101 Pieces of Me

by Veronica Bennett

  “Of course,” I agreed, though I had no idea. “Tell me, Maria…” I began, but I had no chance to finish my question, because at that moment there was a noise outside the room so loud and unexpected that we looked at each other in astonishment. I got up quickly and Maria opened the door.

  The noise must have been the slamming of the heavy door that led to the area of the studios where only those with permission could go. It must have been slammed very hard indeed, because the board forbidding unauthorized personnel to enter had been loosened by the impact and was hanging by one half-hammered-in nail. While Maria and I watched, the door was opened from the other side, only about twelve inches, and slammed shut again. Very hard. The board crashed to the floor.

  Suddenly anxious, I gathered my robe and went to the door. Behind it I could hear voices – masculine voices – one of them louder than the other. Then there was a thump, and a cry, then another thump. The door was opened again by an unseen hand, but before I could take a step it was slammed again with as much force as before.

  Then I heard a voice. “Good God, what on earth is going on?”

  Jeanette, Robert, Dennis and half a dozen other people had appeared and were standing apprehensively in the corridor. It was Jeanette who had spoken. “That’s David!” she exclaimed, approaching the door. “Who’s he talking to?”

  “He’s more than talking to someone, Jeannie,” said Dennis. “You’d better stand back.”

  He turned the handle and leaned against the heavy door. It did not budge. “There’s something blocking it,” he said, his face pinched with exertion. “Come on, let’s all push.”

  We pushed. Slowly the great door opened.

  It had been blocked by a weight, a solid metal block with a recessed handle used in the studios for counter balancing the pulleys that moved overhead lights and scenery. It had been placed behind the door to stop anyone from getting in or out until the person who had put it there had finished his business.

  That person, clearly, was David. On the floor lay Aidan, covering his face with his arms and swinging his legs in a vain attempt to stop the blows. Over and over again David hit and kicked him, and would have continued if Dennis and other crew members had not pulled him off.

  Maria and Jeanette had their hands over their mouths. Jeanette’s eyes filled with tears as Aidan rolled over, coughing and clutching his stomach. “You bloody madman!” he spluttered. “You damned near killed me! I’ll sue you!”

  David tried to shake off the restraining hands, and when this proved impossible he resorted, like Aidan, to verbal abuse. “You’re the madman, you useless streak of … uselessness!” He tried to kick Aidan in the small of the back but Dennis was too quick for him and got between them. David began shouting even louder. “You’ve had your final warning and now I’ve had enough!” He lashed out again, and was again restrained. His face bright pink with frustration, he thrust his head as close to Aidan as he could get it and shouted. “You’re sacked, do you hear me? You’re off this film and any other film I ever make! I’ll get you on a blacklist! I’ll sue you! I’ll ruin you!”

  Everyone started to talk at once. I stood there in my robe, with cold cream all over my face, wondering anxiously how the man I loved could be so different from last night. He looked wild, with loathing in his eyes, his clothing dishevelled, his knuckles reddened and a bruise coming up on his temple. I did not countenance Aidan, whose punishment I was sure he had asked for. I cared for only David.

  The next day David was not there. Jeanette found me alone in my dressing room at half past two in the afternoon, in full costume and make-up, waiting to start. “David telephoned,” she said. “He’s on his way from London and he wants to talk to us all. Could you be on the set at three o’clock, please?”

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  She grimaced. “He’s been to see the money men.”

  As instructed, we gathered in the studio half an hour later. David did not sit down in the director’s chair but stood, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a lit cigarette, despite the smoking ban on the set. He looked exhausted and his clothes were crumpled, as if he had not changed them from the day before. The swelling on his temple had partly closed his right eye. “Been a long night,” he said, “but I’ve managed to get them to agree to finance the overrun made necessary by the departure of you-know-who.”

  There was a general murmur. “Great news, David!” called Dennis. “When’s the new deadline?”

