The light’s still flickering on and off inside, and I stare at it, mesmerised, and then all of a sudden there’s a loud scream, and a cracking sound, and someone from the road below shouts something, I can’t hear it fully, but there’s another cracking sound, and the cop pulls me to the ground.
The flashing light stops moving, and there’s a figure framed in the front door of my house. It’s the substitute security guard, Moustache. Manny? Manuel? I stare up at him from my position flat on the ground. My knees are grazed.
‘Miss Leigh …’ he says. ‘Thank God you’re OK. I’m so sorry, Miss Leigh …’
‘Who’s in there?’ I ask, standing up and brushing myself off. I wince; my knee hurts.
‘No one, but – someone was. Someone was there.’
He’s shaking his head.
I push past him and run into the house, limping, a cop following behind me.
Someone has been there all right. The furniture’s pushed over and slashed with something sharp. Pictures ripped, legs broken off chairs, like a poltergeist or the Incredible Hulk has swept through the room. Cups and plates and little stupid knick-knacks like the china bull I got in Barcelona when I was filming Jack and Jenny, smashed to bits. I go from room to room, in silence, my hand over my mouth. My study, my stupid office that I was so proud of, is almost the worst: the film posters pulled off the walls, cabinets and shelves broken, glass lying like sparkling snow an inch deep on the floor. The Eve Noel framed pictures have been particularly viciously treated: the frames are smashed and the photos have been torn out and ripped into pieces. Paper is scattered over everything. The window is open, and I realise that what I thought was confetti is, in fact, the new version of My Second-Best Bed on my desk, torn into tiny pieces and thrown out onto the road.
I turn away, unable to look. I don’t know what to do. The Moustache is behind me, wringing his hands. ‘I was asleep – I don’t know what happened, like someone drugged me. I didn’t hear it, Miss Leigh, I’m so sorry …’
I walk towards the bedroom, but a female cop, who’s already gone around ahead of me, puts her hand on my arm.
‘Don’t go in there.’
‘Why?’
She says flatly, with no empathy, ‘You just don’t want to.’
I push past her into my room, my beautiful room … It is trashed, like the rest of the house, but worse. Someone’s written all over the walls:
YOU’RE GOING TO DIE, SOPHIE. I’M GOING TO KILL YOU.
YOU’RE WORTHLESS. YOU’RE NOTHING.
THE BABY’S CRYING AND SHE’S CRYING AND CRYING
SOPHIE, YOU’RE GOING TO DIE
My silk nightgown, white with lace trim, has been slashed to ribbons, and laid carefully out on the bed. There’s something else there, too. There must be about two hundred, three hundred white long-stemmed roses in there. Scattered over the bed, jammed into the drawers, inside the closet, trampled underfoot.
another beautiful blue day
Hollywood, April 1959
THERE WERE NO seasons in Los Angeles. Sure, it was colder in winter, and warmer in summer, but only by a few degrees. Some people – Gilbert, for example – loved the idea that we were cheating our English blood, living here amongst oranges and jasmine all year round.
I didn’t. At first, the novelty stayed with me – it was delicious to wake up with sunshine pouring through the window, and to know it was November and that, were I still in London, I would probably have chilblains and a leaking hot water bottle. It had been worse back home in Gloucestershire, where the cold, biting wind whistled through the valleys and hills, slipping into my room at night, so that often I would wake and find icicles on the inside of the windows.
The first winter after Rose died I was seven. From my bedroom window you could quite clearly see the river, frozen into a thick sheet of grey. At night, it was as though the wind got caught inside the hollow trunk of the rotten willow tree beside the river and it would wail, literally weep.
Some nights, when I couldn’t sleep and thought I heard her calling me, I’d carefully pile my books up and stand on them, leaning on the high sill cut into the ancient brick of the house. I can still feel the cold stone wall against the fronts of my thighs. I’d stare at the tree, drooping branches trapped by the ice, my chin heavy in my hands, my elbows aching from the pressure of hanging on with my small, frozen body. Sometimes I was sure I saw her, peering through a tear-shaped gap in the empty trunk, her thin face pale in the moonlight that bounced off the frozen milky water. I never moved, nor waved to her, though I desperately wanted my sister back, and for the longest time I couldn’t rid myself of the idea that she was outside, calling to me, that she wanted to come back inside. I would replace the pile of books carefully on the dark carved mahogany bookcase that Mother said I was lucky to have in my room, and climb back into bed, shivering even more, and I’d imagine her long arms tight around me, keeping me warm just as she used to when I couldn’t sleep and she’d crawl into bed with me. But not any more.
