Thankfulness suffused Catherine’s face. “He’ll always need you! I know.”
Alan certainly appeared more than glad to see his wife when he came home. That night his love-making was as ardent as it had ever been and she began to hope she had arrived in London in time to avert a serious rift in their marriage.
In the morning she went with Alan to the West End while Catherine took the Underground to the head office of the circuit where she was working. When they came to the new cinema, Lisa was astonished by its size. She had seen the plans, viewed the building in its earlier stages, and thought she had gained a fairly clear picture of how it would be, but this shining marble-faced edifice was like a treasure house out of the Arabian Nights, designed psychologically to give an atmosphere of ultimate escapism.
Alan showed her through it with pride. From the ticket hall with the gold-star light fittings and panels with mirrored mouldings, they went through to the lofty foyer decorated in rich and cleverly muted shades of crimson and purple and still more gold. Side by side they went up the thickly carpeted staircase with the gilded railings and on this upper level were the opulent Moorish bars, the restaurant with a draped silken ceiling and doors resembling those in a harem, and the tearoom like an exotic garden.
Alan opened the double doors into the Grand Circle for her. She stared in amazement at the colossal size of the auditorium, which would be filled with music by a large electric organ designed to rise up into sight before a performance and during intervals, and descend again afterwards. The vast screen above it, framed by a theatrical proscenium arch of spangled red and gold, was faced on either side by what appeared to be the terrace of a Moorish village, set amid exotic plants enhanced by hidden coloured lights. This theme was carried right around the walls with exotic Moorish grilles that disguised the ventilation and more balconies and foliage and false archways that hinted at mysterious depths beyond. The domed dark blue ceilings was set with twinkling stars and more hidden illumination, released by a prearranged signal with Harry and changing from moonlit blues through the pinks of dawn to the golden glow of sunshine and the orange hues of sunset, and back again.
“It’s fantastic,” she declared with a perfect turn of phrase. “I congratulate you, Alan. In its own way it’s curiously beautiful, too. What movie is to open it?” She was certain he would choose as a first showing something glamorously suited to these stunning surroundings. A movie with Marlene Dietrich perhaps. Or Mae West. Or Joan Crawford. On the male side it might be Gable or Cooper or Colman.
“The best way to answer that is to show you the lobby cards. I asked Catherine to bring them by taxi if they had arrived on her desk by this morning. Let’s go downstairs to the managerial office and see if she’s there.”
Lisa looked amused. “I can tell you’re planning a surprise for me. Am I allowed to guess whose film it might be?”
He grinned at her. “You may guess if you like, but I’m giving nothing away.”
She laughed, linking her hands about the crook of his arm. She was convinced that Minnie’s latest movie had been selected. That made her extremely happy. Moreover, with everything so right between Alan and her this day, as it had been last night, she began to wonder if she had misread Catherine’s meaning. Maybe her daughter’s only concern had been simply for her father’s loneliness.
When they drew near the office the door was ajar and they could hear Harry talking to someone. Thinking it must be Catherine, Lisa darted ahead, exclaiming as she entered: “Show me Minnie’s lobby cards!”
She caught her breath on her utterance. It was not her daughter who stood there in a loosely fitting Garbo coat with an upstanding collar, but a tall, attractive-looking woman of about thirty, her eyes very blue, her hair a luxuriant chestnut. This is she, Lisa thought immediately. How or why she knew was impossible to tell, but she did not have the least doubt that it was this woman’s shadow that lay across her marriage. Harry was introducing them.
“This is Miss Davis, who is in charge of the head office, Mother. She has been a right hand to us during these past months.”
Lisa acknowledged the introduction. Rita Davis had a pleasing smile, a hint of dimples in her cool cheeks. “I’m sorry if you were expecting Catherine, Mrs. Fernley. She had some work I wanted her to finish, so I brought the lobby cards myself.”
Behind Lisa came Alan’s voice, casual and even. “Thank you, Miss Davis. That was considerate of you.”
“It was a pleasure, sir. Now if you will excuse me, I must be getting back.” She left the office, a wisp of expensive French scent lingering after her, her heels high and tapping across the marble floor of the foyer.
