Diamonds at the Lost and Found

by Sarah Aspinall

  21

  High Hopes

  IT FELT LIKE the middle of the night when I woke up, and I immediately thought that something must be wrong. My mother had been out for dinner with Peter, and now here she was, sitting on the edge of my bed, something she would not usually do. She told me quietly that she had some news: Peter had proposed to her. I said something like, ‘That’s nice,’ then she kissed me and crept out again, leaving me bemused.

  At that moment, and for the following weeks, I had no idea what she really thought about this. She seemed to be in a trance, and it was hard to know if it was a happy trance or an unhappy one. Although she had gone after him in the most direct way possible, it had been almost a reflex action with no consideration for the consequences.

  The success of the mission had left her, for once, speechless. Suddenly she was wearing an engagement ring that she kept staring at as if she couldn’t believe it was real. I recalled, with some fear, the catastrophic effect of Bathsheba’s Valentine provocation in Far from the Madding Crowd, aimed at getting the attention of poor reclusive Mr Boldwood. Would Peter now be driven mad like Mr Boldwood, and shoot people if she didn’t follow through and accept him? Was Peter Cooper her Sergeant Troy who would arrive on the eve of the wedding and cause disaster?

  Peter Aspinall wasn’t the fun stepfather I had hoped for, like Ronnie Carroll or Mick the wrestler. He wasn’t deliciously charming like Peter Cooper or Sabet Sabescue. But I sensed that he was kind and he really loved her, and I now felt terribly sorry for him. I remembered Humphrey’s sigh of ‘Divine Discontent’ as he watched her wandering that cruise ship on her eternal search, and wondered if it meant that she would always be discontented, and if so how would poor Peter manage?

  My own life changed little. Peter would pick her up to go out for dinner at a time when I was, as usual, in the Back Flat or in my room, so I didn’t see much of him. Usually he behaved as if he wanted to be friendly to me, but wasn’t sure what to say to a young girl. He probably assumed that I went to school, had some friends, and lived a more normal life than I actually did. I suspected that he knew very little about my mother and was about to have a series of shocks.

  The wedding they were planning seemed rather low-key and unromantic and my mother’s trance continued. It was to be a winter wedding, and I was to wear a red velvet dress with a fur hat and muff. I didn’t understand why they were waiting so long when they could have had a lovely summer wedding, and I was sure that my mother was having second thoughts. Possibly Peter was too, though for different reasons. They both acted a little awkwardly with each other, and this was something I had never seen before where my mother was concerned.

  To my huge relief the big gloomy house where I had been so unhappy was now sold to developers, to be turned into a vast nursing home. Peter was selling his villa and we were all going to move into a bright, sunny detached house that was being redecorated. It had a large garden backing onto the sand dunes with a gate onto the beach. It was a short stroll to the golf course, which Peter loved. The house was perfect, almost like the American suburban house in Bewitched.

  It was almost beyond perfect, having a lower-ground ‘party room’ facing onto the garden. This was decorated with lush murals of South Sea Island girls and palm trees, all done by the artist who was responsible for the exuberant paintings that adorned my beloved Pleasureland, as if this room had actually been created with me in mind.

  Above all, to my mother’s consternation, there was a big American-style kitchen with an alcove with a table and chairs. My mother’s trance may have been fear of discovery of her wicked past, but it was possibly more about now having to produce a meal. She had been avoiding the discussion up to this point, steering Peter towards meals out and never offering anything at home.

  My mother and I were moving into the new house that summer, and then Peter would move in with his son Keith after the wedding. Keith, my teenage now-to-be stepbrother, had hardly spoken to me and turned red whenever I spoke to him. He was still away at boarding school and my mother and Peter seemed to be worried about his reaction to the sudden change in his father’s life. They wanted him to get used to the idea over the summer, before the wedding. We’d had one rather stilted meal out together when Keith had shyly presented me with a bear that banged a drum, which I was told had been a favourite toy, and I recognized that this was a sign that he hoped for my friendship.

