A Woman of Integrity

by J David Simons

  The awful sound of a police siren woke her. Was it her imagination, or had the sound of these emergency vehicles become more urgent, more strident these days? She had a dull ache behind her eyes, her mouth felt incredibly dry, she wondered how long she had been asleep. She fumbled inside her bag for her phone. She had several messages. All from Sal:

  Important news. Can we speak?

  We need to talk.

  Where are you?

  Where the hell are you?

  Christ, Laura. Turn on your cell

  Chapter Forty-Four

  The Hepburn Archives

  Extract from an unpublished memoir

  I often wondered why I married Doug. Perhaps when it came to my encounters with men, he was my last temptation, my final dip in the relationship pool before I decided that an independent, single life would be best for me. Certainly on rational reflection I should never have done it. But sometimes life catches us off-guard and we end up making decisions we shouldn’t have. There were certainly a lot of things pushing me towards him at the time. I was lonely and Doug was there. I was vulnerable as I tried to deal with the deterioration in my mother’s health and Doug was there. I missed the excitement of wartime flying and Doug was there. I was at a loss about what to do with my life and Doug was there. He could also connect me to the world of film and acting that in some part of me I still missed. Fundamentally, there was a huge vacuum in my life and Doug was able to fill it. It was a decision based on need not love. And that is never a good basis for a healthy marriage. Or maybe it is, depending on whether you both need the same things.

  The wedding was a small affair in the village church. My family were there, of course. Aunt Ginny, Uncle Richard, the two boys Oliver and Percy, Susan was my maid of honour. My mother was in a wheelchair by then, she didn’t really know what was going on but she did seem happy enough, probably because she still thought it was Douglas Fairbanks Jr. I was marrying. From Doug’s side, there were his two children, William and Kathleen, both in their early twenties thank God, too old to care too much about the presence of a wicked step-mother stealing their father away. A few villagers, some film people from London, a couple of the ATA girls and that was it. After all, I was a middle-aged spinster and Doug was a divorcé – the quicker we were in and out of that church the better.

  There had been talk of Aunt Ginny taking my mother but she needed round-the-clock attention so we moved her into a care home. Doug settled in with me at the cottage, neither of us having much money, it appeared the best arrangement. As Doug spent a lot of time commuting into London, he kept on his flat in Shepherd’s Bush. I suppose I was happy in those first few years as we struggled financially waiting to see what would happen with Doug’s great film project. I spent a lot of time going back and forward to the care home, taking my camera with me, photographing my mother then later many of the residents, listening to their stories, gaining their trust.

  The young are so impatient with the elderly these days, always dismissing them, never stopping to hear what they have to say. Yet we – I can say ‘we’ for I am old now myself as I write these words – yet we carry with us so much history, knowledge, experience and wisdom, it is a shame that the young allow themselves to waste all of that. I suppose that is the great tragedy of human existence in that the old know what it is like to be young but the young don’t know what it is like to be old. Of course, there are those who say that the young need to create their own histories, knowledge, experience and wisdom, and there is some truth in that. But for me, I have gained so much from listening to the wisdom of my elders. It has infused my work, helped me to create three dimensional portraits of them in my photographs, for I was able to capture who they really were.

  My mother died relatively peacefully. Of pneumonia, the death certificate said. I was at her bedside when she breathed her last brittle breath. It wasn’t so much that she died, it was just that she finally disappeared, just like that little white dot you used to see when switching off the black-and-white television set. Over the years the person she had been was vanishing bit by bit right in front of me until ‘click’ she was no longer there. It had been such a slow process that it was almost as if I had indeed switched off the TV programme of her life and said: ‘Oh well, off to bed then.’ I had seen people at the care home become quite angry and frustrated as their lives closed down on them. My mother didn’t really know who I was by the time she went but she was kinder and gentler to me in her deteriorating years than she had ever been since my father died. It was as if she had returned to being that little girl I had once espied as I looked down on her from my perch in the apple tree.

  Oh yes, I was writing about Doug. You see, every time his name comes up in my mind I want to veer off somewhere else. I must concentrate now. Write everything down.

  His film was a huge success, we all know that now. Limehouse. An absolute triumph. The heralding of a new era in film-making. No more war films, no more silly comedies, no more adaptations of historical novels. Modern, gritty dramas on an epic scale. Six Oscar nominations, Doug winning his two for Best Director and Best Screenplay. Our lives changed overnight. Suddenly I was thrown back into that glamorous world I had been evicted from in my youth.

  Those first couple of years, I really enjoyed being on the coat-tails of Doug’s success. The focus was all on him and I didn’t mind that at all. In fact, I preferred it that way. I would turn up at these premieres and charity balls and house parties and snap away with my camera. No-one seemed to mind or at least they didn’t say anything for fear of offending Doug. Doug who was planning his next great picture, Doug who was looking around for his new cast, Doug who was the darling of producers in search of the next fruitful investment.

