Movie Shoes

by Noel Streatfeild

  Jane was trembling. This was about the loveliest thing that had ever happened to her. This was magic. She crept inch by inch nearer to David, her eyes never leaving Bob and Mickey. Then something, perhaps a twig snapping or a stone slipping, made a disturbance. There was a flutter of wings, a hoppity-hop from Bob, Mickey and Bob were gone.

  David was quite undisturbed. He still spoke in a whisper. “Come a step nearer. That’s right. Now I’m going to throw the food. Then I’ll play again, and we’ll see.”

  David threw some nuts for Bob and crumbs for Mickey. Jane, scarcely able to breathe, saw that one nut was almost touching her left foot, and a crumb was actually on the toe of her right shoe. She wished so hard it felt as if the wish must show coming out of her head. “Oh, let Mickey trust me and take the crumb off my foot. Let Bob fetch that nearest nut. “

  David was playing, and at first nothing happened. Then from behind one of the rose bushes a pair of gay little eye and a nervous nose came peeking. Then with a couple of hops, Bob was in the open, picking up the nut farthest from Jane, nibbling it, and looking at her while he ate. Then there was a flurry of wings and Mickey, from the safety of David’s shoulder, studied Jane. “Who is this girl? David seems think she’s all right. Shall I trust her?” Suddenly he made up his mind. He fluttered off David’s shoulder and, seeming unfussed, began picking up his crumbs.

  Jane held her breath. Although she could hear the dim hum of voices far away, there seemed nobody in the studio herself, David, Bob, and Mickey. Bob’s little teeth pleased chewing sound as he daintily picked up his nuts. There was only one left. The one near Jane’s left foot. Would he trust her? Would he? Then suddenly he was there. For a second she felt his soft, warm body against her foot. She looked down. He had skipped away to eat his nut, but far, and while he ate it, his eyes said, “You’ll do.” Suddenly Mickey was sitting on Jane’s right toe. Jane was proud she felt tight inside. “They trust me,” she thought. “I almost believe they like me.”

  Jane’s-Mr. Browne’s voice came from behind David. “Grand. Can we get rolling?”

  David did not stop playing; instead he nodded.

  For Jane that part of the test was not test at all; it real. The garden was bathed not in artificial light but in real sunshine. It was not David sitting under a tree in a painted garden in Hollywood but Dickon under a real tree in Yorkshire. He spoke with Dickon’s Yorkshire accent. “Don’t tha’ move. It’d flight ‘em.”

  Jane was not Jane; she was Mary, standing still as a rock. Of course, she wouldn’t move. It would be dreadful to “flight” Bob and Mickey.

  David went on.” I’m Dickon. I know tha’rt Miss Mary.” Jane was looking just as Mary must have looked-her eyes shining because for the first time she was being trusted by wild creatures.

  Jane would not have minded how long that test took, but suddenly it was over. The cameras stopped turning, the lights were out, and she was told to run along and get changed. David stayed where he was. He said he would wait and take Mickey and Bob back to where they lived a little later on.

  Jane’s Mr. Browne seemed pleased. Mr. Browne said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if old Chewing-gum got that package after all.”

  It felt queer to be outside the studio, riding home in the studio car. It felt queer to be just Jane Winter again.

  Bee turned and looked at the storage tanks with “Bee Bee Films Incorporated” written across them.

  “Well, it’s been an exciting day, even if nothing comes of all those tests.”

  Jane stuck her chin in the air.

  “I think something will come of them. I thought I was very good.”

  16

  Something for Everybody

  Tim was making money. Not a great deal, for the people who ate at the Antonios’ drugstore took his playing as part of the service, like ice water. Mr. Antonio gave Tim a box in which to keep his money, and he made a ceremony of counting the daily total. As soon as the last luncheaters had left, he would call out. “Tim you come here.” Tim would go into the office at the back. It had a red velvet tablecloth on the table, and there were artificial flowers on the table. The walls were covered with religious pictures framed in shells.

  Mr. Antonio would open a purse and tip what was in it onto the red velvet tablecloth. He did the counting because Tom was slowat American money.

