Tell the Girl

by Sandra Howard

  ‘We’ll do the Cliff Walk. It’s rocky in places, but runs along the foot of some of the great houses like The Breakers and Rosecliff, right by their rolling lawns.’

  We hadn’t made inroads into the champagne. Warren had downed a glass or two, and I suggested it would keep for later – casting the die. I showed him how to keep in the fizz with a teaspoon handle down the neck of the bottle, but he had no faith in that, and he was hardly into economising.

  It was a deliciously sultry night. I was fascinated to see Newport, but my mind was on sex; thinking of my droopy body measured up against any recent younger women to cross Warren’s bedroom threshold. He had adult children and his ex-wife was hardly young, but he must have moved down the age-scale since Willa. My body wasn’t bad, still slim, but even if I’d had all the surgical pick-ups going it would be little more pliant or defying of gravity. I thought of lithe bodies like Daisy’s, her glowing skin . . .

  The waterfront was buzzy, arty, teaming with young tourists. Warren tucked my arm through his. ‘Newport has none of its old closed society and eccentricity, gilded balls and bathing parties,’ he said. ‘It’s a very different place today, even from the Kennedys’ day – Jackie’s cultured, pampered childhood and Jack having his “Summer White Houses” here. Eisenhower had them here, too. It’s still one of the great yachting centres of America, though, and the clam chowder at the Black Pearl Tavern where I’m taking you,’ Warren said, giving me a kiss, ‘wins every award going.’

  The place was heaving. Our table wasn’t ready, which wasn’t surprising, but a couple vacated two bar seats usefully, right where we were standing. ‘The Black Pearl hasn’t changed in thirty years,’ Warren said. It had glossy black walls, low ceilings, intriguing nautical maps. Space was in short supply, making it feel as snug and cramped as a stable. No question of its popularity – a waiting queue stretched way back outside the door.

  Once established at a midget table, wine and cups of the award-winning clam chowder ordered, with oysters on the side, I began my inquisition. ‘I know you’re Manhattan-born and raised, that you shot the family beer company to world class with the name-change and lips-top bottle; I know Lippy Lager went viral; I know about your long marriage that . . .’

  ‘It wasn’t that long. Willa isn’t the mother of my children.’ I stared and he smiled at my surprise. ‘You made that assumption once before, but Daisy was there, I think, and anyway you’d hardly arrived. It didn’t seem a time to go into detail.’

  ‘So was Willa your second, third?’ I asked, feeling slightly nonplussed.

  ‘Only the second! I’d rushed into the first, very young. Peggy was too, and when the kids were through college we called it a day. She remarried, lives in California, had another last-minute child. She visits, sees the kids and grandchildren, or they go there.’

  ‘And Willa?’ I paused as the chowder and oysters arrived and Warren poured the wine, a fine white burgundy. The waitress, who looked no more than twenty, was wearing a lilac bustier with black shorts and purple-laced sneakers. Warren beamed at her – and me.

  ‘Have this while it’s hot,’ he advised, still grinning and eyeing me over the wine, ‘and I’ve got the drift of this inquisition. We can skip the questions and I’ll tell you all I can.’ He refilled his glass and topped up mine.

  ‘The chowder gets my vote,’ I said. ‘I must tell Daisy about the hint of tarragon, a little tip for her column.’ I was playing for time, worrying about Willa being younger than I’d thought. ‘You must have felt the more responsible for your children,’ I suggested conversationally, ‘with your first wife over on the West Coast.’

  ‘Sure. Willa was okay with the kids, though – especially early on when things were going well with us. They were still quite young and sorting their futures. It was a help.’ He smiled and poured himself more wine. I wasn’t keeping pace.

  It more easily explained Warren’s extreme bitterness if Willa was a younger model; he’d have had particular sensitivities, especially if teased about his prowess and aging looks.

  The hip waitress cleared our plates and said she’d be right back with the swordfish mains – Warren’s recommendation – which came with chips, veg, side salads, hefty hunks of bread. ‘And another bottle of the wine,’ he said.

  ‘We’ll be staggering out of here with this lot! Go on then, anticipate my questions.’