No one else mentioned her. I wasn’t allowed to ask Mother and Father about her. Mother grew more and more religious, spending most of her time alone cleaning the local church. When, after a year in Hollywood, I wrote to ask if I could visit them during a trip back for the premiere of Helen of Troy, my father replied that a visit from me would provide ‘too much disruption’. What could I say? It was only afterwards I realised I didn’t even know where they had buried Rose and I had the thought again, for the first time in a long while, that she wasn’t dead, that it was all a plot.
I had never truly believed she was really gone, you see. She was calling me, calling me for help. She was alone somewhere and afraid. And I was alone in our bed without her because I had left her to die. And so I had become used to being cold and as I grew up and grew further apart from my parents it seemed normal to me, all of it. Only when I went away did I start to wonder what it all meant. And though I loved the Californian sun, I never felt it was real, that it was shining on me.
Up in Casa Benita Gilbert swam before breakfast, and most days, if I wasn’t on set hideously early, we would eat in the sunny breakfast room overlooking the pool, drinking fresh orange juice and staring out at the view. Every morning, I’d remind myself how lucky I was to be able to live in this world. Like an athlete training for a race, I’d exercise the ungrateful muscles of my brain that led me into thinking dark, awful thoughts, rewinding myself to enjoy it. Today is a great day. Everything is wonderful. You love Gilbert. You act for a living. You have a beautiful home. Why do you think everything is so bad?
For the last few days Gilbert had been in a good mood. The Academy Awards, the previous week, had been a total disaster; the producer had been under dire imprecations of death and unemployment (death being better than unemployment in Hollywood) if the show overran, with the result that number after number was cut, in case proceedings should slow down. The telecast had ended twenty minutes too early, leaving us at home watching a blank screen on our beautiful television set with the walnut case, scratching our heads along with the rest of America before someone at NBC slotted in a rerun of an old football game. I’d been horrified, then mesmerised, that no one seemed to know what was going on. Even in the war, we’d always known what to do, what would happen, and had acted accordingly. But Gilbert had loved it. He’d slapped his thighs, chugging back drink after drink. ‘Those damn fools! Damn bloody fools!’ he’d said, over and over, tears of mirth coursing down his face.
And David Niven had won an Oscar. This pleased Gilbert because David Niven was his kind of actor, the sort who should be rewarded for being a dapper British gentleman, who didn’t forget his obligations to his country, who was unashamedly of a type, rather old-fashioned perhaps, not in the first flush of youth, but all the more comforting for that. Gilbert loathed with a passion the Tony Curtises, the Brandos and the Montgomery Clifts, the young guns in town who showed scant regard for the way old Hollywood worked, who took no care to conceal their bad behaviour;
in fact, seemed to revel in it. He had actually said to me once, of James Dean, ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish.’ I’d thought he was joking at first, but I should have realised; Gilbert rarely joked about anything.
He had been so pleased at the unspooling of the evening that he’d come to my room that night. We rarely had sex, and I was glad. At first I found him terrifying – he had been my idol. Then disappointing – he was old, and I was young and cruel, heedless of what he’d been through, of what he might be looking for. My fumbling nights with Richard, my ex-boyfriend from Central, squashed together onto the tiny single bed in the Hampstead flat, shushing each other amid giggles, while praying that Clarissa slept soundly next door, had been far more fun, more astonishing, more exciting than those nights I dreaded, then tried to remove myself from mentally. Gilbert was rough; he liked to tear my clothes off, like a hero from the swashbuckling films he used to make. He liked to feel strong, for me to feel defenceless. He never hurt me, not much really, and it never lasted long. Often it was over before I’d even realised he was inside me, and I’d know it wouldn’t happen again for a good few weeks. I’d lie in the vast, curved, wooden bed with the silk sheets slipping away from me like water, watching us in the mirror of the grey French dressing table that a December issue of Photoplay breathlessly reported had been flown specially from Paris just for me. And I’d remove myself entirely from the situation. Back to Hampstead, or home again to Gloucestershire. Or the part I was playing at that moment. I was getting better and better at it, pretending to be someone else entirely.
