“The next day, though, a huge bouquet of roses arrived at the flat I then shared in Chelsea. The biggest bouquet of roses I had ever seen, three dozen at least. The day after that, a little silver and diamond toe-ring arrived in a box. Can you imagine such a thing? A toe-ring worth more than my dad – Lord bless his memory – would ever have made in a year. A note inside said it had been given to him as a gift by Marlene Dietrich, and that I was the only woman he’d ever seen who had the glamour to pull it off. That I was the equal of Marlene.
“He didn’t even sign the note, the card with the flowers neither. Both were credited to ‘an admirer’. Obviously, with all I’d already heard about him, his ostentation, his bigger-is-better lifestyle, I knew who they were from. There was the way he spelt ‘glamor’, without the ‘u’. I knew they were from him and I loved it.
“Don’t forget that we hadn’t spoken yet. We’d been no closer than fifteen feet from each other. So I was being seduced from afar and yet I could not resist it. Of course I was still a wet-behind-the-ears imbecile. I realised later that he probably had dozens of such gifts, dozens of such notes. That he was probably always trying to seduce one woman or another. But right then I felt like the most special and adored girl in the world.
“The next few days, though, were horrible. Nothing came. There were no phone calls, or messages. He didn’t show up and ask me out – there was nothing. And the result was that I just couldn’t stop thinking about him. Without a word, he’d turned my head. With a few gifts he’d wormed his way into my affections. And now suddenly he’d disappeared. I understood later that he was making sure he became all I thought about.
“My word, I was stupid!” I felt her head shake against my chest. “I was so naïve. With maybe another year of experience, I could have seen through exactly what he was doing. I’d have been able to brush him off and he wouldn’t have played me as if I were a harp. A harp which has jumped out of its case and is desperate to be played. Panting to be played. Or maybe I needed to have that experience to understand just how the world actually worked.
“As it was, he recognised me for the silly little girl that I was. He knew the rules of the game, he was an expert at them. By the time he called – after three long days when I’d heard nothing – I was already his. I didn’t hesitate in the slightest when he asked me out for dinner. It embarrasses me to think of how giddily I must have accepted his invite. I didn’t even wait a semi-decent amount of time before I let him take me to bed.”
She sat up and peered at me, her eyes wide and brimming with tears. “What happened between him and me was the most intense experience of my young life. Until that moment I’d never known emotions like it. And I didn’t know them again until – well – I met you.”
Her fingers traced down my jaw and I nodded once. As swiftly as her eyes had met mine, she buried her head back against my chest.
“We were so intense with each other. We went out most nights of the week. He took me to the swankiest places, the finest venues. Any proper Hollywood star who was visiting town he introduced me to, European royalty as well. He gave me beautiful jewellery and the finest French fashions. When he sent me those three dozen red roses, he started to seduce me. But when he had seduced me, he seduced me all over again. Went deeper and deeper until all I could think about was him.
“I loved him, was besotted with him, smitten beyond all reason. It was more than youthful infatuation, it was something so incredibly real. I was prepared to throw away everything I had and go back with him to New York or LA or wherever. Birmingham, Alabama if that’s where he wanted to be. I was ready to marry him, to have his children. I just wanted to be with him, and being with him was the most wonderful thing I could imagine for myself.
“Of course I’d heard something of his reputation. That he was supposed to be a bully to those he worked with. That on a big production he’d threaten and push until he got his own way. But surely a Jack Warner or a Darryl Zanuck were like that too. It’s what you did to make it to the top. And I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t seen a crueller side to him. The sharp tongue he used sometimes on waiters or chauffeurs, or even actors and actresses who weren’t that important to him. But he was good to me and, given enough time, I was sure I could smooth out those rough edges. Hell, maybe I was even attracted to those rough edges.
“And of course, girlfriends of mine warned me of his reputation with the ladies. Of how he’d left a trail of broken hearts in his wake. But surely that was all in the past now and the past didn’t matter. He was good to me and he looked after me and spoiled me and everything was absolutely heavenly.
