by Paul Murray
‘Yes, well, not to worry, you can bring ’em back later, or something.’
‘Later, Master Charles, I bring them back to the shop.’
‘That sounds like the best plan, all right.’ I found myself speaking to thin air as she bustled away with the tray. ‘I mean, thanks anyway.’
Whatever they were doing, Bel and Frank kept a low profile for much of the morning, and in keeping with the terms of the pact I refrained from investigating. Passing by her door at one point, however, I couldn’t help but overhear Frank talking about a countess. I wondered what Frank was doing knocking about with countesses, and whether it was anyone I knew, and without meaning to eavesdrop, I lingered there momentarily. But the conversation soon turned to appearing in court, which seemed more in his line, so I continued on my way.
As a matter of fact, I was feeling unusually purposeful after my early start. I passed a fruitful hour at the piano working on the bridge for a song I was composing, entitled ‘I’m Sticking to You’.
You may say that we’re all through:
I’ll tell you that I understand;
You can cry, and say goodbye,
But as you leave I’ll take your hand–
For I know that you need to be free,
But I can’t let go so easily,
A girl like you’s a damn hard thing to leave,
So…
I’m sticking to you
Like gum on your shoe,
Like a cheap tattoo, like the Chinese flu,
Or a nasty cough
You just can’t shake off–
Oh darling, I’m sticking to you.
That was merely a warm-up, however. The double-bill I had fallen asleep during last night had reawoken an idea for a project. I returned to my room and searched amid the clutter under the davenport until I located an old shoebox. Inside, beneath a wasting elastic band, were pages and pages of biography, reviews, snatches of Hollywood gossip, photographs and stills – all of them relating to Gene Tierney, her life and work. I had been assembling these odds and ends for the longest time, without ever quite knowing why. There was something about her that set her apart, that seemed to speak to me. More than any of her contemporaries, her life seemed entwined with the actual, intangible stuff of cinema; every detail had the quality of a fairy tale, or its opposite. The more films I saw, the more cuttings I assembled, the more I felt this vague nagging desire to do something for her – to write something or make something or at least to sort these fragments into some kind of sense.
She was seventeen when she was discovered – backstage on a Warner Bros. set, like a figment of Hollywood’s imagination. She was on a guided tour of the studio with her mother, brother and sister: one stop on a grand cross-country vacation they made that summer, driving eight thousand miles from their home in Fairfield, Connecticut to California and back again (the girls brought so many clothes they had to hitch a trailer to their car). Here, on the set of The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, starring Errol Flynn and Bette Davis, the director stopped shooting to come over to tell Gene she ought to be in pictures. It wasn’t just a line: he sent her for a screen test right away, and the following day Warners offered her a contract.
Her father, when he heard the news, was not enthused. He had stayed in New York that summer to work. Howard Tierney was a powerful insurance agent, though, like everybody’s, his fortunes had dipped in recent years. He didn’t think much of Hollywood, and he thought even less of Warners’ $150-a-week contract. In those days, young ladies of breeding – the Tierneys were society – were expected to finish school, marry a Yale boy and live in Connecticut; any actorly tendencies were to be confined to the ball and the country club. But Gene was his favourite, and he told her that if after making her debut she still wanted to act, he would do everything in his power to help her find a job on the Broadway stage.
He was as good as his word. Every Wednesday, instead of going into the office, he and Gene caught the 8.15 train into the city to meet agents and producers. After bit parts here and there, she finally landed a part in a hit play, and Darryl F. Zanuck, the head of Twentieth Century Fox, flew out to see her. He signed her up immediately. Her father brokered a deal with Fox worth five times what Warners had offered. He formed a company, the Belle-Tier Corporation (Gene’s mother was called Belle), to represent and promote his daughter and to administer her future earnings.
Gene flew to Hollywood in 1939 on the maiden transcontinental flight: somebody gave her a plaque when she got off the plane. She was handed over to the Fox publicity people to be given the starlet build-up: to be photographed at nightclubs, by the pool, on the beach, to be interviewed and profiled while they thought about changing her name and decided what ‘type’ she was – a Penny Singleton, a Deanna Durbin, it was important to look like somebody else. She began work on The Return of Frank James, with Henry Fonda; she spent night after night alone in the projection room after the shoot, watching films, trying to teach herself how to act.
