I turn back to Sara. ‘Sorry about that. You’re leaving WAM?’
She rubs her nose. ‘Oh, my gosh, I don’t mean anything by it. Just that I’ve been with Lynn for a while now, and it might be time for a change. She’s so successful, you know, but she has another assistant already and I’m only ever going to be the second person there.’ She raises her finger. ‘Might take another job for the summer, then find something else to do, retrain, you know? I should have told you. Do you remember Eric, from Jimmy Samba’s?’
I rack my brains.
‘Oh. I think I—’ I begin and then stop, feeling uncomfortable. I remember Bryan. He was her boyfriend and I slept with him … But do I remember Eric? ‘Wow, it’s strange because I’ve been thinking about it all a lot, lately. That summer, how much fun we all had, just hanging out.’
‘That’s crazy, so have I,’ Sara says, opening her eyes. ‘Great minds think alike. Eric – yeah, you must remember him. Tall, red-headed kid, kind of arrogant?’
‘Oh yeah.’ I remember him – hm, in fact I think I made out with him.
‘The night you got the part in The Bride and Groom and we all went out and did shots,’ she says. I stare at her.
‘Your memory is amazing,’ I say. ‘I’d totally forgotten that.’ She blushes.
‘I know. It’s kind of freaky. It means I’m a good assistant. But it comes off a little intense, and I don’t mean it to. Anyway, he’s financing a start-up, and he wants me to come work for him, answer phones and fetch coffee.’ She raises her eyebrows and smiles, as Maiko slides the coffees across the counter. ‘It’s a site where actors can upload their audition videos. I think it’s a great idea. So I’ll probably do that.’ She smiles her perky smile.
‘Thank you!’ I tell Maiko, like she’s just rescued me from a burning building. I look down at the drip coffees. They’re just normal coffees. Right then.
Sara takes her latte with one hand, then says, ‘Anyway! Thanks so much for this, Sophie. Have a good afternoon, and—’
‘Hey,’ I say impulsively. ‘This might be a bit weird. My assistant’s going on leave for a couple of months and I need a cover. If you’re looking for a summer job …’ I screw up my face – is this a bit weird? Sara is pulling her backpack on and I can’t see her expression. ‘Look, maybe I shouldn’t have asked you – think about it,’ I say. For Christ’s sake, she doesn’t have to take it. ‘But it could be fun.’
Sara looks down, then up at me, biting her lip. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘That could be … a lot of fun.’
‘It’s just for the summer. You can work out what you want to do after that, give yourself some breathing space … you know. It’s kind of interesting, there’s travel, we’d hang out …’ I say. ‘Hot guys, all that. Hey, maybe we could even get you to meet some people. You should act again.’
‘Really?’ She stares at me, her blue eyes sceptical.
‘Well, I definitely think so,’ I say. ‘Anyway, just consider it.’
‘Sure, I will. And thanks, Sophie. Should I talk to Kerry?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘That’d be great! Good to see you.’
‘Great to see you, Sophie,’ she says. ‘I’m so glad I ran into you again.’ I nod, pleased. ‘I’ll call Kerry this afternoon.’ And with a wave she turns to go, striding out of the shop, small and neat and indistinguishable from all those other thousands, millions of beautifully turned-out, perfectly manicured, polite American girls you don’t get in England.
‘Who was that?’ Patrick says as I sit back down with our coffees and look outside again. Sara walks fast, head down, watching her feet on the sidewalk. I can’t see her car.
‘She works at WAM,’ I say. ‘She bashed into my boob in the lobby a couple of weeks ago. We used to hang out when I lived in Venice Beach. She’s cute.’
He looks up, like a reflex, I’m sure it is, on the word ‘boob’. ‘She did what?’
‘Like barged into me, out of nowhere. It was crazy. It hurt.’ I grab my left breast, in memory, and then I hear the shutters go again, and flush with shame. Patrick glances down.
‘Jesus!’ he says, standing up. ‘There are photographers outside! Christ, how did they know? How – what the fuck? No way, man. No way.’
He bashes his hand on the table, eyes burning, a red spot on each cheek, and strides downstairs. I stare after him, realising that once again the studio – or is it our agents, or our managers? – has played us off each other well. The photos they’ll use are of us touching hands, then Patrick standing up and striding angrily downstairs, and it’ll be yet another ‘Patrick Drew is a Wild and Crazy Guy’ story, which is actually great for his brand, you see: it means people think he’s real, not manufactured. It’s such bullshit.
