101 Pieces of Me

by Veronica Bennett

  When I described the Ritz Hotel to Mam and Da in my next letter home, I concentrated on the vastness and opulence of the building, the uniformed bell boys, the fashionable clothes I saw and the deliciousness of the dinner David and I ate there. I did not tell them that the gin sling David ordered for me tasted like medicine, so he drank it himself while I got through three much sweeter champagne cocktails before we even sat down at the table and half a bottle of wine while I was eating. Neither did I mention that as the evening went on, the crowd around us became louder and more abandoned, the waiters busier, the music faster and the atmosphere increasingly like an enormous party.

  It was as if everyone there was celebrating something, though it was not a special occasion. I saw gentlemen lay ten-shilling and even pound notes down on the tables without so much as blinking. I saw ladies with silk stockings, feathered headbands and permanently waved hair smoking cigarettes in ebony holders. I saw laughing and chattering and, later on, hand-holding and kissing across tables. But most important, I was with a charming man, who, I realized with heart-stopping excitement, was himself charmed. By me.

  It was the most enjoyable evening I had ever experienced. David was at ease with the wealth surrounding him. He was known to the hotel staff and exchanged pleasantries with them and with several groups of people who greeted him as we passed. Most delightful of all, every woman who entered the dining room noticed David. Some allowed their gaze to alight on him after a few seconds, some only after they were seated and had begun to look around. They whispered to their escorts, who would then turn as unobtrusively as they could and look at David too. He took no notice, but I allowed my imagination to race away. What must they be saying? “Look, there is David Penn, the film director. And who is that lovely girl with him? What an exquisite fur she’s wearing!”

  Looking back, such speculation was childish, but I was not so much a child as to betray any confidences to my parents. I told them nothing, though all I could think of as I wrote was the delicious knowledge that David had singled me out and taken me to the smartest hotel in London. When he had opened the car door for me to go home alone because he had decided to stay at his club for the night, he had put his hands on my shoulders and kissed my cheek softly, his lips barely brushing my skin. “Good night, princess,” he had said. “Thank you for a wonderful evening. Sleep well, and I’ll see you at seven o’clock.”

  Dazed and happy, I had climbed into the car. And before he closed the door, he had leaned in and kissed me again, with a little more purpose.

  Of course, the next morning I felt ill. I staggered downstairs and into the car, and at the studio Maria looked at me, smiled and brought me a glass of water. I drank it, and several more, and took with gratitude the aspirins she offered. “I must be sickening for something,” I told her apologetically. “I hope I don’t start sneezing in the middle of a scene.”

  She was still smiling. “You won’t.”

  Luckily, David wanted to film other people’s scenes first that day. I lay on the sofa in my dressing room, waiting to feel better. In the middle of the morning, there was a knock on the door.

  Assuming it was David, I sat up eagerly. “Come in!”

  It was Aidan. He was in costume, without his wig, as usual, and looking untidy; it took me a few seconds to realize that he had not yet shaved that day, and the make-up people had not started on him. “Your dressing room’s bigger than mine,” he said mildly. “I suppose that means you’re the star of this fiasco. So, I hear you and David hit the town last night.”

  “Well, we went to the Ritz,” I told him blankly. Keeping my voice unenthusiastic would, I hoped, encourage him to go away.

  “Judging by the look of you, you must have put away a fair amount.” He smiled, not very sincerely. “More than David, I’d say.”

  I neither remembered nor cared how much David had drunk. I did not reply but closed my eyes and lay back on my cushions. I heard nothing for a couple of minutes. Then, assuming Aidan had gone, I opened my eyes. He was sitting on my dressing stool, his elbows on his knees, his hands hanging loosely. On his face was a look of such … intensity, I can only call it, that I actually flinched.

  “What are you afraid of?” he asked.

  His tone was not his usual light, careless one, nor was it his “acting” one. There was something in it I had not heard before. And he went on looking at me, his eyes full of questions.

  “I do not know what you mean,” I said truthfully.