  “End of February.” David drew deeply on his cigarette. “Aidan’s scenes are more or less complete, but we have to film long shots with a stand-in and the back of the stand-in’s head to cut in with shots of people talking to him. And we’ll use bits of film of Aidan’s face, from try-outs and so on. It’ll be tight, but we’ll do it.”

  “Who’ve you got to stand in?” asked Robert. “Rudolph Valentino?”

  “Gregory Wright-Hanson,” said David.

  A groan went round. “That bore!” complained Godfrey.

  “He does the job,” said David steadily, “unlike some actors I could mention.” He shot a look at me. “Clara, you’ll like old Gregory.”

  “I hope so,” I said doubtfully.

  David smiled, but I could tell he was suppressing impatience. “My dear Clara, don’t make yourself anxious. The film will be finished on time, and everything will be all right. Oh, and the money men have at last decided what to call the film. Innocence.”

  No one spoke.

  “To reflect both the unjust beheading of Charles de Montfort and the naiveté of his lover,” David added. “I think it’s a pretty good title.”

  I did too. The thought of seeing the title on the screen, followed by starring Clara Hope and Aidan Tobias, thrilled me more deeply than I could admit.

  “Right,” said David, finishing his cigarette and stubbing it out in a coffee cup, since there were no ashtrays. “We start in half an hour. Gregory’s coming tomorrow.”

  Gregory Wright-Hanson had been chosen for his physical resemblance, at a distance, to Aidan. But his behaviour off-screen could not have been more different. He did not forever have a cigarette in his hand, nor did he keep a bottle of whisky in his pocket. He did not amuse himself by antagonizing David. And time was not wasted while he argued or had to have his wig straightened or his nose powdered again because he had walked off the set to blow it on a borrowed handkerchief.

  Furthermore, Gregory made no attempt to befriend me, advise me or take me out to dinner, but treated me with sycophantic respect. I could not even prevail upon him to call me Clara. To him I was Miss Hope, always. He repeated his lines perfectly and did everything David wanted, however many times he wanted it, without complaint. He was, as Godfrey had suggested, rather dull.

  But he was pretty good at his job; once the camera started rolling, his movements were as “big” as David wanted without looking unrealistic. But he lacked something I struggled to name. Presence? Personality? Charm? Whatever it was, I missed it sorely during those final weeks. Watching the rushes at the end of each day, I noticed how much more skilful an actress I had become, so much so that having to re-do some of my scenes, and a large number of what Harry called “headshots”, hardly seemed a difficult task. It was merely work. Over the last six months I had, I suppose, transformed myself from a beginner into a professional.

  Aidan would be amazed. But what did it matter what Aidan thought? When the filming was over, I was going to go away with David, to Brighton for the weekend. Every time I thought about it my heart quickened and a picture leapt into my imagination. My darling David and me on our first holiday together, away from everyone, wrapped in each other’s arms and enduringly in love.

  The filming was completed exactly on time. On the last day of February, David threw a party at the Café Royal. Very late, as we and the few remaining couples danced to the band’s final number, David held me closely and whispered into my hair.

  “This time tomorrow, my darling, we shall be alone t
ogether by the sea. We had better sign the register under assumed names. How does Mr and Mrs David Williams sound? Given your lovely lilt, don’t you think a Welsh name will add verisimilitude? I could always try and do a Welsh accent too, for fun.”

  I had not expected this. He had assured me, several times, that he was a gentleman. “Do you mean we are going to pretend to be married?”

  “Ah.” I felt his breath on my scalp as he sighed softly. “How delightfully innocent you are!”

  He was right; I was innocent. But Florence, Mary and I knew that being married to a man involved sharing his bed and succumbing to the advances he made there. Growing up in the moral confines of Haverth, it had taken a while to dawn on me that such things also happened between people who were not married, and sometimes resulted in a girl “getting into trouble”. If her baby’s father did not agree to marry her, children that arrived by this means were absorbed into the girl’s family. But tolerant though this might sound, shame and disapproval still attended the unmarried mother. Mam had made this very clear to me. “She’s no better than she should be,” she would say, shaking her head sadly when the offending female passed. “And her mother isn’t much better!”