Alan went to the desk to take up the top lobby card of the stack that Rita Davis had delivered, and he turned to display it for Lisa. “There, darling. You were right in your guesswork, as you can see.”
Only she knew that his words could have held another interpretation for her. She forced herself to focus on Minnie’s beautiful face, framed in a swathing of diaphanous veiling asparkle with sequins, gazing at her soulfully from the lobby card above the movie’s title: Love’s Glory. The artwork at the side, a drawing of her in her leading man’s arms, combined to emphasise to the cinemagoer that this was a movie of intense passion and drama.
“That’s a wonderful choice,” she endorsed with feeling, keeping herself in strict control. “Nothing could be more apt than that Minnie should figure in this special venture with us all.”
Harry came around the desk to face her, his face jubilant with what he had to tell. “I’ve more good news for you. Not only will it be the world premiere of Love’s Glory, but Minnie herself has promised to come from Hollywood to be here for it!”
She almost broke down. The reunion would mean more to her than either her husband or her stepson could realise. She and Minnie had been through much together in the past and now, when she had this crisis to face in her marriage, there was to be a return to that sustaining friendship. Minnie would be a tower of strength to her.
*
Lisa drove to Southampton to meet the Queen Mary. The liner was docking as she waited on the quayside. Nearby the press had gathered to go on board. Advance publicity had let it be known that Minnie Shaw, once widowed and four times married and divorced, would be arriving that day to appear at a world premiere of her new movie in two weeks’ time. Lisa had been given a special pass to go to Minnie’s stateroom, for once the film star had emerged there would be photographs and on-the-spot interviews, giving no chance for two old friends to speak to each other until much later.
“You may go aboard now, ma’am.”
The waiting was over. Lisa in her beige Chanel suit, pearls, and a soft felt hat, went up the gangway to be met at the top by Minnie’s personal secretary, Blanche Stiller, a hard-faced, crisply business-like woman. She led the way to Minnie’s stateroom, opened the door to announce Lisa, and retired. The luxuriously appointed suite was like a flower shop with baskets of roses, carnations and orchids making a riot of colour. In the midst of it all Minnie was rushing forward with arms outstretched.
“I don’t believe it, Lisa! You haven’t changed a bit!”
“Neither have you!”
They laughed and cried as they kissed each other’s cheeks, both talking at once and locked in a hug together. When they drew apart breathlessly, Minnie pushed Lisa down into a chair before darting across to a side table where she took a bottle of champagne out of an ice-bucket and poured out two glasses.
“I always drink champagne at important moments in my life nowadays,” she declared merrily, “and in between as well!” She handed a glass to Lisa. Then with a swirl of skirt, she stood back with her head to one side to scrutinise her friend. “I was wrong. There is something about you that’s different. I know! It’s your hair. You’ve had it bobbed. It’s short.” Abruptly she lifted her chin and took a shuddering breath. “Wow! I have a shivery feeling of déjà vu. I remarked on Risto’s army hair cut when I first saw him in uniform.
Is it an omen, do you think?”
Lisa in her turn had been revising her first impression. Minnie was too thin. Far too thin. Her bias-cut dress of jade crepe de chine, clinging lightly to her frame, revealed only too clearly the slight breasts and sharp hip-bones. And there was a brittleness about her every movement. It spoke of screaming nerves just below the surface, and her face, still extraordinarily beautiful in a gamine way, bore evidence of more sadness than happiness, more strain than ease.
“No, it’s not an omen, Minnie. Risto is particularly in our thoughts today. That’s what is good about old friendships. The past is always close to the present. Time evaporates. He looked handsome in uniform.”
“He did, didn’t he?” Minnie said reminiscently as she sat down in the neighbouring chair, her silk stockings gleaming on her long legs. “There’s never been anyone else, you know. Oh, I don’t count those four slobs I married or the other men I’ve slept around with, not even the nice ones. I loved Risto. I still love him.” She clenched a fist and gave her knee a hard thump. “That bloody war! What it did to women of our generation! It left hundreds of thousands of us as widows and spinsters, and took from us all the children who would have been born.” Tears shone in her eyes but she blinked them back, raising her glass to Lisa. “I didn’t intend to get gloomy. Here’s to us, Lisa! And to sweet memories!”
