Tell the Girl

by Sandra Howard

  ‘We’ll be glued to the television on the fourteenth,’ Joan said, as though that naturally followed, ‘watching Jackie Kennedy do her tour of the White House. The whole nation will be too; it’ll reach millions. Quite a moment for Walter.’ For Joan, too, it seemed. ‘Now you must tell me about these slippers!’ she exclaimed, with another conversational switch that seemed her way. ‘Gloria wanted me to say they’ve arrived and Sinatra loves them. She kept it kinda cryptic.’

  I blushed. ‘Well, it was just the impossible problem of how to thank Frank, so I thought of tatting him evening slippers with a design of his entwined initials. I did them in orange, his favourite colour, on a black background. It got to be a joke at the studios, me tatting away, but finished and with proper leather soles, they looked quite smart.’

  ‘Gee, Walter, isn’t that just the cutest thing! Now, Susannah, you need to eat and catch some sleep.’

  First thing next morning, Eileen Ford called. Vogue wanted me, Harper’s Bazaar, too. I had provisional bookings, the Chevrolet booking with Gil in Boston, a string of go-sees. I felt as if I was in someone else’s shoes; this couldn’t all be happening to me.

  I washed my hair and left for Gil’s studio in Arctic temperatures, snug in my Mongolian lamb coat and a chestnut baby-soft vicuna scarf, borrowed from Joan at her absolute insistence. I spoke stern words to myself – both about not losing the scarf and holding back a little with Gil, keeping my cool. The hot fast palpitations of my heart were another matter.

  We did the cigarette ad. I smiled and touched foreheads with the male model, holding a Lucky Strike cigarette between two forefingers, keeping it casually clear of my face. The model’s aftershave was potent, ticklishly redolent of citrus and herbs, and I threw my head back laughing, at one point, trying to avoid a sneeze. Gil said that was the picture.

  ‘Thanks, Hank, you’re done,’ Gil said. ‘Susannah, stay where you are, I want to take few headshots before you go.’ He came to fuss round me and muttered, ‘Meet for a drink, seven o’clock, 114 MacDougal Street. You have to see the Village, it’s a good start.’

  I didn’t need to write it down. My impatience to be alone with him was almost orgasmic. It was four o’clock; he carried on taking shots, saying photographing me was a drug. I fretted about time, wanting to stay, hating to say I had to rush, but I was embarrassed about what Dee and his assistants might think, and I had go-sees booked in.

  I chased across Manhattan, on a high wire of nerves with the photographers and editors who leafed through my book. Everything depended on how they saw my pictures – future jobs, income, being in New York at all, seeing Gil – yet I couldn’t concentrate, hardly heard a word they said.

  I took a yellow cab downtown. The lights were synchronised, we had a smooth ride; the driver nattered about my accent, while my heart sped up like a clock building up to strike. In MacDougal Street the cab drew up outside a tired brick building with dropped sills and an uneven front step. The bar was called the Kettle of Fish and Gil was there.

  He slid off his barstool as I came in, crushing me in his big arms, kissing me hard on the mouth and swallowing me up. I was glad of my New York anonymity, although the raddled barman, couple of Afro drinkers, idling students and a bearded guy with a guitar couldn’t have given a sod. Gil smelled of the beer he was drinking and cigarettes while the smoke swilling round the bar was distinctly sweetish. The regulars had moved on from cigarettes.

  I asked for coffee, Gil collected his beer and we went to sit in a dark corner at the back. ‘Great music here,’ he said. ‘The big names come. They hang out with the beatniks at the Folklore Centre next door, come to drink and play here between sets, but it all happens at the Gaslight, downstairs on the other side. It’s a steamy dive and the only windows are into airshafts to apartments upstairs, so there’s no clapping allowed or the residents complain. You just click fingers. There’s a guy called Bob Dylan who comes. He’s ace. They lock this place down to the public when he’s composing and playing. He’ll make it big time.’

  ‘You sound very sure,’ I said.

  ‘I heard him do “Cocaine Blues” when he was still Robert Zimmerman and it blew my mind. He’s a poet too, big on Dylan Thomas.’ I rested my hand on Gil’s arm and he grabbed hold of my wrist, stuffing all four of my fingers into his mouth. I couldn’t handle it and stared, lips parted, feeling my weakening resolve.

