Tell the Girl

by Sandra Howard

  I made friends on the ward, despite my notoriety: recognised as a model, no husband in sight and endless lavish flowers arriving. Sally from the agency had turned up with a big bunch of pink roses. She’d known the baby was coming, having called just as I was dashing to hospital – right after I’d phoned my cleaner, Palmira, in a panic about who’d feed Frankie, the poor squawker, with Joe still not around. Palmira had promised to care for Frankie. She had come to see the baby, too, bringing a sweet bunch of pinks.

  I worked out the chain of the flowers. Sally said she’d spoken to Eileen Ford, who must have told Janet, my American model friend – who, I expect, had told the Ferrones. I knew she’d kept in touch with them after the evening of the Jack Kennedy party. The Ferrones must have told the Romanoffs, who’d told Frank . . . so many flowers. And Eileen must have told Gil, since he freely called me his favourite model. He’d signed the card Gil – big kiss, love you both to death. Joe, with his theatrical friends, certainly wouldn’t have read much into that.

  Mum had been completely enraptured by her first grandchild. I was quite pleased to have beaten my brother James to it; his wife was also expecting. The Army was out of Kuwait, although James felt Iraq’s designs on its neighbour weren’t over, but he’d just been sent off to Kenya. Mum said she’d written with my news. She was back in Dorset temporarily, returning to take me home at the end of the week.

  Dad promised to come as soon as he could. He knew about Joe now. He’d had to be told. I’d played it down, but couldn’t lie and Dad was in a blue funk of disbelief. I felt better, selfishly, for his knowing my problems, thinking it might help if he ever learned about Gil.

  It was impossible to sleep at night; the grey, ill-meeting cubicle curtains did little to screen the nocturnal disturbances and sounds, small wails, shuffles, even tears, and I had plenty on my mind. I tried to ration my thoughts about Gil and how very much I missed him, but with little success. He’d changed me, I was under his influence; it kept me going. And during the long hospital nights I thought back endlessly over the past months.

  I’d felt more confident, arriving back home that wintry February early-morning after we’d parted. I’d been tired and pregnant, but walking in the door of the flat, Frankie had fluttered his wings like mad and screeched, ‘Bye bye-eee,’ fit to burst. Even Joe, albeit a bit piqued by Frankie’s devotion, had seemed quite pleased to see me.

  He’d been flummoxed by my news, genuinely, not knowing what to think, I felt sure. Joe could always extract the maximum drama out of any situation, though, however unexpected or testing, and my pregnancy, his prospective fatherhood, was no exception.

  In front of friends, touting for sympathy, he’d put on a sort of back-of-hand-to-the-brow, pity-me performance. ‘God, has it come to this, shitty nappies and prams in the hall? I’ll be commuting and playing bowls next.’ And even at home without an audience he’d acted up. ‘It’ll have blue eyes, this sprog, you’ll see,’ he’d said, flashing his own. ‘All men of power have blue eyes.’ Had Kennedy’s been blue? I couldn’t remember.

  ‘What about women of power?’ I’d protested, not quick enough to shoot that down. ‘Is a daughter allowed brown eyes?’ Joe had sniffed and poured himself another vodka.

  His play had closed within a month. He had a part in a summer production, quite exciting, a new Festival Theatre opening in Chichester, but April and May looked like being fallow and jobless.

  ‘I think I’ll go to America,’ he’d announced one morning. ‘You probably can’t travel, I guess?’ Joe, as ever, was transparently focused on a new scalp. He was fascinated by Jackie Kennedy, determined to meet her – all the more so, since I had already done so – and to do it solo, without me around to dilute the fix.

  I’d met his eyes coolly. ‘I’ve never felt better, and actually I was planning to go again myself. Eileen wants me back – there’s still stuff I can do.’

  Joe needn’t think he could knock me around verbally any more and tread all over me. I’d felt more immune, better able to hold my own since Gil. He’d shifted the goalposts and made me more confident, yet harder and more cynical, too. Deep down I knew that my infidelity was destructive and could only do long-term harm.

  I sighed and turned over in the hard hospital bed. It had seemed a seminal moment, that newfound ability to be my own woman, stand up to Joe and feel less bruised. But now I felt set right back again, weedy, tearful and insecure.

