Mirror, Mirror

by Paula Byrne

  ‘Sweetheart, it’s wonderful to see you again. How was the chocolate in Switzerland? Haven’t I always told you Swiss chocolate is the best? And what about this acting school of yours? But why do you have to be in New York? I have to go back to Hollywood, darling. I have no money for you and Papi. I love France, but it’s twenty years behind America – holidays all the time, no tempo – just eat, eat, eat. In Paris, I had to sell my furs, just to pay the hotel bill. I watched the planes going off to the sea, and I felt like the girl in the fairy tale looking after the birds flying away for the winter.’

  As usual, Mother talked non-stop about herself. Rarely asking questions about my life. She was now in her forties, adrift from the studio, lonely and homeless. She had no money and many dependants. Worst of all, she had nobody giving her orders, telling her what to do.

  Her lovers had been pushed away. Papi only ever asked Mother for money. Her affair with the Frenchman had come to an end, so, for once in her life, she was off France. They had reunited briefly in Paris, but she was bored by his jealousy and his insistence that they marry and have a child. On VJ Day she watched the parade alone from the Champs-Élysées: ‘Angel child, my heart was heavy with memories and loneliness in the rain.’

  Her beloved Europe was in ruins. The Europe that was in her blood had dwindled to a memory, but she still longed for it, forgetting that it was gone for ever. She told me that she even had to sell her jewels.

  ‘Remember when we had rooms just to store the luggage, and now he expects me to share a bathroom. I told him that maybe I need liverwurst sandwiches, the solace of the afflicted. I came back to be with you, sweetheart. Like old times.’

  When she took off her gloves, I looked at her hands. They were bright red, which frightened me. She said that she had trouble sleeping.

  ‘Mutti, be careful with those pills.’

  She lit a cigarette with her GI lighter.

  ‘Quatsch. They never touch me. I’m too strong for them.’

  She turned and looked at me as if she were seeing me for the first time. As if she had seen a ghost.

  ‘Are you eating, sweetheart? What are they feeding you?’

  ‘I’m on a diet, Mutti. All the girls do it. And I walk so much in New York. It’s so different to Hollywood. I cycle in the park, too.’

  ‘Well, I want you to come with me. I’ve rented a house in Brentwood. With a blue swimming pool.’

  ‘Mutti, I’m not a child any more, and if I’m to do anything in the theatre I need to be here in New York,’ I said gently.

  She asks me to send a telegram to her general to call off the affair. She wants me to know that she is desired by a much younger man, but he is part of her war adventure, not Hollywood. She has her sentence ready.

  ‘Love is a conjuring trick done with the most beautiful mirrors in the world.’

  How Do You Do, Middle Age

  That pathetic excuse for a daughter has refused to accompany her mother, so she returns to Pasadena, alone. She opens her compact and fixes her lipstick. At the station, she is gratified to find she is welcomed by the press. It’s a reminder of what once had been: ‘Madou, did you ever sleep with Eisenhower?’

  ‘How could I, darling? He was never that close to the Front Line.’

  ‘We hear that you’ve been awarded the Medal of Freedom. Congratulations.’

  ‘It’s the thing I’m most proud of. Acting is a demeaning occupation. We are merely circus performers.’

  ‘What did you think when you heard of Hitler’s death?’

  ‘Oh, that horrible dwarf. I once tried to kill him. Never trust a man with short legs. His brains are too near his bottom.’

  There is no lover to meet her. Mo is long over her, and her husband has stopped answering her letters. All she has left is Boni. She writes to him, telling him that she wants to live in the desert, because in the desert you can’t put down roots, and that suits her. Boni writes back. She sits at her vanity and opens his letter, every now and then glancing up at me, to see her own face.

  ‘It takes a strong heart to love without roots. I imagine you dressing for the evening, combing your hair. Your swift walk. Your shoulders. The voice, as supple as your body. You ask to stay friends. Never. Try to grow a small rose garden on the ashes of broken feelings? No, this will never work for me and you. Love should not be spoiled by friendship. The end is the end.’

