by Peter Turner
Though some people might not distinguish her name or maybe had forgotten it, most knew her face from countless films of the 1950s, skulking up to Humphrey Bogart in In a Lonely Place, or mixing drinks for Lee Marvin in The Big Heat, before getting scalding coffee thrown at her. She was always regarded as a film actress of considerable worth. Although her best work was in little known films such as Crossfire and Sudden Fear, she received recognition for her performances in the famous ones, winning an Oscar for her part in The Bad and the Beautiful. She was as funny as Ado Annie in Oklahoma! and wise-cracking as the elephant girl in DeMille’s The Greatest Show on Earth. Good at playing the floosie and the moll, she was the epitome of the tart with the heart.
‘Peter,’ she said, when the group had passed by, ‘I think I’d like to go.’
We left by way of the lavatories and avoided having to go round the famous tables saying innumerable goodbyes.
‘That’s not a restaurant. It’s an anti-restaurant,’ she said and marched away.
I lit a cigarette then followed her along the street.
‘Hey,’ she said when I caught up with her. ‘Let me take a blow.’
‘You look like Lauren Bacall when you smoke,’ I told her and passed the cigarette.
‘Oh thanks,’ she replied, then threw it in the gutter. ‘Fancy being labelled on a table,’ she continued. ‘I feel like some kind of freak.’
We stopped when we reached 9th Avenue and waited for the night dustcarts to pass before we crossed the street. A fast shiver, almost orgasmic, vibrated my body. I was excited to be in New York.
In just over a year so much had changed dramatically. From living alone in London, working in a junk shop at the corner of the street whilst trying to find work as an actor, now I was in New York and involved in a relationship which had changed my life.
Gloria held on to my arm while we sauntered over the road to walk the few blocks down to 43rd.
Although I didn’t know the city well, I recognized a very special New York night. It was quiet and it was still. The air was cool and almost smelled sweet, helped by the breezes coming across from the Hudson River.
‘Look up,’ I said. ‘Ah, the stars are in the sky.’
‘Yeah,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘That’s where they should be, I guess.’ She gave me a sultry look and strutted on ahead to the apartment block.
She always dressed the same. Mostly wearing blue jeans and black suede stilettoes, white shirt with black tie and a black cotton jacket. She didn’t have many clothes; she found it difficult to choose them. She either took over other people’s or wore what she was given. One night at the theatre, wearing her usual outfit, she was spotted by a man who gave her a gift of his very own fur coat – he wanted her to look like a ‘movie star’.
‘Oh Peter. You bastard. Don’t be so horrible. Don’t be so cruel!’ she squealed when I crept up behind her and startled her outside the elevator.
‘Okay, okay. I’m sorry. Forget it,’ I said. ‘Only trying to make you smile.’ She sulked all the way up to the twenty-fifth floor. I had to turn away. Her petulant moods never failed to make me laugh.
I knew why she was upset but I thought that she had overreacted. It was such a silly thing. Earlier that day we’d been walking through Greenwich Village when we were stopped on the street by a man who invited us into his shop. It was called ‘Ron’s Then and Now’. The walls were covered in posters and photographs of film and theatre stars. He brought out a box and began to show Gloria photographs of herself from her early films.
‘Look at this one, Gloria,’ he enthused. ‘It’s from It’s a Wonderful Life. It was taken in 1946.’ Gloria looked horrified.
‘No, it wasn’t,’ she told him. ‘That’s a mistake. It should be 1956.’ She bought all the photographs and we quickly left.
She didn’t like attention being drawn to the fact that I was more than twenty years younger than she was.
I knew that her mood would eventually warm once we were back inside, after she’d been to the bathroom to re-fresh her make-up and I’d put her favourite music on the tape machine – Elton John’s ‘Song for Guy’.
