I said, ‘Wait till she leaves one of his towels crumpled.’
They asked Sel if he hoped to have kiddies and he said, ‘I’d like a houseful. I think I’ll make a pretty good father. I’ve been an uncle since I was nine, you know. And I’m a great-uncle. So why not a Great Dad!’
At first Sel said it wouldn’t be a long engagement. He said, ‘We’d have loved a June wedding but we both have so many professional commitments.’
Bliss was due to start filming The Curse of the Reptile and Sel had a big tour of Canada.
Mam said, ‘There’s no need for him to rush into anything. He’s young still.’ But he was going on thirty-nine.
I said, ‘What about you? After the wedding?’
She said, ‘How do you mean?’
I said, ‘Well you can hardly stay there, living with newlyweds.’
‘I don’t see why not,’ she said. ‘Nobody’s said anything to me about being thrown out on the street.’
I said, ‘Perhaps he’ll buy you a place back here. A nice little bungalow.’
‘I’m not coming back,’ she said. ‘My blood’s thinner than it was. And anyway, this marrying hasn’t happened yet and perhaps it never will. When he wakes up and realises he’s being had.’
I said, ‘You’ve got to give her a chance.’
‘I am doing,’ she said, ‘I know how to behave. Even if she is a gold-digger.’
I said, ‘Well, Sel’s talking about all the kiddies they’re going to have. You’ll have to learn to get along with her if she gives you grandchildren.’
Hazel came up right next to the telephone and went ‘Ha!’. There was no call for that. Mam never interfered with the raising of Jennifer Jane. As a matter of fact she hardly ever saw her.
Mam said, ‘I’ve already got grandchildren. I don’t need any more. I’m a television personality now.’
The Canadian tour went off all right, though he wasn’t playing to such big houses any more. Then he toured Minnesota, and the Dakotas and Wyoming, and sang at two big benefit shows in New York and Washington DC, raising money for backward kiddies. But by the time he was back in Las Vegas with time to spare, Bliss had had to go to Red Rock Canyon to play a saloon floozie in a cowboy film. They’d been engaged twelve months and there was no sign of progress.
It’s my opinion they’d have carried on like that for years if Whisper magazine hadn’t brought out a piece asking questions:
What’s Lover Boy up to this time? Ask any lady of a certain age and she’ll say Mr Starlight is the son every mother wishes for. Ask the girls, they’ll say he’s their dream date. Ask us, he’s just teasing. He has no more intention of going to the altar with Bliss Bellaire than he does of flying to the moon.
‘I could sue the bastards,’ he said. ‘But I’m not going to. Love’s turned me soft. Me and Bliss have named the day, Cled. We’re getting married on my birthday. So get your bags packed. And send me Jennifer Jane’s measurements. Celeste’s designed a dress for her, like the petals of a flower, each one a different shade of pink, and little fairy wings that strap on the back. She’s going to love it.’
Of course, June was out of the question for us. Jennifer Jane had school and we had our guests. Some of our regulars booked with us straight after Christmas to be sure of getting their usual room. You can get somebody in to fry the breakfasts and you can get somebody in to make the beds, but there’s no substitute for resident proprietors. You get to know your clients and they look forward to catching up with you once a year. It was the difference between winning a Golden Daffodil or just an Also Commended.
Hazel said, ‘You go. I’ll manage. I’ll ask Nerys if her sister can give me a hand.’
I said, ‘I think I should be there, don’t you?’
I said to Penri, ‘I feel damned if I do, damned if I don’t. Hazel says I should go, but you know what women are like. Half the time they don’t mean what they say. And if I go and enjoy myself, that won’t go down very well. You know? Sel’s probably invited people like Kitty O’Malley. I’ve got a lot of history over there.’
Penri said, ‘It’s a dilemma.’
I said, ‘I think the only thing to do is this: go, but pretend I’ve had a rotten time.’
‘And bring her back a little something,’ he said. ‘To show you were thinking of her. A stick of rock. Or a souvenir teaspoon.’
It was my first time in an aeroplane and my guts were churned up. You hear of terrible things. For two pins I’d have cancelled. But when it came to it we were treated like royalty. We had First Class seats and proper meals, and Ricky was given colouring books and a trip up to the cockpit to see the pilot. And those air hostesses were a treat for the eyes: natty little suits and high-heeled shoes. One of them was making quite a play for me, bending over, making sure I was strapped in.
