I wish I’d learned then that when you call someone’s bluff you usually win: it’s simply not what they’re expecting. And swimming along in the slipstream of another person’s current is no way to live.
It was then that I looked up and saw someone, staring at me from the other side of the room. What would have happened if I hadn’t? What if I’d never seen Don Matthews again? Would Gilbert and I have continued our evening and would it have been lovely? Would everything have worked out differently?
‘Excuse me, darling,’ I said. ‘Let me go and fix my dress. I’ll be straight back.’ I squeezed his hand and stood up, and as I walked out towards the terrace Don turned and saw me. He whispered something to his companion and left the bar.
‘Well, well. Miss Avocado 1956,’ he said, shaking my hand.
‘Don,’ I said, clasping his fingers in mine, tilting my head to meet his dark, warm gaze. ‘It’s good to see you. How are you?’
‘I’m the same, but you’re much better,’ he said, looking me up and down. ‘Congratulations. You were – well, I thought you wouldn’t make it. I thought you’d crack and go back home to Mum and Dad.’ He said this in a terrible English accent.
I had the most curious feeling we’d last met only days before, not nearly two years ago. ‘I don’t give up,’ I said. ‘I wanted to be a star. I told you.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, you did. But you were different back then.’ He stared at me. ‘Gosh. What did they do to you?’
I stared at him. ‘Oh,’ I said, after a moment. ‘It’s probably my hair. Electrolysis. They thought I should have a widow’s peak for Helen. It was painful, but I suppose they were right.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not that.’
‘Or the teeth?’ I said, opening my mouth. ‘Five caps – it’s made a world of difference.’ He shook his head. ‘I lost a stone, too, which was terribly hard, but I needed to.’
‘No, you didn’t.’ He gave that sweet, lopsided grin I’d forgotten about. ‘Forget it. I’m looking for something that’s not there, I guess. You’re all grown-up, Rose.’
I’d forgotten he’d called me that. Rose. I started and he smiled again.
‘I know all your dirty little secrets, remember,’ he said. I must have looked as worried as I felt, because he added, ‘It’s a joke. Hey, don’t worry. I’m not one of those guys.’
‘I know you’re not,’ I said, and I knew it was true. ‘Anyway,’ I said brightly. ‘How are you? What are you working on at the moment?’
‘Something special,’ he said. ‘I’m polishing it up right now. About a girl from a small town who moves to the big city and gets lost. In fact, I had you in mind for it. I always have done, Rose.’
His eyes never left my face but I avoided his gaze. ‘How exciting. What’s the title?’
He paused. ‘Wait and see.’
‘That’s a great title.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I mean, Rose, just wait and see. In fact, I’d like to be the one to tell you. Soon.’
‘Really?’ I said. I was embarrassed and I didn’t know why.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s for Monumental, and I think they’re talking about putting you in it after Mandalay’s done shooting. I’ll get you a copy.’
Typical that everyone else would know except me what I’d be doing next. My life wasn’t my own to plan; it was the studio’s, Moss Fisher’s in particular, and I knew it and was grateful to them. ‘That’s – great,’ I said. ‘Listen, Don—’
Gilbert appeared at that moment. ‘Darling, what are you doing?’ He stared at Don in that curiously hostile way that upper-class English people have. ‘Oh. Good evening.’
‘Mr Travers, a real pleasure to meet you. Don Matthews.’ Don held out his hand.
‘Don’s a screenwriter, darling,’ I said. ‘He wrote Too Many Stars.’
‘Ah.’ Gilbert could barely conceal his apathy. ‘Darling, I see Jack over there. I rather thought I might say hello to him. Excuse me, won’t you.’ He nodded at Don and strode off.
‘I don’t follow the fan magazines, I’m afraid,’ Don said. ‘That’s the guy they’ve set you up with? Gilbert Travers? He’s a little old for you, don’t you think?’
He tapped a cigarette on the side of a worn silver case. I watched him, rubbing my bare arms in the sudden chill of the restaurant. ‘He’s wonderful,’ I said. ‘We—’
‘You going to marry him?’ He rapped out the question, his voice harsh.