  ‘Good fries,’ Warren said, munching a couple when they arrived, looking me in the eye. ‘Well, you want more lowdown on Willa for a start?’ I nodded. ‘And to know about any other woman in my life since?’ I noted the use of the singular, as I was probably meant to. ‘Willa was forty when we met, I was fifty-six. She had a party-planning business, basically just knowing a few good caterers and florists, but she gave that up when we married and spent money instead. I didn’t care, I was in her clutches, hooked and she could play the line. She could do no wrong.

  ‘She queened it in Southampton and the Fifth Avenue apartment; threw bashes, hired yachts, jets, went in for lavish exotic holidays. She hadn’t been married before. She wanted children and when that didn’t happen, she took it out on me. I think Willa blamed my age, yet she was in her forties so hers came into it too. The rot had set in, but I still gave it my all, couldn’t help it.’

  ‘But there came a point?’ There usually did. He was still obsessed, that was clear. Willa hadn’t extinguished every spark, although his passion seemed entirely channelled into acrimony and loathing now.

  ‘Yes, sure, something snapped,’ Warren said, refilling his glass, ‘with all the personal criticism in front of mates of mine, the constant hiring of jets, the holidays taken when I was tied up . . .’ His eyes were distant for a moment. He was well into the second bottle of wine and not used, obviously, to unloading emotional feelings.

  ‘And before you ask,’ he said, leaning over the table to reach for my hand, which he put to his lips, ‘I’m not seeing anyone right now. I have been – someone in the city who was in a marriage that was all society and show. But that’s over now, done and dusted. She’s stayed married. She’d said often enough – tediously and predictably, to be honest – that she was living a lie, a sham, but as a true conformist, when it came to it she couldn’t give up being Mrs J. Edwin Nesbit Junior, sister-in-law to a senator. It meant more to her than upheaving her life for me.’

  ‘More fool her.’ I knew Warren better now, I decided. He was more than a dry, driven billionaire, he was a decent, family-orientated guy whose one really passionate relationship had turned sour. And I was more settled and at ease with him; it felt less like a casual summer dalliance. He’d talked freely and openly, here in Newport, and hadn’t invited me out while still in a relationship. But was he entirely over Willa? How much acid was still eating away at his system? That was impossible to say.

  We had coffee, brandy for Warren, but we were squashed tight into the table, sitting on hard spindle-backed chairs, and I was ready to go.

  I felt self-conscious, strolling back up the steep lane to the hotel, flushed with nerves, like making a speech on a sensitive subject to a highly critical audience. I wasn’t up to youthful sexiness, but the urge, the need to be kissed and wanted, was very much there. Warren was silent. Neither of us spoke as we walked up two splendid flights of stairs with a thick chestnut carpet-runner and I opened the door to the suite.

  We stood looking at each other, slightly out of breath from the climb.

  ‘It feels strange,’ Warren said, moving closer and unzipping my dress, gazing at me steadily. His hands were roaming lightly in a way that felt good. ‘Even when we met, and it was my most twisted-up time,’ he carried on, ‘I registered you. I was attracted. Who wouldn’t be? You stuck fast in my mind all through that god-awful business. I thought of you – elegant, talented, famous, successful, a timeless beauty – and now,’ he said, bending to my mouth, ‘here you are.’

  We lay in a wrapped-limb, not very contorted position. I could smell the brandy, the wine, a whiff of sweat, no
t unappealing, from the exertion of our uphill return.

  ‘I’m sorry, sorry,’ Warren mumbled, burrowed into my neck. ‘I don’t know what got into me with all that drinking. I’m not a boozer, never have been. Nerves, I guess, talking about me, which doesn’t come easy – or some sort of devil’s curse.’

  I felt like saying that it hadn’t been for want of trying, Warren had been doggedly keen, he’d quite worn me out, but in reasonably satisfying ways. ‘No saying sorry,’ I told him, and he groaned into my neck. ‘Can we go to sleep now?’ I said. ‘I’m very comfy – and who knows what the morning may bring.’

  In fact, it brought Warren sleepily rolling into my arms again and well able to make it after his little local difficulty of the night before. We had breakfast in bed – he looked very pleased with himself in a relieved sort of way – then I shooed him off to his other room and enjoyed the chance to dress in privacy. Step by step, he’d said, staying out late in the garden after the Benefit ball. We’d taken quite a big first step, it seemed.