  ‘That’s the picture, what we’re going back for.’ He continued sucking on my fingers, watching me; I felt the blood rising steeply into my face. ‘You’ll make it big time here too,’ he said, releasing me. ‘New York’ll love you.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Shall we go back to the studio? You okay with that?’

  I felt panicked; it was crunch time. ‘I’m not sure. It’s eight already and the people I’m staying with, well, they may have food ready. I just told them I had a long day.’

  ‘Call them. Say you’re running late, doing test shots. It’s only half a lie.’

  His studio was in darkness. Dee, the girl on the desk, and his two assistants, Jack and Bob, had gone home. It was Friday night; Gil would be going home later as well, to his family, his two small kids, while I’d be left to lick the wounds if I lost my fragment of resolve. I hid a sigh.

  Gil was turning on lights. ‘Okay to use the phone?’ I asked. ‘It’s my first night staying with these people, the Ferrones; they’re friends of friends and I’d hate them to worry.’

  ‘Don’t sound so tense.’ Gil came close and blew lightly into my ear, ‘I’ll get you relaxed yet. Is that Walter Ferrone – Jackie Kennedy and art?’

  ‘Yes. And it’s an awesome apartment, you should see the paintings.’

  ‘They’re in the columns a lot with those – and with Jackie. How do you know them?’

  ‘Tell you in a minute,’ I said, picking up the phone. I needed to get it over with. Would they know from my voice I had something to hide? This was the bad bit, spinning lines.

  Joan made it easy, too easy. ‘Gee, honey, that’s so considerate to call. Walter and I were just popping out, catching friends for dinner. I’d left you a note. The maid’s done you a tray, soup to heat up and a bit of cold chicken. Talk in the morning? But I sure hope you’re not working late Monday night. We’re giving a small party – with a special guest!’

  Gil was close beside me and able to hear. ‘See?’ he said. ‘Easy. But there’s no soup here, we’re on a wine diet. Tell me about the Ferrones while I open a bottle. We’ll take it up to my eyrie; there’s only a very low bed to sit on, but we can just talk if you want.’

  I shut my mind to the eyrie and told him about the Romanoff connection, the serendipity of Gloria being a friend of Joan Ferrone; it brought back coming to New York in Frank’s plane, my scary meeting with Eileen Ford, and Rusty, the mother-hen booker. I remembered her saying, ‘She should go see Gil Foreman, he’ll love her to death.’

  ‘Hold the bottle a sec,’ Gil said, having led me across the studio floor, ‘while I get the hatch. The glasses are up there.’ He unhitched a long pole from a wall-bracket and used the hook on the end to open a trapdoor above our heads. A sturdy stepladder was attached inside, which concertinaed down. Gil reclaimed the bottle and went on up, taking my hand as I climbed out at the top. ‘I sleep here sometimes,’ he said. ‘Working late, early starts . . . you know.’

  The loft had space and height; I could stand. A couple of low shaded lights flanked a Japanese-style bed that had a tartan rug throw. A shelf running along behind the bed and round the wall held books, a water carafe, a few glasses, a clock, a record player.

  ‘Are you going to tell me about all the girls who’ve trodden those stairs?’ I said hollowly, looking round, feeling ashamed to be there, one of many.

  Gil bent down to the shelf to deposit the bottle and, straightening up, took my hands. I felt the current between us, the strength of its pull, but where was the coastguard’s warning? I mustn’t give in. I had my pride, my principles. What principles? It was as good as being unfai
thful to Joe, feeling this searing need. Joe had let me down, but this had nothing to do with tit for tat. It was a new sensation entirely, new to me at least, raw indescribable longing. But my eyes were more wide open, seeing Gil’s loft, the reality of where I fitted in, and I stood rooted, painfully torn.

  He knew my particular agonies exactly and didn’t try any persuasion. Letting go of my hands he sat down on the low bed and leaned forward to pour the wine. He put on an L P.

  ‘This is Bill Evans, Sunday at the Village Vanguard.’ It was cool melodic jazz. Gil turned down the volume and patted the space beside him. ‘Come down to my level,’ he said, which felt a little too apposite for comfort. ‘I won’t bite!’ I fought an impulse to say it was his bite that I craved and sat slowly down on the edge of the bed.