A commotion at the other end of the room forestalled my answer; a flurry of white floor-length ermine and flashing diamonds. I looked over to see Benita Medici, my rival at the studio, arriving on the arm of a suave, rake-thin man whom I knew to be Danny Paige, the biggest, wildest bandleader of the moment. ‘Oh, my goodness, Danny Paige!’ I said. ‘I just love him.’
‘I’m more of a Sinatra guy,’ Don said. ‘I like to listen at home. Too old to jive.’
‘Slippers and pipe and a paper by the fire, while your wife soothes your brow and fixes you a drink?’ I said. You don’t know anything about him. Why would you care if he’s married or not?
‘Something like that,’ he said, and he smiled again. ‘Only it’s hard for her to fix me a drink these days.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Why?’
‘Vegas is a long way away,’ he said. ‘Too far to commute.’
‘What does she do in Vegas?’
He waved his hand. ‘Doesn’t matter. She doesn’t do it with me, that’s the main thing. I’m not a great guy to live with. And I was a lousy husband. She made the right decision.’ He tapped the side of his glass. ‘I like to drink alone, so it worked out fine.’
I didn’t know what to say. ‘That’s so sad.’
‘Why?’ He smiled again. ‘Marriages fail all the time.’
‘But they shouldn’t,’ I said.
‘God, you’re young,’ he said. He jangled some change in his pocket. ‘You know, I worry about you, Rose. You’re such a baby. You shouldn’t be here, you know it? You should be back in England fluffing up an Elizabethan ruff and getting ready to go out on stage, not living this – life, like a gilded bird in a cage.’ His eyes scanned me, looking at the beautiful silk birds on my dress, the crooked one on my shoulder.
I laughed. ‘Don’t let’s disagree. Not when it’s so lovely to see you again.’ I looked over to where Gilbert was standing at the bar, a greyish-blue plume of cigar smoke rising straight above his head, like a signal.
‘Fine. Change the subject.’
‘What’s your favourite Sinatra album?’ I asked him.
Don whistled. ‘Gee. That’s hard. You like him too?’
‘Oh, yes, I love him too. More, in fact. He’s my biggest discovery since I came here. I’d never heard him before.’
‘You never heard Sinatra?’ Don’s face was a picture. ‘Rose, c’mon.’
‘We didn’t have jazz and … music like that, when I was growing up.’ My home was a quiet, forbidding house, full to me of the sound of echoing silence and my guilt which filled up the empty rooms, where once there had been shouts of joy, and more often screams of fury, thundering steps on hard tiles. When Rose was around there’d been no need for music.
‘Well, in London … of course. In the coffee bars, and at dances. Not before then.’ I shook my head, trying to remove the image of Rose singing, shouting, along to some song on the radio, her mouth wide open, eyes full of joy, with that intensity that sometimes scared me. She would have loved Sinatra. She loved music. I pushed the image away, closing my eyes briefly, then opening them. There. Gone. ‘I’m dying to meet him. Imagine if I did. Mr Baxter says he’ll fix it. We were in here once and he and Ava Gardner came in – I nearly died. I must have listened to Songs for Swingin’ Lovers around a thousand times. The record is worn thin. Dilly’s my dresser, and she says she’s going to confiscate it if she has to listen to it again.’
‘Well. In the Wee Small Hours is my favourite, since you ask. “I’ll Be Around”.’
‘Oh
.’ I was disappointed. ‘But it’s so depressing. All those sad songs.’
‘I like sad songs,’ Don said. He looked over at Gilbert, then back at me.
My shoes were tight, and I rubbed my eyes, suddenly tired. It had been a long day, filming a gruelling scene in which Diana the nun hides out in a villager’s hut as the Japanese kill scores of people and retreat, setting fire to the village. My back ached from crouching for hours in the same position, and the tips of my fingers were raw and bloody from scrabbling at the gravelly, sandy earth (Burbank’s finest, shipped in from the edge of the Mojave Desert). ‘You OK?’ Don asked.
‘Just tired,’ I answered.
‘I’ll let you go. Just one thing, though. That white roses thing – why don’t you like them? I was watching you earlier. I saw your face when that reporter asked you about them.’