  Mrs. Antonio would waddle in and stand at the end of the table, making admiring sounds. When the count was good, her eyebrows, hands, eyes, and shoulders would go up, and she would say in a gasping voice, “Santa Maria! One dollar eighty-five!” or whatever the sum was.

  On an afternoon soon after Jane’s test the money-counting ceremony had a surprise ending. The count was extraordinarily good. Tim’s share was nearly a dollar. He was just going when Mr. Antonio said, “Tim, see what is here.” Like a conjurer bringing a rabbit out of nowhere, he laid a parcel on the table. Tim looked first at Mrs. Antonio and then at Mr. Antonio. Yes, the parcelwas for him. They both were smiling, in so pleased a way that Tim, without knowing what was in the parcel, smiled, too. He undid the string and pulled away the paper. It was music, but what music! There were about fifty sheets of it, and every one was the sort you could hear by putting a nickel in a machine called a jukebox. Tim did not know what to say. The Antonios were so pleased and proud he could not hurt their feelings, but what would Mr. Brown, and Mr. Brown’s grand friend Mr. Jeremy Caulder, would say if they knew he was playing that sort of music as part of his practice time? Tim had been able to feel he was not doing too badly because he was playing things Mr. Brown had let him play. But this music!

  Luckily Mr. and Mrs. Antonio thought Tim was silent h cause he was too pleased to speak. Mr. Antonio winked at Mrs. Antonio.

  “We make a surprise, Anna.”

  Mrs. Antonio, chuckling and shaking all over because any movement made her shake, said, “What did I say, Tony! It is no good to make the same music every day. Now Tim play the new music, and the patrons pay big money.”

  Tim took the music home. He could not, of course, play it; but he could read it through, and he could talk over the situation with Bella. He did not catch Bella alone until the evening. She was making what she called biscuits and the family called scones. She was nice to talk to because she knew the moment a person came into her kitchen whether it was just to visit or to discuss something serious. She could see that Tim’s call was serious. She moved her cooking utensils and made room for him at the end of the table.

  “What’s on your mind, son?”

  Tim undid the parcel and laid the sheets of music out so that Bella could read all their titles.

  “This! Mr. and Mrs. Antonio want me to play this. They bought it as a present. I just simply couldn’t tell you how Mr. Brown hates this sort of music-at least, almost all of it.

  Bella looked calm and undisturbed.

  “You earning money?”

  “Yes. I don’t know how much exactly, but I should think in English money it’s almost a pound.”

  Bella put her biscuits in the oven. She came back to the table. She shook her head at Tim. The trouble was, she he was not trusting enough. He was thinking he could decide the way things should be done, but the Lord had no time that. He had seen Tim fixed right with a piano; but there had been no talk about music, and maybe the Lord was not aiming to fix the music. Or maybe He was aiming to fix it, and this was the music He would enjoy hearing Tim play.

  Tim went to church every Sunday, but in England he had not thought of the things he heard about on Sundays as being mixed up with weekday matters like the Antonios’ music.

  Bella, though, whom he considered about the most sensible person he knew, thought they did mix.

  “Do you suppose, Bella, if I play all this music, the Lord’s aiming to fix me another piano? Perhaps even one in Aunt Cora’s sitting room?”

  Bella looked solemn.

  “You can’t tell. You just relax, son. You’ll see. The Lord may be fixing for Jane to go into movies just so you c
an have your piano.”

  Bella was also a help to Rachel. Usually she was finishing clearing the breakfast dishes when Rachel came to the porch for her dancing practice. To Bella anything that you wanted enough came, though, as she had told Tim, not always in the way you planned to have it.

  “But what I really need, Bella,” Rachel explained, “is for Aunt Cora to think my dancing classes so important that she’ll drive me to them every day, or let Dad drive me. The classes are at five each day and all Saturday mornings. That’s rather a lot to ask, isn’t it?”

  Bella’s face cracked into one of her widest smiles.

  “It’s no good asking the Lord for that. The Lord’ll just look down and say you should know Miss Cora better than that. No, what I figure the Lord’s aiming to do is to fix up a car for Mr. Winter.”

