by CL Skelton
Ruth Barton had other dreams, more secret, less innocent and more ambitious. Ruth had borrowed her dreams from her mother, though she would never know it. Ruth’s romance was not with a man, fantasy or otherwise, but with the theatre. And more, with what was still lovingly called ‘the silver screen’. Ruth spent every moment of her spare time, and every penny of her pocket money at the cinema in Bridlington or, if that was all she could afford, upon magazines offering tales of cinema stars, doubly remote, being American and far away. The cinema queues were Ruth’s one escape from the provincial monotony to which her father’s longing for earthy roots had condemned her. Ruth would go to anything, as long as it was a film, and stayed from the first shorts, through the B picture, the main attraction and the Pathe News, right down to the credits. Not for her the quick exits while the film yet rolled and the heroine’s joyful tears were still falling. Not for her the regular treks to the lobby for popcorn and sweeties, made by her little brother and sister. To Ruth the cinema was far too serious to be mere amusement. Willingly she chaperoned Paul to see Audie Murphy in Kansas Raiders, or Cameron Mitchell in Smuggler’s Gold, or the weekly serial, tolerating Atom Man Versus Superman without complaint. Patiently she indulged Olive’s surprising delight in war pictures, through Tripoli and Mystery Submarine. Ruth didn’t mind. The lights went out and the dreams came up just the same and, best of all, her sisterly helpfulness pleased her mother and gave her almost a limitless ticket to the pictures of her own choice, as reward. And so she could sink, again and again, into the bliss of the red plush seats and crackling sweetie papers, as the lights dimmed into a rich velvety black and the unreal power of the score swamped her with its vibrant warmth. Then they came to her: Tyrone Power, Susan Hayward, Greer Garson, Yvonne de Carlo, Errol Flynn, Van Heflin, Maureen O’Hara. They were her saints; at night their fanciful names, reeking of self-creation and hence the possibility that even Ruth Barton might be created anew, were a litany whispered into her pillow. Lili Palmer, Jane Wyman, Van Johnson, William Holden and Ruth. Ruth something, certainly not Barton, boring old Barton, but Ruth. Brighter and more famous than even Janet Chandler, who would one day be known first and foremost as the cousin of the wondrous Ruth. Ruth had gone five separate times to see Bette Davis and Anne Baxter in All About Eve, and was on her way for a sixth when her exasperated father called a halt. That was alarming enough. More alarming still was that in all those five delicious visits, the lesson of the story had never reached home.
For Ruth had learned a trick, a daring and imaginative trick. If the story didn’t end the way she wanted, she rewrote the end. Not always more happily, indeed Ruth liked a good morbid weep as much as the next youngster. She liked power in stories, and romance, and heaven help the film that went soggy on her; half-way through Ruth was already rescripting. And she didn’t stop at the cinema. Ruth was quite capable of rescripting life. Already her future career and that of the unfortunate Janet Chandler, to whom she had ostensibly come to pay homage, were on collision courses, and Eve and Margo were angels by comparison to the participants of the heady conflict Ruth had already envisioned. Needless to say, being the scriptwriter, Ruth was plotted to be the winner.
Knowing the script made life much easier for Ruth. It made it easy to tolerate the oafish jesting of Mike Brannigan (whose effect on her was quite the opposite of that on Mary Gray) with a cool smile. It enabled her to ignore her mother’s fussing over her dress as if she were still a child, and her grandmother’s intensely annoying habit of mixing her up with her sister Olive (Helen was never any use at grandchildren’s names). Knowing the script, Ruth could step with ease into the hired limousine for the journey to the Leicester Square Odeon. Limousines would play a large part in her life of the future so she might as well get comfortable with them now. Knowing the script, Ruth could smile calmly at the crowds outside the theatre, imagining those crowds as being for her, and the billboards plastered everywhere as picturing not Janet Chandler, blonde and radiant, but herself.