“It was, it really was,” she said. “Right until the point when it wasn’t.”
Her head sank back down onto my chest and she gave an almighty sob. As gently as I could, I ran my fingers through her hair.
“It’s okay,” I told her. “I’m here now. Just tell me what happened.”
“He didn’t call me. After everything we’d had together, he suddenly stopped calling. There was silence. It was like the most disorientating game of musical statues ever played. All of a sudden the music stopped and I was left frozen with this mass of emotions and no idea what to do with them. I called him again and again, messages were taken, but he never came back to me. I sent him notes. Half a dozen in one day, pleading with him to contact me, to speak to me. Begging him to notice me again. I couldn’t believe what was happening. We hadn’t argued, there hadn’t even been a cross word. The last evening we’d had out together had been wondrous. A ball of dancing and laughter and frivolity. The next morning it had been all smiles and gaiety between us. And now there was nothing. Nothing at all. I was abandoned, deserted, bereft.
“This went on for about four days. Four days when I couldn’t sleep or eat or focus. I was making Gabriel’s Walk down at Shepperton at the time and I called in sick three days in a row. Eventually, they sent the studio doctor to look me over and he diagnosed a nervous disorder. Such was my heartache, I’d made myself sick. Well, there was no way I could just sit around and do nothing. So on the fourth evening after I’d last heard from him, I went to the place he was renting in Richmond.”
She stopped and I could feel her shaking in my arms. The thought of her hurt, of her in pain, made my heart beat furiously, but I kept myself calm. I kept my voice level as I raised her chin with the curve of my fingers and stared into her tear-filled eyes.
“Please,” I told her. “Just tell me what happened. I’m here for you.”
She sniffed once and nodded. “Mostly we’d stayed in hotels in town. He liked to throw his money about, to be ostentatious. Hearing about his whisky, it seems he hasn’t changed at all. It was nothing to him to get the bridal suite of the Dorchester on a whim, rather than spending half an hour in a cab going back to the place he was living. I had been to the house; it was big and brash. It was just like him.
“That night, though, I don’t know, it looked like a ghost house. There was a feeling in the pit of my stomach that nothing good was going to come of me walking up his driveway and ringing the doorbell. Nothing good at all. I nearly didn’t get out of the cab. I nearly told the driver to just turn around and take me home. But I knew I’d hate myself if I did that, despise myself totally. Fortunately there was no one on the gate, as I’m sure I wouldn’t have been let through if there had been. So, it was with trepidation in every step, I walked up the gravel path to his big, black, imposing front door. The chimes of the doorbell sounded so distant. It was like Bela Lugosi was going to come out and answer them.
“I knew he was at home. Or at least there was someone at home. The lights were on, I could hear peals of laughter. More than one peal of laughter. But no matter how loud the chimes of that doorbell seemed to me, at first the door wasn’t answered. My fingers were shaking by now, but still I didn’t back down. I had to know, no matter how dreadful knowing might be. So I rang the doorbell again and nothing happened. I tried a third time and then – finally – the door was creaked b
ack.
“He didn’t answer the door. Can you guess who did answer it?” she asked.
“I’ve no idea.”
“Do you know Magda Locke?”
It took me a moment or two, but I nodded once. She was a striking European actress – Hungarian, I think – with big, wide charcoal eyes, long dark hair and full lips that dripped with cruelty. Her looks meant she was in demand for horror movies on both sides of the Atlantic, even though nobody would really have mistaken her for an actress.
Eden nodded, her face creased, feeling a shame that still hurt. “It was her who answered. That bloody bitch! She answered the door in nothing at all, not a stitch on her. Just appeared there, all long limbs and bedroom hair, staring down her nostrils at me as if I was a piece of dirt. Staring at me as if I had no business being anywhere near her. I was stupid, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think that he would be greeting me with open arms. This, though, was even worse than I could have imagined. This was all my nightmares come real.
