Tell the Girl

by Sandra Howard

  ‘He’s just opened in a West End play, Cakes and Kindness, so he’s tied up. This is a good time for me to be here, though, so it sort of fitted.’

  ‘Bryant, is that as in Joe Bryant?’ She looked mildly more interested. ‘I read a piece in the New York Times that held him in high regard. “A mercurial talent, magnetic on stage”.’

  ‘He’s had some lovely reviews. This new play hasn’t, unfortunately – but Joe was singled out for praise.’ She stared, absorbing that, then continued to talk about the theatre.

  ‘You know, I’m sure the Old Vic is here and opening with Macbeth tomorrow,’ she said. I kept smiling and neglected to say that it was news to me. ‘They were just in Washington and I attended a performance of their Shaw’s Saint Joan, which I thought was superb.’

  An elderly couple nearby, who both looked like bloodhounds, shuffled closer. ‘You wouldn’t believe the advance bookings,’ Mrs Bloodhound said. ‘Record sales, and with tickets at over four dollars!’ She turned to me. ‘Your London stage is wonderful.’

  Jackie clearly felt she’d graced us with quite enough of her presence by then and taking Walter’s arm, talking of people to thank, she swept off without a parting word.

  I’d heard about Joe’s reviews from my parents. I’d phoned them, battling with Joan to pay for the call, after failing to reach Joe all weekend. He must have been out of London on Sunday – lunch with Alicia in Gloucestershire? He could have phoned.

  I was still with the lugubrious bloodhound couple, still feeling unsettled by Jackie’s coolness, but perhaps it was just her way.

  A man in a pink bowtie came over to talk and said I had an ethereal beauty. Just the pallor of passing out in an over-heated department store, I thought ruefully. Others came to chat and involve me. I smiled valiantly through all the consciously arty discussions; praise of an exhibition of Gorky drawings, dissection of Saul Bellow’s Seize the Day.

  With Jackie’s departure, a few of the guests stayed on for supper and the atmosphere was like kicking off high heels after a long modelling stint. Walter and Joan nattered and hosted, looking tired but proud and distinctly relieved, their job done, responsibility over; they could await all the thanks and flowers.

  I debated slipping away from the table and off to bed, but no chance. Their friends were civilised, art-world people, yet still asked me about London hotels, the Queen, Princess Margaret’s antics in Antigua; Joe’s plays. I was feted, even called the belle of the ball, which was ridiculous. I just happened to be thirty years younger than any of them and with the curiosity value of being an English guest.

  ‘I think Jackie suspected my art-world credentials,’ I confided bravely to Walter in a whisper, still smarting from her aloofness. I felt much more relaxed and Walter was certainly mellow.

  He threw back his head and laughed, jowls wobbling. ‘She looked daggers at you, didn’t she! Don’t worry, it was just your looks. She lives with Jack’s roving eye and resents anyone half as pretty as you. And we see Jack on occasion. I expect she thinks you’re within striking distance, so to speak.’ Walter went on chuckling, and since he’d planted an image of the President rearing up like a randy snake, I started giggling, too.

  I was able to get back to the apartment during the lunch-break next day, to pick up my bag for the flight to Boston, and I tried Joe again then, hoping to catch him before he left for the theatre.

  ‘I wondered if you’d ever ring,’ he said grumpily.

  He sounded hangdog and sorry for himself, neglected. He’d have taken the play’s knocks badly. Joe had loved the script, his starring role; the play had backers, he’d have lulled himself into imagining a long run and continuing glory.

  ‘Where were you all weekend? I tried you endlessly.’

  ‘Out to lunch, out of London – the Cotswolds.’

  ‘With Alicia and Toby then, I guess. Was it fun, a big lunch party?’ Joe was silent so I ploughed on. ‘Are they coming to see the play?’ I hadn’t seen Alicia at the first night, which had surprised me. ‘Mum said your personal reviews were terrific, darling.’

  ‘She’s lying. Fucking play, fucking awful reviews. They’re talking about three weeks. Alicia’s been,’ Joe said, out to hurt me in his present mood. ‘Toby was busy.’

  He didn’t know he was making it so much easier, undermining my guilt. My capitulation weighed heavily. ‘Don’t be depressed,’ I said, feeling wretched myself. ‘Must go, with the cost of this call, but guess who I’ve just met, who the Ferrones had to drinks?’