  The Cliff Walk past the great mansions of Newport, a sunny morning, the sharp tang of salty air and seaweed . . . I was sad to leave. It seemed no time before we were driving off the ferry from Connecticut and were back on Long Island again.

  ‘I saw Daisy in the week,’ Warren said, as we set course for Southampton. ‘I’d given her my card that first weekend when you’d just arrived, in case she got lost in the city, and she called up in a panic on Tuesday to say she’d been going round and round in circles, trying to find an address downtown in Soho.’

  ‘Can’t think why she’d needed to be right down there,’ I said stiffly.

  Had she been looking for silk screens? I don’t know. Anyway, I told her to take a taxi, simplest – and another one to join me for a bite of lunch at my usual haunt. I go to San Pietro. It’s a bit all-male, but excellent food and they make a great Italian fuss of you.

  ‘She’s a sweet girl,’ Warren carried on. I felt exasperated. If he called her a ‘sweet girl’ one more time . . . ‘And so bright and breezy, she makes me feel quite young again. But I’d hate you to read anything into it. I just wanted to say that. Last night meant a lot, Susannah. I hope it felt as right for you as it did for me. You’re fabulous. I can’t tell you how much it means, having you here.’

  But I’m not a girl, I thought, and didn’t make him feel young again, like the one also here and on his doorstep – who wasn’t such a girl, as it happened, at not far off forty, for the prospect of anything between them to be a complete joke.

  ‘Did Daisy tell you her boyfriend’s coming over?’ I queried. ‘In the next week or two, I think.’ She hadn’t, obviously; Warren looked quite jolted. But then Daisy had only heard on Wednesday that it was definite, after all.

  We were in Bridgehampton, nearly there. I sighed inwardly. Trust a younger woman to take the edge off what had been a rather special night and day. Still, Warren had felt he needed to own up about Daisy. He wasn’t instinctively programmed to deal in cover-ups and lies. I felt comforted by that, half-able to carry on believing in his natural decency.

  It was a belief that had let me down badly in the past. The past. Daisy kept bringing it back. The married men chancing their arm, the casual chauvinism, even near-depravity at times, of the sixties. The highs, lows and disillusionments, the buckets of tears wept. How much of that had shaped and toughened me, and taken away my belief in the existence of decent men? It had been blind belief at twenty, before the scales had fallen from my eyes. Did the heartache of rejection harden into cynicism? For all the emotional knocks, though, I’d never given up the quest. The hope was there, and the need. I knew I’d always keep looking.

  Chapter 15

  February 1962

  I hefted my case onto the check-in stand, holding my breath. I was sure to be over the 44lb limit with all the modelling gear and three weeks of clothes. My pockets were stuffed: a jar of night cream, costume jewellery, a thick-buckled belt, anything heavy I could squeeze in. The young man at the desk studied me, my ticket, the suitcase weight, me again. He had chickenpox scars, a light coating of dandruff, a worried, earnest indoors face.

  He cleared his throat. ‘It’s a full flight, but, um, there’s a space in First Class; I’ll pop you in there.’

  ‘Oh, but that’s wonderful, such a relief. I can’t thank you enough, you’re my friend for life!’ I flashed him my most ravishing smile and began to breathe again. I was blushing, he was blushing; it seemed wise to move on quickly before any of his superiors trawling the desks reversed the kindness of his heart.

  In the departure lounge I double-checked my passport, the crisp wad of dollars – fifty pounds’ worth, the full allowance – the address of Gloria’s friends where I was staying. Telephone numbers, Gil’s studio, the Eileen Ford Agency. I tried to calm my pulse.

  I hoped Joe’s play would be well received. I’d felt doubtful, eyeing the two reviewers that I recognised in the first-night audience, urbane Kenneth Tynan of the Observer and Bernard Levin; they were robot-faced, giving nothing away, but loved to shock, I knew, and it was easy to imagine the razor-edged, damning phrases forming in their minds.

