Mirror, Mirror

by Paula Byrne

  Rancho Notorious

  I can’t remember the exact year when it happened. Those years of having babies merge and blur. But I remember that it was after her return to Berlin. She was resting before another tour. We were in New York when she suddenly gripped my arm, and, speaking in German, said, ‘It’s my leg, my leg. Get me into Tiffanys so I can lean against the counter and rest.’

  I knew it was serious, because Mother loathed Tiffanys. The saleswoman could barely contain her excitement when Madou walked through the door. Mother leaned against the glass counter, while an array of jewels were proffered.

  ‘Hmm, the stone is OK, but the setting is ugly. What kind of man would buy that for his mistress?’

  As soon as the pain subsided, she indicated to me that she wanted to leave. The shop assistant looked disappointed.

  ‘What happened. Mutti? Are you in pain?’

  ‘It’s my leg, it just collapsed. Now we must get to Knize for the fitting. I don’t want you to fuss.’

  For the next two hours, she stood still as she was fitted for her trouser suit. But I was alarmed, and insisted that she saw a doctor as soon as she returned home. She constantly complained about American doctors, but was delighted when this one prescribed strong painkillers. He became the first of her more obliging physicians.

  Mother searched for reasons: was the pain worse in the humidity or in the cold? She discovered that it subsided after a few glasses of champagne, so she began drinking in the morning, and carrying a plastic bottle, filled with champagne, in her handbag. She refused to tell anyone about her problem; stars must never have flaws, never become mere mortals.

  Her new favourite drugs were Dexedrine and Chlorodyne, the latter stored in very thin, cobalt-blue bottles with a cork stopper. Those bottles went with her everywhere, and she thought nothing of washing down that viscous black treacle with copious amounts of champagne.

  I kissed her goodbye, said that I would see her the next time she was in California, and told her to keep her leg raised when she flew back.

  There’s a Younger Generation

  The two of them are arguing again.

  She thinks she has the Child back under her thumb. Every night now, the table in front of me in the dressing room is loaded with liquor and pills. In the early days of her touring, her habits never appeared to affect her performance. She was perfectly in control, as she slithered down the staircase in her long fur coat and tight dress. Once she complained that her leg hurt, so someone suggested that she use the banister rail to steady herself. She was furious, screaming that only old ladies needed banister rails. She would never stoop so low.

  But over the past few months she has been losing control. The crew were at a loss. Burt was smart enough to see that he would not be able to stop her from doing whatever she wanted. So he called Kater and begged her to become her mother’s dresser. The television jobs were drying up and the husband was no breadwinner. There would be good money, Burt coaxed. And surely she could see that she was the only one who could keep her mother’s show on the road.

  So here she is. Old times again.

  ‘Sweetheart, look at my panties, I’m staining again. I thought I was pregnant. This time, I am keeping the baby. Now, where are my firecrackers?’

  ‘Mutti, the tampons are in the bathroom cabinet. The one over the basin. Let me find them for you.’

  It would be pointless for either of us to try to explain the menopause to her. If she decides that she is to have a baby at the age of sixty, then that is what she is going to do. Mother Nature is no match for Madou.

  ‘I have a pain in my leg. I need some of those vitamin shots, the ones they give you in the backside.’

  ‘Mutti, it’s all this travel, and living out of a suitcase. You need to buy a home.’

  ‘I bought you a home, and Papi a ranch. Why you need a big house, I will never know. You know what Boni says: Suitcases are more important than houses.’

  ‘OK, Mutti. But just maybe you should think about it. Now what about your finale? I was thinking a line of chorus girls, dressed in tails and top hats.’

  ‘Borrrrring. I was thinking of my ringmaster’s costume, but you know, have a real lion. Maybe I could put my head in its mouth, you know like that ridiculous Mae West film. It is Vegas, after all.’

  Her daughter burst into laughter. ‘Mutti, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Who else did you see?’