I said, ‘Good job for you I am!’
She laughed. I got de-luxe treatment from her; extra peanuts, tea topped up as often as I liked. Especially after I’d told her about my career in show business.
Ocean Star was like an anthill when we got there: decorators hanging silver bells and white ribbons everywhere, florists arranging big vases of baby’s breath, three lads erecting a nuptial gazebo on the veranda.
Mam and Pearl weren’t speaking, and a glazier had had to be sent for because a photographer had fallen through a window-pane, trying to get an exclusive.
But Sel was letting it all wash over him. ‘It’s going to be a perfect day,’ he said. ‘Come and see the suit.’ Celeste had made him a two-piece Italian-style in silk.
I said, ‘I thought it was the bride who was supposed to wear white?’
‘It’s ivory, Cled,’ he said. ‘Ivory photographs better than white.’
I said, ‘I’ve brought a light-grey wool from Hepworth’s. I assume you’ll want me as best man?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m not having a best man. I’m having a best woman. I thought it’d make a talking point.’
Dilys said, ‘Not Mam?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I did ask her, but she wasn’t sure she could stand for long enough, with her bunions. It’s going to be Pearl. A black lady best man. I’ll be starting a trend.’
It was going to be a night-time wedding with hanging vines and fairy lights, so it would look like a starlit occasion even if it turned out misty. Milo was flying in from New York. Thelma Arden was driving from Las Vegas. And the bride was on her way from Butler, Pennsylvania with her mother and father. She was spending her last night as a single woman at the Malibu Beach House Hotel.
I said, ‘Is Kitty coming?’
‘Kitty?’ he said. Pretended he didn’t know who I meant for a minute or two. ‘What, Kitty?’ he said. ‘No. I lost touch with her long ago. Why?’
I said, ‘Just wondering who I’m going to dance with at your wedding.’
‘Pearl,’ he said. ‘And Mam. And your sister. You’ve got a lovely little wife at home, Boff, so keep your sneaky eyes on the road ahead.’
I said, ‘Yeah, well, you’ll find out. You and Bliss have had a test run, I hope?’
‘None of your business,’ he said. ‘But I will tell you one thing. Since I met her I haven’t looked at another woman.’
I spent an hour at the Conroys’ the morning before the wedding and that was a sad occasion. Kaye was hoping to attend the ceremony but Hubert wasn’t a well man: heart trouble, brain trouble.
Kaye said, ‘It’s like he’s not here any more, only he is. And sometimes he won’t even be left with Willa.’
Hubert smiled at me but I don’t think he knew me.
Kaye said, ‘How’s the bridegroom?’
I said, ‘Running around, tying bells and love hearts on everything. I’ve never seen him so happy.’
‘Wonderful,’ she said. ‘I was beginning to have my doubts, you know, Cled? The way he was conducting himself. Well, anyway … He’s such a darling boy. Maybe he just made friends too easy. But we know he’ll make a sweet husband. I just hope this girl treat
s him right too. You met her yet?’
I hadn’t, of course, and I never did. Just after I got back to Ocean Star, the bride’s father arrived. ‘The wedding is off,’ he said. ‘Verna has changed her mind.’
Bliss’s real name was Verna Schlitt.
Sel ran to the phone. But Mr Schlitt said she wasn’t at the hotel, nor even in town and that he wasn’t at liberty to divulge her whereabouts.
Sel looked terrible. All the colour had run out of his face. He said, ‘I talked to her yesterday. She was happy enough yesterday.’
Dilys said, ‘Perhaps it’s nerves.’
‘Yeah,’ Sel said. ‘It’ll be nerves. She’ll be all right if I talk to her.’
Mr Schlitt said, ‘It ain’t nerves. The marrying is oft, O-F-T. Verna has had her eyes opened to certain facts.’
Dilys said, ‘What certain facts?’
Mam said, ‘Shut up, Dilys.’
Schlitt said, ‘I ain’t going into all that in front of mixed company. He knows what I mean.’
Sel said, ‘This is devastating. This can’t be right.’
Schlitt said, ‘Verna’s the one entitled to devastation. She’s suffering disappointment and loss of expectations.’