I spent the next few hours going through my discontinuous notes, trying to put them in chronological order. Reading over them made me sad; perhaps everyone’s life is sad when you know what will happen next. It seemed to me that in every atom of information – in every snippet of biography, in every publicity still – you could descry the whole trajectory of her life and the forces that would destroy her. Even when you went right back to the beginning, to when everything was full of promise and hope, they were there, like traps waiting to be sprung.
By twelve o’clock I was feeling quite fatigued. I put the notes back in the shoebox, pledging to return to them sooner rather than later, and went to see if Mrs P felt like rustling up some crumpets. On my way I passed Bel’s door again, and happened to pause there, to get my bearings, so to speak – only to find them talking about exactly the same thing as earlier on. Frank was on about his countess again, saying that she was very wealthy, and then stopping and coughing for a while, and then saying that she was easy-going morally and had married a man who wasn’t of noble birth, which seemed a bit rich coming from him. He appeared to have developed a speech impediment overnight; he stumbled over every second word and spoke in a maddening, leaden monotone. Bel got upset and started fretting about how she couldn’t sleep. She kept calling Frank ‘Uncle’, which I took to be some kind of odious pet name. She sounded odd, as if her voice were a borrowed dress that didn’t quite fit right.
‘Yes,’ Frank said. ‘Yes. You are quite right. It is dreadful. My God.’
‘Could you go a bit faster?’ she said.
‘Yes yes you’re quite right it’s –’
‘Stop, Frank, maybe we should go back a bit – how about my dear little child –’
‘All right… you’re not just a niece to me, you’re an angel, you’re – Bel, I can’t understand a word this bollocks is sayin, is he tryin to ride her or what? Cos like if he’s the uncle you wouldn’t think he should be tryin to, like, give her lengths.’
‘Oh for God’s sake,’ she said despairingly.
‘Unless,’ he mumbled to himself, ‘he was one of them uncles that’s just like married to her auntie, I s’pose then it’d be fair enough…’
‘Look, it doesn’t matter Frank, you just have to read it – oh, this is hopeless, I’m never going to get this right.’
She was teaching him to read, that was what it was!
‘Bel?’
‘What?’
The poor thing sounded quite exhausted and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet. Perhaps she was realizing that she’d bitten off more than she could chew.
‘I reckon if you were my niece, I’d want to give you lengths.’
There was a moment of outraged silence; I blushed at the door on her behalf.
‘… Give you a ride on the oul train, like…’
Oh, for shame! I was on the point of bursting in and rewarding his discourtesy with the back of my hand when – to my horror – I heard Bel burst into laughter: ‘Oh, you,’ she said, an
d there was a creaking of bedsprings. Suddenly I felt queasy; I beat a hasty retreat before things took a turn for the tactile.
*
‘What do we know about Mrs P?’ I said next afternoon, laying my book down.
Across the table, Bel was crimping her eyelashes with some sort of metal contraption. ‘Hmm?’ she said.
‘I mean, she’s been here with us for – what, two years? Three? And yet we don’t truly know what makes her tick.’
‘You’re not going off on one of your paranoid delusions,’ she said, inserting the top lashes of one eye between two steel prongs.
‘No,’ I said impatiently. ‘I just think it odd that someone should live in one’s house for so long and remain a veritable stranger, albeit a cherished and well-paid stranger. Do we – are we giving her enough attention? Should we be, you know, talking to her, and so forth?’
‘What’s brought this on?’ Bel said curiously.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘But everybody needs love, though.’
She cackled unflatteringly. ‘Maybe you should have a bed-in?’
‘Well, haven’t you found her a little… unbalanced lately? Take the business with the kidney beans. She keeps making these bizarre gestures of atonement. Yesterday she bought me pants.’