Most of all, knowing the script made it possible for Ruth Barton to tolerate the hideous guilty-by-association purgatory of being at this glittering occasion in the company of her family, that mismatched, boring, intolerably clumsy collection of social disasters that comprised her nearest and dearest. There was great-Uncle Harry in that ridiculous old-fashioned collar, and Aunt Hetty in her horrible fur. There was that revolting man Brannigan talking too loudly in his broad American accent and cuddling stupid little Mary Gray and she, silly ass, was shrieking with delight. And there even was her mother, too made-up and too old-fashioned, all at once. And Aunt Maud even worse, and Uncle Albert. The least they could have done was spruce up a bit, she thought, with a sudden upswing of loyalty towards her resented and famous cousin. Only her grandmother, sleek and slim in her black dress and her silver-blue mink, passed Ruth’s severe test of elegance. And she, of course, was just too horribly old to think about. Ruth sighed, unsurprised when an over-officious official almost shooed the entire Hardacre contingent away before he realized who they were.
They were ushered in, then, to a glittering lobby, as laden with the crystal of chandeliers as a true theatre of the older kind, for this palatial cinema was as far removed from the grubby, chewing-gum sticky aisles of Ruth’s haunt in Bridlington, as was the Albert Hall.
Milling about the lobby, awaiting the arrival of the stars of the film, the Hardacre family floundered, lit cigarettes, talked about the film, about which they as yet knew very little, admired the billboards, commented about the décor of the lobby, and felt more or less lost. Emily shone, particularly when a theatrical columnist cornered her and begged a personal viewpoint of her famous niece. She responded with animation, growing visibly younger and happier in the attention of the moment, and glowed with delight when the columnist, perhaps genuinely, commented that a family resemblance was markedly visible. Ruth, safe in her dreams, stood aloof. Mike Brannigan paced, watched admiringly by Mary Gray. And Sam Hardacre walked into their glittering formal midst in a blue lounge-suit and his MCC tie.
‘Sam,’ Emily gasped. ‘You’ve not dressed.’
Sam looked down and up and grinned. Jan Muller, a few paces behind, joined them. He at least was properly attired for the occasion, in a dinner-suit; Sam’s dinner-suit, to be precise. ‘Sorry, Emily, but we only had the one between us, so I lent it to Jan. I’ll stand behind him.’
‘There’s such a thing as Moss Bros,’ Emily said, unamused.
‘Just what we intended,’ Sam said, ‘only we ran out of time. I was on a scrap barge in the middle of the Thames …’ he glanced at his wrist-watch, ‘forty-five minutes ago. Unexpected business,’ he added with another, less confident grin.
‘I am so sorry, Mrs Barton,’ Jan said. ‘It is no doubt all my fault.’
‘Nonsense,’ Emily snapped, ‘it’s his fault, and he’s enjoying it.’
But she softened as Sam leant forward for a kiss, and whispered, ‘You look ravishing, Mrs Barton. You’d better be careful. These film stars hate to be outdone.’
He slipped away then and greeted his grandmother, whose welcome was no warmer than Emily’s. It was when he turned from her to speak to her husband that he saw Mike Brannigan and Jan Muller facing each other in an isolated circle in the centre of the theatre lobby with a look on each of their faces of stunned, angry amazement, as if a pair of fighting cocks had been dropped into a ring.
The lobby, packed with strangers, suddenly seemed silent as their own little knot of people drew in closer, watching. Finally, Mike Brannigan spoke, grinning, but without humour, ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘The hero of Haganah has forsaken his tractor at last.’
‘If you please, not here,’ Jan said, in an angry whisper, retreating as always into icy European propriety. ‘I am with friends.’
‘Friends?’ said Mike Brannigan, amusedly raising one thick dark brow. ‘You, pal, are with my family.’ Jan was stunned into silence, looking uncertainly to Sam, and to Helen. Helen slipped her possessive arm throug
h Mike’s and looked Jan Muller up and down with cautious care.
Sam Hardacre, confused, said quickly, ‘Mike Brannigan, Jan. My grandmother’s husband.’
‘We’ve met,’ said Mike, with a big, unfriendly grin. He extended his hand and Jan abruptly spun on his heel, turned and strode away. But he had gone only two paces when a subdued British cheer and a staccato of applause rippled through the crowded lobby and he was forced back by a backing wave of people.
Janet Chandler, exquisite in a lilac satin gown, stepped regally into the golden light beneath the chandelier.