Mam said, ‘Don’t listen to him, Selwyn. He’s just after money.’
But Mr Schlitt said Verna was a rising star. He said, ‘My girl don’t need money from no washed-up faggot lounge singer.’
Well, that did it.
Mam said, ‘Throw him out, Cledwyn. Duff him up and throw him out! Don’t worry, Selwyn. It’s all for the best. There are plenty more fish in the sea.’
Dilys said, ‘Perhaps it’s all the razzmatazz, Sel.’
Betsan said, ‘Yes, like Terry. It was the thought of all the fuss and photos gave him cold feet.’ Of course, with Terry Eyles it wasn’t just his feet. He never did warm up to married life.
Sel said, ‘But she likes razzmatazz. She usually does. But I don’t want her upset. Whatever it takes. I’ll marry her at a drive-up wedding window if that’s what she wants.’
Mr Schlitt said, ‘She don’t want. Here’s your ring. Now stay away from her.’ It was some ring.
Sel said, ‘The ring’s hers. She can keep it.’
But Mam snatched it up off the table and put it in her pocket.
Sel said, ‘Look, please, just ask her to call me. I just want to talk to her.’
Schlitt said, ‘Are you dumb as well as unnatural? She won’t be coming within a country mile of you, you shirt-lifting son of a bitch. Using my kid, creating smokescreens. Well, I’ll tell you something. Schlitt women marry real men.’
Mam was bobbing about, very excited. ‘Hit him, Cledwyn,’ she said. ‘Hit him fair and square.’
I never hit a man in my life and I wasn’t going to start with Mr Schlitt. He was built like a prop forward.
Pearl was shouting, ‘Don’t worry, Mr Selwyn. Clarence been sent for. He’ll see this person off the premises. They’ll be no hitting in my house.’
Clarence was a handyman, on call to every house in Coldwater Canyon and related to Pearl in same way. But Mr Schlitt was gone before Clarence could be found, and Dilys and Mam and Betsan started arguing, about who had been to blame for Terry Eyles’s poor showing as a bridegroom and a husband, and little Ricky fell asleep on a leather couch, first time he’d given in and closed his eyes since we’d set off from Ninevah Street.
Sel went to his room. He said, ‘I’m not at home to anybody except Bliss.’
Mam said, ‘You go and lie down, sweetheart. I’ll get on the telephone to Milo. He’ll take care of everything.’
She couldn’t wait.
‘All cancelled!’ she said to Milo. ‘Tell the priest not to come and the photo people. Irreconcilable differences, that’s what you should say, although between you and me, he’s had a lucky escape. He’s sleeping now. On no account to be disturbed.’
But Pearl made her own rules. She went in to him with a dish of ice cream. ‘You go in to him, Mr Cled,’ she said. ‘I put Rocky Road and Cheesecake Flavor, to revive his spirits, but that boy needs his brother.’
I said, ‘Pearl, did you think there’d be a wedding?’
‘I’m not here to think, sir,’ she said. ‘I’m here to pick up.’
His bedroom colour scheme at Ocean Star was baby-blue and oyster, and the ceiling was painted midnight-blue with silver-leaf stars. There were two couches, piled with cushions, and a king-size bed with light bulbs in the headboard, and satin sheets and pillows embroidered with his name.
I said, ‘That headboard doesn’t look very comfortable.’
‘Cled,’ he said, ‘why’s she done this?’
His dogs were fussing around him. They seemed to know he’d had a setback. He still had two Westies in those days, and a mongrel called Lucky and a skinny, nervy little thing called Martoonie that he reckoned was an Italian Greyhound although she looked like a whippet to me.
I said, ‘I’m sorry you’ve had a disappointment, our kid.’
He said, ‘If I could only talk to her. Perhaps it’s not her. Perhaps her dad’s holding her prisoner.’
I said, ‘Mam and Milo are taking care of everything.’ ‘What?’ he said.
I said, ‘Telling the magazine. Cancelling the harpist.’
‘God!’ he said. ‘The photos. Fuck! That’s another thing. She was thrilled about Celebrity Secrets giving us a big spread. It’s Schlitt. Has to be. He’s brainwashed her.’
I said, ‘A dad wants the best for his daughter.’
He looked at me. He said, ‘I was the best. In a million years she’ll never find a man who’d treat her better.’
