It was not a ring. It was a slim gold bracelet studded with green stones. When I looked at David his grin had become a half-doubtful smile, and in his eyes was the message, “please like my gift; I can’t bear it if you reject me!”
“Oh, David, it’s beautiful! I absolutely adore it. Thank you so much!” I took it from the box and held it up. In the artificial light, it glowed like fire. “Are these emeralds?”
His face clouded, though at the time I did not realize it was because of my lack of taste. “Of course,” he said gently. “Nothing but the most beautiful jewels for the most beautiful lady. Consider it your Christmas present, a little early.” He took it from my hand. “Here, let me put it on for you.”
When he had done so, I held my wrist up, watching the green stones twinkle in the light. “I’ve never had such a glorious thing before, you know… I am so lucky, I can’t—”
But I did not say the remainder of my sentence, because David’s hands were suddenly drawing my face towards his and his lips descended on mine. It was a longer, more insistent kiss than the ones he had given me outside the Ritz. I did not know how to respond. No one had ever kissed me like this before. Boys in Haverth plonked their mouths in roughly the right place and fumbled drunkenly with blouse buttons and petticoats, but girls just pushed them away and laughed. No one had ever spoken to me with interested courtesy, complimented me and spent money on me. No one had ever been as worldly, rich and good-looking as David either. And no one had ever placed his lips – soft, searching, electrifying – so tenderly on mine.
I felt my body stiffen, but as he put his hands on the tops of my legs, and began to caress them gently, my muscles softened and we leaned against each other, chest to chest, lips to lips, absorbed in a world of sensation. The feeling was like electricity passing through me. My heart responded to the current that crackled around it, increasing its rate and changing its rhythm. I had never listened to my heart before, or felt its movements so keenly. But David’s kiss made all the fibres and vessels and cells in my body suddenly more sensitive. Every bit of me leapt towards him, eager for more of the electric spark.
We went on kissing. I put my hands inside his jacket and held him tightly around his waist. He was a slim man, tall, though not very muscular. Under his shirt his flesh felt soft, yet not soft like my own flesh. I had never considered before what it was that made men so different from women, apart from the obvious things. But his flat, tubular body seemed the very height of masculinity. Touching him, I was aware that his hands – again, hands with fingers and thumbs like mine, yet not like mine – were touching me and giving him the same sensations as I was feeling. It was mutual attraction, and mutual desire. David and I were in love.
SECOND REEL
CAMERA
Sometimes we had snow in the village at Christmas, but that year was mild. Dampness hung in the air, showing misty over the mountains and clinging to hair and hats and overcoats. Haverth did not look picturesque. It looked, after my six-month absence, primitive. And small. How quickly I had become accustomed to my spacious hotel room! The privy at the bottom of the garden seemed insanitary, even though Mam scrubbed it every day. The garden itself, with its rows of cabbages and potatoes, lacked any beauty. And indoors the rooms seemed impossibly cramped, as if we were all trying to fit ourselves into a dolls’ house.
Da kept saying, “I can’t believe it’s our Sarah!”, and staring at me with moist eyes. When I arrived on Christmas Eve in the taxi from Aberaeron, Mam hugged me so tightly I had to fight her off so that I could breathe. And even Frank, whose new moustache made him look unrecognizably grown up, and far too conscious of himself to show his feelings, squeezed my shoulder. I wanted to embrace him, but had to content myself with admiring the facial hair and seeing his joy when I gave him the Christmas gift I’d brought.
“It’s cells,” I told him as he drew the wooden frame out of its box.
“I know what it is!”
“Well, Mam and Da might not.”
Mam laughed. “Do you know what cells are, John?”
“It’s that thing!” replied Da.
Frank was speechless. He put the framed film cells on the table and contemplated them in awe. Da inspected them too. “I still don’t know what I’m looking at, love,” he said to me.