  ‘I can imagine. I know what Walter Ferrone does. I suppose you’ll be ogling Jack next, hopping on a plane to Washington. Frankie stinks, by the way. What do I do with his turds?’

  ‘The tray slides out. Tip it all onto newspaper and parcel it up. I give the tray a scrub as well.’

  I told Joe about work and that I’d paid off the fare already, and said, trying to cheer him up, that Jackie had read a complimentary article about him and had been impressed.

  I could almost hear the coin land as his mood flipped. ‘Good about your work – you should do another trip. I might come too, with this bitch play folding so soon.’

  Joe was so transparent, instantly setting his sights on the chance of meeting Jackie, but who cared?

  It was another trip to New York. Another chance to see Gil . . .

  Much as I worried about Joe and what I’d done, how bad it was, I lived for those chances. I loved Gil, adored him; I wasn’t in love, my head told me that, while my body pulled in the other direction and my thoughts were deliciously devoted to ever kinkier sex all day.

  In Boston, photographed on a curve of entrance steps to a grandiose hotel, I wore the slinkiest long evening gown I’d ever seen, skin-tight and shiny silver, with a white fox-fur stole. The racy pillar-box red Chevrolet Impala coupé was my accessory, like a clipped, pampered poodle. The ad gained an extra dimension, though, with my new sexuality. I could never have done that dress full justice, wiggled myself into a Monroe pose, without the further progress of Gil’s visit to my hotel room. I’d been fastened to the bed, played with myself under guidance, under Gil’s watchful eyes; and with our intense sexual connection, doing that ad had felt just like carrying on from the night before. I was still in the beginner’s class, he’d said, the nursery slopes. The serious skiing, grown-up stuff, the slalom runs, had yet to come. My imagination boggled.

  We all flew back to New York together. Gil had a car at the airport. His assistant, Jack, loaded in the camera kit and I drove with them into town. I was being dropped off first. I’d see Gil soon, as he’d booked me for further jobs – but would I see him after hours as well? A cheery wave goodbye seemed a wretched parting. My mood was sinking, my heart in my boots.

  Gil was at the wheel. It was hard being squashed in the back with Jack and the adman, whose leg was hard-pressed against mine; I needed it to be Gil’s. I ached for his touch.

  He held my eyes in the driving mirror, which was a connection at least. ‘Take a look at the hoarding over the bridge,’ he threw back. ‘A little surprise . . .’

  It was more than that, a seismic jolt to the system. My face – it was the Jim Beam ad we’d done in London – my eyes staring out, apparently at a male silhouette, but making direct contact with anyone seeing the ad. Even the beautifully lit clearly-labelled bottle had a lesser role.

  I worked with some famous names during the next days and weeks, photographers held in universal awe. Bert Stern, who never said much, but his eyes would fix on me almost like Gil’s. Richard Avedon, the golden boy of the moment – with flowing black hair – who was wild, talkative, all sinewy energy and zaniness. And Irving Penn who was a genius, no other word; I arrived one day to find him photographing running water. ‘I want to capture it in perfect stillness,’ he said. The picture when I saw it, was unique, a vertical flow of clear water, arrested, sharp, gleaming, deeply etched and black-rimmed, hauntingly powerful against a stark white ground.

  A few days before going home, I went to a
party. One of the Ford models I’d met and liked, a tall gazelle of a girl called Janet, wanted me to come along, saying she needed a chaperone. ‘Don’t be surprised if Jack Kennedy turns up,’ she grinned. ‘Liz, our host, tipped me the wink. He was just in Florida and has been known to make detours.’

  ‘Is Liz the attraction?’

  ‘Among others. He can pack in more than one in a night, you know.’

  Janet came round for supper beforehand and received the Ferrones’ parental treatment, too. We promised earnestly not to stay out late. ‘Eileen hates her models partying,’ Janet reassured them. ‘We’d all be locked up in a boarding house if she had her way.’

  Janet’s friend, Liz, had an apartment in an old-fashioned block with a tiny elevator that opened straight into her lobby. Her rectangular living room was a squash, yet people were talking and drinking in a quite civilised way. I’d half-expected dancers on tables and leering lechers like the executives at the Madison Avenue ad agency I’d just been to see.