In fact that afternoon on its website In Touch goes with PATRICK AND CAFFEINE – NOT A GOOD COMBINATION and E! news has me clutching my boob and us smiling at each other. I look about forty-five and puffy, but at least they don’t mention the armpit, which is a start. Perhaps things are getting back to normal. I need to start working again, keep my head down and concentrate on The Bachelorette Party. Patrick’s a good guy. It might even be … OK to work with him. In fact, it might be more than OK. After that, the future’s mine. I can do the Shakespeare film, or do my best to persuade them. And then I’m going to make the Eve Noel thing happen. It’s going to be the best thing I’ve ever done.
a brown paper parcel tied up in grey ribbon
THE FIRST TIME I met him, I didn’t see Don Matthews again for almost two years. After our second meeting, I found myself wondering if it’d be as long again. I hoped not. In fact, it was three weeks later that he showed up on set, just as he’d promised.
The studio lot was in Burbank, the other side of the hills from the city. I liked the drive there in the early morning, before most people were awake, the cool fragrance of jasmine and fresh dew hanging in the air before the California sun rose too high. My call was for 6.30 a.m. which meant getting up around 4.30. But I was lucky this time – for Helen of Troy they’d had me in at 5 a.m. every day for the whole shoot, messing around with wigs and blue eyeshadow, my scalp red-raw from burns with curling irons for months afterwards.
It was always quiet first thing in the morning with the executives and producers absent and I liked it. I could sip on coffee in my tiny bungalow, just me and Dilly, my dresser, and Steve, the make-up artist. Later, the costume designer and on-set publicist would arrive, and then there was Moss Fisher, Monumental’s head of publicity, whom I’d first met that awful evening in Beverly Hills, so long ago now. He was always turning up, no matter how far away in the vast studio lot you went, hovering around in the background with his sly, sidelong glances while all the time people dressed me in different clothes or cut my fringe, as the director and the director of photography came by, and they’d all stand back and stare at me as though I was a horse ready for market, or a painting on show. Moss often whispered something, or disappeared to make a telephone call, and the word always came back and was acted upon: ‘Moss wants less cleavage.’ ‘Moss doesn’t like the salmon colour.’ ‘Moss doesn’t think the line will play well in the mid-West. Lose it.’
We were shooting on Stage 11, which was supposed to be lucky: it’s where Casablanca, Mildred Pierce and Now, Voyager were filmed. I loved all of that, just as I loved to get Gilbert to tell me about the old days, before the war came, the studio heads, the parties, the old stars. So many of them were gone now, the women out to pasture once they turned thirty, the system itself crumbling because suddenly teenagers were everywhere, doing their own thing, listening to records at home, watching films about bobbysoxers, or sitting in front of the dreaded television. The solution, the studios had decided, was lavish. Go bigger than ever, give them 3-D, give them musicals, biblical epics, give them everything TV can’t.
Lanterns Over Mandalay had none of that. It was merely a terrific premise and a good script and … two stars the public allegedly couldn’t get enough of: me and the delicious, funny, ha
ndsome Conrad Joyce. Helen of Troy had been the highest-grossing picture of 1957. My next film, The Boy Next Door, was a smash, too. I was getting used to producers rubbing their hands at the sight of me, then touching my shoulder, as if I were a good-luck talisman. I was more and more nervous. I told myself Conrad Joyce was the real star, he was the one the public all wanted to see. But I knew the reality was different. I couldn’t deny it. And I didn’t like it. It felt as though too much was riding on me, and I wasn’t sure I was up to it. What did I really know about the motion-picture industry, after all? This was my third film, and I wasn’t even twenty-two. Louis Featherstone was still my agent but, increasingly daunted by the big guys around me from the studio, he was a silent, unhappy figure, his cowlick unkempt, his bossying, thuggish wife a diminished force. He’d never really been on my side, only his own, so I didn’t particularly miss his counsel. But there was no one else, and I didn’t know what I was doing when I wasn’t acting.