“It’s the film Sarah’s in, see, Da.” Frank had found his voice, which shook a little. “It’s some of the bits that are all joined together to make the film, isn’t it, Sair?”
I nodded. “I got sixteen because that’s how many make one foot of film.”
Mam was looking baffled. “One foot?”
“Unbelievable, isn’t it?” I went on, feeling important. “A film is one long strip of these cells, or frames, they sometimes call them, and when the strip is passed over the light, the pictures appear to move.” I could not resist adding the particle of knowledge I had cherished ever since David had imparted it to me. “Do you know, for every second of film, twenty-four of these little bits go in front of the light? One hundred make just over four seconds of film.”
Frank had gone pink with pleasure. “People like me never get hold of them!”
“People like film stars’ brothers, you mean?” teased Mam. She poked Frank’s shoulder. “What do you say to your sister now, Frank?”
“Oh, thank you, Sair!” He was too shy to kiss this new Sarah, who wore a layer of paint on her face and expensive scent behind her ears. But he picked up my gift and held it to his chest as tenderly as any lover. “I’ll treasure it.” Suddenly, something occurred to him. “How did you get them? I bet you stole them!”
“She did not steal them!” Mam was indignant, though Da was laughing. “Frank Freebody, you take that back!”
I was glad of Mam’s intervention. It gave me time to compose myself for the moment I had been anticipating ever since I arrived. “I didn’t steal them. I was given them by David Penn, the director of the film. If you hold them up to the light, Frank, you’ll see that I’m in them. Less than one second of me, but me nevertheless.”
There. I’d said his name. And I didn’t think I’d gone red or fidgeted while I said it.
But Mam was regarding me curiously. “You and this David Penn, then, are you … you know, stepping out?”
Stepping out. I tried not to cringe. That was a less approving version of “walking out”, which was the Haverth term for courting with a possible view to marriage.
“No, of course not,” I told her. And now I did go red. The blush crept up my neck and burned my cheeks. “He’s the director of the film, that’s all, and I told him my brother liked films, and he said some cells from the film would be a nice Christmas present.”
They were all looking at me. “And he was right, wasn’t he?” I added brightly.
Florence and Mary wanted to hear every last detail about the film, the costumes, the hotel I was living in, the restaurants and nightclubs, the cars I had ridden in. They wanted to hear everything I could tell them about London. Florence, who had flung my fox fur around her neck the moment I took it off, demanded an exact description of the West End shop that had sold it to me. Mary asked me if the trains really went under the ground, or was that only in the pictures? They were so excited that they kept interrupting each other, their words tumbling out in a torrent. But both of them sat silent, their attention riveted, when I told them about David.
“So you’re walking out with the director?” asked Mary incredulously. “I bet they’re all jealous, aren’t they?”
“Not exactly, no.” Satisfying though her interest was, I did not wish to exaggerate. “David does not wish to have it discussed. He can’t stand gossip, he says, so I’m not sure how much the others know about—”
“Has he kissed you?” interrupted Mary.
“Oh, yes.”
“Properly, she means,” added Florence.
I couldn’t help smiling. In the world of Haverth girls, “properly” meant “improperly”. “Oh, yes,” I said again. “And he’s
taken me to dinner loads of times, and he bought me this.” I drew back my cuff and showed them the gold and emerald bracelet. “It’s my Christmas present, a little early, he said.”
Mary was enchanted, but Florence hardened her features and studied me. “How old is he?”
“I’m not sure. Twenty-five or twenty six?”
“So he’s very successful, then. For his age, I mean. Must have rich parents.”
“Perhaps.” The idea that David might have parents, rich or otherwise, had never entered my consciousness. He never spoke of them, and since his whole demeanour was that of an entirely adult man, at ease in society, I had never thought to question how he had achieved this. “And he’s clever,” I added. “And makes films that people like. So investors give him money to make more films, and the films make money for him, and that’s how it works.”
“I see,” said Flo. “So how did he get into this pictures business in the first place?”