‘I don’t think there’s anything unbalanced about her wanting to make it up to you, Charles, except that it was entirely your fault, of course –’
‘Yes, well, you didn’t see the pants. Anyway, it’s hardly appropriate, is it, buying underwear for one’s employer – unless…’ A terrible thought struck me. ‘Good God, Bel, you don’t think she’s developed some sort of obsession with me? I mean, she’s not trying to seduce me, is she?’
‘I’d say she probably knows all it takes is a half-bottle of Jameson and a Wonderbra…’
‘I’m being serious. There’s other things. The other night – at a quite ungodly hour – I caught her making me breakfast. I can’t fault her dedication, obviously, but she was preparing what looked like a full pheasant. Isn’t that a little strange?’
She raised her eyebrows thoughtfully. ‘Not really. Not for you. Not when you remember your lobster-breakfast phase, and your foie-gras phase, and that atrocious Moroccan concoction –’
‘Yes, yes… But lately I’ve been quite frugal. I take just a croissant and the cricket pages.’
‘Yes, but only because lately you’ve been hungover every morning – do wish you’d curb your drinking, Charles, have you seen the wine cellar? Of course you have, silly question. But it looks like it’s catering for a whole shedful of rakes, not just you.’
‘Well, better a rake than a hoe, as I always say. That’s quite enough, anyway. Kindly return to your maquillage.’
She made a face and began to dab her nose with a powder-puff. Bel always took great care with her appearance: most of her clothes came from charity shops, but her look – penniless Parisienne student circa 1968 – was artfully constructed. I wondered how Frank prepared for a night out. One suspected that once he had hidden the bolts in his neck he was satisfied.
‘I was talking about Mrs P. I simply feel we ought to make more of an effort. She’s getting on and she needs our support. Polite inquiries, suchlike. I daresay she’s got a few rum stories from that place she’s from, what is it, Bosnia?’
‘I daresay.’
‘What’s it like, Bosnia? Do you know anything about it?’
‘For heaven’s sake, Charles, it was only on the news for about three solid years –’
‘Well, which one is it? Is it the one with the chaps with those funny hats?’
‘I can’t believe you. Don’t you know anything about current affairs?’
‘Hardly my cup of tea.’
‘Oh, genocide isn’t your cup of tea, is it?’ she said sarcastically, pulling a miniature pencil over her eyebrows. ‘One wonders whose cup of tea it is.’
‘Well, I don’t recall you doing much about it,’ I retorted. ‘I don’t recall you… collecting bottle-tops, or, or writing stern letters to the UN.’
‘Collecting bottle-tops,’ she said, reaching for an emery board. ‘The great humanitarian. That’s priceless.’
‘Well, it seems to me,’ I objected, ‘that the only reason you know about these things is to lord it over me. In fact, it seems to me that that’s the only reason anyone knows about these things, so they can act superior and have heated discussions in pubs and make everyone else feel guilty for not watching more television.’
‘You go and talk to Mrs P then,’ Bel scowled, ‘and I’m sure she’ll be delighted to share in your informed opinions. Maybe you can swap traditional recipes, you can give her kidney beans à la Charles –’
‘So where’s Frank bringing you tonight, then?’ I said, as the gloves appeared to be off. ‘Badger-baiting? Mud-wrestling? Are you going to drink cans in a field?’
‘The pact!’ she cried, outraged. ‘The pact!’
‘Habeas corpus,’ I countered. ‘The pact isn’t sealed till you fulfil your half.’
‘I called her,’ she protested. ‘She gave me her work number and said she would be delighted to hear from you any time.’
‘Well, that’s no use!’ thumping my hands on the table. ‘You know I hate using the phone.’ In fact, I abhorred all modern gadgetry – gadgets, even the word had an ignoble ring to it. ‘Couldn’t you call her back and tell her to come over here?’
‘What are you, an invalid? I’m not your lackey.’
Maybe Mrs P would call her – but no! The pact had not been honoured, and I was going to make a stand. ‘The pact has not been honoured,’ I told her, ‘and until it is, we remain in a state of war.’
‘War?’
‘So I must insist on joining you tonight as chaperone.’