  ‘That terrible woman Taylor was there tonight, with Wilding. He likes her to dangle her enormous breasts in his face, and yet he couldn’t take his eyes off me. Sinatra, too. Frankie is sweet, tender. He is so grateful when you do it. But you know, he drinks too much with those pals of his. And he’s so jealous. Just like Boni and Mo.’

  ‘Did you see the King? Did he come to the show?’

  ‘No, and he didn’t call. He knows I am here. I know it’s all because of that Swedish horse. I think he’ll finally get a divorce from that whore. Rossellini told me everything. What she put that poor man through. No wonder he sought comfort in my arms. How could I say no? Anyway, Kirk came. We had a cosy dinner at his beach house.’

  ‘Did you see Noël?’

  ‘Yes, I did. I told him he doesn’t understand how it is that one man can be a woman’s whole life. That’s because he does it to boys in the ass.’

  ‘Mutti, tell me about your legs. Did you see the doctor?’

  ‘You and your doctor fetish. Doctors are only any good when they’re specialists, and I don’t know what’s wrong with me, so it’s no good going. Like surgeons. They just want to cut you up. Why? Anyway, the cortisone stops the numbness. You should try it. But then you keep having all those children and playing house, so you probably won’t. But you know me, I never complain. I was too well brought-up. I always put others before myself. What would you know about sacrifice?’

  Kater pales and begins to speak, and then thinks better of it. I must confess, she really has become a rather charming woman. Marriage and motherhood become her. She is slender as a wand; her complexion is flawless. She abstains from alcohol and never touches junk food. That girl I remember, who always avoided my gaze, has blossomed into a very beautiful swan.

  Show Business at War

  My sons adored their grandmother. When she was ‘resting’, she would come to ‘her’ house, and take over. Dressed in her white nurse’s uniform, she would walk them in the park, and take them out for tea. What she lacked as a mother, she more than compensated for as a grandmother. But she was never to be called Grandmother, she was always Massy.

  After seventeen years together, touring the world, Burt has decided to quit. Mother was sanguine when he told her that he was leaving.

  ‘I’m lucky to have had him for as long as I did. Now he’s writing stupid songs about raindrops on heads.’

  ‘Mutti, your show is perfection. You don’t need Burt. You just need a new conductor. Your show runs like clockwork.’

  Mother began to undress.

  ‘You know who was there at dinner tonight? The Duke of Windsor and that elegant skeleton. Do you remember when she made him wear that awful kilt and dance a Scottish reel? I always regret that he turned me away that time. She spent the whole night staring at my jewels.’

  ‘How are your legs feeling? Do you want me to arrange for you to see a proper doctor?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with my legs. You know my mother had a problem with bad circulation in her legs, but that’s because she was old.’

  ‘OK, Mutti, but let me know if you change your mind.’

  ‘I never change my mind. Neither about books or men.’

  Mother was furious because I was pregnant again.

  ‘That report from that dreadful man, Kinsey. “Put it in, pull it out.” Why do American people have to be told this sort of thing? You should ask that husband of yours what he thinks about it. You have so many children, you
must do it a lot. All those times I’ve looked after your children when you go away for your dirty weekends. I’ve boiled your nappies, made the formula, scrubbed the floors, and what do I find in your fridge? Jell-O. You should never give a child that stuff.’

  ‘Relax, Mutti.’ I can see she is in one of her moods.

  ‘Last night Michael took me out to dinner. I had to sleep with him because that woman’s in Rome doing her Cleopatra picture. I felt sorry for him. He asked so nicely. He did that thing to me that sounds like an Irish airline. We broke the double bed in my room. Afterwards it was all cosy. Well, you wouldn’t know about that. You, so faithful, thinking you’re above everyone else with your happy marriage.’