  And with the nights so disturbed, my thoughts were constantly backward-looking, always on Gil, especially the last time I’d seen him – when Joe had been in the city as well.

  Joe and I had flown to New York in late April. He’d done his homework: he’d made contact with Sylvia Ormsby-Gore, learned when she’d be in Manhattan and timed our arrival to fit. She and her Ambassador husband, David, would be there in the last week of the month, she’d said, when Harold Macmillan was coming to New York for the start of a ten-day Prime Ministerial tour.

  I’d met the Ormsby-Gores over supper with the Ferrones, the evening before Macmillan’s arrival. I’d really liked them, found David the essence of charming diplomacy and Sylvia a dreamy, offbeat original. When Joe had mentioned artfully that we planned to be back in the States in October, Sylvia had spontaneously suggested a trip to Washington.

  ‘Come and stay!’ she exclaimed. ‘We’d love to have you both at the Residence.’ Joe had practically kissed her across the table. He’d already made himself the toast of the Ferrones’ gilded fine-art circle and couldn’t wait to be sashaying off to Washington and lapping up the cream of the political elite.

  While I’d rushed from studio to studio, Joe had networked and shamelessly sucked up to Joan Ferrone. I couldn’t have been further from his mind. I’d felt desperately sad about it; I was having his baby and he was setting the seal on my infidelity. I longed for any sign of affection, I wanted to love him again and feel hope for our marriage.

  The first booking of the April trip had been with Gil, for an Avon cosmetics ad. ‘He’s your greatest fan,’ Eileen said. ‘Better get on over there and look lively.’

  Not easy, an emotional reunion under the gaze of an adman, an Avon representative, Dee, the girl on the desk, Gil’s assistants, Jack and Bob . . . Gil had come straight up to me as I walked in, picked up my chin and kissed me on the lips. ‘Welcome back, deserter.’ He ran a hand over my stomach, slowly, in a circular movement. ‘I don’t believe there’s a bun in there, nothing to show for it at all. It’s one great big con.’

  ‘So you’re saying I’m just getting fat?’ I’d been battling to stay in control. I was there to do a professional job. Pregnancy and illicit passion weren’t a combination to make me proud. I had no pride where Gil was concerned, only unbounded need.

  We’d found ways to meet without an entourage. He booked me for a shoot on location in Massachusetts, which meant an overnight stay. It had been a strange, surreal experience, a sinful night in a Springfield hotel at five months pregnant; it should have felt sordid, but hadn’t – even with Joe just up the road in New York.

  ‘Now here’s a question,’ Gil said, leaning back against the bedhead in my hotel room; he had me tucked under his wing, his protective encompassing arm, like a helpless needy chick. ‘Would you be here if Joe hadn’t led the way – if you hadn’t seen him in that pool house on your Capri holiday and known what was up?’

  ‘Too apt, that,’ I said, playing for time.

  It was a question I’d asked myself time and again and struggled to answer. I had such a vivid memory of meeting Gil and the look we’d shared, not quite love at first sight, but with a wealth of communication and gut need. Would I have been less receptive to it if I’d been in a loving, trusting relationship with Joe? It was impossible to know.

  I’d leaned up to kiss Gil’s face. ‘A beam of direct sunlight can do it, can’t it – burn through a scrap of paper and start a fire? You were my beam. But as for your hypothetical question . . . I’d have been very close to catching alight, but I think
I’d have found the will to resist.’

  ‘Then I owe it all to the other woman.’

  I’d got back to New York hoping Joe would ask after the job, my night away, anything to make me feel guiltier, but he was busy writing a letter at the small desk in the bedroom and barely said hello. I felt deeply resentful; I even minded him being at the desk, sharing my little room. It had two skinny beds in it now – ‘cots’ to Joan – squeezed in to form an L.

  ‘Who’s that to?’ I asked, not expecting an answer.

  He turned, unable to hide a look of triumph and success. ‘Jackie Kennedy. I had lunch with her today – and Joan,’ whom he clearly wished hadn’t had to be there.

  ‘Jackie’s very into the London theatre,’ I said, childishly keen to remind Joe that I’d met her too. ‘She’d been to see the Old Vic on tour in Washington. You must have found plenty to talk about.’