  She crumples his letter and tosses it into the basket. Really. Boni is so dramatic. She looks at me, and panic flits across her lovely face. A wrinkle has appeared on her cheek. She pushes it apart with her fingers. She will have to do something about this blemish.

  It’s this constant worry about money that’s giving her wrinkles. The poor darling needs a picture. But in Hollywood, stars have to carry on behaving as stars, because God forbid that anyone suspects the truth that you’re over, gone, yesterday’s news. Hollywood is different now. It’s another world. Travis, and Dot, long gone. Black, black nostalgia.

  It’s my place to offer some homespun wisdom.

  ‘Swish your skirts aside from life’s realities. Thousands of people have talent. I might as well congratulate you for having eyes in your head. Your motivation is your pay packet on Friday. Now get on with it.’

  Yes, she needs to make another picture. She needs to reinvent herself. The studio has offered her a role about a gypsy, and she likes the sound of it. She mustn’t let people think she’s all washed out – a whiff quickly turns into a stench.

  She no longer commands the highest salaries, and she has her pride to think of …

  ‘Pride. Pride tastes awfully good, especially when the crust is flaky and you put a meringue upon it.’

  She bursts into laughter. I always know how to lift her spirits. As the light fades, she pours herself a drink. The pleasant, familiar warmth steals through her veins, her troubles slowly beginning to fade. More than anything, she wants money and success, but she knows there’s a penalty attached: loneliness.

  She takes out a sheet of notepaper and writes a final letter to Boni: ‘My feet are cold every night without you, and presently I suppose I will be cold throughout.’

  Nights of Love

  We married in secret. It was a squalid affair in a register office. I wore a cheap black dress and carried a bunch of supermarket American Beauty red roses. Mother was furious, but she put on a good show for the photographers. The day after the wedding, she marched me off to her gynaecologist to have a diaphragm fitted. No babies were allowed. Madou was not ready to be a grandmother.

  Martin and I were too drunk to do anything the evening of the wedding, but the next night, the evening after the wedding, I was scared. Scared of intimacy. Scared of myself. There was no booze in our rented apartment. Not a single drop. It was time to face the music.

  Over and over again, my new husband told me that I was so sweet, and so innocent. He knew that he was my first boyfriend. He told me that he would never hurt me. That he loved me. Words I had longed to hear for so many years, would have taken them from anyone, and, now that they had arrived, were terrifying.

  I wanted to tell him who I really was, but I had kept the secret for so long that it had become part of me. I cradled my sin, like I once had cradled my doll. I fed it, I protected it, I loved it. Now I tried to hide it by wearing a long, white cotton nightgown, which I pulled over my knees.

  He was kind and tender, kissing me gently. But he didn’t understand when I pulled away and began reciting a poem.

  A sudden blow: the great wings beating still

  Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed

  By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,

  He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

  How can those terrified vague fingers push

  The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?

  Martin was sweet. But he wasn’t a poet.


  The marriage lasted barely a year. I took cash jobs to buy booze. It was easy to stop eating, when I needed the money for bourbon. My diet still consisted of soup made of ketchup mixed with hot water. I lost the pounds and gained the men. I would take anyone who would have me. Anyone who promised to love me, even a little. My lost years are a little hard to recall. They merge together in a blue haze. I know that I put myself in danger, and the more dangerous the better. My sin with strangers. One-night stands. These were my favourite. Better than food. I felt nothing. That was the point. Nobody could penetrate my small, secretive heart.

  I finally got a proper job as a dresser to a drag queen called Sophie Tucker. His real name was Walter. He was over six feet tall and bald as a pigeon. His wardrobes were made of cedar to house his extensive collection of sequinned dresses. His accessories and wigs were carefully catalogued in archive boxes. It was like the old days of Hollywood, the smell of coffee and wig glue. I was expert at binding him, stuffing newspaper into his shoes, sewing on loose sequins.