  Long practice had taught me to ignore Mother’s barbed comments. I always felt that I had disappointed her by my insistence on a normal family life. My husband was bewildered by my delight in the quotidian; children’s pencil cases, for example. What were they? Many things that civilians (as my mother called non-celebrities) took for granted, were a delight to me. Standing in a line, for example. Going to a café for a cup of coffee. This, she could never understand.

  And I still had my secrets. But she had hers, too. What had really happened to Aunt Birgitte? Why had she told the press that she was an only child? And why had she cut Birgitte out of every family photograph, leaving only the beautiful daughter, with the long blonde hair, sitting beside her parents? So we both had our secrets. And we would probably take them to the grave.

  We Were Dancing

  ‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean? She is not the least bit like me; all those children and that boring husband. How closely women clutch the very chains that bind them.’

  ‘She’s happy and contented.’

  ‘Nuts. She was happy with the life she had with me. She’s having all these children to spite me. And she’s having all these boys. A daughter is for life. She’s doing it on purpose.’

  ‘Darling, that is quite untrue, and you know it. She’s had her problems.’

  ‘Oh you mean her weight. She just needed a little discipline.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. Look at her now. Quite the beauty.’

  ‘When you are beautiful, you have the world on a string. And who would not want that? Particularly if you can get hold of that string without any effort. The ugly girls do not fare so well. The glass slipper does not fit. Prince Charming is oblivious to their frantic efforts. The Beauty does not have to try hard. Everything that is good, everything she desires, falls right into her beautiful lap. General rules do not apply. She has an extra-special set of rules all of her own. Even as a child, she gets the extra candy, the special dress that she doesn’t really need. And then when her bracelet is full of charms, and the boys swarm around, and her mother says, “I don’t know how she does it, my little Beauty”, she knows that she can rely on her looks to get her heart’s desire, once she sees how it works. And the more it works, the more value she puts on this asset. She has no real joy, but she does notice that.’

  ‘And what of the Ugly Duckling? You cannot know how this feels. You, who have been gifted with beauty from birth.’

  ‘Lucky is the Ugly Duckling. Don’t envy the pretty duckling. You will have time to be alone, to read, and to make friends. In the realm of love and happiness, beauty lies like a feather on the scale of values.’

  ‘You are still beautiful, Joan. Perhaps even more so. But he won’t leave his wife. They rarely do. Men are creatures of habit.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right.’

  ‘You’re not a mystery to me, Joan. Do you mind? You’re transparent as glass.’

  She lights another cigarette. She’s smoking far too much since the war, and it’s bad for her legs. She worries about touring without Burt by her side. Her daughter can be there some of the time, but she has her family to think about. If only her daughter preferred women. Let’s face it, homosexuals worship their mothers.

  Later, the King calls. Then he turns up, with a whisky bottle under his coat, smiles that boyish smile, and she forgives him, promises that she won’t ask any more questions, won’t demand anything, will just take the little she can get. She is scared of being alone. She is so thin that she seems to be held together by her clothing and her jewels.

  He leaves after half an hour. Absence is to love what the wind is to fire. It blows out the small one and lights the big one.

  The Happy Mother

  One of my children was ill, so I couldn’t go on the next tour.

  Mother told me that the first night at the Palladium without Burt was terrifying, but she refused to let it show. The courage it took to stand alone in the spotlight on a darkened stage filled with hundreds of people. She followed the same routine, though she stumbled a little through the first song. Her audience was spellbound. She has made it. Alone.

  In Wiesbaden, she fell off the stage for the first but not the last time. She had failed to see the edge of the stage in the darkness. She carried on, even though the pain was severe. Mo von Goldberg was in the audience with his son. Later they had dinner and talked about old times. It was only in the safety of her hotel room that she called me.

  ‘Kater, I fell. But I had to carry on. Mo was there. My shoulder hurts.’

  ‘Mutti, listen to me. You need to see a doctor, immediately. There’s an American hospital in Wiesbaden. I’m going to call them now and arrange for you to see a doctor.’