  He gave me a cold eye. ‘We did, we had a very cosy time.’

  My week in hospital was up. Mum had returned to help get me home and it was almost time to go. I felt quite weepy clearing my locker, except that with Mum trying to cheer me up and being maddening, irritation held in the tears. She had Bella in her arms and was cooing over her when I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Joe walk into the ward.

  I felt a strange numbness, a kind of emotional anaesthesia. He had armfuls of flowers – he must have cleaned out a florist’s shop – and smiled winsomely at admiring nurses and the occupants of the other beds on his way to mine before seeing us and fastening on the bundle in my mother’s arms.

  ‘Hello, wifey,’ he said, kissing my cheek, ‘and Betty. Good to see you.’ He kissed her cheek too, before dropping his eyes to peer with fascination at what was visible of Bella. ‘Let’s see the little man then – cheeky little blighter, coming this early. He wasn’t due for days.’

  ‘Isn’t “cheeky” just a little rich?’ I muttered, glowering, longing for more privacy. All eyes were on us; a pall of rabid curiosity hung over the ward. ‘She’s a girl, Joe, and a week old now – a week you’ve missed while you were away getting that tan. She’s called Isabella Caroline – Bella.’

  If there was a flicker, a small reality check, Joe hid it superbly well. He’d wanted a son and the wish had become a certainty in his mind, yet he could still move seamlessly into delighted burbles. He deposited the ridiculously overdone flowers on the bed, lilies, roses, even orchids, and peeked more closely at the tiny, pointy, screwed-up face, buried deep in a lacy shawl. ‘Well, well, little lady, springing surprises on us already, are you? You’re going be a wicked little madam, I can tell – and quite as beautiful as your mother . . .’

  ‘Don’t come that guff,’ I mumbled, mainly to myself, feeling furiously hard done by. Joe could have asked after the birth, asked after me, how I was coping. But Joe didn’t think like that. He’d wanted to name a boy Dominic, rejecting outright any suggestions of mine, and hadn’t bothered to listen to any ideas for girls’ names. I felt now, though, that he knew he’d forfeited the right to challenge me on the choice of Bella. And seeing his look of adoring delight, his face aglow as he studied his baby daughter, I really believed he wasn’t acting and was just a very proud father, after all.

  My mother seemed struck dumb. It was hardly the place for a grand inquisition, and she was a conciliator by nature, even more timid than I was. ‘You were missed, Joe,’ she said finally, with a hint of an accusing tone. ‘Susannah’s had a difficult birth, a hard time of it and she’s been dreadfully worried about you. And you’re even a little late for a hospital visit. We’re just waiting for the final say-so before going home.’

  ‘My car’s here, Joe,’ I said, chipping in before he could think of some retaliating excuse, ‘so if you’re in yours, perhaps you should go on ahead. I’ll give most of the flowers to the nurses if it’s okay with you, when we say our goodbyes. Oh, and I painted Bella’s room by the way, and stencilled some elephants. Have you seen?’

  I fancied Joe’s lip curled. How could I have said that, imagined he’d have the slightest interest in the stencils on his daughter’s walls? That was bourgeois, typical wifey twaddle.

  ‘No questions, Mum,’ I said, on the way home. ‘There’s nothing to be gained by quizzing him, I don’t want an atmosphere – it could even seep into Bella’s psyche, for all we know! Better just get on with life now and draw a veil over the last weeks.’

  ‘That seems very wise,’ she said, looking like someone surviving an icy skid, intense relief at not having to be party to painful marital strife. ‘I’ll stay a few days, of course, till you feel you can manage, but it’s hard for Dad without me, and with Joe back you won’t be alone in an emergency.’

  She was sensitive to the oppressive grimness of a mother-in-law in a poky flat, sharing the new baby’s box room. I felt grateful.

  ‘I wonder,’ she said nervously, as though broaching a difficult subject, ‘whether you can afford to rent somewhere a little bigger? And won’t you need to organise some help, if you’re going to get back to work?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking hard about all that, Mum, and I don’t want to rent any more. It’s a rare chance to buy, with my bit of New York dosh, but every mortgage company I’ve called just laughs down the line. You try getting a mortgage as a freelance photographic model who’s under twenty-five – you’d think I’d asked them for a million-pound loan.’

