Eden St. Michel

by F. R. Jameson

“By rights I shouldn’t, by rights you should be counting the jagged remains of your teeth right now for the right mess you’ve made of things. And that should just be the beginning. So maybe I’m going to be accused of being soft right now, but you owe me. You owe me massively. I don’t know how you’re going to repay me, but you are, boy, you are going to fully repay me.”

  “Thank you,” I murmured. “Thank you so much.”

  He strolled to the kitchen doorway.

  “We’re friends, you and I, we go back a long way and that will never change. But you watch your step around me from now on, do you hear me? For the foreseeable, I don’t want to be treading on you anywhere, I don’t want to see your face – because if I do, then it might make me reconsider how good I’ve been to you today. It might make me think about the fact that you’re still breathing when you have no reason to be.”

  Once again I murmured my gratitude.

  “And sort your life out,” he said with disgust. “Get back with your bird if that’s what you want, make sure you look after your daughter and sort your damn life out!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  What really made me screw up the courage to go and see Eden again, though, was making it down to see the other girl in my life – Daphne, my little daughter.

  She was four now, and a delight of curls, pigtails and dimples. Every time I was with her, it broke my heart that I couldn’t be with her more.

  As it was, I saw her just enough that she didn’t forget me, but not enough for her to get attached. She called me “Daddy” but she knew I wasn’t the same kind of Daddy her friends had. That didn’t bother her at the moment, and I hoped that the day it would eventually bother her was a long way off.

  Whenever we said goodbye, I concentrated hard to try to keep hold of absolutely everything from our time together. That day was particularly memorable.

  As usual, we’d gone to the park near her grandma’s house. It had been the typical slightly frosty greeting from Sally and her mum, Glenda. Enough for me to feel it, but not quite enough for it to bother Daphne. I know, because they told me, that they wanted me to come around more, but they also made it clear that it’d be easier for them if I never came at all. After the usual pleasantries (where they asked about my nose and my bruised jaw, and I passed it off as the misfortunes of work), I took Daphne to the park for our usual hour together. It was after I’d pushed her higher and higher on the swings, and she was deciding what to go on next, that she turned to me with a grin which filled up her face.

  “I saw you in the newspaper, Daddy,” she said, the memory clearly just occurring to her and making her giddy with excitement.

  “Oh yes?”

  “Yes. It was your face and you were in a suit.”

  “Did I look handsome?”

  She shrugged, as if not quite what sure what that meant, and then smiled when I laughed. “I dunno. Yeah… Handsome Daddy!”

  I beamed at her.

  “You were with a beautiful lady.”

  “Was I?”

  “Yes. I think she was a princess, but Mummy telled me she wasn’t really, she was just a lady.”

  “I’m glad you think so.”

  “Mummy said her name was Eden.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Can I meet her, Daddy? Can she come to the park with us? Mummy said no but I want to.”

  Right then it was all I could do not to just crumble in front of my little girl.

  “What did your mother say?” I asked, desperately trying to keep the croak out of my voice.

  “She said the lady was too busy to come to the park. And she said that you were a ‘passing fancy’.” She reflected. “You’re not fancy, Daddy. But I think Eden must be a princess because her dress was fancy. She can come to the park, but she shouldn’t go in the sand, in case it makes her dress dirty. Can you bring her to the park next time? I really, really want to meet her.”

  I helped her up onto the climbing frame.

  “I’ll try,” I told her.

  Chapter Eighteen

  So, I took Luca’s advice, and Daphne’s prompting, and I went to Eden’s place. Nervous as hell, feeling like an adolescent, but pressing my finger to her doorbell anyway. Once she saw me, her eyes filled with tears and she told me that she loved me. I’m not ashamed to say that I wept too.

  I was so happy. So incredibly and astoundingly overjoyed to be back with her again, to hear those words uttered with such passion.

  But when I look back on it, on that reunion, I don’t think any moment was more perfect than that first morning we woke up together.

  It was evening when I arrived. For fortification, I’d had a couple of pints in The Brewer’s Arms just off Piccadilly first, and then made my way to her flat as darkness fell.

  I was actually shaking. All the way up I thought the worst: that she wouldn’t be there; that she’d slam the door in my face; that she’d be with another man – would already have found my replacement. But no, she burst into tears and smiles like I burst into tears and smiles, and it was only an instant before we were clutching each other and squeezing each other close.

  There was conversation, of course, trying to make sense of what had happened, trying to put into stuttering words how both of us felt.

  It was then she told me that she loved me. Her eyes down, her voice a little above a murmur, as if she was confessing something shameful.

  The moment I heard those words, I gathered her up in my arms again and kissed her and kissed her and kissed her.

  Then we made our way up to her bedroom.

  Our clothes scattered and discarded down her staircase.

  My word – that was a passionate night. It was like we were both making up for lost time – her on top, me on top, staring at each other with such intensity right the way through. Eyes so hungry and desirous and full of love.

  She loved me. After she’d told me the once, she couldn’t stop herself. The words bubbled out again and again.