It was quiet on the lot that day and Dilly and I were left in peace. At nearly 8.30, I was ready to go on set, without the usual agonising over whether my shoes were scuffed enough or whether my lipstick should be darker, when there was a knock from outside.
‘Come?’ Dilly said, and the door opened slowly.
‘Good morning,’ came a man’s voice, and the door opened a little wider. I felt my heart leap, and I craned my neck, away from Dilly’s hands.
‘Hello? Who’s that?’
It’s strange. I remember how wild I felt, how desperate that it should be him.
‘It’s Don Matthews,’ came the voice, and Don appeared, opening the door a little wider. ‘How are we today?’
‘May I help you?’ Dilly said, at her most imperious.
‘I just dropped by to see Miss Noel,’ Don explained. ‘I have something for her.’ He dangled a package in front of me, brown paper tied up with a thin grey ribbon. Dilly tutted.
‘It’s fine, Dilly, he can come in,’ I said, waving him in. ‘Don, this is Dilly.’ Dilly tutted again. ‘It’s good to see you, Don. How are you?’
‘I’m well, thank you.’ He came into the room. ‘You look beautiful.’
I glanced in the three-part mirror. ‘That’s kind but it’s not what we want you to say. I ought to look as though I’ve been hiding out in the inhospitable terrain of the Burmese jungle for two months, feeding myself and twenty orphans on roots and berries.’
He laughed. ‘Well, clearly that kind of living suits you.’
‘Sit down,’ I said. ‘Can Dilly get you a drink?’
Just then, a quiet voice spoke up from the open doorway.
‘Good morning. Quite a little gathering we have here.’
Moss Fisher appeared on the threshold. I couldn’t help smiling; I wondered who’d told him Don was here. Moss was like a snake; I never knew when he was going to slither, silently, into view. I hated him.
He advanced into the room. ‘I just came to pay a visit to our star. I hear great things, Eve, you’re setting the place alight. Hi there, Don,’ he said, with all the warmth of an icicle.
Don stood up again; he was too tall for the tiny bungalow, and his lanky limbs seemed to fold awkwardly inside the space. ‘I’ll go,’ he said. ‘I wanted to talk to you about something. Another time.’
‘What’s that?’ Moss asked, peering at Don. ‘Eve, Refford wants to know—’
‘No,’ I interrupted. ‘Walk with me a moment, Don. I’m going on set.’ I shot Moss a look of annoyance. Damn them, so I couldn’t have a visitor in my room? I could hear them. What if it got out? What about Gilbert? He’s a writer, for Christ’s sakes, Eve, a writer.
I called back to Moss. ‘Moss dear, could you be an angel and help Dilly with my shoes? I can’t carry them. I mustn’t mess up my nun’s habit.’
Since the habit was faithfully re-encrusted with pale orange dust every morning before I put it on, this was clearly a lie, but Moss couldn’t say anything. He picked up the shoes and the make-up case as Don helped me out of the trailer, and as I left he gave me a look. I didn’t like it.
The Stars and Stripes were fluttering in the breeze next to the water tower which had stood there since the Baxters opened the lot twenty years ago. A cart trundled past us carrying a vast, elaborate chandelier, as Don and I weaved our way through the lot. People stopped to wave at me, and I waved back.
‘You were great yesterday, Eve!’ one of the guys by the loading bay, a cameraman, called out. ‘They loved it.’
‘Oh, thank you!’ I said, in my most English accent. ‘I’m still terrified. That’s very kind of you.’
Someone else clapped. I smiled as widely as possible. There was a murmur of approval. My head ached, the pins holding my hair in place pulling at my scalp, as the curls, rigid with hair lacquer, began to crack.
We skirted behind the loading bay. Don had his hands in his pockets and was whistling, though I could tell he was trying not to laugh.
‘So,’ I said, as we crossed a tiny road over towards the sound stages. ‘I loved Rose. I absolutely loved it.’
‘You read it?’
‘Of course I read it,’ I said. ‘I asked for it after I saw you. They gave it to me a couple of weeks ago.’
He shrugged. ‘Very kind of you.’
‘Listen, Don.’ I turned and looked at him. ‘I’ve asked Mr Baxter. I’ve told him I have to do it. You’re a genius, Don Matthews.’
He smiled and didn’t say anything.
‘How do you know?’
