Not Without You

‘Don’s a screenwriter, darling,’ I said. ‘He wrote Too Many Stars.’

‘Ah.’ Gilbert could barely conceal his apathy. ‘Darling, I see Jack over there. I rather thought I might say hello to him. Excuse me, won’t you.’ He nodded at Don and strode off.

‘I don’t follow the fan magazines, I’m afraid,’ Don said. ‘That’s the guy they’ve set you up with? Gilbert Travers? He’s a little old for you, don’t you think?’

He tapped a cigarette on the side of a worn silver case. I watched him, rubbing my bare arms in the sudden chill of the restaurant. ‘He’s wonderful,’ I said. ‘We—’

‘You going to marry him?’ He rapped out the question, his voice harsh.

A commotion at the other end of the room forestalled my answer; a flurry of white floor-length ermine and flashing diamonds. I looked over to see Benita Medici, my rival at the studio, arriving on the arm of a suave, rake-thin man whom I knew to be Danny Paige, the biggest, wildest bandleader of the moment. ‘Oh, my goodness, Danny Paige!’ I said. ‘I just love him.’

‘I’m more of a Sinatra guy,’ Don said. ‘I like to listen at home. Too old to jive.’

‘Slippers and pipe and a paper by the fire, while your wife soothes your brow and fixes you a drink?’ I said. You don’t know anything about him. Why would you care if he’s married or not?

‘Something like that,’ he said, and he smiled again. ‘Only it’s hard for her to fix me a drink these days.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Why?’

‘Vegas is a long way away,’ he said. ‘Too far to commute.’

‘What does she do in Vegas?’

He waved his hand. ‘Doesn’t matter. She doesn’t do it with me, that’s the main thing. I’m not a great guy to live with. And I was a lousy husband. She made the right decision.’ He tapped the side of his glass. ‘I like to drink alone, so it worked out fine.’

I didn’t know what to say. ‘That’s so sad.’

‘Why?’ He smiled again. ‘Marriages fail all the time.’

‘But they shouldn’t,’ I said.

‘God, you’re young,’ he said. He jangled some change in his pocket. ‘You know, I worry about you, Rose. You’re such a baby. You shouldn’t be here, you know it? You should be back in England fluffing up an Elizabethan ruff and getting ready to go out on stage, not living this – life, like a gilded bird in a cage.’ His eyes scanned me, looking at the beautiful silk birds on my dress, the crooked one on my shoulder.

I laughed. ‘Don’t let’s disagree. Not when it’s so lovely to see you again.’ I looked over to where Gilbert was standing at the bar, a greyish-blue plume of cigar smoke rising straight above his head, like a signal.

‘Fine. Change the subject.’

‘What’s your favourite Sinatra album?’ I asked him.

Don whistled. ‘Gee. That’s hard. You like him too?’

‘Oh, yes, I love him too. More, in fact. He’s my biggest discovery since I came here. I’d never heard him before.’

‘You never heard Sinatra?’ Don’s face was a picture. ‘Rose, c’mon.’

‘We didn’t have jazz and … music like that, when I was growing up.’ My home was a quiet, forbidding house, full to me of the sound of echoing silence and my guilt which filled up the empty rooms, where once there had been shouts of joy, and more often screams of fury, thundering steps on hard tiles. When Rose was around there’d been no need for music.

‘Well, in London … of course. In the coffee bars, and at dances. Not before then.’ I shook my head, trying to remove the image of Rose singing, shouting, along to some song on the radio, her mouth wide open, eyes full of joy, with that intensity that sometimes scared me. She would have loved Sinatra. She loved music. I pushed the image away, closing my eyes briefly, then opening them. There. Gone. ‘I’m dying to meet him. Imagine if I did. Mr Baxter says he’ll fix it. We were in here once and he and Ava Gardner came in – I nearly died. I must have listened to Songs for Swingin’ Lovers around a thousand times. The record is worn thin. Dilly’s my dresser, and she says she’s going to confiscate it if she has to listen to it again.’

‘Well. In the Wee Small Hours is my favourite, since you ask. “I’ll Be Around”.’

‘Oh.’ I was disappointed. ‘But it’s so depressing. All those sad songs.’

‘I like sad songs,’ Don said. He looked over at Gilbert, then back at me.

My shoes were tight, and I rubbed my eyes, suddenly tired. It had been a long day, filming a gruelling scene in which Diana the nun hides out in a villager’s hut as the Japanese kill scores of people and retreat, setting fire to the village. My back ached from crouching for hours in the same position, and the tips of my fingers were raw and bloody from scrabbling at the gravelly, sandy earth (Burbank’s finest, shipped in from the edge of the Mojave Desert). ‘You OK?’ Don asked.