  “Just then, when you saw me. You started, as if afraid. Why?”

  “I was surprised. I thought you had gone.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Of course.” I swung my feet down to the floor and faced him squarely. “Aidan, I do not feel well, and I do not wish to answer these pointless questions. Will you please let me alone? I will see you later in the studio.”

  Suddenly his hands shot out and grasped both mine. “Clara, you must take care. Promise me you will take care?”

  I tried to pull away, but he held my hands very tightly. “Let go!” I protested.

  He did not loosen his grip. Understanding that he wouldn’t do so until I answered him, I sighed and spoke patiently, as if to a child. “Look, Aidan. What could I need to ‘take care’ about? Nothing the slightest” – what was that word David had used about Aidan’s behaviour? – “untoward has happened.”

  “Very well.” Dropping my hands, he took hold of a pen I had left on the dressing table and fumbled under Comte de Montfort’s embroidered jacket until he found a small piece of paper. He smoothed it out; it was a cigarette paper. “Please, Clara, take this.”

  I waited, irritated, while he wrote something on the paper. “And be aware, too,” he went on, “that some people care about you a great deal and will be there if you ever need their help. Do not disregard them.” He looked at me sadly, holding out the cigarette paper. “And do not disregard yourself.”

  That night I dreamt I was in Haverth. But a dream-village had been substituted for the Haverth I knew. The church and the school and the pub were in their usual places, but surrounding them were hordes of people. They were silent, as people in dreams often are, but it was clear they were angry. My gaze travelled over the crowd like a camera. Many people looked back at me; some turned their heads away. Each of them – hundreds and hundreds – carried an unmistakable air of disapproval.

  I was standing on the steps of the school, where Mr Reynolds always stood when he rang the bell in the mornings. Haverth School’s register was a formality; the headmaster made a point of greeting every child by name as they entered and bidding them goodbye at the end of the day. But in my dream there were no schoolchildren, just this hostile crowd pressing towards me from all sides. And, I realized in horror, I was standing there in my petticoat. I tried to cover my body with my hands, but other hands came from nowhere and tore mine away, determinedly exposing me.

  Everyone was staring. They began to point and whisper and jeer, and although they were as silent as if they were in a film, I knew what they were saying. Act-ress, act-ress, act-ress, they chanted. Furs and pearls and champagne! One woman, a stranger like the others, put her face close to mine and whispered, Do you think you are impressing us, Clara Hope? You’re just a country girl, as ignorant as a cow in your da’s field, and we all know it!

  I clutched the sheet around me. Light was flooding my bedroom; I surfaced from the depths of sleep. I lay there with my eyes still closed, confused and uncomfortably hot, and with a pain I can only describe as heartache in my breast.

  I opened my eyes and stretched my stiff limbs. The hotel room was as I had left it the night before – thickly carpeted, with a high ceiling and tall windows, as unlike any house within twenty miles of Haverth as it was possible to be. Sighing, I pushed back the covers. The people in my dream had frightened me. But however much my heart ached for all that was familiar, I had come too far to retreat. The cinema audience, who would pay for their ticket and expect to be entertained, were th
e ones who would pass judgement upon me.

  “Marjorie!” exclaimed David. “My dear, how delicious to see you! How was New York?”

  “Oh … you know – American,” said the woman Jeanette had just ushered into the studio. She was young, very slim, very well groomed and very expensively dressed. Her hair was the shiniest blonde I had ever seen – unnaturally so, like a gold skull cap – and her face was as delicately painted as a doll’s. “And hot, so hot!” She sat down in David’s director’s chair and gave him a conspiratorial smile. “I am not interrupting anything vital, am I?”

  “Not at all.” David swept his arm around the room in a theatrical gesture. “All right, everyone, we’re finished for today. Au revoir, till seven tomorrow!”

  I was intrigued by the sudden appearance of this woman and by the effect she had on David.

  He did not usually say things like “delicious” and “au revoir”, or allow anyone to sit in his chair, or pretend visitors were not interrupting. His normal reaction was to shout at them to get out, and what did they think this was, Piccadilly Circus?