Chapter Twelve
She was not as any of them had expected. Of course she was like her photographs, those photographs reflecting her everywhere so many times bigger than life. She was blonde, her eyes were that strong clear blue on the edge of green that marked so many of the Hardacres; so much was true to the camera. But to the camera, Janet Chandler was an object, blurred by soft-focus, tamed by gentle lights and gauze. And to a living audience Janet Chandler was not object, but subject. Control, Sam Hardacre thought, watching her, she’s in such perfect control. It was that, the power, that struck him first. Her beauty came after, rippling like an after-shock striking him weakened already from the first blow.
Her eyes were wide-set, her chin strong, the lines of jawbone and cheek-bone both prominent, balancing each other with a geometry that was intriguing in its imperfection. They were wrong, and they were lovely. She turned briefly, widened her wide mobile mouth into a personal friendly smile that managed to touch each individual in the room with its private intimacy. I am here for you alone. Liar, thought Sam Hardacre, even as he unwittingly smiled back. She brushed by within inches. She was taller than he expected from her screen image. No doubt her co-stars were all tall men, or standing on soap boxes. But she was not as tall as she appeared either, he realized, as for an instant he found himself looking down on to the glistening divide of her smoothly-parted hair.
It was the slenderness of her figure that implied height, an almost boyish figure, narrow at the hips, and surprisingly broad at the shoulders, with a hint of masculine straightness about them that made the feminine sway of those hips all the more devastating. He smelled her perfume and, startlingly, her sweat. She was working hard at creating that shimmering fantasy, working up the same earthy smell familiar to his own body out on the decks of the Dainty Girl. That salty tang did more for Sam than the scent of Chanel drifting behind her with the last sleek fold of her frilled narrow skirt. As she turned to greet a photographer’s shout her hair, softer than her lilac mink, whipped across his upraised wrist with a touch like candle flame. ‘My God,’ he whispered, years of celibate composure shattering in the white-blue explosion of the photographer’s flash.
Then she was gone. A door had opened, black dinner-suits closed about her, an escort, a bodyguard, and like a queen in train, she left the crowded room empty in her passing. Sam became aware of his surroundings in a rush, like a man rising from a faint, and remembered first off Jan Muller and Mike Brannigan, as if recalling the last moment of consciousness before the dark. He turned, half-expecting to see Jan gone, but Jan was standing silent, his eyes on the door that had taken Janet Chandler, then he, too, seemed to stir from lost awareness. Mike Brannigan was standing virtually beside him; they had forgotten one another.
Jan glanced sideways to Sam and their eyes met. Jan looked away, shaking his head, embarrassed, and telling by his sudden confusion that his mind, too, had flickered through the same bedroom labyrinth as had Sam’s. ‘So beautiful,’ he whispered at last, his accent suddenly heavy on his voice.
‘Best bit of ass in the business,’ said Mike, with something approaching paternal pride. He was grinning his cocky troublemaker’s grin and Emily Barton, having watched and absorbed everything, now suddenly leapt into the fray, clutching Jan Muller’s dinner-jacketed right arm and obliging him to unball the fist he was preparing for Mike’s jaw.
She cried loudly, ‘Oh do be my escort Jan. I feel quite lost without Philip.’
‘Good God,’ said Harry Hardacre, never thinking to have heard that, but as Emily successfully dragged Jan into the waiting auditorium Harry gathered up Hetty’s arm and followed. He was as stunned by the vision of Janet Chandler as anyone else, but not for reason of her beauty. He acknowledged that; it was indisputable; but what had struck Harry silent upon seeing her was something far more private, something only Harry perhaps could see. It was the eyes of his long-dead brother, Joe; strong, determined and ruthless, looking out from a young girl’s smiling face.
The crowd rapidly thinned. Sam Hardacre was left suddenly alone on an empty piece of lush carpet, with a slender young girl standing a few feet away, unmoving. It was Ruth Barton. She stood very still, her arms awkwardly hanging at her sides. Her shoulders were girlishly slumped, her dress, with its full ballet-length skirt and matching gauzy stole, looking suddenly too old for her. Her hair, in its fashionable urchin cut now looked merely dishevelled, as if mussed by a distressed childish hand. She was quietly crying. Sam crossed the room hurriedly, gently taking her arm behind the thin elbow.
‘Hey, sunshine,’ he said, leaning down. ‘Did they go off and leave you? Never mind, I’m still here.’