  I was chatted up all the same, but thanks to Gil’s tutelage, I was more savvy and able to hold my own and, having met Jackie, was quite cool about it when Jack walked in the door.

  Liz, the host, introduced me as hot new English blood just arrived, which I minded. Jack grinned and flattered me. He had a staccato, very direct way of talking; no wandering-over-the-shoulder eyes, either – they stayed concentrated. He caught me completely by surprise when he said out of the blue, ‘You know the Ormsby-Gores, don’t you?’

  Why on earth should he think that? I barely even knew David Ormsby-Gore was our Ambassador to America. Then I remembered. Sylvia, his wife, had been to see one of Joe’s plays and come backstage. Joe must have followed up, kept in touch; he did things like that.

  ‘My husband knows them,’ I said, taking a punt, ‘through the theatre, I think. He’s an actor – Joe Bryant.’

  I was flirted with a little, almost as a reflex action, I suspected, and as the President moved on, was left wondering how he could possibly have made that connection; I’d even been introduced as Susannah Forbes, not Bryant. It must have been through the Ferrones in some way.

  Jack wasn’t about for long at the party, at least not in the main room. Liz was nowhere to be seen.

  I saw Gil, when we worked together and after hours whenever he or I could manage. But there had to be a last time. It was the Monday night before my Wednesday flight home.

  I couldn’t always read his feelings, and his lifestyle made me over-cautious, but on that last time of togetherness there was no denying that Gil really cared. It was a branch, something to cling to; it stemmed the fall of the parting.

  ‘It’s unbearable, this. I wish we had a whole night,’ I said, hardly able to swallow.

  ‘We will one day, but it’s not going to be soon.’ He caressed my hair and let his hand slip to a breast; my tits were painful, taut and swollen, they’d had a lot of attention in the past three weeks. ‘I need to say something that I don’t think you’re quite prepared for,’ Gil said, gazing at me with an unreadable look in his eyes. I felt fearful of what was to come. He gathered me into his arms. ‘You don’t seem to know it, but you’re pregnant, Susannah, my beloved. It’s clear enough, I know the signs.’

  One of the women in the Bergdorf elevator had muttered the possibility; she’d sown a tiny seed, but it hadn’t seemed possible. I’d kept the faints to myself – they were perfectly easily explained, as far as I was concerned, with the claustrophobic airlessness – and the eating so little, and I wasn’t about to mention them now. I felt stupid enough as it was.

  ‘How can you possibly know?’ I demanded, staring up at him while held tight in his arms, this not-the-father lover whom I adored. ‘I mean, it can’t really be – can it?’ I felt my lower lip wobble as emotional enormities and hope-filled satellites spun round in my confused mind.

  ‘It shows, Susannah. You have a glow, blue veins, tautness, size – you’ve grown in three weeks.’ He reached to encase my breasts in his hands.

  I knew he was right at heart, as I steadily returned his gaze, frightened, glad of the tenderness I saw. A baby, a son or daughter, a lifelong joy – but what about its happy home?

  ‘I’ll miss you bad while you have the baby,’ Gil said. ‘You’ll get by with your Joe, but come out again. We’ll do head shots, maternity – and come in the fall for sure. I’ll see you here or fly over there. I’ll take pictures of mother and baby: they’re the most beautiful of all.’

  I was in tears saying goodbye to the Ferrones, heartfelt ones, which made them happy, I think. I’d shed plenty of tears in private, too. Joan and Walter hugged me like their own daughter, Joan was wet-eyed, too; there was always a bed for me, they said, and they could make room for Joe.

  I was dry-eyed on the plane. When I’d called with the time of return Joe had sounded in much better humour, dying to quiz me about Jackie Kennedy, for sure. It was harder to tell, though, how he’d take my news. I knew in my gut I was pregnant, knew Gil was right.

  John Glenn had just landed back from space; he’d circled the globe three times at a speed of 17,000 miles per hour. And I was landing back in wintry Britain, an unfaithful wife and mother-to-be.

  Chapter 16

  August 1962

  My baby was born two weeks early, on 25 August. I’d driven myself to hospital when I couldn’t find a cab, stopping once or twice for another tourniquet band of pain, but made it there and parked in the hospital car park. It hadn’t been a false alarm, which was my great worry, and the contractions had soon come more regularly. It was a difficult birth, though, about twenty hours in all and had to be a forceps job in the end.