  No filming had been in progress when she arrived or she would not have been allowed into the studio. We had been preparing for tomorrow’s work. David had been discussing the scene we were to do first thing the following morning, which would include a fight between Aidan and two men called “stuntmen”. They were playing ruffians who set upon the Comte in a back street. I had to show horror, hit one of them with the pistol Aidan had dropped, and, when the villains had run off, sink to my knees “gracefully, Clara, not like a sack of potatoes!” and go to his aid as he lay on the floor.

  It would need quite a few takes. We would do it several times, then the best would be edited together afterwards. It was always very tedious waiting about in full costume under hot lights while David decided whether or not to do another take. Maria was forever powdering my face, as perspiration was only allowed to appear on screen when demanded for the drama. And if David wasn’t quite satisfied, we would have to set the whole scene up another day and do it yet again.

  People began to leave. I noticed Jeanette give David a look as she pushed the studio doors, but I did not understand its meaning. Aidan nodded carelessly to Marjorie but did not speak to her. Instead, he turned to me. “Well, David seems occupied this evening. Shall you and I have dinner together?”

  I could not think of an excuse quickly enough, so I found myself sitting opposite Aidan in the almost deserted dining room of my hotel. I pushed pieces of chicken around my plate while Aidan lounged in his chair, smoking, his other hand around a tumbler of whisky, his dinner cooling on the table.

  It was not like being with David. I did not feel elated or even tipsy, though I had ordered wine in the hope that alcohol would anaesthetise me. I felt disappointed that David had ignored me and curious about the woman, and resentful of Aidan’s ability to needle me. Eventually, as Aidan at last picked up his knife and fork, I could no longer restrain myself. “So who is she?”

  “Who?”

  “You know perfectly well.”

  He put his head on one side and considered his Dover sole and potatoes. “Jealous?”

  “Why on earth would I be jealous?” I replied steadily. “I am merely asking for information, since no one introduced her to me.”

  “Her name is Marjorie Cunningham.”

  “I did not ask her name. I asked who she is.”

  “She is Marjorie Cunningham.”

  “Aidan!”

  I had spoken louder than I intended. A waiter looked up from folding napkins in the corner, gave me a sour look and resumed his work. “Aidan,” I hissed. “You know what I mean, so please stop being so tiresome. Is she … well, is she David’s…”

  “Lover?”

  “I was going to say ‘lady friend’.”

  He grinned. “How quaint!”

  I strove for patience. “Can you not just give me the information without this performance?”

  Setting down his cutlery, he sipped his drink and look at me with amusement. “Very well. She is an actress, like you.” He put down his glass and held it between his hands, his gaze still on my face. “Though not very like you, actually. She is unscrupulous, vain and grasping.” He mused for a moment. “But striking, I’m sure you will agree.”

  I did not consider Marjorie Cunningham particularly striking. I had seen only a fashionably willowy frame, artificially gilded hair and a pricey fur. “Men’s appreciation of what is striking must be different from women’s,” I said. I put some chicken in my mouth and chewed while Aidan watched me, the amused look still in his eyes. “She is certainly glamorous,” I added, “but that is not the same thing.”

  Aidan turned his attention once more to his plate. I noticed that his hair had too much oil in it and that he had not removed all of his make-up: a pale line of it ran round his hairline and chin like the beach at the edge of the land. For an actor, he took little care of his appearance. “She is one of David’s set. They are always at his parties, drinking and dancing and making fools of themselves. You know he has a house on an island in the river, not far from here?”

  I did not know this. And to my knowledge, David had not given any parties since I had been working on the film. If he had, I had not been invited. My heartbeat stuttered.

  “Marjorie’s been in America trying to get a part in a picture,” continued Aidan. “I think she has been in a play on Broadway or something. In any case, she must have failed to get into ‘the movies’, as they call them there, or she would not be back here in Old England.”

  An unwelcome thought came to me. “Do you think she is hoping for a part in our film?”