  Joe’s mother had certainly had no criticisms. She’d adored the play and the party, preened in her new dress; she couldn’t stop thanking me as I drove her to the station before leaving for the airport in a rush. Joe had slept in, he’d barely lifted his head from the pillow to say goodbye. Not a good send-off when I was about to see Gil. The BOAC terminal was only up the road from Victoria station and I’d hoped he’d take me there. The cabbie delivering me had been kinder, heaving in my case with a smile.

  If only they’d call the flight. My nerves weren’t good. Would I really get the work that Eileen Ford had promised? Gil had booked me for ads; they’d cover the fare at least. A cigarette ad and one for Chevrolet, being shot in Boston. Was Boston to be the scene of my infidelity? I should rise above Joe’s affair with Alicia, Tony Lambton had advised, laying a sophisticated hand on my thigh, and have a life of my own. But that didn’t mean straying down roads with No Entry signs writ large. I had principles; I’d taken vows.

  Being in First Class felt like a good omen. I revelled in it all, the caviar and lobster, the pot-bellied old businessmen giving me the eye, the sumptuous reclining seat with space enough for two. The shy ticket-desk man, who’d saved me from a crippling overweight-charges fate, deserved a place in heaven – or at least first-class travel for himself. I couldn’t concentrate on my book, couldn’t do justice to all the food. Time seemed to evaporate all the same, but not my nerves.

  As the no smoking and seatbelt signs flashed on, a strange sensation – an intense form of panic – came over me. I felt shaky and chilled, my skin cloying damply. It was as though a thick fog was descending and blurring my vision, hemming me in, making me woozy. It must be the downward motion. I needed air, water, had to get to . . .

  ‘Stay still now, head down, you’ll be fine. It was just a little faint, that’s all.’

  I raised my head enough to see an air hostess’s smiling face; she was strapped in beside me, turned to me and leaning over to speak.

  ‘I blacked out for a minute,’ I said. ‘So sorry, so stupid. I’ve flown before . . .’

  ‘Shush, don’t worry, it happens. Take it slowly. We’re about to land.’

  The wooziness had passed. My legs worked fine, descending the stairs, and the cold air was wonderful. The stewardess stayed with me, looking advertisement smart in her navy suit and cap, and saw me safely into an immigration queue. ‘Don’t forget to look at the message board,’ she said, as we parted, ‘in case anyone’s called and left word.’

  I did look, in the slim hope of a note from Gil, and my pulse raced when there was an envelope on the board with my name. I told myself it was more likely that Joe had called, feeling contrite and not caring about the cost. No good expecting love notes.

  It was from neither of them. Welcome, welcome! A light supper awaits and we’re dying to me
et you. So glad you’re here! Call if any problems. Joan and Walter Ferrone.

  I felt a pang that it wasn’t Gil, but it was still cheering, considerate of the Ferrones, and a sudden wave of excitement swept over me. Three weeks in Manhattan, a new world with Gil in it and, thanks to Gloria Romanoff, even a very smart place to stay.

  I took a cab from the shuttle-bus station to the Ferrones’ apartment block. A uniformed doorman helped with my case and escorted me into the elevator and right to their door. Joan Ferrone, with her fluffy pinkish-blonde hair, and Walter, solid and jowly, greeted me like adoring parents. No welcome could have been warmer. They were a childless couple, Gloria had said. They showed me round their splendid Park Avenue apartment – apologetically when it came to my room. ‘It’s a box with a cot,’ Joan said. ‘So wee!’ I took in the fresh freesias, lacy pillows, charming patchwork bedcover, checks and stripes, all shades of blue. There was a small elegant desk. I loved it all.

  ‘Come sit,’ she said. ‘Thaw out and have something to snack on. Is it this cold back in England? You’ll need galoshes when the snows come; what size do you have? People have phoned for you. Eileen Ford, who sent these lovely lilies, but we thought they’d take all the oxygen in your tiny room, and Gil Foreman who said you’re working with him tomorrow. I think he just wanted to check you’d arrived.’ Joan kept up a constant mothering stream.

  The eclectic paintings in the apartment, even to my uneducated eye, were astounding – exquisite portraits, pastoral scenes and, if my eyes didn’t deceive me, a Dali no less, and a pair of Picassos. I could see why Walter was an adviser to Jackie Kennedy on White House art. I praised the paintings in reverential tones.