‘How do I know what, Rose?’
‘How do you know all those details?’ I asked him. ‘About women, how we think, what we’re really like. I loved it. I can’t stop thinking about it.’
‘Listen, I’ve changed my mind,’ he said simply. ‘I don’t think you’re right for the part any more.’
I stopped in the middle of the road, holding the black sacking of my habit over one arm. ‘What?’
‘Sorry.’ He carried on walking. ‘I was wrong. I think someone else would be better in the part.’
‘But it’s me, this film,’ I said, trying not to sound childish. I looked at him, trying to work out what was going on. ‘Why have you changed your mind?’
‘I haven’t – just that I was wrong, as I say.’ Don shoved his hands in his pockets and carried on walking.
A group of Red Indians – a squaw, a chief and some children – passed by with a cowboy in leather chaps that creaked as he walked. One of the children pointed at me and whispered something to the chief. I smiled perfunctorily at them as they turned the corner.
Then we were alone in the middle of the quiet, fake road, the sun rising higher in the silver-flecked sky behind Don. He nodded towards the stage ahead of us. A lighting technician was carrying a huge arc lamp in through the open door. The beam of the rising sun behind us meant you couldn’t see anything inside, just a black hole.
Suddenly I was angry. ‘I don’t understand this, Don. You told me when we met at Romanoff’s—’
‘I ran into someone from the publicity unit, an old friend. You’re marrying him, aren’t you, Rose?’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, that night at Romanoff’s?’
My mind was racing; it took me a moment to catch up with him. ‘Gilbert? Yes, I am.’
He nodded. ‘When?’
‘Just under two weeks’ time. At his house.’
‘His house?’
‘Our house – his – oh, does it matter who’s paying for the house? What’s that to do with it?’
‘I – I don’t know,’ he said, almost angrily. ‘It doesn’t matter at all. You’re right.’
‘I love Gilbert. He loves me. We can’t live together without being married – too much scandal. And – well, it’s right for both of us.’
‘You mean it’s right for the studio,’ Don said. ‘It’s not right for you. You can’t love him.’
He said it quite matter-of-factly.
‘Well, I do,’ I said, struggling to keep calm. I thought about Gilbert and smi
led. ‘You have no idea. I think he’s wonderful. I can’t believe I’m going to be his wife.’
‘A schoolgirl’s fantasy, not real life.’ Don shrugged. I faced him, square on, only inches separating us. Underneath the sacking cloth of my costume I could feel my heart, pounding in my chest, almost aching with some strange feeling I did not understand.
‘Don’t treat me like a child, Don. I know what I’m doing.’
He took my hands, and then enclosed them in his warm palms, his fingers tangling with mine. ‘No, you don’t,’ he said calmly. ‘You don’t belong here, Rose. Go back home. Go back to England, be an actress there. You’re running away from something, I know you are, but whatever it is, you won’t find what you’re looking for here. Trust me.’
I looked down at my dusty habit, at my white hands enclosed in his, then up at the mammoth studio buildings curving away from me against the endless blue sky.
‘This place is a nest of vipers, Rose. It’ll destroy you. I know you. I know you and you don’t even know yourself.’ He faced me, his jaw rigid, and I almost flinched under the intensity of his gaze. ‘Moss ruins people’s lives with the stroke of a pen. And the Baxters, they don’t care. You’re fresh meat to them, goddammit, and when that beautiful face gets the hint of a wrinkle they’ll spit you out.’
Joe Baxter’s blubbering lips, his clammy hands on my body … I shuddered, completely involuntarily, at the memory, then closed my eyes, trying to block it out. Rose’s face appeared, as it always did when I was trying to forget something, pushing something bad away.
‘Hello!’ she said, her hair a black tangle around her flushed face. ‘Hello, Eve! Come and play with me!’
And as always, before I could reach her, she got up from the grassy bank where she was sitting and ran away, her skinny white limbs flashing through the dappled green tunnel of memory … then the sounds I’d heard that haunted me – crying in the night, the screech of brakes – and the lights flashing …
I could hear her calling for me. The strange thing is, I heard it more and more these days. I kept having the same dream: the car that came in darkness, the sound of screaming filling the house, and then I always woke up, heart thumping, drenched in sweat, calling out her name.
Not Without You Page 14