  When I’d recovered enough to sit up in bed, the nurse who’d been with me through the worst of it, came to talk to me. She had my baby daughter in her arms. ‘Would you like to hold her now?’ she said.

  I nodded mutely and took the precious little bundle from her very cautiously, studying the tiny screwed-up face, topped with a surprising amount of dark hair. I wasn’t given long, soon had to relinquish her, and the nurse laid her gently in the crib beside my bed. Straightening up, she showed me a row of little nicks on the palm of her hand. ‘From your nails,’ she said with a kindly smile on her face. ‘You were holding on very hard.’

  ‘That’s awful, I’m dreadfully sorry. You shouldn’t have let me!’

  ‘It’s nothing; you were having quite a bad time. The oxygen wasn’t having much effect, I’m afraid. Do you expect your husband soon?’

  I looked at my daughter in the crib beside my bed. ‘I want to call her Bella,’ I said, ‘Isabella. She’s beautiful to me – but you don’t think Bella’s overdoing it?’

  ‘It’s a lovely name. Right now you need bed-rest, and plenty of it. You’re very drained.’ She was about ten years older than me and seemed immensely mature, a mother figure, competent, with thick eyebrows and a steady responsible gaze.

  I was grateful she hadn’t repeated her question about Joe. I hadn’t seen him for three weeks, not since the morning at breakfast when he’d said, yawning, that he was sick of doing voiceovers and that he was shoving off for a bit, having a breather. He’d chosen a moment to tell me when I was hurrying out to do my last modelling job, a make-up ad for Cyclax. I’d worried about what he said, felt edgy and distressed all day while trying to look the opposite, but it was nothing to the shock of arriving home to find Joe – and his suitcase – gone.

  I’d called my mother in a sobbing panic and she’d tried her best to soothe me. ‘Some men take fright at the thought of all the responsibility. I’m sure he’ll be back soon.’

  But he hadn’t returned in a week. And I’d had the further shock of Marilyn Monroe dying. I grieved for her, pictured her despairing, desolate, with no one there to give her love and support; the cruelties of life bore down on me. I remembered her kindness to me at Frank’s supper party, a later time when I’d seen her just before the El Dago flight and she’d whispered to me about a certain very important person,
whom she really thought cared. To know she was gone had seemed beyond imagining. Joe had vanished, I’d been in the last, wearying stage of pregnancy. I’d felt morbid and very much alone.

  Two more weeks and no Joe. I’d phoned my mother constantly, in an inconsolable state. ‘I’ll come for the birth,’ she promised. ‘I’ll be there to help. We’ll manage.’

  Suppose the baby came really early? I thought, but after putting Mum through so much, I kept that fear to myself. ‘You haven’t told Dad?’ I asked, dreading him knowing.

  ‘No, not yet, he’s such a fan of Joe’s. Let’s not worry for a while, shall we? Joe didn’t leave you a note, any contact address?’

  ‘Nothing. I can’t even see if his passport’s there as the drawer’s locked. Oh, Mum!’ It had been stupid, pathetic, the constant tears; the sense of my world about to implode.

  I lay back on the hard hospital pillows. Joe had some filming in September, which was reassurance of a sort. I felt it likely he’d be back for that. It was only a bit part, playing a young schoolteacher in a B-movie, but he’d been excited about it, dying to get into films. Little comfort all the same, while I was lying there, aching and sore, shuddering to remember the indignities of the enema and pubic shaving, hating the look of my flabby stomach and feeling a miserable wreck.

  The ward was all bustling activity. I watched the new fathers arriving and peering into cribs, whole families visiting. Mum was still on her way from Dorset.

  I gazed at my baby daughter. She was on her side, snugly wrapped, eyes tight shut; she was a part of me, her own person too, but for now she was utterly dependent. Suppose she was ill, not feeding? I didn’t even know how to hold her properly. Every protective fibre in me was straining; I was determined to do right by her. A lifetime of love was beginning its course, flowing strongly and devoted to keeping her afloat.

  I settled into a routine. I wasn’t being allowed home for a week, but rather dreaded going anyway. The maternity ward smelled of Dettol, cabbage and starched sheets, with a pervading whiff of babies and sweaty talcum powder, but a hospital was a comfortingly predictable place and hermetically sealed. The outside world felt cold and draughty in comparison, as teetering and uncertain as a tent in a storm.