I stiffened. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The publicity guys made it up, didn’t they?’
‘Don’t let the fans hear you say that,’ I said, keeping my voice light. ‘I get about fifty a day.’ Mr Baxter’s publicity department put it out that Eve Noel the English rose missed her rose bush at home in England so much that she insisted on having white roses flown in from England for her dressing room, since when every day, to my home, to the Beverly Hills Hotel where I stayed on and off, to the studio, white roses arrived by the dozen. It was a sign I’d arrived, they kept telling me, as Dilly put armfuls in the trash or handed them out to girls on the set.
But I hated the things. Loathed them. They would always be linked for me with Mr Baxter in his car, hurting me, puffing over me, the feeling of his vile hands on me. The cloying sweet scent and the surrender I made that night; it was all linked. I tried never to think about that night, never. I assigned it a colour, cream, and if I ever was forced to think about it, like the time Mr Baxter tried it again, in my dressing room on set, or the time he and I rode in the same car after the premiere of Helen of Troy, I just thought about the colour cream all the way. I knew I’d done the right thing. I’d passed his test, and mine too, hadn’t I? Wasn’t I a star, wasn’t I adored and feted by millions around the world? So what if the sight of a few roses made me want to throw up.
Unfortunately for me, like all good publicity, sooner or later even those responsible for the myth in the first place started to believe it. Gilbert hated it too, because people were always trying to give me white roses, at premieres, at parties, wherever we went. Hostesses at dinners would thoughtfully always put white roses on the table and laugh a tinkling laugh when I murmured my thanks: ‘Oh, we know how you love them, dear!’
I shook my head, and said ‘Cream’ softly to myself. Don Matthews watched me.
‘Whose idea was it? The rose thing?’
I answered honestly, ‘Joe Baxter’s. I actually don’t like them.’
‘I thought so,’ he said. ‘He did the same with another girl he was trying to launch. Dana something.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Don. ‘He was obsessed with her.’ His voice was casual, as if he were giving me a piece of gossip from the studio, but something, something made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
‘What happened to her?’ I asked, my heart beating at the base of my throat.
‘Oh, she was Southern, and he put it out that she missed the camellias from home. But camellias only last a day or two and they’re a real pain in the ass to get out here. And then the big picture he’d put her in flopped – do you remember Sir Lancelot?’ I shook my head. ‘Exactly. She was poison after that. They put her on suspension for something, then she made B-movies when her contract expired, then she disappeared. Last I heard she was addicted to the pills and making ends meet in titty movies out in San Fernando. Poor kid.’
I knew all about suspension. People kept saying the studios were on their last legs, but the truth was my contract with them was still rigid tight. They owned me. I’d heard about the actors and actresses who stopped being favourites. Too old, too expensive, too demanding. They’d be sent scripts that the studio knew they’d never agree to do – playing a camp comedy part, or an eighty-year-old aunt. When they turned them down, the studio put them on suspension, which meant they couldn’t work for anyone. And they could only watch as someone cheaper and younger, with better teeth and smoother skin, took their parts from under them.
I swallowed, as the noise of the bar and my own fatigue hit me in another wave. Don said softly, ‘Hey, kid, it’s OK. I’m just warning you. Don’t become another Dana. You’re on top of the world now, but they’ll still spit you out if you get to be too much trouble.’
I nodded.
‘Don’t let them make you do anything you don’t want to do. You promise me, Rose?’ And again he looked over at Gilbert.
‘I promise,’ I said, not really sure what he was talking about, but knowing he was telling me the truth. His lean body moved closer to mine; I watched the grazing of nut-brown shadowing his jaw, the tight expression in his eyes. ‘I’m OK, really.’