  Mum looked wretched. She and Dad had no money; they couldn’t help. We were outside the flat by now: it was our last moment to talk privately. ‘Perhaps if you made an appointment,’ she said in a small defeated voice, ‘and it was face to face . . .’

  I kissed her cheek – cool, face-powder dry – and wished she looked less tired. My mother was thin and fair-haired; the grey barely showed, but the lines were etched stressfully deep. I felt determined to grab my chances, do more trips to New York and earn the money to give my parents a decent holiday. There must be a way doctors could take a break.

  We set about moving me back in. Mum had restocked the kitchen, and after feeding Bella I made supper; soup and eggs were a banquet after hospital food. The evening stretched ahead. While I unpacked and got sorted, Mum took the crib into the sitting room. Bella was sleeping sweetly and the television news was just coming on.

  I went into the bedroom and found Joe sitting on the bed writing a letter. His case was half-unpacked and he seemed to have no dirty laundry that I could see. His clothes, shirts, underwear, were all immaculately washed, ironed, neatly folded, but not in the way of a hotel laundry service. He must have been staying at some extremely grand private home.

  My resentment was building as usual. I mustn’t let it, mustn’t . . . I took a deep breath, left Joe without speaking and went into the sitting room to be with Bella and Mum.

  The Kennedys were on the television news, Jack being met off a plane. He’d arrived in Italy where Jackie had been holidaying so that they could fly back to the States together. She’d been in Italy most of the month, staying with friends at a private villa. The camera jumped to a scene of them walking through narrow, picturesque, people-lined streets, smiling, waving and acknowledging the cheers.

  Had Joe been there too, staying with Jackie at that private villa? It would explain his tan, the laundry . . . My eyes misted over, which my mother noticed straight away.

  ‘What is it, darling?’

  ‘Just,’ I wiped at an eye, ‘just that it’s been such an emotion-filled month, what with the panic of Joe, not knowing where he was, and nerves about the birth. And I keep thinking of Marilyn Monroe, Mum. It’s only three weeks since she died, but it’s taken this long for the full horror of it to really sink in.’

  ‘It was wretched, love, a sad self-inflicted death, but you knew her only slightly. You can’t let it haunt you, you mustn’t brood.’

  ‘But it does haunt me. It has me in tears. I can’t bear to think she was only in her thirties – it feels so unnecessary and cruel. I mean, I know she popped pills the whole time, and mixed them with
booze, but something truly devastating must have happened to bring her to that ultimate low. It wasn’t as if I knew her really well, Mum, I know that, but I actually felt quite close to her. She was friendly and warm, interested in me when she had no business to be, good to be with – she’d put on this great sexy extrovert show, yet you could tell she was kind of unconfident underneath, almost fearful of herself.’

  I smiled at Mum. ‘It’s no wonder I’m weepy. I feel so guilty at my own good fortune and happiness, you see.’ I looked from Mum to Bella and back again. ‘When I think of the good things, a daughter of my own.’

  Whether or not Joe had been with Jackie in Italy, an instinct for self-preservation told me that he’d do what he wanted, when he wanted, and I had to get on with life: be aware, canny, and not afraid to lead my own. Joe wasn’t into routines. Normal everyday life freaked him out, the future wasn’t certain, and the sooner I sorted out a bigger flat and a nanny for Bella, the better for us all.

  It was hot and sunny, the first week of September. I wheeled Bella in Hyde Park and by chance happened on Norman Parkinson one day, who was just finishing a shoot. Parks was my absolute hero: he’d given me my first job and I’d owed him my start in modelling. We chatted and I talked about the mortgage problem, since it was at the front of my mind.

  ‘Go and see my good man at United Friendly,’ he said. ‘Call him up, tell him I sent you – but he’ll only have to look at you. You’ll have your mortgage.’

  ‘I even love the name,’ I said, feeling on a laughing high. ‘Promise you’ll come to the flat-warming party?’

  Park’s ‘good man’ became my second absolute hero, though for a moment he’d looked like chasing me round his desk, which would have been a little problematic. When I told Mum the news, she said in that wry, shy way she had, ‘I did say, darling, that perhaps if it was face to face . . .’