the same shade as her dress and her eyes were made up wide as if she was an ingénue. Although, of course, in that dress and with that body, there was no way she was ever going to convince as an ingénue.

  If I’d had my way, we’d have forgotten about the premiere, and instead driven somewhere remote and paid the driver a quid to go lose himself.

  But of course the premiere was work and they’d care if Eden didn’t show up, even if no one was really going to be that bothered if her stuntman escort didn’t make it.

  Besides, we weren’t that long on the back seat. Certainly not long enough for me to really string together my saucy ideas. No, the driver literally took us to the next block and within five minutes I’d gone from a man stood alone outside a hotel – next to an old git, who was convinced that the likes of me owed the likes of him – to a crowd of cheering, excited fans.

  None of them knew my name, of course. There was absolutely no reason why they should care the smallest jot about who I was. But still the barrage of noise and the sheer intensity of emotion was overwhelming. When Eden led me out of the car, experienced pro that she was, it was like she was holding me up.

  There was pop after pop of flashbulbs, journalists bellowing questions at the top of their voices. A space had even been cleared for a huge TV camera from the BBC and an earnest young reporter.

  Eden took it all in her stride.

  No, she relished it.

  She might have claimed she hated that life, but it was hard to miss the thrill she took from it in every movement. She was smiling, waving and blowing kisses. When she was on the red carpet, it was like there was no one else there – every pair of eyes was on her. She oozed glamour, radiated star power. Her mere presence shone a bright light on that dingy spring evening.

  The entire time we were on the red carpet, she squeezed my hand tight, didn’t let me go. But still I knew I was irrelevant. Eden might not have seen me as a prop, but to everyone else I was just some random bloke lucky enough to accompany this goddess as she walked amongst them. If they even noticed me at all.

  As we moved through the throng and into the comparative stillness of the cinema auditorium, I could feel Eden tingling with excitement. Her fingers shook in mine with the adrenalin of it all. There was a glow to the skin. Of course, inside the cinema there were other people from the glamorous end of film – actresses, actors, directors, producers – all taking a moment to tell her how wonderful she looked and what a handsome couple we made. She returned the praise, laughed at their jokes, was charm itself. Undoubtedly she appreciated the sudden calmness, but I could tell there was a large part of her already missing the cheers of the crowd.

  She may have hated to admit it, denied it with all her might, but Eden bloody loved being a film star.

  Eventually, as the noise of the crowd faded, and we had to leave the drinks and the plates of finger food at the reception, her mood did sour. She made her way to her seat as if she was climbing a gallows. Within an instant of the house lights sinking, I heard her proclaim, “And now we have to sit through this crap!” She did it with such perfect comic timing that even though I couldn’t see it, I could imagine the one eyebrow raised. It was all I could do not to convulse with laughter in my seat.

  To be honest, I didn’t think the film was all that bad. Charles Ravens was the lead, although he gave a cold performance without the normal glint in his eye, but it worked in this particular story: a black and white thriller of cross and double-cross where even the hero couldn’t be fully trusted. Besides, it was perfectly balanced by the amount of passion Eden put into her role. It wasn’t the typical part for her, as normally she was smartest person in any room, but in Stranger at St. Paul’s she was a stupid person who thought she was smart and was soon flailing and totally out of her depth. Frankly, she was brilliant in it, cast as a mysterious lounge singer who may or may not hold a vital clue to an international conspiracy. Her character was a desperate woman and she played it in a way that stank of disappointment and shattered dreams. And yes, despite her protestations, Eden St. Michel was singing again!

  Eden may have cringed in he
r seat, clutching my arm throughout as if enduring horrible embarrassment at a vicar’s tea party, but the crowd at that premiere seemed to really enjoy it. It wasn’t just the normal polite reception. They gasped at the tension, laughed at the jokes and at the end there was a fulsome round of applause. Even though she claimed to be embarrassed by it, I felt Eden perk up with brimming pride when the cheers came.

  It was a damn good evening.

  Afterwards was when the trouble happened.

