Happy Little Bluebirds

by Louise Levene

  ‘Taxi for Mrs Murdoch!’

  Not a taxi at all but a blue convertible that had been driven up the back lane to the door of the bungalow by a youngish, blondish, curly-headed man in a sand-coloured blazer. Tanned and very tall, he looked as though he might well do exercises with Indian clubs (‘red-blooded’ was the phrase they used in Photoplay).

  The man jumped over the car door without opening it – were there special vaulting horses for practising this peculiar skill? – and strode into the house.

  ‘Monroe, Ted Monroe from the script department.’

  He took in the room at a glance: the spillikinned window blinds, the jumble of rusting deckchairs.

  ‘You live here? I thought English dames were house-proud. You know: crumpets on the lawn, pants on the piano, that kind of thing.’

  ‘I only arrived yesterday.’

  ‘What happened? D’you throw a party?’ He grinned at the forest of turpentine bottles still on the sideboard and scratched at his curls. ‘Some party.’

  ‘It was like this when I found it. There’s supposed to be a caretaker but he doesn’t seem to be taking care. I’m meeting the owner – Mrs Silverman? – tomorrow. I’m hoping she can get her Jap chap to pull his finger out.’

  The twitch of Monroe’s eyebrows made Evelyn wish she had put it another way.

  ‘You ready to go?’

  ‘I shan’t be a moment, it’s just that I can’t …’ When she turned back into the bedroom, the heel of her slipper caught in the hem of her unfastened gown. As Monroe’s tennis reflexes broke her fall, the dress slipped from her shoulders and her hair tumbled out of its comb. She regained her balance but hard, warm hands kept hold of her bare upper arms. His deep tan made the smile flash whiter.

  ‘Why, Mrs Murdoch! This is so sudden!’

  The script would have written itself but to her surprise Ted Monroe loosened his hold and merely stooped down to retrieve the comb.

  ‘The frock they sent has rather a lot of buttons.’

  He craned his neck to look behind her. She had them all out of whack, he said. He edged round and his fingertips began tickling down her spine, refastening the satin loops.

  ‘Kiss’s people told me to come get you. You’re his new signing, that right? What happened to the big fella?’

  ‘Mr Peyton was called away.’

  ‘So soon? He only lasted a few weeks. Own office, private line, nice duplex apartment … Never figured out what he actually did apart from hang out with Kiss a lot but he played a mean game of tennis. And poker. You play much poker, Mrs Murdoch?’

  The buttoning fingers had slowed down. ‘Elocution, isn’t it? Thistle sifters? Peter Piper picking pecks?’ Each consonant was a puff of warm air against the skin of her back. ‘I have a black-backed bath brush. Do you have a black-backed bath brush, Mrs Murdoch?’

  He placed both hands on her shoulders and turned her back round, making the gores of the long skirt flare out like the petals on a petunia.

  ‘There you go. All you need now is the orange blossom. And a nice fit –’ he nodded approval ‘– very nice.’ (Far too beastly tight, in other words.)

  ‘I may not be available for button duty later but I shouldn’t worry, there’s usually a zipper in the side seam somewhere: the buttons are just for show.’

  She slapped him quite a bit harder than she intended. Film actors usually kissed women who did that (after they had ruefully rubbed their cheeks). He didn’t even rub his cheek.

  ‘I think you’ve seen too many movies, Mrs Murdoch. And where are you off to in your glad rags? Got a date? I thought I was supposed to be taking you to the Kramer party?’

  *

  Ted Monroe drove very fast and the sun was only just setting when they pulled up in front of Mr Kramer’s Beverly Hills mansion. Monroe put on a gentlemanly show of opening the passenger door and squiring her past the butler but once inside he made his excuses, leaving Evelyn stranded in the marble hallway.

  Evelyn had only a limited experience of parties. She had once been taken to a Dorffest during her stay in Bavaria where a man in lederhosen had played ‘Der Wacht am Rhein’ on a tray of cowbells. Her daily bulletin to her father (in her best German) was full of the joys of schuplattler and glühwein and the sausage-eating game that led to a saucy exchange of forfeits and kisses with Max, the young son of the house. Her father’s reply (sent express) imposed an immediate curfew for the rest of her visit.