I said, ‘I know that. Sel, these “certain facts” he brought up?’
He just sat there, scratching Lucky behind his ears.
I said, ‘Hazel wondered …’
‘I wanted to get married, Cled,’ he said. ‘I really wanted to.’ And he started crying, which was a very hard thing to watch. He was always such a smiler as a rule. He said, ‘I can’t help it. I am what I am. But I’d have been good to her.’
I didn’t like facing him with it. We’d never had anything like that in the family. But it had to be done. I said, ‘Is it … men?’
He said, ‘We might have had kiddies. I’d have tried. I’d love to have kiddies. What am I supposed to do? All the rest of you have got families. Why can’t I have one?’ He was a sight, with his nose red from crying. He wasn’t so much the Lover Boy, with ice cream dripped on his shirt and his slacks all rumpled. His hair was skew-whiff too, though I couldn’t have said why at the time.
I said, ‘These men? How does that work, exactly?’
He just rolled over, turned his back on me. ‘I want to be alone,’ he said. ‘I want to go to sleep.’
I phoned Hazel. I said, ‘Looks like you were right. Sel’s a pansy.’
‘Cled,’ she said, ‘it’s three in the morning.’
That was hardly my fault. I said, ‘The wedding’s off.’
‘Naturally,’ she said. ‘Why are you whispering?’
I said, ‘I don’t want Mam to hear. How do you think I should break the news to her?’
‘It’s not your news to break,’ she said. ‘Poor Sel.’
I said, ‘What about Dilys?’
She said, ‘I don’t think you’d be telling Dilys anything she hasn’t worked out for herself. Are you coming straight home, then?’
But we weren’t. We were going to Vegas with Sel, keeping him company till he felt up to facing the world. Milo put out a statement to the effect that Mr Starlight and Bliss Bellaire had called off their marriage by mutual agreement and Bliss Bellaire’s publicist put out a statement that she was in exciting discussions with Paramount about a new movie. Actually, she ended up on afternoon television, bringing the contestants on for Name that Tune.
Milo said, ‘As long as you’re all in town I’d like to see a photo opportunity. Mr Starlight enjoying a well-earned vacation with his British family. You know the kind of
thing.’
We made a number of photo opportunities that week. We all went to the Lucky Horseshoe for a steak dinner, to show that Mr Starlight hadn’t lost his appetite, which is where Betsan caught the eye of Larry Chase. He was at a nearby table and sent a note across to her, said she was the sweetest-looking girl in the room and could he take her to a show?
Mam said, ‘No, he cannot. She’s made her bed.’
Dilys said, ‘Ignore her. You go if you want to. Enjoy yourself.’
Then Thelma gave a nice party, to lift Sel out of the doldrums. Bob Mitchum came. Debbie Reynolds. Just a hundred close friends and of course a lot of them remembered me.
I said, ‘We should give them a little show, our kid, like the old days.’
He said he didn’t feel like it but even Mam backed me up. ‘Whatever happens,’ she said, ‘the show goes on. That’s the mark of a true star.’
So we moved the baby grand into the room that opened on to the swimming pool and gave them all a treat.
I said, ‘We should think of re-forming.’
He said, ‘I don’t think so, Cled. I can’t see Hazel moving to Vegas.’
I said, ‘Hazel’ll do as she’s told.’
I don’t know what they all found so amusing about that.
The day before we were due to fly home Larry asked Betsan to stay on, to be his wife and help him run his chain of mini-golf courses, which she did. I wasn’t there for the nuptials myself, but Dilys and Arthur flew out, and young Ricky got to be a ring bearer after all. Sel loaned them one of his Cadillacs to take them to the Little Church of the West and paid for the wedding breakfast and had Ricky to stay with him and Mam while Betsan and Larry honeymooned at Ocean Star. He was very generous as an uncle, even if he was unnatural in other respects.
I brought that up with Dilys during that long journey back from the wedding that never was. I said, ‘I suppose you realise about Sel?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I suppose I do.’
I said, ‘How could such a thing have come about do you think?’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘He was always different. Artistic.’
I said, ‘What I don’t understand is when he was a nipper he never played with boys. So how come that’s what he’s keen on now? Is it something he’s picked up?’
Mr Starlight Page 18
