by Bel Mooney
“… but don’t you think it’s very important, Tony, for a man to be ambitious? I mean, men like your father, and Sam and Pete, will tell you that this world won’t respect anyone who doesn’t go out and get what he can, as fast as he can. Don’t you agree?”
“Uh-huh,” said the youth, chewing on garlic bread.
“You think I’m right, don’t you, Sam?” she persisted, turning to her right and smiling at Luenbach, who was holding the chair out for me.
“’Course you’re right, Zandra. You’re always right. I always say you could spot the size of a man’s pocket-book at five hundred yards.”
She looked uncertain whether to laugh, then did. “Now then, I’m being serious, Sam! Tony’s saying he thinks none of it matters, and I’m saying it does,” She was looking at him playfully. Luenbach simply shrugged. Then, astonishingly, Tony spoke, slowly, like one out of practice: “Yeah, well, Zandra, I, uh, like I know whatcha saying, but Dad says I’m gonna be all right, okay? So what’s the point of thinkin’ about it, huh?”
“Thing about my brother is he’s so sharp,” said Miranda, in a clear, high voice, “I bet they’re all real scared on Madison Avenue knowing he’s about to hit town.”
“Aw, get lost.”
“You too, fink.”
Carl was about to speak, but his mother rested her hand on his wrist. “Now, listen here, you children, you didn’t ought to talk to each other like that. And at your Poppa’s dinner table too!” She shook her head sadly, and patted Carl’s hand.
Miranda glared at her brother down the table. “I’m real sorry, Grandma, but it’s too bad! There’s me telling everyone I wouldn’t work for Dad ’cos I gotta make my own way, and there’s him wanting it all on a plate.”
“Huh, what flunky job could you do for Dad?” mumbled Tony, wiping his bread around the inside of his soup bowl. “Too skinny to be a centrefold!” The women smiled; Corelli and Luenbach looked down at their plates, as if it was sacrilege to think of the boss’s daughter in that light.
“How would you know?” said Miranda, haughtily. “I can be whatever I like.”
“And she’s sure pretty enough to be a fashion model,” added her grandmother fondly.
Miranda looked pleased, and smiled broadly at her father, switching in that instant from temper to persuasion.
“Would you let me go to model school, Dad? Would you let me try that? It ’ud be swell.”
“We’ll see, honey,” said Carl, abstracted.
“Hey, Dad, what would you do if I met this guy and he was a photographer, and he wanted to take nude pictures of me. Real nice ones, like … you know.” She glanced at Lace and Marylinne, across the table. “Go on, Dad …” her voice was teasing, “What would you say? What would you do?”
There was a silence. We all looked at Carl, who clinked his teeth against his glass, his eyes above the rim never leaving her face – before putting it down with a thud. “I’d – BREAK … HIS … LEGS,” he said, his mouth a short straight line.
Nobody spoke. Miranda stared back at her father, and I saw how alike they were, neither willing to drop the gaze first.
“How did you like Atlantic City, Babs?” Zandra asked loudly.
“Oh, we had a really good time, didn’t we, Annelisa?” I said.
She just nodded. Nobody said anything, so I babbled on. “I’ve never been very interested in gambling, though. But the whole place, it reminded me of Blackpool in a way – the same mix of wholesome fun and a tackiness that’s almost sinister. Do you know what I mean?”
Zandra looked puzzled. “Blackpool?”
“Haven’t you heard of it? To any English person it sums up cheap, working-class holiday resorts – funfairs and candyfloss and rock. I’m amazed you haven’t heard of Blackpool.”
The lack of interest around the table was a negative force, pulling me into silence, but I fought against it. “I hear you’re thinking of opening a hotel, Anthony?”
“Yup, there’s big money to be made in Atlantic City. If it comes off it’ll be the biggest resort hotel.”
“With six restaurants,” interrupted Corelli, “Anthony looks after the gambling and I look after the food.”