  This meant, of course, that if I were to get into trouble myself, it would reflect upon Mam’s upbringing of her daughter as much as on my own irresponsibility. Mindful of this, I guarded my virginity with vigilance. Eager though I was to hear about Florence’s adventures with Bobby Pritchard (though where he put his hands and what she said to him was about all it amounted to) no one had ever impressed me with the desire to abandon my own principles.

  But now, at least, I knew that if I were ever to permit anyone to unlock the secrets of whatever married, or unmarried, people did in their beds, that person would be David. His caresses had shown me how easy it would be to be weak, and how difficult some women found it to resist. But I knew he loved me, and we would soon be married – really married, not pretending, like those poor souls who conducted illicit affairs.

  “But if this troubles you, then we shall not be Mr and Mrs David Williams,” said David. “Why don’t you be Miss Clara Williams, and I’ll think of another name for myself?”

  I smiled up at him. “Thank you. It is so good of you to respect my wishes.”

  “How could I do otherwise? Now you have made your position clear, a man would have to be an absolute cad to suggest anything else.”

  Eyes closed, I nestled my cheek against his chin. “We shall have a wonderful weekend,” I assured him. “But morality is as important as love, you know.”

  These words were not my own but those of Reverend Morris, the vicar of Haverth. And he had not said them to me, but to Mary Trease’s sister Megan and her husband-to-be when they had gone to receive his pre-marriage advice. Megan had told Mary, and she had reported the phrase to me. “I think the vicar’s quite right, don’t you, Sarah?” she’d said stoutly. “If anyone tries to get me into trouble, however much I love him, I’ll think of the Reverend and resist!” I had agreed that I would too, and now the test had come, I had passed it. Reverend Morris, I could not help thinking, would be very satisfied indeed.

  The Royal Albion Hotel was a cream-painted building among other cream-painted buildings on Brighton seafront, not far from the oriental-looking structure known as the Royal Pavilion. It too was cream-coloured. And that March day, a stiff wind moved the clouds around in a cream-coloured sky above a grey sea. There were no leaves on the trees, and the people who passed had their overcoat collars turned up and their hats pulled low.

  “It’s not much like Aberystwyth,” I observed as the taxi drew up.

  David laughed. “Why on earth should it be?”

  Aberystwyth was the only seaside resort I had ever visited. Aberaeron, our nearest town, was by the sea, but it was just for fishing. No one would ever want to stay there for a holiday. “Mm.” I was uncertain. “It looks almost like London, with all these big buildings but with the sea along one side. And it’s all whitey-cream, like … I don’t know, a wedding cake?”

  He looked at me quizzically. “You do say the most extraordinary things sometimes, Miss Williams.” He gave some coins to the taxi driver. “Keep the change,” he told him, and the man touched his cap and drove away. “Brighton’s a large town, certainly,” continued David, “and, of course, it has a reputation for certain things.”

  “What things?”

  The doorman signalled to a porter, who picked up our bags. As we followed him between the columns each side of the hotel entrance, David took my arm. “Racketeering,” he whispered. “It’s known to be full of criminals, so look out for dubious types.”

  “Not in a hotel like this, surely?” I asked, dismayed.

  “Hah!” His eyes glittered, but he did not seem very amused. “Well, even in a hotel like this, or perhaps especially in a hotel like this, the clerk will know that for every ‘married’ couple that register, another dozen will not be married at all.”

  “How shocking!”

  “That’s the other thing Brighton’s famous for, you see. You’ll remember to sign your new name, won’t you?”

  While David was busy at the reception desk, I looked round the foyer, impressed by its elegant furnishings. Though slightly old-fashioned, even to my uncritical eye, the Edwardian splendour of the hotel’s interior added to my excitement. I felt thrilled at the thought of being in a town well-known for adulterous liaisons between people rich enough to afford the Royal Albion. Mam and Da and Frank and Florence and Mary were at home, celebrating St David’s Day with daffodil buttonholes and bara brith, just like they had done every year for their whole lives. Even if they wondered what I was doing, I was confident they would never guess that I was in an opulent hotel, about to sign my name for discretion’s sake, as Clara Williams!