  After that, each time the doorbell rang Bella would say to any of the family within earshot that maybe it was the car for Rachel or the piano for Tim. A few days after Jane’s test the front doorbell chimed just after Tim had rushed off to his morning piano practice. Rachel was on the porch dancing. Jane was angrily helping Peaseblossom clean the upstairs passage. Bee was polishing the downstairs passage. The bell ringer was Jane’s-Mr. Browne. He looked awful, Bella thought. Terribly tired, with rings half down his cheeks. He told Bella he would not come in; would she fetch Mr. Winter?

  Because Jane’s-Mr. Browne would not come in, they all heard what he said. Rachel came to the porch door. Bee leaned on the polisher. Peaseblossom and Jane hung over the stairs. Bella stood holding the front door. Mr. Browne sounded as if he were exhausted.

  “She’s got it. It’s been a fight. We started on her tests twenty-four hours ago, and we went over them most of last night. Bettlelheimer and I battled for her against the rest. We won somehow. Will you come up to the studio at half past two to sign the contract? You’ll have to take it to the judge of the Supreme Court to be ratified. Our lawyer will instruct you about that. Jane has to go with you. As soon as the judge has given his okay, Jane has to attend the studio school. You’ll hear all about that this afternoon. So long. I’ll be seeing you.”

  He was just going when he remembered something. He felt in his pocket for a piece of paper. “That car you wanted. There’s a friend of mine at this address who’s going to Europe. He says you can use his old Ford you’ll go to his place, he’ll hand it over.”’

  When the door shut behind Jane’s-Mr. Browne, there silence all through the house. Jane could not move or anything. She could only think over and over again, “I’m going to be Mary. I’m going to be Mary. I shall see David, Bob and Mickey every day!” Peaseblossom thought, “Good gracious! Jane! Bless the child, who would have guessed it! Quite a feather m the family cap. Up the Winters!” Rachel clasped her hands and thought, “I mustn’t be jealous. I mustn’t be hateful. I must just think how gorgeous it is about the car: But, oh, dear, I wish it were me.” Bee, leaning on the polisher, thought, “I’m sorry. John may be right and it’s good for Jane to shine, but I’m sure it’s going to be terribly hard work, poor darling. John, standing by the shut door thought, “Well, that’s that. No going back now. I hope we were right to let her do it. We must wait and see.”

  The silence was broken by Bella. She clasped her hands and said, “A car! The Lord’s sent a car! Next thing we know there’ll be a piano standing right in front of this door.”

  Jane felt that the day should feel special, like a birthday. It did not. It went on in a dreadfully ordinary way. There was the excitement of John’s fetching the car. He took them all for a run as far as the Antonio’s drugstore to drop Tim off for his after-lunch playing; then he drove straight back to Aunt Cora’s and turned them to them all out because he said he had to go to Bee Bee studios. When Jane said she would go to the studios, too, he said nonsense, she would soon be seeing more than she wanted to of the Bee Bee studios. She was to go for a good walk with the others and finish up with a swim, Jane thought this was a very offhand way to treat a person who had just become most important, and she sulked for therest of the afternoon. “Never mind,” she told herself. “When I get to the studio, they’ll almost bow, they ‘ll honor me so.”

  Nobody noticed Jane’s black-doggishness, for everyone had other things to think of. First there was Aunt Cora. They all supposed she would be pleased about the car. Almost every day she had said in her whiny voice that she knew they thought she was a meanie about the car, but her poor dear Ed had always said it ruined a car if you let anyone else drive it but yourself. So they supposed it would make her happy to hear she did not have to bother about them anymore because of the Ford. Not a bit of it. Aunt Cora, on hearing the news, had what she called one of her nervous spells. Her whiny voice rose to a squeak. She said John had been grumbling to the studio people about having no car. She would have gone on talking like that much longer; only Bella came in and took her away to lie down. The children exchanged looks which said “What an aunt!” Bee and Peaseblossom were upset and worried and refused to believe Bella when she said it was just one of Miss Cora’s turns and of no importance.