  There had been times, during her nine months in Postal Censorship, when a colleague would persuade ‘poor Mrs Murdoch’ to join them at a party to which she hadn’t strictly been invited. ‘No one will mind,’ they would insist, ‘it’s open house’, ‘they love surprises’, ‘come as you are’, but one always felt an interloper, always imagined the hosts having last-minute loaves-and-fishes panics in the pantry at the prospect of an extra guest, and it was never a success. Her colleagues would make an introduction or two but they never really took and she would be left marooned by the door, empty sherry glass in hand, counting the minutes until she could decently slip away and catch her train.

  Hollywood parties were much more familiar. Gowns came fresh from the dressmaker, orchids from the icebox. Hair was curled and plaited like a German loaf glistening with sugar glaze. The husband, often in tails, sometimes in uniform, would fasten anniversary diamonds in the boudoir mirror, there would be a long walk down a curved staircase to a room lit by chandeliers, a Jeevesy gent in a wing collar would announce that dinner was served, then wink kindly at the interloper who reached for the wrong spoon.

  Mr Kramer’s guests were gathered in what House Beautiful had called his ‘blue salon’. Most of the men were in open-necked shirts and the women wore slacks and sundresses. Queen Guinevere had swapped her green velvet kirtle for a pair of candy-striped halter-necked beach pyjamas. Miss McAllister, who had been working late, had only had time to replace the pilgrim collar of her office dress with a bib of white glass beads. She was standing, drink in hand, by the French windows gossiping with Felix Kay who was wearing a crumpled yachting blazer and deck shoes. Both writers had instinctively positioned themselves on the edges of the room, recognising that they were essentially figurants in the scene, while the more famous guests, voices loud, necklines low, performed their solos and duets centre stage.

  ‘I wonder what Mrs Murdoch will be wearing this evening? Should be amusing. Kiss’s secretary told me that Kiss had her pick out a whole bunch of ritzy gowns left over from that Seventh Avenue picture.’

  ‘Satin in Manhattan?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ Miss McAllister chuckled. ‘I told her “black tie” and you know how stuffy the English are.’

  Felix Kay laughed a trifle uncomfortably.

  ‘Not very sisterly …’

  ‘Sisterly?’ hissed Miss McAllister. ‘She’s no sister of mine, brother. I’m damned if I’m going to let myself be high-hatted by that dame.’ She deepened her voice to match Evelyn’s. ‘Do you think I might have a cup of tea? Nuts to that. Whose side are you on, anyhow? Don’t tell me you’re carrying a little torch at long last? Have we finally found your type?’

  Ted Monroe was fighting his way through the crush to join them, a highball in each hand.

  ‘What happened to her ladyship?’ demanded Miss McAllister. ‘Don’t tell me she’s powdering her nose because I won’t believe you.’

  Monroe took a long swig from his glass.

  ‘Left her in the hall. I’m not Kiss’s errand boy.’

  Miss McAllister craned her neck to get a better view of the door. Her face fell: Evelyn Murdoch standing on the threshold in blue silk slacks and matching blouse.

  ‘Who spilled?’

  ‘Don’t blame me, Connie dear. She figured it out all by herself.’

  Evelyn took a swimmer’s breath and walked down the two steps into the room. She strolled over to the window to join them, treading an uneasy Charleston across the white carpet in brand-new, shiny-soled shoes.

  ‘No black tie?’
giggled Miss McAllister, smiling down at Evelyn’s slacks. ‘You should have let me call Wardrobe.’

  Evelyn tried to picture herself in this sea of polo shirts and playsuits ‘all gussied up’ in her floor-length duchesse satin. It was practically sabotage … She thought back to Miss McAllister nonchalantly opening and closing HP’s desk drawers. Perhaps it was sabotage?

  ‘I’m from Woking, Miss McAllister, not Western Samoa. We have movie theatres and everything.’

  Evelyn turned on her heel (very smooth on Mr Kramer’s shag pile) and retraced her steps to the door followed by Ted Monroe. She lit a cigarette and chose one of the smaller glasses from a passing tray.

  ‘It seems almost a pity to spoil Miss McAllister’s fun. I suppose I ought to thank you for “putting me wise”.’