More than anything, I wanted to love him, but I didn’t know how to reach out to him. We were in this marriage together, yet I found I didn’t know him at all. What was more terrifying was that I was discovering as time went on that I didn’t know myself at all, either. I couldn’t remember who I was, what I was supposed to be. I had a new name, new hair, new teeth; I played parts all day; I came home to a beautiful house where unseen hands changed the sheets and pressed the dresses in my closet and made my food, and to a husband who was the dream-boat idol of my teenage years – and none of it seemed to make sense to me. The Photoplay story had been a triumph of optimism. Hollywood’s Newest Sweethearts, at Home and at Play: us playing tennis, kissing at the net after I lost, Gilbert swimming in the pool, me brushing my hair at the dressing table, entertaining a group of friends to dinner, playing with our poodle puppy Maurice:
Maurice, a gift from the couple’s close friend Conrad Joyce, star of the new Mrs Travers’s upcoming film, A Girl Named Rose. Mr Joyce gave the bride away at the couple’s private wedding last year. ‘It was so romantic,’ Eve tells us. ‘A bower of white roses, and I walked through them with Conrad, and there was Gilbert waiting for me. Conrad was rather angry; he said I was pulling at his arm, so eager was I to reach the groom!’
It was the usual pack of lies; however, I’d become used to it. I’d worked with Conrad on Lanterns Over Mandalay and loved him. We’d become firm friends; he was a darling, hilarious, vain, terribly catty, the best fun to be with, but kind and considerate too. One of the few people I felt I could be myself with, talk to just a little about where I’d come from, and how strange it was, these lives we were leading. But Gilbert couldn’t stand him. Said he was a cissy.
We’d had white roses, but not at my behest. I hated them. Hated them. The sight of them at the top of the aisle, as I got ready to walk towards Gilbert, had nearly made me up and run away. The Baxters were there, that horrible fat man and his brother, smiling solemnly as I walked down the aisle, and I wished so much I was Rose, that I was brave enough to hold up his hand and shout ‘Pervert!’ as she had once done to Tom, the chemist’s son who used to drop things and then look up ladies’ skirts. And Moss Fisher, sunglasses on, his shiny grey suit oily in the sun. They sat in a row, like crows. I wished I hadn’t had them to our house.
The rest of it was tosh, too. The poodle was hired for the day, we never played tennis, and we rarely had friends over. Gilbert had his bridge chums, and I was either working or sleeping.
It was a normal morning then, that April day, as I came out of my room humming to myself, and dropped a kiss onto Gilbert’s head. He grunted, shifted away from me, and went back to reading his paper – The Times, which he had flown out every week and read religiously, even if the news was by then out of date. I’d set my head into place: It’s another beautiful day. You’re filming your best part yet. Gilbert’s been offered the role in that WW2 drama and he’s going to take it. Maybe next year you’ll have a baby.
‘What are you up to today, dear?’ I asked him, reaching for a thin slice of toast, buttering it methodically, and then pouring some coffee for myself and him.
He shook his head. ‘Going into the studio. See a few chaps. Do a few final tests.’
‘What do they want you in for again?’ I said. I’d spoken to Mr Baxter two days ago, and he’d told me they’d already drawn up contracts, that Gilbert was signed to the part. ‘I thought it was all agreed.’
My husband looked up at me in annoyance. ‘I don’t know, do I? I’m sure if it was you, they’d be rushing to roll out the red carpet, scattering damn white roses as high as an elephant’s bloody eye, but I’m awfully sorry, they’re not. It’s me, my dear, not you. No one gives a damn about me.’
I took a tentative sip of my coffee. ‘I’m sure it’s a formality. The part’s definitely yours. They said so.’
‘Who did?’ His voice was low. He narrowed his eyes. ‘Have you been interfering, Eve? Tell me.’
I shrugged, trying to stay calm. ‘Of course not, darling. Mr Baxter mentioned it to me, and I said—’
Instantly he was on his feet – he still moved fast when he wanted to. He came over to my side of the table, in one step. ‘Listen to me, Eve,’ he said, breathing heavily. ‘Don’t interfere. Keep your damn skinny arse out of it. Otherwise—’ He was almost growling in my ear; I could smell his anger, as fear rose inside me. ‘Otherwise I’ll damn well kill you. You understand? You understand?’
He wasn’t touching me. He was inches away from me. I met his gaze as calmly as I could and nodded. I didn’t say anything. My heart was thumping. Gilbert came back to his side of the table and sat down.
‘Good. Now. Did you say you were away, filming? When?’