  The other thing which was worrying Bee and Peaseblossom was Jane’s engagement. It was the law of the United States of America that a child’s parent, guardian, or teacher had to be with the child all the time it was on the studio lot. Who was that to be? Bee was the obvious person to go, but that would mean John would never have Bee with him in the afternoons when he was not writing. And for him to enjoy himself and get well was the whole point of their coming to California. Peaseblossom was rather keen to look after Jane at the studio, but if she did, what about Rachel’s and Tim’s lessons?

  “I suppose,” she suggested to Bee, “you couldn’t teach them sometimes? Of course, not mathematics or Latin-those never were your subjects-but you can speak fair French, and you were quite a dab at English literature.”

  Bee groaned. She thought the future looked pretty bleak whichever way she looked at it.

  “I hope it won’t come to that. Anyway, I’ll start off taking Jane, and then we’ll see.” Then she added, “I’m John’s right and it’s good for darling Jane to have this chance to shine. But oh, how I wish Her-Mr. Browne had never seen her!”

  Rachel, too, was wrapped up in worries. Tomorrow was Sunday. Posy Fossil had kept her word and invited her to spend the day. Since she had been in California, Rachel had been noticing American girls of her age. Not a great many came to this part of Santa Monica, but those who did come spent the day with neighbors, and sitting on the beach, Rachel had studied visiting girls carefully. They usually arrived in shirts and three-quarter-length slacks. A little later they changed into a sunsuit, and when they went into the water; the sunsuit came off, leaving a smart skintight bathing suit. In the afternoon they put on pretty frocks. Rachel hated to think of meeting a film star in an old cotton frock, Trudging along for the afternoon walk, she turned over various ideas. If only, oh, if only she had a pair of those three-quarter-length slacks, how gorgeously right she would feel! Rachel glanced back at Bee and Peaseblossom. Was it any good appealing to them? There might still be time to do something. One look at Peaseblossom’s and Bee’s faces, and she gave up that idea. Rachel set her mouth almost in the way Jane usually set hers. Very well then, she must manage something on her own.

  Tim lagged far behind everybody else, singing at the top of his voice. He did not know the words of the Antonios’ fifty songs, but that did not matter as they were mostly silly and very like each other, and he preferred words he made up himself. It was clear that the Antonios were right; even in one day the eaters had shown they liked that sort of music, for they had not only paid more but had bought him ice cream sodas and Cokes as well. “Oh, lovely California,” Tim sang where the sun shines every day … Oh, gorgeous California, where people pay money so the Lord can send me a piano.

  John did not get back from the Bee Bee studios in time for a swim. It was getting late when he drove the Ford up to Aunt Cora’s front door. He called to the family to c
ome out and look at it once more before he put it beside Aunt Cora’s in the garage. John had been looking better and better every day since they arrived in California, but the car seemed to make him absolutely well. Almost better and happier than he had been before the accident.

  “You can arrange about your dancing lessons, Rachel. Here’s your car and your chauffeur. Tim can be picked up at his drugstore in the afternoons, and we’ll start our expeditions from there. We’ll see everything. Do you know there’s a place not so far off called Death Valley? What about that for an expedition!” He caught hold of Jane. “And we’ve you to thank, bless you.”

  John’s gaiety was catching. Bee and Peaseblossom forgot Aunt Cora’s nervous spell. Rachel, for the moment, stopped feeling like a worm or caring about her clothes. Tim enthralled by the sound of Death Valley that he hopped around the car, repeating the exciting words. Jane’s black dog dropped off her shoulder. It was happening! It was coming true! She was the important one. “We’ve you to thank, bless you.”

  In California it did not get dark the way it did in England. In England there was a soft grayishness which grew thicker until it was black night. In California the sun shone; then it flamed into a sunset; then it popped out of sight in a matter of minutes. It happened then. One minute they were looking at the car, and the next John had to turn on its lights to drive it into the garage.

  “I do like nights in California,” Rachel said. “There are such a lot of stars.”

  Tim was still hopping around, saying, Death Valley.” He stopped in the middle of a hop. “What I like is that singing from all the trees as soon as its dark. Bella says it’s tree frogs.”

  Jane took a deep breath. “I like it, and it likes me.”

  That was a very Jane-ish remark, but nobody mentioned it. Instead Bee said “I’m glad, darling. I can’t tell you how much I hope you’ll go on feeling like that.”

  17