He felt a real surge of anger for Emily, even though Emily had acted hastily and more or less on his own behalf. But when Ruth looked up to him, he saw in her wet eyes a grief deeper than desertion, a humiliation more crushing than childish discomfort.
‘No, I’m quite all right, thank you,’ she said. ‘I’m not a child.’ He believed her. It was not a child’s voice, but the voice of a wounded woman. And so, to the woman, he spoke, in the words of the poet his Uncle Harry had read to him throughout his childhood,
‘But I being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet …’
Sam leant down over her, indicating the red carpet of the theatre foyer. He smiled and bent his handsome face down close and kissed her tear-stained cheek.
‘Tread softly …’
Sam straightened and with his arm through that of Ruth Barton walked slowly into the darkened theatre where the screen was already flickering with its own tapestry of dreams.
Sam did not enjoy the film. He hardly saw it, and remembered so little that the discussions of its merits afterwards were an embarrassment. His mind was filled with other thoughts. Foremost was Jan Muller and his startling confrontation with Mike Brannigan. What were they to each other, he wondered, and where had they met? For there was no doubt that they had met and in less than friendship, that was also obvious. What their connection had been and, more pertinent, what it might mean now to his new enterprise he could only guess, and the guessing was both wild and disturbing. He had never had much respect for Mike Brannigan, and there was a family conspiracy of silence over his questionable past. He was, like someone’s ill-trained but beloved watchdog, the sort of thing families put up with for each other. But only now did it occur to Sam that he knew even less about Jan Muller, and absolutely everything he knew came from Jan himself. It had never occurred to him to question the man’s integrity. He was Heidi’s son. Heidi’s son whom Heidi had not seen for nearly twenty years. In that time, in the savage times that Jan had lived through, what might have happened to him and how might it have moulded him forever? He thrust the thought aside, ashamed, and yet it pursued him. His only escape was the moving imagery on the screen before him, and that, he quickly realized, was no escape at all. For there was Janet Chandler, hugely overgrown and disguised, albeit by the character whom she played. But the disguise was like one of those lacy black masks that ladies wore to fancy dress balls, that covered only the thin ribbon of face that held the eyes and let the eyes themselves gaze out to deny their own mystery. It was a disguise that enhanced, that drew the eye, rather than deflected it. And whenever he looked he could smell that sharp tang of marvellously controlled effort and, whatever the virtues of the heroine on the screen, they were neither so bold nor so devasta
tingly romantic as the courage displayed by one young girl holding a room in awed submission to nothing but her own dream of herself. Sam knew he would see that girl, that dream-maker again, in the flesh, in hardly more than two hours’ time, and the film became only a distraction, a veil between him and that moment and he wished suddenly he could brush it away like so many cobwebs and touch the real woman beyond. The desire was so strong, and so unnerving that at the end of the film he vowed he would go back to Earls Court alone, and not on to the promised party, rather than risk a meeting that threatened his own sure control of himself. But it was a vow, like his determination to turn the Dainty Girl and run for the safe harbour of home, that he knew he could not keep.
The party after the showing, a tradition as unavoidable as the champagne and the mindless kisses for everyone, was held at Claridges, where Janet Chandler and her entourage maintained a suite for their London stay. Whether her separate residence indicated a split with the Brannigans, or merely a variance in her taste in hotels was not clear. Maud and Albert would know, Sam realized, but Maud and Albert seemed quite unperturbed by that separation, as indeed they seemed quite unperturbed by everything. The glamour and the drama made no impression on their gentle calm. Maud smiled happily when people praised her daughter, and Albert watched with gentle dignity. Sam briefly wondered if the clamour and excitement tugged painfully at his memories, bringing him back to the London he knew once, the London that had once known him. But watching that straight-backed decency, that patient smile as foolish people gushed over him, asking him how he liked London, forgetting he was British, forgetting entirely when London had been his, Sam knew otherwise. Albert Chandler had survived the roller-coaster of the theatrical world all these years for one good reason: Albert had a seatbelt, called truth. He had been good. That was the truth. Never great, but good. Times and fashions changed; not his intrinsic worth. Sam, watching him walk, forgotten and content, from the theatre that worshipped his daughter on every hand, wondered if Janet Chandler was so protected.