  Ted Monroe frowned.

  ‘You look surprised, Mrs Murdoch. You actually have the gall to look surprised. What kind of a heel did you think I was?’

  Evelyn puffed on her cigarette. ‘I’m sure I don’t know, Mr Monroe. What kind of a heel are you?’

  He pushed his forefinger against the very tip of her nose and leaned in close.

  ‘Don’t, Mrs Murdoch. Please don’t start with the dialogue. I already dream in dialogue.’

  Mr Kramer’s famous blue salon followed the fall of the hillside in a series of shallow steps. A very small man in very large checks was promising the earth to a tall brunette who had made a study of the terrain and taken care to position herself on one of the lower slopes. Evelyn began mentally measuring the furniture: were there outsize chairs for dainty débutantes? Small doorways for heroes?

  Conversations hung in the steam-heated air; well-bred, slightly artificial voices talking fast and wise like the shuffled pages of a screwball comedy.

  ‘So, six weeks with the shrink and the daughter’s telling everyone she’s a lesbian.’

  ‘A lesbian? Practising?’

  ‘I doubt it, knowing her. Remember when she took up the piano?’

  Two men smoking cigars became an impromptu double act.

  ‘We haven’t cast the dame yet but the Danish blonde is out in front.’

  ‘Sure she is. She’s built that way.’

  An extravagantly ugly woman wearing purple satin harem trousers and a whole jungle trading post of black and white beads looked pointedly at Evelyn and turned to a friend. ‘You see what I mean?’ It was several seconds before Evelyn registered that she had actually been speaking Spanish.

  She felt perilously close to tears but instead headed back to the cool of the front hall. Party sound effects drifted out after her: the jazzy rattle of a cocktail shaker; the chink of champagne saucers; the easy chitchat of men and women who knew what enjoying oneself should look and sound like. What would Jesus do? Jesus would have another little drink.

  Walter Kramer’s decorator had built what he called a Den, a womb-like, leather-armchaired nook leading off the main room. It was lined with Royal Stewart tartan and hung with certificates, trophies and countless signed photographs of Mr Kramer shaking hands: Roosevelt; Mussolini; Churchill; Rin Tin Tin. There was a knotty pine bar arrangement in the corner where a waiter was being kept busy mixing drinks to order for the guests who were propping up the counter.

  ‘Can any of you American blighters make a decent martini?’

  An English character player called Cedric Sedgwick had dressed for the party in a gaily striped blazer, cricket jersey and paisley cravat. His own choice? wondered Evelyn. Or did he leave such decisions to Wardrobe? The actor was scowling at his glass through his monocle.

  ‘Chap at my club used to make the best martinis. Had cups for it. It needs to be veddy veddy dry and you need to make the ice from purest imported spring water.’

  At the other end of the bar, Sir Mordred from Knights of Love, now nattily dressed in plus twos, Argyll socks and a slightly crooked toupee, was leaning back to admire the top of an empty beer bottle where he had constructed a rickety little sculpture using the contents of a dozen monogrammed matchboxes.

  Evelyn clambered on to the stool beside him and drained the glass in her hand.

  ‘Attagirl! Fancy another? Silly not to, only way to make sense of the whole grisly affair. Jimmy! Another nicely iced martini for our friend here, Miss er …’

  He seemed pleased by her English name and accent and toasted her in gin as he introduced himself: Frobisher, Baines Frobisher, but she must call him Binky. Brits ought to stick together, wasn’t that right, Cedric? The striped man inspected Evelyn through his eyeglass for the merest moment before turning back to Baines Frobisher who wasn’t to forget: kippers next Sunday; usual crowd; no riff-raff.

  ‘Very informal: “come as you are” – whatever that is.’

  Cedric did not smile or bow or acknowledge Evelyn in any way and nor did he invite her to whatever it was.

  Binky Frobisher led her away from the four-ale fug of the bar and back into the main room.

  ‘Eppsolutely ghaastly, isn’t it? D’you know I think there’s a critical size at play when it comes to this whole parlour-cum-rumpus room arrangement. Anything bigger than a tennis court and you risk turning the whole thing into a jumbo-sized hotel lounge with lots and lots of photographs of yourself in it. Look at it!’ He waved his glass in the air. ‘None of it’s on a normal, common-or-garden domestic scale … I mean that divan thingy over there by the window must be fifteen feet long – longer. And all those whatnots and whatnot, and all these tables – gemütlich, they call them – but you expect a box of headed paper and a pen on a stand. I keep thinking I’m going to be paged – or caught mashing by the house detective.

