Happy Little Bluebirds

by Louise Levene

  The sun was still quite low behind them but the sky’s brightness appeared to emanate from all directions at once, as if someone had just taken the lid off the world. Evelyn blotted her cheeks with her handkerchief and took her new dark glasses from her pocketbook.

  ‘It was eighty-six degrees yesterday but they forecast some rain later. You should have been here in August. The desert made a hundred and forty in the shade. I should imagine your place will be air-conditioned – you definitely seem to be getting the VIP treatment. Did the great big Kiss hire you himself?’

  ‘No –’ Evelyn had been mentally rehearsing her answers to this one ‘– it was all done through the London office.’ She realised that she had better change the subject before he probed more closely. She fought with the urge to ask the bore’s question but, rather like Mrs Van Clark, he supplied information without any prompting.

  ‘A couple of us Miracle writers are on part-time secondment to the Kiss outfit – kind of like a sub-let. It doesn’t exactly say “driver” in my contract but the Kiss office said he wanted someone to come and get you and it never hurts to be nice.’

  Nice. Highest praise from Silas but it meant something else when Felix Kay said it and it was clear that, just now anyway, this young man needed to be very nice indeed to a gantseh macher like Zandor Kiss. Mr Kay had looked dapper enough in long shot but close-up you could see the furry fray of his shirt cuffs, the baggy knees of his flannels, the pulled threads on the blazer. These were not the clothes of a successful person, Evelyn knew that now. Only a European could get away with that kind of dishevelment. Anyone important would have been better dressed and anyone important would have been far too busy to pick up stray Englishwomen from the railway station.

  ‘How long have you been a film writer?’

  ‘Too long, my mom says. My mother would be glad to see me out of here, back at my desk job in the publisher’s office. My kid brother’s an accountant and I was supposed to be a dentist. Every time she gets a cavity she reminds me how much it shouldn’t be costing. And she can never understand why films don’t have my name on them. In the end I told her I worked on Gone With the Wind. Come to think of it, who didn’t work on Gone With the Wind? Maybe it wasn’t Scott Fitzgerald who did those rewrites? Maybe it was me. That’s the great part about being a writer – no one has ever heard of you.’

  Their progress across the city was slowed somewhat by the downtown traffic. No pepper trees here but office buildings and apartment blocks that loomed high and strange against the cobalt sky: Mexican; Moorish; Egyptian – as if the Pharaohs had branched out into banking and life insurance – and the empty lots in between were filled with parked cars and fronted by giant advertising hoardings: ‘Fireproof Your Home: No Job Too Small; Wafer-thin Bespoke Hairpieces: They’re Undetectable!’ A boy on roller skates was gliding between the vehicles in order to pass a newspaper (‘Hitler Warns US on British Aid’) through the window of an ancient black motor car, its right-hand passenger door held shut with string. Not everyone in Los Angeles drove a large white convertible and not everyone drove especially well but the mood on the street was oddly forgiving and the tooting minimal – which Evelyn found reassuring (‘someone at the Miracle office is sorting you out a motor’).

  Evelyn had been taught to drive abroad when still a schoolgirl but Silas had refused to put her name on the policy for his glossy black Austin. She could have her turn ‘when the war was over’. How would they ever have found time for all the things that had been postponed until then?

  Silas had always driven in complete silence, constantly checking the mirrors and making an absurd parade of every gear change. Felix Kay’s relaxed grip on the steering wheel was like a man holding the reins of a canny old horse that knew the way home and he treated Evelyn to a running commentary on the city, the studio and any landmarks they passed.

  Evelyn was going to like her new Bel Air address. Her lodgings were in the grounds of a house belonging to one of Kiss’s movie-producer friends: Manny Silverman. Silverman had been one of the founders of Miracle Studios but he was more of a sleeping partner these days. A guy called Kramer was the money man and all the real movie-making work was done by Silverman’s son-in-law: PZ Homberg.

  ‘PZ used to be Silverman’s golden boy back in the Twenties. Silverman would have maybe a dozen turkeys written off and in the vault and PZ would stay up all night in one of the screening rooms with the head cutter and make whole new pictures out of them. Three new scenes: new poster, new tunes for the piano player, a new set of titles and he could turn a silent weepie into a screwball comedy and Silverman had a string of low-budget hits on his hands.’