‘Well, I’m going today,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady, to not show how much he’d disturbed me. ‘Darling, I did tell you—’
He shrugged. ‘That’s a shame. I’ll miss you.’ He still said these things, and I never knew what he meant.
‘I’ll miss you too,’ I said. ‘I – why don’t you come up, join me one weekend? It’s in Big Sur. We’re staying in an old lodge off the highway. It’s supposed to be beautiful. They’d love to have you.’
He laughed. ‘I’m sure they wouldn’t.’
I was warming to my theme. ‘I’m sure they would, Gilbert! You could go fishing, do some hunting during the day, then we could have dinner. It’s very remote, so beautiful. There’s a darling little town not far, with a golf course on the sea, you’d love it.’
‘The ocean, not the sea,’ he corrected. ‘I’ve been there, my dear. That’s very kind, but I’ll stay here and make my own amusement. If you don’t mind.’ He bowed his head, touched his lips to his fingers and blew me the tiniest of kisses, and I gave him a small, glad smile, before he disappeared behind the paper again, and chuckled about something else.
the cream kid gloves
THE JOURNEY TOOK longer than I’d thought. A section of the highway had fallen into the ocean, which frequently happened in spring after the stormy wet winters that lash the northern Californian coast. We had to take a detour through the rolling plains that stretch out towards agricultural Steinbeck country, the land of East of Eden, then up on crumbling, rocky roads through the misty hills, where eagles soared in and out of the clouds that seemed to sit right next to us, so high were we. I sat in the back of the car transfixed by the unfolding vistas, the occasional flash of cliff an
d blue ocean, sometimes opening my window to inhale the sea air, and thinking how glad I was to have left Los Angeles.
By the time we arrived, it was a beautiful evening, and the smell of pine floated in through the open windows of the car as we arrived. The lodge was an old wooden hotel with a series of chalets nestling into the hills. Birds sang overhead as I stepped out onto the soft earth and took a deep breath, glad to be out of the car, on firm ground again. Two men carried my bags in, the Revelation leather trunks and suitcases, hatboxes and vanity cases, navy leather and stamped with my initials. Half of what was packed I wouldn’t need, I was sure.
‘Hello, my dear.’ Jerome Trumbo, the director, strode into the lobby, pressed his hand into mine. ‘How wonderful that you’re here.’
I took in his outfit – the tweed jacket and jodhpurs, the yellow turtleneck sweater, the boots – and clapped my hands together. ‘Dear Jerry, you look terrific. D. W. Griffith would be intimidated by you. What a get-up.’
Jerry smoothed his hand over the rough tweed with some pride. ‘Why thank you, dear Eve. Long journeys must suit you – you look even more beautiful than ever. I love that darling jacket, bouclé is it? Will you join me for a drink in the bar, after you’ve freshened up? I have a couple of things to talk over with you about tomorrow. Not changes, just suggestions.’ He squeezed my shoulder lightly. ‘Dear, this film is going to be wonderful.’
We were finally starting work on A Girl Named Rose. It was a spruced-up version of the script Don had written for me, but he had detached himself – or been detached – from the project long ago, and though it had been changed somewhat to fit the Baxter brothers’ whims, it was, indeed, wonderful. I don’t know whom Jerry had got in to rewrite it, but it worked just as well, maybe even better than before. Lanterns Over Mandalay had been a hit, but not quite enough of a hit. Musicals, historical epics, were still all the rage, so out went the black-and-white drama, in came the Technicolor fantasy. Rose was no longer a shy young girl from a small town who came to work at a bustling New York fashion magazine; she was a shy young girl who dreamed extraordinary, fantastical daydreams and who came to work in a lavishly oversized Manhattan. There were a lot of musical insertions, and some, I dare to say, rather fey routines involving me and special effects: a talking cat, on the roof of the apartment next to Rose’s; and an all-singing, all-dancing set of mannequins in beautiful couture frocks in the window of Sak’s Fifth Avenue that came to life and sang with me. We were in Big Sur to shoot some of the final home-town scenes, as well as most of the fantasy set-pieces, beginning with the picnic I have with my true love Pete (played by Conrad) where the wind sways the grasses in time to the beating of our hearts. I really wasn’t sure if it would be a complete failure or a rather clever triumph, which just goes to show you, doesn’t it? How funny to think that now. It was so unusual that one just couldn’t tell, but luckily the rewrite was terrific, unusually for rewrites. And there was still enough of Don’s original script to make me confident it could work. I loved saying his lines.
Not Without You Page 18