“Will there be a 1203 Room?” I asked, and for some reason he thought this funny.
“Nah, each restaurant will be a theme, you know? All with Eastern names …”
“Even the fast food one?” asked Marylinne, with a hint of a smile.
“No, we’re gonna call that ‘The Empress’s Kitchen’,” he replied. “But the biggest one will be real beautiful. We’re gonna call it II Seraglio, and all the waitresses will wear those see-through harem pants.”
“Eeel what?” Marylinne was grinning openly now.
This time he pronounced it phonetically. “It was the harem, stoopid; all those Muslim Emperors had so many women they used to keep ’em all in one building, and have a different one each night of the week. Mmmm-mm!”
“So what did all those chicks do the rest of the time?” asked Lace.
“Each other, I guess.” His laugh made his blueish jowls shake.
Annelisa looked up, and across the table.
“Oh, that would suit you two,” she said, smiling sweetly at Marylinne and Lace.
At that moment the Spanish cook came in to clear the plates, so we were spared Marylinne’s reply – but her face was dark. Lace simply looked down, blushing.
The cook carried in an enormous dish of paella which she placed in front of Anthony. He thanked her in Spanish, smiling graciously, as if the meal were not an hour late. Marvelling at how quickly the man could change from boorishness to charm, I watched him carefully – the way he hunched his shoulders over the dish, serving the meal with diffidence, as if unused to being host. Despite his millions he was still an awkward youth from downtown Detroit who probably disguised his lack of ease at grand social occasions by being rude to people, giving them what they expected from the owner of a skin magazine. He worried about his hair, I could tell, by the way he raised a hand to it every so often, as if it might be growing thin. His teeth too; I guessed he had been conscious of gumminess as a teenager, for he smiled in a tight, self-conscious way, unnaturally keeping his upper lip down. It could make his face look mean, it could transform it into likeable vulnerability, depending on his mood. And, I suppose, your own perception of him.
Mine shifted. In the lines of every face I would see its past: layers of parent-into-infant, child growing, awkwardness of unfinished teenager, adult finally formed (corrupted even) by all that had gone before. Seeing all this clearly how could I make judgements? I felt at the time that I could see all Anthony Carl was by glancing to his right at the neat, composed face of Emmeline, the heroic widow who brought up her son to be ambitious and patriotic, like the best all-American boy, and claw his way from relative poverty to riches in the land of opportunity (and how these cliches pile upon themselves, like Emmeline’s nuggets of wisdom). She made him, just as Annelisa’s mother made her … Mothers, never forgiving us (in truth) for hijacking their bodies, and so punishing us forever by making us their creatures – even after death. Looking at Emmeline’s grey head, I superimposed the face of my own mother – and understood why one of the worst terms of abuse in the United States, the nation of moms, is the ironically abbreviated, “You mother!”
The conversation drifted in and out of Spanish food, Italian cooking, French pretension (clearly an obsession of Carl’s), and diets (which obsessed the women). Suddenly Marylinne said, “Hey, do you remember how oily that food was in Greece?”
“It was not good. It was not good,” said Zandra, shaking her head solemnly from side to side.
I asked when they were in Greece. Carl looked at me with the irritatingly enquiring look of people who expect you to know something they have not bothered to tell you.
“We shot the movie there?” he said.
“Oh, I didn’t realise,” I said.
“It’s a Greek story, Barbara, if you remember, so I gu
ess it was logical for us to shoot on a Greek island.” Sam Luenbach’s tone was dry.
“Where did you put it all together?”
“Where else but Wardour Street?” Carl replied.
“London?” I don’t know why I was surprised. Somehow I had not expected Carl’s first contribution to the history of the cinema to be edited in my own city, and yet I knew it was normal practice, especially if the material was questionable.
“Sure. In fact, we thought of calling you to see if you’d like to come view the fine cut, but I guess we ran out of time.” Carl’s voice was apologetic, as if he genuinely feared I might be offended.