  ‘And that saloon-bar affair’s no help.’ He jerked his head back towards the cocktail corner where Cedric Sedgwick was now telling anyone who would listen that the secret was merely to let the shadow of the vermouth bottle fall on the pitcher of ice – normal conversation seemed beyond him.

  ‘And far too much Art,’ continued Binky. ‘You could get all this modern stuff for peanuts after ’29 – always supposing you had any peanuts left, obviously. Kramer cleaned up but it’s a mite excessive, don’t you find? Crying out for turnstiles. Do you think they do a postcard of that one?’ He leered wolfishly at an unnecessarily anatomical rendering of a large purple zantedeschia. ‘Reminds me of my first wife.’

  Evelyn heard herself making a giggling sound. Silly noise. She straightened her face and tried to concentrate on the rest of the furnishings. None of the walls in the house had been painted or papered in the normal way. The salon was a quarrelsome blend of flints and copper sheeting. An aquarium had been set into the cobblestoned chimney breast and framed by an antique mirror trimmed with wormy chunks of flame-red coral, the shapes echoing the fire beneath.

  ‘Don’t the poor fish get hot?’ wondered Evelyn, blinking anxiously at the tank.

  ‘There’s a refrigeration unit built in round the back of the fire,’ said Binky.

  Their host had finally materialised and was giving a stray starlet the full private tour. There was a large oil painting of pink and white peonies hanging above a demilune table, the nut-coloured background the same shade as the suede wall behind it, making the flowers look like part of the decor.

  ‘Not my favourite artist but he keeps the florist’s bills down,’ said Mr Kramer (a well-worn gag).

  Mr Kramer’s paintings were chiefly of flowers and Paris streets. Binky Frobisher was unimpressed.

  ‘Fantin-Latour and Utrillo? Oh dear. It’s like a Montmartre florist died and went to heaven … Ghaastly.’ He emptied his glass and gave Evelyn a wink. ‘I hear the merry clang of dish covers. I think they’re about to serve up the first sitting in the dining room. I must grab some Beluga before the vultures descend. Cheerio!’

  The guests drained away to watch the birthday boy blow out his candles, leaving Evelyn by herself in the darkening salon. Mr Kramer’s paintings were lit individually by tiny bulbs on brass brackets but the rest of the room’s kindly lighting was invisibly delivered by a c
omplicated rheostat system hidden behind the cornice which the butler could dim with the twist of a switch. The only other light source was a single spotlight over the main chimney piece. Evelyn moved across to it and positioned herself in its path then turned towards the gilded overmantel. She hardly recognised the woman on the far side of the glass. The high, strong light – a good six feet above her head – cast dramatic shadows across her face, throwing her cheekbones into relief, honing her jawline. She adjusted the set of her head, checking the unfamiliar profile now lengthened and glamorised by Alphonse’s magic comb.

  ‘Cleffer girl.’

  A tallish man in white buckskin jodhpurs and a surprising amount of eye-black had joined her.

  ‘Now: count to seven and watch that lamp like you couldn’t live without it.’

  He looked up at the ceiling, then across at Evelyn’s reflection.

  ‘Some it takes them years to learn. Some I haff to chalk the floor every time but this lady –’ he gestured to an invisible audience ‘– this lady she gets it in one. See the face now?’ His reflection joined hers in the mirror. ‘A million dollars –’ he saw the disapproving frown cross her face ‘– OK maybe half a million. You should get one for your apartment. The man pointed to the spotlight. ‘One of the studio guys will fix it for you. You got a high ceiling? Get a high ceiling. Move to a church.’

  His name was Otto Von Blick and Miracle had brought him over from Kiss’s studio in London to direct Magda Malo in a new movie called The Borgia Pearl. What was it about? asked Evelyn (her first words so far). A continental shrug. It was about $300,000 dollars-worth of movie made to look like a million with a few feathers, some lights, a little smoke.