Gloria had spent little time in her rented apartment over the last two years. She’d been away from New York, either working in the theatre in England or filming in California. The rooms felt unlived in and had very few pieces of furniture; the bedroom had only a bed and a telephone; the living room was almost empty, but was dominated by a spectacular view – a vast panorama of the New York skyline in shadows and neon. I spent a lot of time looking out of the window, I was captivated, mesmerized by the down below, the continuous performance, the scenes, comings and goings on 42nd Street. I propped myself up against the glass.
‘What’s that?’ I asked when she emerged and joined me at the window, looking stunning in a silk kimono.
‘The Chrysler Building,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it pretty?’ Then, at last, she smiled.
The beautiful art deco building with its incredible ornate curves was prominent in the sky. We looked out onto the night.
Except for the twinkling of distant lights and the sudden glare of illuminated signs telling us how far we had to go, my journey back to Liverpool from Lancaster was unmemorable. My mind was blocked with thoughts of Gloria. I hadn’t wanted to leave her behind.
‘It’s going to be a long journey back,’ Joe had said to me at the hotel. ‘I’m not going to be speeding down the motorway with Gloria like she is, lying in the back seat of the car. I’ll be taking it slow. If I was you I’d take up that offer of a fast ride back so that you’ll make it on time for yer play. Me and Jessie’ll look after Gloria. We’ll make all the arrangements to leave this hotel and take her back to me ma’s. I just think you ought to get back as quick as you can.’
‘Why did you bother to turn up? You could have just phoned yours in,’ Geoffrey, one of the actors sneered, as I rushed through the stage door.
Old Jack, the stage manager, looked up as I passed his office. ‘You’ve got twenty minutes!’ he shouted.
I quickly went through my preparations for the night’s performance. Undressing, then dressing, and gathering together personal props. The dressing room was empty except for Eric, who didn’t go on until the second act. He looked up from his book and shrugged, as if to say ‘Who cares?’. Then he rolled a cigarette.
Downstairs, behind the stage, Linda, playing her first part since leaving drama school, was practising her yoga in the way of Geoffrey, who was pacing back and forth going over his lines. I disappeared into the blackness of the wings, avoiding my friend Gil, the leading actress, who I knew wanted to talk. We’d normally use this time to discuss in detail everything we’d had to eat that day. But tonight I needed a few minutes alone before the start of the first act.
The play dragged on. I was anxious for it to end. When it did I left the theatre as quickly as I could.
The city was particularly quiet and empty, even for a Tuesday night. There was a gale blowing through the precinct. The wind was cutting and wet. I started across the square, through the passage that runs past Marks & Spencer, and turned the corner into Church Street, where I thought I would find a taxi. There were three of them huddled together for company with their ‘For Hire’ lights dimly lit. Ten minutes later I was home.
The house was in darkness, but halfway up the path I could see flickers of coloured light, reflections from the television, coming through the net curtains of the downstairs living room window.
As I took my coat off in the hall I could hear voices in the kitchen, which came to an abrupt silence the moment I opened the door. Joe, Jessie and my mother were gathered around the table.
‘Oh, it’s all right,’ my mother said, and her serious expression relaxed. Then in a hushed voice she added, ‘Shut that door. We’re talking. I thought it might have been your father.’
‘The last time I saw him he was asleep in front of the television,’ Jessie informed.
‘Good. That’s all right t
hen,’ my mother decided. Then she froze her expression dramatically and listened for any noises from the living room, just to make sure. ‘You know what your father’s like,’ she explained. ‘He doesn’t like talk.’
I closed the door behind me and leant against the fridge.
‘Well, this is certainly a turn-up for the books,’ my mother announced. ‘I’m going to the other side of the world next week! I didn’t expect anything like this.’
‘Where’s Gloria?’ I asked.
‘She’s sleeping,’ Jessie said. ‘She’s tired after that journey. It took a long time, didn’t it, Joe?’
Joe nodded silently.
‘Gloria’s very sick.’ My mother shook her head from side to side. ‘I could see as soon as I opened the door to the girl. I’ve seen that look before. I know what’s wrong with her.’
‘Which room is she in?’ I said.