  There were hours rolling around on top of her bedsheets, gasping and screaming and crying out with pleasure.

  Then, tired and smiling, we fell asleep in each other’s arms. The place both of us were supposed to be.

  I have fond memories of that night.

  No, “fond” isn’t the right word. Thoughts of that night will still bring a lustful smile to my face even now.

  But it’s the following morning I think back on as one of the happiest moments of pure pleasure in my life.

  Dawn had left a hazy mist over Green Park. The sunlight which flooded through her bedroom window was so soft and lit her so perfectly.

  Still on top of the sheets, she lay on her front and stared at me from under an unkempt fringe. All she was wearing was a toothless smile, and her eyes glowed with delight and desire.

  Her skin appeared so perfect in that light. That scarred hip was the other side to me, and as such she was blemish free. She was all long limbs, a beautiful peachy backside and skin the colour of wedding lace. The light glinted off her beautiful naked form, as if she was posing for some wonderful old painting.

  I was propped up on the pillows having my first cigarette of the day, and peering down at her, a grin on my face.

  The two of us staring at each other. Knowing we were sharing an absolutely wondrous, unbeatable moment.

  It was our happy ending.

  Before she found out about my new job and the distance settled between us. Before everything that happened after that, we had that perfect and incredible moment.

  When I think back to Eden, it isn’t the making love or the scandal or anything else that happened, it’s – more often than not – the dawn of that morning as we lay naked on the bed and the sunlight caressed her body so gently and lovingly.

  It was perfect.

  Absolutely bloody perfect.

  Our Hollywood ending, even though it’s really only a French film that would show a lady’s bare bottom.

  But, of course, it didn’t end for us t
hen.

  Instead our story went on, and we never had a moment as good as that one ever again.

  I wish I could go back to that moment.

  Not so I would necessarily change the things that came after, but just so I could revel in it more. Just so I could take every bit of pleasure from that beautiful, perfect, wondrous dawn all over again.

  She loved me and I loved her and neither of us had ever been happier.

  From the audio recordings of Eden St. Michel

  “I’d absolutely convinced myself that I was never going to see Joe again. That even around the studios, I’d never be so lucky as to catch a glimpse of him. That when he was gone, he was gone.

  “But then my beautiful scarred man appeared at my front door one summer evening.

  “He’d been drinking – Dutch courage, he said later – but he wasn’t in any way drunk. There was no false confidence about him; he looked sheepish and bashful. He looked scared. I’d craved seeing him again, but even if I hadn’t, he had exactly the right look on his face that night to melt me.

  “After one of those momentous pauses life sometimes throws at you, where we just stared at each other under the hall light on my doorstep, we dived into each other’s arms. Without even pushing shut the front door we clutched each other and our tears ran down onto each other’s shoulders. It was what we needed to do right then.

  “‘I love you,’ he murmured again and again. It was like a scratch on the record, a beat that couldn’t be got over.

  “And this time I responded and told him I loved him too.

  “He must have wanted me to say it, but still it clearly startled him. He pulled back, breaking our embrace, staring eagerly into my eyes as if he couldn’t quite believe what he’d heard.

  “‘Do you, Eden?’ he asked, eagerly, hungrily. ‘Do you really?’

  “I nodded and told him so again.

  “‘But why didn’t you tell me before? Why did you let me walk out?’

  “I’d promised myself that if I ever saw him again, I’d be honest, I’d open my heart to him, but still I hesitated.

  “‘I find it so hard to say those words,’ was all I managed.

  “‘Why?’ he asked.

  “I think I just shrugged and murmured something about that being the way I was.

  “He pulled me gently into his arms again. His hands stroking through my hair. Emotions come so easily to the Welsh. They’re not at all like us English. By nature they’re much more passionate. I guess they’re like the Italians, but a less obviously romantic version.

  “We were together again and I wanted things to go back the way they were. To be as happy as when we were first together. But – even though both our hearts yearned for that – I couldn’t quite manage it.

  “Actress that I am, I did manage to disguise my shock when he told me what film he was working on, who was paying his bills. I tried not to let it rankle when Joe mentioned the man’s name in passing at the end of the day. Even when Joe joked that if there were a premiere, he might get invited and I could maybe attend as his escort for variety’s sake. But it was hard to keep a placid face, so hard to do. I’d wanted to be honest with him now, but I couldn’t. And it built up this brick wall between us.

  “Neither of us mentioned that it was there, but I could see that he was confused by it, that he couldn’t understand why I had those moments of cold silence. Of course he asked me, but I either shrugged off his question or tried to mask it with a smile.

  “When he got to the end of the film, it would all be fine, I told myself. Joe and I would be back to normal then. What happened back then didn’t make any difference to now. Joe didn’t need to know about it.

  “He told me he was controlling his temper now, and I believed him. But I knew him, and I knew that if he heard that story, his control would be pushed to the limit.

  “No, it was better for him and for me and for everyone if I just stayed quiet and waited for the production to be over and for that man to have flown away again.