  It struck me that Clara Williams was my newest name out of three. On Monday I would go back to being Clara Hope. Would I ever go back to being Sarah Freebody? I smiled furtively, dipping my chin into my fox fur. Sometime in the future David and I would stand before Reverend Morris in the village church and swear to love and honour one another for ever. And I would have yet another new name.

  I hovered over the register. After a moment’s hesitation, under David’s signature, which read D. Mitchell-Drew, I signed C. H. Williams, with a little flourish at the end like a pig’s tail.

  “Rooms 255 and 256, sir,” said the clerk, handing the bell boy the key. “Would you like to order dinner or breakfast, or morning newspapers, or an alarm call?”

  I hoped David would order all these things, except the alarm call. I was about to speak, but he brushed the man’s words aside. “No, nothing. Come along, Clara.”

  We followed the bell boy into the lift and up to the second floor. After a few steps along a carpeted corridor, he opened the door of room 255 and stood back. I entered a pretty, but not particularly luxurious, room. There was no balcony, though the tall window did look out over the sea.

  “You take this room, my dear,” said David. He asked for my bag to be brought in and for his own to be put in room 256. While I waited for him to tip and dismiss the bell boy, I went to the window and parted the lace curtains. Across the street from the hotel the Grand Pier jutted into the sea. Ice-cream men and ticket sellers stood at its entrance, but business was very slack. It was too cold for trippers.

  And the pier, I noted, was painted cream.

  “This place should be called Creamton, not Brighton,” I said to David, letting the curtain go. “Though I suppose when the sun shines on all this cream paint, it does look quite bright.”

  Suddenly he was very close behind me. I could feel the warmth of his body. “Have you finished talking drivel, dearest?” he asked playfully. “Because if so, I have other employment for you.”

  I turned, and put my hand on his chest. His shirt felt damp. I wondered why he was so hot when the room was cool enough for me to be comfortable wearing my fox fur. He tried to kiss me, but I pulled away. “David, are y
ou all right? You seem so hot – perhaps you have a fever. Oh, I hope you’re not going to be ill!”

  “Of course I’m not going to be ill. I do feel warm, though.” He smiled his most sensual smile. “I must be fired with passion, my darling.”

  “Then you may kiss me when I have cleaned myself up a little.” The train journey had made me feel grubby, though I had bathed that morning. “Where’s the bathroom?”

  He released me, looked round the room and opened a door in the corner. It led to a narrow bathroom, old-fashioned like the rest of the hotel but containing the essential fittings. Opposite the door was another door, bearing a brass number, 256. “Oh!” I exclaimed in surprise. “The bathroom is between our two rooms!”

  David was feeling in his pocket for his cigarettes. “Clever, isn’t it? That’s why I booked them. Better than tiptoeing down the corridor to the bathroom in the middle of the night.” He paused to light up. “The sooner European hotels start putting a private bathroom in every room, like they do in America, the better.”

  I could not imagine a hotel with as many bathrooms as bedrooms. It seemed impossibly extravagant. “I don’t think that will ever happen,” I told him doubtfully. “But yes, it is nice to have a bathroom just for us.”

  He exhaled smoke. “I’m going across to my room now. You’re right, we could both do with a wash and brush-up. Get changed too, and we’ll go out and find some dinner. Knock when you’re finished, will you?”

  He kissed me swiftly on the cheek, unlocked the door that led to his room, gave me a mock-salute with the hand that held the cigarette, and disappeared. I put my case on the bed and undid the catches. On the top, wrapped in tissue paper, lay a new silver-beaded gown. I took it out and held it against me, humming happily. Mr Mitchell-Drew and his companion, Miss Clara Williams, were going to be the smartest couple in Brighton tonight; David had said so when he had presented me with the dress on the last day of filming, describing it as an “end-of-picture gift”. David never seemed able to admit that he bought me beautiful things merely because he wished to.