‘I know you are.’ He squeezed my arm. ‘We’ll talk about my script. I’ll come find you at the studio,’ he said, and I wanted to say ‘When?’ But Gilbert approached, with his arm round one of his friends, his third or fourth cocktail in hand. Danny Paige was tapping a rhythm out on the bar, someone was singing, the moon was shining outside and inside, tiny shafts of light spun from the crystal chandelier above us. The bird was still dangling from my arm, untended, unloved. I excused myself from Gilbert and went to the powder room. Alone in front of the mirror, I stared at my reflection for a long time, to try and see how Don thought I’d changed. I didn’t know why it mattered to me so much that he thought I had.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IF YOU WANT to see how much of a blood sport Hollywood really is, go to an awards ceremony. You have no idea how the entertainment business really works until you’ve seen some doddery old children’s actor pushed out of the way because Selena Gomez is coming through and her manager and publicist are screaming at the E! producer to get her in front of Seacrest, now. If Marilyn Monroe was suddenly reincarnated with Jesus and Elvis on each arm on a red carpet somewhere at the same time as the arrival of a cast member from Twilight, I’m telling you, the three of them would all be asked to move along.
I’ve only ever gone to these things when I’ve been famous, and so you’d think I’d enjoy them. And at first, I did. Hollywood loves to think it’s a friendly community, so you wave at people you recognise and hug that girl from the sitcom who spent three months with you in Louisiana shooting a picture and who was your best friend for all that time but then you never saw again. You exclaim at how beautiful they look and examine their dresses so there’s a friendly shot in the magazines of you with some other star both looking like nice people.
But it’s business, like everything else here. You’re promoting the brand of you and your newest film. You’re like a mannequin with ten pre-recorded sentences, there to be studied and commented upon, while behind you a crazy woman with an earpiece and a clipboard shouts at your neck, ‘This is NBC. This is CBS. This is E!’ You say things like:
‘Hi, everyone! Thanks for voting for me! I’m really nervous!’
‘Oh, your dress is so cute too!’
Or the deep-breath one, which you have to rehearse beforehand with your stylist and manager, because God forbid you get someone’s name wrong:
‘Oh, thank you! I love this dress too, she [insert name of dress designer] is such a total genius, and my shoes are from [insert name of shoe designer], my bag is from [insert name of bag designer] and these cute earrings are from [insert name of jeweller].’
The other thing you don’t see is the queue. The UP! Kidz Challenge Awards is at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown LA, and a line of black limos or SUVs, all blacked-out windows and silver fenders, drivers in suits and shades, snakes down four faceless blocks. Inside each one is a star, waiting for his or her special moment on the carpet.
It’s humid tonight and the air con in the SUV is on max to keep me cool, which is making me sweat even more. A huge screaming cheer goes up from the crowd in the bleachers ahead of me and I peer out of the blackened windows, trying to see where we are in the queue. I hate this bit. At first, when I was over here promoting I Do I Do, I used to love imagining who was in the car in front of me. It could be Brad Pitt! Or Julia Roberts! These days I know it’s as likely to be some reality star with fake boobs who has 2 million Twitter followers and probably makes more money than most film stars. As the screams get louder I barely even look up from my phone. I’m waiting to hear from George, as ever. I don’t know where he is.
‘Did you meet Patrick Drew yet?’
I shake my head, fanning myself. ‘No.’
Opposite me sits my manager Tommy Wiley, frantically chewing gum, sunglasses on.
‘I haven’t seen you for weeks,’ he’s complaining. ‘This is how I communicate with you, these days? I ride with you to an awards ceremony? I’m like your security guy now?’
‘I’ve been … busy.’
‘Busy my ass.’ Tommy shakes his head. ‘Artie told me. You won’t commit to a new project, you won’t return his calls. What you been up to, for fuck’s sake, Sophie? He’s tearing his hair out trying to get something lined up for you.’ Tommy smiles. He likes it when Artie’s annoyed. ‘Poor guy.’
Under Californian law managers can’t negotiate contracts and agents can’t be producers on films. So Artie finds the scripts and the talent, inks the deal, talks to my lawyers, has the lunches to scout out the next hot project, and Tommy – well, he’s everything else. He has fewer clients, and I’m his priority at all times – I can call him day or night. He reads all my scripts and has a say in everything I do, but he also brings me business outside of the films. He takes care of the stylists and the journalists and the studios who want three extra days’ publicity off me, the airline that wants a fee in cash to stop me being papped on the way out of the plane, and the gay star who has his staff audition girlfriends for a million-dollar fee. Oh, yes, those stories are true.
Not Without You Page 9