‘Just tired,’ I answered.

‘I’ll let you go. Just one thing, though. That white roses thing – why don’t you like them? I was watching you earlier. I saw your face when that reporter asked you about them.’

I stiffened. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The publicity guys made it up, didn’t they?’

‘Don’t let the fans hear you say that,’ I said, keeping my voice light. ‘I get about fifty a day.’ Mr Baxter’s publicity department put it out that Eve Noel the English rose missed her rose bush at home in England so much that she insisted on having white roses flown in from England for her dressing room, since when every day, to my home, to the Beverly Hills Hotel where I stayed on and off, to the studio, white roses arrived by the dozen. It was a sign I’d arrived, they kept telling me, as Dilly put armfuls in the trash or handed them out to girls on the set.

But I hated the things. Loathed them. They would always be linked for me with Mr Baxter in his car, hurting me, puffing over me, the feeling of his vile hands on me. The cloying sweet scent and the surrender I made that night; it was all linked. I tried never to think about that night, never. I assigned it a colour, cream, and if I ever was forced to think about it, like the time Mr Baxter tried it again, in my dressing room on set, or the time he and I rode in the same car after the premiere of Helen of Troy, I just thought about the colour cream all the way. I knew I’d done the right thing. I’d passed his test, and mine too, hadn’t I? Wasn’t I a star, wasn’t I adored and feted by millions around the world? So what if the sight of a few roses made me want to throw up.

Unfortunately for me, like all good publicity, sooner or later even those responsible for the myth in the first place started to believe it. Gilbert hated it too, because people were always trying to give me white roses, at premieres, at parties, wherever we went. Hostesses at dinners would thoughtfully always put white roses on the table and laugh a tinkling laugh when I murmured my thanks: ‘Oh, we know how you love them, dear!’

I shook my head, and said ‘Cream’ softly to myself. Don Matthews watched me.

‘Whose idea was it? The rose thing?’

I answered honestly, ‘Joe Baxter’s. I actually don’t like them.’

‘I thought so,’ he said. ‘He did the same with another girl he was trying to launch. Dana something.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Don. ‘He was obsessed with her.’ His voice was casual, as if he were giving me a piece of gossip from the studio, but something, something made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

‘What happened to her?’ I asked, my heart beating at the base of my throat.

‘Oh, she was Southern, and he put it out that she missed the camellias from home. But camellias only last a day or two and they’re a real pain in the ass to get out here. And then the big picture he’d put her in flopped – do you remember Sir Lancelot?’ I shook my head. ‘Exactly. She was poison after that. They put her on suspension for something, then she made B-movies when her contract expired, then she disappeared. Last I heard she was addicted to the pills and making ends meet in titty movies out in San Fernando. Poor kid.’

I knew all about suspension. People kept saying the studios were on their last legs, but the truth was my contract with them was still rigid tight. They owned me. I’d heard about the actors and actresses who stopped being favourites. Too old, too expensive, too demanding. They’d be sent scripts that the studio knew they’d never agree to do – playing a camp comedy part, or an eighty-year-old aunt. When they turned them down, the studio put them on suspension, which meant they couldn’t work for anyone. And they could only watch as someone cheaper and younger, with better teeth and smoother skin, took their parts from under them.

I swallowed, as the noise of the bar and my own fatigue hit me in another wave. Don said softly, ‘Hey, kid, it’s OK. I’m just warning you. Don’t become another Dana. You’re on top of the world now, but they’ll still spit you out if you get to be too much trouble.’

I nodded.

‘Don’t let them make you do anything you don’t want to do. You promise me, Rose?’ And again he looked over at Gilbert.

‘I promise,’ I said, not really sure what he was talking about, but knowing he was telling me the truth. His lean body moved closer to mine; I watched the grazing of nut-brown shadowing his jaw, the tight expression in his eyes. ‘I’m OK, really.’

‘I know you are.’ He squeezed my arm. ‘We’ll talk about my script. I’ll come find you at the studio,’ he said, and I wanted to say ‘When?’ But Gilbert approached, with his arm round one of his friends, his third or fourth cocktail in hand. Danny Paige was tapping a rhythm out on the bar, someone was singing, the moon was shining outside and inside, tiny shafts of light spun from the crystal chandelier above us. The bird was still dangling from my arm, untended, unloved. I excused myself from Gilbert and went to the powder room. Alone in front of the mirror, I stared at my reflection for a long time, to try and see how Don thought I’d changed. I didn’t know why it mattered to me so much that he thought I had.