“That bitch kept one arm on the door ready to push it back in my face and said something crude like, ‘Who the fuck are you?’ or ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ The insolence of the woman, the baseless confidence. I’d been in her position only a week before – how dare she treat me as if I was of absolutely no consequence! Well, I just lost it then. I lost it and I screamed at the top of my voice.
“I don’t know what I said, or even if what came out of my mouth could in any way be termed words, but I couldn’t help myself. It was all the emotions of the last few days, the sheer cold betrayal of it. All of it just leapt out of me.
“Thinking back on it, I think he must have known damn well who it was ringing the doorbell. That he sent that bitch hoping it would be enough to get rid of me. That my English modesty would mean my determination would collapse in seconds when I saw her.
“Because when I started screaming, he was there in an instant. He’d clearly been lurking nearby. But at first, even though he’d been everything to me, I didn’t recognise him.
“There was an expression on his face I’d never seen before. It was bright red, he was so angry, so absolutely furious. Unlike her, he’d managed to get some clothes on. His silk dressing-gown was wrapped loosely around him. Still, it was obvious what he’d been doing. Obvious what the two of them had been doing. I didn’t realise it until later, but the belt he had between his hands wasn’t the silk one which would have done up his dressing-gown. It was his big leather one with the skull buckle. His cowboy belt, he always called it.
“I think I screamed something melodramatic like, ‘You’ve ruined my life!’
“And he yelled something back about me not taking a hint.
“Then I probably yelled at him: ‘How can you do this to me?’
“He didn’t try to justify himself; instead, he punched me in the face. Caught me on the jaw. It was a fleeting punch, but it was enough to knock a girl like me down. I was suddenly sprawled on the gravel path.
“If I went down easy as a kind of self-protection, it didn’t work. He didn’t take a step back and ruefully ponder what he’d done. No, such was his rage that I’d had the temerity to bother him after he’d thrown me away, that he was like an animal. Screaming himself now, he punched and kicked me while I was down there. He was barefoot and he was reaching down with the punches, so the blows hurt but they didn’t knock me into unconsciousness or anything like that. Indeed, I continued screaming. I screamed and screamed – the two of us yelling into the night together – right until the point when he started to swing the buckle of his belt at me, to beat me with the hard leather.
“That’s what really hurt, that’s what caused the welts and left the bruises. He stood above me and whacked me and whacked me with that belt. Cursing me the whole time. Telling me that I was a stupid bitch, that I had no claim on him, that we were done, that I didn’t deserve all he’d done for me. He hit me and ranted at me until I went quiet. Only then did he stop. When I was quiet and beaten and broken on the floor, he let me be. Just wiped the sweat from his brow and walked, his shoulders hunched, back into the house. Magda Locke, that bitch, went with him. The whole time it was happening, she’d just stood there and watched with her arms crossed over her flat naked chest. As if it was just a minor diversion for her. As if she was waiting for a cake to bake.
“He got his chauffeur to pick me up from the ground. That’s what he went in the house for, to call Al – or whatever the hell his personal servant was called – and get him to drive around and pick me up from where I’d been left. A bleeding, crumpled mess. Incredibly, I could still walk, and so he had this Al character drive me home. And Al did exactly that. Didn’t speak to me the whole way. He dropped me at the door to my flat and let me hobble my way in.
“In a way I was actually quite lucky, as nearly all the wounds were superficial. I don’t know if his rage meant he couldn’t focus to land a punch properly, or if – despite all his bulk and bluster – he didn’t really know how to hit people. Virtually none of the wounds on my outside were going to cause permanent damage. Indeed, most of the ones to my face could be covered up by a good make-up job.
“But there was one wound which really hurt. One which lingered. A wound which wouldn’t stop bleeding and turned septic because I was too shaken to treat it properly. A wound I ended up having to go to the hospital for. It was where his belt buckle had embedded in my side. Where the grooves of that silver smiling skull went so deep into my hip they wedged there. So much so, he had to put his foot on my thigh to wrench it back out again.