  He handed me a glass of hearty-looking red wine and tucked my hair back behind my ear, making no comment when I gave an involuntary shiver. ‘I know you hate to think of the girls I’ll have brought here,’ he said, ‘and sure, it’s much as it seems, this pad. But you’re in my life now, Susannah. I can’t get enough of you, I have to keep taking pictures, photographing your face with its haunting delicacy and innocence.’ He traced over it, and over my lips. ‘I live with it. You’ll be my undoing, I know.’

  ‘But should you be mine? I’m married, Gil, I shouldn’t be here. Go easy on me.’ It was pathetic. I had a mind, a conscience, and I was asking him, a New York photographer, up here in his horny den, to go easy?

  ‘We mean different things by undoing. I’m talking about feelings and getting entangled, and you’re meaning infidelity and sex.’ He was right about that. ‘How were things at home when you left? Husband okay about you coming, being here in New York?’

  ‘Who knows?’ I muttered. ‘Joe shuts me out; his other relationship holds more thrills.’

  ‘But you still have a sex life?’

  ‘On and off, and very basic, I think – but then I’m not very up in what is and isn’t. I’ve failed to have a baby, though, which might have brought us closer.’

  ‘Still trying?’

  ‘Oh yes, at least when Joe remembers he has a wife. Forget that, it was a needless bitch.’

  ‘So you’re here now, sitting on my bed and no protection? You must really want to resist!’

  ‘Well, it hasn’t happened in almost two years. I’ve never had proper periods. I suppose, well, I just didn’t think . . .’ I felt so naïve, completely out of my depth, almost in tears.

  ‘Shall I tell you what I think?’ Gil kissed my lips. I nodded, straining to be held, the touch of his lips was cruel. ‘You want me to make love to you, we both know that, and there’s nothing I long to do more, but how would you feel then? Unclean? Guilty? Frightened of where it might lead – or not?’ I kept nodding like a car toy. ‘I’m very qualified to take you through “what is and isn’t” – there’s not much that isn’t – and you’d soon get the drift and be a quick learner, I’m sure. But it would change you, Susannah, change your life. I think that’s a good idea, but then I would.’

  ‘How changed?’ I was fighting an uncontrollable urge to caress his face.

  ‘At worst it could turn you right off your husband, you’re close to that now. At best, being more sexually sophisticated should shake him up a bit, make him jealous and he’d certainly see you with new eyes. You’d find it easier to relax too, which would help with that baby.’

  I sipped the last of my wine. ‘Joe doesn’t notice me enough to be jealous.’

  The glass was being taken from my hands; my chin lifted up. I looked into Gil’s questioning eyes, grateful for his honesty, his going easy. All the heavy pressure was my own. ‘Kiss me,’ I said.

  The impact, the shock of it, the force of his big wide mouth engulfing mine was overwhelming. I closed out the world and let it happen, quivering through and through as his hands stroked my throat, collarbones; unbuttoned my blouse, lifted my breasts clear of my bra. He brushed lightly over the nipples – just enough to drive me demented – and I groaned. The blouse slid from my shoulders and he reached for the clasp of my bra.

  ‘I’m lying you back and you’re letting go, leaving it all to me. I won’t get you pregnant. Now I know where you’re at, we’ll find ways.’ My nipples were painfully hard, aching to be drawn out further. And when they were, wetly and unrelentingly, I came – just like that; I couldn’t help it. Gil lifted up and looked at me with warm, amused, lustful eyes. ‘We’ve got quite an evening ahead,’ he said. ‘I’ll have my work cut out keeping pace. Good thing I’ve got no neighbours and we have the place to ourselves.’

  He came in my mouth, we’d progressed that far. I felt fine with it, not revolted; if I’d had a thought in my head it was that if I was going to be unfaithful there was no point in being halfhearted about it and coy. Gil teased me over my speed of advancement.

  ‘But you were irresistible,’ I said, not entirely facetiously, ‘and it was one-to-one tuition – I could hardly ask for more. Is that clock right? I’ve got to fly.’

  ‘I’ll see you into a cab. Shall I come visit you in Boston?’

  ‘Don’t ask questions when you know the answer – three soft taps on my door?’

  ‘You left a scarf here earlier, that you said you mustn’t lose . . .’

  I had breakfast with Joan, relieved to be able to return her scarf. ‘What a long day you had,’ she said, ‘and after that exhausting flight too. You must have a nice quiet weekend, you look just a little tired.’