  ‘What does the P stand for?’

  ‘Eberhardt, but that would have made it Ee Zee – not exactly ideal – so he changed it.’

  ‘And the Zed? The zee, I mean.’

  ‘There is no zee. It’s like the O in David O. Selznick. Purely ornamental.’

  ‘And the B in Louis B. Mayer?’

  ‘Don’t tempt me.’

  He smiled.

  ‘Anyhow, Manny Silverman used to live in the Bel Air house when he was married to his first wife so naturally it was never going to be good enough for Mamie – wife number two – but Mr Silverman never liked to let go of a house – and neither did Mamie. Her old man made a fortune in the movie business but he sold up just before the crash in ’29 and made a killing in real estate. They must have a dozen houses between them because they can’t seem to settle on one they both like. You know that story about the fisherman and his wife? The one where she keeps pestering him for more bathrooms? That’s Mamie Silverman.

  ‘Mamie and Kiss go way back. I think it was her idea to loan you the house. She’s away upstate till the weekend but she’s ordered in a bunch of emergency groceries and she’ll be dropping by Saturday and you’re to tell Mr Hashimoto if you need anything – he’s kind of the gardener. Those Japs can grow anything.’ He gestured to a man at the roadside who was deadheading the flowering shrubs planted down the middle of the untrodden pavement.

  ‘It’s very tony to have a Jap gardener but the snobs prefer to have English servants in the house if they can afford them – and if they can hang on to them. Practically every English butler I’ve ever met has been an actor-in-waiting – some of them hand out photos. I may even have a crack at it myself. Your man HP gave us all a masterclass: Anyone fency a snifter?’

  The houses grew larger and smarter as the car turned under a huge white archway reading ‘Bel Air’. It was a public highway but there was a strong sense of trespass as they wound up through the hills. Some of the mansions were hidden behind ironwork and high hedging with only turrets and gables visible from the road but many were less coy: Colonial, French provincial, Italianate, Hispanic villas, houses so grand and ivied they seemed to cry out for velvet ropes, sixpenny tours and shilling teas in the old tithe barn afterwards.

  Finally the car cruised into an open driveway and slowed to a halt. Felix Kay took off his sunglasses. Nice, soft brown eyes.

  ‘Welcome to Cedar Point.’

  A well-swept sweep of gravel led to a curious-looking wooden house built in the shade of a pair of cedar trees. It had a log-cabin look and appeared single storey from the driveway but its rambling structure clung to the curves of the canyon behind, descending in a series of verandahs and sleeping porches sheltered by overhanging pitched roofs.

  The garden had been laid out in the Japanese manner, with bamboo alleys and lily ponds and several tons of stone chippings, but whoever commissioned it all had evidently wearied of this orientalist restraint and had the borders replanted with seed-packet blossoms of phloxes and begonias. Evelyn pulled at a low hedge of Jicky-scented lavender and thought of her mother’s dressing table.

  Silas had never cared for flower gardening and the garden at No. 9 had been a tidy arrangement of lawn and shrubs until half of it was ploughed up to make way for the air-raid shelter.

  ‘Pretty, isn’t it?’ Felix Kay tugged at
a stray thread on his cuff to mask yet another sneaky peek at his watch. ‘The guesthouse is just down thataway, you’ll find the key under the mat. A studio driver is gonna meet you with the car they got for you tomorrow at eight thirty right here.’ He pointed to the love seat under the porch. He took all her things from the boot and climbed back into the Miracle motor.

  ‘I’d love to stay and show you around but I have to run: I have a meeting at ten. You gonna be OK? The gardener guy should be around somewhere but here’s my number if you need anything.’ He handed her a business card printed in the same style as the ones Jeremy Fitzmorton had given her. This one said ‘Felix S. Kay, Script Department’.

  It was only as the big white car crunched away over the stones and off down the hill that Evelyn realised she didn’t even know her own address.

  It had begun to rain. Picking up her bags and hatbox she set off ‘thataway’, pausing on the hump of the Japanese bridge that spanned the ornamental pond to look back at the house and its stone garden, then noticed with a start that expert hands had raked Mrs Silverman’s tidy square of gravel into a maze of interlocking swastikas.