“That’s where I got this scar from, Joe. It’s the one visible scar of all that man did to me, of how he picked me up and broke me.”
I’d felt the sobs trembling within her, but now she gave way to them. Great gasps of hurt which shook every inch of her. I squeezed her so tight in my arms.
“And that’s why I couldn’t tell you I loved you, Joe!” she cried. “Even though I wanted to, I couldn’t bring myself to. The last time I said those words with meaning, I was literally beaten into the dirt.”
She pulled back from me suddenly, staring at me, the light in her pupils so intense. “I’m not telling you this because I want you to do anything, my love. I’m not trying to get belated revenge, I don’t want vengeance. I’m telling you because I don’t want any secrets between us. Because I want you to know me and understand why I’ve been cold and preoccupied. I’ve been thinking of that girl and all that could have happened to her. I’ve been feeling so sorry for her, and so sorry for the girl I was too. I’m telling you because I love you and I want you to understand me. I want you to know who I am, to truly know.”
“Thank you,” I told her. “Thank you.”
We didn’t sleep that night. Instead we just held each other tight, not wanting to let go.
Chapter Twenty
Over the next week, I watched Boris Wachtel.
I couldn’t help myself.
Even though I was working on his film, the two of us had never spoken directly. The only time he’d really said anything to me, I was one of a group of men working on the battle scenes and he was talking about “the magnificent glory of combat” and “the manliness of shed blood”. What he said was rambling and didn’t really make a lot of sense, but there was a croak in his voice and almost tears in the corners of his eyes. You could see how much it meant to him, as if capturing a battle accurately on camera was just as important as fighting one.
I spoke to Henry Phillips, one of the old camera operators at the studio and seemingly one of the few people who Wachtel addressed by name. Apparently Wachtel had used him on every film he’d ever made in Britain. Henry was a genial old soul who was happy to speak to anyone as long as a pint was bought for him. He told me that the only films Wachtel really loved were war films. In the last ten years he’d made half a dozen Second World War pictures and a brace of First World War ones. Wachtel had made a big loss on an epic about General Custer, but more than made it up with a co
uple of U.S. Cavalry films. The kind of movies where Henry Fonda or James Stewart bravely save the day by firing bullets at men with bows and arrows.
“Yes,” Henry said, onto his third drink now, a well-oiled smile on his face. “Mr Wachtel certainly likes to celebrate us soldiers.”
But when I asked what Wachtel had actually done in the war, I was told that he’d stayed back in Hollywood and made money while other men fought.
Not that Henry, now well in his cups, held that against him. “It’s the Hollywood way, after all. It’s what John Wayne did and nobody is going to tell old Duke he isn’t really a man.”
I thought of my dad, who’d gone away to Europe and come back a shambling ghost of the barrel-chested man he’d been before. He’d managed to find some calmness in himself now, but he never, ever spoke about what happened out there and certainly didn’t want to celebrate it. Absolutely he wouldn’t have wanted to try and capture the “glory” of it all. If he heard Wachtel speak, I’m sure he wouldn’t have a bloody clue what he was talking about.
As the days went on and our big Roundheads versus Cavaliers battle scene became more and more elaborate, I found myself staring at Wachtel as he moved around the edge of the set. Our director was a hack called Thomas Newson – a man who’d made silent movies back in old Hollywood – but everyone knew who was really in charge. Wachtel did his best to appear as if he was just offering advice, giving pointers, bringing his producing experience to bear – but he also did it in a loud enough voice for everyone to hear. I tried to be calm, to think of Eden and how she’d said she wanted to let the past go, but the closer I got to him, the more I felt myself starting to loathe the bastard.
Wachtel was one of life’s backslappers. The big, hearty gentleman type who thinks he’s better than everyone else, but still wants to show how friendly he can be by jovially patting the back of every bloke who got near enough. Not out of any real friendliness, of course. He’d have been livid if any of them had returned the favour. No, he slapped down. He did it because he was in charge and he could.
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