  I had access to all the great stars of that era on both sides of the Atlantic. Audrey Hepburn, Marlon Brando, Cary Grant, James Stewart, James Dean. Click, click, click. Vivien Leigh, Ava Gardner, Laurence Olivier, Gary Cooper. Click, click, click. Never posed shots. Lying by the pool (Brando), playing cards (Leigh), powdering her nose (Bacall), sprawled out on the sofa (Dean), playing with our dog (a labrador called Rollo, everyone loved him, especially Bardot). I kept them all, intimate moments – without make-up, without guile – stashed away in a box in the basement of a beach house we were renting in Malibu. But I always felt these photographs of the stars were a form of cheating when it came to my work, the viewer being drawn more to the celebrity of the subject than to the essence of the person. Even in their most casual moments, their stardom somehow acted as a filter between the viewer and the viewed. That was the opposite of what I was trying to do in my work. I remember once saying to Susan that it would be interesting if one day in the future, when these actors and actresses had been forgotten, to display their photographs alongside those of ordinary people. Would their star quality still shine through?

  Where was I? Rambling on, anything but Doug. Nothing succeeds like success. That’s what they say. And that’s what carried us through those first few years. Of course, Doug had affairs. I would have had to have been a fool not to see that coming. He may have been in his fifties, but he was still good-looking. He was what they call these days an Alpha-male. He had money, he had power, he had access to all the young actresses desperate to please him. Marion MacDonald was one of them, the star of Limehouse, nominated for an Oscar for her performance, didn’t win (much to my not-so-secret glee). It didn’t really matter to me. Doug and I hardly had sex that much anyway in those days, why should I blame him for seeking satisfaction elsewhere? It was what happened later that I never forgave him for. When he entered what I called ‘the trough’, that period of five years or so after his career went into a downward spiral and before he was able to resurrect it again with his last great film. Aptly entitled To Rise Again.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  A Slap in the Face

  Jack once told Laura that the best way to avoid being hounded by the general public as a celebrity was paradoxically to go out and mix with the general publ
ic.

  ‘Take the subway, take the bus,’ he would say. ‘Go to the mall, the park, the deli. Wear your ordinary clothes. That way people will say – Isn’t that the actress, Laura Scott? Naw, it couldn’t be. What would she be doing flying economy, eating in a diner, browsing in a bookshop?’

  So here she was now, stumbling through the trees in Highgate Wood with a splitting headache, her jacket all covered in mulch and leaves, her sunglasses nowhere to be found, her heels catching in the earth causing her feet to twist painfully, and a couple of young mums harassed by their toddlers scooting around on an array of miniature vehicles, looking at each other and mouthing words she couldn’t hear but guessing one of them was saying: ‘Isn’t that Laura Scott?’ While the other was responding: ‘But it couldn’t be. What would she be doing staggering around half-drunk in Highgate Wood in the middle of the afternoon?’

  It was with some relief therefore that she managed to find herself an unoccupied bench far away from the gaze of Jack’s general public. She brushed off the leaves and other muck, discovered her lost sunglasses in her jacket pocket, tied on a headscarf, pressed down on Sal’s name on her contact list. He answered immediately.

  ‘Where you been?’ he asked.

  ‘Lunch,’ she drawled.

  ‘It’s five in the afternoon. I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day.’

  ‘I see that. What’s all the fuss about?’

  ‘I got some news.’

  ‘Good or bad?’

  ‘Good and bad. What do you want first?’

  ‘Is this a joke?’

  ‘No, I’m serious.’

  ‘I’ll take the good then.’

  ‘Sir Lew’s going to fund the play.’

  ‘Oh, that’s fantastic. I’m so happy. I was just saying to Victoria, you have to follow your dream and the universe will take care of you. See, the pieces are falling into place.’

  ‘Laura?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re forgetting the bad news.’

  ‘What bad news?’

  ‘Are you sitting down?’

  ‘I suppose I am.’

  ‘He doesn’t want to do it with you.’

  ‘Who doesn’t want to do what with who?’

  ‘Lew. He doesn’t want you to do Georgie by Georgie.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He wants to use it as a return vehicle for Caroline.’

  ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘That’s what he wants. Remember I told you about him taking advice from the actuary guy. Well, that was the advice. To go with Caroline.’

  ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Caroline as Georgie? Fucking Caroline as Georgie. Sitcom Caroline who was just a pair of tits in a tight sweater about a hundred years ago. Don’t tell me Fredrik thinks she’s more bankable than I am?’

  ‘Yep. I’m afraid that’s what he’s saying. Look, Laura, there’s no better way to put this than just to tell you the truth. According to Fredrik, the play stands a better chance of success if it is used as a platform for the return of an extremely popular sitcom star from the late nineteen seventies. Rather than as the stage for a fading film actress. His words not mine.’

  ‘And you supported him?’

  ‘Of course, I argued your corner. You were always my first choice, Laura, you know that. But we… I need the funding. Lew’s the one calling the shots.’