‘Charles,’ she warned, glaring at me through her black-frosted eyelashes.
‘I insist.’
‘Every day you plumb new depths, do you know that?’
‘Be that as it may,’ I replied peaceably. ‘So where are we going?’
*
‘Go on, Ask Me Hole, you useless fucker!’ Frank was shouting abuse at the top of his voice, between dips into a bag of coagulated chips. ‘Go on, you shit-bag, run, for fuck’s sake!’
I chuckled to myself. My hound, Jasper, had turned out to be a superb brute, and had left Ask Me Hole and the pack trailing in his wake. Bel’s choice, meanwhile, the insipidly named Piece of Lightning, seemed to have given up the ghost entirely.
Ascot it wasn’t, but the proprietors of the dog-track had made a brave effort to lift it above its inherent squalor. There was a well-lit bar with a long glass window from which one could look down on the action; mixed in with the luckless reprobates gambling away their welfare were several groups of normal people. Frank, however, had eschewed the bar as for ‘ponces’, and dragged us out to shiver in the stands with red-eyed, desperate types as whippet-thin as the dogs to whom they had entrusted their fortunes. None of them was quite as terrifying as Frank himself, though, and I was oddly comforted by his presence. They all seemed to know him, anyway: throughout the races a litany of Mickers, Antos and Farrellers approached to pay their respects – ‘All right, Francy, how’s your wobbly bits?’ they would say, or ‘Howya Frankie, get up the yard ya bollocks.’
He seemed to have grown even larger in the open air; beside him Bel looked small and pinched, her eyes glowing sparely like cold blue moons. I don’t know if she was still sulking because I’d insisted on coming along, although Frank didn’t seem to mind, or if she was ashamed of me seeing him in his natural milieu, or if it was something else entirely, but she’d hardly spoken two words all night: she kept her face buried deep in her muffler, and her eyes locked on the track. After asking her twice if she was all right, and offering her a chip, Frank had left her to her silence. We’d discovered I had a hitherto untapped gift for picking winners, and I had risen several notches in his estimation.
‘Who’d you fancy for the next one?’ he said
respectfully, ‘Up the Duff or Gordon’s Couscous?’
‘Neither,’ I replied. ‘Look at them there in their pens. These are dogs whose spirits have been snuffed out. They might be fast, but neither of them has the self-belief to actually win. Take a look at Meet the Wife, on the other hand. Note the calm gait, the proud, lofty bearing. A regal dog. That’s where I’d put my money. If you ask me, he’s already won it.’
‘Right – here, Bel, you’ll have a flutter, won’t you?’
‘I don’t have any money,’ came the icy response.
‘I’ll spot you, come on.’
‘It’s all right,’ she said flatly, not looking up.
‘Ah, go on, look, I’ll put a bet on for you. Meet the Wife is Charlie’s tip, I’ll put a fiver on him –’
‘No!’ she exclaimed, suddenly animated. ‘I don’t want Charles’s tip.’ She unfolded her track sheet and studied it, white-fingered in the frosty light of the floods. ‘I want to bet on this one. Number Four.’
‘An Evening of Long Goodbyes,’ Frank read over her shoulder. ‘I dunno, what d’you think, Charlie?’
‘Well,’ I said even-handedly, ‘they’re nice odds if he’s any good at all – Number Four, where is he anyway?’
We scanned the track. The trainers had brought the dogs out and were leading them up and down the grassy area in the middle; sleek coats gleamed, pink tongues quivered athletically as they went through their paces. ‘I don’t see Number Four though – oh.’
Number Four, wearing an unflattering chartreuse jacket, was sitting alone on the chewed-up grass, despondently licking his testicles. ‘Hmm, I don’t know, Bel…’
‘That’s the one I’m betting on,’ Bel said adamantly.
‘Would you not listen to Charlie, Bel, he always wins.’
‘You’re here with me, not Charles, and anyway I thought you were going to spot me, why are you so concerned who I bet on?’ Her jaw thrust out palely against the first flecks of rain blowing down and backward from the roof of the stand.
‘It’s just it has such a stupid name…’