  He fed me, tucked me into bed at night, worried about me, and loved me. I never forgot him. He was a better mother to me than anyone could ever have been. Then I ran out of money. I called Mother and she immediately wired money to bring me home to Hollywood. I came slinking back to Brentwood, and climbed into her bed. Mother was thrilled that the ‘love of her life’ was back. If she smelt the brandy on my breath, she never mentioned a word.

  The next morning, she made a telephone call to Papi to discuss the divorce: ‘The Child is back. She has come to her senses. It was just one of her girlish infatuations, like Jack. Papi, we have to try with detectives to prove that Martin is a homosexual, and then we can get a divorce for the Child. She will live with me. She wants to resume her acting at the Academy. But she can help me here at the studio. Have you sent the pills?’

  I resumed my studies at the Max Reinhardt Academy on the corner of Fairfax and Wilshire Boulevard. I worked hard by day, drinking hard at night, trying to cope with my early-morning hangovers. It was sad to be a divorced drunk at the age of twenty. My first major role was the lead in a play called Mourning becomes Electra. Mother was excited and invited several of her Brentwood friends. Halfway through the first act, an old air-raid siren suddenly reactivated. The audience knew that it couldn’t be an actual air raid, so they sat listening to the play, and trying to ignore the wailing.

  Mother just couldn’t bear it a second longer. She stood up, and, with a majestic wave of the hand, stopped the show. The audience was horrified and fascinated. She proclaimed that she would stop the noise, and off she flounced, people trailing behind her to watch the drama outside. She somehow found a ladder, climbed up the post with her skirt hiked to her hips, showing her stunning legs, and much more, and then, with a theatrical flourish, stuffed her mink stole into the offending horn.

  Back on solid ground, she pulled down her skirt, herded everyone back into the theatre, told the cast to carry on, and gave a final instruction to ‘Dim the lights.’

  I made myself a promise that I would never ever allow her to come to another show.

  We moved to a small cottage in Beverly Hills. Mother paid for my legal fees and in return I became her handmaiden, just like old times.

  ‘My angel, a cosy net for mother and child. There’s only one bedroom, so we will share a bed.’

  I wondered how long it would take for her find a new lover and for me to be assigned to the couch in the living room. Mother was to star in a new picture, playing a gypsy. She was ecstatic. She phoned Nellie, now back as head of Hairdressing, to discuss her wig.

  ‘It must be coal black, Nellie, dripping with grease. You know that those gypsy women smear goat’s grease on their hair to make it shiny – that’s why they stink so badly. Make the bangs long to add mystery.’

  It was just like old times. We drove through the Paramount gate at dawn, the sky rosy and the air crisp. Mother had been given her old dressing room, and when we arrived, Nellie was there, holding the greasy wig under her arm. Mother was delighted. She loved playing that role. She smeared dirt on her face and body, covered her arms in gold bangles, and made necklaces of fake gold coins.

  She took a dislike to her co-star, who, newly married, was immune to her charms. She couldn’t forgive him, so she found ways of making him pay. She rubbed rotting fish on her skin so she stank to high heaven. On the day of the campfire scene, she grabbed a fish-head from the cauldron and sucked the head, eyes and all. Her co-star ran for the bathroom. The next day on-set she pulled up her dirty petticoats, scratched her crotch (‘All gypsies have lice, you know, sweetheart’), moved her hand seductively down her legs, and then tore off a hunk of bread and popped it in his mouth. She insisted on smearing his face with goose grease – so that it looked real. He hated her for it.

  Mother began playing another game with me. She was furious that I wasn’t sleeping around at the studio. I didn’t want to compete with her. And I knew that she wanted me to behave worse than she did so that she could play the fine lady.

  ‘Mutti, why do you sleep with everyone who asks?’

  ‘They ask so nicely. Then they are so happy afterwards … don’t you find that?’

  So, to please her, I stayed out all night and returned to her dressing room in the morning. She was applying her lashing of kohl onto her eyelids. She stared at me intently in the mirror.