  Yeah, I had a few drinks inside me, but genuinely I was giddy with excitement. As if all the praise for Eden was somehow praise for me as well. The cast and crew had moved on to a party at the Kensington pad of the director, Grayson Gilbert. It was a great atmosphere. Everyone seemed to think the film was going to be a big hit. And everyone was thrilled with Eden and her performance. The whole thing was making me so proud.

  I was happy. I was enjoying myself.

  But then I bumped into Cheesewright.

  Grayson’s house was huge. I heard later that he came from a wealthy family. Three floors which all seemed to sprawl and sprawl. Each of the floors had a toilet (such was the luxury, there was probably more than one on each floor), but for whatever reason Cheesewright was lurking shiftily outside the downstairs bog nearest the staircase.

  Maybe he did really need to pee, or maybe there was some bloke inside who Cheesewright desperately wanted to get his claws into. But at the exact moment I spotted him, he stared up at me with a snide, thin-lipped smile. It was a look of judgement and nastiness.

  I should have played it cool, should have just walked away. Dismissed him as an irritation like Eden said she always did. But of course I didn’t do any of that. If somewhere inside me I had a cool and calm Gary Cooper, I lost him that night. Instead, as soon as we made eye contact, I took half a dozen steps forward and shoved Cheesewright full in his fat chest.

  Such was the speed of my attack, and the beating of my anger, that I didn’t notice the full cocktail he was cradling in his left hand. I only clocked it when he staggered backwards and the entire glassful of green liquid splattered up into his face.

  “What the hell?” he screamed. I’d never heard him speak before. Whenever I’d seen him, he’d always been on the other side of the room. I wondered if he always sounded like some cut-price pantomime dame, or if that was only when he was annoyed.

  “You deserve that,” I snarled, my blood pumping, index finger waving in his face. “You deserve it for all the crap you’ve been writing about Eden St. Michel!”

  His eyebrows had shot into his receding hairline, but now they knotted together in the middle. “What?”

  “Cut it out, or I’m going to find you again and give you a proper thump. It won’t just be that cocktail you’re wearing, but the whole bloody glass, too!”

  He glared up at me and I glared back at him. I don’t know how long we stood together like it was high noon in a crap Western, but even though I towered over him, it was long enough for him to stop looking scared. Incredibly, his features shifted back into their superior and all-knowing scowl. When he brought out his handkerchief to wipe the booze from his face, I noticed that his hand wasn’t even shaking.

  His mouth opened and I just knew he was going to spout nastiness.

  “Oh, so you’re the piece of meat, are you?”

  “What did you bloody say?” I took another step towards him. He should have been begging for my forgiveness about now, not challenging me. I wanted to try and make that point clear.

  “I heard on the grapevine that The Princess had a new piece of meat,” he said, his voice light and effeminate “And you look just stupid enough to be it.”

  My face leant closer to his. “If I was you I’d turn around and waddle away now, fat man!”

  “You know she’s only interested in what’s between your legs, don’t you? She’s not going to love you, just as she never loves any of the pieces of meat she uses to fill her void. Eden St. Michel is incapable of love.” A sparkle came to his eyes, as if he’d just had a witty inspiration. Up close it was like seeing a firework explode in his mind. “The only thing she feels any affection for is a good pork pie.”

  Maybe it was his whole unpleasant, condescending attitude – exactly the way we were taught all Englishmen behaved when I was back at school – that set me off. Or maybe it was those last two words which acted as a trigger. Whatever the case, before any thought of warning or consequence flashed through my head, I’d taken his skull and smashed it through the toilet door.

  Cheesewright screamed, actually cried out like a woman, yelping from the bottom of his lungs. But, incredibly, he didn’t drop to the floor. I thought I’d hit him hard enough for that, that he should have been staring up at me from the carpet. And I was just about to make sure that that was exactly what would happen, when two big, brutal pairs of arms grabbed me.

  Such was my red fury, I’d lost track of where I was. I’d forgotten I was at a party at Grayson Gilbert’s place with dozens of other people around me. I’d forgotten that there was security to keep the riff-raff out and that their station on the front door wasn’t all that far away.