“I don’t know, Flo,” I told her truthfully. “We’ve hardly had time to discover every little thing about each other’s lives, you know.”
“I bet you haven’t,” she said airily. “Too busy doing something else! You know what people say about actresses, don’t you?”
“Flo!” scolded Mary. Her colour rising, she turned to me in concern. “Don’t listen to her, Sarah. She’s only jealous. Actresses these days are nothing like … you know.”
I sighed. “It’s all right. Flo doesn’t mean I’m the nearest thing to a prostitute, she means that people with old-fashioned ideas might think I am. Right, Flo?”
Florence did not reply.
“And anyway,” I continued, “David’s not like that at all. He’s the loveliest man you could ever hope to meet, and I’m the luckiest girl in the world because he cares for me.”
“Let’s hope he does,” said Florence. She took off my fur and handed it back, her face inscrutable. “It’s obvious you care for him. But you know, Sair, when Bobby Pritchard went out with Glenys Harding behind my back, when I was sure he was my true love, my mam said to me, ‘The heart can be mistaken.’”
My heart was not mistaken. When I returned to the hotel after Christmas, I had not taken three steps across the foyer before I heard my name.
“Miss Hope!” It was the little round man who worked the evening shift behind the reception desk. “I have messages for you.”
I approached the desk. The receptionist took several pieces of paper from the pigeonhole marked with my room number and passed them to me. Mystified, I thanked him.
They were telephone messages, written in the varying handwriting of several receptionists. All of them said more or less the same thing: Mr Penn wishes to speak to Miss Hope as soon as she arrives. Please could she telephone Thamesbank 067. The messages also reported the times and dates of his calls, at least twice a day over the last three days. He had been persistent.
I went to the telephone box near the entrance to the hotel bar, shut the folding door and picked up the receiver. “Thamesbank 067,” I said to the operator, and after a short silence, the phone rang in David’s house. My heart raced, my hairline felt damp, the hand that was not grasping the receiver shook a little. David, David my love, eager to see me, impatient for my return, missing me…
“Hello?”
I was so taken aback to hear a woman’s voice, I did not answer.
“Hello? Who is this, please?” she asked sharply.
“Is that … um … Mr Penn’s residence?”
“It is.” The sharp tone had subsided a little. “May I help you?”
I had gathered my wits. “I’d like to speak to him, please.”
“Whom shall I say is calling?”
“Miss Hope.”
“Very well. One moment.”
I heard the click-clicking of the woman’s shoes on polished floorboards, and muffled voices.
Then a man’s footsteps approached. “Clara? Is that you?”
“Oh, David!”
“You got my messages, then?”
“Yes. Is something the matter? Or did you just want … I don’t know, to talk to me?”
He laughed. A small, gurgling laugh like an amused child. “Of course I wanted to talk to you! My darling, I always want to talk to you! But yes, I suppose something is the matter. I’d rather tell you about it in person, though. Would you like to go out?”
“Actually, David, I’m rather tired. I’ve been travelling all day.”
I hoped he would suggest that his driver pick me up and bring me to his house on the island, but he did not. I could hear him drawing his breath through his teeth, calculating. “Then I’ll be at the hotel in … thirty minutes? Meet you in the bar.”
“Who was the woman who answered the telephone?”
“My housekeeper,” mumbled David, an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He took it out and removed a stray piece of tobacco from his lower lip. “Mrs Schofield. Terrible old tyrant, but she knows her job.”
She had not sounded very old, but I could imagine that the woman who had spoken to me could be tyrannical. “Is it finished, then?” I asked.
He was lighting the cigarette. He looked up at me with his eyebrows raised. “What?”
“The house. Is it finished?”