  “That’s absolutely what I thought.

  “But then I heard about the script girl.

  “She’d been working on Joe’s film and had apparently suffered an accident. That was the story everyone was supposed to believe, anyway.

  “I also heard a different version. That late at night, she’d got on the wrong side of her employer and there’d been consequences. It might have been just a rumour, but I believed every damn word of it.

  “Joe told me himself that he’d seen the two of them getting close, flirtatious even.

  “The poor girl, I could imagine what had happened to her so clearly. Actually I barely needed to imagine. The poor, poor girl.

  “Then one evening at my place, after Joe had come back from the studio, I asked him as casually as I could if there was any fresh news of her. And he told me that her injuries from the accident – he still believed then that it was an accident – were worse than expected and she wouldn’t be coming back.

  “And right at that moment, I crumbled. The wall I’d built for myself collapsed and I couldn’t hold it back any more.

  “I had to tell him the truth.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “You asked me about my scar, Joe…”

  Her words trailed off. I waited patiently, not wanting her to feel pressured in any way.

  We were lying in bed, after an evening of dinner and drinks. But it was also an evening where, despite the smiles she gave me, she was chilly and distant. Her skin was smooth and warm as always, but it was still like I could get frostbite from touching her.

  Eden’s left hand went almost unconsciously to her hip below the sheets. “It’s a scar that runs so deep, right to the core of me.”

  I stared down at her, waiting, the breath trapped in my chest.

  “What are they saying about your current employer at the moment?”

  It wasn’t remotely what I’d expected her to say or ask. “They say he’s having his favourite whisky flown in from Tennessee each week. How the other half lives, ay?”

  She winced as if in pain. “What about that script girl?”

  “Only the same old rumours. Nobody knows what’s true and what isn’t.”

  “I think the stories are true,” she told me. “I’m pretty sure I know the stories to be true.”

  Her hand was still at her hip, and she flinched as she touched it, as if it were a fresh injury.

  “Wait!” I said, sitting up slightly. “Wachtel gave you that scar?”

  The question hung between us for a couple of moments before she nodded once. She reached both arms around my waist and squeezed me tight.

  “I was younger,” she said finally, her voice calm but distant, “a lot more innocent and almost painfully naïve. I’d been with men, of course I had, but even the worst of them – and that would be Raymond Wilder – hadn’t hurt me so much as they’d given me valuable experience. Given me life lessons in this little pocket of Sodom that is our industry. Wilder hadn’t meant to give me lessons, of course – he was just being his normal arrogant self – but he was like finishing school for a stupid young lady fresh out of the suburbs like me.

  “The thing is, the rest of society’s rules didn’t really apply to a girl like me. I was in films, I was famous – or getting to be famous – and everywhere I went I was desired. We all were, all of us girls breaking into the industry. We were desirable women put in the company of desirable men and so of course sparks were going to fly. Of course flings were going to swiftly heat up in a way they wouldn’t in the real world.”

  She chuckled a tad sadly. “I can remember trying to keep all I was up to away from my mum. She wasn’t well, and although she wasn’t that much of a prude, she still liked to think of me as a good girl. I’d been the best-presented girl in Epsom and the best-presented girl in Copenhagen, and that wasn’t going to stop now I was all grown up and in London. To her I was the ultimate good girl, but I wasn’t really a good girl any more, not to her standards. S
till, in the world I lived in I was perfectly fine. In fact, compared to some of the other starlets, I was distinctly hard to get.

  “And then he came into my life.”

  I sat on the pillows, frozen, holding her and knowing whatever story lay ahead was going to be absolutely dreadful.

  “Do you like him?” she asked. “You can answer honestly.”

  “I’ve only spoken to him in the most general way,” I said. “He likes stuntmen, he likes the danger of it all – but I don’t think he can really tell any of us apart. All he cares about is that it looks macho and real on camera. What us menials have to go through to get it isn’t that important to him.”

  “He’s handsome, isn’t he? In a rough cowboy kind of way.”

  “I guess so,” I said. “He seems a bit podgy to me.”

  “Podgy?” She laughed. “He’s a vain man and the thought of someone thinking that would kill him. When I knew him, he was lean. A big and strong man with bags of experience.” She squeezed my arm tighter. “Just the way I like them.”

  Her eyes stared up at me tenderly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Talking about former loves is terribly déclassé, isn’t it? I really am very sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I told her. “I need to hear this.”

  She curled further into me, her head resting on my chest. I reached around her and held her close and for a minute or two we just listened to the clock ticking.

  “From the first time we saw each other, there were sparks,” she said finally. “We were in Gino’s just off Piccadilly. It’s shut now but back then it was the Italian restaurant. There was a season where it was the place to be. The two of us locked eyes across the restaurant, and he was with people I sort of knew and I was with people he sort of knew, but we didn’t actually speak to each other that night. Of course we were debriefed on each other, we learnt everything we needed to know, but for whatever reason he didn’t make his move. The evening ended without us sharing a solitary word.