‘She’s in the middle room.’ My mother pointed to the ceiling.
The house, like a lot of the Victorian-built houses in the neighbourhood, had been converted into flats. There were three of them – the downstairs flat, the upstairs flat and the top flat. My sister Eileen and her husband had bought the house in this condition but had never reconverted it because they unexpectedly went to live abroad. So my mother and father, after living for years in a council house, were invited to move in. They welcomed the change but, without my sister there, they were confused as to which part of the house they should actually live in.
My mother preferred the downstairs flat because it was ‘easier’ – the kitchen was bigger than the others and the garden was useful for hanging up the washing, and provided another exit to the street. She would, however, sometimes move into the upstairs one for Christmas or Easter, or if ever she got fed up and just fancied a change. Otherwise it lay empty, except for visiting family members like myself. The top flat, the biggest, was rented out to students who were often to be heard singing Gilbert and Sullivan; they were practising for their end of term production of The Pirates of Penzance. The room which Gloria was in was a kind of no-man’s land, halfway up the stairs, leading off a landing at the back of the house, and directly above my mother’s kitchen. It was called the ‘middle room’; the room where people stayed when they only came for a short time.
Gloria wasn’t sleeping. She was ‘thinking’. Thinking was one of her pastimes. She would often enjoy spending long periods by herself just thinking, sitting with a finger to her lips and looking serious and intense. Occasionally her eyes would light up, the finger would come away from her mouth, and she would turn her head as if to say something, but then suddenly change her mind and continue as before. Eventually her thoughts would come together and she would involve me in a discussion of some kind, usually about relationships and love.
Lying against the pillows, looking directly into the light coming from the lamp on the table next to her, she was immersed in her thoughts. I closed the door and she slowly turned her head.
‘Oh, Peter,’ she said when she saw it was me. ‘Did I make you late for your play?’
‘No, you didn’t. Of course you didn’t.’ I sat down facing her at the bottom of the bed.
The room was big enough for two single beds with a table in between. There was also a chair, a hard-backed, straight wooden chair.
She smiled at me and pointed towards a small black hold-all leaning against the chair. I opened it and could see what she wanted; a green plastic wash-bag in which she kept her make-up.
‘Oh hand me that, honey,’ she said. ‘It might have something I need.’
She pulled out a piece of broken mirror and winced when she took a look.
‘I thought as much, I’ve been taken to the laundry.’
Her hair had been brushed, her face had been washed and she was wearing a flowery cotton nightdress that belonged to my mother.
I opened her suitcase onto the empty bed and started to unpack. Besides knickers and socks, there were her photographs, two pairs of jeans, a short white fur coat, a grey knitted sweater with a collar, a few white shirts, some vests, a tie and a pair of silk pyjamas. Underneath all these were her precious black suede shoes.
Gloria had problems buying shoes because she had problems with her feet. They were big. It really was difficult for her to find a decent-looking pair that would fit, so she would trudge around the shops for hours, most times in vain. The black suede stilettos came from a shop in Bond Street, I sat with her the day she bought them, trying to encourage her, while she went through almost every shoe in the shop. She was miserable and close to tears. The shoes she was wearing, her only pair, were caving in at the heel and about to fall off her feet. The shop was near to closing and the assistant was getting bored, but Gloria was determined. Finally the manager came up with the black suede stilettos. Gloria squeezed her way into them.
‘I think it would rather help, madam,’ the woman said sarcastically, ‘if you would not wear socks while trying the shoes.’
‘I don’t happen to agree,’ Gloria said in a perfect English accent. Then standing up and reverting to her American film star’s voice she announced to the world, ‘I always wear socks!’
It was a peculiar and unnecessary habit. She did wear socks, she always wore them, because she was embarrassed about the size of her feet.
‘I remember when you bought these.’ I held the shoes up to her. ‘It was over three years ago. Not long after we’d met, I’m amazed you still have them.’
‘So am I,’ she sighed. ‘Those shoes are so important to me, I keep on having them fixed.’