  ‘Well, did he get you?’

  ‘Oh, he wasn’t special, Mutti. Very average.’

  She smiled serenely in the mirror.

  I was such a good liar.

  Pageant

  ‘I do wish you’d give up this sort of thing.’

  ‘What exactly do you mean by “this sort of thing”?’

  ‘You know perfectly well what I mean.’

  ‘Are you attempting to criticise me?’

  ‘I should have thought you’d be above encouraging silly, callow young men who are infatuated by your name. It’s so terribly cheap.’

  ‘Nonsense. Anyone would think I’m eighty the way you go on.’

  ‘Don’t use sex like a shrimping net, Joan. It’s awfully undignified.’

  ‘One more word out of you, and I’m leaving this room.’

  I know what she’s up to. The film is a flop, and she is comforting herself with a succession of dreary, besotted young men. She’s done with older men, with their thinning hair and paunches. She longs for smooth, silky bodies, and strong muscles. Boys like the soldiers she gave herself to during the war. Boys who are grateful, appreciative, and to whom she can teach a few tricks.

  She’s making a damn fool of herself. She can’t fool me. I know her too well. Ah, well. Devouring time, blunt thou the lion’s paw. That’s one fight she is never going to win, but she will give it her best shot.

  When the phone call comes in, she’s insulted. A one-night show in Las Vegas? But when they mentioned the money, she relents. She calls her daughter, who tells her to do it. That she just needs to recreate the one-woman show that she did in the war. Just a few songs, some gags, the musical saw. How about creating the most spectacular gowns ever made? Now she gets it. She returns to her vanity and stares into the glass. Can she still do it? She needs the money. She has no investments. She needs to buy jewels and luggage. Boni once said, ‘A refugee should always have a packed suitcase ready to go at any time. Buying houses is a waste of money.’ And that’s what she is, a refugee. A thousand dollars for one night is not to be sniffed at.

  ‘Maybe it’s not such a bad idea. Vegas worked for Tallulah.’

  ‘But she’s so vulgar, darling.’

  ‘I rather like the idea of Café Society?’

  ‘More like Nescafé Society,’ he sniffs.

  ‘There’s no need to be unpleasant. But I need the right act and the right clothes. Jean Louis from Columbia must make the gowns. But he won’t come cheap. I must speak to the head of the studio.’
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  I can see that she is excited. To have the adoration of all those people; it will be like the war again, and just for one night. A few days later she calls her daughter to tell her the good news.

  ‘Sweetheart. You will not beee-lieve this, the head of Columbia says he will do it on one condition; right there, in his office. In the daylight. In return for Jean Louis and his seamstresses. Naturally I agreed. I’m thinking swansdown, bugle-bead gowns that mould to the skin. Irene is creating a new foundation. It’s a soufflé of silk, weightless, but with the strength of canvas. The dress will look nude, with strategically placed rhinestones. Anyway, I have to go. He is coming.’

  With deep concentration, they take minute strands of wispy hair from along the hairline, braiding them into tight little ropes, then long hairpins are twisted into the scalp and the face is pulled up even further. That instant facelift.

  Nellie places the golden wig over the hair. She is ready. During the day, it will loosen, and the whole procedure will happen again. It makes her scalp bleed and her teeth ache. No matter, she is a soldier. She doesn’t feel pain.

  She has another trick up her sleeve. Travis, long gone, has been replaced with Irene. Irene, a doughy-looking woman, creates the secret to her magnificent body: the ‘foundation’. They guard the secret closely. They create the base from thick, flesh-coloured silk. Getting into the foundation takes effort. She steps into it, fastens the slim inner belt around her waist and then secures the elasticated triangle between her legs and the sides of her vulva.

  She bends over and scoops her breasts into the bra-like structure. Each nipple must be in exactly the right place or the whole process has to begin again. Then she stands upright and is zipped up the back. The diaphanous gossamer overdress is draped over the body. The zip of the outer garment overlays the inner garment zip. There must be no giveaway of what lies beneath.