“We’d have liked your opinion, Barbara, because we think we’ve made a very, very exciting movie …” said Zandra, in the same solemn voice, as though she were discussing a theory on the treatment of the bereaved.
“Breaking new ground,” Carl interrupted.
“Right.” Zandra was nodding like one of those toy dogs people put in the backs of their cars. “And that’s why these problems we’re having …”
“Look, honey,” said Carl, “every citizen of the United States is entitled to be free from censorship, under the First Amendment.” I suddenly realised he was talking to me.
“I know,” I said.
“So if we don’t work something out with customs here, we’d be glad of a little help back in England. Some publicity, you know?”
I knew. “But I’m not …” I started. Carl was sitting back in his chair, looking enthusiastic. “I can just see a piece in the Sunday Post, investigating the state of freedom in the US. You could have some stills from the film. Like … er … we’d pick ’em carefully. And maybe some pictures of me and Annelisa …”
“I could ring them; maybe they’d put a writer on to it,” I said lamely.
“Sure. A top writer. That’s what it needs. If we don’t get to show The Nights of Penelope in this country it’ll be a serious blow against freedom in the arts.”
“The arts?” I asked.
“Right. Books, movies … what does it matter? It’s all freedom of expression, honey. What we need is a worldwide campaign to stop these guys who think they can tell us what to see.”
He had grown unusually agitated, bringing his hand sharply down on the table. Sam Luenbach was calming. “Listen, Anthony, if we don’t get that movie past customs I’ll go work for Jerry Falwell myself.”
They all laughed.
“I guess it’ll be okay,” said Carl at last.
“Sure it will, son.” Emmeline patted him in that way which set the nerves screaming in my teeth.
“I’m sure you can handle customs, Anthony,” I murmured.
Corelli let out a bellowing laugh, “Sure he can! Ain’t none of those little finks gonna beat Anthony Carl, Emperor, and the First Amendment – all three!”
“Anyway, what’s wrong with the film?” I asked, watching Annelisa. “I mean, from what I’ve heard it sounds like a good story.”
“You got it! Any woman who sees that movie will really identify with the Queen – you know, Penelope?” Zandra said, her eyes shining. “There she is, her husband gone, surrounded by all these guys telling her she’s got to marry one of them, and what does she do …?”
“Well, if I remember rightly, she says she’ll choose once she has finished weaving a piece of tapestry. But each night she secretly undoes what she’s done. So she stays faithful to Ulysses.”
“Who?” asked Marylinne.
“Sorry, I mean Odysseus, her husband.”
Zandra was frowning slightly. “Uh huh – well, we, uh, got rid of the tapestry idea. And we have Penelope do her own thing.”
“Oh? You mean she doesn’t stay faithful?”
“Come on, honey,” said Carl. “You tell me why a woman should stay faithful to a man who’s been away for ten years fighting somebody else’s crummy war?”
“I don’t know. It’s just the story,” I said.
“Yeah, well, we’ve changed it.”
“How?”
“Get this – each night she chooses a different guy and does her thing, and then in the morning … zip.” He drew a finger across his throat.
“I’m sorry? You mean she kills him?” I was still watching Annelisa, who was picking at a prawn with her long fingernails, tearing it apart.
Carl laughed. “No, she doesn’t kill him herself. It’s a plan, between her and Tellymakus. He’s her son.” He gave a throaty chuckle, adding, “and a bit more too. You see?”
I saw. “Sounds very, er, inventive.”
Corelli exploded again. “You got it, baby! You name it, they do it!”
Everybody laughed, but Carl held up a warning finger. “Okay, but I don’t wanna talk about it in any more detail in front of the kids.”
“Aw, Pop!” groaned Tony.
“For God’s sake, Dad!” hissed Miranda, flushing. “Don’t call me a kid.”
“You know what I mean, baby,” he said in a crooning voice, “I just think there’ll be time enough for you to know about all this stuff later on.”