“Ah! Not really,” he said, and puffed thoughtfully a few times. “Mrs S. was away while the bathrooms were being done as there was no water, but she came back after Christmas to put things straight. They’re starting on the kitchen tomorrow, so she’ll be off again. God knows when the men will eventually quit the place. But now …” – he gave a quick, excited smile – “let me tell you why I wished to see you the instant you arrived. I have something to ask you, and I need to be put out of my misery.” He took my hand. “In the spring, when the film is finished but before I am imprisoned in the cutting room for months, I have a few days free. Would you like to come away with me? Perhaps to the seaside?” His excited look turned to an imploring one. “Please, please say yes, Clara – it would make me the happiest man alive if I could have you to myself, away from here, even for a couple of days. Will you come?”
I took his other hand and held it tight. My heart hammering, I laid my head tenderly on his chest. I did not care that we were in a public place; I did not care if the whole world knew I had found the man I loved. I was so happy I could hardly form the words. “David,” I murmured, “you know I will.” Raising my head, I smiled at him. “There, now. Has that put you out of your misery?”
The next morning, Aidan was in a bad mood. He argued with David, and Dennis, and even Jeanette, to whom he was usually reasonably polite. He swore under his breath during rehearsals and sometimes during our takes as well.
I was disgusted with him. I wished the filming was over, so I would never have to see him again. But I also wished the filming would never be over, so that I could go on seeing David every day. This conflict, and the fact that I had slept little the night before, made me grumpy too. I did not want to be under these lights, perspiring in this costume. I wanted to be in David’s arms, drunk with champagne and love. By the time we had parted last night, I had made up my mind that nothing – nothing – would take me away from my true love. If I had to follow him from film to film across the whole world, I would. If his films were flops and he lost all his money, I would be there, ready to support him. I would bear his children and look after him in sickness and health. If necessary I would give up my life for his, like people did in stories. Our life together would be a story. A love story.
“Aidan, why don’t you just go home?” I asked plaintively. “You’re being even more impossible than usual today, and I can’t stand it.”
He sighed. As he exhaled, the familiar smell of whisky came to me, even though it was only eleven o’clock in the morning. “Then why don’t you go home?” he asked illogically.
He was obviously drunk. Being drunk on the set was one of the very few reasons an actor could be released from his contract. I stepped further away from him. “You
had better not let David see what condition you are in if you want to keep your job.”
“I am in perfect condition,” he said bitterly. “Like a well-maintained car. Or a Havana cigar.” He pondered for a second. “Speaking of which, you haven’t got a cigarette, have you?”
Somehow we got through that day’s work. Though I was used to Aidan’s behaviour by now, I suspected it was made worse by his jealousy of David. Neither David nor I could do anything to please him; he criticized my performance, David defended me, Aidan turned away in exasperation and so it went on until we were all exhausted.
I hurried to my dressing room, my nerves strung tight. “Maria, be quick,” I told her breathlessly, unbuttoning my dress, my heart full of excitement at spending another evening with David. “I wish to be ready in case … anyone wants me. And I wish to get away before Mr Tobias!”
Half-smiling, she helped me out of my costume. She did not acknowledge my comment, though she must have been aware of the reason behind it. She might not witness much of the filming, but Aidan’s dresser, Spencer, no doubt privately complained about him to her. I put on my robe and sat down at the dressing-table. “Horrid day today, Maria,” I said, and reached for the cold cream.
“How much longer, Miss Hope, do you know?” she asked as she hung up my dress.
“Mr Penn says we are to finish at the end of January.” I slapped cream on to my cheeks and began to smear it over my face. “If nothing goes wrong, anyway.”
“Let’s hope nothing goes wrong, then. I’ve got a job in the West End coming up.”
“Oh, you’re a theatre dresser too, are you?” I was interested. It had never before occurred to me that Maria, like me and the other actors, might be working for David Penn Productions only under contract and that her future was as uncertain as mine.
She nodded. Her smile had disappeared. “I prefer that work. It goes on longer than a film if the show’s successful. Though it doesn’t pay so well, of course.”
101 Pieces of Me Page 7