Lisa drank the toast. “Is there anyone new in your life, Minnie? Someone who might bring you love again?”
“No. I’ve been hibernating lately in any case. Trying to get away from telephones and people and studios and the press.” “Why? Haven’t you been well?”
Minnie turned aside the question as if it had not been spoken. “More champagne? My glass is empty.” She leaped up from her chair to refill it, her talk coming rapidly. “How’s Alan? Is he still as handsome a devil as he was? I remember fancying him when I first came from Quadra. That was before I’d seen Risto. After that I never wanted anyone else. Speaking of Quadra reminds me of Agnes and Henry Twidle. Do you still hear from them?”
“Regularly. Not all that long ago Agnes had a visit from her mother and sister. Unfortunately, upon stepping ashore at Granite Bay, her mother exclaimed: ‘What a God-forsaken place!’ Much as Mrs. Grant did when we first arrived there. Henry turned on his heel and didn’t speak to his mother-in-law for the whole of her vacation with them, and Agnes says he had vowed that he never will again.”
“Oh dear. That’s hard on Agnes and she’s such a lovely person. Never a word of complaint throughout the rigours of those winters and little outside communication.”
“The West of that continent has been built on the courage of women like Agnes.”
“Tell me now about Catherine. Is she lucky enough to have grown up looking like you? People must think you’re her sister. You’re six years older than I and yet you would be taken for the younger of us. What’s the secret? Your good marriage? I suppose Alan is still at your feet as he always was.” She prattled on, giving no time for answers, almost as if a tightly wound up spring inside her had been released and suddenly there was no controlling it. “You’re a lucky woman to have a man like that in love with you. And you only married him for Harry’s sake, didn’t you?”
Lisa was sharply taken aback. “Whatever led you to that conclusion?”
Minnie flapped a hand elegantly, her diamond rings flashing fire. “I knew you too well not to be able to see for myself that you weren’t in love with him. There was someone else. It was that Norwegian, wasn’t it? The one we first met in the embarkation hall at Liverpool and who turned up in Dekova’s Place to rescue you when you were mugged with the cashbox.”
“He didn’t rescue me. He made a citizen’s arrest on my attacker after knocking him to the ground.”
“But he rescued you in that forest fire, didn’t he?”
Lisa felt the colour surge into her cheeks. “You’re probing too deeply, Minnie. That was a long time ago.”
“You weren’t alone in the boat on the lake. He was with you for about thirty-six hours altogether, wasn’t it?” She was on her third glass of champagne and as she took another mouthful of it she wagged a finger to acknowledge that she was recalling how it had all happened. “I remember how you looked when you set off from home that day. Desperate and in love and more than a little scared. Admit it! You were lovers, weren’t you?”
Drawing in her breath, Lisa released it with a long sigh. “Yes, we were. I thought that secret was mine alone.”
“Your eyes are giving you away. You still feel about him the way I feel about Risto. We both lost by different paths the one man in our lives who meant most to us.”
Further reticence was pointless on that subject. “It’s strange how our lives have run parallel, isn’t it?” Lisa spoke in a quiet, ruminative tone, her thoughts turning inward. “Just as if we had been blood sisters. I rarely think of Peter these days. But I haven’t forgotten him or the time we had together in Toronto and Dekova’s Place.”
There came a knock on the stateroom door and Blanche Stiller entered briskly. “Are you ready, Miss Shaw? The press have been on board for some time now.”
“Don’t harass me!” Minnie scowled, moving from her chair only to refill her glass again.
“We’ll miss the train to London if you don’t get finished with the press soon.”
Minnie eyed her vindictively over the rim. “You’ll miss it. That’s what you mean. You know it was arranged ahead that I should leave Southampton by automobile with Mrs. Fernley for her country house. If the train goes, you can cool your heels on the railway station for the rest of the day for all I care.”
“You’re drinking too much again!” Blanche Stiller retaliated on a spiteful note.
“Mind your own damn business!”
