Not Without You. Harriet Evans
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again, and he had protected me, a young shy ingenue, from the bear pit that was Hollywood. It was a little ridiculous, sure, but I rather wanted it to be true, too. My old life – oh, it seemed as if someone else had lived it and then told me about it: a memory acquired elsewhere, not my own. My parents, the house by the river … Rose, her great fits of anger, her death, and my life without her – all solitary, sad, strange – and then my time in London, so much fun and so different again from this life here. Back in England, I had grown up feeling lost without Rose. I was working towards something unattainable. The reward was satisfaction of a job well done. Here, you just had to smile, and people told you how wonderful you were.
Gilbert put his arm around me. I moved against him, hoping he wouldn’t crush the black silk birds that perched on each shoulder of the heavy cream silk dress. We paused for the photograph, holding our cocktail glasses high, heads touching, smiles wide. All of Gilbert’s teeth had been replaced by a zealous MGM in the thirties. Five of mine had been capped, but that was the least of what they’d done to me since I’d been here.
‘Anything to say about the rumours that you guys are headed for the altar?’ The photographer licked a pencil and took out a pad.
‘We couldn’t possibly comment,’ Gilbert said. ‘However, Miss Noel and I greatly enjoy each other’s company.’
‘Gilbert, how does it feel, stepping out with Hollywood’s biggest new star?’
‘She’s just Eve to me,’ Gilbert said. ‘You have to understand, Sid. When we’re together, such considerations aren’t relevant.’ He signalled for another drink.
‘Eve, Eve – what’s next for you?’
I paused, and blinked several times, smiling sweetly as if flattered by the attention; humble. ‘I’m making a wonderful picture, Sid, with Conrad Joyce, which I very much hope the movie-going public will enjoy. Lanterns Over Mandalay. It’s about a nun during the war, and it’s a most powerful story.’
‘She’s going to be absolutely wonderful in it,’ Gilbert said warmly. ‘Just wonderful. Aren’t you, darling?’
‘And Eve, you and white roses – are they still your favourite flower? You’re famous for it!’
My throat tightened; I felt hot, trapped behind the table, fixed to the floor. ‘I—’ I began.
‘No, Sid,’ the doorman said firmly. ‘Three questions. We told ya.’ He grabbed the photojournalist by the scruff of the neck and steered him past the tables and out through the door.
I breathed out. ‘Gosh,’ I said, taking another sip of my cocktail.
Gilbert said nothing, but stubbed a cigarette out viciously into the wide crystal ashtray, then immediately lit another.
‘Darling, what would you like to eat?’ I asked.
No answer.
‘Gilbert—’
‘You could have mentioned Dynasty of Fools,’ Gilbert said. He sucked on his cigarette tartly, his nostrils flaring. ‘I backed you up. You should have done the same for me.’
‘Oh,’ I said, appalled. ‘I’m sorry – darling, I didn’t think.’ I shook my head and tried to slide out of the banquette. ‘I’ll go and tell him how good you are, everyone’s saying so—’
‘Forget it.’ His hand was heavy on my shoulder, pushing me back down. ‘Forget it. You couldn’t be bothered to remember then so what’s the point now?’ There was a ripping sound. ‘Oh, this damned fool dress.’
I looked in agony at the little black silk bird on my shoulder, torn and dangling, its beak almost in my armpit. ‘It’s fine,’ I said, though he hadn’t said anything. ‘Perhaps I should just—’
Gilbert tutted in impatience. ‘Here.’ He wound the thread around my shoulder, tugging it tight, pulling the bird back into position again. ‘Damn it, I’m sorry, Eve. Shouldn’t have lost my rag like that, darling. Forgive?’
I smiled at him; he looked flustered and annoyed. ‘Of course, forgive,’ I said.
‘You’re a wonderful girl, you know that.’ He kissed me lightly on the shoulder.
We were unnoticed at the back of the room. I kissed him back on the lips. ‘You are a wonderful, wonderful man,’ I told him softly, relief flooding through me. ‘I can’t quite believe my luck.’
And I couldn’t, really. One part of me knew it was a good idea, this cooked-up romance with Gilbert Travers. Everyone benefited. The other part, the part I hadn’t told anyone at the studio about, was the twelve-year-old me, swooning over Gilbert Travers at the Picturehouse in Stratford, watching his films week after week in the lean years after the war where they showed old thirties fare again and again. He was a schoolgirl fantasy to me. The only crime I had ever committed in my short, boring life was that once I had sneaked into the library and cut a picture of Gilbert Travers arriving at Quaglino’s out of the Illustrated London News.
‘I don’t know how you put up with me,’ he said, shifting in his seat, still slightly red. ‘I’m a brute.’ His mouth drooped, his eyes were filmy. ‘A foul-mouthed, boozy, moody, selfish brute. You’d be happier if I let you go and find someone else. I’m more than twice your age, for God’s sake.’
‘You’re forty-eight, and I’m a grown woman, darling,’ I told him. ‘I know what I’m doing.’
In truth, I did dread his moods, which came without warning, throwing a black cloak over a perfectly nice evening. He could sit there and say nothing for hours, with me darting around him like a sparrow – Would you like another drink? Here’s the paper, darling, I thought you’d like to see this. Oh, by the way, I ran into Vivian at the studio today, and he says you’re marvellous in Dynasty. Everyone’s talking about it – working harder and harder to bring him back into the room. I was too afraid to call his bluff. I didn’t know what happened if you did, in any situation.
I wish I’d learned then that when you call someone’s bluff you usually win: it’s simply not what they’re expecting. And swimming along in the slipstream of another person’s current is no way to live.
It was then that I looked up and saw someone, staring at me from the other side of the room. What would have happened if I hadn’t? What if I’d never seen Don Matthews again? Would Gilbert and I have continued our evening and would it have been lovely? Would everything have worked out differently?
‘Excuse me, darling,’ I said. ‘Let me go and fix my dress. I’ll be straight back.’ I squeezed his hand and stood up, and as I walked out towards the terrace Don turned and saw me. He whispered something to his companion and left the bar.
‘Well, well. Miss Avocado 1956,’ he said, shaking my hand.
‘Don,’ I said, clasping his fingers in mine, tilting my head to meet his dark, warm gaze. ‘It’s good to see you. How are you?’
‘I’m the same, but you’re much better,’ he said, looking me up and down. ‘Congratulations. You were – well, I thought you wouldn’t make it. I thought you’d crack and go back home to Mum and Dad.’ He said this in a terrible English accent.
I had the most curious feeling we’d last met only days before, not nearly two years ago. ‘I don’t give up,’ I said. ‘I wanted to be a star. I told you.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, you did. But you were different back then.’ He stared at me. ‘Gosh. What did they do to you?’
I stared at him. ‘Oh,’ I said, after a moment. ‘It’s probably my hair. Electrolysis. They thought I should have a widow’s peak for Helen. It was painful, but I suppose they were right.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not that.’
‘Or