  The expert hands had not had time for the rest of the garden. Once over the bridge and through the arch in the hedge, Evelyn had to fight her way through a fairy-tale forest of oleander and bamboo. A grapevine had scrambled across a sagging pergola overhead, each stem thickly clustered with mildewed raisins. Down the hill, at the far end of the weed-choked path, Evelyn could just make out an empty swimming pool. Rotting hibiscus blossoms like discarded cigars filled the puddle at what had been the deep end. The bungalow alongside had unwashed windows, and a broken gutter had created a permanent mudbath alongside the front porch where someone had dumped two brown paper sacks against one of the empty terracotta urns. Next to them a florist’s basket of long-stemmed roses had been blown into the mire by the stiffening breeze.

  The crunch of her feet on the cinder path disturbed a large Bengal cat. It stood, back arched, all four paws poised, left-right left-right, on a fencing rail in front of a honeycomb of clay drainage pipes. Each little tunnel had been stuffed with straw and leaves to furnish ready-built homes for something. Something quite small – smaller than a Bengal cat anyway. Not a twitch or rustle from the man-made nests but the cat gave a swift lick to its whiskers as Evelyn passed, betraying a recent visit to this catty automat. Just as she reached out to pet the animal, a wiry man in grey overalls holding a curved pruning saw sprang on to the path behind her, brandishing the blade above his head.

  ‘No come today! Lady no come today! Lady come Monday!’

  Terrified, Evelyn took a fierce grip on her case and stumbled down the hill towards the bungalow. The man lowered his weapon and followed in her wake, alternately bowing and shaking his head.

  ‘Lady no go little house!’ His voice rose to a squeal of panic. ‘No go today! House not shipshape!’

  He remained screaming on the edge of the swimming pool as Evelyn fumbled under the mat for the key, wrenched open the lock and bundled in the suitcase, flowers and groceries, bolting the door behind her and feeling for the light switch.

  House not shipshape. The bungalow had been laid out on House Beautiful lines – three bathrooms, glass doors on to a pool patio and a whole saleroom of French furniture – but the gilded fauteuils in the drawing room had been stacked on top of one another to make room for a set of stepladders.

  The master bedroom had a bergère bed watched over by a trio of Degas prints showing dancing girls scratching themselves or tying their ballet shoelaces, but when Evelyn walked into the walk-in closet she found a large collection of rakes, hoes and some sort of telescopic mop arrangement which was used – only not used, obviously – to clean the swimming pool. The bathroom had become a kind of ensuite potting shed. The rose-coloured bathtub was littered with tins of house paint and there were flowerpots on all the glass shelves and a dank, outdoors-y smell of wet earth and weedkiller. The water from both taps was ice cold.

  Someone had left two dress boxes and a pair of large carrier bags on the only bare patch of bedroom floor. One of them had a handy little manifest taped to the handle: ‘sweaters (cashmere) x 6; faille (blue), duchesse satin (white), crêpe (navy), grosgrain (cinnamon), knife-pleated chiffon (beige); kimono (yellow); bathing suit x 1’. Miracle had thriftily sourced most of the clothes from the studio’s wardrobe department but there was a price tag on the white frock: $180. Evelyn thought again of Silas in the hat shop: ‘Every shilling which you needlessly spend on your apparel is in effect stolen from the poor.’ She shivered and pulled one of the sweaters from its cellophane (fully fashioned especially for her in ‘Bonny Wee Scotland’, if the label was to be believed) and buttoned it on over her blouse.

  Whoever wasn’t looking after the house had made their home in the kitchen which was in relatively good order and boasted a refrigerator as big as her Super Chief bathroom. Evelyn unpacked the sacks of ‘emergency’ groceries that Mrs Silverman had ordered: eggs, sliced bread, cheese, half a gallon of milk, some tins of fish, a net of oranges, a can of olives, a packet of smoked almonds and two quarts of vodka – what kind of emergency had she had in mind? Evelyn made herself a toasted cheese sandwich and settled herself in an armchair by the sitting-room windows listening to the thunder and stroking her kitten-soft Scottish sleeves. She read another chapter of War of the Worlds – ‘the Martians have completely wrecked Woking station and massacred an entire battalion’ – then made a start on the script of Duchess in the Dirt: ‘“Oh Bill, this is so sudden!” He takes her in his arms, bends her head back and kisses her hard on the mouth again and again, till she struggles for breath.’