  ‘Surely we can get the money elsewhere?’

  ‘If we waited long enough perhaps. But Lew’s offering very generous terms right now. Business is business, Laura. You know how tough this industry is. You’re a far better fit for Georgie than Caroline. A million times better. But I’ve got to take Lew’s offer.’

  ‘Fuck Lew.’

  ‘Laura…’

  ‘And fuck you, Sal.’

  Still with an aching head, Laura paid off the taxi, stomped up the steps of the Regency terrace mansion with its cream pillars and glossy black door so shiny it might have been a mirror she was looking at rather than a panel of painted wood. She buzzed on the intercom and almost gave the ‘V’ sign to the eye of the discreet camera tucked away in a top corner of the portico. The butler Robert or Ronald or whatever his name was answered the door but kept an arm across the threshold so she couldn’t brush past.

  ‘Where is she?’ Laura shouted.

  ‘I’m afraid, Madam isn’t…’

  ‘Where is…?’

  Caroline’s voice interrupted from up in the stairway. ‘It’s all right, Ronald. You can let her in.’

  Laura strode into the spacious marble hallway, catching her heel on some fabulous Persian rug which possibly cost more than her entire debt to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, causing her to stumble forward. It was Ronald who stopped her falling, grabbing her arm, easing her upright.

  ‘Let me show you into the lounge,’ he said as if nothing had happened.

  Laura found herself gently coaxed along into the stunningly bright blue and yellow room of her previous visit.

  ‘Can I get you something to drink?’ the butler asked.

  ‘She doesn’t want anything to drink, Ronald,’ Caroline said, waving away her servant as she entered. ‘She just wants to harangue me.’

  ‘Actually, I’d quite like a gin and tonic, if you don’t mind,’ Laura said, although the last thing she needed was another quantity of alcohol to add to her lunchtime intake.

  Ronald looked over at his mistress and Laura saw a slight twitch develop at the corner of his left eye as he was caught between Caroline’s command and the demands of the guest.

  ‘Oh, very well then,’ Caroline said. ‘Make that two.’

  Laura chose to sit in an enormous armchair which was a mistake as it immediately engulfed her, forcing her back into what she saw as a defensive position. She pushed herself upright, then had to wriggle to the front edge of the cushion just so that she could face Caroline with a straight back and neatly folded ankles. Now that she was here, she felt the strength of her anger begin to ebb. She was no longer in the mood for confrontation. All she felt like doing was taking a couple of aspirins, putting on her sunglasses against the blinding brightness of the room, falling asleep where she sat.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Caroline asked. ‘You look a bit pale.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she snapped back.

  ‘So?’

  ‘I thought we were friends.’

  ‘Of course we are.’

  ‘Then why are you stabbing me in the back?’

  ‘What did Sal tell you?’

  ‘That Lew would only invest in the play if you got the title role.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Apparently that Swedish actuary you placed beside me at dinner advised him it was better to have a comeback queen rather than a fading star.’

  Caroline threw her head back, laughed like a neighing horse. ‘Is that what he told you?’ she said, as she shivered herself back into some sort of composure.

  Before Laura could respond, the conversation was forced to stall as Ronald returned to the room with their drinks which he placed on little tables beside where they sat. Caroline flicked her fingers against the thigh of her cream trousers while Laura contemplated the expensive art work that adorned the walls, none of which reflected Caroline or Lew’s own tastes, but instead the abstract designs of their mutual friend Victoria. Within this tense silence, Ronald stepped away from his finished task, dipped his head slightly, and left.

  Caroline reached forward but instead of taking her drink, she plucked a cigarette out of a box of Marlboros, lit it with a bulky silver lighter in the shape of a genie’s lamp. She sucked at it nervously then picked up her glass. ‘Old friends,’ she said with a slight slur.

  Laura raised her own glass but ignored the toast. As she began to emerge from the haze of her own lunchtime over-indulgence, she realised Caroline might have been slightly drunk herself, here in this vast house in the early evening with only her servants for company. She was immediately reminded o
f the unhappy, insecure student she had once known Caroline to be, the young woman who feared men were only after her for her body, a fact of life she had eventually succumbed to. Laura had only to look around at this expensive home to see what Caroline’s physical attributes had achieved.

  ‘So is that what he said?’ Caroline asked again.

  Laura had lost the thread of a conversation she felt she should be controlling. ‘Who?’

  ‘Sal. Comeback queen versus fading star.’

  ‘Fredrik told him that.’

  ‘What a coward.’

  ‘Who? Fredrik?’

  ‘Sal. Fredrik has nothing to do with this.’

  ‘I thought he advised Lew on his investments?’

  ‘Laura. This is a tiny production. A minuscule speck of a thing. Why would Lew want to get involved in something like this, never mind bring Fredrik on board? The amount of money that Swedish calculator charges per hour would be enough to take care of your box office for a year. Lew turned down Sal right from the off.’

  ‘So, who is…?’