“Oh, my Gahd!” Miranda’s fork clattered angrily down on her plate. Annelisa coughed, as though choking on a piece of food, then glanced sideways at Miranda with dislike mixed with envy. Carl’s daughter noticed and looked superior.
“How old were you, Annelisa, when you first knew about all this stuff, as Dad calls it?” she asked.
“I can’t remember.” Annelisa looked down sharply.
“Why, I can tell you,” said Marylinne, “I first took my clothes off for a photographer three years ago, when I was seventeen.”
“My age,” said Miranda.
“Yeah, honey, just your age. But I guess I was different. I knew the score,” said Marylinne.
Peter Corelli threw his arm around her shoulder and squeezed, making her wince. “This girl, she was born knowing the score. She learnt it at her Momma’s knee.”
“Too right,” said Marylinne, in a brittle voice, “me and Lace and Annelisa – we all learnt it at our Momma’s knee.”
“Speak for yourself, okay?” said Annelisa angrily.
“What’s wrong, honey? Want to join a nunnery now? Forget it – they wouldn’t let you in for fear of what you’d do with the statues!” Her laughter pealed.
At that moment the cook came in again, to take away the plates, and I was glad for Annelisa’s sake. She looked as if she could have struck Marylinne, were it not for the expanse of table between them. During the clatter she sat, head down, hands in her lap, like a child who has been reprimanded in public yet is forced to stay there, humiliation disguised as a sulk.
The conversation broke up into fragments, Corelli and Luenbach talking tennis across the table, Anthony recalling desserts Emmeline used to make, drawing “Ohs” and “Ahs” of nostalgia from his mother, Lace and Marylinne comparing the fabric of their dresses, Zandra asking me politely whether I thought the Princess of Wales was now more popular than the Queen.
“You should teach me to cook, you know, Grandma,” said Miranda, handing her father the spoon to serve the chocolate mousse. “It’s her clothes we all love over here; she’s far more elegant than we expect the British royals to be. We just love her!”
All smooth again, the wonderful family weekend Emmeline wanted, dollops of sweet brown stuff in bowls being handed down the table, more white wine poured into glasses, a toast quickly proposed to the cook who smiled broadly and looked (for a second) as if she was about to curtsey, the chink of spoons on china … All this going on around Annelisa, whose hands were hidden, like her face, and whose pudding stood untouched before her.
Eat it, for heaven’s sake, eat it. Before they notice.
As if she had heard my thought, she picked up her spoon, and slowly raised a mouthful to her lips. Then, suddenly, she dropped the spoon back into the dish with an ugly clatter, pushed back her chair, and rushed from the room.
Lace spoke first, her voice hesitant, “You shouldn’ta said that, Marylinne, about t
he statues.”
“Jesus, I was only joking, okay? I was thinking of that scene where the guy’s disguised as a statue and she susses him out.”
“Yeah, but Marylinne, she’s a Catholic.”
“So what?”
“So am I, honey, and it don’t bother me!” said Corelli.
“Yeah, but …” Lace shrugged and said no more.
“Anyway,” said Zandra, “I’ve never seen Miss Nebraska down on her knees praying, or trying to catch Mass. So what’s with all this?”
“Just being a pain,” said Miranda.
“In the ass,” said Tony.
“Where else?” said Marylinne.
Anthony Carl looked irritated. “Too right! I don’t know what’s gotten into her these days. But, whatever it is, I don’t like it one bit. Hey, honey, go make her come down again.”
Zandra left the room to do his bidding. “Maybe she’s just tired,” I said, “she had such an early start this morning, and then we walked a long way in Atlantic City…”
“Listen, I only allow my women to be tired when they’re expecting a baby. And Annelisa’s about as likely to be pregnant as I am,” growled Carl.
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“’Cause I never saw no bionic woman with a baby!” he laughed, and of course everybody joined in.
It was a few moments before Zandra returned. She slipped into her seat, looked down the table at Carl, and shook her head.
“Where is she?” he asked.