I moved up close to her and took her hand.
‘I have gas in my stomach, Peter, that’s all. That doctor gave me a shot. Now look what’s happened. It’s made me feel that I’m dying. Huh.’ She faked a short laugh. ‘Now isn’t that stupid?’
Suddenly she started to breathe heavily and gulp and swallow.
‘Burp me, Peter. Please, burp me.’
I lifted her away from the pillow and gently rubbed her back.
‘Don’t tell Paulette.’ She squeezed my hand. ‘Don’t tell my kids.’
‘Let me take you to a hospital,’ I said.
‘No, don’t do that, Peter,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t want a fuss.’
I could see the determination in her expression and knew she would not be moved.
‘Are you listening to me, Peter? I don’t want any fuss.’
‘Eugh! You gave me a fright!’
I bumped into Jessie at the bottom of the stairs.
‘I was just going to say goodnight to Gloria,’ she said. ‘I want to see if she needs anything. Me and Joe have got to go home soon, we’ve got to get back to the kids.’
‘She needs another nightdress,’ I said. ‘I don’t think she likes the one she’s wearing. And she’s asked me to get her some apricot kernels and grape juice from a health food shop.’
‘Well look, Joe and I have got to go into town tomorrow because we still haven’t got that suitcase for your mother, so we’ll take you. Let’s say we’ll call for you here at about half past ten in the morning. I’ll arrange it all with Joe.’ She went upstairs to the middle room and I waited till she closed the door behind her.
When I entered the kitchen, Joe was sitting at the table over a bowl of hot soup. My mother was clearing up.
‘There’s some of that for you.’ She turned away from the sink and pointed to the soup. ‘I gave some to Gloria just before you got home but she could only manage a sip.’ She dried her hands and sat down next to Joe. ‘Now look. The thing is we’ve got to get Gloria to a hospital because we don’t know how bad she is. She’s got to be attended to properly. You can’t have somebody sick without a doctor.’
‘She’s told me that she doesn’t want to go to a hospital. She hates hospitals,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what we can do.’
‘We’ll just have to persuade her to go.’ My mother looked to Joe and then back to me. ‘She could be in jeopardy of her life.’
‘What do you think I should do, Joe?’
‘I think you should phone her daughter in California,’ he said.
‘So do I,’ my mother added. ‘Someone will have to come over here quick. There might be unexpected things to deal with.’
‘She asked me not to tell Paulette,’ I said.
‘Now look –’ my mother held herself upright at the table, – ‘I’m going to have to take charge over this lot. You’ve got to phone her daughter. That family has got to be told.’
‘I know. I do know that. I’m just telling you what Gloria said to me.’
‘I think that this is a terrible thing and I don’t want Gloria to suffer, but I can’t take the burden of it now, I just want to go to Australia.’ She stood up to leave the room. ‘Tell your father I’ve gone to bed.’
‘Does he know about Manila?’ I asked.
‘Don’t talk to me about bloody Manila. It might be that we won’t be going anywhere.’ She pushed open the kitchen door and bumped into Jessie in the hall.
‘Eugh! That’s twice tonight.’ I heard Jessie say before the door slammed shut.
‘How do you feel?’ Joe handed me a cigarette.
‘Shocked,’ I think I said. ‘Shocked.’
It was after one in the morning by the time my father put his head around the kitchen door.
‘Hello there,’ he said, and scratched the back of his head. ‘I didn’t hear you get back. It must be late. Your ma must have gone to bed then, has she?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘She’s gone to bed.’
‘Joe and Jessie must have gone home then, have they?’
‘Yes, Dad. They’ve gone home.’
‘Oh well,’ he yawned. ‘That’s me for the night then. I’ll just let the dog out for a while.’
Candy appeared and trailed after him.
‘Are you going to Manila?’ I asked as he unbolted the back door.
‘I’ll go anywhere, me,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind where I go.’
Only a few of her things were scattered about the room but it seemed as if she’d always been there. Somehow she didn’t look out of place.