  My fears that something would go terribly wrong were gradually subsiding, but there was one difficult conversation about a possible ‘house-warming party’. Peter said that he hadn’t yet met any of my mother’s friends, and as she had insisted the wedding group be so small, he suggested that this might be a nice opportunity.

  There was a pause in the conversation, a moment of silence, when my mother didn’t know what to say. I imagined her going through the potential guest list in her mind – Auntie Ava and Uncle Anthony, Auntie Grace and Uncle Phil, perhaps some of the salesmen from Man to Man or Peter Cooper? It wouldn’t be a very good party. Even Anthony was possibly off the list as my mother was upset with him. Ava was to be a maid of honour at the wedding, but Anthony didn’t like the idea, and had told my mother that she should ‘just get on with the whole thing quietly, before anyone has reason to change their minds’. I thought Anthony was suggesting that Peter might change his mind.

  The whole question of the house-warming was difficult, as it raised other difficulties as to why we didn’t seem to have any nice friends. I found myself once again looking at my red velvet dress and wondering if it would actually be worn. Far more alarming was the thought of what the rest of our life would look like if something went wrong.

  Then, miraculously, a solution presented itself. My friend Jane, who lived up the road, was keen to help with a school charity fundraiser for the League of Pity. Their leaflet suggested various activities, and among them was to hold a garden party and invite neighbours and local people. This would be perfect: we could combine the house-warming with a garden party, and it was in a good cause, which would show my mother in the best possible light.

  Peter would definitely see her as being normal and even generous, and be more likely to overlook any rumours he might hear and still marry her.

  Jane seemed very excited and said she longed to be a Rose Queen, as she had seen one once at a fete. We began to plan the events, and were wondering who should open the party, as the leaflet suggested that a local celebrity or the mayor could be a big draw. I asked my mother about this and she said that she and the mayor weren’t on good terms – something to do with her shops. She couldn’t think of a celebrity either, and didn’t seem interested in the garden party in the slightest, much to my annoyance given that it was all for her.

  One day, at the start of the summer holidays, just after my mother and I had moved into the new house, Peter came around and was looking at furniture catalogues and I heard my mother reading something out from the Southport Visitor.

  ‘Tony Tenser is about to shoot a film up the road, it says here.’ She held up the page, with a photograph of him, hair slicked back like someone who would hang around with the Rat Pack in Las Vegas.

  Peter looked up.

  ‘You know,’ she said, ‘he’s that film producer, a bit Flash Harry. He lives in that big modern house up by Rotten Row. They’re going to be filming it at the old Palace Hotel.’

  The hotel where she was once a hostess to the American Air Force men had in recent years been closed down and boarded up. I was terribly excited by this news, as I was interested in films and it also struck me that perhaps Tony Tenser could open the garden party. I held back from mentioning this in case it didn’t work out, instead saying that I must meet him, as ‘film director’ was on my career list and perhaps he would give me a job helping out on set.

  ‘You don’t want a job, don’t be silly, you are too young, and what for?’ she asked crossly.

  ‘What kind of films does he make?’ Peter enquired.

  ‘All kinds, h
e’s famous for inventing the label of “sex kitten” for Brigitte Bardot. It made her name,’ my mother said with admiration.

  Peter frowned, and said that he wasn’t sure I should be meeting him.

  ‘He used to do films that were a bit naughty and nudie, but he’s doing arty ones now,’ she reassured him. ‘The one he’s just produced, Repulsion with Roman Polanski, it sounds very arty.’

  I was obsessed with meeting him now; I loved arty.

  Audrey loved to fix things, so she drove me to a big house near the seafront and then she waited while I went up to the door to ask Tony Tenser if I could watch the filming. I froze, realizing I was far too shy to meet him, or even to ring his doorbell, let alone ask such a thing.

  This didn’t go down well.