  ‘You know everything. Only you would know that there’s a hospital in Wiesbaden. It’s not too bad. I tied my shoulder with a Dior scarf and it felt better. You see, I couldn’t see the edge of the stage in the dark.’

  I wondered whether Mother had had too many glasses of champagne.

  It proved to be a broken collarbone. But soldier that she was, she carried on with the tour.

  It was pitiful to think of Mo seeing her tumble. Her humiliation. His embarrassment. His fallen angel.

  The next fall was more serious. The story became famous. She was in Washington, enjoying the applause as she sang her final song. In honour of her orchestra, she pointed to the pit, and then, without warning, toppled over into the darkness below. The audience gasped in horror. She lay there, immobile and hissed, ‘Don’t touch me, clear the theatre, clear the theatre.’

  Blood was seeping from her legs. She remembered the doctor’s command, to stay still. When everyone had left the theatre, she asked to be carried to her dressing room. Then she phoned me. I remember every word of our conversation.

  ‘Mutti, what is it? Is everything OK?’

  ‘Sweetheart, I fell.’ Her voice was soft and fragile.

  ‘Did you hurt your legs?’

  ‘Yes. There’s blood everywhere.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The left.’

  I knew that this was bad: the left leg was the one with hardly a pulse.

  ‘Mutti, listen to me very carefully and do everything I say. I’ll book a flight first thing in the morning and be with you as soon as I can. Do not remove your support stockings, they will pull away your skin and will need to be cut away carefully. Wrap a clean towel around your leg.’

  ‘But I’ve already done it, they were covered in blood.’

  I was terrified about the dirty floor and the threat of infection, but the voice on the other end of the phone remained calm. She would need a tetanus shot. Who could help her?

  ‘Don’t raise your leg high, keep it flat.’

  I could sense that her leg was raised already.

  ‘Mutti, ring Teddy Kennedy. He will know the best doctor in Washington. Now keep warm and get to your hotel and stay warm.’

  Fear trickled through me at the thought of what could happen with an open wound that could not heal without a proper blood supply.

  When I arrived at the hotel, it was worse than I had imagined, the wound as larg
e as a fist. But she was bandaging her leg, ready to go onstage in the evening. The show must go on.

  ‘Mutti, what did Teddy say?’

  ‘About time you got here. That dreadful conductor man. He did this to me. I reached towards him and he pulled me down, like a rag doll. And where was Burt when I needed him? Singing his song about raindrops falling on heads.’

  ‘Did you reach Teddy?’

  ‘I told him I won’t go to hospital, so he arranged for a doctor to see me here.’

  For once, that night she had to cancel. She was distraught at letting down her fans.

  We turned her hotel suite into a first-aid station. Disinfected the tiny kitchen in her pantry, and stocked it with medical supplies. Because she refused to go to hospital, the doctor advised us to keep the wound as sterile as possible until she came to her senses. She refused to cancel her tour, would listen to no one, except her favourite quack who administered a shot of ‘vitamins’ into her groin. Fortunately, there was a week’s break before the journey to the next venue.

  On my way to fetch supplies, I was accosted by the conductor, a lovely, gentle man, who was white with shock.

  ‘I promise I didn’t pull your mother off the stage. She says I did it to her, but I would never hurt her, she stumbled and fell.’

  I assured him that it wasn’t his fault. She had her version of the truth and she would stick to it. In the meantime, I watered down her Scotch, and removed her glass whenever I could, throwing it into the nearest plant pot. The plants had never looked so good.

  Remarkably, she recovered, and her enforced sobriety did wonders. She continued her tour in Montreal. I stayed with her. Her first-night performance was the best I had ever seen. Her skin was luminous, her gait steady. She was sixty-three and had never looked better. She had designed a new foundation of pink soufflé that moulded her body, and a sheath of glimmering pearly bugle beads gave off an iridescent light. No one in the audience would ever have noted her agony or guessed that beneath the glitter her leg was oozing and bleeding.