  Two huge blokes – much bigger than me – grabbed me by the shoulders. If even a tiny bit of common sense in my brain had been working, I’d have let them. Instead, I was so het up, I just screamed at them. Tried to tear my arms out of their grasp and finish things with Cheesewright. If I’d been smart, I’d have quit. Instead I earned some expert punches to the ribs and kidneys.

  It had been one of the best nights of my entire life, but it ended with me bundled out of the front door and some shaven-headed gorilla slamming my head into the side of a black-cab door and chucking me onto the back seat. The cabbie wasn’t sympathetic. He said nothing to me as we sped off; the first acknowledgement he gave me was when we got to Vauxhall Bridge, when he turned around and ordered me out of his effing cab. I didn’t argue. I barely had the energy to string words together. I just staggered home with tears in my eyes and considered how I’d messed up the entire evening.

  One image was caught in my mind, spinning around my thoughts, impossible to let go of. In a brief flicker of an instant, I’d glimpsed her. As I was being wrestled out of the front door, Eden was making her way down the wide marble staircase. Perhaps she’d heard the commotion from upstairs and was curious to see what was happening. Perhaps it was just bad timing and bad luck.

  The way her face fell as she saw what was going on crumpled my soul. I don’t think I’d ever seen so much disappointment wrapped up in one expression. From joy at a successful evening, to a kick in the belly at my behaviour.

  Everything that was good that night, I’d ruined it all.

  Finally I made it back to my digs in Pimlico, my suit soaking now from the driving drizzle. Once there, I collapsed onto the sofa with a dull, helpless ache in my skull. Beneath my legs and right next to my head was chip paper that the other blokes in the house hadn’t got around to clearing up and probably wouldn’t until the vinegar itself went rancid. Across the floor were chipped plates smeared with gravy, and half-filled coffee mugs which had been turned into ashtrays and now had all kinds of mould growing out of them.

  It was a squalid hellhole alright, but it was the least an idiot like me deserved. I’d ruined her big evening and surely I was never going to see Eden again.

  How wrong I was!

  At about quarter past one in the morning there was a heavy knocking on the front door. At first it was indistinguishable from the endless pounding behind my forehead, but when I realised there was actually somebody there, I put my hands over my ears and hoped that whoever it was would do the decent thing at this hour and bugger off.

  They didn’t relent, though. The banging just kept going. Not taking the hint.

  Eventually I could take it no more. My mood sourer than a bear with a thorn in its throat, I rolled off the sofa and stumbled into the hallway. Determined to just ball out whoever was there. My anger flickered again and I was going to give
them a full dose. But when I pulled back the door, the person standing on the step – still in her ultra-glamorous red dress and mink coat – was Eden herself.

  I’d no idea she even knew where I lived.

  Since I’d last glimpsed her, she’d removed her make-up. Possibly because she’d been crying. But she still looked as beautiful as she’d done earlier that evening. More so, in fact – her skin so natural and smooth and fresh.

  Maybe she thought I was going to slam the door hard into her face. No doubt my initial expression suggested exactly that. Instead, she jumped at me. Leapt forward and wrapped her arms tight around my chest, squeezing me, pressing herself into me.

  “Oh, Joe!” she said. “My stupid hero. My absolutely moronic hero!”

  My arms moved slowly, tentatively, around her. “I’m sorry,” I said. Suddenly I was weeping and unashamed of it. “I lost it. I didn’t mean to, but I just did.”

  “It’s okay.” Her chin rose as she stared up at me. “Well, actually, it’s not truly okay, but it’s fine.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I called in some favours,” she told me. “The right ears were spoken to, the right bread has been buttered up. That worm Cheesewright isn’t going to publish a word about what happened tonight. They have the photos of me in this dress, they have the photos of you on my arm. And next week I’ll give a nice long interview to their women’s section about the joy I now feel at my new romance.”

  I blinked at her. “And Cheesewright is going along with this?”

  “Oh, I imagine he is very, very, very unhappy about it, but yes. His editor has been spoken to and his editor is an old friend of Mr Hamside. They were at Dulwich together, apparently. He’s agreed that this is a much better story than one of their journalists having a shoving match. Particularly as most of their readers actually hate said journalist.”

  “Oh my God!” I clutched her upturned face in my palms. “This is incredible! Thank you! Thank you!”