  ‘You’ll never get anywhere in life with that attitude. You just have to march up to doors and knock on them very hard. Or give them a great big push!’

  I looked blank. ‘But what will I say?’

  ‘You tell him: “I’m Sally and I’m a great admirer of yours.”’

  ‘I don’t know him. I’ve never even seen one of his films,’ I protested.

  ‘That doesn’t matter. Flattery will get you everywhere! If he wants to believe it, he will.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then you say, “All I want in the world is to be a film director. It’s my greatest dream and passion.”’

  ‘I can’t say that; it sounds silly.’ I pulled a face.

  ‘No such word as can’t.’ This was one of her most annoying sayings. She would always trot it out if I ever dared to admit that I couldn’t do something. Her next most annoying saying was ‘Don’t ask, don’t get’. It was that stupid ant in the ‘High Hopes’ song she always sang, where the little ant tries to move the rubber-tree plant. He had high hopes, she would tell me, and look what happened: he darned well moved that rubber tree.

  Here it came … ‘Don’t ask, don’t get! You wanted to come. I’ve brought you, so get on with it. Just say, “Please may I come and watch the film-making process.” That’s what you want, isn’t it?’

  I was still frozen, so she tried her Wicked Witch of the West act. She threw open the car door and screamed at me, ‘Get out of this bloody car and do it! Now!’

  This always shook me into action. Nothing was ever as scary as she was when she looked this way, her eyes flashing and a mean look on her face. I would rather have faced a firing squad or performed my own show at the Palladium than disobey her in this mood.

  So I plucked up the courage, and marched up the driveway. I had chosen my clothes with care and was wearing my latest outfit: a red suede miniskirt with a matching jacket with a long suede fringe like a cowgirl. I had applied a lot of eyeliner in the hope that I looked much older. My mother had told me to do this in the car so that Peter wouldn’t see.

  Tony Tenser came to the door wearing a towelling robe and said, ‘I was just tanning.’ He looked rather hot and had a lot of yellowy-white hair and a moustache.

  I stammered out, ‘Hello, I’m Sally. I’m sorry to intrude but could I possibly talk to you for a moment?’

  This would be too polite to my mother’s way of thinking, but felt more ‘me’. The Young Eve would have approved.

  He asked me in, and although my mother had told me not to go inside, I couldn’t resist. The house was very ‘with it’, with a hanging-basket chair thing on a chain, and everything – the furniture, walls and carpet – was white. It looked exactly how I imagined a film producer’s house should look.

  He regarded me expectantly and I launched in.

  ‘I’m very keen to be a film director one day; it’s something I feel passionately about. So, I wondered if I could possibly come and watch you at work – or perhaps help in some way?’

  I had got it over with now. She wouldn’t be angry. Now I just wanted to get back to the car.

  Tony took a pad of paper and wrote down my name and phone number. He then looked at me and asked if I would like to actually be in the film, not a speaking role but a few shots here and there? I could hardly speak, I was so excited at the idea, and I left having got a role as an extra for the summer, for which I would be paid thirteen pounds a week.

  I skipped down the drive singing about the ant and another rubber-tree plant that bites the dust.

  ‘There you are. I told you!’ she said when I climbed back into the car. She was pleased with me. I’d got what I wanted and more; maybe I was finally shaping up into something.

  My preparation for the job involved trying to find outfits in which I would look older. Every Saturday I scoured the Southport Visitor for church-hall jumble sales and I was amassing a large wardrobe. My mother always said ‘dress for the role you aspire to’, so I worked on finding the right clothes for my future life, as if this might somehow make it happen. Our neighbour, Bill Tidy, a cartoonist famous in the north for his ‘Cloggies’ series in Private Eye, had once given me a lift from the bus stop to a church hall. We seemed to be friends, despite twenty years’ age difference and based mainly on me standing forlornly at bus stops when he drove by. Bill had laughed at my desperation to be first at the sale, and sat watching from his car as I joined the queue waiting to burst through the doors. He later put a drawing through the letter box of me, young and determined, long red hair flying, elbows sharpened, among the sea of old ladies. He titled it The Seasoned Jumbler.