  ‘It was a long day; I was quite late back. It’s all hugely exciting, though. I can’t thank you enough for having me. it’s wonderful to be here.’

  She looked pleased. ‘Now,’ she said briskly, ‘Monday: Jackie Kennedy’s coming into town and we’re giving a little soirée in her honour – very small, just a few of us who helped with her White House tour. She wants a chance to say thank you.’

  ‘Would you like me to make myself scarce?’

  ‘Heavens, no! Everyone’s dying to meet our beautiful young house guest! Walter’s eyes were popping out of his head when you walked in the door.’

  ‘Popping’ seemed to be Joan’s favourite word. She was popping out, popping to the florist . . . A stream of people popped in too, all weekend. The apartment was like a busy hotel foyer with all the through-traffic as Joan prepared to receive the First Lady.

  I slept for hours, keeping out of the way. Eileen Ford had asked me to Sunday lunch at her upper-eighties brownstone house and it was all action there, too. Eileen seemed to be in three rooms at once, chasing children, cooking, taking calls, yelling at her husband, Jerry. She told me I was much in demand and she wanted me back in the spring.

  On Monday I worked with Melvin Sokolsky for Harper’s Bazaar. His stylist who was called Ali MacGraw, was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. She had long black hair, silky smooth, and perfect features – an Elizabeth Taylor type of flawless beauty. Walter’s eyes would have been popping out of his head six times over if she’d walked in the door.

  ‘Surely we should change places,’ I murmured, feeling like the before-picture beside her. The Harper’s team were organising the clothes and she had little to do.

  She was warm and friendly. ‘Oh no, I enjoy working for Mel. I’d like to act one day, maybe.’

  I just had time at the end of the day, before the shops closed, for a quick dash to buy a new bra and suspender belt. Joan had approved my best dress, a short black silk shift, for the soirée. I wasn’t shopping for Jackie. I was far more obsessed about Boston than meeting the wife of the President of the United States. ‘Bergdorf Goodman,’ I remembered Gloria saying, ‘for something special,’ and the name had stuck.

  The store felt like a furnace after the below-freezing temperatures outside. The lingerie department was on an upper floor and I was directed to the elevator. It was full; I just squeezed in. It went up slowly and I felt as shaky and weird as I had coming into land at Idlewild. The elevator seemed to sway, advance and recede. I was trapped, pressed
against a bosomy lady, I felt a cold sheen coat my skin, my legs going weightless . . .

  It was a moment before I registered. The elevator door was propped open and powdered faces peered. A large lady with ruby-red lipstick spoke. ‘She’s coming round!’ Ruby Lips leaned closer. ‘Now don’t you worry, dear. I expect you felt claustrophobic; it was quite a squash. Put your head down again, don’t try to stand. You’ll be right as rain.’

  ‘So sorry, so sorry,’ I said, for the second time in four days. I felt such a twit, sitting on the floor of the elevator, head bent, being clucked over by matronly shoppers in furs.

  ‘Gee, you’re from England! Did you just arrive? Did you miss lunch, dear?’

  ‘She’s English,’ someone called back to the gathering crowd. ‘Fainted.’

  I smiled at the faces and said I was fine now, how kind they were, how the store must need to close. I had to get back; Jackie . . . I made to stand, but that caused consternation. A cup of water was procured. My colour was back, they said, finally, at last.

  Joan seemed mightily relieved to see me. She was right by the door, beautifully coiffed, wearing a shimmering peacock-blue gown, very soignée, and the entrance hall looked luxuriant with plinth-high urns of flowers that were pure scented extravaganzas. Joan wafted with her own perfume, too. ‘Hurry and change, honey,’ she said. ‘The first guests are here already and Mrs Kennedy is on her way. We’ve just had a call.’

  I blamed Harper’s Bazaar fulsomely for my lateness and beat it to my room.

  Jackie circulated, shaking hands, smiling and inclining her groomed head regally as she accepted adulation and listened to polite cultural chat. She was wearing a rich rose-coloured silk dress and jacket, which made me feel, in my sleeveless black shift, like a drab little washed-out minnow. Walter introduced me, transforming my surname into Forbes-Bryant, and the First Lady exchanged minimal pleasantries – coolly, I felt, with impatience in her expression.

  ‘Your husband’s not here?’ she queried. ‘You’re making this trip alone?’