“I’ll fetch your coat.” Before she could reach the wardrobe, Minnie halted her with a shrieked order. “You leave it where it is!
“But Miss Shaw—”
“Shut up and get out!”
The woman flounced out in a temper, muttering to herself. Lisa, who had been watching her friend closely, made a request quietly. “May I face the newspapermen with you when you’re ready, Minnie? I’d find it interesting.”
Minnie shot her a frantic, sideways glance, the muscles of her mouth pulling down convulsively. “You know, don’t you?” she said in a voice harsh with dry sobs.
“I can see that something is wrong.”
“I think I’m losing my mind.” Abruptly Minnie sprang to her feet and wrung her hands agitatedly. “I’m terrified of everything these days. Life! Death! People! Every damn thing. Coming to see you has kept me from going over the past few months. I kept telling myself I’d be okay when I was with you again. You’d put things right. Like you used to. I wouldn’t have had the nerve to defy Blanche just now if you hadn’t been with me.”
Lisa felt as if the ground had been cut from under her. She had been anticipating support in her own troubles from Minnie and instead she was being called upon once more to supply the strength and to be the support of another. “I’ll do whatever I can.”
“You don’t think me stupid?” It was almost a childish cry of appeal.
“Have I ever?” To Lisa it was as if the clock had turned back. She saw in Minnie’s face something of the paralysing hysteria that had been there after the attack in the boxcar on the prairies. Minnie was as much in need today of comfort and reassurance as she had been then; the danger of mental breakdown had to be averted. “The sooner we get away from this liner, the sooner we can talk. Let’s get the press over with and then the time is ours.”
Minnie nodded. Used to being waited on, she stood while Lisa fetched her sumptuous silver fox coat and then slipped her arms into it. She was trembling violently. Almost automatically she put on the large black hat with the upturned brim and dashing sweep of feathers. A further application of scarlet lipstick and then she was ready in appearance, if not in spirit, to meet the press. She hung back as Lisa opened the door for he
r and clutched the soft fur collar up around her neck protectively and not against the mild spring weather that would await her on deck, but in an unconscious gesture of defence.
“It will only take a little while,” Lisa said encouragingly, “and then we’ll be away from here.”
Minnie jerked herself forward as if pulled by a string. At the door she paused and looked almost wildly at Lisa. “Wouldn’t it be grand if my old Ma could ‘ave been on the quayside today?”
Lisa stared at her. Minnie had lapsed into the rough English accents of her childhood, but whether by chance or design it was impossible to say. “Shall you try to find her when you’re in England?”
Minnie’s face, which changed expression as constantly of the screen as it did on, grew sad. “She’s dead,” she said, resuming her normal speech. “I was sent a copy of her death certificate by someone engaged in tracing missing relatives. I’ve come to England twenty years too late to see her again.”
Urged on by Lisa’s gentle but persistent pressure on her arm, she went obediently in the direction of the First Class deck where the press awaited her, only slowing down when the doors to that section of the ship came into view. Her whole body began to stiffen as if preparing for retreat. Quickly Lisa gave her a cheerful push as if she were indeed a child again.
“Go to it, Minnie! We made mincemeat of Emily Drayton and Mrs. Grant. The press is nothing compared to them!”
Lisa did not know whether she had done the right thing or not, but her impromptu therapy had results. Minnie burst into slightly too hectic giggles at the absurdity of the comparison, and then walked through the door a steward had rushed to open as if she were going on to a film set, her dazzling smile switched on like an electric light bulb, her chin swept high, and her furs flung open seductively. There came a barrage of camera flashes.
Minnie performed for the press as she had done countless times before, posing and smiling and turning this way and that. When they found a high seat for her she sat on it obligingly, pulling her skirt a little higher at their shouted request and allowing them to take cheesecake shots of her splendid legs. To Lisa she looked like a beautiful automaton. Blanche Stiller, hovering nearby, watched the film star piercingly for the first warning signs of an indulgement in too much champagne being accelerated by the cold sea-wind blowing across Southampton Water. Fortunately there seemed to be no sign of such a disaster and Minnie was giving the interviewers what was expected of her.
What the Heart Keeps Page 37