  As Evelyn sank deeper into the armchair there was a crinkle of paper in her skirt pocket: Deborah’s unfinished letter.

  It turned much colder the day you left and Mother has made me hang the winter curtains. She continues the same (more’s the pity). I’d like to say she sends her regards but she refused to do any such thing. I suggested she might and she said ‘Evelyn who?’ – she has days like that. Mrs F has finally said she will do for us Mondays and Thursdays, which is a great help although Mother I know has never approved and why can’t I keep my own house – you know the drill.

  Mrs F and I don’t normally coincide but I found her still swabbing the scullery floor with a wet rag when I got in from work on Thursday so I asked how she was managing. Turns out Mrs F’s Arfur was called up back in August what with the conscription age going up to thirty-six (having argued without success that ‘bookie’s runner’ was a reserved occupation or bleeding well ought to be – her words not mine). She was very tight-lipped at first but then I made her a cup of Oxo and she broke down and said that Private F hadn’t liked basic training in Shoeburyness one little bit, that the food was something chronic and the beds left a great deal to be desired and that Private F had gone absent without leave at his old uncle’s place on the Isle of Sheppey or similar.

  He’d gone to ground for the best part of a month before he finally paid a call on Mrs F and the two little Fs last Sunday teatime shortly followed by two military policemen (you can tell it’s them apparently because they wear red hats though you’d think mufti would be more to the purpose). They had a dog of some kind with them but had left it in their car or tank or whatever they drove up in which was something of a blessing because Mr F had by this time got under the tea table which had a long plush under-cloth with a kind of giant doily on top – I could practically draw it for you Mrs F was so particular.

  Anyway. He dives under as soon as he spies the MPs through the net curtains at which point F minor and little Rubella or Scarlatina or Salmonella or Eczema or whatever the child’s name is decide what larks and do let’s join Daddy playing bears under the table. Lucky he didn’t slit their throats, I reckon, but he must have sat on them or something because his beloved wife was able to remain seated at a table set for four – red salmon, boiled bacon and a nice tinned Dundee cake to follow according to Mrs F (all black marke
t, obviously) – and swear blind that no, she ain’t seen hide nor hair of him straight up and wossy done now and wipe her eyes on a drawn-thread serviette her old mum had made and all that twaddle. But it must have been a cracking performance just the same because the nasty men went away and daddy bear and baby bears emerged from hibernation and tucked back into their tinned salmon (not too much vinegar but you’ve got to have a bit because it can be very dry, salmon, thank you Mrs F).

  He’s now back on the Isle of Sheppey (or so he said in his last postcard). They have a code and the uncle posts them. Uncle Sid, should anyone ever ask, though you’d better not tell anyone any of this. Poor Mrs F, I say. Poor Mr F really. I’ve been to Shoeburyness. Rained every day. Ghastly hole.

  I dare say it is very nice for you to be out of it all and away from all the memories of poor dear Silas but it is funny not having you here to talk to. Mother would probably appreciate some chocolate (two small rather than one large as she will eat the lot otherwise). I now hide everything in the mending basket. Last place she’d look. Lazy old so-and-so.

  Hoping this finds you (as they say). Literally in your case of course. We both remember you and poor dear Silas in our prayers.

  Yours truly

  Deborah

  PS. Is Errol Flynn as tall as he looks? I do so envy you.

  Evelyn must have been asleep for several hours because it was dark outside when she woke. It was still raining hard and the splashes fell heavily on the bamboo that crowded against the glass doors but there was something larger and louder than raindrops rootling around the front porch and something else howling like a big, sick spaniel in the canyon below. She grilled herself another sandwich then tried the kitchen wireless but it made a noise like cellophane whichever way she turned the dial. There was a distant rumbling sound and a faraway dring of burglar alarms. Glasses tinkled in the kitchen cabinet. She realised with a tearful feeling of panic that not only did she not know her actual address, she hadn’t even the vaguest idea of where the house was located except that it was fourteen miles from Pasadena. Was that still Los Angeles even? There was a letter rack by the kitchen telephone but it contained nothing but a stack of tourist leaflets urging her to visit Santa Monica pier or an ostrich farm and the only map showed the best ski runs at Lake Arrowhead. She found the business card that Felix Kay had given her and picked up the telephone receiver. The line was dead.