  There was the thrill of running first to the table of dresses and fur coats with their lovely fusty attic smell. I had already found a treasure trove of flowered dresses from the Thirties, and of Lauren Bacall-style suits with pencil skirts from the Forties. This perfect little taupe suit was for when I was a journalist, inspired by films like The Front Page. This tropical sundress would be ideal if I was in the Florida Keys or in Africa as a travel writer, and here was a black cocktail dress with tiny pearl buttons for nights out in Paris or at a cabaret in Berlin while my films were premiering at festivals there. Now, for my movie debut, I chose outfits that made me look as much like a hippy as possible, as I knew the film had hippies in it.

  My mother seemed annoyed that my involvement with the film now involved paid work. She could see the attraction of my spending a few hours watching people work on a movie set, but was upset that this had turned into a job.

  ‘Why do you want to get up so horribly early, and then be out all day, and maybe in the rain, maybe even getting your hair wet …!’

  She went on and on, finding more and more objections.

  The idea was an affront to her, particularly as my magic purse continued to supply all the money I could possibly want. But I was beginning to see the magic purse as something slightly sinister. It sat there on the dressing table secretly fattening itself up each day, until it was grotesquely bulging with cash: a shameful talisman of her control.

  The filming day did begin horribly early. It was soon after sunrise that I rode my bicycle down to the Palace Hotel in lovely summer light. I still remember the sense of freedom from the whizzing bicycle and feeling the cool early-morning air on my bare arms and thinking again that my mother was wrong about it all, about getting up at dawn, about the exciting sense of purpose and a job – this was life.

  22

  What’s Good for the Goose

  ARRIVING THROUGH THE GATES of the old Palace Hotel I saw a scene of wonderfully frantic activity, with people dashing about and lots of huge trucks and trailers parked out front. Filming equipment was everywhere, with a big crane being set up and Tony Tenser and the director seated in real canvas director’s chairs. It was where I most wanted to be in the world.

  A girl with a clipboard told me to go and help myself to breakfast, pointing to a truck serving bacon and egg sandwiches. I sat at a table with a few other extras and actors. Everyone in ‘What’s Good for the Goose’ was young: Sally, the star, was nineteen and several of the extras were teenagers. They were dressed for the ‘disco scene’, with one guy wearing flowered bell-bottom trousers and nothing but a tie
over his bare chest.

  Someone told me, ‘Did you see them? The Pretty Things were just here, the real band; they’ve gone into hair and make-up.’

  I turned to the boy in the tie. ‘Wow, this film is so groovy!’

  He gave me a withering look. ‘Except that the lead is Norman Wisdom!’

  I had to admit Norman wasn’t the coolest, though I’d only seen him in one film, when he did something very silly with a ladder.

  I got back that evening and excitedly told my mum and Peter all about my day.

  ‘Norman Wisdom wrote it himself, and he’s this boring banker at a conference in Southport, who gets mixed up with a hippy girl and goes for a sail on the sea of love.’

  Peter frowned at this, but my mum thought it was funny.

  ‘The hippy girl is Sally Geeson, she’s gorgeous,’ I raved.

  My mother raised her eyebrow, ‘Wishful thinking! She’s hardly any older than you.’

  Peter asked if there was any nudity in the film. I said that I’d been told there was some ‘skinny dipping’ but I wouldn’t be in that scene.

  In a fit of optimism, Jane and I went around the neighbours’, posting letters through doors inviting people to our garden party, and we rather boldly put ‘Opened by film star Norman Wisdom’ at the top. I suggested to my mother that she pretend it was her idea, the charity part, and she rolled her eyes, but seemed to see that it might not be a bad move.

  Towards the end of our filming, I saw what looked like a good moment to catch Norman.