  He laughed loudly. The waiter looked round again. “Our film? Oh, Clara, you are sweet! Marjorie has not come to David for a part! And this film is not ours at all. It belongs to that band of scroungers David is in thrall to. His so-called backers. A worse pack of villains you could not wish to find. Now eat up your food like a good girl and let’s not talk about Marjorie any more.”

  We did not mention Marjorie again, but she remained in my thoughts. When the waiter offered pudding and coffee I refused, thanked Aidan for dinner and bade him good night. He stood politely when I rose from the table. As I left the dining room I could feel him looking at me. Once in my room I threw my fur onto the bed, took off my hat and studied my reflection.

  Striking. What did Aidan mean by the word? And when he used it to describe Marjorie, did he mean that I was not striking? I had called her glamorous, which I was sure I was not. So what was I?

  David had said I was beautiful, though neither Aidan nor I had used this word to describe Marjorie. Was being beautiful different from being striking or glamorous? Marjorie and I were both young women – I estimated her age at twenty-three or -four – who took care of our appearance. We had both abandoned the long hair of our childhood for the “bob”, though Marjorie’s was a sleeker, shorter cut than mine and heavily bleached. I turned my head from side to side. Did glamour lie in bleached hair? She and I both wore cosmetics on our faces, though I had not gone as far as to pluck my eyebrows and paint them on in a more fashionable position, as I had noticed she had done. Did that make her striking?

  I leaned on the dressing-table, cupping my chin in my hands. My hair could perhaps do with a tidy-up: as it was curlier than Marjorie’s and more liable to unruliness. But I could not see any further improvement I could make to my appearance. I could not change the colour of my eyes or the darkness of my lashes and brows, or the shape of my lips. My nose, which I now considered more carefully than I had ever done before, was exactly like Mam’s: short and unobtrusive, with small nostrils. It looked all right on her. Did it look all right on me? And would it look all right on a big screen, high above the audience’s heads?

  Exposure, ridicule, censure. I looked away from the mirror.

  All actresses must feel like this, I reasoned. Marjorie Cunningham must feel like this. Even Lilian Hall-Davis must feel like this. I put my han
d over my heart, feeling it beating under my breast. The thought of Marjorie’s heart beating under her breast made me feel uncertain. She might be striking and glamorous, and maybe even beautiful, but she did not seem real. She was like something inanimate, designed by another hand.

  David’s, perhaps?

  I stole another glance at my reflection. My face was its usual pale self, but there was resolve in its expression. I would not allow David to prefer Marjorie, or any other woman, to me. Ignore her, I told myself. Show David that you scarcely noticed that he left with her without even introducing us.

  I would not be so childish as to have a moment’s anxiety. David had taken me to the Ritz; he had kissed me beside the car; he had told me I was beautiful. In his company I felt grown-up, alive and sophisticated. Aidan, who made me feel like the eighteen-year-old I was, was just jealous. He had asked me to dinner because he was trying to get me to become his … I hesitated even to think of the word he had used about Marjorie and David … lover. It was not a word used at home. There, you could be a man’s “lady friend” or, less approvingly, his “fancy woman”. “Lover” conjured up connotations of illicit affairs. But David was the only man I wanted to be my “gentleman friend”. And surely – even in Aidan’s cynical estimation – beautiful trumped striking and glamorous every time.

  The filming went on. When it was sunny, scenes were done outside on one of the “stages”, as they were called, though they were not stages at all. They were huge areas of empty ground pretending to be somewhere in France. Sometimes it would be a hayfield, for which hay was brought from somewhere, and sometimes a Paris square, with tricolours draped on the flimsy balconies and wooden cobbles underfoot. One of the stages even pretended to be the English Channel, with an enormous pool of water over which was rigged up the front part of an eighteenth-century sailing ship. A wind machine blew the sail, but it also blew my hair across my face, prompting an infuriated “Get it right or get off my picture, you fool!” from David in the direction of poor Alfie and the need to redo the whole scene.